Executive coaching and leadership skills for Calgary business

Change Management & Innovation Courses

Our recommended executive coaching courses for innovation and change management equip your teams with game-changing skills to meet the challenges of the changing business environment.

Critical Thinking: The modern workplace is a jungle of priorities, decisions, and competing information. To be successful, employees need sharp critical thinking tools to deal with the complexity of relationships, work and project decision-making and daily task prioritization. In this Critical Thinking course your team will learn to identify and maximize their personal thinking styles, question assumptions to solve key problems, understand and use a range of perspectives and use systematic methods to make decisions efficiently and effectively.
Creative Thinking: The speed of change is accelerating at an almost exponential rate. It is no longer enough to logically evaluate market problems and business decisions, it is now critical that all team members contribute creative solutions to move an organization forward. The key is to think better, faster, and more creatively. In this course your team will develop their ability to craft innovative solutions through the use of a variety of thinking tools and methods while also learning how to stimulate the creative thinking of others.
Increasing Personal and Organizational Resilience: The brightest team cannot create innovative solutions if it is dealing unsuccessfully with the daily stress from clients, coworkers, and even personal life. This executive coaching course teaches your team contemporary theory, practical skills, and personal awareness to manage on-the-job and personal stress to maximize health, happiness, and most importantly – performance.
Systems Thinking: Every organization navigates an array of complexities. Process, programs, and project plans all require a delicate balance of down-to-the-detail and high-level, big picture thinking. In this executive coaching course your team will master this balance using systems thinking to analyze and deal with complex and challenging issues. They will be able to identify ineffective patterns that are blocking the achievement of results, apply actions that leverage strengths and enable taking action that creates lasting and positive change.
Strategic Thinking: In order to truly innovate, outstanding organizations combine critical, creative, and systems thinking to accomplish strategic vision. In this course, your team will master the skills of strategic thinking using a range of proven thinking tools and practices. Upon completion they will be able to analyze the repeating patterns of effective and ineffective behavior and create system-wide innovation that creates change and breakthrough results.
Success Upfront: Skills for Front-line Leaders: For an organization to be successful, excellent leadership is required at every level, not just the executive level. In Success Skills for Front-line Leaders your employees will learn now to create change as they apply their personal values, commitment and passion for taking responsibility and delivering high quality results. Through collaborating with colleagues and management, taking responsibility for solving customer concerns, and developing and delivering a high quality of technical expertise to the work that they do, they deliver high quality results and company growth. Having the courage to speak out on issues that affect the quality of the work and results sparks innovation and change. In this executive coaching course your team will develop these varied personal and professional skills necessary for effective leadership that delivers high quality results in every position.
Developing Your Unique CultureBrand™ Course: An organization is more than the sum of its parts. It is more than approved process, incentive and reward systems, rules and regulations, and even innovative and inspiring décor. An organization is instead its culture and culture is how an organization interprets, uses, and relates to these building blocks. It is the heart and soul of an organization – its values, beliefs, expectations, rituals, commitment and attitudes of all who live and work in the organization. Culture is the passion, excitement and engagement that fire the innovation, change and high quality results. In this course you will learn how to identify the encompassing culture of your organization or team, maximize your assets and overcome your barriers. You will also recognize how the culture of your organization affects your ability to respond to change and attract and develop strategic leaders.
Change Management for Leaders: Change is happening at an exponential rate in every organization. Some change is incremental and others exponential. Effective leaders prepare for and adapt to change opportunities to ensure their organization benefits. Supervisors and managers play a key role both in determining the success of a change initiative and in helping team members through the transition. In this workshop front-line leaders will analyze their role at each stage of a change initiative. They will examine how people react to change and explore ways to maintain communication as well as rally and support team members during change.
Transformational Leadership: Markets and industries are changing and becoming more nuanced and specific. It is becoming a matter of organizational sustainability to build leadership capacity at every level within your organization. In this course we use the Bowie Leadership System’s Sustainable Leadership Systems framework to help you build the capacity for leadership and change. You will learn how to maximize the leadership of individuals at every level and develop the effectiveness of organizational systems. In this way you can expand the pool of those involved in the leadership process and continue to strengthen your organization at every level enable change and growth.
Team Problem Solving: The reason that we fail to solve these complex problems has little to do with being smart enough to deal with accelerating change. It has more to do with not being smart in a way that works when the degree of complexity is so high. Nothing that we have learned in the past has prepared us to deal with increasing complexity and the change that it creates. Unless we think and act differently especially in teams, we will continue to struggle with problems we cannot seem to solve. In this is working course participants are asked to bring situations that they want explored by a group and leave with a working solution to the opportunity or problem that didn’t seem to have an answer prior to the course.
Making the Most of Change: Change is happening all around us, at home and at work. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming and hopeless. Just getting through it can seem like an impossible challenge. Change can result in success and growth. This seminar will help you do more than just survive. It will help you understand and adapt to change initiated by others and build a plan for developing greater resilience to workplace pressures.

