Focus: Leadership is everyone's business. As the saying goes, we “lead” our lives. We call on leadership skills, vision, and teamwork to balance our obligations, ambitions, and resources at work and in the wider world. Throughout our lives, as we grow and learn and cope with the challenge of change, we don't do it alone. And as we call on others, we use the essential skills of leadership to pursue our goals. This program focuses on learning the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership™ based on the Leadership Challenge model by Kouzes and Posner. You will have a unique opportunity to obtain and analyze 360 degree feedback from chosen observers based on the five practices as well as create an individual development plan to immediately apply what you learn.

Major Topics:
- Understanding the five practices of exemplary leadership
- Assessing leadership behavior: Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)
- Analyzing and interpreting feedback
- Identifying leadership strengths and opportunities for improvement
- Creating an action plan

Format: This program uses assessment, small group activities, video, lecturettes, interactive discussions, and individual coaching.

Length: One and a half days

Audience: Any staff member or individual contributor who would like to develop and strengthen leadership skills, team leaders

Focus: What do you think of when you hear the word "assertiveness?" Many people think of someone adamantly standing their ground, pushing for their own way, refusing to give an inch. Others think of someone who is generally pleasant but stubborn on certain issues. Most people do not understand what "assertive behavior" really is. This course will help you to develop positive assertiveness - a natural style that is direct, honest, and respectful while interacting with others.

Major Topics:
- Understanding the three basic behavior styles
- Assessing your own style
- Developing assertive language
- Recognizing body language signals
- Sending assertive messages
- Confronting issues/ problems assertively

Format: This course uses a combination of experiential exercises, assessment instruments, and lecturettes.

Length: 1 day

Audience: All managers, supervisors, faculty and staff

Focus: Using a structured model, participants gain a more complete understanding of the requirements for realistic decision-making and planning as they begin to prepare a career plan.

Major Topics:
- Learning the steps involved in the career planning process
- Assessing personal skills, values, interests, and experiences related to the participants' careers
- Practicing ways for utilizing key resources and relevant material in the career planning process
- Examining University policy as it relates to internal career mobility
- Creating a personal career development plan
- Developing strategies to overcome personal obstacles in achieving career goals

Format: This course uses a hands-on approach to understanding career development through the use of discussions, experiential exercises, self-assessment activities, and lecturettes.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, and staff.

Focus: Participants learn how to provide service to internal as well as external customers. Special attention is given to understanding the necessity for a customer-oriented service culture, developing various strategies to support it and exploring methods of service recovery.

Major Topics:
- Discussing how customers assess service quality
- Examining the components of internal and external customer service
- Learning a six-step process for resolving customer problems
- Determining where service improvements can be made within your unit of department
- Reviewing the telephone skills essential to providing professional service

Format: This course uses discussions, case studies, video models, role-playing, and other group activities.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Professionals and support staff who are involved in providing service of any kind to other UMDNJ faculty and staff.

Focus: The challenge of change is before all of us and the message is quite clear: change or be left behind. To survive the demands of a changing world and succeed means we've got to change. Simply changing isn't good enough, however. We've got to change by design, not by default. This course will show us how.

Major Topics:
- Assessing your capacity to change
- Understanding the reasons for change and focusing on the benefits
- Anticipating the impact of change
- Transforming resistance into support
- Building more adaptive personal skills

Format: This course uses video, self-assessment instruments, lecturettes, skill-building activities, and group discussions.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors and staff interested in developing skills for becoming change agents.

Focus: How often do we think, feel, or know something about others in the workplace that we don't share because we are afraid of possibly damaging the relationship? Learning to constructively give and receive reinforcing and developmental feedback will allow all of us to work better together. This program defines feedback, provides a model to give and receive feedback, and allows participants to practice using the model.

Major Topics:
- Why feedback is critical to success at work
- Understanding the elements of effective, as well as ineffective feedback
- Overcoming the obstacles inherent in giving developmental feedback
- How to solicit open and honest feedback regarding our own performance

Format: This course uses lecturettes, interactive practice exercises, role-plays and group discussions.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Managers, supervisors, faculty and staff who seek skills enhancement to support more effective communication on and off the job.

