Workplace Learning

Their tone and content may be serious, but letters, memos, e-mail messages, proposals, and reports with grammatical or punctuation errors won't be taken seriously. In this two-part workshop, participants learn how to avoid embarrassing mistakes in everyday business correspondence by getting a comprehensive, confidence-building review of the basic rules of grammar, capitalization, word usage, sentence structure, and punctuation.

Key Points

• Identify and use the eight parts of speech correctly
• Write clear, complete sentences, fix sentence fragments and run-on sentences
• Spot and correct errors of agreement, consistency problems and pronoun mistakes, and misplaced or dangling modifiers
• Change passive voice to active voice
• Use that/which, who/whom appropriately
• Spot and correct missing or misplaced periods, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks, apostrophes, hyphens, dashes
• Use colons, semicolons, parentheses, and ellipses correctly

This workshop teaches methods to gain cooperation and understanding from coworkers, supervisors, instructors, students, and others. It also provides coping strategies for interpersonal conflicts and stressful situations. Participants have the opportunity to analyze their own communication and preferred work styles using the DiSC Profile, and they acquire strategies to adapt their styles to the four primary styles encountered at work.

Key Points

• Use body language and tone of voice to defuse the intensity of an interaction
• Respond to ultimatums and emotional situations
• Deal with unfair criticism
• Use techniques that promote cooperation
• Avoid defensiveness in daily interactions
• Negotiate reasonable expectations

Crucial conversations take place every day in our work. You know the type -- conversations where there are high stakes, differences of opinion, and strong emotion. The difference between mediocre and top performance lies not in strategies, hardware, or even in processes, but in how people handle those difficult conversations. At the heart of all problems in a team or organization are conversations that are either not being handled, or not being handled well.

Key Points

• Identify the conversations that are keeping you from your desired results
• Speak persuasively not abrasively, no matter the topic
• Make it safe for others to share their honest opinions
• Deal with people who either clam up or blow up
• Gain control of your own emotional responses
• Disagree without being disagreeable
• Influence without exerting force
• Improve teamwork, productivity and effectiveness

This practical and powerful two-day workshop is based upon a top-ten best-selling business book, Crucial Conversations.

This workshop teaches techniques for creating and maintaining positive work relationships with students, faculty and staff.

Key Points

• Recognize and respond to unspoken customer expectations
• Develop processes that foster positive customer interactions
• Prepare form letters and customized documents that anticipate objections and prevent resentment
• Deal with irate clients in person and over the phone
• Improve questioning, listening and nonverbal communication skills

How to manage meetings to make them more effective, more productive and more timely.

Key Points

• Building effective agendas
• Handling challenging participants
• Dealing with conflict
• Alternatives to meetings

This comprehensive day-long workshop is interactive and realistic. It builds the skills you need to manage all aspects of the presentation process with confidence.

Throughout the class, you will work on your own real-life presentation. This workshop uses video-recorded exercises and private video review to help you identify and develop skills you need to succeed.

You'll learn how to:

• Manage nervousness and control racing thoughts
• Engage listeners in a comfortable, flexible, conversational process
• Be clear and concise
• Use visual aids effectively whether seated or standing, projected or hardcopy
• Think on your feet

Are you experiencing a constant deluge of email and phone calls? Do your daunting projects seem impossible to complete? Is the avalanche of incoming information and outstanding action items keeping you awake at night? This full-day Getting Things Done® Essentials workshop will provide tools and tips for implementing an improved work-life management system that can transform uncertainty into stress-free productivity.

Workshop participants will receive a copy of David Allen’s bestseller Getting Things Done and several practical resources for future success using the GTD methodology. Participants will also gain access to a year-long subscription to GTD Connect®, a members-only online educational community with unlimited access to a wealth of GTD resources, valued at $480.

Key Points

This engaging and interactive workshop will teach you how to:

• get your email inbox to empty
• make responsible commitments to new ideas and projects
• maximize return on your time — to do more with less
• gain clarity of what is more and less important
• improve the balance of proactive versus reactive behaviors
• get projects unstuck

*The cost of Grace Under Pressure is funded by the Office of Human Resources Work/Life Division. A cancellation no-show fee of $225 applies to all registrations.*

It's that sort of day.

The phone is ringing off the hook. You're put on the spot in a meeting. All the problems are getting dumped in your lap.

You can feel yourself becoming reactive. You know you're not thinking clearly, that you're not being effective, but you don't know what to do. How can you turn a bad situation around?

“Grace Under Pressure” offers new tools for remaining calm, focused and open-minded during difficult encounters – real physical techniques that counteract what our bodies do during stress.

Many of these new approaches come from recent brain research.

