Business Development Training - 2009 Offerings

Business Development is always excited to bring you new and improved training opportunities for your cooperative.  Check back often for current dates and updated training courses!

Your Business Development Training group is always willing to host on-site private sessions fo ryour cooperative.  If you are interested in hosting a training session for your cooperative, contact your Business Development Manager. 

If you have questions regarding any of our offerings or scheduled training sessions please send us an email at BDTraining@landolakes.com!

Performance Management 

August 11, 2009          Decatur, Illinois    Register Here
August 18, 2009          Ames, Iowa     Register Here

This course is an interactive session that helps managers and supervisors manage the behavior and performance of their employees.  Managers and supervisors attending this session will:
  • Know how to work with employees to set performance expectations/goals and get employees to commit to those goals
  • Be better able to manage employees' behavior and the results they produce
  • Improve their ability to deliver formal and informal feedback
  • Learn how to have effective performance discussions and deliver tough messages
  • Be able to conduct more effective performance reviews
  • Apply new skills and techniques learned to their own situation
  • Understand how to effectively recognize and reward employees
  • Know how to drive effective performance in their employees

Staffing and Selection

August 12, 2009          Decatur, Illinois     Register Here

Staffing and Selection is an interactive session that helps managers and supervisors do a better job of interviewing and selecting employees.  Managers and supervisors attending this session will:
  • Learn to identify the skills, competencies and critical job behaviors for open positions
  • Be able to conduct behavior-based interviews to evaluate candidates' match to job requirements and critical competencies/behaviors for the job
  • Be able to design and build an effective interview process to support the hiring decision
  • Know how to conduct consistent, fair and legally compliant interviews
  • Know the steps to take to make legally defensible hiring decisions
  • Effectively engage new employees by getting them on board and productive in the critical first few weeks of employment

Foundations of Leadership

Aug 4 - 5, 2009          Eau Claire, Wisconsin (Registration coming soon!)
Aug 18 - 19, 2009      Kearney, Nebraska (Registration coming soon!)
Sept 15 - 16, 2009     Decatur, Illinois (Registration coming soon!)

Foundations of Leadership is a session that helps managers and supervisors:
  • Understand what is expected of them as leaders
  • Get things done through others rather than doing it themselves
  • Learn how to provide formal and informal feedback
  • Be an effective performance and career coach
  • Select the right people
  • Build and maintain effective teams
  • Understand and adjust their leadership styles
  • Establish trusting relationships
  • Ensure appropriate behavior in the workplace

Work Planning and Delegation

August 19, 2009         Ames, Iowa     Register Here

This session helps managers and supervisors more effectively plan work, manage work and workflow and delegate.  Managers and supervisors attending this session will be better able to:
  • Develop an effective work plan
  • Set individual and team goals as well as plan milestones and checkpoints
  • Provide vision and direction for the work team
  • Build accountability and set high levels of expectations
  • Handle common traps including communication issues, reluctance and resistance
  • Build influence strategies to persuade others to take on their own responsibilities
  • Delegate work

Financial Tools and Concepts

August 6, 2009          Eau Claire, Wisconsin (Registration coming soon!)
August 20, 2009        Kearney, Nebraska (Registration coming soon!)

Managers and supervisors attending this session will:
  • Understand basic finance and accounting principles
  • Interpret financial statements
  • Read a balance sheet
  • Interpret and understand an annual report
  • Interpret key financial indicators/measures used to measure and control the cooperative's performance
  • Understand concepts of "Internal Rate of Return" and "Net Present Value" as tools for decision making
Discovery - The Co-op Way

There are currently no sessions scheduled for this program.

Audience - New Co-op Employees
Highly engaged employees outperform people who just show up to do a job.  To be fully engaged, employees need to understand how their job fits into the big picture and what they must do to help the business succeed.  For co-ops, that means helping employees understand the power of cooperatives - their heritage, their operations and their importance to the local economy.  It also means helping co-op employees learn how working for a co-op is the same and different from working for other companies, how they make a positive difference to the organization and to the co-op customers, and simple ways to build value for co-op members.  Co-op employees need to feel pride in being part of the federated system and in the contribution they make to making their members' businesses strong and to feeding the world. 