Focus: Do you wonder what causes workplace "disconnects" with team members and staff who are significantly younger or older than yourself? The Twenty-First Century workforce comprises four distinct generations - each with its own values, character traits, shared history, common biases and core beliefs. This course discusses the strengths that each generation brings to the workplace, how to navigate differences that may cause conflict in a multi-generational office and to consider the best communication approaches to ensure understanding and optimal team participation.

Major Topics:
- Identifying the four generations
- Understanding each generation's character traits, work ethics and value systems
- Learning communication approaches and interaction techniques that accommodate generational differences

Format: This course uses a combination of lecturettes, a generational assessment questionnaire, video instruction, small group case discussion, and strategies and approaches that are generation-specific.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Employees in management and non-management positions who seek to enhance intergenerational communication.

Focus: This course presents basic strategies for achieving influence in your daily interactions. As workplace environments become increasingly demanding, the benefits of developing influencing skills become more and more apparent. Enhancing your ability to facilitate other people's decisions can be a key to your own personal success.

Major Topics:
- Understanding how influence works in today's organizational structures
- How to recognize and effectively use various influence styles
- Sources of resistance to your influence and how to overcome them
- Building rapport and respect in your interpersonal communications
- How to formulate a personal influence action plan

Format: This course uses self-assessment tools, lecturettes, interactive exercises and group discussions.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Managers, supervisors, faculty and staff who want to improve their influencing skills.

Focus: Participants gain an understandingof the basics of grants and contract administration/procedures;as they relate to federal,state and university guidelines.

Major Topics:
- What Is The Difference Between A Grant And A Contract.
- Key Buzz Words
- Circulars A21,A110 and A133
- Cost Transfers
- Effort Accounting
- PI/Dept/Grant Office Responsibilities
- Reporting Requirements
- Grant/Contract Closeout Procedures

Format: Power Point presentation,lecture that strongly encourages questions and interaction between audience and proctor.

Length: 3 hours

Audience: Principal Investigators,Department Administrators, Managers, Supervisors, Secretaries or Key Staff who are responsible or involved in Grants and/or Contracts.

Focus: Have you been considering a career in supervision but don't really know if it's right for you? This two-day course will allow individuals who do not currently hold supervisory or management positions to explore the essential skills needed for success in a leadership role.

Major Topics:
- Recognizing the qualities of an effective leader
- Developing your interpersonal communication skills including coaching and giving feedback to others
- Understanding team dynamics and how to lead diverse work teams
- Handling difficult interactions
- Creating a personal mission statement


Format: This course uses a combination of video, lecturettes, self-assessment instruments, group discussions and skill-building practice exercises.

Length: 2 days

Audience: Non-management staff currently acting in lead roles and/or those interested in exploring a possible career in management and want to polish their skills.

Focus: A hands on workshop that covers the full life cycle of a grant/contract from application preparation to award,post award administration and closeout.

Major Topics:
- Application Pepararion/Review/Submission (Science & Budget)
- Award Notification (index # assignment,budget input etc.,)
- Post Award Administration (Fiscal processing/approval)
- Grant Closeout- Have I spent all my money? What do I do with grant personnel? etc...
- Grant/Contract-Final reports
- Forms- Change in Source of Funds,Travel Request,Purchase Requisition,Request for Check
- Review of the Monthly Budget Transaction Statement (Review of its four components)
- E print access
- Controllers Report Library (overview of this extremely valuable tool)

Format: Power Point Presentation and lecture with hands on participation that allows participants to ask questions while obtaining valuable reference tools to hone their skills.

Length: 3 hours

Audience: Principal Investigators,Department Administrators, Managers, Supervisors, Secretaries and Key Staff who are involved in administration of Grants/Contracts.

Focus: Effective listening skills are a vital part of the communication process. Participants will learn how to improve their skills through examining listening barriers and by practicing listening in a variety of communication situations.

