Workshop # 1
TRANSFORMATIONAL TEAMBUILDING (5 Day Program)
How to Facilitate Meaningful Dialogue, Conflict Resolution and Problem Solving

May 7th - 11th, 2012

Location: Monika's Farmhouse - Kitchener, ON

Register Now:   Email:  llehtonen@golden.net

About the venue:
Monika’s Farmhouse is a beautiful old home on 100 acres of land with old growth trees only 5 minutes off of the 401 at Homer Watson Blvd.  It is an easy commute from many areas.  It is a comfortable, relaxed place of healing, learning and enjoyment.

About this Program- What You Will Take Away:
·  A tried and true, step by step, proven process to help teams grow and heal in record time– a template for teambuilding based on over 30 years of experience.
·  Structured activities for dealing with issues related to goals, roles, leadership, relationships, and interpersonal conflict
·  Increased consciousness as to how you use your energy as a facilitative leader and help groups have courageous conversations
·  An increased ability to help teams get to and let go of their issues and become productive in record time

With over 30 years working with groups in all kinds of organizations with all levels of the hierarchy, I am still in awe at the miracles I witness watching groups of people in organizations turn themselves around from profoundly unhappy, non trusting, non productive, fearful, angry, apathetic people to those of hope, faith, goodwill, compassion, kindness and curiosity, and willingness to work together. In only a few sessions!!

Working with hundreds of teams has helped me to finally isolate all of the ingredients that contribute to the kind of team transformation that others have referred to as ‘amazing’, ‘remarkable’ and ‘unbelievable’.  Out of all the different kinds of change efforts I have been involved in, group process work, often called ‘teambuilding’ has given me the most insight and faith in the possibility of humans to live in their higher states of wisdom, compassion, creativity, integrity and love. These values and attitudes greatly contribute to bottom line results!

Who Should Attend?
This program is designed to help practitioners/leaders get to the root and heart of the issues facing groups in organizations.  Anyone in the role of consultant, facilitator, trainer, organizational leader, supervisor, project leader, human resource and organization development practitioner and team members will benefit greatly from this hands on, practical, beyond the basics approach to teambuilding.

What You Will Learn:
·  What a transformational process is and how it is different than typical change efforts – models for transformational change for individuals and organizations.
·  How to use our energy as transformational change agents by strengthening our access to inner wisdom, increasing our consciousness, refining our use of power and working from a place of love and compassion.
·  The Five Guiding Principles – learn to use yourself as an instrument to work from a place of grace and ease without becoming invested in the toxicity or ‘stuckness’ of the group. Learn to use your energy to be able to help create dramatic results in teams.
·  What to Look for in Groups – the 5 key trouble spots in groups and how to diagnose them.
·  The ‘Kit Bag’ of the Facilitator – knowing what helps and hinders – the key competencies of the facilitator.
·  How to Structure and Facilitate the Teambuilding Process:
 1. Client Contracting – getting everything on the table before you start – asking the hard questions and getting clear about wants – theirs and yours.
 2. Proposal Writing – how to inspire faith in you in your client.
 3. Identifying Needs – interviews, surveys – how to get the whole truth.
 4. The Structure – standard activities to create safety, openness, honesty and goodwill at the outset.
 5. Facilitating and Tracking the group’s process – knowing when to intervene, when to stay out, when to confront, when to support and how to read the group’s energy.
 6. Intervention Activities that work – key structured activities to keep in your ‘kit bag’ and knowing when to use them- on values, leadership, vision, conflict, problem solving, role negotiation, responsibility charting, inter departmental conflict etc.
 7. Closure–learn how to help each individual take responsibility for the successful implementation of group agreed actions, and agreements, and how to prevent backsliding.

