Increasing Personal Effectiveness® (IPE) is a skills-based program that enhances attendees awareness of their critical strengths and of areas that need further development. It provides practical tools to use in day-to-day interactions that create and sustain personal effectiveness. Maximum learning takes place when attendees identify improvement opportunities, pick up new ideas, and develop new skills for becoming more effective, leading to:

• Added Value
• Goals Achieved
• Improved Communications
• Increased Self-Responsibility & Accountability
• Development of Management & Leadership Skills

Overall Course Objectives

Understand yourself and the day-to-day choices you make that impact your accomplishments and interactions with others. Acquire skills for improving confidence, team building, and communication. Achieve goals that will result in growth, change, and increased effectiveness. Both management development and leadership development require the basic skill sets taught in Increasing Personal Effectiveness® for success.

IPE Course Profile

IPE Builds Accountability

IPE Objectives & Outcomes

Success and Self-Responsibility

The intent of IPE is not to tell participants how to act, but to help them understand how they make choices about their attitudes and actions. The intent is to help them develop an awareness of how their own choices determine the results they get as opposed to feeling a “victim” of circumstances beyond their control. They will understand (1) where they are now, (2) how change and growth occur successfully, and (3) how they can now use new behaviors or change their attitudes in order to get the results they want and be more effective and satisfied in their work and in team building.

IPE teaches participants that they can have control over many aspects of their job and their environment by making appropriate choices and responses. They learn steps they can take to either initiate changes they want or change their attitude about those they dislike and/or cannot control. In this way IPE provides coping skills for employees, managers, and leaders in organizations that have experienced or will be experiencing downsizing, mergers, or other high-impact changes that organizations go through to become more profitable and competitive. It gives them confidence and skills to be responsible contributors in the work environment and to deal more effectively with internal and external customers. These are very important attributes for team building exercises as well as, management and leadership development.

Course Rationale

Observable behaviors depend on internal attitudes and perceptions. Before people can effectively manage their interactions with others, they must practice internal self-management. IPE teaches not just rote behaviors, but how our thought processes work and how we can consciously use those processes to produce behaviors that will get the results we want or need. The course content is presented in a sequence to promote personal change and development. It begins with awareness of self (values and self-image) and moves toward awareness of others (behavioral styles) and skills and attitudes required to interact effectively with others. The teaching-learning process incorporated into the course is the same as the Six Step Change Process which participants learn in the New Choices for Growth & Change session:

1. Awareness

• For each skill to be learned, information is presented in various ways to create awareness for each participant as to their present use or non-use of the skill.

2. Desire

• Participants are led to see what benefit they might achieve through the use of or improvement in the skill.

3. Knowledge (how-to)

• Information examples, steps, or models supply the knowledge participants need to be able to learn and demonstrate the skill.

4. Practice

• Activities are provided to allow participants to apply their knowledge about the skill.

5. Success

• Feedback from self, co-participants, and the facilitator provide encouragement and confidence for the participant to continue to work on the skill.

6. Behavior Integration

• Participants understand the process and know that they make a choice as to whether or not to proceed to the next step in the learning process. They recognize that the responsibility for change is theirs.

The instructional design is based on beliefs that:

1. People learn by experience
2. People must be able to feel successful in the learning environment or they will not likely try a new skill in the real world.
3. People change only when they see a greater reward for changing than they do for staying the same. (Participants, not the organization, must be sold on the new behavior.)

Course Process

1. Positioning to support organizational business strategy.

Increasing Personal Effectiveness® supports organizational goals. It is easily tailored to support business strategies such as:

• Reducing absenteeism or turnover
• Customer responsiveness
• Improved productivity
• Improved workplace communications
• Team building
• Organizational change
• Continuous improvement
• Improved team performance
• Work-life balance
• and a myriad of other initiatives important to management development and leadership development

2. Gaining management support

Any program’s effectiveness increases when the program has management support. To gain support, IPE materials provide an overview or tailored mini-sessions for managers. Managers of participants read the Reinforcement Guide for Managers which shows them:

• How they will benefit by their employees’ participation in IPE
• How to prepare the employee for participation
• What to expect later
• How to maintain improvements on the job

3. Pre-Course Behavioral Assessment

If concrete behavior change is to be documented, managers evaluate pre-seminar work behaviors by completing the one-page pre-course behavioral assessment on each employee attending IPE.

4. Course attendance.

Employees attend IPE.

5. Post-Course Employee/Manager Discussion

Employees initiate a preplanned discussion about their job performance using the Post-Course Discussion Guide.

6. Post-Course Behavioral Assessment

Managers evaluate work behaviors using the post-course behavioral assessment (approximately ten weeks following participation in IPE). Comparison of the pre- and post-assessments document attitudinal and behavioral changes in Increasing Personal Effectiveness® participants on the job. This can also be used as the foundation and template for measuring ROI.

Course Outline

1. New Choices for Growth and Change

• Understand the process of growth and change
• Understand your core values and how they drive your behaviors and choices
• Build your self-image through self-awareness of your strengths and by identifying areas needing improvement
• Create a strong understanding of how your choices impact your behaviors and imageIncrease self-confidence through becoming more accountable for your thoughts, actions and words

2. Understanding Behavioral Styles with DiSC Classic

• Determine your preferred behavioral style at work
• Assess your individual strengths
• Identify the preferred behavioral work style of others
• Apply techniques for communicating more effectively
• Acknowledge the value of individual differences on a team

3. Powerful Communication Tools

• Understand how the different behavioral styles manage conflict in communication
• Learn the differences in the three types of communication: assertive, aggressive, and non-assertive
• Realize the importance of non-verbal communication
• Identify clarity in your communication
• Use the tool of I-statements to reduce conflict and defensive communication
• Discover an alternative to critical feedback through the Three Step Request for Change

4. Effective Listening Skills

• Identify ineffective listening behaviors through self-awareness
• Learn the three effective listening responses
• Use active listening responses to solve problems
• Use non-defensive listening techniques to handle criticism

5. Managing Yourself for Success

• Identify self-defeating feelings that get in the way of personal growth and success
• Establish goal setting for personal improvement
• Establish goal setting for professional improvement
• Create awareness about life-enhancing changes that you’d like to make

Summary

Our clients report that employees, management and emerging leaders view IPE skills as tools, which they can use to get their jobs done faster and better and to achieve greater job satisfaction. Assessment results indicate that participants request and handle more responsibility and improve communication with managers and coworkers.

Participants and their managers agree that as a result of IPE they are better able to plan how to be more effective in their present jobs and more realistic about future undertakings. Increasing Personal Effectiveness® provides the attitude and skills for improved performance, customer responsiveness, and professional behaviors.

Call 800.282.3374 or email: info@edsiusa.com about licensing and pricing.