Communication Skills Training

We specialize in workshops that help people get things done without ticking each other off. Mostly, that means helping people communicate more effectively.

To bring one of our workshops to your location, please contact us at:

doug@dougsmithtraining.com

Here is a selection of our most popular, and successful workshops:

Communication Boot Camp -
How to Communicate for the Results You Want -

One day workshop to help you develop the skills you need to create deeper, more effective conversations, build stronger relationships, and communicate with tact, respect, diplomacy, and professionalism. Add a second day to develop more productive meetings and learn how to deliver more powerful and influential presentations.

communication training, communication workshops

It's Not About the Slides...
Powerful Presentation Skills -

Get beyond the slides and into the hearts and minds of your audience. Whether you make one presentation a year or one every day, how you communicate during a presentation is either propelling you forward or dragging you behind. This hands-on, practice on your feet workshop will give you a fresh new view on how to best reach, engage, and energize your audience. One powerful day of training.

communication skills training, communication workshops

Get Stuff Done Without Making Enemies -
Productive Meeting Skills -

One day workshop to explore, discover, and practice the skills you need to convert your meetings from boring to productive. Whether you lead dozens of meetings or a few - or even if you find yourself simply a participant in dull meetings -- the productive meeting skills you'll cover in this workshop will change you from victim to guru. Make your meetings, your organization, and your life more organized and fun.

How NOT to Tick People Off!
Communicating With Tact and Professionalism -

One day workshop for anyone who struggles with interpersonal communication. Learn how to deal with the difficult people in your life, instead of saying what usually gets you in trouble. Practice thinking on your feet and reacting calmly under pressure. Take that foot out of your mouth and put it down with assertive assurance that you're communicating with tact and professionalism.

Talk About It!
Deeper Conversations for Better Relationships -

It's easy to fall into communication habits that just don't work. As a result, many relationships suffer most from a failure to communicate. We make stuff up, we distract ourselves, we drift off into our own little worlds. That's not the stuff of resilient, friendly, collaborative relationships. During this one-day workshop you'll discover and practice the CLUES to communication success that are at the heart of all of our work here at doug smith training. You'll learn how to truly connect. You'll practice conversations around any topic - even during conflict - that will promote true listening, compassion, clarity, courage, and creativity. Attend with your significant other, with your team, or as an individual -- just come prepared to dramatically improve your interpersonal communication skills.

Creative Project Management -

When it comes to project management, it is impossible to over-communicate. The biggest temptation to a project manager is to communicate less. During this workshop you'll explore and practice the fundamental project management tools while integrating professional communication skills to build relationships and teams so that your projects will be both successful and fun.

Bringing together the best (and fastest to learn and implement) project management and communication tools this workshop will help you with whatever phase of your project you find yourself -- from launch to completion. Two days.

Centered Problem Solving -

If problems are making a mess of you or your team, turn that energy around with some focused and applied centered problem solving. We've taken some time-tested tools and processes, blended them with our unique approach, and created new ways to focus, analyze, create possibilities, evaluate choices, and solve problems. Available as a one-day (exploration and discovery) and as a two-day (exploration, discovery, and application) workshop, Centered Problem Solving is an investment that will pay for itself over and over. One day program: $99 per participant. Two day version (work on solving real problems!) $149 per participant.

Contact me about bringing one or more of these workshops to your location. I'm located in the Bucks County, PA area so if you're near there there is no extra charge for travel.

Supervising for Success -

Two day workshop for front line leaders. You'll start on your goals and create the alignment and traction you need to achieve them. Ideal for front line leaders in any organization, we have deep experience (and time-tested tools) especially suited for leaders in the retail and service industries.

leadership training, communication skills training

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doug@dougsmithtraining.com

facebook.com/dougsmithtraining

@douglasbrent

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"Doug had an awesome way of delivering the content. Great advice and information to take back to the work place."
-- Tosha, Cherry Hill, NJ

"The enthusiasm of Doug was awesome! I definitely felt I learned more because he had many examples."
-- Jaimee, Des Moines, IA

"I learned so much more than I expected... I will definitely take these skills back to the workplace and share this knowledge with my fellow employees!"
-- Courtney, Schaumburg, IL

"Doug's positive personality really helped make this course very interesting and worth while."
-- Breanna, Bloomington, MN

"Doug was great! I loved how he shared life experiences to teach! Great guy!"
-- Lisa, New Haven, CT

"Overall wonderful experience. I've gained a lot more knowledge than I had anticipated. Great leader who kept the whole class engaged and thinking."
-- Ashley, Baltimore, MD

"Doug was very engaging & kept the class moving efficiently.
-- Sarah Pollen, Frederick, MD

"This training was outstanding! Doug did an amazing job. He was entertaining and knowledgable. Thank you for a wonderful two day training."
-- Stephanie, Washington, DC

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doug@dougsmithtraining.com

facebook.com/dougsmithtraining

@douglasbrent

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Comments

Insist on Results

Do you insist on positive results?

Team members will struggle sometimes. As high performance leaders part of what we must do is to teach the people who need teaching. And guess who needs teaching? Everyone! Including us!

Every day, part of what leaders do is teach. Through intentional as well as spontaneous coaching, mentoring, prodding and motivating, our role is to help other people achieve their goals, and in so doing achieve our own.

We teach -- patiently, persistently, even unrelentingly. We teach -- and then we need more. We need progress, performance, and results.

Leaders are teachers who insist on results.

Remember to teach. Remember the output.

-- doug smith

Delegate for the Right Reasons

Do you delegate?

Many leaders struggle with delegation. Some don't delegate enough because they worry that the work will not be done to their satisfaction. That's a case for developing both the leader and the people the leader could delegate to. It can be overcome.

