Emerging Leaders Program

• The difference between managing & leading and why both are appropriate depending on the circumstances.
• Ways to more effectively communicate with your team!
• How to engage your team in order to get the highest return on your investment of time, energy & effort.
  

Next Session Date: January 16, 2020
​​Trainer:​ Don McKee

Don McKee, Performance Consultant, has been in education and training for the past 20 years. This includes 5 years as Training Director for Iowa Select Farms, Iowa Falls’ Iowa and Training Consultant for Iowa Central Community College, Fort Dodge, Iowa. Don is currently a certified Zenger Miller Leadership trainer, Life Orientations Behavioral Trainer and LEAN 101 Facilitator.

​​Don has facilitated leadership training for over 100 manufacturers, hospitals, banks and municipalities throughout Iowa and Illinois including Winnebago Industries, Fort Dodge Animal Health, Pella Windows and Monsanto. Don’s approach to training is exemplified in his motto “Making Common Sense, Common Practice”. Don utilizes tools and strategies designed to pick up where traditional “theory” training drops off. Don currently resides in Webster City, Iowa with his wife and four daughters.​

Next Session Date: February 20, 2020
Trainer:​ Stacie Lightner

Stacie is a senior employee trainer at Farm Bureau Financial Services. She has been with the company since 2006, and develops and facilitates business courses for FBL Financial Group employees. She has developed many courses including a series of classes focusing on customer service called Service Focused. Stacie earned a Bachelor's degree in Education from Iowa State University. She has volunteered and worked for the Urbandale School District, been a PTO board member, church council member, ATD board member, director of Vacation Bible School, assisting minister, published articles in industry magazines, and was self-employed for more than 10 years. She has coached mock trial at Urbandale for over 17 years taking several teams to the final four, state runner up, and state champions.

• Learn about generational differences and values that have influenced and shaped our lives.
• Understand the Next Generation mindset better when it comes to "career" and learn how to effectively start the workforce discussion.
• Discuss new ways to build relationships with the Next Generation - and their support systems - to access top talent.
• Identify improved strategies on how to be in the right place at the right time to recruit the Next Generation.

Next Session Date: March 5, 2020
Trainer:​ Cassandra Halls​

Cassandra Halls has been training and consulting since 2007, offering a wide variety of business consulting services to corporate, non-profit and local governmental entities primarily in the Midwest. Areas of specialty include: strategic planning, project management, research services, training facilitation, workforce recruitment and retention, generational perspectives, succession planning and operations process improvements. Halls spent 10 years of her career in public administration in Iowa, and then shifted to corporate employment, working in multiple strategic roles for a start-up technology company which grew from 20 employees to over 1,000 employees over the course of two short years! She has served in the Vice President role in both non-profit and corporate operations, utilizing her broad perspective to drive solutions to the challenges encountered in many work cultures and environments. Halls earned a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from William Penn University.

• Explore the concept of unconscious bias and how it plays out in the workplace.
• Discuss case studies to illustrate unconscious bias in the workplace.
• Discuss strategies to mitigate unconscious biases.

Next Session Date: April 16, 2020
Trainer: Claudia Schabel

Claudia Schabel combines over a decade of experience as a Diversity and Inclusion strategist with Fortune 100 and 500 companies with a multicultural background to offer coaching and consulting services in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion to businesses, educational and not-for-profit organizations.

Schabel volunteers and serves on multiple boards. Currently, she is a commissioner on the City of Des Moines Civil and Human Rights Commission, serves on the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) State Council as the Director of Diversity, serves as a trainer/facilitator for the Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking and Slavery and volunteers at Blank Children’s Hospital.

Schabel earned a BA degree in International Relations from Drake University. She is a native of Brazil and lives in Des Moines, IA.

• Understand the concept of Emotional Intelligence.
• Learn what emotions are, why they are important, and where they come from.
• Learn to recognize, understand and manage their emotions and influence the emotions of others.
• See how necessary Emotional Intelligence is in their success.
• Learn why it is important in a leadership role.
• Complete a self-assessment of their Emotional Intelligence and look at strategies for improvement.

Next Session Date: May 21, 2020
​Trainer: Tony Wilson

Tony Wilson has 30 years experience as an educator. He held positions as teacher, assistant principal, educational coordinator, and coordinator of afterschool programs.

Tony served as Coordinator of the Reentry program at Des Moines Area Community College, and Coordinator of Outreach at Neighborhood Health Initiative through Iowa Health (now Unity Point). He has been a consultant to the Iowa Department of Corrections, Iowa Department of Human Services, Iowa Department of Education, and Iowa Workforce Development.

Tony consults with, and provides training for, many local for-for profit and non-profit organizations, as well for the Des Moines Public School system and for Des Moines Area Community College. For the last eight years, he has served as a consultant to and facilitator for Project IOWA, a workforce training initiative, providing soft skills/life skills training to unemployed and underpaid individuals.

Tony retired from the Iowa Air National Guard in 2009, after completing 30 years of service. He held the rank of Colonel and retired as the installation Inspector General.

Tony received his Bachelor’s degree from Central College in Pella, Iowa in Elementary Education, a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Drake University, and a Bachelors Degree in Holistic Health Sciences from the International Quantum University of Integrative Medicine.

