Welcome to our 60-Minutes Sessions!

COMMUNICATION | BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT | LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT | MARKETING | PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

We hope you’re ready for an engaging, rewarding online learning experience with plenty of reading, thinking, writing, speaking, interactivity, and even homework. Every session is organized a bit differently, but we assure you that you will learn, interact, engage, share authentically and enjoy! The sessions include teamwork, exercises, often digital workbooks. Career coaching is available for an additional fee. Your first step is to become familiar with our sessions. What do YOU need to succeed? You may be wondering: Where do I go first? How do I navigate?

*We are proud to partner with STRIDES, an AI-Powered Platform created to Close the Diverse Leadership Network Gap at Scale. The mission is to advance gender and racial diversity on corporate boards by orchestrating the social capital between board members and diverse leaders with a modern technology solution.

60-Minutes Sessions | Course Catalog

Communicating with Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

The business does not exist in which there is too much communication. And what communication there is often suboptimal because many people don’t understand what’s going on when we communicate with other people. The mistake is to think that communication is just the transfer of information—it isn’t, which is why emotional intelligence is essential to good communication. Facial expressions, paralanguage, physical space, touch, posture, gestures, and eye contact are forms of communication and though non-verbal, must send a message of empathy and understanding if leaders are to be transformational.

Effective Communicators are Inclusive

You know you are communicating effectively when the message you are intending to send is what is being received and your communication is making an impact. Effective communicators are inclusive because they consider all participants in their interactions. They honor other viewpoints, are open even to those who disagree with them, and speak up and take thoughtful action to make a difference in their life, community, or workplace. To effectively share ideas, have difficult conversations, connect across difference, and inspire others to action, inclusion is necessary. Inclusive communication is a platform you can use to change your life and the lives of others. Everyone can be an inclusive leader. Everyone has the power to use their voice to make a change. Language is one of the most powerful tools we have as humans. It binds us. Instructs us. When used well, it creates a common understanding. And it’s essential for creating an environment where everyone feels welcome and included.

Understanding Gendered Communications to Combat Bias

Men & women face gender communication disparities when discussing new ideas, seeking team input, attempting humor & exchanging compliments. Female & male styles of conversation are equally valid and in general, men are not trying to dominate women and women are not trying to manipulate men. There are simply feminine and masculine styles of discourse. Even the narrow limits of a professional man’s wardrobe – dark suits, pale shirts – allow him a degree of freedom because uniformity resists cultural labeling or “marking.” The multiple choices a professional woman faces in her clothing, hairstyle, and makeup leave her more vulnerable to being categorized. Studies from the 1990s show that, at that time, most women adapted their behavior to mimic men. Supervisors often don’t note their performance and women tend not to self-promote. They favor using unobtrusive, proactive methods to preventing obstacles. Female professionals often speak tentatively to soften any emotional blow in the message they’re delivering and men often [wrongly] see this way of speaking as a sign of insecurity or worse -- incompetence. In this course, we will unpack the historical and current nuances.

What’s in a Name: The Importance of Pronouns

Particularly in tech conversations and job descriptions, sometimes the pronoun “he” is used to describe technical roles or executive roles by default. Here’s an example: “We’re looking for a person who embodies this community spirit and is excited to share his knowledge with the broader web development world.” Assuming that the normal, default tech person is a man has real consequences. In one survey on what deters women from male-dominated professions, a popular answer was the wording on job postings. We will address the better alternatives to commonly used pronouns that harm everyone in the fight for equity in the workplace and the world.

Evaluating Language and Policies for Inclusiveness

Organizations can say they value diversity and inclusivity, but many unknowingly have policies, procedures, and language in place that unnecessarily exclude segments of the population. In some cases, they don't realize the effects their policies and language have. In others, they may realize the effect but not want to change because this is how they've done things for years. In this session, we look at ways to evaluate policies and language to ensure your organization isn't unfairly and unnecessarily excluding people. We'll give you some questions to ask and some ways to address the situation.