Executive Coaching and Leadership Development Courses

Our elite leadership development courses have helped countless companies train game-changing leadership teams and built a robust program to develop their leaders of tomorrow.

Transformational Leadership: Markets and industries are changing and becoming more nuanced and specific. It is becoming a matter of organizational sustainability to build leadership capacity at every level within your organization. In this course we use the Bowie Leadership System’s Sustainable Leadership Systems framework to help you build the capacity for leadership and change. You will learn how to maximize the leadership of individuals at every level and develop the effectiveness of organizational systems. In this way you can expand the pool of those involved in the leadership process and continue to strengthen your organization at every level enable change and growth.
High Performance Leadership: Exceptional organizations are steered by high performance leaders with an impressive stockpile of performance enhancing tools and practice tools. Being able to maximize employee performance and productivity is an ongoing leadership challenge. In this workshop, you will learn how to set the foundation for excellent performance and maintain it on an ongoing basis. You will learn the basics of effective hiring, training, monitoring, coaching and reviewing. You will also learn how to engage and motivate quality performance and how do deal effectively with problem performance and difficult employees.
The Leadership Transition: From Doer to Leader: Now, more than ever, organizations look to their formal and informal leaders as the key to remaining effective in today’s environment. Whether you have direct reports or not, other people look to you to clarify, organize, and build a framework for the meaning of their work. The extent to which others see you in this way makes you a leader. As a leader, your organization expects that you will help to bring out the best in others while achieving high levels of business results. However, if you were promoted into leadership because of your technical skills or abilities, or if others look to you because you are an expert, you may not be meeting the expectations of leadership. The Leadership Transition™ workshop is specifically designed to help you identify those things you must let go of, as well as those things you must learn to develop, that will help you achieve the expectations organizations and people have of you as a leader. You will experience a re-framing of your thinking as you unleash your ability to exponentially increase your contribution to your organization.
Performance Excellence for Front-line Leaders: Clearly, the impact of good leadership can be felt by all staff and clients of an organization. As a manager or supervisor your role in the leadership of the company is significant. Throughout this course we will discuss concepts and learn and practice skills that will enhance your leadership ability and effectiveness. These include you and your role as a leaders, Communication fundamentals, building relationships and leading your team, building thinking capability and managing performance challenges.
Leadership in Action: The constantly shifting context of today’s business world demands a new approach to leadership. This new style of leading and managing requires a creative and improvisational approach to both relationships and work. In this course participants will experience a leadership approach based on the structures of improvisational theatre. This approach concentrates on building relationships, teamwork and problem solving through a highly structured creative practice. Acceptance, cooperation, supportive behaviour, interactive listening, and the ability to take forward moving and innovative action on a given task are the rules of the game. It is a new and required collaborative approach to the successful navigation of complexity and change.
Hiring Top Talent: A key component of developing a robust leadership pipeline is starting with the right team players. In this course your management team will learn how to apply proven strategies to attract, hire, and retain top quality associates to build the foundation of your organizations leadership capacity.
CultureBrand™ Leadership: An organization is more than the sum of its parts. It is more than approved process, incentive and reward systems, rules and regulations, and even innovative and inspiring décor. An organization is instead its culture and culture is how an organization interprets, uses, and relates to these building blocks. It is the heart and soul of an organization – its values, beliefs, expectations, rituals, commitment and attitudes of all who live and work in the organization. Culture is the passion, excitement and engagement that fire the innovation, change and high quality results. In this course you will learn how to identify the encompassing culture of your organization or team, maximize your assets and overcome your barriers. You will also recognize how the culture of your organization affects your ability to respond to change and attract and develop strategic leaders.
Your Evolution as a Financial Leader: It is not just the application of new accounting standards or higher levels of accuracy and integrity in reporting that has impacted senior financial roles in organizations, it is integrating the role of finance into the lifeblood of the organization for the purpose of ‘survival’. The effective response to the threat that has been caused by an erosion in stakeholder confidence in financial management. The answer to this threat is an ‘’evolution’ towards a more effective financial system and process that not only ensures survival but also provides the foundation for new growth and capability. This course will give you the skills to speed up the evolution in a planned way in your organization.
Integrity and Ethical Decision Making: Integrity comprises perceived consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles. Integrity may be seen as the quality of having a sense of honesty and truthfulness in regard to the motivation for one’s actions. It is at the very heart of effective leadership. In this course you will explore how to make decisions and take action that demonstrates integrity and ethics in leadership action. You will develop awareness of connection between values, decision-making and action, and how to build trust through ethical action with stakeholders, leaders, peers and employees.
Developing High Performance Teams: Many factors can affect the performance of a team. Changes in team members, new leaders, reorganization, and new work requirements — all can create pressure and result in low team productivity, confusion and conflict. In this course you will develop the knowledge and skills required for both leaders and team members to build and maintain high performance teams. These are teams where results are supported by collaborative team decision-making and communication as well as individual accountability and alignment. This will enable you to more fully capitalize on team diversity and talents and drive for results.
Executive Coaching for Performance Fundamentals: In an environment of constantly changing work, the ability to develop employees’ technical job skills is a critical leadership requirement. In Performance Coaching Fundamentals you will learn how to set clear expectations as work changes, assess learning needs of employees and address skills gaps through effective performance coaching sessions and feedback.
Coaching Careers: Attraction and retention are key issues in all organizations in today’s overheated job market. Demonstrating a commitment to providing growth and challenge, especially to young workers is critical to retention. Helping individuals develop their careers not only builds their commitment to the organization, but it also builds the capability of the organization. In this course you will develop your ability to facilitate the long term development and career of someone you supervise or an individual who you have been assigned to coach.

