Choose One of the Workshop Topics Below to Jump to its explanation
Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories told and retold to us by our family was the primary way in which we started our basic education and personal growth. In this fast paced society, we have lost our ability to tell stories to each other. Although the entire family gathering around the kitchen table may no longer be part of our everyday life, we each still have a place where we are comfortable sharing our stories. Through the use of music, story telling and group discussion; John gently helps us to identify that place and relearn how to share our stories.
If We All Were Orange: An effective team needs a balance of personalities. Our differences can frustrate the teams’ efforts. This humorous approach helps us to understand how different people learn and solve problems. The presentation will teach how to capitalize on every team members’ strength, and better understand our differences.
Circle of Courage: Based on the work of Drs. Van Bockern, Brokenleg and Brendtro. This presentation creates an understanding of four basic life components belonging, mastery, independence and generosity in each of our lives. John educates on our need to find a place where we are accepted, needed and given value. No matter what our background we can, in the Native American tradition, find our “center.” This presentation utilizes story telling and group discussion.
Self of Steam: All of us need a boost in our self-esteem no matter what age we are. Appreciating our talents and contributions is important in our personal and professional growth. This presentation is experiential and designed to ingrain the ideas without preaching. John utilizes children’s stories, humor and a variety of fast moving interactive activities to educate.
Closing the Circle: Through a community approach we can address any groups’ goals and objectives. This fun strategic planning presentation actively engages participants. John’s diverse community-based experience “leads” participants by giving them the tools to develop a realistic plan of action.
Do We Have A Plan and Who Said We Could Do It? Strategic planning can be the most frustrating process for an organization, but a good plan can set the direction and create a sense of collaboration for all the players. This workshop receives some of the highest evaluation ratings for effective and useful expenditure of time, energy, effort and monies. His fast paced approach and objective direction amazes participants. His six steps to a plan does not require meeting upon meeting to reach a finalized project. One session should set the direction and leave a roadmap for implementation.
Building “Our” Team: Knowing our support comes within this staff is the first step. No one understands the frustrations, joys and pitfalls than another team member. When we know each other better we than can deal with life’s hurdles in an appropriate, sensitive and confident fashion. Learn activities and experiential skill that can be replicated.
So You Want To Be A LEADER: Through humor, personal goal setting and interactive educational activities participants will understand the steps necessary in being a leader today. This program will explore the myths of leadership. Participants will walk away motivated to implement their personal goals and see the effects of their own determination.
What Is Being Culturally Sensitive? No matter our background, we all have developed prejudices that affect how we deal with others. This workshop brings participants face to face with their own prejudices. We have to get ourselves to the place where we understand we still have things to learn about sensitivity. This workshop is not about creating guilt, but assists us in being more effective in the workplace. Participants will see, hear and interact through real world examples and current information. With the number of discrimination and harassment lawsuits against companies, can you afford not to invest in increasing more awareness?
We’ve Got To Train These People: John’s experience as a National Trainer of the Trainers for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration helps individuals develop skills to effectively train others. This workshop is not a book lead program. Participant will be actively involved in setting the direction. Participants will address goals their organization or companies need to meet in training staff.
Forget Venus or Mars, We Can’t Get Along: This workshop addresses the difference between the way males and females communicate. Too often office politics, if we speak truthfully, falls between the sexes and how we address each other. This humorous workshop will leave participants with a better understanding of why others drive us crazy and what is our responsibility in the conflicts.
I Don’t Have Time To Be Compassionate: Leaders and managers are often focused on the end product. While you may be good at your job, it seems as though you don’t connect with others around you. This workshop helps middle management and leaders understand how to guide and motivate subordinates to reach their peak production. This is an experiential goal setting workshop. Participants will leave with ideas, activities, and assessment materials to be used for new and current employees.
You Call That Customer Service?: Does it seem no one wants to work today? Are you tired of complaints about your employees being rude? This workshop discusses the problems facing employers today and how they can begin to address them. Participants will review their own attitudes regarding their customers and identify changes needed to compete. Implementation goals will be developed with step-by-step assistance.
