International Association of Teamwork Facilitators

Leadership Webinar (Google Hangout) with Bill Treasurer -- "Leaders Open Doors"

2013-04-25T17:21:18-04:00

Watch the video in the IATF Members Only Area HERE.

CLICK HERE to watch the video recording. The link will take you to the IATF Members Only Area.

Leadership is the most overanalyzed, thoroughly dissected, and utterly confused topic in business.

In Leaders Open Doors, author Bill Treasurer helps lighten the leadership load by distilling that leaders are simply creators of opportunity for others.

Please join us for this live and interactive Google Hangout (webinar) when Bill will share present the idea of open-door leadership - - that is, the responsibility that leaders have for noticing, identifying, and creating opportunities for the benefit of people, organizations, and society.

Learn about the six unique "opportunity doors":

the proving-ground door
the thought-shifting door
the door to a second chance
the doors you open for others
the door to personal transformation
the door to your open heart

You'll learn that leadership isn’t a complex and abstract concept. It’s a set of practices and ideals passed from one person to another, across organizations and generations. Leadeship is a tradition that makes people’s lives better by opening doors of opportunities for them to thrive, achieve, and lead.

Event Details

TITLE

Leaders Open Doors

DATE

Friday May 17, 2013

TIME

Starts at 1 pm Eastern (NY City time zone)

runs for 60 minutes

PRESENTERS

Bill Treasurer, Author and Leadership Coach

Tom Heck, President & Founder of the IATF

REGISTER

CLICK HERE to register. Free and open to the public. [registration is closed]

COST

This event is FREE.

RECORDING

This Webinar was recorded and is now archived in the new IATF Members Only Area. Become a member for FREE and watch the video for FREE. Membership information is HERE.

Preview

Watch the video below for a preview of what you'll learn in this Webinar.

Leadership Skills Google Hangout (Webinar): Author and Performance Coach Achim Nowak shares secrets for creating profound interpersonal connections for explosive business success

2013-04-25T16:28:22-04:00

This video interview is now archived in the IATF Members Only Area

What is the best way for you to get ahead?

Answer: Stop Communicating and Start Connecting!

Technology has transformed the way we communicate. We send and receive more and more emails every day. We text. We tweet. We have reduced our communications down to efficient sound bites—and at the same time, many of us seem to know less and less about how to connect. Deeply, profoundly connect.

In this special IATF Google Hangout (webinar), acclaimed performance coach Achim Nowak will share his powerful 4 Levels of Connection.

1. Talk Level -- The essential skills to creating meaningful conversations

2. Power Level -- How to harness your own personal power

3. Intent Level -- How to show up alert, with purpose and full awareness of your goals

4. Energy Level -- The heart and soul level at which connections happen, personal energy makes for the depest and most lasting connections

Tested and honed through 15 years of coaching senior-level executives around the globe, Nowak’s techniques instantly transform the skills taught in traditional business communication and NLP programs.

People who connect deeply with others connect on these 4 levels: They shape conversations with effortless grace, and they play consciously with the unspoken elements of a connection—personal power, intention, and energy. The result? Infectious connections that accelerate personal success!

Infectious offers simple language cues that deepen and shift the art of conversation. It breaks the idea of power into five tangible plugs that we can turn to—and turn on. These plugs recharge the quality of our connection with anyone we meet.

This book demystifies the experience of energy—the deepest of the four levels, and the root of any connection. It looks at how we access our energy. Remove energy blocks. Play with energy and own it.

Join us for the live and interactive Google Hangout (webinar) and learn how to reshape the hidden forces of connection into simple, step-by-step actions.

Event Details

TITLE

How to Connect Deeply and Unleash the Energetic Leader Within

DATE

Thursday May 2, 2013

TIME

Starts at 1 pm Eastern (NY City time zone)

runs for 60 minutes

PRESENTERS

Achim Nowak, Author and Performance Coach

Tom Heck, President & Founder of the IATF

REGISTER

CLICK HERE to register. Free and open to the public. Registration is closed.

COST

This event is FREE.

