Half Day / Full Day Training Workshops

Many of these topics are available for one hour Lunch and Learns, Webinars and break out sessions at conferences

Building Trust Through Positive Communication

Trust has to be earned, it is not a given. Individuals and organizations inadvertently or on purpose, take actions or make decisions that destroy or build trust. Using positive communication, strategic planning and collaboration, understanding how different generations want to be treated and trusting in your leaders heightens respect which builds trust. Effective, positive communication is the cornerstone to sustainable, respectful workplaces and beyond…relationships.

Course Outline

  • Identify what builds trust and trust destroyers
  • Explain communication processes, modalities and preferences
  • Learn the importance of positive communication through its nuances of empowering phrases and high and low energy words. Learn how to be a stellar listener so as to build trust with colleagues and leaders
  • Examine how different generations build trust and their preference for communication

This course, no matter its length is appropriate for all levels within an organization.


 Work Life Centering

Work life balance/centering is the redistribution of your time and energy so that your priorities and personal needs are best being met.

There is lots of chatter about work life balance, almost impossible to achieve. This session addresses work life centering and how to apply it to your life so you aren’t micro managing every single movement you make, instead you are managing yourself within your life.

  • Identify and set your life’s priorities based on 4 categories
  • Identify what is in your circle of influence and circle of concern
  • 9 ways to say NO without saying NO
  • Juggling life’s priorities can be daunting, it’s ok to drop the balls once in a while
  • 20 tips on how to juggle and center your life

Managing It All

Stress, coping, juggling and setting priorities and balance/centering are all interrelated. This session is a combination of the above mentioned stress and centering workshop.

  • Stress, burnout and rustout – learning more about them and how they manifest themselves in your life
  • Identify your stressors
  • Worry is created by our imagination, how to start thinking about what you want, not what you don’t want
  • Examine 4 categories of coping strategies
  • Balancing/centering and juggling life’s priorities
  • 9 ways to say NO
  • 20 tips on Juggling and balancing/centering your life

Enhancing Performance: Taking Care of Number One

You are no good to anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself first and foremost. Incorporating these strategies into your life is like being at a mind spa, and who doesn’t love going to the spa!

  • Examine 9 strategies of how to take care of number one – you!

Work Smarter Not Harder: Heightening Productivity in 2022

This session examines 15 secrets to up your productivity through highly researched and applied time management strategies used by star performers around the globe. Not only will we examine 15 tips for productivity success you will also learn about four factors you can apply to ensure their implementation. These secrets are easy to implement and highly effective. The session will finish off with specific ideas of ways to tighten up your life and save time and effort, from buying birthday cards by the dozen to using drive time wisely.


Self Leadership: Necessary Survival in a Soon to be Post Managerial Society

“Self-leaders are still true leaders even if they have no known followers. True leaders inspire by the influence of their characters and general self-made brands. Leadership is defined by the virtues of one’s behaviour.” Israelmore Ayivor

The future is on its way! The day is anon when employees will manage each other and themselves, without “the boss” being around to guide you, tell you what to do and share company initiatives. Ergo, you need to be able to take care of yourself. You need to be able to take the initiative, be highly emotionally intelligent and have a strong foundation of self awareness and discipline.

Self-leadership is your ability to lead yourself towards achieving outcomes and goals you set for yourself, within your position, your own business and personally. You might be saying, well this self leadership stuff doesn’t apply to me, I already manage people, myself and my family very well thank you very much. Even if you don’t have your own business yet, or aren’t in a leadership position yet… more than anyone else, self leadership does pertain to you. The workplace is evolving, it will not be the same in 5, 10, 20 years from now.

Without leading yourself first, how can you effectively lead your life or anyone else in it? Self-leadership is your ability to masterfully lead yourself so you can create the success you want for your business life, your family, and your personal life.

• Identify common barriers to mastering the skills of personal leadership.
• Learn how to bring more self-mastery into your personal leadership skills.
• Examine 8 simple yet powerful core principles to masterful self-leadership.

If you want to get the most out of yourself and your business life, you need to walk the talk and lead yourself first.


Giving and Receiving Feedback

Employees complain that one of the most important motivating factors missing from the workplace today is receiving feedback from their superiors and colleagues. Gen Y’s are particularly sensitive to a lack of constructive feedback, negative or positive. This workshop will instruct you on how to give constructive feedback to your colleagues and your superiors and yes, how to receive it.

