Lisa Zangari (FL ’16), Director of Learning, Leadership Louisville Center
The past six months of the Leadership Green Room featured a diverse line-up of courses designed to help individuals discover their power to make a positive difference as leaders. If you want to learn more about what the Green Room can offer you and your team, see the types of courses we offer with five highlights from our 2016 calendar:
Stop Talking, Start Storytelling
Storytelling has been identified by Chief Marketing Officers as one of the most critical leadership skills of the next five years (HBR, Entrepreneur, Fast Company). In this refreshing and fast-paced course, Madison Cork, Founder of Cork Communications, showed us that:
• Data needs stories and stories need data.
• Great storytelling builds trust more quickly and effectively than any other communication tactic.
One of the leaders in the room shared, “I was skeptical of the subject matter at first but found it to be really relevant and applicable. Excellent execution.”
Lead Like a Boss
Holly Prather and I designed and led this mash-up of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (Marshall Goldsmith’s book), emotional intelligence and behavior-change theory. Participants learned how to identify their biggest blind spots and practiced new techniques for making sustained behavior change, while also peer-coaching each other.
One of the leaders had this to say: “I am a very driven, confident and results-oriented person, and imagined that would be enough to move up at my firm. This course helped me see that how I work with co-workers and ‘my brand’ are just as important to my professional success. With the habits and exercises I can start taking steps in the right direction to better collaborate and communicate with my team.”
Unleashing Creativity, Unlocking Innovation
This course gave me the opportunity to share some of the tools and behaviors I used with Fortune 500 companies while working as an innovation consultant in NYC. Some of the notable take-aways for participants included:
• We are all creative! Some of us just need to re-learn how to access our innate curiosity and expansive thinking skills.
• Behaviors eat process for breakfast when it comes to making innovation thrive.
• Instead of killing ideas too quickly, give them “S.U.N” – Suspend judgment, Understand more about the idea and Nurture the idea until it’s ‘big enough’ to be fairly judged.
In the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Future of Jobs report (right), complex problem solving and creativity are ranked first and third, respectively, as the most critical skills for the (very near) future and now some of our local leaders have a fresh approach to add to their innovation toolbox!
“This course did an amazing job of setting the stage for processes to make our minds think differently and truly be innovative,” wrote one participant.
Search Inside Yourself
In the fall, we welcomed the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, born out of a course that was originally developed and tested at Google. One of the reasons they chose Louisville was our distinction as an international compassionate city. Over 100 people joined us for this course at Gheens Lodge in The Parklands – the ideal venue.
One of our participants shared just how impactful the course was for her – “This was one of the best professional development sessions I have attended in my career. I have been experiencing symptoms of executive burnout and leadership fatigue and this was exactly what I needed, especially Day 2. As a result of attending this program, I feel a sense of calm and of renewal.”
Crucial Conversations (December)
We ended the year with Cynthia Knapek and Aaron Miller arming the class with the confidence, framework and skills to create alignment and agreement at work – particularly on the high-stakes, emotional or risky topics.
“The concepts are something that is not taught or common in my industry. The topic was very enlightening,” was the feedback from one of the participants.
It’s been a stellar year and we’re so grateful for the 500+ people that have already joined us in the Leadership Green Room. Every participant helps to further our mission while building greater confidence, knowledge and networks to fuel their own development.
We can’t wait to see you again in 2017!
Lisa
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