RECORDING

This Webinar was recorded and is archived in the new IATF Members Only Area. Become a member for FREE and watch the video for FREE. Membership information is HERE.

Preview

Watch the video below for a preview of what you'll learn in this Webinar.

Boston Fans Sing National Anthem

2013-04-17T23:11:09-04:00

We are stronger together.

We must rise above the fear and ignorance that produces violence.

Our work as teamwork facilitators is all about raising consciousness. It's all about bringing more love to this world.

I love this video showing fans at a Boston Bruins event singing the National Anthem a couple of days after the bombing tragedy in Boston.

"Adventures of a Geek Dad" -- my Ignite Asheville 2013 talk

2013-04-08T00:42:30-04:00

I'm sharing this post on the IATF website because so many from the IATF community supported me in the following project (thank you all!)...

On February 19, 2013 I spoke at IGNITE Asheville. See my video below.

My talk was entitled "Adventures of a Geek Dad" and I won 1st place! The crazy thing is, I tried to back out of this event a couple of times. I honestly didn't think many people would be interested in what I had to say.

Although I've given many talks, this one was among the most difficult to prepare for and deliver.

The difficulty stemmed from the format: 5 minutes long and slides auto advance every 15 seconds. 5 minutes is such a short amount of time. Every word counts. You'll see in the video that I got behind / out of sync with my slides - - so easy to do.

Assembling my slides took way longer then expected because I realized I had too much to say in 5 minutes and that meant I had too many slides. I had to eliminate, pair down, refine, etc. Not easy for a guy that likes to talk a lot.

The event organizers (all great people) provided a speaking coach and she was AWESOME. Her name is Angie Flynn-McIver of Executive Repertory. Angie met with me one-on-one and listened to my talk and asked me to make a couple of simple yet important changes. One tip she gave was to "get rid of the light saber". I was going to use a light saber during my talk but Angie said it would be distracting for me and the audience. I'm so glad I followed her advice on that one.

Here are a few resources that helped a lot:

Scott Berkun -- Why And How To Give An IGNITE Talk

Scott Berkun's blog post on the same subject

IGNITE's tips for beginners

Jason Grigsby's "How To Give a Successful Ignite Presentation"

I bounced some ideas off of Ken Denmead at GeekDad.com (Thank you Ken!).

The biggest realization I had was how vulnerable I felt talking about parenting, my kids, and doing geeky stuff with my kids. The place was sold out with 420 in attendance and I just wasn't used to talking on a subject so personal in front of so many people.

Towards the end of my talk you'll see me get a little choked up when the slide of my daughter's thank you card is on the screen. That was a surprise. I practiced my talk so many times and not once did I have an emotional reaction to my daughter's card. Sharing that image with hundreds of people really did get me connected with why I do this Geek Dad stuff - - it's a great way to spend time with my kids.

Team Structure & Team Roles -- Webinar for Advanced Teamwork Facilitators

2013-04-03T17:09:28-04:00

Team Roles & Team Structure

Facilitators of teams spend a lot of time dealing with issues of structure and roles.

This is true for new teams, and also for established teams where structure and roles shift over time.

In this enlightening session, Susan Gerke and David Hutchens -- creators of GO Team Resources -- will present fresh ways of thinking about structure and roles... and also present some simple, dynamic processes for engaging your team in an energizing dialogue around these critical issues.

This free webinar was developed exclusively for members of IATF. Brought to you by IATF Visiting Faculty Members Susan Gerke and David Hutchens.

Susan Gerke is the president of Gerke Consulting & Development where she designs, customizes and implements leadership and teamwork programs. Her clients include Bank of the West, BHK Accountancy, City of Anaheim, Human Options, Orange Coast College, Sole Technology, UC Irvine, and Warner Bros.

David Hutchens, a bestselling author, and organizational learning consultant. He has worked with IBM, The Coca-Cola Company, Wal-Mart, GE, Nike, and many others.

Together, Susan and David have created GO Team, a library of 18 easy-to-deliver team-training modules that allow you to build your own team training agenda.