  • Learn the importance of feedback in the workplace
  • 6 tips to receiving feedback with dignity and aplomb
  • 6 tips to giving feedback
  • How to give negative feedback
  • The language to use while giving feedback
  • Giving feedback to your boss

Up Your Value Proposition: Get Organized

Working in an organized fashion in the workplace is not everyone’s preferred way of getting things done, but it sure does save time, energy and your health. We will examine personal motivators that will facilitate your desire to get more organized, building your confidence and comfort level around setting priorities and taking action. When you choose the right goals of accomplishment you get more done in shorter periods of time leaving you more relaxed, with less mistakes, less stressed and feeling motivated and in control. You want to present a positive, influential image to your company and in your personal life, here’s how to do it:

  • Identify time wasters and interruptions that slow down productivity.
  • What about multi- tasking? Does it exist and is it productive or does it slow you down?
  • There are 9 ways to say NO without saying NO, examine how to use them, where and with whom?
  • Learn the 10 strategies of organization, some of which are life changing<./li>
  • Overcoming procrastination is about lowering your pain level, find out how.

Take This Job and Love It

Too many people are unhappy in their jobs and in their lives, often because they don’t know how to look for the passion that lies within. Too often we rely on external sources to “make our day.” This session will kick start a dying engine or continue to keep the light glowing by re-invigorating the Energizer Bunny Rabbit in you.

Examine ways to rejuvenate your passion for your job and life in general. You will:

  • Learn positive verbiage and behaviour, to elevate your mood and influencing power
  • Acknowledge your professional wonderment
  • Understand why you do the work you do, what motivates you to do what you domg
  • Learn to go with the flow
  • Build and maintain vital, viable relationships

Developing A Successful Mindset (a very popular topic)

We very often live and work in very negative environments, be it external or in our heads. Feedback in the workplace is almost non existent. We can never give enough of ourselves it seems. Each individual has to rely on their own resilience and self motivation to continue to be a star performer and contributor to stay employed and to get ahead. Adding positivity to ones life through communication and behaviour can only enhance ones’ mood, self esteem and production.

This session gives you the communication skills and tools to:

  • heighten your positive communication
  • Identify thoughts that drag you down and lift you up
  • learn and use empowering phrases rather than limiting phrases
  • learn and add to your conversation positive and high energy words and ridding your vocabulary of low energy words
  • Learn how to Make Your Own Day

So you:

  • feel more confident
  • come across more confident
  • sound more optimistic and positive
  • believe what you say by walking your talk
  • start to inspire and help motivate others

Good to Great: Advanced Communication Skills

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw

You have made it this far in life talking and writing and listening, and maybe making presentations. You think you are pretty adept, if not down right better than average at communicating, but it is what you don’t know that might be the obstacle to taking you from good to great!

This course will move your communication skills up a notch or two or three. You will:

  • Learn how to communicate more positively. Responding, “No problem” when asked how you are is not positive communication
  • Examine how well you actually express yourself and make some simple changes as an outcome
  • We learn our ability to listen as we age, get the art of listening back, NOW
  • We communicate in different modalities, learn what they are and how to use them more effectively to your advantage
  • Change limiting belief statements and thoughts into empowering ones for those you work and play with and for your own self esteem
  • Are you sick and tired of how hard it is to get through to government officials? or are you challenged by the unresponsiveness of government officials? Replace low energy words with high energy words to lift you up rather than drag you down
  • Learn to apply a simple WIN formula in sensitive conflict management scenarios
  • How you articulate your speech, your pitch and tone all send strong messages to your listeners, learn to use your voice to your advantage
  • You don’t get paid to be a public speaker more than likely, but you do have to make presentations. You will fine tune your presentation skills with confidence and ease.

The 3 C’s of Great Interpersonal Relationships:

1. Communication

  • Social media is here to stay – using it not abusing it
  • Listening skills
  • Courteous/respectful communication
  • Make information known to others
  • Using positive verbiage – improving relationships by “talking nice”
  • Recognizing the effects of change – learn William Bridges model of transition

2. Collaboration

  • Demonstrate others’ views are being acknowledged – feedback makes people empowered
  • Build high emotional intelligence – EI accounts for up to 45% of ones’ ability to succeed in life
  • Build your bridges – become the GO TO person to our boss and smooth the waters before they get rough
  • Have the courage to say what must be said – acquire and use assertiveness skills
  • Competence – know your skills and be sure you can do what you are asked
  • To build and maintain close working relationships with colleagues and superiors
  • Develop soft skills that will build rapport with others and increase task proficiency
  • Build collaborative bridges
  • Build confidence
  • Like yourself better
  • Build respect and trust with co-workers

3. Connecting/Networking

  • Develop an internal and external network
  • Make networking a habit
  • Give more than you get
  • Get to know what people have to offer
  • Follow up on all leads
  • Do what you say you are going to do

Inspiring and Managing Motivated Staff

It is impossible to motivate other people, so your job as a manager or supervisor is to inspire your employees to be motivated and to help them find their own self motivation and show them ways to use it.This very interactive session consists of:

  • Cultivating Empowered Employees
  • Positive communication
  • Attitudes toward authority
  • De – motivating actions
  • 5 kinds of power
  • Perks increase retention
  • Getting and giving feedback
  • Self motivation and engagement
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Understanding and rewarding the generational differences

Generational Differences in the Workplace

For the first time in the history of the industrialized world, there are 4 generations working side by side in the workplace. Each generation walks to its own beat and there are noticeable differences between each as it pertains to work ethics, values, expectations and lifestyle preferences. Knowing and understanding the workplace and lifestyle preferences of the Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Gen Yers and Gen Zs can facilitate more effective interviewing and hiring practices. Knowing and accommodating their preferences can also lead to higher employee retention and productivity.