Public Speaking for Future Leaders

Using Metaphors, Similes, and Analogies. Metaphors are like mini-stories. You tie something that someone understands to a new idea or concept. I love metaphors— they are the most powerful way to get ideas across. Whenever I use this metaphor with live audiences, people either audibly will say, “oh” or “ah” or nod their head yes, as if it clicked for them. That’s the power of a good metaphor. Nearly 30 percent of Americans report that they’re “afraid or very afraid” of public speaking. In fact, this fear is so widely accepted that many scientists researching stress actually will induce anxiety by asking study participants to give a speech. Most fears about public speaking stem from our fear of being judged. We are so scared of being criticized that we forget we have the power to share a message. I want to teach you how to captivate an audience so you can conquer your public speaking fears and get your message across. Let’s dive into the research-backed public speaking tips, so you have the confidence to get on stage and master your stage presence.

Overcoming Introversion When you Have to Market Yourself

For people who are introverted, marketing yourself and networking can be incredibly stressful. The good news is, they don’t need to be. There are ways you can approach networking and marketing—even as an introvert—that help you manage your stress. If you avoid networking because you think you’re too introverted or not good with people, this session can help you reframe how you view yourself and how you view marketing. You might even realize you enjoy it.

Listening with Empathy Through Digital Means

Using empathy in digital communications can be a challenge but remember, the receiver always makes meaning of the message. Empathetic listening is paying attention to another person with empathy [emotional identification, compassion, feeling & insight]. One basic principle is to seek to understand, before being understood. In this time of digital communications, being positive is important. In this session, we will focus on how.

Understanding and Using Effective Business Writing

Your communications are vital to your company’s success, but many people feel self-conscious about their business writing. This session goes into business writing best practices, including writing inclusively, being concise, and understanding your audience. You’ll come away with strategies to help you feel more confident in your business writing—whether you’re focused on marketing materials, customer emails or staff memos.

Listen. Be Heard. Communicate: Communications & Media Training

This course is about communications and we will begin at the foundation of my version of a communications pyramid, with listening- active listening. This style of listening is informed, involved, and complicated, but necessary especially for those in law enforcement or dealing with the public in such an important way. From listening, we move to the center of the communications pyramid to being heard. Interestingly, we have to practice the skills of being heard. This practice asks; how do we represent ourselves? What’s our language signature? How do our deepest beliefs show up in our words and thoughts? And then we put all of this theory into application and practice at the top of the pyramid to build strategy and tactics to communicate. We want to communicate accurately, but with purpose, and a clear intention. Even in the heat of public tragedy, especially in the heat of tragedy, we must be good at communicating.

Being Remembered for the Right Reasons

Making a good and memorable impression on prospects and clients secures long-term relationships that result in new business and better work. We will discuss best practices for trusted advisorship for you and your client. Good client service happens when a business is committed to meeting the needs of all its customers. Ideally, client service is woven into a company's culture and is present at every stage of a business-client relationship.

Using Meaningful Questions to Create Connection

When asked what builds trust and credibility early in a relationship with this CEO of a $12 Billion company, he said, "I can always tell how experienced and insightful a prospective lawyer is by the quality of his questions and how intently he listens. That's just how simple it is." When you adopt the Socratic Method, you approach nearly every conversation differently. It really is apples and oranges… The great management thinker Peter Drucker used to pose questions to his clients, focusing on Mission, Customers, Value, Results, and a Plan. While it’s important to provide the prospect/client with as much information as you can, it’s also important to find out as much as possible about their business. The best way to do this is by conducting a client needs assessment.

Client Conversations that Grow Your Business & Theirs

The personal relationship selling process can be reduced to five fundamental phases. We will discuss them as well as problem-identifying questions as well as payoff questions. The conversations you have with your clients can help build valuable relationships that are mutually beneficial. Rather than focusing on showing off your expertise or telling clients what they should do, it can be more productive to ask questions, conduct a needs assessment and ensure everyone shares an understanding of the issues. We talk about how you can have powerful conversations with your clients so you can understand them, their clients and the challenges they face, helping you can work together toward solutions.