What People Say:
"Linda is a master facilitator with a gift for compacting her years of experience into a week of learning designed to take facilitators at a variety of levels up several notches. She meets you where you are and supports you in reaching the goals you set for yourself. She creates a nurturing learning environment where facilitators gain greater awareness of self and others. You will gain experience in knowing when to speak and when to let silence be. You will grow in your capacity to be present and centered with a group and to use that place of quite strength to help move a group toward healing and growth. And, along the way, she weaves in her model for contracting with and working with teams. You won’t want to miss this opportunity.”
(Beverly Bitterman, O.D Consultant, Florida)

“The learning I got from this workshop came not only from Linda but from within each one of the participants in the circle including myself. Linda has this way about her that draws out the best in you. This allows you to grow from the strengths of others while also benefiting from your own strengths that you might not have known were there.”
(Bob Lennon, Manger of Health, Safety & Six Sigma, New Brunswick)

“One of Linda's strengths is her ability to combine skill-building with the inner dimension of change. With compassion and sensitivity, she guides participants in helping them deepen self-awareness so that new possibilities emerge. She consistently models the principles she teaches and, in so doing, inspires    people to reflect on their own way of being and what holds them back. The result is transformation from the inside out that is truly sustainable in generating    positive life change. I highly recommend Linda's workshop as a unique and important offering in creating a caring world."
(Elizabeth Soltis, Learning Specialist, Learning Resource Center, United Nations Development Program, New York)

“Attending Linda Lehtonen's workshop on Transformational Teambuilding had a profound impact on my approach as a conflict management practitioner. Through a very insightful and experiential experience, I deepened my ability to be an agent of positive change in a dysfunctional and conflict-ridden group. Linda is an outstanding facilitator, and works at the level of your way of being to truly enhance your capacity as an instrument within an intervention. This is one of the top courses I have attended in my 7 years as a conflict management practitioner"
(Lucille Boettger, Director,ADR Services, Department of National Defense/Canadian Forces, Ottawa)

”It was a complete, memorable and effective learning experience and was exactly what I was hoping/ looking for. What I found extremely helpful as far as learning, were the experiential nuggets and gems that happened as a result of our collective openness and genuineness in the exercises, role plays, circle, and the debriefs. It was a very a safe place for us to question, test, verify, and try new things. I am carefully reading the booklet and it is excellent stuff! “
(Paulette Melanson ICM (Informal Conflict Management) Advisor, Parks Canada Agency)

“This program is a must for anyone interested in creating real and lasting change with teams and organizations. Linda has created this incredible workshop where participants can experience first hand how to facilitate deeper and more meaningful       communication resulting in powerful shifts for individual members as well as their teams. The added bonus is you will be transformed throughout the process too.”
(Helen Tsotsos, Certified Professional Coach (ACPC), Toronto, On)

Investment - $2,750 plus HST—includes lunch, breaks, resource material.
Payment plans, non-profit and volume rates available. 
Please make cheque payable to Lehtonen Management Consulting Ltd.
HRPA Members   50 Recertification Points
email llehtonen@golden.net to register today
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Workshop # 2
GROUP PROCESS SKILLS (GPS) FOR FACILITATORS AND TEAM LEADERS (3 Day Program)
Who should attend?
Anyone who facilitates learning/training sessions, teams, or business meetings, and wishes to become more aware of what is happening in individuals, the group or yourself that may be helping or hindering the objectives of the work you are leading and build awareness and skills to know how to intervene to keep the group on track.

Synopsis of this Program:
Often we are so committed to completing our agenda as facilitators that we are less aware than we might be of what participants or team members are thinking, feeling or doing that may be impacting the work we are there to do.  The feelings, behaviour and attitudes of participants may deeply affect the learning, the completion of the objectives of the work, other participants or team members and our own ability to do our best work as facilitators.

These highly experiential 3 days are designed to give you an opportunity to assess all the human factors that may exist in a group, your reactions to those and a chance to practice how to deal with anything that may happen in order to help create the most positive, energized, healthy climate in the group you are facilitating.

What you will take away:

1. How to recognize what is going on in the group that is helping or hindering the learning in your training sessions.

2. How to deepen the role of the facilitator in working with group dynamics.

3. Tips and techniques to deal with challenging behaviours in the group and individuals

4. Insight about group process skills through practice and feedback

5. How to use your self as an instrument to become more self aware, and understand the impact your state has on the group.

