About
This intensive two-day course has been specially developed for technical managers who want to learn the finer skills of motivating, communicating and managing their staff for peak performance.
Technical people can be so engrossed with the technical details of their role that their people management skills often suffer. So, what happens when a technical person is expected to lead or manage a team?
Starting with an exploration of the basic principles of effective management, this highly practical and interactive programme will show technical individuals how to be better managers. Your course trainer will examine the issues that technical people typically encounter when they assume managerial or supervisory roles.
Using real life examples and exercises, you will learn how to motivate your staff/team to peak performance through the use of improved communications, positive feedback and motivation techniques. You will also learn how to hire the right people and how to manage difficult people and conflict for positive outcomes.
Key learning objectives
By the end of this course you will have:
• Discovered how to move successfully from a technical expert to a manager
• Mastered the necessary skills for effective people management
• Improved your negotiation skills in relation to people management
• Learned how to manage difficult people and manage conflict for positive outcomes
• Explored the most successful techniques for motivating your staff/team
Training methodology
Extensive use will be made of case studies over the two-day programme. Attendees are invited to bring situations, scenarios or cases that they would most like addressed by this programme. Each participant will receive a detailed workbook and certificate of completion.
Who should attend
This seminar has been created for all those responsible for managing employees or a team, specifically those from technical industries.
Outline
DAY ONE
8.30 Registration
Moving successfully from a technical expert to a manager
• Understanding the functions of management
• Balancing the technical, organisational and management roles and skills
• Key “management challenges” for those new to a role in managing people
• People management skills and experience
• Developing clear methods of working with your staff and your direct report boss
• Lines and methods of communication/management
• Responsibilities and accountability issues
• Deciding and developing your “style of people management”
• Making the break from being one of the team to being the “boss”
• The psychological and behavioural break required to become a boss
• Legal implications of you as the “proxy employer” i.e. what you need to know to avoid landing your company in it when hiring, disciplining and firing
• Time management
• Delegation – knowing why, when and how you should delegate
The art of people management
• Why people management skills are absolutely vital to you being successful in your role
• A quick review of the people skills that will ease your transition to manager
• Listening
• Empathy
• Walking the talk
• Mentoring and coaching
• Motivation and communication
• Conflict resolution
• Self awareness and intuition
• Delegation
• Reflecting a strong sense of self-esteem in your own communication and behavioural patterns as team leader
Developing a high performance workforce/team: Learning and identifying what motivates people
• Reviewing common workforce structures and their implications for managing people
• Team structures versus individual focused workplaces
• Sales/commission driven environments versus non sales environments
• Professional versus labour
• Centralised versus decentralised
• Office based versus non office based
• Developing your team
• Group dynamics and the role it plays in affecting individual and team performance
• Defining critical personality types and their influence on overall performance
• Balancing the technical and non technical skills
• The secret to effective teams: following up
• Self image and confidence – understanding the critical role that self esteem plays in team building
Communications is at the heart of people management
• Your new role as “bringer of good and bad news”
• Essential communication lines (you-to-team, you-to-management)
• Setting and communicating goals and objectives
• Identifying communication facilitators amongst your team
• Ensuring that they help you to communicate effectively
• What are staff/team members’ expectations of you as a manager?
• Developing effective listening skills
• Do you hear but not listen?
• The things that get in the way of effective listening
• Be an active listener
• Getting your message through – focussing on the whole message – non-verbal, tone of voice, words and expression
• Developing your own communication style to successfully manage your relationships
• Communication interrupters – what causes communication “blockages”
DAY TWO
Managing and motivating – managing your staff performance
• The secrets of motivating people
• Learning the different styles/patterns of responsive behaviour
• What can you learn from these styles to improve how others respond to you?
• Watching out for the real gremlins i.e. the real de-motivators
• Knowing what the objectives of a performance appraisal are
• Being clear about your own aims for using feedback
• Understanding the key steps involved in giving feedback/disclosure
• Having effective performance measures
• Having a system that allows for two-way communication
• Focussing on the outcomes – NOT the behaviour
• Dealing positively with poor performance
• Tips for boosting the overall performance of your team
Developing negotiating skills
• Identifying situations where negotiation skills can be used in relation to people management
• Applying your listening skills
• Using silence effectively
• Developing a win-win philosophy
• Breaking down the unwillingness of the other person to come to the negotiation table
Managing conflict for positive outcomes – handling difficult people/behaviour
• Understanding the how, when, where and why of conflict
• Conflict management
• Assessing your own behaviour in conflict situations
• Recognising constructive and destructive conflict
• Getting people to recognise when they are in a conflict situation and to discuss it openly
• The secret to handling conflict with ease – listen, listen and listen!
• Listening and questioning to exhaust criticism and identify what the real problem is
• Handling people
• Responding to the victims, complainers, blamers
• Handling bullies
• Handling intergroup conflict
• Handling interdepartmental conflict
Facilitator
Keith McGregor, Personnel Psychology NZ Ltd
After completing his psychology degree in 1974 Keith joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force as an industrial psychologist. During 12 years in the RNZAF, Keith was involved in a wide range of organisational and personnel psychology including such areas as selection test development, interviewing, training development, selection validation, personal counselling, large scale survey work and statistical analysis. Also during this time Keith represented the New Zealand Defence Forces in behavioural sciences projects with psychologists and researchers from the British, Canadian, Australian and American armed forces.
In 1986 Keith became a director of Gilmour McGregor & Associates, a psychological consultancy employing registered psychologists of various disciplines: clinical, forensic and industrial. Among the numerous organisations he has worked with, both national and international, Keith is recognised for his executive assessment work and in particular for his extensive knowledge of interview techniques, testing and test development. Large scale survey research work also remains a focus, as does staff training, organisational development, career related counselling. He is also the developer of Selector-PA, E-Profiler and Career-Step computer programs for employee selection and management.
While remaining a director of Gilmour McGregor and Associates, in 2003 Keith established Personnel Psychology NZ Ltd to enable him to focus on providing personnel assessment, training and support to managers and staff. Keith is a registered psychologist and coordinator of the industrial/organisational special interest group for the Occupational Division for the New Zealand Psychological Society and Human Resource Institute of New Zealand.
Keith McGregor is also facilitating:
