Mark Rowland

Free

Team Effectiveness and Group Leadership Expert

Mark Rowland Quick Facts

Main Areas: Leadership, Team Development, Positive Professional Relationships, Effective Team Performance
Best Sellers: Training courses, Workshops, Retreats, Presentations
Career Focus: Presenter, Trainer, Coach, Business Owner
Affiliation: Association for Experiential Education

Mark specializes in helping groups raise th bar to higher achievement & their leaders optimize their performance. Mark's programs help hundreds of companies and over 6,000 reach peak performance.

Peak Performance!^™ is a performance-enhancement training company. We help people improve the way they think about themselves and work with each other. We get people “singing off the same page,” focused on the same goal, and excited to be working together.

Clients come to us for one of three reasons:

1) they want an incredible special event like a retreat or outing,

2) they want us to work with them over some period of time to improve group effectiveness, or

3) they want us to handle their ongoing staff training.

Peak Performance!^™ is an accredited, nationally recognized experience-based training and development firm known for effective training that produces long-remembered and much talked-about events that produce dramatic, positive change in organizations.

Peak Performance!^™ programs help individuals and organizations reach higher achievement through experience-based training, that is, fun, engaging activities that teach and require the components of team success; not someone talking at them, while they pretend to listen! Participants fully engaged in fun activities learn more, remember longer, and implement the training better.

Articles by this expert

SelfGrowth articles and saved writing connected to this expert.

6 total

Article

Leaders say "Thank You"

FIVE MINUTE LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP™ An Investment in Higher Achievement PREPAREDNESS • Prepare and take action to be uninterrupted for just five minutes. • Close your eyes. Pause. Take three, deep, slow breaths while you clear your mind of everything else. (Really…it makes a difference!) • Ask yourself: “What’s in it for me (WIFM) if I improve my leadership?” List at least two answers. ACTIVITY Read the following slowly, really thinking about what it could mean to you.

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Article

Leaders Build Teams

FIVE MINUTE LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP™ An investment in Higher Achievement PREPAREDNESS • We realize that each of these begins the same way. Why? Because it works. Try it! • Prepare and take action to be uninterrupted for at least five minutes • Close your eyes. Pause. Take three, deep, slow breathes, while you clear your mind of everything else. (Really…it makes a difference!) • Ask yourself: “What’s in it for me? (WIFM), if I improve my leadership?” List three answers. ACTIVITY Read the following slowly, really thinking about what it could mean to you.

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Article

Leaders Know Value

FIVE MINUTE LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP™ An Investment in Higher Achievement PREPAREDNESS • Prepare and take action to be uninterrupted for just five minutes • Close your eyes. Pause. Take three, deep, slow breathes, while you clear your mind of everything else. (Really…it makes a difference!) • Ask yourself: “What’s in it for me? (WIFM), if I improve my leadership?” List three answers. ACTIVITY Read the following slowly, really thinking about what it could mean to you.

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Article

Leaders Know Value

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Leaders Know Value

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Presentation Minefields Averted

Presentation Minefields Averted Of course, there are plenty of ways to screw up a presentation ( ! ) But here're some reminders about a few of the classic "mines" in the presentation minefield. Personally, I find number 5 the MOST common! Eight Classic Presentation Mistakes 1. Dullness itself: Relying on only one or two illustrations to make your points. Use salient statistics … timely quotes … appropriate industry examples … and personal stories to help your listeners visualize your message – and remember it. 2. NOT repeating your message enough.r

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Contacting Mark Rowland

mark@peaktraining.com

www.peaktraining.com

888-875-PEAK (7325)

719-276-2125

Other highlights

PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS TEAMBUILDING

Building Blocks of Teamwork - Want the Teamwork “Cliff’s Notes?” How about an introduction to the major components of High Achieving Teams with less time invested? “Building Blocks” is the introductory course that provides a superb foundation for raising the bar for your team’s performance. Communication, Collaboration, Common Goals, Trust and Support, and Celebrating Success—it’s all there. Building Blocks is also great for a “booster shot” for teams that could benefit from reviewing the basics and re-committing to success a few months after a more comprehensive program.

Beyond Cooperation©[1] - Cooperation merely requires a willingness to be dragged along for the ride. Collaboration requires focus on a common goal: mutual success. Our Beyond Cooperation modules introduce critical team skills and then train your teams to create the elusive “win-win” that many talk about and few achieve.

