Three-Hour Seminars


Whether you are planning an in-house training day or management retreat, or enhancing an existing organizational development curriculum, a three-hour seminar is perfect. Presented by Vital Integrities author George Brymer, these thought-provoking programs teach values-based leadership in a compelling and meaningful format. Handouts containing images of course slides are available.

An Introduction to Values-Based Leadership
A national workplace study revealed that just 30 percent of U.S. workers are loyal to their employers—that is, they feel a personal connection, are apt to recommend their organizations to others, and are resistant to offers from outside employers. In another study, just 51 percent of respondents said they trust their organization's senior leaders. Increasing mistrust and vanishing loyalty come at a challenging time for hiring and retaining employees: the U.S. Department of Labor projects a shortfall of four million workers by 2012.

George Brymer, creator of The Leading from the Heart Workshop, describes how the most successful companies use values-based leadership to create a culture of trust. In values-based leadership, credibility means consistency between an organization's spoken values and its leaders' actual behavior. To prove your credibility, you must repeatedly exhibit your faithfulness to your organization's values, and the best way is by consistently executing the six Vital Integrities of values-based leaders.

While exploring this proven, practical approach to leadership, new managers will learn essential survival skills, and experienced leaders will gain a fresh perspective on helping employees remain aligned to their organizations. Appropriate for managers, supervisors, team leaders, and professionals at all levels. 

The following is an overview of the information covered:

An introduction to values-based leadership, including an overview of the Six Vital Integrities.
The critical difference between being a risk taker and a risk seeker.
Why some leaders embrace chaos and cope with stress more effectively than others do.
Fatal assumptions we make when we fail, about ourselves, about our employees, and about facing future challenges.
How jargon interferes with leadership communication.
The importance of speaking to both the intellectual and emotional sides of a listener’s mind, and the best way to relay information to employees.
The effects on employee behavior when leaders violate an organization’s values.
Why leaders struggle with giving away authority, and why some employees resist being empowered.
What a 19th century Hungarian doctor taught us about “disrespectful” employees.
Why organizations should stop squandering training budgets on improving employee weaknesses, and concentrate on enhancing strengths.
Why topgrading does not work.
How values-based leaders develop the capacity to describe an organization’s mission and communicate it in memorable and inspirational ways.

Workplace Ethics in an Age of Corporate Governance
Enron, Arthur Anderson, Global Crossing, WorldCom, Tyco—once prominent organizations, but now infamous names in newspaper headlines. Business leaders face accusations about overstating earnings, hiding massive debt, diverting millions of dollars in company funds for their personal use, using questionable accounting practices, and obstructing justice. Is it any wonder many employees develop biases that lead them to associate their leaders with dishonesty and untrustworthiness?

Many recent corporate scandals were detectable, even avoidable, but workers ignored obvious signs of wrongdoing. Why? According to the Ethics Resource Center’s 2003 National Business Ethics Survey, the top reasons employees close their eyes to misconduct include the belief that management will avoid taking action anyway, and a concern about remaining anonymous. Therefore, to promote cultures less tolerant of misconduct, organizations must remain consistent in the values simultaneously communicated to employees and demonstrated by leaders.

In this values-based leadership approach to workplace ethics, George Brymer provides a unique understanding of one timely Vital Integrity—that is, how the best leaders live by the values they profess.

This timely seminar covers the following topics:

Why less than two out of five employees trust you.
How an ethical workplace improves employee retention.
Understanding why every employee views ethics uniquely.
How to assess—and handle—ethical dilemmas.
How Socrates predicted the current corporate scandals.
Defining the vocabulary (jargon!) of workplace ethics.
Learning the importance of passing values on to the next generation of leaders.
Determining just how ethical your ethics program really is.

Download a PDF datasheet on this workshop here.


RESOLUTION: Changing the Workplace Problem-Solving Culture
Most experts describe conventional problem solving as steps on a checklist: identify, analyze, brainstorm, plan, implement, and evaluate. But in today’s business world, change occurs at the speed of light, and problem solvers race from one ensuing crisis to the next. So how can we rely on old approaches to problem solving any longer?

Fact is, organizations typically resolve problems inefficiently: a spur-of-the-moment diagnosis, followed by a hastily applied band-aid. But it’s not just the solution that’s wrong—it’s the problem-solving culture common in most organizations that’s not working.

To resolve problems effectively—and to reduce the number of new problems—leaders must foster a workplace culture that turns every employee into a problem solver. And they must do it fast, before their organizations become extinct.

Participants will learn to:

Recognize—and break down—established barriers to problem solving.
Apply effective problem-solving techniques to the toughest challenges.
Prevent the "urgency of now" from taking precedence over finding long-range, permanent solutions.
Fix a broken process, not just the end result.
Refrain from making faulty assumptions about the causes of problems—and their possible solutions.
Avoid the pitfalls of brainstorming.
Focus on identifying and removing problems, rather than shooting the messenger.
Create a problem-solving culture.

Download a PDF datasheet on this workshop here.


Why Your Employees Ignore You When You Speak
Have you mastered the leadership arts of listening and speaking? Are your messages credible and memorable, or are employees tuning out because your speech is filled with buzzwords, euphemisms, and acronyms? Are you an engaged listener, or are your inner voices, hidden biases, or preconceptions drowning out your employees’ ideas and warnings?

Everything we do as leaders communicates something to our employees. The words we choose set the tone for openness, respect, and trust. The stories we tell determine how employees remember our messages. Whether we’re engaged listeners, or absent ones, our listening actions convey as much to employees as what we say. More than ever, leadership comes down to our conversations with employees.

George Brymer will explain how to get your employees to pay attention to, understand, and remember your messages—and how you can hear all the important things your workers have to say.

In this seminar, you'll learn the following skills:

Why organizations believe they are communicating, but employees are scratching their heads.
What the latest corporate buzzwords and catchphrases really mean, and what using them tells your employees about you.
Why the best way to inspire workers is to engage their emotions—and how to find the direct route to their emotions.
How to sharpen your storytelling skills.
Overcoming the four "listening illusions" common to most leaders.
How to listen with your eyes, as well as your ears.
What two stonemasons can teach us about sharing our visions.
Developing the talent that 99 percent of business leaders ignore.

Download a PDF datasheet on this workshop here. 


Scheduling Details
Cost for each three-hour presentation is $2,000 (plus travel expenses outside 50 miles of Toledo, Ohio) and there is no limit to the number of participants. Handouts of the slide presentation are available for $3.00 each, or your organization can make its own copies (35-40 pages each set).

To schedule, call George Brymer at 419-265-3467.