HOW TO DO TRANSFORMATIONAL TEAMBUILDING

Facilitating Meaningful Dialogue, Peacemaking and Problem Solving

With Linda Lehtonen

About this Program: In a nutshell

This workshop is a transformational experience for anyone wanting to deeply learn about team building, whether you are a seasoned practitioner or a beginner. You also will learn how your own state deeply affects the group (self as instrument). The workshop follows a step-by-step process combined with theory and practice, based on 30 years experience. All of the work is rooted in five, deep principles, which guide the practitioner/leader in helping shape the teams’, and your own development.

About this Program- What You Will Take Away:

"Linda Lehtonen's 'Transformational Teambuilding' course was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. This workshop enabled me to take my skills and awareness - and thus my clients - to a higher level never before experienced in over a decade of facilitating high performance teams. I actively use what I learned in this workshop more than any other training course I've taken. I am grateful to Linda for generously sharing her philosophies and techniques honed over her many years of experience." (Lorraine Agular, President, working Harmony, Southern California)

“One of Linda's strengths is her ability to combine skill-building with the inner dimension of change. With compassion and sensitivity, she guides participants in helping them deepen self-awareness so that new possibilities emerge. She consistently models the principles she teaches and, in so doing, inspires people to reflect on their own way of being and what holds them back. The result is transformation from the inside out that is truly sustainable in generating positive life change. I highly recommend Linda's workshop as a unique and important offering in creating a caring world."(Elizabeth Soltis, Learning Specialist, Learning Resource Center, United Nations Development Program, New York)

· A tried and true, step by step, proven process to help teams grow and heal in record time– a template for teambuilding based on over 30 years of experience

· Structured activities for dealing with issues related to goals, roles, leadership, relationships, and interpersonal conflict

· Increased consciousness as to how you use your energy as a facilitative leader and help groups have courageous conversations

· An increased ability to help teams get to and let go of their issues and become productive in record time

· A comprehensive step-by-step booklet.

With over 30 years experience, working with groups in all kinds of organizations, with all levels of the hierarchy, I am still in awe at the miracles I witness watching groups of people in organizations turn themselves around from profoundly unhappy, non trusting, non productive, fearful, angry, apathetic people to those of hope, faith, goodwill, compassion, kindness and curiosity, and willingness to work together. In only a few sessions!!

Working with hundreds of teams has helped me to finally isolate all of the ingredients that contribute to the kind of team transformation that others have referred to as ‘amazing’, ‘remarkable’ and ‘unbelievable’. Out of all the different kinds of change efforts I have been involved in, group process work, often called ‘teambuilding’ has given me the most insight and faith in the possibility of humans to live in their higher states of wisdom, compassion, creativity, integrity and love. These values and attitudes greatly contribute to bottom line results!

Who Should Attend:

“Attending Linda Lehtonen's workshop on Transformational Teambuilding had a profound impact on my approach as a conflict management practitioner. Through a very insightful and experiential experience, I deepened my ability to be an agent of positive change in a dysfunctional and conflict-ridden group. Linda is an outstanding facilitator, and works at the level of your way of being to truly enhance your capacity as an instrument within an intervention. This is one of the top courses I have attended in my 7 years as a conflict management practitioner!" (Lucille Boettger, Manager ADR Services, Department of National Defense/Canadian Forces, Ottawa)

This program is designed to help practitioners/leaders get to the root and heart of the issues facing groups in organizations. Anyone in the role of consultant, facilitator, trainer, organizational leader, supervisor, project leader, human resource and organization development practitioner and team members will benefit greatly from this hands on, practical, beyond the basics approach to teambuilding.

What You Will Learn:

“I am so grateful for the amazing experiences, the principles and the wisdom that were shared throughout the workshop! I learned so much... about myself and about how to use myself as an instrument of dialogue for community building. I felt very inspired watching you model the process with such clarity and integrity. The various templates, models and tips neatly organized in one workbook have since become a tremendous and most useful guide. Thank you Linda for helping me attain greater confidence in myself and in group processes! “(Nicole Beauregard Manager, Organizational Development and Well-Being Patrimoine Canadien / Canadian Heritage, Ottawa)

In a vibrant learning community, that we will create together, we will learn:

· What a transformational process is and how it is different than typical change efforts – models for transformational change for individuals and organizations.

· How to use our energy as transformational change agents by strengthening our access to inner wisdom, increasing our consciousness, refining our use of power and working from a place of love and compassion.

· The Five Guiding Principles – learn to use yourself as an instrument to work from a place of grace and ease without becoming invested in the toxicity or ‘stuckness’ of the group. Learn to use your energy to be able to help create dramatic results in teams.

· What to Look for in Groups – the 5 key trouble spots in groups and how to diagnose them.

· The ‘Kit Bag’ of the Facilitator – knowing what helps and hinders – the key competencies of the facilitator.

· How to Structure and Facilitate the Teambuilding Process

1. Client Contracting – getting everything on the table before you start – asking the hard questions and getting clear about wants – theirs and yours.

2. Proposal Writing – how to inspire faith in you in your client.

3. Identifying Needs – interviews, surveys – how to get the whole truth.

4. The Structure – standard activities to create safety, openness, honesty and goodwill at the outset.

5. Facilitating and Tracking the group’s process – knowing when to intervene, when to stay out, when to confront, when to support and how to read the group’s energy.

6. Intervention Activities that work – key structured activities to keep in your ‘kit bag’ and knowing when to use them- on values, leadership, vision, conflict, problem solving, role negotiation, responsibility charting, inter departmental conflict etc.

