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Business Skills
Experience the same professional training that we offer to the most competitive corporations. These seminars will impart skills that make a difference to you and to your company. Classes are available in Grayslake and Vernon Hills.
Courses
- Customer Service
- Business Writing for Impact
- The Comprehensive Leader
- Time Management
- Negotiating to Agreement
- Supervisory Skills
- Conflict Management
Customer Service—Drive Your Profits with Exceptional Service
Only 4% of dissatisfied customers complain; 96% just leave. Learn to keep your customers satisfied by delivering awesome customer service. Be a customer service superstar by understanding yourself, your organization and your customers better. The session combines an assessment, guided discussion, foundational customer service concepts, and hands-on activities to create an environment that allows individuals to build their customer service capability.
Session Objectives:
- Acquire the foundational reasons for good customer service
- Use the STAR® tool to assess your attitudes about customer service in five areas
- Examine and identify your own customer service strengths and weaknesses
- Review and practice the 5 key skills required for excellent problem solving
- Learn how to distinguish great customer service organizations from mediocre ones
- Learn and practice effective customer service phone skills
- Turn difficult customer interactions into positive experiences in 6 steps
Course Description and Schedule Information
Business Writing for Impact—Getting Your Point Across Effectively
Excellent writing is the key to success in any field. Learn how to better organize, draft, and revise e-mails, letters, and memos to achieve greater impact and clarity for your audience. You will create, proof, and edit actual business communications to improve your practical, real-life skills. The class combines an emphasis on audience analysis, mechanics, style, punctuation, and readability so your writing can improve in multiple areas.
Session Objectives:
- Examine and identify your own writing strengths and areas for development
- Learn 3 steps to develop concise and quality business communications
- Analyze your audience to better pinpoint your message
- Craft clearer flowing paragraphs for reading ease
- Use the 3 C’s to your advantage-Conciseness, Clarity, and Completeness
- Format documents and add style to improve readability
- Identify and eliminate your most common grammar, mechanics, and punctuation errors
Course Description and Schedule Information
The Comprehensive Leader—Standing Out and Making a Difference
Organizations of all types look to their leaders for guidance, inspiration, motivation, and the skills to set a meaningful vision that helps them achieve their goals. New or established leaders will gain skills and knowledge applicable to personal leadership growth. You will complete a personal assessment, discuss effective leadership and its diverse styles, set goals, and craft an individual action plan. Come discover your own Leadership Imperative and how to act on it!
Session Objectives:
- Recognize and leverage your personal leadership strengths
- Use the Comprehensive Leader Assessment tool to discover growth areas
- Learn what makes an effective or an ineffective leader
- Develop a detailed action plan to impact your growth as a leader
- Determine your own Leadership Imperative and begin to act on it
- Distinguish various leadership styles and how they work
- Learn the importance and methods of the goal-setting and planning processes
- Create an Individual Development Plan for future growth as a leader
Course Description and Schedule Information
Time Management—Gaining Control of Your Life
There really is enough time! Challenge yourself to examine what time means to you personally and how you use it. Examine your workflow, improve your pace, and effectively use your personal time-style to yield a more productive and satisfying life. Learn time-saving prioritization, negotiation, office management and meeting facilitation techniques.
Session Objectives:
- Identify the key elements of time management and your personal use of time
- Determine your own time-style and how it affects all aspects of time management
- Identify strategies that can help you capitalize on your time style
- Improve your time prioritizing and estimating skills when working alone
- Discover time-saving negotiating and delegating techniques when dealing with others
- Learn how to plan and facilitate groups in meetings for maximum time efficiency
- Gain time management tools in file management, office organization, reading speed, and telephone use
Course Description and Schedule Information
Negotiating to Agreement—Creating Wins for Everyone
Negotiating ability makes or breaks deals, opportunities, and relationships in organizations. Develop the ability to get what you need in working agreements without sacrificing quality relationships with clients, co-workers, and superiors. Combine practical negotiation experiences, role-plays, analysis, and discussions to build powerful, ready-to-use negotiation skills. You will explore and apply the 4 principles found in Getting To Yes (Fischer and Ury).
Session Objectives:
- Understand conflict and learn to use its positive and negative possibilities
- Reflect on and analyze past experiences of successful and unsuccessful negotiations
- Learn, explore, and apply the 4 principles of negotiation to your advantage
- Focus on interests, not positions
- Separate the people from the problem
- Invent options for mutual gain
- Insist on using objective criteria
- Create a well-crafted plan for your future negotiations to make them more effective
- Apply helpful strategies to develop win/win outcomes for both one-on-one and group negotiation situations
- Knowing Your BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement)
Course Description and Schedule Information
Supervisory Skills—Bringing out the Best in Your Staff
Examine your role and your skills in managing employee performance, motivating your team, and communicating clearly. Use key supervisory skills for relationship-building and operational excellence. Identify key management responsibilities including recruiting, developing, and coaching employees. The content will benefit both experienced and new supervisors, emphasizing diverse communication and thinking styles.
Session Objectives:
- Use key supervisory skills for relationship-building and operational excellence
- Utilize speaking and listening strategies that support effective team and customer interaction
- Identify key management responsibilities including recruiting, developing, coaching, and motivating employees
- Learn and apply 7 key factors affecting job performance
- Recognize the 4 different thinking styles and how they affect employee interaction
- Discover the 3 steps for giving effective performance feedback
Course Description and Schedule Information
Conflict Management—Resolving Differences
Conflicts are an inevitable part of life in any organization and you can learn to handle them effectively and recognize the benefits. Discover how to keep unmanaged conflicts, disagreements and out-of-control emotions from harming important working relationships. You will examine the nature of conflict, typical methods of handling it, and new insights and tools to help you handle it more successfully.
Session Objectives:
- Identify sources and dynamics of conflict operating around you
- Assess your conflict management style and how it affects conflict choices
- Examine and practice the role of conversation and listening strategies in difficult situations
- Identify harmful emotions and the choices we make in managing emotions
- Learn to avoid 3 key errors in conflict management
- Understand the critical difference between impact and intent
- Acquire the questions to ask yourself to form a conflict resolution strategy
- Gain tools for shifting a conflict-bound conversation
Course Description and Schedule Information
How to Register
Follow these steps to apply to the College of Lake County, register for classes and pay course fees.
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