Employee Training & Culture Development Courses

Distilling over 40 years of corporate training experience we are a leading provider of custom employee training. Our most popular courses are:

Dealing with Difficult People: Every manager hopes to hire employees who are able to build productive relationships with both coworkers and customers. But despite best efforts every team inevitably encounters interpersonal conflicts or challenges that slow performance. In this course you will learn how to deal with difficult people whether they are a customer or client imposing an acute challenge, or someone you work with daily. Upon completion you will understand your behavioural style and how it works with others, learn to control emotions and develop constructive strategies that solve rather than escalate problems.
Resolving Conflict: A key skill for any team member is effective conflict management. In this course you will develop increased awareness of the factors that affect conflict resolution. You will become more aware of your own personal style and feelings and how you can more effectively work with others whose style may be different from your own. You will also learn how to prevent and manage conflict and build relationships of trust and influence. You will learn how to apply communication and assertiveness skills in typical conflict situations that you experience on the job.
Increasing Personal Resilience in Stress: The demands on each of us are increasing daily. We need to do more with less and deal with a wide array of increasingly demanding stakeholders. Stress is different things to different people. Has your performance suffered because of work and information overload? Have your relationships, and health suffered because of stress? When and how are you “hooked” into unproductive ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving? “Increasing Personal Resilience” will help you get a handle on your own response to the challenges, identify the weakening patterns that keep from achieving higher levels of personal satisfaction and provide you with techniques to conquer them.
Leading High Results Meeting: Do you suffer from meandering meetings where misguided talk is the norm? Are your meetings gregarious gatherings that get nothing done? Do you sometimes leave a meeting asking yourself what just happened and wondering if anything useful will get done? Meeting management is a key leadership skill and core to in achieving productivity, results and engagement. In this course you will learn how you can improve your handling of meetings so that they run more efficiently and effectively and motivate positive action and results. You will gain practical knowledge on all aspects of holding meetings, both formal and informal. You will also receive useful tips to help you make a positive contribution toward achieving the objective of any meeting you hold or attend.
Powerful Presentations: No matter how great an idea or how innovative a project plan, it won’t stick if it isn’t pitched properly. In this course you will learn how to focus a presentation down to its most basic and stickiest points and to target the delivery to the intended audience for maximum effectiveness and results. You will also build confidence and develop the ability to deliver dynamic presentations that move audiences to change perspectives and take positive action. This course includes how to maximize the effectiveness of audio visual techniques and avoid verbal and non-verbal detractors. This course can also be delivered to teams who are required to deliver team presentations.
Critical Thinking: The modern workplace is a jungle of priorities, decisions, and competing information. To be successful, employees need sharp critical thinking tools to deal with the complexity of relationships, work and project decision-making and daily task prioritization. In this Critical Thinking course your team will learn to identify and maximize their personal thinking styles, question assumptions to solve key problems, understand and use a range of perspectives and use systematic methods to make decisions efficiently and effectively.
Writing Skills for Technical Professionals: Producing clear, readable, understandable and persuasive documents often represents a considerable writing challenge. Writing requirements are diverse and often complex, with a variety of stakeholder audiences. The goal is communication that addresses stakeholder concerns and interests effectively, using a positive tone. This course will help you think through complex issues and hone your planning and writing skills for these very important tasks.
