Beyond the Performance Review: Develop a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Reference

Instead of providing direct instructions and advice to employees, a manager who acts as a coach will ask open-ended questions to help their employees reflect and move forward with intention.

Download this resource to learn how managers who are empowered to be coaches support a culture of continuous improvement throughout the performance review process.

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Managing up: Leveraging one-on-one check-ins for your professional development

Most managers are well-intentioned, but for one reason or another, people are left feeling like they are lost and alone in career development. If you’re one of these people, the empowered way to navigate a situation like that is to focus on what you can control. One way to own your development is to take the reins with your manager check-ins.

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Unlocking The Power of Process Conversations

Process Conversations focus on alignment around HOW work gets accomplished. This is different from the typical conversations at work about WHAT needs doing. Often, HOW work will get done is rarely discussed. And if it is considered with any kind of intention, it’s usually considered by a leader in isolation, who believes that how the work is done should be a decision they make unilaterally.

Process Conversations are great opportunities for leaders to inspire others, generate buy-in, and drive engagement. AND they’re an access point through which to engage and inspire UP the chain of command as well.

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4 Things that Go Wrong with One-on-One  Check-ins (and How to Avoid Them)

Manager check-ins, one-on-ones, touchpoints… Whatever you may call them, they are the foundation of a strong manager-employee relationship and the lynchpin for supporting your employees in many ways. This 30-minute-or-so recurring meeting between manager and employee seems so simple that it’s often taken for granted and therefore underutilized. They are used as opportunities to get project updates or chat about anything, when they could be so much more supportive of the employee’s professional growth and development. More often than not, we hear about employees or managers who simply put them off, postpone them indefinitely, or end up using the time as status report opportunities rather than truly leveraging their power. 

It’s time to go back to the basics. Here are 4 things that go wrong with your manager check-ins and how to avoid them.

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Capitalizing on Your Conference: What to do next

Fall is conference season. For many professionals, at some point in the fall, they’ll pack their bags, head to a hotel and mix with industry peers. There’s a lot to gain at conferences—knowledge, skills, relationships—but it can be hard to capitalize on all that conferences have to offer in the moment. Here’s a step by step approach to maximize the conference value when you’re back at your desk the following Monday and have a chance to take a breath.

Process Conversations are great opportunities for leaders to inspire others, generate buy-in, and drive engagement. AND they’re an access point through which to engage and inspire UP the chain of command as well.

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Three Common Mistakes When Developing a Learning Experience

Just as not every individual contributor will be a fantastic manager, not every leader will be a fantastic teacher. Fortunately, these are skills that can be developed and there are rules of thumb that can be applied to ensure that content experts can jump into the role of inspiring and engaging a new generation of folks in their area of expertise. 

Here are a few of the common mistakes we see leaders fall into when creating learning experiences.

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How to Add Stories to Your Next Presentation

A key point relevant to stories and presentations is that stories must follow story structure while a presentation doesn’t have to. In fact, presentations often have a very different narrative structure. That being said, because human beings respond so well to stories, it can be helpful to embed short stories that follow this structure into a broader presentation narrative.

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Case Study: Juniper Square

CASE STUDY

Juniper Square was excited to host it’s first ever in-person Sales Kick Off event. Given what they knew about the power of stories, the leadership determined that the SKO would be designed around storytelling with the theme Ignite: Stories Brought to Life. Wolf and Heron drew from the foundational Influential Storytelling program and created a series of storytelling training experiences for team members at all levels.

Download our case study to explore more about our partnership with Juniper Square to deliver an impactful SKO 2023.

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