Customized Workshops
I conduct customized workshops / learning interventions (in person as well as online) for organizations based on their specific training and development needs. This will start with an initial telephonic consultation call (which is free of charge) to scope out the program content and details. The program I design for you will be tailormade for the group of attendees from your organization (keeping in mind your specific learning needs, the profile and experience level of the participants, previous trainings and leadership courses they would have attended, the mission and vision of the organization as well as the overall culture of the organization) in order to have the greatest level of impact through the training intervention.
Customized workshops / learning interventions can be designed on any subject within the realm of organizational behavior and leadership – ranging from individual mastery, team effectiveness, negotiations and influence, leadership skills, or power and politics. The design and methodology of the learning intervention can range from an interactive 2 hour webinar, to a 3 day immersive workshop, to a learning journey spread out over 6 months to a year. The longer learning interventions can also be designed such that they include active learning components like individual or group projects, participants working with in-house mentors and immersive engagement modules within the organization (but outside the immediate job description of the participants).
Workshops on Niche Topics
Over the years, I have also developed my own content on certain niche topics (listed below) which I offer in the form of both online and in-person workshops. Each of these can be customized in terms of the duration from a 2 hour interactive webinar to a 3 day workshop.
1.Leading with Joy
This workshop is designed to be your gateway to make your own as well as other’s work experiences more productive and joyful. The basic tenet underlying this workshop (which is backed up by decades of scientific research) is that when managed properly happiness and productivity go hand in hand – the presence of one enhances the other. In this workshop participants will learn to apply life-altering tools from positive psychology in practical workplace situations like creating ownership, managing change, motivating teams, giving and receiving feedback, and building trust.
2. Managing Personal and Interpersonal Energy
Performance depends not just on the amount of time we invest into a particular task but also on the amount and quality of energy that we put into it. While most of us are mindful about managing our time, we forget to manage our energy. This workshop will empower participants to consciously leverage this extremely under-utilised resource. This workshop has been designed for Leaders and Executives who are concerned about their performance and are looking for ways in which they can take their productivity to a radically different level! The Energy Management techniques taught in this workshop are simple to learn and have been customized to be used in a modern-day corporate setting.
3. Cultivating an Innovation Mindset
Managers who fail to innovate are increasing finding themselves frustrated – their brains are trapped in paradigms that keep them stuck in the past, unable to see or create future possibilities. Attending this workshop will empower participants to find creative solutions in any situation and context. They will learn to identify the roadblocks and thinking patterns in their brains that prevent them from being able to identify novel and useful ideas. They will cultivate a habit of thinking in questions – so that their brain can begin to operate beyond the frames of assumptions, judgments, excuses, and conclusions that keep them operating within a limited box.
4. Managing Change and Uncertainty
Mention ‘‘change’’ and, in most cases, it provokes feelings of concern, resistance, and anxiety. Change however has both high points and low points. Even when change often does not start as something positive, if managed effectively it can become an opportunity that can be used to make things even better in the future. This workshop is aimed at equipping executives with the skills and mindsets that they need so that they can position themselves to embrace change in a positive and expansive way. The workshop will also enable them to be leaders and ambassadors who support the rest of the organization to transition through the period of change and uncertainty successfully.
5. Resilience during Times of Stress
Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from setbacks and to thrive during times of challenge or change. This workshop will enable executives to develop their personal resilience through adopting learnable behaviors and attitudes – making them and their teams less vulnerable to stress. Whether we are dealing with the acute stress of a sudden challenge like the COVID19 pandemic or the chronic stress of daily operations – there are tried and tested ways through which executives, teams, and organizations can become more agile and effective under times of stress and this workshop will teach them that.
6. Accelerating Women Leaders
The workshop has been created to groom women managers to grow into senior leaders in their organization. It aims to develop leadership capabilities and confidence to enable participants to seek responsibilities at increasingly higher levels. It will empower participants to deal with social workplace challenges as well as personal challenges that might sabotage them in moving up the career ladder. The content has been designed with specific needs of the women managers in mind – how not to get straight-jacketed by the gender prejudices, how to grow out of self-limiting thoughts, how to manage key career transitions alongside other life demands, how to build and nurture a developmental network, how to build a personal brand and how to be assertive.
7. Decision-making, Influencing and Negotiating
This workshop aims to create an understanding of negotiation, influence, and decision-making, with a focus on the individual leader, and his or her thinking patterns. Participants will learn about common mental heuristics and biases, and how they can optimize outcomes through utilizing appropriate decision quality principles. They will also be introduced to basic principles of negotiations, and communication and influencing tactics and strategies to improve their effectiveness in using these as a leader.
8. Power and Politics in Organizations
Organizations—from companies to communities—suffer not due to the presence of politics, but the absence of political skills to effectively manage those politics. While technical skills are needed to find solutions to problems, political skills are needed to find resolutions to conflicts. This workshop aims to dispel the misconceptions of what power and politics really mean within an organizational context. It will give participants a practical grasp of what the actual sources of power are and how they can step more into their own authentic power. It will empower participants to harness their political understanding and skills to improve their leadership impact.
9. Personal Mastery for Leaders
Personal mastery refers to a set of strategies and tools that can help people live and work at their peak. This workshop empowers executives to understand what gives them the ability to produce high quality results and encourage them to build habits that will help them replicate the way they produce these results. This workshop also facilitates participants in identifying and working through the root causes of counterproductive behaviors – (assumptions, limiting beliefs, fears and self-sabotaging habit patterns). It helps them to change in ways that they did not think was possible.
10. Sense-making in Organizations
When young executives (especially engineers) join organizations for the first time they come in with an assumption that organizations work in the same way that their educational institutions did. They believe that there exist objective rules and criteria for success and achievement and that if they fulfil these their job is done. They are innocently unaware of the subjective nature of sensemaking that exist in organizations that impacts their effectiveness and success. In this workshop participants will be introduced to basic concepts related to psychological and social sensemaking. They will learn about perception, bounded awareness, mental models, confirmation bias, identity and stereotypes and the role that these play in career effectiveness and success.
Keynote Addresses & Coaching Programs
Apart from the above training programs I also conduct key note addresses as well leadership coaching programs. Typically, one-on-one coaching is more suitable for senior leaders while group coaching works well for new joinees and first time managers. Coaching interventions are also available on specific topics like job sculpting and creating a personal mission statement.
If you would like to explore possible engagements then write to me at ramya.ranganathan@gmail.com or contact@craftingourlives.com