Best Dunn Enterprises, Inc.

Local Government agencies are always looking for ways to enhance the skills of their leaders and supervisory teams. Leadership Development expands the capacity of individuals to perform key strategic roles within and across departments. Our programs help middle and top level staff improve key skills that enhance productivity, reduce silo behavior and improve customer service.

Each course is delivered from the vantage point of the SME with an underlying focus on the who they will be presenting to, or collaborating with.

Courses

Leadership and Personality

This module focuses on the leader and his/her personality. Participants look at their unique personality type using the The Birkman Method and discuss the communication patterns of theirs and other personality types. We use The Birkman to help leaders develop and strengthen their EQ, which is a strong predictor of success in professional environments. Additionally, as leaders engage different types of employees Coaching for Performance techniques are delivered and skills developed during these sessions.

Time Management & Achieving Goals

This module gets leaders to focus on the big picture with Visioning and providing Strategic focus. Teams follow leaders who can clearly articulate where they are going, the challenges ahead and the rewards from achieving their goals. To this end Presentation Skills will be developed and techniques to deliver inspiring messages clearly and succinctly are focus ideas of these sessions. Included are nuts and bolts sessions on Time Management and Goals achievement. This rounds out the experience with productivity skills for leaders to apply.

Leading Diverse Teams

This module focuses on the skills needed to work with diverse teams. Participants learn skills to Create Highly Effective Teams, techniques to hold Effective Meetings and techniques for Effective Conflict Management. Additionally, during these sessions there is a strong focus Professional Interactions Across Generations where leaders lean about the 4 generations currently in the workplace and ways to effectively lead them.

Training IT talent is different than training your general employee. The complex language and themes used require a “translation factor” in order to achieve broader understanding. Technical professionals must not only understand their proposed solutions but also be able to explain them to audiences with varying degrees of scientific background. Our training programs help these scientists effectively speak to the masses. Each course is delivered from the vantage point of the SME with an underlying focus on the who they will be presenting to, or collaborating with.

Courses

Soft Skills for Technologists

The role of the “technologist” involves more than scientific expertise. The soft skills workshop is designed to ensure that your technical talent is aware of the challenges and the many demands that are placed upon them from an organizational perspective. Attention is given to the subject of leadership, project management, communication, and navigating the political waters that architects find themselves in. The main topics covered are the role of the technologist in the greater organization, the importance of technician as consultant, defining and guiding business strategy, and technical leadership.
Audience: Technicians, Specialists, Subject Matter Experts, Managers, Supervisors, Team Leads

Leading in a Technical Environment

Today’s leaders are a mixture of cheerleader, coach, hero, analyst and friend. The mind of a technician is not the same as that of the typical employee. Their motivators are different. What drives them is different. And the complexity of their deliverables is different. In this course, leaders will be guided through numerous methods and strategies to effectively direct their teams by employing Facilitative Leadership skills. They will learn how to enlist people to their vision of success, to get their ideas accepted and to keep technicians work aligned with the overall corporate vision.
Audience: Managers, Supervisors, Team Leads

Technical Presentations

In today’s business environment almost every employee is being asked to “make a presentation”. Your technical talent too is being called on to present their ideas and solutions to audiences outside of their immediate team. This course is focused on helping technical professionals overcome the challenges of presenting dense complicated content to audiences of varying backgrounds. Technicians learn how to develop a slide deck that drives home critical information and how to present with confidence. They learn how to prepare for the Q&A session and technique for handling objections. They learn how to use Voice, Pace, Tone and Body Language to deliver a compelling message clearly and effectively. Whether the technologist is seasoned at presentations or deathly afraid of them this interactive session will add tips and skills to their toolkit. A must have for your technical talent!
Audience: Software Architects, Developers, Systems Designers, and other scientists