I Think I Know What I Said You Heard: Breaking through the negative barriers of communication is one of the most difficult tasks we have. Gaining knowledge in communication filters and understanding the differences between how males and females communicate make this presentation an entertaining experience. Participants will walk away with a better understanding of their own frustration and expectations.
Peer Mediation / Conflict Resolution: John trains in a national approach to violence and conflict resolution. This program helps students, teachers and support staff deal with conflicts in a consistent manner. Students and parents are part of the planning, training, implementation and evaluation. Upon implementation there will be a decrease in the number of office referrals and frequency in violent incidents.
The Silenced Voices: There is a societal demand to “get tough” on juveniles crimes. The hope is to decrease or reverse the alarming rise of crime in society. If we are willing to listen, the youth have a message for us. John utilizes past discussion with delinquent youth to understand responses that do and do not work with our youth. This presentation combines story telling, music and questions answered by incarcerated youth.
Approaching the Unapproachable: For many of us the increase in juvenile violence and criminal activities is frightening. This presentation is a different approach to our fears. John uses conversations with delinquent, abused and neglected youth to present the top ten issues facing young people today. Finding a way to understand that what we see and fear may be a wall our communities create to keep from addressing the real problems of our youth.
The “KEYS” to being a good teacher: Participants will gain new “keys” to add to their ring of experience. Finding new approaches, recognizing your current skills and sharing your experience is what this interactive workshop is about. This is NOT a paper, pencil and lecture workshop.
The Summer Slide: Do you find yourself counting the days until summer vacation? Have you forgotten all the little promises you made to yourself at the beginning of the school year? Does it seem like you have lost your sense of humor and can’t find a spare minute? Chances are you need to be reminded why you do this thing called teaching. This session promises to rejuvenate, put a smile back on faces and remind ourselves why we ARE good teachers.
In The Shadow of Hate: Through the use of stories, documents, videos and photographs’ participants will learn about the history of intolerance in America. Everyone walk away from this workshop reevaluating their own values and beliefs in regards to “others” not like us. Along the way they may discover we share more similarities than differences.
Uphill Both Ways - “A family is more than the people you live with”: This weekend retreat is for families (described as single, two parent or blended) with teenagers. It is an opportunity for families to strengthen their connection with each other as they struggle through the teenage years.
The teenage years can be rough for both youth and their parents. The small breakdowns in communication are often the cause of a variety of other problems. Finding ways to understand the changes and how to best deal with each other is what this weekend is about.
The retreat is designed to have a series of interactive activities to promote communication, values review, tolerance and understanding. The sessions include large and small group opportunities. Moms, Dads and kids will separate at times to know their feelings; hopes and dreams are not as different from others as they may think. Both adults and youth will be able to see through the others “eyes.”
This is not counseling. It is about equipping ourselves to be the best kind of family we can.
The retreat leadership comes with a wide variety of experience teaching in the home, in the classroom and workshop settings.
Do I Really Have To Work With These Teens?: Blending community minded adults with passionate youth is often seen as the largest hurdle for an adult Advisory Board/Commission. When effectively melted together, this group can have a powerful impact on their community.
Learn how to prepare students to “outsmart the adults” and be better prepared for meeting. Adults will learn how to effectively communicate and still feel in control of the direction youth are taking while empowering them to make their own decisions.
Key Components:
Strategies for recruiting youth
Empowering youth and assuring follow-through
Harnessing creative energies that boards/commissions can accept
Edgy vs. offensive
Communicating with teens……….through teen eyes
Example: Would you believe adults would give students $25,000 to address a safety issue within their community without knowing the topic? What if the topic the youth selected was sex? Find out what happens when youth are empowered by adults. Learn how a youth group called Straight Forward, worked with an adult advisory board from the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation of South Dakota to create an award winning campaign called: Don’t Tell My Parents HYPERLINK "http://www.donttellmyparents.com" www.donttellmyparents.com. Learn what our youth have to teach you.
Human Like You: Community Mobilization is the key to successful programming. Participants will learn how to communicate with the community to create real awareness of the issues.