Expansion Thinkingã--Innovation & Creativity - Move beyond arguing for your position and join your teams on an adventure into “expansion thinking”. These workshops are specifically designed to train your teams in the art of creative participation and innovation. You’ll learn how to tap into the remarkable innovative power of expansion thinking so you can win with better products, improved systems, optimal efficiency, and strategies that are ahead of the competition.

Can-do Culture - Whether you think you can, or think you can’t—you’re right! Research and experience regularly show that people and teams can accomplish more than they think they can. This high-adventure program helps participants see that they can do more, create a vision of what they can accomplish, and create realistic action plans to get there.

First Try Communicationã - Peak Performance!^™’s First Try Communicationã will get your people communicating effectively the first time. We teach teams how to clarify expectations, set direction, hear what’s said, and confirm plans efficiently. Then we practice the skills we teach through a series of innovative simulations and video taped activities. Start communicating effectively on the First Try!

Hey, No Problem!ã - If you thought problem solving wasn’t all that important, think again! Great teams have always been great problem-solvers. Teams that find solutions quickly win again and again. Hey, No Problem!© will teach your teams to understand problems as exciting challenges, to create solutions more quickly, and to think and act beyond the traditional group boundaries that lead to mediocrity.

Developing Guiding Principles and Core Values - So how DO you get everyone “singing off the same page?” Do “Company Values” really matter in the real world? Getting everyone operating off the same page requires commonly held guiding principles. Not the kind you have on a piece of paper, but the ones that everyone is fully bought into

Out of Two, One - It’s comparatively easy to merge two organizations. It can be a real challenge to bring two cultures together and form one that works for team effectiveness. Let us help you identify the essential elements of each culture, bring them together in a logical structure, get buy-in from team members, codify the vital components, and create Action Plans for getting the most from the new cultural components.

EMPLOYEE SKILLS TRAINING

First Try Communicationã - Peak Performance!^™’s First Try Communicationã will get your people communicating effectively the first time. We teach teams how to clarify expectations, set direction, hear what’s said, and confirm plans efficiently. Then we practice the skills we teach through a series of innovative simulations and video taped activities. Start communicating effectively on the First Try!

Giving Great Feedback - This critical skill workshop will provide you with powerful tools to help your people make major transitions and improvements in their performance. Forget the arcane hire and fire model of the past. You need to know how to actualize great performance with the people you have.

Implementing World Class Customer Service - World Class Customer Service creates awareness and personal accountability for teams responsible for customer service. In it, we address:

1. The attitudes that undermine great customer service,2. The attitudes that lead to great customer service,3. The subtle behaviors that help clients feel valued,4. The obvious behaviors and actions that make clients feel valued,5. How to use teamwork to create a culture of great customer care, and6. How to use practice sessions to continually hone customer care skills. Unlike other customer service programs, our program focuses on the responsibility of the entire work group as well as the individual in this process. In other words, we are training the team to carry a vision for customer service, to hold one another accountable, and to celebrate great service. This approach creates a total service environment instead of simply providing hard skills for customer service.

Leading as Coaching© - Want to have your team members respond to your leadership style as if you were the best coach they’ve ever had? It takes skills and passion that Peak Performance!^™ has mastered. We’ll introduce critical skills of great coaches, review classic case studies, and then train you to lead as a coach.

So Now You’re a Supervisor -

Optimizing Leadershipã Impact - These incredible experiences take you deep into the world of Optimal Leadershipã --a highly adaptive form of leadership that addresses the needs of the individual, the circumstance, and the setting in which you find yourself. We’ll teach you how to assess the learning styles and personality differences within your teams. Then we’ll help you establish a long-term leadership style strategy so you can get your teams optimizing the impact they have with your customers and within your organization.

EFFECTIVE MEETINGS

Meetings: Fearful or Fantastic? - Do your people dread another meeting or look forward to being motivated? Do they see meetings as mandatory time wasters or eagerly expect to leverage that time for greater results? Let Peak Performance!^™ get them in the right mind set to make meetings really work.

Mix and Mingle – Why gamble that people will meet each other when we guarantee it?

