Stuart Smith, MPF
Stuart Smith & Associations

FACILITATING CHANGE

We all know the challenges of organizational change. Depending on the source, it’s well documented that:

• 70-85% of all projects and programs requiring people to adapt to a new way of doing things fail
• Organizations spend millions on software; countless hours designing and delivering new training programs, and constantly reorganize in response to changing market, customer and environmental demands that only increase in speed and complexity
• The unaccounted cost of poorly managed change is far greater than the direct cost; people get frustrated and burned out; they begin to adopt “change-resistance” behaviors that thwart future initiatives.
• Worse yet, organizations lose customers, miss growth opportunities and disappoint key stakeholders muddling through the quagmire of change

As a leader, project manager or facilitator you are often asked to help your staff move successfully through change. You are often “accountable” and your “performance pay” is frequently tied to your ability to ensure the new way of doing things is adopted successfully. So how do you navigate through change that is increasingly complex and against seemingly impossible odds?

• First you need to know a little about the nature of change and have a basic understanding of change management practices
• Second, and often more important, you need to know a “secret” that will help you navigate the challenges of change that will move yourself and your staff through change faster and more effectively – facilitation

Stuart Smith is a results-focused professional who has facilitated over 1000 meetings, workshops, planning sessions and retreats.

Stuart began facilitating small-group leadership programs in the US Army. Now he focuses his facilitation and consultation on helping people and organizations improve their ability to plan and execute business improvement strategy and deal with change. 

He has an extensive training background and earned his Bachelor’s of Science in Workforce Education from Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) and a Master’s of Education from Seattle University.   Stuart is a life-long learner and student of Dr. Edwards Deming’s Quality Philosophy. He has an in-depth understanding of Systems Theory and how people work most effectively in organizations. Stuart  also holds certifications in the following professional fields: Senior Professional of Human Resources (SPHR), Society for Human Resource Management; Certified Manager of Quality and Organizational Excellence (CMQOE) and Senior Manager, American Society for Quality(held since 2004 will recertify by exam late 2011); Trained Six Sigma Champion (Smarter Solutions), Black and Green Belt (GA Tech); Certified Change Management Practitioner, Conner and Associate.

He is a Board Member of the Atlanta Society for Human Resources (SHRM) and a member of SHRM national. He is active in the Southeast Association of Facilitators, the Association of Strategic Planners (ASP) and the American Society for Quality.

Kelley Alexander, MSCM
Ombudsperson, Georgia State University

FACILITATING GROUP CONFLICTS: RESTORING WORKPLACE RELATIONS USING A CONTEMPLATIVE PROCESS

Conflict is an inevitable by-product of interpersonal relations. When managed appropriately, conflict can actually be good for a group or team. In many cases, the existence of conflict can lead to a better understanding of issues and other people, as well as create ways to resolve and prevent future issues. Managing conflict and identifying and communicating about differences can enable group members to produce quality work products and help them maintain (and restore) positive interpersonal relationships. When conflict arises, skillfully and compassionately facilitating a group process focused on managing conflict and communication can often be effective in assuring the success of long-term goals and relationships.

Explore how a facilitator can create and hold a safe space for group/team members using a framework that incorporates tools adapted from Creative Visualization, Transformative Mediation, Appreciative Inquiry, and Contemplative Meeting models. The workshop will also include:

• Sources of group conflict
• Ombudspersons’ role in facilitating group conflict
• Styles participants use during group conflict
• Tools and strategies to assist groups with managing conflict

Kelley Alexander is the Student and Staff Ombudsperson at Georgia State University (GSU). Her experience includes over 20 years of consulting with businesses; working with non-profit organizations and individuals; and managing and coaching employees using conflict and change management strategies. Kelley is a certified mediator with the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution and a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution. In her role as Ombudsperson, she uses mediation, coaching and facilitation processes to assist individuals and groups with managing workplace conflicts. She holds a Master's Degree in Conflict Management from Kennesaw State University and is a member of the International Ombudsman Association (IOA). At GSU, she facilitates workshops related to conflict management/resolution, communication, and collaborative group and team processes. Kelley is the Founder of InnerLight Solutions, a consulting company that offers mediation, facilitation and coaching services.

Barb Giamanco
Talent Builders

BUILDING BRAND U: WORKING ON YOUR BUSINESS AND CAREER

When working IN your business, it is easy to forget how important it is to work ON your business. Same goes for your career. To succeed in today’s business environment, you need top notch sales, marketing, networking and technology skills. This program will help you understand what it really takes to qualify opportunities, conduct effective sales meetings and craft proposals that lead to closed business. You’ll also discover why leveraging social media to achieve your sales and career goals is not a luxury, it is a business imperative. During this interactive 3-hour interactive session, you will learn:

• Why working ON your business and career is more important than working in it.
• The importance of personal branding.
• How to stop wasting time but better qualifying opportunities.
• What it really takes to conduct effective sales meetings.
• How to influence key project stakeholders.
• The art of crafting proposals that leads to closed business.
• How to leverage social media to widen your web sphere of influence, establish credibility and gain visibility in advance of opportunities.