Equity in Education

Equity in education is a goal everyone in education can get behind. What educator doesn’t want to see all students have an equal opportunity for success? But it’s not always easy to define precisely what we mean when we talk about equity. Is it about outcomes? Resources? Funding? Academic support? Achieving true equity will require looking at all of these aspects and more, from both a larger systems perspective and an individual student perspective. Let’s take a closer look at what we mean by educational equity and what school leaders and teachers can do to improve equity at the school and classroom level.

Improving Your Management Chops

Now more than ever it’s important to step up as a leader. With these uncertain times, it brings on a lot of emotion and we have to deal with and talk about things that we never had to before. People are concerned about job security, safety, working from home and balancing other responsibilities, and having a positive work environment. We will share best practices in an interactive setting.

Communicating with Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

The business does not exist in which there is too much communication. And what communication there is often suboptimal because many people don’t understand what’s going on when we communicate with other people. The mistake is to think that communication is just the transfer of information—it isn’t, which is why emotional intelligence is essential to good communication. Facial expressions, paralanguage, physical space, touch, posture, gestures, and eye contact are forms of communication and though non-verbal, must send a message of empathy and understanding if leaders are to be transformational.

Let’s Build Culture Together

What is culture and why care about it? Culture doesn’t just attract great people. it amplifies their abilities and helps them do their best work. The kind of culture that attracts and retains employees is an inclusive one. There is power in a culture of inclusion. When you feel as if you belong, and your voice matters, you are invested in the success of the company. To build an inclusive culture requires a shift in mindset, a shift in consciousness. Inclusion needs to be top-of-mind from the top down, all throughout the organization.

Cultural Diversity Builds a Better World

What is Cultural Diversity, and why is it important? The world is a colorful canvas of people from all walks of life and backgrounds. In every corner of the globe, there exist people from different religions, racial identifications, ethnic identities who speak different languages, and celebrate different holidays. Culture shapes us. It shapes our identity, it influences how we behave, and it makes us who we are. Culture brings people together equally in celebration and in grief. Without culture and cultural diversity, the world would be a sad and dull place. In recent years, racial and cultural issues have been the highlight of many news channels and online discussion platforms. Even though many believe the media may be blowing things out of proportion for rating, these discriminations are still a harsh reality for many people.

Running a Business and Overcoming the Need for Perfection

If you have a great idea to start, change or grow your business but are waiting for conditions to be perfect, you’re not alone. A lot of people think they need to have every question answered and every potential situation planned for before they start or move forward in their business. The focus on perfection often means you get stuck and lose out on opportunities to learn. In this session, we’ll examine how focusing on perfection can hurt you, and how you can let go of that need.

Effective Growth Strategies: How to Grow the Top Line with the Bottom Line in Mind

Having an effective growth strategy and strategic plan is always essential and is the foundation for long-term success. COVID and other challenging environments only reveal whether a company has a strong or shaky foundation. What has this time shown you? When was the last time you updated your growth strategy? Or did you ever truly have one? 

This session will teach you the high-level steps on how to develop a growth strategy and plan for your organization the right way- by growing the top line, while keeping the bottom line in mind. 

Importance of Knowing the Competition and Having a Competitive Advantage

Let’s face it. Most businesses are internally focused. Understanding the competition and the competitive environment often occur as a reactionary response. Ignoring or not implementing both offensive and defensive strategies to capitalize on competitive advantages or ensuring your company is not at a competitive disadvantage is essential to both survive and thrive long-term. 

This session will walk you through the importance of having a competitive advantage, how to conduct a high-level competitive assessment, and how to create a process and competitive intelligence function in-house. 

21 Days of Building Your Business Profile

When it comes to marketing and business development for professional services, one of the biggest challenges professionals face is finding time to do it all. After all, you don't sell full-time. Your work, whether it's consulting, legal, accounting, IT, financial services, or engineering, is what you do full-time. And that makes it very difficult to find time to create and develop the relationships necessary to bring in new business. There simply are not enough hours in the day to do it all. As a result, marketing and business development activities are unplanned and inconsistent, which leads to limited touches and prospects slipping through the cracks due to lack of follow-up. While we cannot create more hours in the day, we can give you some marketing and business development tips that will help you become more effective with the balancing act of selling and doing.