This Webinar will be interactive allowing you to get your questions answered live during the session. It's "just in time" training and development!

Event Details

TITLE

New Lenses for Team Structure & Team Roles

DATE

Monday April 8, 2013

TIME

Starts at 1 pm Eastern (NY City time zone)
runs for 60 minutes

PRESENTERS

Susan Gerke and David Hutchens, creators of GO Team Resources

Tom Heck, President & Founder of the IATF

REGISTER

CLICK HERE to register. It's FREE. Registration is closed.

WHAT TO EXPECT

We're using Google Plus Hangouts On Air for this live event. We will be broadcasting live video and taking your questions during the event. There is no charge to you. Everything is free as long as you have access to the internet.

RECORDING

This event was recorded and the recording is posted in the IATF Members Only Area. Not yet an IATF member? Join HERE.

Free Leadership Webinar: Practice Perfect -- Rules for developing talent with disciplined, deliberate, intelligent practice

2013-03-06T10:26:00-05:00

Practice Perfect

Rules for developing talent with disciplined, deliberate, intelligent practice

We live in a competition loving culture.

We love the performance, the big win, the ticking seconds of the clock as the game comes down to the wire.

We watch games and cheer, sometimes to the point of obsession, but if we really wanted to see greatness—wanted to cheer for it, see it happen, understand what made it happen—we’d spend our time watching, obsessing on, and maybe even cheering the practices instead.

In this interactive Webinar we'll put practice on the front burner of all who seek to instill talent and achievement in others as well as in themselves.

This Webinar is about a journey to understand that practice, not games, makes champions.

Would you like to engage the dream of better, both in fields and endeavors where participants know they should practice and also in those where many do not yet recognize the transformative power of practice?

Deliberately engineered and designed practice can revolutionize our most important endeavors.

There are a clear set of rules that will make you and yoru team better regardless of the "game" you're playing.

In this live and interactive Webinar you will:

Discover new ways to think about practice.
Learn how to design successful practice.
Learn how to apply practice across a wide range of realms, both personal and professional
Learn activities to jump-start practice

Erica Woolway, Doug Lemov, Katie Yezzi

authors of Practice Perfect

Event Details

TITLE

Practice Perfect -- Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better

DATE

Wednesday March 13, 2013

TIME

Starts at 1 pm Eastern (NY City time zone)

runs for 60 minutes

PRESENTERS

Erica Woolway, and Katie Yezzi -- authors of "Practice Perfect"

Tom Heck, President & Founder of the IATF

REGISTER

Registration closed.

COST

This event is FREE.

RECORDING

This Webinar was recorded and is archived in the new IATF Members Only Area. Become a member for FREE and watch the video for FREE. Membership information is HERE.

Preview

Watch the video below for a preview of what you'll learn in this Webinar.

Free Webiner: Early Leadership Toolkit -- Leadership Curriculum for students!

2013-02-12T22:49:41-05:00

Live Interactive Webinar on Wed. Feb. 20 at 12 noon EST

CLICK HERE to register!

It's FREE!

The Early Leadership Toolkit is an easy to use Leadership Curriculum developed by the Leadership Beyond Boundaries team (LBB) at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The "toolkit" is used by facilitators around the US and beyond to help young people learn how to lead.

In this live and interactive webinar you'll learn all about the toolkit and how you can use this dynamic leadership curriculum to help the community you serve learn valuable leadership skills.

Guest presenters include Lisa Prochnow in Idaho, Hiten Momaya in India, and Tom Heck in North Carolina. Guest presenters will share how they are using the toolkit with the communities they serve.

During the live broadcast you'll be able to ask questions.

The Early Leadership Toolkit Train-the-Trainer will take place in Greensboro, North Carolina on March 13-15, 2013. For more information please contact the Leadership Beyond Boundaries team here: www.LeadBeyond.org

Event Details

TITLE

Introduction to the "Early Leadership Toolkit" Leadership Curriculum

DATE

Wednesday February 20, 2013

TIME

Starts at 12 noon Eastern (NY City time zone)

runs for 60 minutes

PRESENTERS

Janet Carlson, Center for Creative Leadership

Sarah Miller, Center for Creative Leadership

Tom Heck, President & Founder of the IATF

REGISTER

CLICK HERE to register. The Webinar will be a Google Plus Hangout On Air. There is no phone number to call. All you need is internet access. Everything is free. We will take your questions live during the event!