Elicitation Skills

This intensive one-day workshop is designed to prepare participants for their next requirements gathering session. The focus of the course is to help technicians come out of these meetings with the most useful information possible. Through an approved question and answer process participants learn how to elicit the correct information to help them effectively move forward on their deliverables. Participants will experience first-hand how to plan and facilitate a group process that highlights the most important and relevant requirements information. In this highly interactive session, they will learn how to create common understanding, as well as how to generate, analyze and evaluate ideas in the moment.
Audience: Software Architects, Developers, Systems Designers, and other scientists

Technical Negotiations

One of the biggest challenges working with internal teams is overcoming barriers to agreement. Effectively managing these sticky interactions requires shrewd negotiation skills and the ability to think quickly on your feet. Business professionals need to be able to understand their audience, anticipate their needs, navigate uncertainty and overcome barriers to agreement. Savvy negotiators are built not born! This course gives participants the tools to needed to become more skilled and confident negotiators. We cover some of the key barriers to agreement including: deadlock, issues of trust, and stalling tactics. Strategies for overcoming each are presented with opportunities to practice these using real business situations.
Audience: Technicians, Specialists, Subject Matter Experts, Managers, Supervisors, Team Leads

Building Strong Leaders! Effective leadership development takes more than one or two courses. It requires a strategic effort aimed at meeting professionals where they are and giving them the mix of experiences needed to improve their performance and their team members. Our course offerings provides your executives multiple opportunities to develop and grow their leadership skills. Combining any of these with our Executive Coaching sessions helps your professionals to; achieve individual success, lead across Generations, improve interpersonal interactions, and positively affect team performance.

Today’s leaders are a mixture of cheerleader, coach, hero, analyst and friend. The mind of a technician is not the same as that of the typical employee. Their motivators are different. What drives them is different. And the complexity of what they deliver is different. In this course, leaders will be guided through numerous methods and strategies to effectively direct their teams by employing Facilitative Leadership skills. They will learn how to enlist people to their vision of success, to get their ideas accepted and to keep technicians work aligned with  the departmental vision.

Analytical Thinking

Today’s businesses are looking for professionals that can solve complex problems, be broadly understood, and effectively present data in multiple forms. In order to meet these growing needs professionals must think more critically about requests coming in, think creatively about the results they produce and become comfortable providing their analysis appropriately per audience. This course introduces critical and analytical thinking and problem solving tools for business application. Participants will learn and use a group of interconnected skills to analyze, creatively integrate, and evaluate the information they research and hear.

Coaching Across Generations

Their are 4 Generations currently in the US workforce. This helps leaders uniquely connect with each and provides skills to effectively coach them. Students will learn how to initially approach the coaching conversation, positively engage their talent, create coaching agreements and collaboratively write performance documents.

Presentation Skills

An effective presentation occurs when the standard of delivery matches the quality of content. Having prepared for your presentation, you need to make sure that your delivery is targeted, engaging and audience appropriate. You need to communicate with enthusiasm if you want your audience to be accepting of your ideas. At the same time, you must appear composed and confident. This course describes how to make your delivery successful and memorable. It covers techniques for managing stage fright and how to set the right environment for your presentation. You will learn how to use your voice and body language to deliver a compelling message clearly and effectively.

Goal Setting

This session combines the concept of setting goals with the process of achieving them. Often times these two ideas are addressed separately resulting in our goals and targets on one side and our time management strategies and prioritization methods on the other. By bringing these two concepts together participants come away with not only a target to hit but a road-map to get there

Conflict Resolution

The survival of the team depends on a team leader who can quickly recognize conflict, diagnose its cause, and use strategies to resolve the issue. By doing this the leader restores trust and positive working relationships among team members. This course offers you an understanding about what causes conflicts on a team and the important role of healthy communication in handling conflicts. You will learn about your own conflict style and how to apply each of the five conflict styles based on the situation at hand. By learning the principles and strategies presented in this course, you will have the skills to keep your high-performance teams away from destructive patterns of conflict and on track to achieving their goals.