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COMMUNICATIONS FOR TEAM LEADERS (G076)

Workshops > Complete List > Team Leaders

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND?

Communication is key to achieving results from and with people – as individuals and as members of a team or work unit. It's a necessary skill in engaging and directing those who look to you for leadership and whose efforts will, ultimately, determine your performance. Not surprisingly, effective communication is an overarching theme in the Government's "Key Leadership Competencies" profile for managers.

Whether you're responsible for a permanent structured team in an organization or responsible for an ad-hoc team with a specific task, this workshop is for you. It will help you as team leader:

in developing and enhancing strategies for communicating within the team to ensure common purpose;
in connecting with the larger organization to ensure full alignment of the team's work with corporate priorities;
in communicating to ensure external audiences are consulted and aware of what the team's work means for them;
in communicating on outcomes and results.

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?

Through readings, discussion, exercises and presentations, this one-day highly interactive workshop will focus on:

Determinants of effective team leadership and the role of communication
Challenges of communicating with and through teams
Internal communications principles and techniques to mobilize, direct and support your team
External communications principles and techniques to support and report on your team's work
Working with your departmental communications advisor

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

Managers at the Team Leader and Director level who currently supervise permanent and/or ad hoc teams and who seek to acquire knowledge, techniques and tools aimed at enhancing their ability to achieve better results through team work.

Agenda
8:45 - 9:30	Intro, facilitator and participants' presentation, workshop agenda, expectations Based on a pre-course questionnaire, participants each have 3 minutes to outline one actual instance where they faced a communications challenge or achieved success through effective team communications.
9:30 - 10:00	Clarifying definitions Team/types of teams; delegation; leadership; trust; results; clients/stakeholders; strategic, tactical and operational objectives vs. communications objectives; hierarchical/functional authority; etc..
10:00 - 10:30	Small group exercise Based on the management competencies described in the Government of Canada "Key Competencies" participants discuss how effective communications skills support the achievement of selected management competencies.
10:30 - 10:45	Break
10:45 - 11:15	Determinants of Effective Team Leadership Clarity on objectives, on expected results, on roles, on timelines etc.; full alignment of resources/team's skills with objectives; liaison with clients; listening; empathy; motivation; monitoring + feedback; accountability/reporting; trust between parties; win-win; timing; etc.
11:15 - 11:45	Small group exercise Thinking of selected communications determinants, participants list five things that can go wrong in managing a team and define how they'd avoid, mitigate or address each.
11:45 - 12:30	Role of Communications in supporting each of the determinants
12:30 - 13:15	Lunch
13:15 - 13:45	Case study Participants review in small groups a supplied Case study and identify the main communications challenges that will have to be resolved in order to achieve Team coherence and effectiveness.
13:45 - 14:30	Essentials of Internal Communications in a Team context Relevance; timeliness; clarity; informing/raising awareness/ achieving understanding/influencing attitude and behaviour/obtaining commitment; alignment with objectives; group dynamics and psychology; flows of information; avoiding "group- think"; multiple channels; feedback loops etc.
14:30 - 14:35	Break
14:35 - 15:15	Essentials of external communications in a Team context Relevance; timeliness; clarity; understanding context and motivations; setting objectives; managing expectations; performance indicators/measurement; clarifying roles and accountabilities; reporting on progress and results; "managing up"; feedback loops; etc.
15:15 - 15:30	Break
15:30 - 16:15	Case study (cont.) Participants discuss and propose solutions to the communications challenges they have identified earlier. Debrief with facilitators.
16:15 - 16:30	Wrap-up