Change is one of the most difficult factors for people to deal with. Even when there is a clear need for change, resistance, fear, uncertainty, and ambivalence are common reactions. Change is an inevitable part of life. You can fight it or you can decide to embrace it. You can become skilled at adapting to change, and even more importantly, at leading and managing change in your work life and your personal life. Efforts to implement change in an organization are more likely to be successful if individuals and leaders understand the reasons why people resist change and how they react within a changing environment.

At the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

• Assess your ability and willingness to change;
• Define change and accept it as a way of life and as part of an organisation;
• Recognise the difference between change and transition;
• Identify the transition challenges and how to assist yourself and others through transition;
•  Identify types of organisational change;
• Identify and recognise the five stages (5Cs) of the personal change process;
• Define what resistance to change really is;
•  Acquire skills in addressing resistance to change; and
•  Understand what change management is and recognise its benefits.

Often in the business world, a company with the best quality products and services often does not perform as it should. By contrast, other companies, that may not have the same resources, are able to be the preferred service provider. It is wondered what set these companies apart from others. Often the answer is that it is all about providing clients with a service that they are not just happy with, but exceeds their expectations. For any business to survive, it needs two groups of people, namely employees, and clients

At the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

• Understanding the importance and value of sustainable client service
• Know what the “Moment of Truth” is
• Importance of first impressions
• Understand good internal client service within a shared service environment
• Understand the communication process and be able to use specific communication techniques
• How to effectively handle problems and difficult situations, both face-to-face and on the telephone
• Understand the importance of emotional self-awareness
• Apply self-control when dealing with emotions
• To be able to handle stress with success

The person who interacts directly with the customer determines whether that customer perceives that  they are receiving poor or excellent customer service. As a debt collector you are interacting directly with your organisation’s customers and have the power to affect their perceptions. To influence customers’ perceptions positively and to achieve excellent debt collection results, you should have certain qualities.

At the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

• Understand the importance of customer service in a debt collection environment
• Understand the competencies required of a debt collector
• Apply techniques to control a debtor’s call effectively
• Deal with different customer types
• Apply ethical debt collection practices

“Before you can lead others and before you can help others, you have to discover yourself.”

Daniel Goleman

Learning Objectives

• Understand the historical perspective of intelligence
• Explain the concept and elements of emotional intelligence
• Understand the relationship between IQ and EQ
• Know and understand the seven different types of intelligence
• Understand the importance of social/human skills in the business environment
• Be familiar with research on the impact of emotional intelligence in the workplace
• Understand and practise how to develop emotional competence
• Enhance one’s interpersonal relationships by becoming more emphatic and using the right communication techniques for a specific situation
• To be able to handle conflict more constructively

Any relationship is conceived, affirmed, conducted, and even broken by the use of communication.

When at work and communicating with clients, co-workers, or superiors, all communication should be meaningful and important. Every message that you send provides information about you as an employee, a potential leader, a team player, etc. What you say can have an impact on the results that your department wants to achieve and ultimately on the organisation as a whole. What you say goes a long way to determine how you are viewed.

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Understand the importance of interpersonal communication skills
• Use and apply different communication skills to enhance interpersonal relationships
• Have the knowledge of how to build trust in your team
• Apply specific communication skills
• Assess your own strengths and weaknesses

The primary emphasis during most appraisals is on helping individuals improve their performance in their present jobs.

Learning Objectives:

• Ensure that performance management conversations are done in a constructive manner
• Know how to implement a Performance Improvement Plan when employees do not perform according to their Key Performance Areas
• Understand the importance of the performance conversation and be comfortable in handling a performance conversation

In Personal Mastery we will explore the principle of pro-activeness, a principle that teaches us that we can make choices. However, for us to make the right choices, we firstly need to understand ourselves. We need to become more self-aware and we need to manage ourselves. Once we have accomplished this, we will be able to support and lead others to embrace our diverse environment.

Learning Objectives

• Understand and experience how my attitudes, beliefs and thought processes impact on how I talk to myself, and impact on my behaviour and the relationships I build in a diverse organisation
• Improved self-awareness and to know yourself better
• Develop an understanding of how we form generalisations and how it impacts on our effectiveness

If we want to build successful relationships with all our stakeholders, we need to develop those competencies that support sustainable relationships.

Learning Objectives

• Explore the difference between Transactional and Relationship Marketing
• Understand the concept of Relationship Selling
• Identify which competencies and characteristics separate good salespeople from great sales performers
• Obtain a better understanding of your own competencies as a salesperson
• Understand the importance of active listening and empathy in the sales process
• Gain insight in and practise the ARROW concept of relationship building and selling skills
• Explore the client’s needs effectively
• Close the conversation effectively

We have all experienced times in our lives when we lacked the skills we needed to communicate honestly and empathically with others. At times we have all been aggressive, judgemental and hypercritical, or even passive, apathetic and defensive. In this workshop we wish to look at and discover what conflict is, how we react to it and how we can work with conflict in a constructive manner.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the role of conflict in interpersonal relationships
• Understand the stages of conflict
• Understand your own conflict management style
• Manage interpersonal conflict more effectively
• Understand the essence of conflict and why it happens
• Understand the reasons why we suppress conflict
• Assist others to handle conflict by being an effective third party

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is a process. Working together is a success.” – Henry Ford

Learning Objectives

• What is a team? What is teamwork?
• What are the benefits of a team?
• Know and recognise the stages in team development
• Know how to orientate new team members in the team
• Recognise the signs of problems in teams and the typical challenges teams often face
• Know how to improve your team’s performance
• Know how to resolve conflict in teams

Thinking skills are viewed as crucial for a person’s ability to cope with the rapidly changing world. This emphasises the need for and importance of learning thinking skills that will help to solve problems in an effective and productive way.

Learning Objectives

• Think in a systematic manner
• Ask relevant questions in any given situation
• Use several tools and techniques to systematically analyse a situation
• Structure information meaningfully
• Be aware of your own thinking and constantly monitor these processes
• Formulate decisions based on sound reasoning
• Understand and use lateral and systems thinking techniques

Time Management is a process of constantly asking what is more important and arranging priorities to reflect each choice. It involves self-management. It is intimately connected to what is important to you – your purpose, values, ideals and goals.

Time is life. It is irreversible and irreplaceable. To waste your time is to waste your life, but to master your time, is to master your life and make the most of it.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the concept of time management
• Understand yourself and your time management style better
• Analyse how you manage your time and identify the problem areas in terms of how you utilize time
• Identify typical time wasters
• Plan and use your time more efficiently by using time management tools
• Develop an action plan to manage your time more effectively

We tend to do our tasks as quickly as possible, and we do not bother much about grammar. We need to take pride in our work; we need to ensure that the work we produce in the working environment is of a high standard. This workshop will assist with the necessary skills.

Learning Objectives

• Describe business etiquette and how to present a professional appearance
• Practise cubicle and office etiquette
• Develop positive co-worker relationships and avoid rumours, gossip and conflicts
• Compose professional e-mail messages
• Describe telephone courtesy and how to apply it while using the telephone
• Organise information more effectively prior to business writing
• Write business correspondence and reports more effectively
• Edit business correspondence and reports more effectively
• Communicate more effectively when using electronic communication