COST

This event is FREE.

RECORDING

This Webinar will be recorded and posted for free in the new IATF Members Only Area. Become a member for FREE and watch the video for FREE. Membership information is HERE.

Webinar Recording: "Team Turnarounds -- How To Transform Underperforming Teams" with Joe Frontiera

2013-02-12T22:05:12-05:00

What do the Broadway musical Spider-Man, the Indiana Colts, and Domino’s Pizza have in common?

They all used the same process to turnaround a losing team from the bottom to the top.

In the new book Team Turnarounds, Joe Frontiera and Daniel Leidl share five years of research of business, sports and government teams to explore what it takes to get a failing team back on track—especially in today’s tight times when teams are asked to do more with less.

Frontiera & Leidl spoke with CEOs, frontline managers, governors, and owners and general managers and coaches in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and the National Basketball Association. All of the teams across every sector consistently reversed their fortunes and did a 180 from failure to success with six common stages of development:

1. Lead Past Losing. Evaluate your current state of affairs, accept the reasons for failure and identify root causes of problems.

2. Commit to Growth. Communicate the vision and values of a better future.

3. Change Behaviors. Introduce and reinforce new behaviors and best practices.

4. Embrace Adversity. Fend off obstacles to test your team and become stronger.

5. Achieve Success. Achieve your team’s goals and decide what’s next?

6. Nurture a Culture of Excellence. Turn attention to keeping your team’s success sustainable with continual learning, innovation, and maintenance of your culture.

Joe Frontiera, PhD

coauthor of Team Turnarounds

In this live an interactive Webinar our guest will be Joe Frontiera, PhD who will help us explore each of these stages and he will share some entertaining first-hand accounts of turnarounds.

Team Turnarounds include:

legendary worst-to-first story of Bill Polian and the Indianapolis Colts
Jeffrey Lurie’s efforts to transform the Philadelphia Eagles
government turnarounds including Michigan’s current efforts to fix its ailing economy
business turnarounds at Domino’s Pizza, Juniper Networks, iContact
broadway musical SpiderMan

No matter how bad the circumstances, how awful the performance, or how far shares have plummeted, Team Turnarounds shows how any team can climb back up to the top.

Event Details

TITLE

Team Turnarounds -- How To Transform Underperforming Teams

DATE

Tuesday February 19, 2013

TIME

Starts at 1 pm Eastern (NY City time zone)

runs for 60 minutes

PRESENTERS

Joe Frontiera, coauthor of Team Turnarounds

Tom Heck, President & Founder of the IATF

COST

This event is FREE.

RECORDING

This Webinar was recorded and is available in the new IATF Members Only Area. Become a member for FREE and watch the video for FREE. Membership information is HERE.

Carry On

2013-02-10T14:14:16-05:00

Today I'm inspired by this song by the band FUN.

This morning I attended Jubilee Asheville, my spiritual community. The message for the day revolved around the following spiritual question: What if the difficult times we encounter (individually and collectively) are the very things that point us to the fullest experience of life?

How do you, as a leader, create meaning out of adversity?

How does your team create meaning out of adversity?

IATF recognized as a top 100 leadership site

2012-12-04T15:09:22-05:00

MastersinLeadership.org has just published a list of 100 Exemplary Sites for Future Leaders, and International Association of Teamwork Facilitators has been included!

The sites on the list are all great resources for people already in leadership positions, or those that are seeking a leadership role at a business.

MastersinLeadership.org strives to provide readers with useful information on leadership education and career opportunities, and this list is a further extension of that mission.

The full list of exemplary sites is available HERE.