People are coming from different places across the country, the world, or maybe just different departments, and you want them to “get to know each other.” Who hasn’t had an awkward, stilted, “get to know you” where the only people who met were those who already knew each other? Forget about your usual standing around in a stuffy conference room, looking for anybody you might know in a sea of unfamiliar faces and awkward conversations about nothing, pretending to have fun. Picture this: EVERYBODY actively engaged in interesting, worth their time, unique activities that produce meaningful interactions. And having a BLAST doing it! Mix and Mingle is a highly orchestrated series of proven activities that ensures each participant meets at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the group in a substantive way. Participants can relax and enjoy themselves as they move through fun and energizing activities. Team members begin interesting conversations they’ll want to continue during the rest of the retreat. Mix and Mingle uses a careful recipe of activities selected and sequenced to engage a diverse audience with different learning styles, backgrounds, and educational levels. Unique, interesting, and fun puzzles, team challenges, and tests bring out strengths and abilities no one knew about. Products of a team’s work are joined with other team’s work so that individuals become a team, teams become larger groups, which join to represent the entire company. And it’s adaptable to many event themes. This program has been successfully used as a: · High-energy kick-off session to get everyone receptive to & excited about the rest of the meetings,· A productive way to use time after some have checked in; but many will be delayed in travel,· Great way to foreshadow and frontload vital meeting agenda items & build “buy-in. Mix and Mingle is a fast-paced, action learning session that provides huge content for small amounts of time and money invested. Stronger professional relationships develop. Participants know strengths of their colleagues, and feel part of a whole organization. And they LOVE it! They’ll be talking about it for months!

Meetings that Really Produce - If you’re tired of status quo weekly meetings, or you want to see your meetings go from the dreaded “download meeting” to powerful sessions where innovation and creativity flourish, we can help. If you want to learn how to encourage input and enthusiasm on the part of your meeting attendees, we can help with that, too. These high impact-training programs teach leaders, team members, and managers how to design and lead productive meetings.

Meeting Facilitation - It’s tough to participate in a meeting and simultaneously facilitate optimum involvement by the participants. Peak Performance!^™ facilitators focus on making your meeting produce the results you want.

CULTURES PRODUCE OPPORTUNITY

Out of Two, One - It’s comparatively easy to merge two organizations. It can be a real challenge to bring two cultures together and form one that works for team effectiveness. Let us help you identify the essential elements of each culture, bring them together in a logical structure, get buy-in from team members, codify the vital components, and create Action Plans for getting the most from the new cultural components.

Integrating Cultures - Bringing two distinct cultures together is complex. We’ll help you negotiate the maze of joining teams together. Why do they do things THAT way? What am I doing that drives them nuts? Why can’t they just use our system? We’ll get beyond these questions and focus on common goals. These programs build bridges of communication and trust between diverse groups—essential foundations of effective working relationships.

PROFESSIONAL MEETING FACILITATION

Developing Guiding Principles and Core Values - So how DO you get everyone “singing off the same page?” Do “Company Values” really matter in the real world? Getting everyone operating off the same page requires commonly held guiding principles. Not the kind you have on a piece of paper, but the ones that everyone is fully bought into

Meeting Facilitation - It’s tough to participate in a meeting and simultaneously facilitate optimum involvement by the participants. Peak Performance!^™ facilitators focus on making your meeting produce the results you want.

Strategic Planning Sessions - These facilitated programs will help your leadership team develop Action Plans and strategies for the next quarter, the next year, or longer. Get agreement and “buy-in” on where you need to go, how you’re going to get there, and who’s going to be responsible for what. Let our senior facilitators facilitate the sessions so your team can concentrate on content.

TEAM RETREATS

Building Blocks of Teamwork - Want the Teamwork “Cliff’s Notes?” How about an introduction to the major components of High Achieving Teams with less time invested? “Building Blocks” is the introductory course that provides a superb foundation for raising the bar for your team’s performance. Communication, Collaboration, Common Goals, Trust and Support, and Celebrating Success—it’s all there. Building Blocks is also great for a “booster shot” for teams that could benefit from reviewing the basics and re-committing to success a few months after a more comprehensive program.

Beyond Cooperation©[2] - Cooperation merely requires a willingness to be dragged along for the ride. Collaboration requires focus on a common goal: mutual success. Our Beyond Cooperation modules introduce critical team skills and then train your teams to create the elusive “win-win” that many talk about and few achieve.

Expansion Thinkingã--Innovation & Creativity - Move beyond arguing for your position and join your teams on an adventure into “expansion thinking”. These workshops are specifically designed to train your teams in the art of creative participation and innovation. You’ll learn how to tap into the remarkable innovative power of expansion thinking so you can win with better products, improved systems, optimal efficiency, and strategies that are ahead of the competition.

