Business Essentials Courses
L e a d e r s f r o m Al b e r t a f o r t h e W o r l d
Our Business Essentials Courses provide short, practical and applicable sessions designed to develop and strengthen the knowledge and skills of today’s business professionals, who are faced with a fast-paced, competitive and ever changing business environment. With a variety of topics to choose from, these one, two or three day courses are perfect for those individuals who are looking to continue their professional development and have limited time available.
Building a Client-Centred Organization – 1 Day
• The relationship development process and stages of client/firm maturity.
The core strategies and the business model of professional service organizations are fundamentally linked to the culture of a client centered organization. This course will examine strategies for building an effective relationshipbased organizational model through a focus on understanding the elements of strategy unique to the professional service environment. Leveraging the concepts of communications, leadership, and team development, participants will develop tools for business strategies and effective client relationship management.
• Building the client relationship.
Topics covered in this course include: • An introduction to the professional service strategy environment. • The value of client relationships: client service and organizational culture as strategy.
• Managing expectations. • Conflict mitigation and management. • Relationship maintenance. Building & Motivating Teams – 1 Day The course will examine the definition of a team, and how teams from other workplace groups interact. Participants will complete a team behavioural analysis, to be used for discussion throughout the module. Topics covered in this course include: • The challenges and lessons in leading leaders. • Applying strategic communication skills. • How to implement accountability agreements with leaders.
Customize a Program for Your Organization Any of the sessions in our Business Essentials Courses can be designed and developed collaboratively to create a customized program to meet your organizational and management requirements. Whether offered at our campus or your worksite, a custom program delivers a tailored alternative to our existing offerings. To discuss your organizational requirements, or how our sessions can be adapted to meet your needs, please contact us at 780-492-5832 or via email at executiveeducation@ualberta.ca.
Business Contract Management – 1 Day Project contracts are put in place as a road map to guide the parties through transactions that take time to fully execute. They are complete private codes of rules, expectations, standards, deliverables and deadlines that usually set out what happens when things go wrong. This course uses current, real life cases to provide you with an overview of the law and management of standard-form contracts, the bidding process, and strategies to maintain good client relationships in the context of contractual obligations.
“What I have appreciated about these programs is the intellectual quality of the instruction. Instructors are actively working and researching in the areas they teach and what I received was clearly “Leading edge” management training.”
- Sarah Jane King D’Souza, Family Law Office
Topics covered in this course include: • What contracts mean for your business. • Highlights of various contracts you can expect to see in your practice. • Standard terms and liabilities in contracts. • Managing risk to avoid involving legal counsel on a project. • Alternative dispute resolution. Corporate Social Responsibility – 3 Days Today’s realities dictate organizations do business in an environment where traditional sector lines are blurring and where businesses are being challenged to assume responsibilities that extend beyond meeting shareholders’ financial expectations. The application of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) topics within the business community reaches across industries, but is especially relevant to Alberta’s energy-driven economy. That being said, there are still many challenges in making social responsibility a reality in the Alberta economy. Those in a CSR role, a community investment role or a role that is integrated with the social responsibility function understand how difficult creating change and integrating CSR into the strategy can be. This session is designed to give these individuals some new insights in the direction they are taking their portfolios, as well as, how to re-energize their efforts in creating change. You will: • Be given an opportunity to push your thinking on corporate social responsibility and CSR strategy.
• Be exposed to stimulating discussions and networking opportunities with other professionals working in this area. • Gain a deeper understanding and gain strategies to articulate the business case behind incorporating CSR into your organization. • Re-energize your change effort. Emotional Intelligence – 1 Day Emotional Intelligence (EQ or EI) is increasingly becoming the differentiator in those leaders who excel. In fact, current research supports that leaders can derail their careers if they do not develop skills in EQ critical areas such as: relationship building and self-management during stressful or changing times. You will: • Develop a practical understanding of what Emotional Intelligence is and its value to your life and leadership development. • Learn key leadership derailers and assess your own development path. • Complete the EQi V2 online report to examine your emotional and social functioning in the key areas of: self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal skills, decision making and stress management. • Utilize your assessment to celebrate personal strengths and identify opportunities for change. • Develop a personal EQ-in-Action plan resulting in demonstrable and measureable change using numerous resources you will receive during the day.
• Rethink the governance structure. • Examine your external engagement strategies and gain tools on how to elevate engagement.