7. Closure–learn how to help each individual take responsibility for the successful implementation of group agreed actions, and agreements, and how to prevent backsliding.

“Linda Lehtonen is masterful at first enabling every participant to really get to understand what it means to be authentic; 'present'; to 'meet people where they are'; and what empathy really is. In a safe and supportive environment, you get to participate in a very real way as a member of a 'dysfunctional' team and experience what that feels like. You also get to experience what it feels like to be the facilitator during a very real team intervention and watch as - magically - the communication in the team begins to open up and major issues that were stumbling blocks begin to drop away as team members begin to talk to each other, sometimes for the very first time! (Graham J. Wiseman- Consultant, Ottawa)

“This program is a must for anyone interested in creating real and lasting change with teams and organizations. Linda has created this incredible workshop where participants can experience first hand how to facilitate deeper and more meaningful communication resulting in powerful shifts for individual members as well as their teams. The added bonus is you will be transformed throughout the process too.” (Helen Tsotsos, Certified Professional Coach (ACPC), Toronto, On)

About Linda Lehtonen:

"I have had the pleasure of learning with Linda in both large and small groups over the last 10 years. In every instance Linda lives the guiding principles she teaches and which I strive to bring to my own everyday interactions with others, whether at work or play, in intimate or beginning relationships. Linda is a masterful teacher, coach, facilitator and mentor. With humour, challenge, compassion and love she has helped me live and work more authentically and trust myself as a facilitator to others." (Karen Bennet, Organization Development Director, Extenda-Family, Kitchener, On)

Linda Lehtonen is President of Lehtonen Management Consulting Ltd. She has over 30 years experience in facilitating groups, human resource management, organization development, training and keynote speaking, coaching, mentoring and counseling. She has a Masters degree in Human Resources Development and Adult Education, a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and has studied Marital and Family counseling. Her work also includes Executive Coaching with individuals.

Linda has taught at York University in the Psychology Department and at Wilfrid Laurier University in the School of Business and at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education teaching their certificate program in Adult Training and Development

Her experience covers a wide range of topics, primarily in the areas of leadership, facilitation, conflict resolution, teambuilding and personal power and self esteem. She has worked in mining, health care, high tech, government, financial and manufacturing companies at all levels of the client system. She led a team of organization development consultants for many years in a large financial institution. She is considered an expert in the field of group facilitation and process consultation and is known for working with especially difficult teams.

Her work has included international travel in Europe, Southeast Asia, and throughout North America. She is known to work form a place of profound respect, compassion and integrity in all of her work.

What People Say:

· The workshop was a transforming experience for me - personally and professionally. (AO'DB- consultant/facilitator, Kitchener, On)

· I went to Linda's workshop with a sense of curiosity and frankly, a bit of uncertainty, about the approach of "transformational teambuilding". It seemed to offer more than could be expected in such a short time - especially for those groups, which had broken down, and where hurt had replaced trust and respect.

I was completely taken by Linda's approach, and deeply moved by the power it brings to individuals. It is, in every way imaginable, "right on". People feel safe and encouraged and respected to work on issues that have been blocking them - and Linda ensures that they get right to the 'heart' of the matter. It truly is transformational.

You can trust Linda's process. It is tested, true and healing - and efficient. We all need to be encouraged and supported to approach our work and each other in the way that Linda approaches hers.'(K M J – HRB-DGRH – Director of Conflict Mediation)

· The workshop was a transforming experience for me - personally and professionally. (AO'DB- consultant/facilitator, Kitchener, On)

· The workshop was far more than a how to; but was itself a transformational experience. Linda's experience provided all the practical nuts and bolts while her welcoming presence provided a nurturing environment that the whole group could thrive in. (Jim Deigan – School Principal, Kitchener, On))

· “The learning I got from this workshop came not only from Linda but from within each one of the participants in the circle including myself. Linda has this way about her that draws out the best in you. This allows you to grow from the strengths of others while also benefiting from your own strengths that you might not have known were there.” (Bob Lennon, Manger of Health, Safety & Six Sigma, New Brunswick)

· Participating in this workshop has increased my self-confidence tremendously. It helped me accept who I am as a whole with my strengths and challenges. It helped me to connect with my inner self at a very deep level. It allowed me to enlighten and integrate both the light and the shadow of my personality. In a nutshell, I am more grounded and connected to the known and the unknown with a great deal of comfort. Nancy Fontaine (Senior Advisor, Industry Canada, Conflict Prevention and Early Resolution team)

· The experience for me went well beyond learning techniques, although this certainly was part of it. Personally, it truly was transformational on many levels - mind, heart and soul. It also helped me understand the human being living the conflict, how to be open to hearing people in conflict, and how to give them the space and help to work out what they need to, with compassion. (Susan Sandul, Senior Advisor, Conflict Prevention and Early Resolution, Industry Canada, Ottawa)

· That week was really wonderful for me. Linda is a very spiritual person and has a lot of wisdom. Her personality shows in each activity that we do. She is able to make everybody feel comfortable and helps people to see the best part of them and others. I would highly recommend it. You feel so much love after that workshop. It's like a week of personal growing. (Mélanie Couture

· Conseillère en mieux-être / Well Being Advisor Patrimoine Canadian Heritage, Ottawa)

· Learning "How to do Transformational Teambuilding" is itself a transformational experience, and an opportunity for a refresher for anyone who works with people. Linda is masterful in her work, and I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to benefit from her insights and mentorship. (Cheryl Ives, Kitchener)

Contact:

For more information, call Linda Lehtonen at 519-529-3240 or e mail her at info@lindalehtonen.com