In this lively, memorable half-day workshop, you'll go far beyond theory. You'll practice these techniques and make them your own, ready to put to use the next morning – or even on the way home that night.

Key Points

• Maintain composure in difficult situations
• Reduce stress on the spot
• Reverse the “fight or flight” reaction
• Think more clearly under pressure
• Be more present in difficult situations

A harmonious, productive workplace relationship with your manager is one of the most important factors in your job satisfaction and success. If you work well and communicate effectively with your boss, you’re more likely to remain at your organization and sustain your success there. This highly interactive workshop can help you learn how and why.

Key Points

• Get expert tips on the best ways to approach your manager
• Quickly determine and clarify your manager’s expectations
• Learn to “give your boss feedback” about things that are sensitive
• Bring your best to your workplace relationship with your supervisor (and get his/hers in return)

This workshop will help both new and experienced project managers review ways to produce a realistic and manageable project timeline. Participants learn the concepts and processes which can be applied to setting project goals, identifying project deliverables, and effectively estimating and measuring progress.

Key Points

• Identify the project management processes
• Create a scope document
• Schedule project activities
• Estimate and allocate resources
• Control project progress
• Conduct a post-project review

Proofreading is more than just rereading what has been written. Good proofreaders can identify mistakes and improve the quality of writing even under tight deadlines. By using numerous in-class exercises, this workshop will teach you proven tips and techniques to perfect your documents. You will learn how to:

• Use several successful proofreading strategies
• Proofread for overall coherence and organization
• Spot and correct the most common mechanical errors

Organized around Northwestern's seven-step recruitment process, this workshop provides great tools and resources for expediting the hiring process and making good hiring decisions.

Key Points

• Navigating Northwestern's recruitment and hiring process
• Opening and posting a position
• Advertising and networking
• Screening candidate resumes
• Preparing for and conducting interviews and phone screening
• Hiring and onboarding new employees

One of the most difficult career transitions can occur when one assumes management responsibility over a set of former peers. Overnight, the ground rules change and a variety of conflicts and challenges can emerge. This half-day workshop is designed to help address the boundary issues that crop up, and the competition that sometimes lingers long after one is promoted. We will discuss the best way to prepare for some of these potential problems, and will help participants deal with any unique situations they may have encountered as they try to establish the right tone for their leadership.

Is there someone in your department who goes above and beyond his or her normal duties, is dedicated and effective, and deserves to be recognized? Has he or she worked full time at Northwestern for three or more continuous years? If you've answered yes to both those questions, then this class is for you. In one lunch-time session, you will learn how to write an Employee of the Year Nomination that is both specific and meaningful.

By the end of the class, you will be able to:

• Make sure your candidate is qualified
• Identify what makes a successful submission
• Use concrete examples to make your case
• Write a clear, concise, and compelling submission

Rejecting an applicant, denying a request, issuing an apology, or responding to a complaint can be delicate. A masterfully written letter or memo can build goodwill or, at the very least, minimize negative feelings. This workshop will teach successful ways to approach difficult correspondence and communicate bad news tactfully.

Key Points

• Decide what and how much to say
• Choose the appropriate tone and style
• Soften a negative message but get the point across
• Say no and still maintain goodwill
• Choose when and how to deliver the message
• Write five different types of difficult messages

At the least, poorly written letters, memos, and e-mail message waste time and cause miscommunication. At worst, they are not read at all. This workshop will teach participants to organize and write strong, action-oriented business correspondence to get the reader's attention and the desired results.

Key Points

• Analyze your audience and define your purpose
• Effectively organize your ideas and information
• Choose the appropriate tone and style
• Write strong opening and closing paragraphs
• Reduce rambling and get to the point right away
• Use format and type to emphasize your main ideas
• Revise and edit for overall organization and coherence

Writing for the web isn't as simple as putting your handbook, brochure or lesson plan online. This hands-on workshop teaches the specific strategies needed to get your message across online.

Key Points

• Write for typical web users who scan instead of read
• Use the right tone for this immediate and informal medium
• Repackage institutional language and marketing speak
• Prune your site of unnecessary content
• Write for higher search engine rankings
• Make key information prominent and links visible
• Keep user needs at the forefront of your mind as you write

If you know the basics of web writing but need some assistance on a particularly thorny page or section from your site, this workshop is for you!

In a small-group setting, you will receive suggestions and work through problems facing your online content. You will also hone your editorial skills by assessing and providing suggestions for the online content examples submitted by fellow workshop participants.

Prior to the workshop, participants will submit up to three webpages for instructor and group review. The submissions must be from a University-related site. If you submit more than one web page for review, please note that additional pages will be assessed as time allows.