Business Writing for New Canadians: Being able to write effectively can make the difference between career and business success or failure. English is a complex and challenging language even for native English speakers. The many idioms and exceptions to rules of structures in English present a special challenge even for the most accomplished of new Canadians. In this valuable workshop you will review common expressions used in business language, review idiomatic prepositions and common structural and grammar mistakes and play a fun interactive game to practice what you have learned. You will write a business document and receive one-on-one feedback. The skills presented in the course will enable you to write with the confidence that you are communicating clearly.
Writing Politically-Sensitive Documents: Responding to politically sensitive issues represents a considerable writing challenge. Learning to conduct effective research and objectively synthesize the information into a clear and concise document that enables understanding and acceptance of a decision, policy, or strategy is the goal of this course.
Communication Fundamentals: Communication skills are at the core of effective performance and leadership. How and what we say to others can impact their understanding of our expectations, ideas and needs. How we give information to others and how we listen has a profound effect on the quality of our working relationship with others. In this course, you will learn effective methods for giving feedback to others that assertively communicate your point of view, objectives and concerns to others. You will also learn how to listen more effectively. This will provide the foundation for interpersonal effectiveness in complex communication situations where respect, flexibility and openness are required to influence and build rapport with others.
Building Relationships and Networks: Building effective networks and relationships with peers and key stakeholders is important to getting work done. It is particularly important during times of intense change. Your effectiveness depends on your ability to influence stakeholders in a variety of challenging settings and situations. In “Building Relationships and Networks” you will learn how to build an effective network for influence, assess and increase your ability to apply power positively, and adapt your communication to meet the needs of a variety of audiences and stakeholders (internal and external) including suppliers, peers, and senior managers.
Success Skills for Administrative Professionals: As an administrative assistant you are a key contributor to coordination and productivity on your team. You know this but others don’t always get it. In this course you will learn how to work as a business partner with your supervisor and anyone else who relies on your services. The course will help you increase your credibility, productivity and efficiency, and focus on getting through your workload. You will learn how to manage and lead interactions with others, negotiate appropriate work boundaries, prioritize, and deal with difficult people and situations.
Owning Your Own Career: Satisfaction at work is important to happiness and well-being. In the complex world of the workplace it is easy to feel that getting what you want from your job and career is too often a matter of luck. In “Owning Your Own Career” you will learn practical strategies to make the most of your current job in relation to satisfaction, opportunities and career growth. You will develop a personal vision of your performance and contribution in your present job, and of your career. You will develop the skills to plan, take action and assemble resources and support to enable success.
Time Management: Increasing Personal Productivity (1 day): Doing more with less is a requirement in today’s organizations. Meeting this demand can take a toll on your personal health and happiness and actually reduce your productivity. In this course you will learn to increase both your efficiency and effectiveness. This will enable you to decrease your stress as well as increase your personal resilience. The result is an increase in your personal productivity and the achievement of your personal and career goals.
Making the Most of Change: Change is happening all around us, at home and at work. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming and hopeless. Just getting through it can seem like an impossible challenge. Change can result in success and growth. This seminar will help you do more than just survive. It will help you understand and adapt to change initiated by others and build a plan for developing greater resilience to workplace pressures.

