59589 Courses

To achieve optimum performance and long-term success all organisations have to respond and adapt to the external environment. Similarly, all job specifications within an organisation are conditioned by the plans that need to be followed in order to change. This course addresses the ability you require in having the knowledge and understanding of your organisation’s objectives, strategies and plans as well as your knowledge of the external environment in relation to political, social, financial and market competitive forces that affect your organisation.

People at work spend a substantial amount of time in meetings: a typical manager can spend half of their work time in meetings of one sort or another. This course looks at the ability to plan and control your meetings and make effective use of your time. Well-run meetings rely upon proper planning, preparation, selection of participants, adherence to issues and time schedules. Meetings also play an important part in the maintenance of good teamwork, supporting working relationships and focusing the team on superior work performance.

Managers and leaders use power every day, many feel reluctant to use it or even to admit that it is part of their job. However, using power effectively is an important skill and by developing influencing techniques can lead to increased effectiveness in a team. This course describes the sources of power and strategies and assesses your abilities in line with these. Power should contribute to organisational goals, respect human rights and conform to standards of equality and justice.

Much of what you achieve will depend on your ability to persuade other people. In many respects, persuasion is the highest form of communication. This course looks at the ability of persuasion and negotiation in producing successful outcomes and the skill required in moving towards a convergence of opinion and understanding. Like much of leadership, negotiation depends on your attitudes in approach, as well as your ability to devote time to planning.

Much of management is about finding creative solutions to problems and identifying the appropriate course of action. Creativity and originality explores the power of the mind in bringing things into being from original thought or basic concepts. This course sets out to demonstrate how the power of imagination can build on original thoughts to create solutions and plans, which contribute to workplace performance.

An interesting aspect of job knowledge is that the majority of people believe they understand their job until they are asked to explain it. This course sets out to examine your professional, specialist or expert knowledge and understanding that are especially required in your job.

Estimates show that some 70% of your work time is spent in some aspect of communication or another. With so much practice and experience, it would appear that we are all experts, but that is not the case. This course looks at your ability to reach a shared or common understanding with another person and how you apply your verbal and written abilities as well as your capacity to listen and understand.

Objective setting is the foundation of all good management. Without objectives, you will never be able to focus on achievement, nor manage the various aspects of your work and working relationships. This course covers your ability to think through and define the results you and your team wish to achieve in the future, taking you through an eight-step process, which is constantly subject to change and review.

For many people, managing priorities often causes a potential source of conflict. The correct work behaviour is summarised in the phrase ‘what you do second is equally important to what you do first’. This routine can be achieved if time is controlled for the purpose of priority management. This course looks at your ability to focus on the priority of job objectives and the fundamental problem of conflict between priority of importance and priority of time.

This course looks at the step-by-step process of decision making from problem definition to implementation. It highlights the importance of qualitative information in decision judgement and the impact of unstructured decisions. It emphasises that judgement takes a higher priority when the impact of the decision is greater, more complex or the potential risk is higher.