Some leaders struggle with delegation by only delegating work they'd NEVER do -- mundane, routine, or nasty tasks that the person getting the work doesn't want either, they simply have no choice. That is no way to endear yourself to your team.

We do need to delegate though. And sometimes the work that we delegate is routine but simply needs to be done. During the time that I worked there, my team leader at Whole Foods once told me, "we don't pay supervisors to wash the dishes." She did go on to say that handling the dishes for 15 minutes set a good example, but washing them the whole shift simply kept the supervisor from leading.

A more powerful form of delegation is done for developmental of …

Fast, Affordable Leadership Training

Here are four ways to develop your leadership skills now:
Leadership tool box - Click on any of the labels for any entry on this site to find more useful content, much of which will contain suggested actions for developing your skills and leadership calls to action to prompt you. Teleclass Appointments - You do not need to wait for a teleclass or webinar to be offered to sign up for it. Using our teleclass appointment system you can schedule the teleclass you want, when you want it. Just click here.Supervisors Coaching Calls - Attend our group coaching opportunity for front line leaders to discuss your leadership goals, action plans, insights, and challenges. Designed as a way to extend and apply the learning from previous workshops and teleclasses, but this coaching call is open to anyone who is working on developing leadership skills. Register to participate here.Supervising for Success - Bring our live, in-person training program to your location. Get more information here. Still…

Five Keys to Happiness

We could spend the rest of our lives chasing happiness. There are books, seminars, retreats, and workshops galore to help us get there. I do not disparage any of that. Happiness is wonderful.

Is there a faster way?

Here is a consistent way. Yes, it does involve changing habits. None of the habits are too strenuous. It's balance. It's consistency. It's health. Here are five keys to happiness:

SleepExerciseEat healthy foodsDrink more waterSpend time in nature You knew all that already, didn't you? Consider this a gentle and happy reminder. Five keys to happiness. Sure, there are more. Work on as many as you like. These five will not let you down.
-- doug smith

Getting Help By Helping

Are you working hard on your goals? I hope so. Goals require attention, effort, and energy. And you know what else goals benefit from? Help. Specifically, help from other people.

And where do those people come from? They could be your team. They could be your peers. They probably START though with people you have helped before. When you help others to achieve their goals, they become remarkably more available to help you with yours.

When you help other people achieve their goals they become more powerful allies.

Whether you are working on goals that need help or not right now -- reach out to see who else you can help. Maybe they'll reciprocate and maybe they won't -- but there's nothing TO reciprocate unless you help first.

-- doug smith

Leadership Call to Action: Think about a friend or co-worker who is working on a project that you are not involved with. Sometime in the next week, call them and ask how you can help.

Initiate the Tough Conversations

Do you avoid tough conversations? If we know that we need to talk something over, but avoid it because it makes us uneasy, the difficulty remains unresolved. If we avoid talking with someone because THEY are difficult to talk with (maybe they sulk, or yell, or roll their eyes...) the problem remains stuck AND it remains ours. That's not what leaders want.

Taking the time to learn how to better communicate in those tough situations helps leaders to reach their team members, assert their needs with their bosses, and collaborate more successfully with their peers. It's a win for everyone when communication prospers with clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion.

It's not easy. That's what differentiates high performance leaders.

High performance leaders initiate the tough conversations that others avoid.

It gets easier with training and practice, just like any other skill. And while tough conversations may never feel like a breeze, they are often the path to better rel…

Video: Key Points in Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

As a bonus, I finally learned how to pronounce this author's name. As a practical use of 8 minutes this is hard to beat - a great video with fascinating visuals and an easy to understand summary of a book that's not an easy read.

I'm sharing it so of course I can remember to watch it again later. It's also time to read the book again.

Here's the video:

Four Important Factors:

FocusFreedomFeedbackFour % Challenge It's well worth checking out the other quality material available at The Productivity Game.

Video: How to create a culture of high productivity & low stress

From the Life Hack Bootcamp series featuring the cheerful and direct Demir & Carey comes this 13 minute video offering useful tips for creating teams that are productive and less stressed. You could call it Knowing When to Manage and When to Get Out of the Way. Good stuff!

Easy Answers

Are you looking for an easy answer?

We have so many simplified solutions these days. Our web sites give us big fonts to read, our phones send us reminders and even count our steps (got to get those 10k per day!) and our cars give us automatic transmission, power brakes, automatic lights, and soon will even drive themselves so that we can sit absorbed in our phones.

We've been getting used to easy answers. I'm not advocating giving back those easy answers - without a GPS I'd spend considerable time lost - but too much leisure also takes away muscle. We need the struggles of a tough solution to keep fit.

As tempting as it is, easy answers are not the only answers. We need a second light to see the shadows behind that all too easy to find solution. What are the complications? Who else is affected? What happens later?

Easy answers often play out hard.

We need more than easy answers because easy answers sometimes play out hard. It's not all grab-and-go, sometimes we need t…

Goals In Service to Others

Are goals selfish? Is it self-centered to pursue your goals?

Our goals are important. Successful goal achievement brings positive results along with a healthy sense of self-accomplishment. It builds our esteem. Even when those goals are dedicated to outcomes that benefit others more than ourselves, in fact, perhaps more so.

Serving others as we achieve our goals builds good will, strong relationships, and more sustainable results. When others are happy, in addition to ourselves, the results are more likely to persist.

It is at once unselfish AND self-improving. It's a winning combination: creating and achieving goals that serve others.

We are best at achieving our goals when they are in service to others.

I'm in favor of the best results possible for all. How about you?

-- doug smith

doug smith training

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