Facilitating to Lead!

Facilitating with Ease! is an updated version of the best-selling resource that offers easy-to-follow instructions, techniques, and hands-on tools that team leaders, consultants, supervisors, and managers have used to learn the basics of facilitation. Complete with worksheets on CD-ROM that can be customized to fit your personal needs, it's a complete facilitation workshop in a take-home format. Facilitating with Ease! shows you how to run productive meetings with skill and authority and includes the information needed to train others in your organization to become confident facilitators as well. The book is filled with dozens of exercises, surveys, and checklists that can be used to transform anyone into an effective facilitator.

The definitive guide to running productive meetings Facilitating With Ease! has become the go-to handbook for those who lead meetings, training, and other business gatherings. Packed with information, effective practices, and invaluable advice, this book is the comprehensive handbook for anyone who believes meetings should be productive, relevant, and as short as possible. Dozens of exercises, surveys, and checklists will help transform anyone into a skilled facilitator, and clear, actionable guidance makes implementation a breeze. This new fourth edition includes a new chapter on questioning, plus new material surrounding diversity, globalization, technology, feedback, distance teams, difficult executives, diverse locations, personal growth, meeting management, and much more. With in-depth, expert guidance from planning to closing, this book provides facilitators with an invaluable resource for learning or training. Before you run another meeting, discover the practices, processes, and techniques that turn you from a referee to an effective facilitator. This book provides a wealth of tools and insights that you can put into action today. Run productive meetings that get real results Keep discussions on track and facilitate the exchange of ideas Resolve conflict and deal with difficult individuals Train leaders and others to facilitate effectively Poorly-run meetings are an interruption in the day, and accomplish little other than putting everyone behind in their “real” work. On the other hand, a meeting run by an effective facilitator makes everyone’s job easier; decisions get made, strategies are improved, answers are given, and new ideas bubble to the surface. A productive meeting makes everyone happy, and results in real benefits that spread throughout the organization. Facilitating With Ease! is the skill-building guide to running great meetings with confidence and results.

Step by step, Facilitating the Project Lifecycle guides the project manager/facilitator in making smart choices about when and how to pull key talent together to spell success for the project and ultimately the organization. The authors will help you understand the benefits of using facilitated group work sessions to get real work done during a project and get it done better and more efficiently than more traditional individual work approaches. In addition, the book includes: Recommendations for capitalizing on group knowledge to accelerate the building of key project deliverables and ensure their quality as they are built A work session structure for planning, delivering, and following up facilitated work sessions Guides for building key project deliverables Sample agendas Proven techniques for managing the group dynamics

Praise for Driven to Lead «A powerful scientific framework, grounded in evolutionary biology, that helps us think about leadership successes and failures throughout history and how we might address humanity's need for better leadership going forward.» —Nitin Nohria, Dean, Harvard Business School «Brilliant insights—straightforward, easy to comprehend, and extremely useful to anyone in business. I predict the four-drives model will replace Maslow's hierarchy of needs as the accepted way of describing human behavior.» —David N. Burt, chairman emeritus, Supply Chain Management Institute, University of San Diego «Paul Lawrence is back! Driven to Lead is the most comprehensive general theory of leadership ever created. By digging deeply into Darwin, Lawrence offers a practical guide for authentic leaders to excel in today's challenging world.» —Bill George, professor of management practice, Harvard Business School, and former chair and CEO, Medtronic «If Darwin had written a book about leadership in the twenty-first century, this would be it.» —Ranjay Gulati, Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School «It's the E = mc2 of human behavior.» —Malcolm DeLeo, Vice President of Innovation, Daymon Worldwide «This book presents a rigorous and novel theory on how evolution and the human brain can produce effective and ineffective leadership. The writing is clear. It is accessible to practitioners as well as to researchers.» —Chris Argyris, professor emeritus, Harvard Business School

This volume presents models, methods, and strategies that facilitate and promote learning within online environments.Arguing that success in online environments is dependent on the role of autonomy in order to create sustained and enduring learners, the introductory chapter presents current research and identifies ways through which autonomous learning is established within the learning environment. Contributors demonstrate how quality online programs are made up of a «blend» of technology, pedogogy, organization, strategy, and vision; explore the concept of online social presence as a significant factor in improving instructional effectiveness and contributing to a feeling of community among learners; and offer strategies for instructors facing the new challenges and opportunities of the online educational experience. Two chapters examine master's level online programming by exploring a model through which the design template for one such program was built and presenting the actual experiences students who completed master's degrees online. Editor Steven R. Aragon joins his colleagues to make the case that instructional designers need ways to support quality teaching and learning within online environments that take into account the variability in student learning styles, provide external motivation for the isolated students, and build community, collaboration, and communications among learners. Finally, contributors from the field analyze the impact that online technology is having on training and development initiatives of business and industry and demonstrate how current trends have cultivated an environment open to online learning. This is the 100th issue of the Jossey Bass series New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education.