Talent Management

There are currently no sessions scheduled for this program.

The goal of Talent Management is to create a high-performance, sustainable organization that meets its business targets.  Attracting, engaging, keeping and developing the right people for the organization in today's competitive market is a considerable challenge.  In this course, managers and leaders will learn to:
  • Understand and articulate the impact effective talent management has on the success of the co-op
  • Connect the impact the brand, mission and vision of the organization has on attractive top talent and selection/staffing decisions
  • Implement or enhance their selection processes
  • Build their own management plan

Leading Change

There are currently no sessions scheduled for this program.

Change is impacting people at a profound level.  There are so many changes in everyone's life and work that getting and keeping employees' attention on the critical initiatives is essential.  Strategic initiatives can be derailed by lack of buy-in and subsequent lack of commitment to those initiatives.  Whether it's a merger/unification or a change in computer systems, "telling people" to just do it isn't enough anymore.  Leaders need strategies and tools to successfully lead their teams through change. 
Participants will learn how to:
  • Identify and focus efforts on key initiatives needed to drive organizational success
  • Know and anticipate how people react to change
  • Build and implement change plans that recognize and leverage the phases of change people typically experience
  • Explore and apply useful tools for planning all aspects of the change initiative
  • Design communications and support to help members of the organization embrace the change and minimize resistance
  • Develop and drive a sustained process to assure the change initiative is fully implemented and the anticipated results and outcomes from the change are achieved

Financial Impact of Business Decisions

There are currently no sessions scheduled for this program.

This course is a highly engaging session that is designed to provide co-op management with practical tools for evaluating business decisions.  Managers from all departments will understand financial performance measures impacted by their business practices and use financial tools to support their decision making and strategic initiatives.  Significant emphasis will be placed on exploration of key operational levers that impact a cooperative's overall performance including profit margins, asset utilization and long term success.  As a result of attending this session, leaders will be better able to:
  • Understand key finance and accounting principles
  • Interpret financial statements including Profit and Loss, Cash Flow, and Balance Sheet
  • Evaluate key operational activities that drive financial performance
  • Learn and apply tools for evaluation of a variety of initiatives and investments
  • Use financial analysis tools such as IRR and NPV for decision making

Coaching for High Performance

There are currently no sessions scheduled for this program.

Coaching for High Performance is an interactive session that helps managers and supervisors be more effective coaches.  Managers and supervisors attending this session will:
  • Know the three things to focus on when coaching employees
  • Learn how to adjust their style of coaching to get the levels of commitment and performance they need and want from their employees
  • Know when to teach, when to consult, when to mentor and when to confront to optimize performance
  • Be able to improve the performance of employees at all levels of performance - high performers, solid contributors and poor performers
  • Know how to identify and focus on manageable next steps to help employees reach an identified end goal
  • Be better able to confront employees, when appropriate, about their performance
  • Improve communication skills that are critical to effective coaching, like listening, questioning, and providing feedback
  • Use a variety of coaching tools and techniques they can take with them and use on the job
  • Identify their own strengths and development needs as a coach and develop a plan to leverage their strengths and improve their skills as a coach

Crucial Conversations

There are currently no sessions scheduled for this program.

This course helps managers and supervisors have crucial conversations and coach others on how to have crucial conversations in tough or difficult situations.  Managers and supervisors attending this session will:
  • Learn to look for signs that a crucial conversation needs to occur or is occurring
  • Be better able to control their own emotions and actions during crucial conversations
  • Learn how to make crucial conversations safe by establishing mutual purpose and showing mutual respect
  • Recognize the "stories" they are telling themselves about a situation and focus more on the facts of the situation
  • Express themselves and share their opinions openly and honestly in a way that is respectful of others' ideas and opinions
  • Know how to help others engage in meaningful dialogue
  • Practice the techniques they learn to master the skills
  • Walk away with practical tools and techniques for having crucial conversations and new found skills and insights into their own ability to have crucial conversations

 

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