ATHLETE - Personal Effectiveness

The foundations of being an Athlete are about being professional in how you come across and in everything you do. Key to achieving this is your ability to plan and prepare, your time management and the way you build relationships, which will affect your ability to influence people.

The module covers three key areas: 

  • Effective Time Management
  • Interpersonal and Influencing Skills
  • Planning, Preparation & Prioritisation
The prime focus for professional services has always been the ability for an individual to be technically strong. The challenge is that the way you come across and the quality of what you do is equally important; so blending both skills is a real differentiator. People are hiring people that have the right attitude and fit in well, sometimes over ability, but the two together make for a well-rounded individual. 

This level is aiming to measure whether a candidate could act as an effective member of a team supporting Professional Services. To this end they need to show they understand the foundations of the Professional Services Framework. 
  • Understand the essentials of engagement and how to make a lasting impression
  • Understand how to merit and maintain trust
  • Understand the importance of managing attention for successful productivity
  • Understand the habits of highly effective people

Reference Materials:

How to be a Productivity Ninja by Graham Allcott
How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age by Dale Carnegie Training
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

Audience:

The guidance is written for people working, or aspiring to work, within Professional Services. Roles may include, but are not limited to, pre sales, solutions architects, project managers, consultants, service managers, engineers, sales people and team leaders or managers. 

Agenda:

Interpersonal and Influencing Skills 

Essentials of engagement

  1. Burying boomerangs, being mindful not to criticize, condemn or complain
  2. Getting to know people well enough to affirm what really matters to them
  3. Connecting with core desires in order to find out what people truly want


Lasting impressions

  1. Becoming genuinely interested in other people rather than trying to get people interested in you
  2. Smiling and using people’s names to create rapport and memorable encounters
  3. Listening in order to demonstrate that you understand what matters to others


Merit and maintaining trust

  1. Seeking collaboration rather than personal victories by never saying ‘you’re wrong’
  2. Sharing your journey and surrendering the credit to others
  3. Beginning all interactions with a warm smile and firm handshake, and using creativity to replicate it in electronic and written media

Planning, Preparation & Prioritization

Personal victories

  1. Being proactive by focusing effort on those things you can do something about and enlarging your circle of influence
  2. Beginning with the end in mind, making decisions based on principles defined in a personal mission statement
  3. Putting first things first and saying ‘no’ to unimportant tasks

Public victories

  1. Using courage and consideration to seek mutually beneficial agreements and solutions
  2. Using empathic listening to first understand before seeking to be understood
  3. Recognizing and valuing others’ opinions, viewpoints and perspectives

Choosing your ninja weapons

  1. Reviewing your support systems and ensuring that information is not just stored in your head
  2. Getting your email inbox to zero
  3. Networking to spot opportunities and threats while they’re still in the distance

Effective Time Management

Ninja productivity

  1. Scheduling ‘thinking time’ in your proactive attention period(s)
  2. Leveraging Pareto’s, Parkinson’s and Hofstadter’s laws
  3. Reviewing and renegotiating your commitments and not over-committing
  4. Disconnecting and ‘going dark’ for an hour a day to protect your attention


Attention tension

  1. Applying the 40-20-40 continuum to a meeting
  2. Identifying and optimizing your attention levels and times
  3. Scheduling work based on the level of attention required, saving difficult tasks for proactive attention levels


Positive momentum

  1. Starting each day by doing the worst task on your list of things to do
  2. Giving yourself permission to be imperfect and delivering substance without the frills
  3. Identifying conflicts and having courageous conversations

Athlete Foundation:

  • Eksamen tilbys på slutten av siste kursdag
  • Eksamensspråk: Engelsk
  • 50 simple multiple choice questions
  • 40 minutes duration
  • Closed book
  • 50% pass mark (25 marks out of 50)


Eksamen er ikke inkludert i kurset, og kommer som ekstra kostnad: kr 2900 + mva. / exam is not included in the course price extra cost: NOK 2900 + MVA.

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