Sending a Video Camera to "Near Space"

2012-11-27T22:39:59-05:00

For the past two years I've volunteered with TEDx Asheville. For the November 2012 event we selected the theme of "THE EDGE". I thought the theme was the perfect opportunity to send a video camera to "the edge" of Earth's atmosphere. In the fall of 2012 I began working with a group of middle school students and their science and math teacher to design a payload to carry the video camera.

This project turned into a great community builder for the school (teachers, students, parents). Area businesses gave us a great deal of support.

It was an amazing experience.

Here's the video of the flight.

Asheville, NC Tedx Near Space Project from Peter Lutz on Vimeo.

Leadership Webinar: Katie Spotz -- Leadership lessons learned while rowing solo across the ocean

2012-11-27T14:12:32-05:00

In 2010 Katie Spotz rowed a tiny boat 3,038 miles across the Atlantic Ocean all by herself. Katie was 22 years old then and she set the new world record for such a feat!

Throughout her row, Katie wasn’t just seeking to make history. She was also raising money, for the Blue Planet Network, a San Francisco-based non-profit funding safe drinking water projects around the world. As interest grew in Katie’s amazing exploits, donations came flooding in and, at the moment, the total stands at over $150,000.

I had the pleasure of meeting Katie at the November 2012 TEDx Asheville event where she was a presenter. Katie's amazing story thrilled the audience and her inspirational message was one I thought everyone in the IATF community would benefit from.

Katie describes herself as having been the “benchwarmer” throughout her life. However, there came a time when she made a discovery:

You don’t have to be extraordinary to achieve incredible things.

In this live an interactive Webinar Katie will share her story and the leadership lessons her incredible journey provided her.

Have you been thinking about how 2012 went for you?

Have you been thinking about setting big (even scary) goals for 2013?

Join us for this live and interactive Webinar to learn how you can achieve incredible things in 2013.

Event Details

TITLE

Rowing Solo Across the Ocean -- Lessons on leadership and perserverence with Katie Spotz

DATE

Wednesday December 5, 2012

TIME

Starts at 11 am Eastern (NY City time zone)
runs for 60 minutes

PRESENTERS

Katie Spotz, world record holder for youngest woman to row across the Atlantic Ocean

Tom Heck, President & Founder of the IATF

REGISTER

Registration is not necessary. The Webinar will take place on this same web page. Be here on Wednesday December 5, 2012 at 11 am EST (NY City time zone) and you'll see a LIVE broadcast which includes chat. There is no phone number to call. Everything is free.

COST

This event is FREE.

RECORDING

This Webinar was recorded and is available for free in the new IATF Members Only Area. Become a member for FREE and watch the video for FREE. Membership information is HERE.

Are you happy?

2012-11-16T14:49:11-05:00

When you're a leader you get the opportunity to work with all types of people. Some people are happy while others not so much. This info graphic might help you work with both.

Mental Models -- How does your perspective shape your reality?

2012-11-15T22:29:23-05:00

This school year, like last school year, I volunteer each Friday morning at the middle school my son attends. I teach a leadership class and use the curriculum developed the Center for Creative Leadership.

This week and next I'll be teaching a lesson on "Mental Models". Mental Models (think "paradigms") are deeply held images of thinking and acting. They are a framework we use to make sens of experiences. We create Mental Models about the world around us and about ourselves.

While preparing to teach this lesson I've been gathering videos I'll likely share with the students. These are videos that speak to the topic of Mental Models.

How do your Mental Models support you? How might they hinder you?

Virtual Team Research Project

2012-11-12T12:27:25-05:00

Do you work on a Virtual Team?

IATF member and doctoral candidate Faisal Shehab is conducting a study on Emergent Leader Detection and Identification in a Virtual Team Environment.

Date: November 12, 2012
To: IATF Members & Community
Re: Request for Participation in a Doctoral Study to Investigate Emergent Leader Detection and Identification in a Virtual Team Environment

The rapid advancement of technology and globalization has created an opportunity for organizations to tap into a new market and customer base by expanding their operations globally. Globally distributed teams working outside the organization geographic boundaries have become more popular and have grown into an important element of the organization’s ability to achieve business objectives. The new demand for working outside geographical boundaries has created human resources (HR) risks for organizations wishing to hire the best people for the task. By using the VT option, organizations have mitigated the risk and can hire the best people, and give organizations the opportunity to bring together employees with a variety of skills to work without restrictions of time, travel, and cost limitations.