Major Topics:
- Understanding the difference between hearing (passive), listening (active) and empathic listening
- Identifying the characteristics of an effective listener
- Assessing your own strengths and weaknesses as a listener
- Practicing a variety of skills and techniques to enhance your listening ability

Format: This course uses assessments lecturettes, group exercises, role play and video.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, faculty and staff.

Focus: Meetings, meetings, meetings!!! What would it be worth to have fewer, more effective meetings that result in action? This seminar explores the factors that make meetings work as well as what makes them fail. Participants will learn the functions of meetings and when, how and why to hold them for maximum productivity.

Major Topics:
- What to do before, during and after a meeting
- How to prepare an agenda
- Eliminating distractions and time wasters that throw meetings off schedule
- Increasing participation from meeting attendees
- Managing attendees with problem personalities
- Evaluating meeting effectiveness

Format: Group discussions, lecturettes, interactive exercises and reproducible forms and checklists are used to aid in the future application of the techniques covered in this class.

Length: 3 hours

Audience: Managers, supervisors, team leaders and anyone who conducts meetings of any kind.

Focus: Difficult conversations are any conversations you experience as stressful. When "difficult conversations" are handled well, they are turned into "productive conversations" which enhance collaboration and productivity. This course helps individuals approach difficult conversations in a way that greatly improves the chances of having a positive outcome.

Major Topics:
- Difficult Conversations at Work: What and Why
- Preparation: Defining the purpose and desired outcome
- Key Conversation Tools:
      • Mental Models
      • Advocacy/Inquiry
      • The "Third" Story
- Application and Discussion

Format: This course utilizes lecturettes, small group exercises, and mini-cases identified by the participants.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Any staff member that wants to improve their willingness to engage in difficult conversations and improve the outcomes of these efforts.

Focus: As an employee, you are responsible for contributing to a high-performance, high-involvement work environment through your individual performance and accomplishments. Achieving great individual performance is a result of a strong partnership between you and your supervisor. This course will help you to understand the performance management process and to utilize strategies for building the performance partnership with your supervisor.

Major Topics:
- Planning my performance
- Monitoring and documenting my performance
- Developing my performance
- Rating my performance

Format: This course uses the following learning methods: lecturettes, group discussion, interactive activities, and individual exercises.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: All staff, especially new employees

Focus: This course Focuses on the process of managing conflict and advances the problem-solving approach to satisfying the interests of both parties. It emphasizes specific techniques and useful phrases for moving the process of negotiating forward so that wise agreements are reached efficiently without damaging the relationship between the parties.

Major Topics:
- Assessing your negotiating style
- Differentiating between positions and interests in a conflict situation
- Generating creative options for mutual gain
- Using independent standards to reconcile conflicting interests while avoiding a contest of wills and the need for one side to back down
- Disentangling people problems from the substance of the negotiation
- Determining when it makes sense to walk away from a negotiation and when it does not
- Organizing the process to move steadily toward closure

Format: This course uses lecturettes, role-plays, self-assessment instruments, and group discussion.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, and staff who negotiate on behalf of UMDNJ.

Focus: People differ from each other in fundamental ways: in their thoughts and feelings, wants and beliefs, and in what they say and do. How well you relate with others at work affects your ability to get things done. All people exhibit one of several different behavioral "styles" which determines how they think, make decisions, communicate, manage time and stress, and deal with conflict. By understanding your own and others' "people styles," you can establish rapport more easily, be more persuasive, and avoid miscommunication.

Major Topics:
- DiSC model of four people styles
- Strengths and weaknesses of each style
- Self-assessment
- How to flex to each style

Format: This course uses self-assessment, PowerPoint, video, small group discussion, and interactive exercises.

Length: One full day

Audience: Staff, supervisors.

Focus: This two-day course has been designed to equip the participant with proven techniques and skills for reducing anxiety and successfully delivering presentations with impact. Whether your typical presentation involves large group speaking, meeting facilitation, or selling ideas and services, the course will provide you with a comprehensive overview of what it takes to make an impact on your Audience.

