Sample Program Descriptions

Storytelling

Storytelling for Influence

Inspire, Problem-Solve, and Deepen Connection

The ability to influence others when stakes are high can have a huge impact on a career, a team, an organization. Storytelling, the ancient communication method, taps into the fundamental way our brain makes meaning and helps us understand new concepts, engage deeply, ignite our passion, and connect with others to have greater impact. In this active, practical session, you will unpack the building blocks of great storytelling to make this innate, unconscious meaning-making process conscious.

Participants will leave with a fully crafted story of their own, and a storytelling toolkit to apply in business contexts and beyond to communicate with clarity and purpose and engage audiences both formal and informal. Participants will:

• Understand the power of story as a meaning-making and influencing tool

• Acquire tools for identifying your message and the needs, values and preferences of your audience.

• Use key structures to create well-organized narratives that drive toward your key message

• Distinguish between action and description in order to craft compelling and memorable stories customized for the moment and the audience

Recognize your individual storytelling strengths and habits

Story Circles

Using personal Storytelling to Unleash Wisdom and Creatively Solve Problems

Tips and advice are easy to come by, but sometimes information isn’t what we need. Koppett’s story circles are a facilitated conversation designed to surface the wisdom that lies within each of us. 

Focused on a specific topic, the discussion moves from hearing each participant's personal story to the insights we can apply to the challenges we're facing today. In one of these sessions, participants will:  

• Tap into the learning from their individual experiences

• Identify and apply themes and lessons that organically emerge

• Increase connection as a team

• Develop a practical strategy and tactics to address identified problems

Leadership Development

Leading with Power

Using Status, Authority and Influence for Good

Suspect you might be caught in a power struggle? Do you want to have influence at a higher level? Would you like to be able to shift the group climate to be more collaborative and productive? A conscious awareness of the dynamics of status and power can help you inspire trust, have your ideas heard and taken seriously, minimize unhealthy conflict, and create environments where people feel engaged and respected. In this module, we will:

• Learn the non-verbal vocabulary of status, authority and power 

• Expand awareness of your habitual status behaviors and where they help and hurt your cause 

• Understand what positive status moves look like

Practice applying status fluency to communicate with confidence and in difficult situations

Manager Essentials

Essential Skills for Supporting Your People

Good front-line management is the lynch pin of excellent organizations. As a 2015 Gallup poll made exceedingly clear, “People don’t leave companies, they leave managers.” Retaining, developing, motivating and directing talent all depend on the skills and mindsets of managers.

Many managers never get the training they need. Often managers are simply plucked from the ranks of the highest individual performers. Especially in high-pressure, high-stakes environments, finding the time to focus on growing management skills can be tough. 

This 6-session workshop series is geared towards new and existing managers who would like refresher leadership training. In this comprehensive series of six single-topic sessions, participants will learn to recognize the value and impact of managing others, identify the key practices and mindsets of great managers, and enhance core management skills.  Topics include:

1. Transitioning from Independent Contributor to Manager 

2. Planning & Time Management

3. Making Meetings Work

4. Creating Motivating and Developmental Environments 

5. Giving and Receiving Feedback

6. Managing Up and Across (Building Relationships beyond Reports) 

Additional sessions can be added to provide opportunities for practice within each of the content areas—sessions geared toward participants putting into practice what they have learned and applying new tools to real scenarios.

Team Aligment

Improv is the Gym

Exercising Your Leadership, Communication, Creativity, and Collaboration.

As Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage…”,  and at Koppett we believe, as humans, we are all performing, and improvising all the time. We make choices about how to show up, and what to say or do, countless times every day. The skills that allow us to support and collaborate with clients and empathize with colleagues are the same skills that help us connect in meaningful, reflect on our accomplishments with pride, and allow ourselves to indulge in joy and celebration freely. 

