Service Excellence & Professional Effectiveness

Time: 13 Hours (Multiple Meetings)

Whenever you’re not getting the results you want, it’s likely an important conversation either hasn’t happened or hasn’t been handled well. In fact, both individual and organizational success are largely determined by how quickly, directly, and effectively we speak up when it matters most. Despite the importance of crucial conversations, we often avoid them because we’re afraid we’ll make matters worse. Mishandled conversations have a huge impact. In fact, they’re at the root of most persistent problems in organizations, teams, and relationships. At the heart of healthy and high-performance organizations are people willing and able to hold crucial conversations.

Backed by 30 years of social science, “crucial conversations” skills represent the standard in effective communication and the marker of high-performance individuals and organizations. This course will teach you how to engage in those difficult or high-stakes crucial conversations.

To learn more, download: Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue

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Time: 16 Hours (Multiple Meetings)

Any manager who's struggled to close a significant performance gap or anyone who has ever walked out of an annual review feeling like they've just been processed rather than prioritized knows there's nothing easy about it.

Performance management is about addressing behavior routinely and consistently. It’s about candidly coaching through challenges and fostering a culture of accountability for lapses in behavior. It’s about identifying goals, fast-tracking careers, and in the process, improving the bottom line.

The good news is these accountability skills are replicable and learnable. We’re all just a few crucial skills away from learning how to manage people and performance daily and directly. Crucial Conversations for Accountability is an engaging classroom course rich with group discussion, real-time practice, and group support and coaching.

To learn more, download:  Crucial Conversations for Accountability

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Time: 2.5 Hours

When facing persistent, resistant challenges, leaders often surrender to poor results or invest in change efforts that waste time and resources. And yet it’s possible to influence behavior with surprisingly predictable success.  

For the past thirty years, we’ve studied leaders with a proven ability to influence rapid, profound and sustainable change. And here’s what we know: human behavior is grounded in six sources of influence. Effective leaders know how to leverage and apply these sources of influence to solve everyday leadership challenges.  

Crucial Influence® teaches leadership skills that are essential to leaders at every level. Drawing on five decades of social science research and work with successful leaders around the world, the Crucial Influence Model reveals why people do what they do and how all leaders—from aspiring leaders to top executives—can influence others for lasting results. Crucial Influence is an engaging classroom course rich with group discussion, real-time practice, and group support and coaching. Delivered in one day, this in-person course offers the best in traditional learning and development. 

To learn more, download:  Crucial Influence

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Time: 1 Hour

In today’s fast-paced professional landscape, staying relevant means staying curious. Driving Your Career Forward is a dynamic, 60-minute workshop designed to empower participants with the mindset and tools needed for continuous growth. Through engaging discussions and hands-on activities, you’ll explore the power of curiosity, identify professional development opportunities, and learn how to overcome common barriers to growth. Whether you're just starting your career or looking to take the next step, this course will help you create a personalized plan to move forward with confidence.

• Explore the Power of Curiosity: Learn how curiosity fuels innovation in healthcare and education.
• Identify Skill Gaps: Understand the evolving demands of the dental profession and how to stay ahead.
• Discover Development Opportunities: Access resources like LinkedIn Learning, mentorship, and specialized training.
• Overcome Barriers: Learn strategies to tackle common challenges like time, cost, and complacency.
• Take Action: Leave with a personalized commitment to one small step toward your growth.

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Time: 8 Hours

Based on the bestseller by David Allen, The Getting Things Done® (GTD®) methodology was developed 30 years ago and teaches skills that improve focus and productivity while reducing stress and burnout. While David originally developed the methodology by observation, experimentation, and practice, researchers have since shown that the principles taught in GTD relieve cognitive load, allow for increased focus, even result in peak performance and optimal experience, or what is popularly called “flow.” In other words, GTD isn’t only about getting things done. The real promise of GTD is efficient engagement. It’s productivity with presence and purpose.

This course is designed to:

• Introduce learners to the “productive state”
• Provide additional skills for enhancing existing productivity system and/or create a personal productivity system from scratch.

To learn more, visit: Getting Things Done

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Time: 8 Hours 

Whether you are aware of them or not, emotions are intertwined in everything you think, do, and say each day on the job, in your career and throughout your life. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is how you handle yourself and others on the job. 

Organizations that embrace EQ development within their workforce experience: 

• Better team collaboration and improved productivity
• Keen resilience and effective leadership
• More engagement and increased work satisfaction
• Improved organizational culture

TalentSmart’s Mastering EQ® Level 1 will take participants far beyond knowing what EQ is and how they score on their first EQ assessment. 

To learn more, download:  Mastering EQ Level 1

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Time: 4 Hours

MBTI The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) assessment is one of the world’s most popular personality tools—because it works. MBTI helps you understand your natural personality preferences, gives you objective insight that you can use to enhance your professional and personal relationships, as well as your direction, focus, and choices. 