Lead is a different kind of book. Rather than being the “last word” on leading others, it is meant to be the “first word”—an invitation to the reader to reflect on what the leadership journey means to each and every individual. At its core, Lead will benefit anyone who seeks to inspire, influence, or lead others, whether they are coaches, teachers, pastors, community organizers, politicians—or are in the C-suite. Lead offers an exploration of the essential elements of leadership, which author Gary Burnison defines as: purpose, strategy, people, measure, empower, reward, anticipate, navigate, communicate, listen, and learn—all of which culminate in leading. Instead of taking the left-brain approach of “paradigm shifts” and “leadership models,” the author focuses on right-brain constants such as emotional connection, compassion, focusing on others, humility, and managing oneself. Lead readers will find inspiring stories, easy to digest analogies, reflective exercises and evocative images meant to give them pause, draw them in, and encourage introspection.

The Enron debacle, the demise of Arthur Andersen, questionable practices at Tyco, Qwest, WorldCom, and a seemingly endless list of others have pushed public regard for business and business leaders to new lows. The need for smart leaders with vision and integrity has never been greater. Things need to change—and it will not be easy. We can take a first step toward producing better business leaders by changing some of our own ideas about what it means to «win.» Noel M. Tichy and Andrew R. McGill have brought together a stellar group of contributors from a variety of perspectives—including General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and renowned management gurus Robert Quinn and C. K. Prahalad, among others—to offer insights that will help build better leaders, communities, and organizations. They show how to present a «Teachable Point of View» about business ethics that will help all leaders within an organization: Internalize core values Build a values-based culture across the organization Become engaged to teach the same values lessons to their staff Take action and raise the ethical bar Successful business leaders must be able to articulate their own unique Teachable Point of View on business ethics and drive it through their organization to ensure that everyone knows the ethical line and is neither shy nor silent if others risk crossing it.

How to make customers feel good about doing what you want Learn how companies make us feel good about doing what they want. Approaching persuasive design from the dark side, this book melds psychology, marketing, and design concepts to show why we’re susceptible to certain persuasive techniques. Packed with examples from every nook and cranny of the web, it provides easily digestible and applicable patterns for putting these design techniques to work. Organized by the seven deadly sins, it includes: Pride – use social proof to position your product in line with your visitors’ values Sloth – build a path of least resistance that leads users where you want them to go Gluttony – escalate customers’ commitment and use loss aversion to keep them there Anger – understand the power of metaphysical arguments and anonymity Envy – create a culture of status around your product and feed aspirational desires Lust – turn desire into commitment by using emotion to defeat rational behavior Greed – keep customers engaged by reinforcing the behaviors you desire Now you too can leverage human fallibility to create powerful persuasive interfaces that people will love to use – but will you use your new knowledge for good or evil? Learn more on the companion website, evilbydesign.info.

Practical strategies for better customer service based on the principles of servant-leadership Individuals in the workforce and the clients they serve are the fundamental building blocks of every company in America. Executives talk about customer service; but their employees are the ones who make it happen (or not). Author Ray Pelletier reveals the vital importance of a happy workforce in creating a happy client. By caring for employees, managers create an environment in which employees can care for customers. This book shows senior leaders, managers, and supervisors how to develop a managerial style that combines teamwork, trust, listening, forethought, and ethics to nurture a happy workforce and improve customer service. Built on the foundations of the servant-leadership model, the book offers effective, easy-to-implement strategies to develop these vital managerial skills. It's All About Service reveals that leaders who care for their people create businesses that care for their clients-and gain an edge over the competition.

Practical «brain-aware» facilitation tailored to the adult brain Facilitating Learning with the Adult Brain in Mind explains how the brain works, and how to help adults learn, develop, and perform more effectively in various settings. Recent neurobiological discoveries have challenged long-held assumptions that logical, rational thought is the preeminent approach to knowing. Rather, feelings and emotions are essential for meaningful learning to occur in the embodied brain. Using stories, metaphors, and engaging illustrations to illuminate technical ideas, Taylor and Marienau synthesize relevant trends in neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. Readers unfamiliar with current brain discoveries will enjoy an informative, easy-to-read book. Neuroscience fans will find additional material designed to supplement their knowledge. Many popular publications on brain and learning focus on school-aged learners or tend more toward anatomical description than practical application. This book provides facilitators of adult learning and development a much-needed resource of tested approaches plus the science behind their effectiveness. Appreciate the fundamental role of experience in adult learning Understand how metaphor and analogy spark curiosity and creativity Alleviate adult anxieties that impede learning Acquire tools and approaches that foster adult learning and development Compared with other books on brain and learning, this volume includes dozens of specific examples of how experienced practitioners facilitate meaningful learning. These «brain-aware» approaches can be adopted and adapted for use in diverse settings. Facilitating Learning with the Adult Brain in Mind should be read by advisors/counselors, instructors, curriculum and instructional developers, professional development designers, corporate trainers and coaches, faculty mentors, and graduate students—in fact, anyone interested in how adult brains learn.