Tony has served on the Board of numerous community organizations.​

• Whether the people involved are self-orientated or others-centered.
• The personality styles at play.

Then, learn ways to read, adapt, and connect in those situations.

Take-aways include a quick way to read and match the styles of others, identifying self-orientated behaviors, and using the right language to bring team members around to a productive, others-centered approach in various situations. Visual aids, leave-behinds, and practical patience during the session can be expected.

Next Session Date: June 18, 2020
Trainer: Alan Feier

Alan Feirer is a leadership trainer, Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner, Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team™ Authorized Partner, organizational development consultant, and author of The Group Dynamic Field Guide: 51 Ideas You Can Use Today. For the last 20 years, he has done business helping people embrace challenging work, and have less stress while getting more done. Alan works with managers, directors, leadership teams, staffs, and team members through leadership training, team-building, and communication training.

Mr. Feirer lives in Winterset, Iowa, with his wife, Julie, and daughter, Mara. He holds membership in many professional organizations, including Optimists, Madison County Area Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Des Moines Partnership, and the Association for Talent Development (previous Central Iowa chapter President). Feirer's other interests include competitive Scrabble, exercise, travel, dining, and anything Disney.

• Reasons people resist change and how to better overcome this resistance.
• The importance of being sensitive to when & how you present change.
• A simple approach that will help you and your team move forward faster & easier.

Next Session Date: July 9, 2020
Trainer: Terri Jensen

Terri Jensen is an experienced business and technology executive and leader who focuses on developing and implementing technology solutions that bring business vision to life. She is a disciplined, results oriented leader whose strength is aligning people and processes with strategy. Terri has transformed IT departments from break/fix order-takers to high-performing teams that provide businesses with technology as a competitive advantage.

Terri is a builder of businesses, teams, and people. She founded and grew an innovative and disruptive technology training and consulting firm for 14 years, led client services in a software development startup affiliated with a large enterprise, and became CIO of that enterprise. As CIO she has led organization-wide change in the higher education, construction, and insurance industries. Throughout her career, Terri has put people and relationships first. She has built strong, customer-focused teams, and mentored many technology leaders and staff to increase retention by enhancing the human side of leadership; communication, empathy, career development, and succession planning.

A graduate of Drake University, Jensen earned her B.A. in Computer Science. She also holds a master’s in Organizational Leadership from Colorado State University.

• Are you consistently and fully being told what you need to hear? By your leader? By your direct reports? By your peers?
• What are "Undiscussables" on your team - topics, problems, decisions and questions buried in silence?
• What might your organization be doing poorly or overlooking - meetings, projects, decisions, feedback, results - that no one is talking about?
• What are others waiting for you to figure out on your own? To see what you don't see? To learn what you don't know?
• What would people in your organization say if they weren't afraid to speak up?

This session helps leaders create an environment where people speak up more candidly, fully, and purposefully to achieve their goals. The program provides simple, high-impact, sustainable practices to create safe and collaborative environments.

Leaders emerge from the workshop with skills and tools that enable other to bring up better ideas, challenge the status quo, raise critical questions, resolve problems early, break through organizational silence and talk about undiscussables. This session includes:

• Tools to assess your team's current "State of Candor" and to measure progress.
• Practices to create the environment where your organization speaks up and talk about what matters.
• A safe process to learn and honor individual, team and organizational Undiscussables - and address them.
• Fast-paced delivery with active participation.
• Skills and resources to strengthen your organization's capability to continually, candidly and optimally talk about what matters.

Next Session Date: August 20, 2020
Trainer: Tom Greene

Tom Green is dedicated to helping leaders and teams talk more candidly, fully, and purposefully to resolve conflict and talk about difficult matters. Though his workshops, he provides assessments, tools, and easy-to-implement practices to help leaders and teams address conflict, reach agreements, hold others accountable, and strengthen relationships to achieve their goals.

Known for his thoughtful, research-based, and insightful approach, Tom Green is a coach and accomplished human resources professional with expertise in performance consulting, learning and development, performance management, and leadership development. Tom is trained in conflict resolution, mediation, and instructional design for curriculum, classroom, and web-based instruction. His workshops use key data, energizing and interactive exercises, case studies, and effective check-in practices to assure learning.

• Creating clarity around expectations for each person on the leader's team.
• Building a new level of ownership and commitment in team members to fuel their growth.
• Understanding how to share authority to spur development and advancement.
• Exploring the fundamentals of coaching and recognizing the difference between strategic coaching and tactical coaching.
• Establish a coaching practice to enable the growth and development of team members.
• Reframing development opportunities for team members to improve engagement.

Next Session ​Date: September 17​, 2020
Trainer: Mike Kleis​

With more than 30 years of broad business and leadership experience, Mike provides training, coaching and consulting to individual leaders, teams and businesses across the United States and Canada. A proficient facilitator, he also leads CEO peer groups in Iowa. His expertise includes direct and cross-functional team leadership experience in the following fields: marketing, sales, plant and field operations, field service, product development, and program management. Mike holds a B.A. in Business Management from Central College and has extensive advanced training in leadership development.