What if you could crack the code and create
SMART Resilient Teams™?
Have you been getting AMAZING results with your hybrid teams?
If you’re like most organizations we've spoken with recently, probably not. Working remotely comes with a huge set of challenges:
- setting up a virtual home office and actually getting work done,
- balancing cooking meals and doing laundry with online schooling, and
- juggling a multitude of other responsibilities
When you pile on learning how to use unfamiliar virtual meeting software, meeting deadlines, and producing results, you realize your teams have an exceptional number of stressors and competing priorities.
It's not "if"' something is going to break -- it's "when."
The struggle is not their fault—or yours. And, it’s real.
One of our key clients launched 2020 with the best quarter in their history. Then, the pandemic hit and brought the company to its knees. The bottom fell out. The president had to lay off many of her employees and pivot to a new way of doing business: virtually.
Her teams were used to working together in the same location, and they couldn't adjust to working remotely. They missed socializing, innovating, and supporting one another. There was fear, confusion, frustration, infighting, and a total loss of productivity.
Hybrid Teams, what we thought was a short-term fix, has turned into a long-term way of working, and there is no instruction manual. Yikes!
This seismic shift is impacting organizations around the globe. In the US, Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford professor of Economics, reports: "we see an incredible 42 percent of the U.S. labor force now working from home full-time...about 33 percent are not working...[due to COVID]." Organizations around the globe are having a similar experience.
The remaining 26 percent comprise mostly essential service workers who are working on site. As a result, like it or not, the US is now a working-from-home economy, and it is a preference for 48 percent of employees. Spending more time with family, working in a casual atmosphere, and giving up a long commute are all appealing attributes.
"Almost twice as many employees are working from home as at work," says Bloom.
But inherent in working from home are built-in challenges that require the essential people skills needed for working together successfully, resolving disputes, innovating, demonstrating resilience and holding teammates accountable.
Here are some questions to ask yourself
Do your teams have the skills to be effective in a hybrid environment?
Most organizations hire their staff based on technical skills developed throughout their career. Technical skills are immediately useful and applicable. However, when you’re talking about changing behavior, especially in the midst of uncertainty, technical skills are insufficient. People skills are essential, and they are the focus of our SMART Resilient Teams™ program.
Are your teams successful with the training you’re providing right now?
Without the benefit of working face-to-face, teams need even higher levels of trust, respect, and accountability. And, with the stress of family life layered on top of working from home, they need a new skillset to enhance empathy, foster cooperation, and build resilience. (A great sense of humor helps too.)
We've been there. We get it.
We've been in the trenches for the long haul. Our team has more than 60 years of collective leadership, management, and organizational development experience. We know how to help you and your teams thrive— especially during these challenging times.
We are the creators of SMART Resilient Teams™ and we have been designing, developing, and delivering training for 25 years. We’ve worked with all sizes of organizations, including NGOs, corporations, and the public sector. And, we've worked across all industries from engineering and financial services to healthcare, construction, manufacturing, and beyond.
For years, we've helped our clients optimize their teams’ performance by delivering live, instructor-led training on site.
Then COVID hit, and everything changed. Our successful in-person training business was at risk. We were faced with the prospect of no work and no revenue.
To make things worse, our largest client, a healthcare center, pivoted to caring for COVID patients and all of the non-clinical staff began to work remotely. Our programs were put on indefinite hold.
Overnight, we had to figure out how to work with clients 100% virtually. We didn’t know how we were going to shift, and we needed to do it quickly.
The magnitude of the change from in-person training to e-learning seemed daunting. New platforms, a revised curriculum, the development of audios and videos...
Just as important, we had to convince our clients to continue their training programs and open up to the possibility of online delivery. Many did not want to go there.
Since we had a highly rated in-class training, we had to shift our own mindset first. We had to perform as well--or better-- with virtual delivery. The pressure was on.
We did it.
The good news: We knew we were resilient. After all, we had survived the Great Recession of 2009, another example of having to pivot during chaos and uncertainty.
It was clear that making some kind of a shift was essential and, quite literally, it was a matter of our survival.
