Introductory Workshops
Start Your Positive Organizational Development Journey Today
Our introductory workshops are brief, highly interactive learning experiences that give your staff a basic foundation and practical start with our Positive Organizational Development approaches.
Introduction to Positive Peer Coaching
The quality of our professional relationships impacts our wellbeing and effectiveness every day. What if you and all of your colleagues interacted with each other in ways that build wellbeing, energy, and engagement through your daily conversations?
In this workshop, we'll introduce a strengths-based, solutions-focused peer coaching methodology that does exactly that. This approach equips teaching and non-teaching staff members with evidence-based positive psychology coaching skills you can use to support each other in formal/informal conversations and meetings.
Participants in this workshop will…
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Deepen your awareness of how a peer coaching culture supports wellbeing and engagement
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Explore the core competencies that distinguish coaching from other support modalities
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Experience the benefits of peer coaching firsthand by practicing with evidence-based techniques
Exploring Your Strengths Profile
Are you playing to your strengths each day? Knowing how to make the most of your unique strengths helps you focus on the things you do well and enjoy. This doesn't just benefit you; it also has a positive impact on the people and groups you live, work, and volunteer with.
This workshop will help you understand and use your unique strengths in ways that boost your energy, wellbeing, and impact. We’ll use the Strengths Profile assessment and evidence-based peer coaching exercises to help you increase awareness of your current strengths use and design action plans for optimizing your strengths in your personal and professional life
Participants in this workshop will…
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Feel more confident and positive about yourself
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Use your strengths to achieve what matters most
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Affirm and optimize your known strengths
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Discover and activate your hidden talents
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Stop doing so much of what drains your energy
Building Your Positive Psychological Capital
In this workshop, we’ll explore ways to develop Positive Psychological Capital, or PsyCap for short. The four constructs of PsyCap spell out the easy-to-remember acronym of HERO: Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism.
PsyCap strengthens people from the inside out, building critical psychological resources that strengthen us in the good times and sustain us through the bad. Strong PsyCap will help you lean into and bounce back from challenges – and become even stronger than you were before.
PsyCap has been shown to be “contagious,” meaning that when we develop and model good PsyCap ourselves, our colleagues and students “catch” it and learn to build it themselves.
Participants in this workshop will…
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Develop a working understanding of the Psychological Capital HERO framework
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Explore ways to apply and model a PsyCap-based mindset as a teacher or leader
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Apply PsyCap principles to designing and working toward your personal and professional goals
Being a Strengths-Based Team
When you focus on strengths as a team, you experience loads of benefits both personally and collectively - and your overall impact becomes stronger.
Making strengths a core part of your team’s everyday interactions is one of the quickest, easiest, and most powerful ways to boost everybody’s energy and wellbeing. Teams who regularly “notice and name” strengths in each other are more engaged and more creative. They also have more role clarity and share work more effectively.
A strengths focus makes your teamwork stronger through the good times as well as the challenging ones. Learning to view the ups and downs of everyday collaboration through the lens of strengths can have transformational effects on team trust - creating an environment of psychological safety, support, and mutual respect.
Participants in this workshop will…
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Experience firsthand the research-backed benefits of focusing on strengths as a team
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Develop vocabulary and skills for strengthspotting in everyday conversations
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Explore techniques for navigating challenges with a strengths perspective
Solution-Focused Communication & Collaboration
In this workshop, we’ll explore evidence-based strategies for overcoming challenges by focusing more on building solutions rather than analyzing (and amplifying) problems.
When we consciously choose to disengage from problem-focused thinking and put more energy into defining what we want instead of the problem, our creativity, confidence, and motivation increase.
Solution-focused thinkers actively focus on “what works well” and find ways to acknowledge, identify, and mobilize existing strengths and resources. This creates energy and momentum which helps groups and individuals continue moving toward their desired goals.
Participants in this workshop will…
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Experience firsthand the benefits of focusing more on solutions than problems
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Explore three core principles of solution-focused communication and collaboration
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Practice coaching each other using the 7 Key Stages of a Solution-Focused Conversation
Introductory Workshop Options
Book these workshops for your entire staff or an intact team during your PD and Faculty/Staff Collaboration days this year. They will walk away with new tools and perspectives for strengthening themselves and supporting each other in ways that build wellbeing, energy, and engagement every day.
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