The Understanding and Working with Personality Type course is designed to:

• Introduce participants to the Myers-Briggs® framework and personality type
• Help participants develop greater self-awareness and awareness of others
• Equip participants to use personality differences constructively to improve individual and team performance

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Time: 4 Hours

Navigating difficult conversations is an essential skill in any workplace. This course, developed by HRDQ and Organizational Development, provides participants with the tools and techniques needed to handle challenging discussions effectively.

Participants will learn to understand the nature of difficult conversations and the seven stages involved in managing them. The course emphasizes the importance of empathy, preparation, and best practices for initiating and delivering conversations. Through interactive activities and real-life scenarios, learners will practice and refine their skills in a safe and supportive environment.

This course is designed to:

• Understand the nature of difficult conversations and what it takes to handle them.
• Identify the seven stages of handling difficult conversations.
• Use empathy to minimize negative responses and strengthen relationships.
• Apply best practices for preparing, initiating, and delivering the conversation.
• Discover how to generate solutions and bring the conversation to a close.

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Time: 2.5 Hours

This workshop will provide staff with the knowledge and skills necessary to actively participate in the Performance Management process. Participants will explore best practices while using the PCER (Plan, Coach, Evaluate, and Reward) model.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Define clear performance expectations
• Actively participate in coaching and feedback sessions
• Track and document performance effectively
• Utilize self-assessments to support development
• Identify ways to contribute meaningfully to performance evaluations

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Time: 2.5 Hours

This workshop provides an overview of the supervisory role in continuous management of employee performance. Using the PCER model (Plan, Coach, Evaluate, Reward) of performance management, participants learn best practices for setting performance expectations, providing coaching and feedback, documenting performance, conducting performance evaluations, and recognizing and rewarding performance.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Differentiate between performance management and performance appraisal
• Establish SMART performance goals and clarify performance expectations
• Provide ongoing feedback and support to maintain high performance standards
• Use Texas A&M University’s behavioral competencies and rating criteria while avoiding unintentional rating bias
• Identify approaches to recognize and reward performance

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Time: 8 Hours

Habits affect performance more than talent, intelligence, luck, or decision making. Most know this, yet they struggle to take control of their habits to get the outcomes they want.

Based on the bestseller by Charles Duhigg and the latest science in habit formation, The Power of Habit course teaches how habits work and how to develop effective habits using skill instead of willpower. The course teaches a skill set for mastering any habit. You might call this skill set the habit of all habits. The one to rule them all.

To learn more, download: The Power of Habit

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Time: 4 Hours

Today’s workplace is filled with change, stress, and unexpected challenges. Resilience: Building Strength in the Face of Workplace Stress is a highly interactive course developed by HRDQ and Organizational Development that empowers participants with the mindset and tools to bounce back from adversity and maintain a productive, positive outlook.

Through engaging activities, guided self-reflection, and real-world application, participants will learn to strengthen their emotional resilience by building self-esteem, deepening personal and professional connections, navigating change, managing stress, and practicing in-the-moment coping strategies. Participants will leave with an action plan to apply resilience-building habits in their daily lives and workplace.

This course is designed to help participants:

• Bounce back from adversity.
• Build your self-esteem as a foundation of resilience.
• Make and maintain connections to build resilience.
• Accept and embrace change.
• Use flexible thinking to overcome obstacles.
• Implement stress management and relaxation strategies to maintain resilience.

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Time: 2.5 Hours

This course helps Texas A&M University staff navigate and thrive through institutional and team-level changes. Participants will learn to manage change, understand their roles, and use change management models and tools to support themselves and colleagues.

Learning Objectives:

• Differentiate between change and transition
• Understand the change curve and associated emotions
• Use Bridges' transition model and the change curve to identify personal change tendencies
• Prepare and adapt proactively to changes
• Recognize reactions and barriers to successful change
• Understand the ADKAR model for individual change management

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Time: 3.25 Hours

Conflict is a natural part of any workplace—but when left unmanaged, it can erode trust, reduce productivity, and damage team morale. This course, developed by HRDQ and Organizational Development, equips participants with the tools and strategies to recognize, manage, and prevent conflict in a constructive and collaborative way.

Through interactive activities, real-world scenarios, and practical tools, participants will explore the most common sources of workplace conflict, identify their personal conflict-handling style, and learn how to apply best practices for resolution and prevention. The course emphasizes self-awareness, communication, and proactive problem-solving to foster a healthier, more productive work environment.

 This course is designed to help participants:

• Identify their preferred strategy for handling conflict.
• Understand the characteristics and drawbacks of common conflict approaches.
• Recognize typical sources of workplace conflict.
• Apply strategies to resolve conflict based on its source.
• Practice behaviors that minimize tension and promote collaboration.
• Proactively address issues before they escalate.

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