Key learning components:
Who really are the right “players” for our project?
How to convince people they should be involved in our efforts.
How to get the media involved.
From heart strings to action
What the right kind of agenda can do for your meeting.
Learn how the Sioux Falls Pay It Forward group went from zero dollars to providing monies, services and support to people in need. This is a grass roots effort that created awareness, mobilized community leaders and created an award winning awareness campaign to benefit the homeless. http://www.humanlikeyou.com
This session will create a greater understanding that all things are possible when you make sure everyone is getting something from your efforts, including yourself.
Manipulating the Media: If you want more people involved in your efforts, if you are looking for additional dollars or credibility for your programs you need the media. Stop hoping they will show up and learn the skills to assure your efforts will get noticed
Key components:
Getting past the receptionist and the fax machine
Beyond the press release
Learn what the media really needs from you
Being ready when the media arrives
Developing guaranteed sound bites for the evening news.
You mean I should talk to the camera person?
How to maximize your efforts through print, television and radio with minimal dollars.
The reality is media has a short window to cover your event. If you are prepared and can assure them a different kind of story, you will develop a reputation as someone they trust. Gaining media trust is your ticket to better coverage.
If We All Were Orange: Wouldn’t life be better if everyone would do just what you think they should do?
How do you convince the board and staff that they really are working towards the same goal?
Why does it seem some clients under stress cause YOU to lose YOUR cool?
Would you like to learn why some of the people in your office drive you crazy?
Place the pressures of direct care work with the need to raise money and provide new programming and you have a bundle of nerves waiting for an explosion.
If We All Were Orange is a workshop filled with humor about the life lessons we have learned, shared and still need to know. Too often those in the caring field NEVER take time for themselves and focus on the running clock rather than the people you work beside.
How to effectively work as a team is often talked about, but seldom practiced. This is not another manual workshop that will be placed on a self never to be looked at again. This workshop blends direct care staff, board members and volunteers. Through humor and honest discussion you will find yourself laughing, sharing and learning about yourself and the people you work with. You will also understand why some people drive you crazy and learn skills to make you a better person at work and at home.
I Think I Am In The Wrong Family...Get Me Out!!: Are you tired of adults talking to you about what THEY think you should do?
Does it seem like your parents don’t really understand you anymore and they want to treat you like a baby?
Do your brothers or sister’s drive you crazy and you can’t really explain why?
(If you answered yes to any of these questions you are an “average teenager.”)
Congratulations!!
What to learn how to deal with your feelings? Understanding our family can sometimes be very difficult.
So what is this session about?
Learn the SECRETS adults will never tell you about parenting.
Find out how you fit in your family and techniques to outsmart your brothers and sisters.
Discover you are NOT the only person who feels the way you do.
Don’t expect a lecture, overhead or graphs.
Don’t expect someone talking at you the whole time.
Don’t expect to sit still and be bored.
Do expect some honest answers.
Do expect to be surprised.
Do expect to have FUN.
It is okay to laugh about our families. Sometimes when we laugh we learn the most.
Un-muzzling the Everyday Genius: We start out life willing to skip and sing out loud and finish life willing to eat anything we want by throwing away the scale. So what happens in between? When do we lose our zest and become the crabby person on the other end of the phone we vowed we would never be?
This workshop is inspired by the book Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon Mackenzie, who worked for the Hallmark Corporation 30 years (to the day). His approach to life and work shows it is possible to deal with the current social climate and the corporate expectations. It will help you outsmart the corporate experts and be the service providing person you have always wanted to be.
“Orbiting” causes us to serve our clients better, check our own attitudes and beliefs and inspire our own creativity while providing a productive employee. This is NOT The Five Steps to a Happy Life, but an approach to life that causes you to appreciate, celebrate and learn from your mistakes.
Elements of the day:
Orbiting the Giant Hairball
Meeting the Caviar Expectation on the Deviled Egg Budget
It worked last time. How come it bombed this time?