6. Guiding principles to help you deal with any situation that may arise.
 
Workshop Outline:

 1. Identifying the Challenges

 · Understanding the difference between content and process and what group process means and why it is important to tend to it.

· The things that can go wrong… identifying what we find difficult to deal with in individuals and groups in the classroom or meetings. Stories from the trenches.

· Understanding the stages and cycles groups go through and the  role of the facilitator at each stage

2.  Self As Instrument

·  How the facilitator helps or hinders the learning or moving the group forward: how we can increase our awareness through understanding our strengths and blind spots.

·  Understanding the traps facilitators may fall into and what to do about them- learn how to not get hooked and let go

·  Incorporate ways to keep yourself finely tuned, confident no matter what is happening and present.

3. The Guiding Principles: these will be woven in to the work each day

Develop personal tools to help you stay balanced, in the moment, and able to deal with whatever happens in a way that helps the group and serves as a role model.

·        Be Present
·        Be Authentic
·        Meet People Where they Are
·        Trust Your Hunches
·        Trust the Process

4.  The Basic Tools of Group Process Skills

·        Responding in the moment
·        Deep, compassionate listening
·        A Communications Model to check out assumptions and know how to respond
·        The Art of Questioning
·        Understanding the importance of and designing great openings and closings
·        Knowing when to move in and when to move out- the skill of intervening
·        Reading and checking into the energy in the room and adapting the agenda to where the group is at.
·        Dealing with any kind of behavior that may take a group off track
·        Allowing and encouraging people to participate in their own way
·        Designing appropriate openings and closure for your sessions

5. Practice Practice Practice

·        Work with ‘real life’ situations in small groups and practice all of the above skills
·        Receive and give feedback
·        Deciding what you will use going forward… action planning
·        Group Closure
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Workshop # 3
ADVANCED FACILITATION & CONSULTING SKILLS PRACTICUM (5 Day Program)
Using Self As Instrument

About this program

Who should attend?
Anyone who wants to deepen their leadership, facilitation, teambuilding and consulting skills
Anyone seeking a quantum growth in self awareness and awareness of self in relation to others.

Workshop Objectives:
·  Increase your understanding of individual, team and organizational functioning by understanding systems theory
·  Understand more about your own team behavior
·  Learn how to facilitate teams to high performance
·  Learn to assess problems and help teams to resolve interpersonal conflicts
·  Develop strategies and design interventions for team building
·  Learn to use one's self as the instrument of change
·  Utilize a framework of interventions consistent with your own style and organizational culture
·  Understand how you get in your own way in facilitating groups

Principals which guide this workshop:
·  Trust your hunches - learn to use your feelings as a group barometer
·  Trust the process - learn to detach from outcome and let go of your need to control
·  Be authentic in your role - learn how to develop your character and forget abut your reputation
·  Meet people where they are - learn to be in a place of compassion, integrity and love instead of fear at all times
·  Be present and grounded - learn to be fully in the moment and mindful of all that is going on in you and the group
·  The above principles guide the facilitation process.  Each principle is explored fully in the 5-day workshop.

Participants will be both members of consulting teams and facilitators/consultants to another team. This will enable you to experience working your own team issues.

Your team will contract work with another team, diagnose their needs, design and implement an intervention. The workshop is primarily experiential with theoretical inputs.

What people say:
"better presentations [according to my reviewers] by staying in the moment that Linda demonstrates so very well ......also did a special presentation about the 'heart connection' these are the two constants and most enduring facets I have taken from the seminar.   They serve me more every day in the way I present myself... I can just be and lessen my judgement and opinion mindset..."
- John Sweetnam, President, CDS Group of Companies

"My experience attending Linda’s Advanced Facilitation Skills course vastly exceeded my expectations. What I learned about my own effect on group interaction and about my personal reaction to some group dynamics has continually improved my skill and confidence as a facilitator. I’ve recommended this course to many of my colleagues and all have returned from the experience with a sense of renewal and excitement."
- Linda Padfield, Director of Organizational Development, Inco