Building Personal and Professional Brand

In the inbound marketing age, branding refers to branding on the internet and the internet moves pretty fast. Brands can be built up in an instant, and they can be destroyed just as quickly. “Overnight success,” although tempting, is not a good goal for a brand to have. A successful brand should be built up over time. A slow, gradual buildup provides the opportunity to reach far more people than some flash-in-the-pan fad that’s here today and gone tomorrow. To get to the point where your voice is big, you not only need to be good at getting found – you need to have a differentiator.

Defining Your Target Audience

Who is your target audience? Having this critical information is key to a good marketing plan. One of the biggest mistakes that personal branders make is trying to appeal to everyone. You truly can’t please everyone and in business, you shouldn’t try. This session will teach you how to aim your marketing arrow in a way that hits the bullseye.  I will guide you through the steps you’ll need to follow to define the target audience for your personal brand.

The 3 Rs: Reputation, Relationships & Responsiveness | PR/Marketing Ed.

Excellent client service is the number one business development tool – hands down. Marketing (reputation), relationships (business development), and responsiveness (client service) are not the same but are all required of those who make rain. Relying on random acts of marketing, and the traditional marketing mix will ensure unwelcome challenges. Without a client-centric business culture, relying on effective communication, you will lose clients, natural rainmakers, and ultimately profits. One-to-one meeting opportunities are still the best marketing techniques. It is wise to increase the in-person/virtual contact and set up opportunities to ask for new business -- and referrals. Relationship selling requires constant attention to personal communication skills. We will discuss strategies, tactics and practical tips.

Influence in Social Media

Social media accounts for over 30% of time spent online. Keeping up with the latest social channels and their functionalities can feel like a full-time job. In this session, we will discuss a few tips for every aspect of social media in business. And remember, the beauty of social is its diversity. Businesses and individuals bring their own voice, tone, and approach to social media. Creating new and engaging content on the fly in an unpredictable time is not easy work, but there are tricks to making sure you do it right. The positive side in all of this is the shifting expectations of audiences who now are comfortable with and enjoy the more raw, unfiltered, authentic content that brands are producing.

Feminism: What It Is and What It Isn’t

Gender disparities are among the most entrenched forms of inequality everywhere. Because these disadvantages affect half the world, gender inequality is one of the greatest barriers to human development. Some groups of people are systematically disadvantaged in many ways. These groups might be defined by ethnicity, language, gender or caste—or simply by whether they live in the north, south, east or west of a country. There are many examples of such groups, but undoubtedly the largest worldwide is women. Gender disparities are among the most entrenched forms of inequality everywhere. Because these disadvantages affect half the world, gender inequality is one of the greatest barriers to human development. Gender inequality is complex, with differing progress and regress from place to place and issue to issue. Awareness has increased through the #MeToo movement, which shone a spotlight on violence against women. And girls around the world have been catching up on some of the basics, such as enrolment in primary school. But there is less to celebrate about progress beyond these fundamentals.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: Building Confidence in Your Abilities

Imposter syndrome—where we believe our successes aren't deserved and we doubt our skills and accomplishments—is widespread. Unfortunately, our brains have had years to develop reasons why we aren't good enough, which often prevents us from moving forward in our careers. This session explores the ways imposter syndrome affects us and gives practical ways to manage it, so it stops negatively affecting your life.

We Are All on a Journey

We are all on a journey. The path you choose while on that journey must be your own. When you start on your path, you will not have to have all the answers. But if you want to find your answers, you will need to learn to be self-reflective and you will need to develop self-awareness. While your journey may be your own, you do not have to go it alone. We all need a community that will support us while we are on our journey. It does not matter whether you are new to your career field or if you have practiced in your field for fifty years. In my experience, becoming part of a community is the fastest way to propel women toward achieving their purpose and, ultimately, to their success because empowered women are uniquely qualified to empower other women. Not every community you encounter will be the right community for you. Take the time to find that community that will work for you.