Major Topics:
Day 1
- Establishing a baseline for improvement through videotape
- Establishing audience rapport through eye contact
- Using body language/gestures effectively
- Working with visual aids
- Handling questions
- Preparing the presentation
Day 2
- Videotaping individual fifteen-minute presentations
- Feedback and individual coaching

Format: This course uses a combination of video, experiential exercises, lecturette, and videotaped feedback.

Length: 2 days

Audience: Managers, supervisors, faculty and professional staff who want to polish their presentation skills.

Preventing Harassment and Discrimination Mandatory on-line training is located at: http://training.newmedialearning.com/pwh/umdnj/.

Printable learning packages for individualized non-management staff training are available at Human Resources website.

Focus: This course is for people who want to apply a Model for Improvement (Plan-Do-Study-Act) to make substantive changes to the work processes they directly oversee. This methodology will assist you in developing, testing, and implementing changes that produce specific, identifiable results.

Major Topics:
- Fundamental Improvement Questions:
        What are we trying to accomplish?
        How will we know a change is an improvement?
        What change can we make that will result in an improvement?
- The PDSA cycle
- Using data to test change ideas
- The challenge of implementing and spreading change

Format: This course uses lecture, models and tools, case studies, and application of learning to individual work challenges.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Administrators, managers, supervisors, faculty and staff

Focus: This course examines the skills necessary to enhance communication and to present a professional image while working with all staff levels.

Major Topics:
- Demonstrate a better command of English grammar
- Pronounce words correctly
- Communicate professionally by emphasizing non-verbal behavior, word choices, and tone.
- Demonstrate professional communication in electronic correspondence (e-mail, voice-mail)
- Dress professionally as outlined in the UH Dress Code Policy

Format: This course provides a combination of lecturettes, exercises, self-assessment instruments, discussions, and group exercises.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Support staff, administrative staff

Focus: Participants will learn the importance of good telephone etiquette including voice quality, courtesy, complaint handling, efficient call transferals and pleasant call termination.

Major Topics:
- Providing first-rate customer service by telephone
- Creating and using a telephone signature
- How to hold, transfer and screen calls
- How to handle caller complaints
- Reviewing customer personalities and how to handle them
- Diffusing angry telephone calls
- Voice-mail etiquette
- Correct message transcription

Format: This course uses a combination of lecturettes, video, self assessment tools and exercises.

Length: 3 hours

Audience: Receptionists, secretaries, administrative coordinators/assistants and any support staff and professional staff who have heavy telephone contact.

Focus: This course is geared to managers and professional staff at all levels who are responsible for managing a project of some kind. Participants discover proven methods for planning, scheduling and controlling projects and learn some of the skills and tools necessary for handling the project from definition to successful close.

Major Topics:
- Defining the project and identifying the critical components needed for the job
- Developing realistic schedules and measurable objectives
- Organizing even the most complex project into manageable "chunks" of activity
- Reviewing several tools used in planning - Risk Assessment formulas, Program Evaluation and Review Techniques (PERT) and Gantt charts
- Establishing a monitoring system to achieve quality results, on-time and within budget
- Working with the human factors in project management including tips on selecting and motivating project team members

Format: This course uses lecture, skill-building activities, group discussions and practice exercises.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Administrators, managers, supervisors, team leaders, faculty and staff who have had little or no formal training in project management.

Focus: The goal of this program is to bring participants to the awareness that relationships merit the investment in time and energy required for disagreements to be resolved in such a way that both parties feel like winners.

Major Topics:
- Understanding what you bring to the conflict situations you face
- Assessing your current conflict resolution skills
- Using specific skills in a variety of case studies and practice interactions

Format: This course uses assessments, lecturettes, group discussion, case studies and video for an interactive approach to learning.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, faculty and staff.

Focus: Participants gain an understanding of the "nuts and bolts" of proposal writing for acquiring grants from private philanthropic institutions. The course will also give a greater understanding of how to develop a case for support, identify funding sources and the UMDNJ Foundation's role in the grant process.