So how did we respond? We spoke to our clients and explored ways we could help their teams pivot as they were struggling with…getting their basic needs met, the stress of working from home, coordinating children’s online school schedules, dealing with relationship challenges, isolation, etc.
Then, we looked at what we had to offer and figured out how we needed to shift our in-person training to meet the needs of our clients.
We knew we needed to walk our talk and create Psychological Safety for ourselves and our staff. To do that, we had to dig deeply into our own Emotional Intelligence. So, we reached into our SMART Conversations® toolkit, and we...
- Connected
- Accepted responsibility for our Trigger Styles
- Practiced Engaged Listening - asked open-ended questions
- Demonstrated Respect & Trust - no judgment, just empathy
- Surfaced Undiscussables - do we need to cut staff?
- Applied the Shared Interest Model™(SIM) - created common ground & shared strategy
- Developed & executed our action plan
We needed a convenient, online solution for our clients who were feeling overwhelmed and in pain.
The AHA! moment struck, and we now help organizations create hybrid teams that hum by teaching them to...
- Listen deeply beyond words
- Give the benefit of the doubt
- Demonstrate empathy
- Root for one another
- Be vulnerable
Our pivot included re-positioning our five principles and four core conditions of SMART Conversations® (SC) the foundation of our work. We’ll explain more about that later.
What emerged from our reinvention is a powerful new program focused on building robust people skills that…
- Empowers and engages your teams
- Paves the way to sustained camaraderie
- Dramatically improves performance
Once our clients realized the effectiveness and convenience of e-learning, they loved the change. They have found it to be convenient, cost-effective, and their employees love it. The key success factor for us has been RESILIENCE. It can be for you too.
We’ve all been thrust into this challenging scenario. The global trend is for teams to operate in a hybrid environment whether that means 2-3 days/week in the office or fully virtual. The good news: you can be successful in making the shift, just like we did.
So, our team got together, and we reimagined our SMART Conversations® programs. We transitioned our in-class programs to an online format with a focus on Hybrid Teams. We knew this information would be invaluable to our clients and their teams.
That's why we get it. We've been there, and we've learned firsthand the organizational and relationship challenges associated with the new-normal. We know the secrets to SMART Resilient Teams™, and we're eager to share them with you.
Hybrid Teams have been thrust upon us. When done right, they can be a beneficial part of your organization's future performance.
Three Essential Components of
SMART Resilient Teams™
Two 90-minute self-paced e-learning modules + powerful Tools, Templates + Tips = one POWERFUL offering.
Kick-off your Hybrid Teams with Personal Leadership.
This module focuses on the “ME." It gives learners the opportunity to increase their self-awareness, discover what sets them off and examine their impact on others. It also exposes them to the “Belief Map,” so they can analyze how/when they make negative conclusions and assumptions, and learn how to stop and make a better choice.
Engage in our Team Effectiveness module.
After learning about themselves, your hybrid teams will move on to the second module which is about the “WE.” They’ll receive valuable tools to help them work together with ease, address the difficult issues, and find shared interest leading to synergy.
Tools, Templates + Tips to put into action ASAP.
Our toolkit helps your employees put their learning into practice immediately. They’ll receive a copy of our Shared Interest Model™ meeting navigation tool, a Belief Map™ Infographic they can use to identify negative assumptions, our validated Trigger Style Questionnaire™, proven connecting exercises + more…
Sustaining team effectiveness during a pandemic requires crystal-clear communication, mutual understanding, empathy, resilience and shared goals. In a highly charged and stressful environment, it’s easy to lapse into blame and judgment, and get off track. Keeping hybrid teams productive takes new skills.
Creating highly successful Hybrid Teams is what you need to do right now if your organization wants to:
- Stay competitive
- Attract new talent
- Retain current employees
- Continue to innovate
- Sustain profitability
INTRODUCING SMART Resilient Teams™
To be successful when working virtually, all of your team members need to be resilient and have essential "people skills" on board. We’re going to introduce you to tools and systems that will launch SMART Resilient Teams™. Our product is uniquely designed to address the relationship issues your teams are struggling with and that have been outlined above.