Apply online at www.executiveeducation.ca or call 1-866-492-7676
Leadership
Innovation Strategy Engagement Excellence
Financial Management – 3 Days Understanding the language of finance is a key skill in effective decision making. To really know your business, you need to understand financial data – how to read it, what it means, and how to use it. The material covered in this 3-day session reflects the expertise of the Alberta School of Business in the area of finance, and will provide you with a practical opportunity to delve into the essentials of finance and budgeting in a clear business context.
Results objectives and link them to the expectations of customers, and to key internal processes and resources. We will use a series of examples drawn from the experiences of participants to build real strategies and effective measures to ensure that organizational outcomes are being achieved. You will: • Define strategy and its importance to successful organizations.
You will:
• Examine the core concepts of strategic management.
• Communicate more effectively with the accounting and finance personnel within your organization.
• Build and operationalize the strategic plan.
• Learn how to evaluate alternatives and make decisions that add to your company’s success. • Learn to apply financial management techniques for improved decision making. • Be able to read and understand financial reports and statements. • Understand how managerial decisions affect the entire organization’s finances. • Partake in pre-session webinars designed to ensure familiarity with concepts and topics. Fundamentals of Strategy – 2 Days Strategic thinking is not just about improving organizational performance; it is the foundation of transformational leadership. Where are you now? Where do you want to be? How will you get there? How will you know you are making progress? How will you allocate your resources? These are the basic questions underlying strategic thinking, and the essence of effective strategic management. In this session, we will discuss a number of planning tools that will help identify business
• Gain six tools for developing and implementing strategy. Influence without Authority – 1 Day The intent of this course is to provide you with the background, understanding, and skills to exercise effective leadership regardless of the position that you currently occupy within your organization. The session will include theory presentations, as well as group discussions, role plays, and experiential exercises that will assist you in testing and acquiring both knowledge and skills. You will: • Develop greater confidence in your leadership and influencing abilities. • Gain an understanding of the exercise of strategic influence in the absence of positional power. • Develop specific influencing and communication skills to facilitate the development, dissemination, and adoption of your initiatives and ideas. • Learn how to positively influence the organization with your leadership.
Innovation & Design Thinking – 2 Days Leaders today are being pushed to do more with less. They are looking to constantly innovate the way in which they do business to create a competitive advantage. In this session you will be exposed to design thinking from IDEO, the organization which created it, in order to learn how to become more innovative and how to create innovative teams. In the two days you will work on a project and work through the design thinking process, leading to innovative solutions. You will: • Develop a good understanding of innovation, how to think innovatively and how to create innovative organizations. • Develop an understanding of innovation and design thinking. • Learn how to apply design thinking to innovation processes. • Learn how to use innovation to achieve strategic vision. Interpersonal Communication – 1 day This course aims to provide leaders and managers with an overview of the communications-related strategies, skills, and knowledge required in the workplace.
dealing effectively with people. • Practical skills for engaging and involving people. • Strategies for focusing people and setting limits. • Skills for managing and resolving conflict. • An awareness of action planning and how to apply appropriate skills and knowledge. Organizational Transformation – 1 day This course will provide you with a clearer understanding of the dynamics of change, why most change-related efforts fail, and the frameworks and tools that will allow you to initiate and manage change successfully. The module will build on real cases from participants’ own organizations. You will leave the session with a tangible change plan for your own change project. Topics covered in this course include: • An examination of the forces driving and restraining change. • The most common errors in any change initiative. • Why change is difficult. • How to make your plan comprehensive. • The key ingredients to make your change plan successful. • How to communicate your change plans to your organization.
Topics covered in this course include:
Process Mapping – 2 Days
• Understanding patterns of interpersonal communication.
Learn to visualize, document and improve a business process. Get your team focused on producing the “right” results in less time and at a lower cost.
• The role of emotional intelligence and interpersonal effectiveness. • An overview of fundamental principles for
This workshop is a hands on event where participants will be mapping and improving actual business processes.
You will: • Visualize three views of your process: what you think you are doing, what you are actually doing, and what you would rather be doing. • Learn to make process maps. • Learn to make value stream maps.
risk manager. In this course, both operational and strategic risk management will be explored through analyzing the current theories, exploring case studies, and discussing the issues you and the other participants are facing today. You will:
• Identify, document and eliminate eight types of waste in your process.
