Certificate in Business Skills for Managers

Enhance your skills in all fundamental management areas

Including business management and leadership, project management, effective business writing, communication and presentation skills, stress management, critical thinking and problem solving, budgeting and financial reporting, and action planning.

In this management skills training course you’ll learn to communicate persuasively, develop project frameworks, lead and coach staff, and prepare budgets and financial analysis to support your business proposals and decisions. Foster relationships with senior management, clients and cross-functional teams, and apply new skills to your own long-term management development plan.

What You Will Learn

• The most important leadership competencies for managers
• How to convey your message persuasively in your business writing and verbal presentations
• Critical thinking, innovation and problem solving techniques to tackle any business challenge
• Using project management frameworks for all of your assignments
• Effective leadership and team-building strategies
• Preparing budgets and financial analysis to support your business decisions
• Productivity management and stress management techniques
• Coaching your staff for success
• How to foster relationships with senior management, clients and cross-functional teams
• How to apply your course learnings to create your own long-term management development plan
• Communicate more assertively and diplomatically to upper management, peers, and staff

Course content

Business Management Strategies

Strategic Behaviours of Top Performing Managers

• Complex problem solving
• Becoming operationally invaluable
• Managing through 360 degrees

Moving Your Strategy Forward

• How to get your ideas approved
• Make the Clientship© relationship work for you

Critical Thinking, Innovation and Problem-Solving Skills

Managing Individual and Team Problem-Solving

• Determining the level of issue or problem
• Selecting the right approach to problem solving

Managing the Innovation Process

• Innovation and business performance
• The 4-step Innovation Process

Management Communications Skills

Influencing Others to Achieve Performance Results

• Communicating with a clear focus
• Giving your message impact
• Giving constructive feedback with a positive spin
• Plannning crucial messaging
• Influencing others for performance

Taking Control of Your Stress

Productivity Building By De-Stressing Your Workload

• “Productivity” management from six levels
• Understanding your stress trigger points
• Workload management tips
• Managing home and work demands
• Resisting perfectionism
• Delegating effectively
• Acquire tools to self-manage self-defeating stress responses
• Learn ways to manage the stresses of management more productively

Leadership and Teambuilding Skills in Action

Steps to Leading High-Performance, High-Functioning Departments

• What makes leadership effective?
• How we think about leadership vs. management
• Leadership and engagement

Coaching, Motivating and Energizing Your Business Teams

• Designing and implementing coaching tools and approaches in your team

Foundations in Financial Management Skills

Interpreting Financial Reports to Support Decision-Making

• How to read and interpret financial statements:
  • Balance sheets
  • Income statements
  • Statements of retained earnings

Using Financial Ratios and Analysis to Assess a Company’s Financial Health

• What measures assist key decision making
• Formulas for calculating and interpreting ratios, plus profit/cost analysis

Project Management Skills for Success

Project Management Foundations

• Understanding project success
• Integrating the three core objectives
• Applying a consistent project management framework

Critical Elements of Project Success

• Obtain organizational buy-in
• Scope the project
• Choose the best scheduling method
• Assess and manage risk
• Plan and control communications
• Minimize and manage change
• Close the project – key components
• Understanding the five essential project documents

Effective Business Writing Skills

Excelling in Five Unique Business Writing Styles

• Formal business correspondence
• Sales and marketing communications
• E-mail correspondence
• Internal staff memos and office communications
• Business presentations

Foundations for Better Business Writing

• Setting Clear Objectives in Your Writing
• Sizing up and guiding your audience
• Logical writing practices and punctuation punch-up

Verbal Presentation Skills Training

Presenting to Executives and Senior Managers

• How executives make decisions
• What executives expect
• The added value you must provide
• Responding to challenges and disagreements

Your Presentation Strategy

• Acheiving authority, intention, persuasiveness and control
• The only presentation Agenda you’ll ever need
• Organize your thoughts in half the time
• The power of summarizing and probing
• Putting It All Together
• Reshape perception of you as a leader
• Decision-making tools
• Presentation skills overview
• What new ideas have you gained?
• What new possibilities do you see?

Creating a New Value Map

• What results do you need to see?
• Value ratings through 360 degrees
• Identifying Allies and Blockers

Putting Business Management in Action

• The first 90 days
• A personal action plan
• A critical path for your success
• Wrapping up your learning outcomes into actionable items