Speaking Up: Even When Your Saboteurs Tell You to Shut Up

One of the most important things you can do as a leader is to advocate for yourself, your ideas, and others. It is essential that you believe in your talents, own your worth, and trust in your power- even when your inner voices tell you not to. Being able to communicate and embody these skills effectively gives the organization the benefit of your ideas. It also helps you individually position yourself for advancement and is a crucial driver to success and fulfillment. In this session, we will learn about our saboteurs, techniques to eliminate their impact, and effectively advocate and influence others.  We give this session as a standard session or workshop.

Ageism: Who Will Hire Me Now?

Ageism, also spelled agism, is stereotyping and/or discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. This may be casual or systematic. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors and patterned on sexism and racism. Geropsychologists are striving to stop negative age stereotypes and meet the growing mental health needs of older adults. The number of Americans 60 and older is growing, but society still isn't embracing the aging population, geropsychologists say. Whether battling "old geezer" stereotypes or trying to obtain equal standing in the workplace, those who are 60 or older may all too often find themselves the victims of ageism.

Why Do This, Not That?

Becoming an effective networker should be a part of your strategy when working toward personal and professional success.  It should not, however, be your only strategy.  Your short-term goal should be focused on creating connection through effective networking, but your long-term goal should be focused on strengthening those newly created relationships.  Only by strengthening those relationships, will you be able to build of a community of support that will help you to sustain and drive personal and professional success by developing and improving your professional skills; keeping you current in your field; gaining access to hidden job leads; and finding possible mentors and mentees, and clients.

In this session, Lisa Lang will challenge everything you thought you knew about networking and building community as she presents this material using her “Why this, Not that” format she first made popular on LinkedIn.  She will cover everything from how to build the best community for you to what can you expect from that community.

Living Your Ikigai

What is your reason for getting out of bed each morning? What is it that drives you? In Japan, millions refer to this concept as Ikigai (pronounced Ick-ee-guy) which means "a reason for being." If you look back on your life you’ll discover you have always been in an exclusive special ops internship that has been preparing you all along. You have something special that only you can bring to the table. The world needs that special quality.  This session explores the top questions you need to ask yourself in order to unlock your Ikigai.

Addressing the -isms

Workplace discussions regarding biases and inequality must become commonplace for organizations. But where does the conversation begin? What work must take place before individuals can even ask for these conversations in their own institutions? In order to have equitable policies, plans, pay, and pipelines, organizations must be aware and then take action. Diversity is what we know. Inclusivity is what we do. It’s time to close the knowing-doing gap.

Leadership | Culture | Communications

• Feminism: What It Is & What it Isn’t

• The Spiral of Silence: Speak Up and Speak Out

• What Does the World Look Like from Your Lens: Standpoint Theory

• The Language of Inclusive Leadership

• Understanding Gendered Communications to Combat Bias

• The Art & Science of Persuasion

• Let’s Build Culture Together

• Diverse Cultures Build a Better World

• Cross Team Collaboration

• Semiotics: Show Me What You’re Saying!

• Communicating with Emotional Intelligence

• Using Meaningful Questions to Create Connection

Hiring | Recruiting | Pipeline

• Diversity and Inclusion in the Workforce

• Who Are the People in Your Pipeline: Finding Diverse Candidates for Every Role

• Recruiting and Hiring: What Can Your Organization Do About DEI?

Bias | Race | Racism

• Addressing the -isms

• Equity Matters: About Implicit Bias

• A Primer to Unconscious Bias

• The Business Case for DEI

• Allyship - Stepping up Your Game

• Trust Me: All About Confirmation Bias

• Practices in Anti Bias Education

• Racial Hierarchy & Colorism

• Being Antiracist

• Historical Foundations of Race

• REAL TALK: A Conversation About Race and Racial Identity

• What Is White Privilege, Really?

• All that Glitters is Not Gold: Popularized by Supreme Court majorities from the 1970s to the present, the de facto segregation myth has now been adopted by conventional opinion, liberal and conservative alike.

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