Hating the bureaucrat
Filtering the critique
Finding the Power Seat
Witnessing the growth and fighting the Green Monster
Defining ENTROPY
Redesigning your job “Description” & your approach
Dynamic Following
Searching for the A+
Applause in the Midwest
Compassionate emptiness
Painting the Masterpiece
Some of the components explained:
Meeting the Caviar Expectation with the Deviled Egg budget: In the competitive market with the budget being the bottom line, we are asked to do more with less.
Orbiting the Giant Hairball: Motivating your independence without getting caught in the corporate culture of beaten down progress.
“It worked last time. How come it bombed this time?” Learn why you may be sabotaging your own previous successes.
Applause in the Midwest: Understanding why we refuse to celebrate successes and why we all need the celebration.
Redesigning your job description: Revamping your own job “definition” may be easier than you think and can decrease jealousy among co-workers.
Hating the bureaucrat: Understand why there is anger towards our “bureaucracy” and what affect it has on our employees.
Finding the power seat: Learning the difference between male and female communication and where we place power.
Compassionate emptiness: Skills to provide better customer service and to remind ourselves why we do the work we do.
Dynamic following: Changing our focus when dealing with volunteers, subordinates and co-workers and creating a “following.”
Painting the masterpiece: Setting a new personal focus and preparing for the challenges with a positive attitude.
Death By Meeting: This presentation is inspired by Patrick Lencioni’s book by the same name. Lencioni is the author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
This training will help managers understand what is happening throughout the company, motivate them to work better in crossover areas and inspire creative solutions to issues and problems.
Participants will look at their current meeting structure and are educated on the four types of functional meetings. Dramatic changes have been seen by companies who implement this model. The elements are basic, but the impact is profound.
“My staff meetings were great (or at least I thought so). I would start by talking about the administrative issues, and then allow the staff to tell us what was happening in each area. Then I received my managers’ survey results. The staff meetings were not only poor, but my staff stated they had no value to them whatsoever. I decided to cancel them. For a while
we had none. Then we decided that we needed something. We adopted the Death by Meeting process. We not only communicate better, but I can now call my group a true team.”
Jerry Rau, Metavante Vice President of Operations
Specific examples will be presented. Participants will be allowed to interact in order to make this process work properly for their needs and follow-up guidance is part of the entire package.
Help create an environment where meetings are effective, progress is made and trends are predicted all while providing better customer service.
I am a leader..so what?: Have you had someone tell you that you would make a good leader and you think to yourself “who cares?” It is nice but what usually follows is someone asking you to do something you really don’t want to do.
Want to learn how to get others to work for you. We call it the Tom Sawyer effect. He was punished to white wash the fence around his yard. He convinced his friends that painting the fence was fun and in the end Tom sat back and watched all his friends do his work for him. You could be the next Tom or Tonya Sawyer.
This workshop will teach you how to lead…..not push others. You will learn why others follow people and what kind of leader you really are. Here are some examples of what you will learn
Feeling the “rush” of empowering others.
learn the five steps to empowering another person.
doing something nice for someone without expecting any praise or thanks may seem pointless. But, try it and you will find what it feels like to really make a difference in another person’s life.
Six thinking “hats” to put on when working with other people
learn why some people frustrate us and others work very well with us.
how to change hats to get people to work with you.
How to outsmart people and be a good leader
knowing when to ask for help
caring enough to listen without saying anything
learning the mistakes others make when trying to lead
celebrating others successes
How to deal with “shadow followers”
keeping yourself from being frustrated when others want to help
knowing what it is that they need and not what you need
guiding others towards being a leader and not a follower
Meeting the Teacher’s Caviar Expectation (with the Deviled Eggs Budget): Teachers are expected to have a “recipes” for every student. You are gifted at mixing the right “ingredients” to meet their needs.
If you are feeling stressed, out of gas or searching for a new approach, this workshop is for you.
Learn why some students drive you crazy and how to deal differently with them.
Explore some new “spices” when working with behavior problems.
Gain some new activities that you can use in the classroom, without expensive supplies.
Be reminded of why you do the work you do.