By applying the principles and techniques of improvisational theatre instead of simply following these “scripts” can help us expand our awareness and range in order to maximize our options, influence and impact. Participants will learn the basic tenets of improv, as they relate to the stage, day to day life, and in the workplace. This workshop is a series of interactive games and exercises followed by debriefing and discussion of their application. In this session, we will:

• Exercise your awareness of your performance choices from moment to moment, and their impact to influence others in conversation and in formal presentations

• Get comfortable being uncomfortable, and celebrating risk-taking to expand your ability to grow, innovate, deal with change, and step into new roles

• Unleash your creative genius so you can solve problems and come up with solutions quickly and effectively

• Enhance your listening and empathy skills in order to build deeper and more supportive relationships

• Build collaborative community by supporting and building on others’ ideas and unique strengths

Individual and Collective Awareness for Connected Teams

Manage Yourself and Listen with Empathy 

Before we can engage effectively with others, we must be able to handle ourselves effectively. Managing yourself involves recognizing your triggers and biases and managing your self- talk so you can stay focused and truly listen to your team and clients. When we become more conscious of our habitual reactions and biases we can continue to growing self-awareness and emotional intelligence that allows us to be more supportive colleagues and have more impact client relationships. 

Part of managing ourselves is strengthening our listening skills. Listening with empathy requires us to shelve our own agendas (temporarily) and listen like an ally, seeking to understand and connect. When we show that we care, our colleagues feel seen, heard, and understood, and safe to trust us. In this interactive session participants will:

• Practice consciously recognizing and reframing positive and negative unhelpful self-talk 

• Test their current listening skills

• Explore different planes of listening

• 3 Circles of Awareness

• 3 Levels of Listening

• Practice Deep DIVE listening

Connecting through Communication

Building Influence and Connection

The How and the What of Impactful Communication

Whether you are a manager or an individual contributor in engineering, data science, or recruiting, this course will help you get better at increasing trust, listening, thinking critically, and becoming more persuasive. All of these things can be accomplished by focusing on presence and storytelling. We will develop skills and mindsets to become connected and reliable leaders, and communicate with clarity and purpose. 

Course Objectives 

• Identify behaviors and mindsets to increase impact and influence

• Practice behaviors that build trust and encourage respectful communication

• Practice intentional behavioral choices aligned with influence & relationship objectives

• Understand the power of story as a meaning-making and learning tool

• Acquire tools for identifying your key message and the needs of your audience

• Use structures to create well-organized narratives that drive your key message

• Use action and description to craft compelling and customized stories 

• Practice adapting stories in the moment based on listener reaction and feedback

• Identify ambient narratives and communication traps to avoid

Receive and apply individual coaching and feedback

Mastering the Feedback Process

Giving and receiving valuable feedback

Have you been putting off giving valuable feedback to someone because you don’t know how to word it, or are afraid of what their reaction will be? Have you asked colleagues or managers for ways you can improve your performance only to receive answers like “you’re doing great,” or “keep doing what you’re doing”? Have you ever given feedback only to have it be violently rejected? The ability to give and receive constructive positive and negative feedback is an invaluable process for continuous growth and learning. This session offers an opportunity to explore and practice this vital skill for learning and growth. In this fun, interactive session, participants will:

• Learn what makes feedback most effective and impactful

• Gain a deeper understanding of what happens when we receive feedback

• Practice giving feedback

• Practice asking for feedback

Facilitation Excellence

Bring your Training and Facilitation to Life

How to engage, connect, and build trust with your audience by applying improvisation principles for learning and performance.

Facilitating a training session, making a presentation, or giving a lecture are demanding activities. They require -amongst other things, of course- communication skills, emotional intelligence, flexibility, awareness, empathy, courage, and sometimes even risk-taking. These are not bodies of knowledge, they are skills. Skills that must be practiced, muscles that must be exercised. And Improv is the gym! You’re not an improviser you say? It’s not your thing? Well… actually we are all improvising all the time! None of us wakes up to find a script for the day sitting on our bedside table. We must figure out how to respond, connect, and make choices as we go along.

As the world moves faster and becomes less predictable, this ability becomes harder, and good improv skills become more important to maximizing your strategic impact. And as trainers, facilitators, and leaders, these skills and mindsets pay double dividends, as you guide others to grow and develop. In this five module live online course you will learn to apply the principles of improv to expand individual and group performance in a myriad of contexts.

All sessions will be highly practical and interactive giving you tools and activities to use in your own specific contexts.

• Session 1 - Building Trust and Environments of Safety, Courage and Belonging

• Session 2 - Exercising Listening and Awareness

• Session 3 - Accepting and Building with Offers

• Session 4 - Engaging with Story

• Session 5 - Developing Presence and Connection

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