Major Topics:
- Role of UMDNJ Foundation
- Needs Assessment
- Types of Proposals
- Proposal Components
- Identifying Funding Sources

Format: This course uses lecture, practical exercises, case studies, questions and answers.

Length: 3 hours

Audience: Managers, supervisors, administrators, program coordinators and principal investigators who are responsible for program development/writing proposals for funding opportunities.

Focus: Today's economy is driven by organizations that thrive on delivering service excellence. It is also an integral aspect of UMDNJ’s mission and is the essence that gives our organization meaning. This module provides an overview of the foundational concepts of service excellence at UMDNJ.

Major Topics:
- Understand how service excellence is critical to our mission
- Discuss strategies for knowing your customer
- Identify the key service elements
- Explain the four levels of service
- Review customer expectations and the skills necessary for meeting them
- Assess service excellence strengths and opportunities for improvement

Format: This program uses assessment, small group activities, video, lecturettes and interactive discussions.

Length: 3 hours

Audience: Staff or individual contributors who seek to develop and/or enhance service excellence knowledge and skills.

Focus: This course is designed to teach the elements and skills necessary for providing service, especially in challenging situations. The course will review the five-step Quality Service Model with a focus on Step 5, Proactive Problem Solving.

Major Topics:
- Understand customer expectations
- Review techniques for diffusing angry customers to ensure win/win outcomes
- Discuss service recovery strategies
- Explain the Problem Solving Model
- Apply interpersonal skills and problem solving techniques using cases and skill practice

Format: This course uses lectures along with questions and answers with exercises

Length: One 3-hour session

Audience: Managers and staff.

Focus: Participants identify factors that contribute to professional success, learn practical techniques for proactively implementing their career plans, and create personal action plans for achieving professional goals.

Major Topics:
- Discussing the need for adaptability and contingency planning in today's changing workplace
- Identifying and prioritizing factors that contribute to professional success within the organization
- Managing relationships with the boss and co-workers to maximize effectiveness
- Learning self-marketing strategies to increase visibility and create a professional image
- Preparing resumes and practicing effective interviewing techniques for internal positions
- Developing a personal action plan for overcoming obstacles in achieving professional goals

Format: This course uses role-plays, experiential exercises, self-assessment instruments, lecturettes, and group activities.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, and staff who have identified specific career goals and are interested in learning techniques that will help them in achieving these goals.

Focus: Participants learn methods for managing their self-care which include techniques for coping with "stressors" that make work and life more difficult, and strategies for decreasing stress levels while increasing performance and decision-making ability.

Major Topics:
- Assessing current stress levels
- Understanding a six-dimensional model for viewing stress using a holistic approach
- Exploring the types of stress, their causes and effects
- Identifying sources of support for overcoming stress
- Evaluating present coping techniques and assessing their effectiveness
- Identifying specific action plans for stress management and self-renewal

Format: This course uses a hands-on approach to understanding stress using a combination of group discussions, experiential exercises, self-assessment activities, and video.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, faculty and staff.

Focus: This course is designed to teach you the skills and necessary elements you'll need to successfully record the minutes of your meetings.

Major Topics:
- Essential Meeting Elements
- Preparation
- What to record
- Organizational tips
- Distribution of minutes

Format: This course uses lectures along with questions and answers.

Length: One 2-hour session

Audience: Anyone who will be responsible for the recording of meeting minutes.

Focus: Participants learn about the necessary fundamentals and behaviors that are required for them and their teams to become more productive.

Major Topics:
- Identifying and utilizing communication skills that can help a team to move forward
- Exploring techniques to facilitate a team through a task
- Examining ways to prevent and to resolve team disagreements and conflicts
- Learning the strategies needed for building team consensus
- Experiencing observation methods for assessing team processes

Format: This course uses simulations and practical exercises to supplement instructor mini-lectures and group discussion.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, faculty and staff who work in a team environment.

Focus: Participants learn to analyze their current use of time and develop skills to use their time more efficiently and effectively.