Customer Service Courses

Employee training is critical, especially when it affects your ability to reach your customers. Our most popular service courses are:

Leading Service Excellence: As a leader and manager, you set the stage for enabling your staff to exceed the expectations of those who receive your service. In this course you will learn how to develop and measure your service culture and motivate high performance in service delivery. You will also develop a deeper awareness of the need, value and requirement for improved service delivery. You will also identify your individual and area challenges, review service Best Practices and determine how to take action to improve individual employee performance in service delivery. You will leave the workshop with a specific plan with actions you can take to raise the level of your service and develop high levels of customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Raising the Bar: Front Line Service Skills: Quality service demands the ability to build relationships of trust with each customer by providing timely and expert solutions to their present problems and ensuring that future problems are prevented. It means being able to identify and discuss technical needs and concerns in clear and understandable terms providing high quality solutions that address these needs. It may also mean influencing the customer to buy the additional products and services when these are in the customer’s best interests. Customers are often challenging and this workshop will provide you with the skills that will help you be successful in building positive relationships with even challenging customers.
Dealing with Difficult Customers: Delivering exceptional customer service is easy when customers are polite and easily satisfied, it is a lot more difficult when customers or clients are challenging, and difficult to understand or please. In this course you will learn how to deal with difficult customers by understanding their unique perspective, listening actively to their concerns, and by controlling emotions to de-escalate situations.
Internal Consulting Skills: Achieving success as a business partner in your organization requires strong consulting skills and relationship building. In this workshop you will learn effective internal consulting skills that will enable you to establish a strategic partnership with your clients and help your clients achieve their desired outcomes, establish goals, and manage expectations. You will be able to Guide clients through challenging technical and/or change projects, help them overcome obstacles and resistance, and build your credibility to influence decision-making.
Your Service Vision and Standards: Although it is not possible to please everyone, service excellence is not a mystery. It takes leadership, a vision and taking action on fundamental best practices. The good news is that as a team leader, you can make a difference. In this session you will learn how to help your team build an engaging service vision and strategy, develop close and productive customer relationships, and build practices that inspires a team culture of service excellence. This session can be facilitated with your team and result in a team service vision, strategy, standards and practices to accomplish your service goals.
Influencing Challenging Customers and Clients: The key to mutually productive and profitable client relationships is the ability to adjust interaction and delivery style to match the customer needs and expectations. Learn how use a consultative approach and increase your ability to meet divergent internal or external customer strategic solution, sales or service requirements. Develop your ability to adjust your interaction style and presentation content to increase your influence and ability to sell your ideas, products or services. Discover tactics to build a relationship of trust over time with even your most challenging clients and customers.

All Courses

Change Management & Innovation Courses

Executive Coaching and Leadership Development Courses

Employee Training & Culture Development Courses

Customer Service Courses