Talent Builders CEO, Barbara Giamanco is the co-author of The New Handshake: Sales Meets Social Media. An experienced sales and social media consultant, speaker and coach, Barb works with sales teams to help them leverage social media to explode sales performance. She has a proven, 30-year track record in generating sales and capped a corporate career at Microsoft, where she led sales teams and coached executives. Throughout her sales career, Barb has sold $1B in products and services.

A sought after speaker and trainer, Barb speaks frequently on the topics of social media and the new world of social selling. She has keynoted executive events and facilitated programs with thousands of executives who consistently rate her as “exceeding their expectations”.

As an active member of the business community, Barb serves as the Atlanta Chapter President of Sales Marketing Executives International (SMEI) and as Chair for the Atlanta Women in Business 2012 conference.

Michael Wilkinson, CMF
Leadership Strategies Inc.

FACILITATION: WHAT'S NEXT?

Facilitation as an industry has perhaps moved from infancy to adolescence. Where are we today and what might this industry look like 10 years from now? And more importantly, what might we do as facilitators to make our future and to be prepared for it?

Michael Wilkinson is the founder and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc. His unique talent, skill and passion for facilitation form the core of the company's mission and direction, and are the reason for which he is much sought after as a facilitator, trainer and speaker. Mr. Wilkinson is author of best-seller The Secrets of Facilitation, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and Buying Styles, and is one of the nation’s leaders in the facilitation industry. He is a Board member of the National Institute for Facilitation and founder of the National Facilitator Database. He has been awarded both the Certified Professional Facilitator and the Certified Master Facilitator designations for experience and demonstrated expertise in facilitation. In 2003 he was named Facilitator of the Year by the Southeast Association of Facilitators for contributions to the field.

Michael's results-producing techniques and energetic style drive the pulse of the company, and have won him clients from a wide range of public and private sector organizations. His client experience includes notable organizations such as The Coca Cola Company, Sears, Unisys, KPMG Peat Marwick, Storehouse Furniture, Georgia Pacific, the State of Missouri, the City of Atlanta, Families First, The American Cancer Society, United Way of America, and Centers for Disease Control. His notoriety extends beyond domestic boundaries to include International assignments completed in Bangkok, Brisbane, Glasgow, Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Milan, Singapore and Sydney.

IMPROVING FACILITATION RESULTS THROUGH PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Solid project management process and thinking can enhance results for all types of projects. This session will demonstrate how project management discipline can improve facilitation results. Participants will apply project management process and methodology to a current facilitated engagement.

The session will cover:

• Project management and facilitated engagements
• Project management process vs. a set of methodologies
• Project management process overview
• Learning and application of project management process and methodology to a current facilitated engagement

Doug Gaspardo is Principal & Senior Consultant for Gaspardo and Associates based in Atlanta, Georgia. He has 20 years of experience in assessing, developing and coaching Project Management Leaders on organizing and implementing their project portfolios and individual projects. This experience includes over 17 years with Kepner-Tregoe, Inc., a global consulting and development company.

Doug earned his bachelor of arts from Florida State University. He also has a master’s degree and an educational specialist degree from Georgia State University. He has served in both chapter and regional leadership positions in the American Society for Training and Development. Doug is certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute and has published the article “7 Keys for Sustaining Project Management Excellence” in PM World Today (2008).

IS CONSENSUS THE SACRED COW OF FACILITATION?

In the facilitation world, we use the word "consensus" a lot, but do we really know what it is? What are the alternatives? What helps a group with consensus? What doesn't? Come explore with Lander as he challenges assumptions and leads us through the jungle of decision making and agreement.

Lander Stoddard has been working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for over 30 years as a laboratorian, researcher, information systems developer, supervisor, manager, and facilitator.

He began facilitating about 20 years ago in his roles as a Division IT Manager and Strategic Planner, and went full time in 2005. In that capacity he has facilitated or co-facilitated over 200 meetings and workgroups; including team-building, retreats, action planning, strategic planning, conferences, stakeholder meetings, and public engagement meetings. He is a member of the original cohort of the CDC Facilitator Cadre and currently functions as the "dean." A member of the Southeast Association of Facilitators (SEAF) since 2004, he served as Board Secretary in 2006, Program VP in 2007, and was co-winner of the SEAF Facilitation Impact Award in 2008. Lander joined the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) in 2005 and became IAF Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) #458 in 2006 and was recertified in October 2010. For the 2008 IAF Conference, he co-facilitated one of the two Community Engagements, and served on the Local and Program Committees.