• Develop an understanding of the basics of risk management and the different classes of risk.
• Identify the best tools and software for your group to use to map processes.
• Build a framework for risk management.
Project Leadership – 2 Days
• Learn some common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
This course will explore how to stimulate projectpositive behavior by engaging everyone in project success. You will plan a real project of your choosing using the tools that are being discussed. You will be introduced to the concepts of effective engagement through the five phases of a project: • Decide: (Conceptual) - consider the need. • Discover: (Aligned) - who has a stake? • Design: (Committed) - develop a strategy and plan. • Deliver: (Contractual) - monitor the plan. • Document: (Administrative) - record. Risk Management In an era where the public is holding corporations more accountable and social media spreads good and bad news in an instant, it is important for every manger to have an understanding of risk management. Risk management is not just about loss prevention and the protection of the brand, it also includes value creation and the pursuit of opportunities. At the end of the day managing risk is about making better informed decisions, thus making everyone within the organization a
• Understand how to use risk management to gain competitive advantage.
• Discuss a variety of risk treatment methods. Succession Planning Succession planning is integral in aligning corporate business strategies and human resource strategies. It can help address the talent gap within organizations and build a plan for successful transitions and strong leadership. This course will focus on developing an understanding of key issues that affect succession management. You will learn best practices and discuss strategies that will positively impact succession planning. Key learning objectives include: • Developing a framework of succession planning applicable at all levels of the organization. • Identifying and developing high potential employees and discovering the best ways to retain them. • Developing strategies to implement programs that support succession planning. • Linking succession planning to overall business strategy.
Leadership
Innovation Strategy Engagement Excellence
Our Instructors We apply a rigorous selection process in recruiting instructors, resulting in an instructor pool which includes the Dean of Alberta School of Business, former deans, department chairs, and industry experts. Our instructors include tenured faculty from the Alberta School of Business, and other Universities across Canada and the United States, as well as consultants external to the University. The balance between our internal resources and external perspectives aids in ensuring course content and quality of instruction consistently scores above 4.5 on a five-point scale. Program Details Time: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Location: Edmonton – University of Alberta, Enterprise Square Calgary – University of Alberta, Calgary Centre Session Fee: $725 CAD (plus GST) per day* Subject to change depending on course
*
Results Logistics: An electronic confirmation will be sent to you in advance of the program start date. Pre-course material will be sent via e-mail (where applicable) prior to each session. Registration and Payment To register for the program, please visit www.executiveeducation.ca and click on Register Now!. Payment is due prior to the commencement of the program. Acceptable methods of payment include: credit card (MasterCard, American Express or Visa), purchase order/invoice to the organization, or cheque made payable to the University of Alberta. If you choose invoice as your payment option, please be advised that we require a purchase order or letter of authorization from your organization to accompany actual payment. REGISTRATION OPTIONS Online: www.executiveeducation.ca By phone: (780) 492-5832 By fax: (780) 492-1432
Cancellation policy Notification of cancellation from the program must be received via email 21 calendar days prior to commencement. More than 21 calendar days prior to course start
Between 21 and five calendar days prior to course start
Cancellation: You receive a full refund of the course fee.
Cancellation: You incur a $150.00 cancellation fee.
For More Information: Please contact Executive Education at 780-492-5832, executiveeducation@ualberta.ca or toll free at 1-866-492-7676
ALBERTA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS Executive Education Executive Education is one of the four pillars of the Alberta School of Business. As the School’s professional development provider, we serve clients across all industries and in the public sector. With over 30 programs offered and serving over 5000 participants per year, we continue to work toward becoming the premier executive education source in Canada. As Alberta’s premier broker of intellectual capital, we focus on providing education solutions that enable today’s business leaders in government, publicly traded companies, and privately held organizations to lead change and increase organizational performance. EDMONTON 2-006 Enterprise Square 10230 Jasper Avenue Edmonton, AB T5J 4P6 Phone: (780) 492-5832 Toll free: 1-866-492-7676 Fax: (780) 492-1432 Email: executiveeducation@ualberta.ca
www.executiveeducation.ca While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained within this material, program dates, content, and instructors are subject to change. Please note, a T2202A form or official tax receipt will not be issued for programs and/or modules. Please refer to the Canada Revenue Agency website for further information www.cra-arc.gc.ca.
Mar 2013