"Within 1 hour of beginning our 5-day retreat, Linda created an environment that invited direct talk about deeply felt issues.  Her own willingness to be transparent to others invites like disclosure. Her compassion, skillful discernment, and sense of humor, provide loving challenge and new  insights for everyone in the room!"
- Karen Shuttleworth, Educator/Facilitator, St. Joseph's Health Centre
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Workshop # 4
WORKING WITH PEOPLE (2 Day Program)
Improve your ability and awareness to deal with any situation with grace and ease

About this program:
Practitioners in the Human Services field are often so busy helping others that they fail to look after themselves. These 2 days are a chance to reflect, relax and explore, in community, how to be even more effective in working with others through exploring yourself. The workshop is based on the notion of “self as instrument” and the “5 guiding principles for living in grace and ease”, that are the basis of all of Linda’s workshops. This workshop is also suitable for anyone who works with people in any capacity and wants to increase their self awareness, coping strategies and skills.

What you will take away:
·  An increased ability to be present with clients in order to help meet their requests and needs
·  More confidence and improved judgment in making difficult decisions
·  Techniques and tools to manage busy and stressful times
·  An action plan to build on your special talents and develop areas to grow in

In this 2 day program we will examine:
·  What hooks you and what your special gifts are
·  How to say no and ask for what you want
·  How to stay empathic and detached at the same time
·  How to learn to let go of what is not yours, trust the process and accept things as they are
·  How to walk the organizational tightrope between staff and management
·  How to take responsibility for your character and not worry about your reputation by doing the right thing
·  How to meet people where they are, no matter what their level of authority
·  How to be kind and direct at the same time by staying in integrity and authenticity
·  How to be fully present, no matter how busy you are
·  How to trust your hunches as well as data in making decisions
·  How to self soothe in hard organizational or personal times
·  How to stay balanced, whole and happy and self compassionate
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Workshop # 5
HARNESSING TEAM POWER  - TEAM SKILLS FOR LEADERS
Facilitation and Team Process Skills Training 

2012 dates - to be determined

About this program:
This workshop is designed for participants who want to learn a practical, powerful, values-based approach to facilitation, leadership and teamwork.  It is an approach that is applicable to a wide range of groups, situations and individuals, and can create positive change in teams and organizations.  The workshop approach includes teaching principles and techniques, reflecting on your own behavior, using a variety of teaching and learning methods and using your own experience to learn.
 
Participants may be:
Team leaders, Facilitators, Change agents, Team members, Managers, Human Resource professionals, organization development consultants, or anyone interested in developing increased self awareness about self in relation to others.

           This Workshop is also available as in House / Company Training

Workshop Objectives: 

1. Increase your self awareness by understanding your own strengths and values and areas to improve in, when working with teams
2. Diagnose group problems and what makes groups effective
3. Learn different decision making processes and practice using consensus decision making
4. Learn a model of communications and practice checking perceptions and giving feedback.
5. Learn how to use group process checks and practice facilitating group discussion when evaluating team effectiveness
6. Practice using active listening skills.
7. Learn to capitalize on individual differences for team effectiveness by understanding your personality style in relation to others.
8. Assess your own style of dealing with conflict and learn strategies for conflict resolution.
9. Diagnose ineffective behavior and intervene to improve group process and outcomes.
10. Practice using team roles and all of the above to ensure successful outcomes at team meetings.
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Workshop # 6
2010-2011 PRACTICUM
A year long study in community

Learning about self, working with others and understanding organizations

Venue - Monika’s Farmhouse - Kitchener, Ontario

Dates for 2012 - to be determined

Who Should Attend:
This year long study is suitable for anyone who is interested in personal and professional development.  The program is suitable to all levels and positions.  The program assumes that participants have had some skills training in basic human relations and leadership skills such as listening, feedback, communicating etc. 

This program is meant to fast track participants to understand self and self in relation to others in a deeper, more lasting and profound way, in order to enhance their performance and well being. 

It is based on the notion of ‘self as instrument’, meaning that each of us fine tunes ourselves to stay grounded, balanced, whole, in integrity, present and continuously evolving and learning in order to be able to influence and be of service to others to create healthy, high functioning organizations and lives.