Building Trust in the Workplace

What trust in an organization depends on:

  • understanding what makes employees lose trust
  • the importance of values in building trust
  • how mistrust and fear leads to stress: the stress whirlpool and how to avoid it
  • reworking negative thought patterns
  • 17 ways to build trust

Networking How to Build Relationships That Count

75-80% of all opportunities that come our way in life are found through networking. Find out the truth about networking and how to make networking a daily part of your job – it’s not just who you know, but who knows you! Recognize and overcome barriers and fears that prevent you from networking effectively. Identify specific tactics that will raise the company’s visibility thereby increasing sales – if you aren’t appearing, you are disappearing! Learn how to network with style and break the ice at business and social functions.


Improving Communication or Team Building or Leadership or Sales Using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator – MBTI®

Whether one on one, as part of a work team or in a group, the MBTI® is one of the most preferred psychological instruments for measuring personality preference.

The MBTI® results measure four dichotomies: Extroversion & Introversion (E&I); Sensing & Intuition (S&N); Thinking & Feeling (T&F); Judgment & Perception (J&P). By knowing what your preferences are and understanding how the others work, you can:

improve communication dramatically build and maintain healthy and happy relationships reduce stress and negativity in your work and personal life increase sales, productivity and problem solving

For those of you who are familiar with the Myers Briggs and would like to take it a step further, to really understand the difference between preference types, and the differences between same type individuals, try the MBTI® II .

The MBTI® II looks at 20 sub-components that clearly identify why similar preferences differ within their own typology. Not all Extroverts behave the same, why is that? There are differences of preference within each functional area.

The MBTI® is enlightening, educational, fun, revealing and life changing. For an individual or group assessment, call 416-686-3079 or send an email to csc@colleenclarke.com and Colleen will be happy to show you a different way of perceiving yourself and the world in which you work and play.


The Respectful Workplace, For Managers:

  • How to Improve communication to heighten respect with tone, words and body language
  • Transactional Analysis’ role in the workplace
  • What constitutes a healthy and unhealthy workplace
  • What respect means to you
  • Learn the 3 types of harassment
  • Firm management versus bullying
  • What to tell employees when they think they are being bullied
  • How different generations want to be motivated and respected
  • Managing conflict with grace
  • Maybe you are part of the problem
  • What can you do

The Respectful Workplace, For Employees:

  • How to Improve communication to heighten respect with tone, words and body language
  • What constitutes a healthy and unhealthy workplace
  • What respect means to you
  • Learn the 3 types of harassment
  • What bullying is and what to do when you think you are being bullied
  • Managing conflict with grace
  • Maybe you are part of the problem
  • What you can do

Why Can’t You be More Like Me? – understanding communication & behaviour

This introspective and disclosing workshop guarantees a plethora of AH HA’s when you learn how your communication and behavioural styles complement or conflict with those you work, and play, with. Identify your preferences and those of others and how to improve productivity, lessen absenteeism, build a happy and cohesive work environment and feel really good about it at the same time.


Enhanced Career Development Coaching Tools

Learn basic coaching techniques to help you get to the crux of individual and team issues in your department or company. Be it a conflict between team members or with you, learn conflict strategies that result in win/win. Find out how to effectively deal with challenging people.


Only Wet Babies Welcome Change

The only constant left in life is change. Imbalance in ones’ life causes physical and/or mental stress that is threatening healthy work places. Change can be a very positive occurrence is your life, – learn how to turn lemons into lemonade around you and your employees’ problems. Identify stressors and how to nip them in the bud to ensure a healthily balanced life style.


Stand Up and Wow Someone

This highly interactive session teaches you how to prepare for presentations in the board room or on the shop floor to make a positive lasting impact on your audience. Learn script development, how to keep the audience attentive and how to create and deliver power phrases at the beginning and end of your talk.


Other Workshops include:

  • Influencing Without Authority
  • Business Etiquette
  • Networking: It’s Telling Not Selling
  • Résumé Writing
  • Juggling Life’s Priorities
  • Personality Dimensions®
  • The Respectful Workplace
  • The Advice Call
  • Interview Skills
  • Interviewing and Hiring