Major Topics:
- Assessing your current effectiveness in managing time
- Identifying personal time-wasters
- Establishing priorities and setting goals
- Handling interruptions
- Discussing procrastination and other barriers to meeting deadlines
- Managing computer files, software and e-mail for greater productivity
- Applying time management principal using an in-basket exercise
- Developing a personal time management strategy for implementation in the workplace

Format: This course uses lecture, group discussions, exercises, case studies, and video.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, faculty and staff who need focus on time management.

Focus: If your job requires you to train on a occasional basis, this course will help you to develop and conduct dynamic sessions for your target audience. Successfully communicating your training message means getting the basics: how to analyze training requirements; select the appropriate delivery methods and employ the most effective techniques. All these things, and more will be covered in this class.

Major Topics:
- Getting started with a training plan
- Creating the best learning environment by setting the proper climate
- Understanding and using adult learning principals in your training sessions
- Reviewing techniques that promote active participation
- Creating effective visual aids
- Discussing strategies for handling problem situations

Format: This course uses lecturettes, practical interactive exercises, small group activities, role-plays and group discussions.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors and staff who are required to train on-the-job or want to enhance their training skills.

Customized sessions are available by departmental request.

Focus: Just what is emotional intelligence anyway? Often called EQ (Emotional-Intelligence Quotient), emotional intelligence refers to the array of personal-management and social skills that allow one to succeed in the workplace and life in general. EQ encompasses intuition, character, integrity, and motivation. It also includes good communication and relationship skills -- the focus of this course.

Major Topics:
- Defining emotional intelligence
- Assessing your emotional intelligence
- Understanding the fundamentals of EQ
- Putting EQ to work

Format: This course uses a combination of assessment tools, video, experiential activities, and lecturettes.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Managers, supervisors, faculty and staff.

- This course serves as a foundation for all other courses offered as part of the Interpersonal Communications Curriculum. While not mandatory, we would recommend that participants attend this class first.

Focus: Workplace bullying and violence has a profound impact on the organization and the individuals who are targets. Educating staff to recognize and act is important. This session provides insight and guidelines for identifying, combating and dispelling workplace bullying and violence.

Major Topics:
- Defining and identifying workplace bullying and violence
- Understanding the bully; identifying indicators of a possibly volatile environment
- Adopting a model for addressing bullying
- Steps to take if you feel unsafe at work

Format: This program uses assessment, lecturettes, cases studies and small group activities.

Length: 3 hours

Audience: All staff.

Focus: Research has shown that hospitals and care facilities that are culturally and linguistically sensitive to the needs of diverse populations experience optimum outcomes and patient collaboration compared with organizations that are not. This module focuses on communication - the most powerful tool caregivers possess. Often, there exist mismatches between clinicians’ level of communication and patients’ level of comprehension.

Major Topics:
- The impact of culture upon language
- Language proficiency and linguistic competency
- Cultural communication style differences

Format: The program is a lecturette that includes a power point presentation, a small group activity, and problem-solving case scenarios.

Length: 2 hours

Audience: All staff – managerial, non-managerial, clinical and non-clinical.

Focus: This module addresses workplace diversity and offers strategies for developing culturally appropriate interactive skills for staff and care providers in health care settings. Discussion will consider cultural and/or workplace etiquette faux pas that cause conflict and misunderstanding among staff and/or between staff and patients.

Major Topics:
- Identifying and understanding cultural “hot buttons” and mistakes
- Developing and practicing possible recovery strategies

Format: The program is a lecturette that includes a participant hand-out and a power point presentation that requires participant interaction.

Length: 2 hours

Audience: All staff – managerial, non-managerial, clinical and non-clinical.

Focus: This module focuses on raising awareness to today’s intergenerational workplace, and explores general values and ethics associated with each generation. It also offers strategies and solutions for addressing intergenerational challenges.

Major Topics:
- Identifying four generations
- Exploring generational workplace values and societal benchmarks that helped shape generational values
- Identifying strategies for fostering respect, understanding and cooperation among all generational groups

Format: The program is a lecturette that includes a power point presentation, a small group activity, and problem-solving case scenarios.

Length: 2 hours

Audience: staff – managerial, non-managerial, clinical and non-clinical.