Team leadership is an important factor for improving team performance, controlling, decision-making, and providing direction. The ability of an organization to detect, identify, select, and develop emergent leaders is essential for any organization wishing to capitalize on such leadership skills to improve organizational performance and to optimize resource utilization practices. Due to the increasing complexity of the business environment, the demand for leadership has rapidly increased. Even if raw talent has no shortage, organizations can fill the leadership vacuum only if they know how to detect, identify, and develop their emergent leaders, which is not happening. Adding virtualness to the mix increases both the environmental complexity and the identification process, which makes the procedure for detecting and identifying emergent leaders more difficult. Currently there is, no research addressed how organizations detected, identified, or selected such leaders in a Virtual Team environment.

We invite your participation in a research study on Emergent Leader Detection and Identification in a Virtual Team Environment. IATF member and doctoral candidate of the University of Phoenix Faisal Shehab, BSc, MMI, PMP, is conducting a study on Emergent Leader Detection and Identification in a Virtual Team Environment. The purpose of the research project is to determine the factors that virtual team members, virtual team managers, and human resources managers consider useful to identify emergent leaders in a virtual team environment, and to explore the processes used in the identification process. The objective of the project is to identify the challenges and obstacles managers face when identifying such emergent leaders and the organizational risks that might emerge by the inability to detect and identify such emergent leaders.

Using qualitative research method, this grounded theory study seek to explore the process of emergent leader detection and identification in a virtual team environment, as well as generation of a theory to explain the processes, actions, or interactions of participants in such contexts.

Faisal is seeking volunteers to participate in the study. Once selected based on experience on virtual teams, a small number of team members will be asked to answer questions on a survey and during an interview. Participants will need to have at least 1 year of experience working in or dealing with virtual teams in their workplace. Participants will not incur any costs and may withdraw from this study at any time.

Your participation will involve providing information about yourself (contact information) and your work experience working in or with virtual teams for the purpose of identifying the participants who fit the criteria for the interview stage. If you are selected for the interview stage, you will grant one interview lasting not more than one hour. During the interview, you will be asked to respond to open-ended questions regarding your experience working with or in a virtual team in relation to the detection and identification of emergent leaders in a virtual team environment. Your participation will provide valuable feedback to HR management practitioners on how to create effective strategies and processes to enable organizations to take advantage of emergent leaders in a Virtual Team environment, thus enhancing overall organizational justice and performance.

All information that you provide will remain confidential and will only be used for the purpose of this research project. This study is entirely anonymous and has been approved by the University of Phoenix Review Board (IRB). Mr. Tom Heck, the President of IATF, has granted permission for IATF participation.

Participant Requirements:

If you have experience in working, leading, managing, or dealing with Virtual Teams as an HR practitioner, you might have the knowledge and insight to uncover the mystery of emergent leadership detection and identification in a Virtual Team environment. With your help we can make a difference and improve organizational justice and effectiveness by providing organizations the knowledge on how to improve their ability to detect and identify emergent leaders in a Virtual Team environment. Please join me to uncover this mystery.

==> Participants with at least 1 year of experience as VT members, VT managers, or HR practitioners dealing with VT.
==> Participants who work in the United States or Canada.

About participants demographics survey:

The purpose of this survey is to collect participants’ demographics information to determine their eligibility to participate in the second stage of the data collection process. People who provide their name and email address will be contacted to schedule 30 minutes to a maximum of one-hour interview session.

Your participation in this study is greatly appreciated, and I thank you in advance for being part of such important topic. To participate, please click on the survey link below to provide your demographics and contact information. This survey should only take 5 minutes of your time.

Survey Link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9V5L5CJ

Faisal Shehab BSc, MMI, PMP
Doctoral Candidate
IATF Member