Managing People

Managing to Improve Employee Performance

Good managers can read people – but great managers go beyond that to learn their employees’ concerns, motivations and unique skills. Furthermore, great managers know that if they ignore these diverse needs, there is a greater chance that their employees will waste their time and energy moving in the wrong direction, get frustrated with a lack of success, or just disengage from a project or team. Do you want to be a good manager – or a great one? To improve employee performance, you will need to adjust your management style to the employee’s style and the needs of each situation. In this session, you will learn to recognize your employee’s needs and remove barriers to performance to develop employees who are more energized, efficient and committed.

This session will help you:

• Identify the developmental needs of different employees.
• Understand the particular goals and fears of technical staff.
• Adapt your management approach to match the ability level and motivation of each employee.
• Recognize and reduce your employees’ opposition and resistance
• Weave your understanding of employee needs into performance goals, performance plans, giving constructive and positive feedback, and ongoing performance management
• Coach towards self-motivated, self-directed employees who are ready for new challenges and opportunities.

Managing Difficult People and Tricky Conversations

Know any difficult employees? Of course you do. Are you a difficult employee? Of course not!

But still…working with challenging employees can be one of your biggest headaches. So can trying to get project teams to communicate clearly, effectively, and productively. People often come across as difficult because they handle conflict differently than you do. In fact, others’ approaches to conflict can often seem counterproductive, confusing, or even bizarre. This session provides you with a simple, direct way to understand the different fears that drive much of the conflict and resistance you see, hear and feel. You will learn your personal style for handling conflict and understand how that style might differ from others with whom you work or supervise. You will also learn how quickly employees’ fears can disengage them from a team or project. In this session, you will understand how and why different people become threatened and discover skills for relating more effectively with staff of all styles throughout all levels of the organization or team.

This session will help you:

• Understand the impact that your conflict style has on other people.
• Recognize how others in your organization handle conflict differently than you do.
• Identify and reduce the opposition and resistance of others.
• Approach and manage tricky conversations with greater confidence and speed.

“Michael Riegel’s innate skill at simplifying complex technical projects, his deep understanding of business operations, and his exceptional ability to motivate staff makes him an invaluable consultant for technical organizations. These skills paired with his genuine personality and easy-going style made Michael a pleasure to work with. Michael is the type of consultant that challenges the status quo in a positive way and helps organizations achieve win-win situations. He defies the stereotype of the consultant by demonstrating his investment in identifying and implementing long-term, sustainable solutions and in developing lasting relationships throughout the levels of the organization.”

Walter Gross, Vice President
Tectonic Engineering

Managing Successful Sales and Long-Lasting Client Relationships

As a salesperson or client manager, you know that a one-size-fits all approach to different clients and situations doesn’t work. It’s easy to forget just how much diversity there is among our clients. We get wrapped up in our own way of seeing things and rely too much on a single, well-worn client sales or client-relationship model. This session highlights how different clients truly are, and how each interaction provides a new opportunity to build trust – and business – with our valued clients. This session takes the dizzying diversity of client needs, goals and preferences and puts them into a simple framework that makes sense to almost any client manager. Using the Seven-Step Selling Process to win new clients and/or the Six-Step Customer Strategy for existing clients, you will learn how to adjust the process to acknowledge the important preferences and values of your customers, resulting in strong, lasting, and profitable relationships with clients of all kinds. You will be able to shift your relationships from “vendor” to “trusted advisor” – which ultimately impacts your bottom line in a powerful, positive way.

This session will help you:

• Appreciate the diversity of your customers’ needs and motivations.
• Learn how to apply the Seven-Step Selling Process to win new business.
• Learn how to apply the Six-Step Customer Strategy to better service your existing clients.
• Understand the need to adapt your Seven-Step Selling Process to meet the needs of your clients.
• Learn the buying needs of your clients.
• Create natural and influential relationships with clients.
• Shift from “vendor” to “trusted advisor”

“Deborah is a very impressive speaker —energetic and confident. She has the gift of attracting people to focus on what she is saying, and definitely influences how people communicate with one another. She seems to be able to pour her confidence and endless energy into others, making them feel fearless when they present themselves in public. We all love her!”

Dawn Liu, IBM
Beijing, China