Leading in Challenging Times™

Today’s business environment is a challenging place. Organizations are continually driven to develop new market strategies, improve response time, and stave off nontraditional competitors. To stay ahead of the competition, they must address marketplace demands swiftly and execute their new strategy initiatives flawlessly. Implementing new strategies requires change, and change requires people at all levels in the organization to be fully engaged and energized. However, change often results in employees who become frustrated or frozen, losing sight of what they do on a day-to-day basis. In response, the organization quickly becomes reactive rather than proactive, losing the speed and adaptability that won customers in the first place. The organization and its people often need help seeing change in positive, energizing terms.

Leading in Challenging Times™ (LCT) focuses on what happens to human energy during times of change. To capture the discretionary energy of the workforce, leaders must understand how motivation and focus can be lost, and what they and their teams can do to regain effectiveness and commitment.

Program Outcomes

Leading in Challenging Times is a powerful organizational development program that will help your leaders understand their role in implementing business strategy, execute strategy during times of change, take charge of the change process, and refocus people’s energy to move positively through change.

Approach

Leading in Challenging Times is an instructor-led program typically delivered over two days.

Leading in Challenging Times can be taught by a Wilson Learning facilitator or by an organization’s own leader-trained in-house professional. This enables:

  • Face-to-face interaction among participants and with the facilitator
  • True-to-life skills practice with immediate in-person feedback
  • The opportunity for real-time commitment to action

Wilson Learning believes that learning must be transferred to day-to-day work practices. To achieve this, Leading in Challenging Times includes components and activities that enhance:

Participant Readiness prepares leaders for the overall learning experience:

  • Pre-workshop communication sets the context for learning.

Learning Transfer embeds practice and use of new skills in the learning design. The learning can be flexibly delivered as a:

  • Two-day face-to-face application-oriented workshop
  • All can be delivered in modular format over non-consecutive days to allow application between sessions.

Leading in Challenging Times is designed for every employee who functions as a leader or influences others.

Organizational Alignment ensures the organization supports the use of the new skills:

  • Working in Challenging Times™ (Optional) is a two-day instructor-led program for individuals to understand and manage their own reactions and self-talk during times of change.

Enabling Improved Performance

Leading in Challenging Times can be enhanced with optional performance application, reinforcement, and support tools. For example, one an application exercise ensures that leaders develop skills during the workshop, then fine-tune and apply their newly acquired skills and behaviors back in the organization. Involving executive management and/or developing peer support groups early on, and training them to coach for improved performance, is also important for successful Leading in Challenging Times implementation.

Some organizations expand the impact of the program beyond the leaders and influencers by offering the one-day companion program, Leading in Challenging Times, to everyone else.

To discover how we ensure learning is reinforced and applied for improved performance, read more about our Learning Journeys.

Evaluation

Leading in Challenging Times helps develop a more proactive and powerful model of leadership in your organization, producing results in times of change. Organizations that implement Leading in Challenging Times can access optional measurement tools to assess and guide participants’ progress. Performance evaluation forms are provided as part of the program and can be used to measure leaders’ progress and success. Wilson Learning will partner with your organization to measure initial behavioral changes and business results. Our common interest is to make sure that Leading in Challenging Times delivers the results you seek. We are committed to helping you succeed. We will work with you to set up measurement systems to help move desired change forward and sustain the momentum of your implementation.

To learn more about measuring the impact of learning, visit Measurement.