The Format:
·  A small group community based learning environment , in which to learn how to bring our best selves to our organizations, communities and families

·  Meets 6 times in 20100-2011 every 6-8 weeks for a day at Monika’s Farmhouse to learn, grow, explore, meet the increasing demands of today’s world, inspire ourselves, enable ourselves to be whole, healthy, and happy.

·  Each session will be based on topics that will emerge from the community and the needs of the group based on the previous session.  Each day we will have dialogue time to explore personal challenges and successes and coach one another from our own experiences.  In the afternoon you will be guided in a structured workshop.

·  In the structured workshop we will explore pertinent topics that are relevant to and decided by the community, designed and facilitated by Linda

·  Each structured workshop will be based on current theory and research in the field, and include time to self assess, build new knowledge and skill and practice.

·  An optional 5 hours of coaching with Linda is included on an as requested basis for each participant in private sessions either in person or by telephone

Potential topics:
Topics may emerge from any of the following 3 categories    

Self
·Understanding ourselves and getting out of our own way -Learning to live in grace and ease no matter what is going on inside us or in our lives, being comfortable with our selves and others.    
·Becoming more conscious, living from our whole selves – body, mind, and spirit. Understanding the values that drive us, being authentic and in integrity.  Integrating our values with organizational values
·Dealing with our stress and anxiety, using our logic and intuition in decision making, letting go of our irrational fears, moving through our issues in record time vs. holding on.
Staying in balance even when life is out of balance – living in wellness all the time.
·Learning to detach from what we cannot control, trust the process, and trust our hunches
·Becoming a conscious leader (even without authority)- confident, self assured, present, connected to others, emotionally intelligent
·Developing our empathy and compassion to take us to a whole new way of communicating with others
·The 9 levels of Adult development

Working with Others
·Developing powerful, harmonious relationships: Managing Boundaries, Projections, Conflict, Differences, Pet Peeves and Hang Ups
·Learning to manage up, down and across organizational boundaries. Letting go of our authority issues.
·Teaming: Working with Differences, Leveraging  and appreciating the strengths of all team members, powerful facilitation, building and working with high performing, collaborative teams, being brave and diplomatic in meetings
·Learning to coach yourself and build support networks
·Coaching/mediation - getting to the root issues fast, resolve and move on
·Develop skill in achieving commitment and buy-in rather than compliance from others at all levels of the organization
·Building relationships in a highly technological environment-

Organizations
·Understanding organizations – relationships, organizational power, hierarchy, authority, influencing without positional power, generational differences, systems theory, work life balance and why there isn’t any and how organizations really work
·Employee engagement - how to truly make it happen- what employees truly want
·The forgotten aspects of Change Management – the 5 ingredients to make lasting, effective transformational change and Why culture is so darn hard to change and what to do to make things move in new directions
·Understanding the global impact of changing organizations, the future of organizations and how it is affecting us all
·Being the instrument of change:  great facilitation and leadership,  tools and techniques, designing change processes, structured exercises
·Why leaders can’t lead and why traditional theories of leadership no longer work. Understanding the 5 literacies of leadership in today’s world

About the Practicum
Previous participants who have attended this year long program have declared it to be one of the most significant learning events in their careers due to the relevant, researched topics, learning over time with an opportunity to apply the new principles and practices in between, the richness of shared resources in community and the personal and professional growth they experience.

About the Venue:      
Monika’s Farmhouse is a beautiful old home on 100 acres of land with old growth trees only 5 minutes off of the 401 at Homer Watson Blvd.  It is an easy commute from many areas.  It is a comfortable, relaxed place of healing, learning and enjoyment.

Investment:  $ 3250.00 plus HST (can be paid in instalments)

Includes:  6 full workshop days, 5 hours of coaching (a value of $ 2000.00), all materials, and refreshments.
 
Contact us at:
Lehtonen Management Consulting Ltd.
RR3 85567 Murphy Lane
Goderich ON N7A 3X9
Voice: 519.529.3240
email: llehtonen@golden.net 
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