OH NO! NOW, WHAT DO I DO?: FACILITATION FOR TRAINERS

Frank Foster is known for his well-developed skills and knowledge in community and organizational strategic planning, systems thinking, large-scale organizational change, organization development, and project management. His non-profit, corporate, governmental, international, and educational experience has given him a very strong and varied background.

In the U.S. public sector, his clients have been in higher education, the judicial system, multiple law enforcement agencies and fire departments, and several state, county, and city administrations. He has also worked on strategic change initiatives in Australia, Canada, Northern Ireland, Macedonia, and Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates and Singapore. Frank has also served as a faculty member of the University of Georgia, with the Carl Vinson Institute of Government.

Education:
• Masters of Business Administration, Keller Graduate School of Business (with Distinction), Specialization in Project Management
• Bachelor of Arts, Human Resource Administration (Cum Laude), St. Leo College
• Certifications – Group Facilitation, Systems Thinking, Strategic Planning, Strategic Change Management, Haines Centre for Strategic Management

Alysin is a results-oriented consultant and coach to boards, commissions, city councils and organizational executives and their senior management teams on organizational and business strategies. Strategic planning and helping clients manage organizational change are her specialty.

Alysin has a broad range of experience internationally in both the private and public sectors. Her clients in the private sector include healthcare, pharmaceutical, bio-technical firms, financial services, law firms, aerospace, chambers of commerce, , manufacturing, construction, and architectural/interior design firms. Her public sector clients include municipalities, counties, water utilities, universities and federal government agencies. In the not-for-profit sector, she has consulted to community empowerment and client service organizations.

Her initial foundation in the field was as Director of Organization Development & Training for Kaiser Permanente in California where she also served as a past President of the Golden Gate (San Francisco) Chapter of ASTD. Subsequently, she served in national leadership roles at ASTD, as well as a Chair of the local Advisory Board of the Greater Atlanta chapter.

Education:
• Masters of Social Work, University of Michigan, Specialization in Community Organization
• B.A., Psychology, Eastern Michigan University
• Certifications – Project Management, UC Berkeley; Gold Mastery in Systems Thinking, Strategic Planning, and Strategic Change Management, Haines Centre for Strategic Management

Michael Wilkinson, CMF
Leadership Strategies Inc.

If you have ever facilitated a strategic planning session, you know how tough it is to get agreement on a mission statement, to separate goals from objectives, to get consensus on the right strategies, and to prevent the team from undertaking too much. Using the widely-acclaimed Drivers Model as the basis, this one-day version of our three-day workshop provides facilitators with all the how-tos for facilitating each component of a strategic plan. Whether you do strategy work for corporations, non-profits, or government, you will walk away with a full tool kit of processes and techniques for facilitating strategy sessions. Don’t miss it!

SPECIAL FEATURE: This workshop gives you lots of high-value extras, at no additional cost, that make this course well worth your investment. Each participant will receive:

• The 28-page detailed Strategy Facilitation Guide (a $25 extra) that our facilitators use, complete with explanations, chart set-up, deliverable outline and sample words to say for each step in the strategic planning process;
• The presenter’s new book The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy (a $35 extra); and
• 60-day access to the 4-hour online strategy course, Springboard Online (a $295 extra)

Michael Wilkinson is the founder and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc. His unique talent, skill and passion for facilitation form the core of the company's mission and direction, and are the reason for which he is much sought after as a facilitator, trainer and speaker. Mr. Wilkinson is author of best-sellersThe Secrets of Facilitation, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and Buying Styles, and is one of the nation’s leaders in the facilitation industry. He is a Board member of the National Institute for Facilitation and founder of the National Facilitator Database. He has been awarded both the Certified Professional Facilitator and the Certified Master Facilitator designations for experience and demonstrated expertise in facilitation. In 2003 he was named Facilitator of the Year by the Southeast Association of Facilitators for contributions to the field.

Michael's results-producing techniques and energetic style drive the pulse of the company, and have won him clients from a wide range of public and private sector organizations. His client experience includes notable organizations such as The Coca Cola Company, Sears, Unisys, KPMG Peat Marwick, Storehouse Furniture, Georgia Pacific, the State of Missouri, the City of Atlanta, Families First, The American Cancer Society, United Way of America, and Centers for Disease Control. His notoriety extends beyond domestic boundaries to include International assignments completed in Bangkok, Brisbane, Glasgow, Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Milan, Singapore and Sydney.