SMART Resilient Teams™ consists of two-90-minute modules. It is principle-based e-learning built on the thought leadership of Stephen Covey, Brene Brown, David Bohm, Daniel Goleman, Herminia Ibarra, Chris Argyris, Otto Scharmer, Peter Senge, and more. It is practical, applications-rich, and contains the following:
- learning objectives
- summaries
- knowledge checks
- audios and videos
- journaling opportunities
- action plan templates
Your teams will also receive exclusive access to a private Linked In group, so they can get answers to their questions. And, you will have the option to add a ‘live’ "hands-on applications webinar" to the learning experience. When you layer on application-rich webinars, your teams ‘go deeper’ and practice new skills. This sets the stage for team transformation.
And, if that is not enough, we also have a proven, follow-on video-based micro-learning reinforcement option available. This 8-pack of professional videos locks in the skills and gives teams the information they need just enough, just in time, to apply to their everyday interactions.
We'll Show You How to...
Small talk can lead to BIG results. Whether you chat up a colleague or a client about their weekend or simply say hello to the grocery clerk, you are making a human-to-human connection. It is especially important to spend a few minutes before getting into the business of the day when working virtually. We’ll give you plenty of ideas for breaking the ice with others and finding out what you have in common.
Your employees will take our Trigger Style Questionnaire and learn whether they resort to verbally Avoiding or Attacking under pressure. We all have a Trigger Style, and we’ve been wired to act out when we feel threatened. Once they know this valuable information, they will learn ways to do things differently and have the awareness and tools to manage their behavior when emotions run high.
Misunderstandings and hurt feelings often result when people "talk at" rather than "to" one another. When your employees listen at a deep level, they can observe verbal and physical cues that give them additional information. And, when they learn how to reflect feelings and summarize facts to ensure they understand what the Speaker intended, they are raising the bar on their communication skills.
The Belief Map™ is a depiction of the way we sort and process information. When we look for the positive, that’s what we find. When we look for the negative, we make negative assumptions and jump to inaccurate conclusions that can result in disputes and broken relationships. Peeling back the layers and questioning assumptions gives us the power to make better choices that sustain relationships.
When it’s time to share an uncomfortable Undiscussable, we’ve got you covered. In Module #2, your teams will view an on-demand webinar that goes into more detail and then download a fill-in-the-blank script. And, because we want them to be extra prepared to hold the risky conversations, we’ll provide the "Six Tools everyone needs to open up an Undiscussable."
It’s easy to make meetings more complicated than they need to be. When everyone understands and uses the Shared interest Model™ (SIM) decision-making, consensus, shared goals and shared understanding emerge. The result? A practical action plan. The best part: The SIM can be applied to all meetings and can be used over and over again.
After working with more than 25,000 people and organizations of all types, we know EXACTLY how to create action plans that specify tasks and hold everyone accountable. The secret to its success? Simplicity. You'll receive a repeatable process that lets you know whether you need to have more conversations before you move forward.
How it works..
Your teams can access SMART Resilient Teams™ on our e-learning platform, or it can be uploaded to your Learning Management System under a license agreement. Either way, you will have access to this training 24/7 on any device for one year.
Large organizations may want to consider enrolling in our cost-effective Train-the-Trainer approach to delivering application-rich follow-on webinars. This will give you complete control over where, when, and to whom you deploy our SMART Resilient Teams™ webinars. It’s all in your hands and built around your needs.
Our work has given thousands of people the skills to listen at a deep level, understand their Trigger Style, navigate their Belief Map and work their way through the Shared Interest Model™. As a result, they can hold the conversations that matter every day and even address what we call “Undiscussables,” the things people are unwilling to talk about because they are afraid of retribution or ridicule. We can fix that because our work creates "Psychological Safety."
Let’s dive deeper into the details...
MODULE 1:
Personal Leadership
Virtual teammates who get in touch with who they are and how they operate are more effective and productive. In this Action Module, staff will learn what makes them tick and what ticks them off. They’ll learn how to connect with their team easily, identify and manage their Trigger Style, evaluate their assumptions and conclusions, and interpret the Belief Map. That's just the beginning.
They’ll also learn how to apply the Four Core Conditions and Five principles of SC to both their work and home life. This is incredibly valuable, as it allows them to readily put their learning into action. As an added bonus, SMART Resilient Teams™ is a great onboarding tool for new team members.
SMART Resilient Teams™ will discover how to...
- Build and sustain trust and respect
- Create common ground
- Identify their Trigger Style and learn how to manage it
- Short-circuit negative assumptions and give the benefit of the doubt
SMART Resilient Teams™ will receive
- Sample connecting exercises to kick off any meeting
- Trigger Style Questionnaire to identify Avoid and Attack Styles
- Belief Map Infographic™ to identify negative thought patterns
- Powerful PDF fill-in-the-blank worksheets and reference materials
MODULE 2:
Team Effectiveness
Now that your team members have learned about themselves, it’s time to pivot from the "ME" to the "WE" and focus on working as an effective matrix-, project-based, cross-functional or special-initiative virtual team. At the end of this module, virtual teams will be able to balance Asking Questions and Speaking with Engaged Listening, surface Undiscussables and demonstrate empathy to pave the way for synergy.
SMART Resilient Teams™ will discover how to...
- Reflect and Summarize what’s been spoken
- Give the benefit of the doubt
- Ask powerful open-ended questions
- Apply the Shared Interest Model™ to develop common ground
- Achieve Synergy
SMART Resilient Teams™ will receive
- The PALS approach to relationship building
- Six Tools for Surfacing Undiscussables
- The Undiscussables Script Template-- a step-by-step, reusable worksheet that will walk them through identifying and addressing an Undiscussable
- The Shared Interest Model™ Tool
Your Fast-Action Bonuses
BONUS #1: INSTANT ACCESS - FREE ON-DEMAND WEBINAR
Undiscussables: Taming the Elephant in the Room
Teams delve into Undiscussables at a deeper level and learn how to evaluate whether an Undiscussable rises to the level of raising it. Or, they may decide it's worth it to flex their courage muscles and to feel a sense of empowerment. Next, they will learn the Six Tools to Surfacing an Undiscussable. This tool is invaluable for resolving misunderstandings and getting relationships back on track.
BONUS #2: INSTANT DOWNLOAD
Belief Map™ Infographic
Learn how your mind conjures up assumptions and conclusions automatically and see how these "filters" can get you into trouble. Giving the benefit of the doubt, asking questions and getting curious are antidotes. Resilience is the result.
BONUS #3: Access to Private (Invite Only) LinkedIn Group
A safe space for questions and reflection
Gain access to a virtual space that offers the opportunity to share ideas, ask questions and chat about what's on your mind. A certified facilitator will monitor the site for questions and add to the conversation.
SMART Resilient Teams™ focuses on building relationships based on trust, respect, and authenticity. People can be themselves and release their fear of speaking up when "Psychological Safety" exists.
WHAT OUR CLIENTS ARE SAYING…
Ready to Accelerate your Hybrid Teams?
We offer a 7-Day Conditional Guarantee.
We offer a no-questions-asked refund. All we require is that you've COMPLETED the course, knowledge check AND an evaluation. This is our commitment to you. We want there to be NO RISK whatsoever when you decide to enroll in our program. Please see our Terms & Conditions for details.
SMART Resilient Teams™ online learning solution
Your SMART Resilient Teams™ learning experience starts once you click the button above. You will then be taken to a secure checkout. Once your registration is complete, you’ll be sent an email receipt, and your login information will be sent to the email you provide.
Group Sales
For group sales, large-scale discounts and questions please call us at +1-617-413-4291, or email us at:
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is this program right for me and my organization?
2. When will I get access to the material?
3. How much time will I need to set aside for each module?
4. How does the process work? What technology can I use to access the program?
5. What are my payment options?
6. What is your refund policy?
7. What if we want to install this program on our own LMS?
8. What if I want to sign up more than one person?
Are you ready for SMART Resilient Teams™?
We have you covered with our best offer to join us today
Got Questions?
Sometimes when you’re getting ready to make a big decision...
... you just need to talk to someone who can help you figure out if it's the right fit for your organization.
Does this sound like you?
We invite you to schedule a call with us, so that together we can explore exactly where you are in your business right now, where you want to be, and how SMART Resilient Teams™️ e-learning program can help you and your team/s get there.
Schedule Your Discovery Meeting Here