Can-do Culture - Whether you think you can, or think you can’t—you’re right! Research and experience regularly show that people and teams can accomplish more than they think they can. This high-adventure program helps participants see that they can do more, create a vision of what they can accomplish, and create realistic action plans to get there.

Hey, No Problem!ã - If you thought problem solving wasn’t all that important, think again! Great teams have always been great problem-solvers. Teams that find solutions quickly win again and again. Hey, No Problem!© will teach your teams to understand problems as exciting challenges, to create solutions more quickly, and to think and act beyond the traditional group boundaries that lead to mediocrity.

LEADERSHIP SKILLS

Coaching a Team vs. Commanding an Army - How do YOU get your teams “singing off the same page” and excited to work together? By modeling good coaching, teaching vital leadership skills, and frequent check-in. Peak Performance!^™ facilitators can help perfect your coaching skills. More motivated employees, focused on organizational goals, performing at a high level are the results.

Leading as Coachingã - Want to have your team members respond to your leadership style as if you were the best coach they’ve ever had? It takes skills and passion that Peak Performance!^™ training has mastered. We’ll introduce critical skills of great coaches, review classic case studies, and then train you to lead as a coach.

Optimizing Leadershipã Impact - These incredible experiences take you deep into the world of Optimal Leadershipã - a highly adaptive form of leadership that addresses the needs of the individual, the circumstance, and the setting in which you find yourself. We’ll teach you how to assess the learning styles and personality differences within your teams. Then we’ll help you establish a long-term leadership style strategy so you can get your teams optimizing the impact they have with your customers and within your organization.

MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT

Profiting from Change—Seamless Adaptationã - The future is change. The trick is getting your people to learn how to adapt and progress without missing a beat. Profiting from Change covers the basics of human reactions to change and then trains your teams in the art of Seamless Adaptationã.. We’ll help your people stop resisting the inevitable and start using change for competitive advantage.

Achieving the Impossible - Show your sales and management teams that they can accomplish more with less! Our Achieving the Impossible for sales and management teams challenges their perceived limitations and demonstrates that their potential far exceeds their current levels of performance. They will leave ready to take on the world!

Giving Great Feedback - This critical skill workshop will provide you with powerful tools to help your people make major transitions and improvements in their performance. Forget the arcane hire and fire model of the past. You need to know how to actualize great performance with the people you have.

Let’s Talkä - Communication and Collaboration betwee Mangers and Departments. A powerful program designed to share Best Practices, teach Creative Collaboration, and develop on-going systems of Coaching Networks to insure long-term productive communication between managers and departments.

One of our most popular modules! Let’s Talkä is a fast-paced, engaging program that prepares participants before they arrive to present relevant and unique Best Practice presentations, develop and document Action Plans, and create on-going Coaching Networks to ensure long-term communication and collaboration. Powerful initiatives, simulations, and trust building exercises produce amazing results.

Employee Retention Secrets - Employee retention is critical to the success of any organization. Improved retention through a system of empowerment, reward, recognition, and energy infusion also leads to improved customer service, greater efficiency, and a happier workplace.

At the heart of this module is the ability to unleash the human potential in all of your employees. Studies consistently show that employees are motivated more by factors related to their work environment--appreciation, recognition, and involvement than by money, job security, or promotion. Further, systems that consistently reinforce stress reduction and increased positive energy have been shown to dramatically improve efficiency, customer service, and overall employee satisfaction. This module includes:Ø Systems, ideas, and action plans for improving positive energy, recognizing employee successes, and introducing fun into the workplace.Ø Techniques for teaching “being present” in all of your employees.Ø The power of giving, helping, and solving problems.Ø Implementing “The Attitude of Choice.”

Strategic Planning Sessions - These facilitated programs will help your leadership team develop Action Plans and strategies for the next quarter, the next year, or longer. Get agreement and “buy-in” on where you need to go, how you’re going to get there, and who’s going to be responsible for what. Let our senior facilitators facilitate the sessions so your team can concentrate on content.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Achieving the Impossible - Show your sales teams that they can accomplish more with less! Our Remarkable Results for sales teams challenges their perceived limitations and demonstrates that their potential far exceeds their current levels of performance. They will leave ready to take on the world!

Profiting from Change—Seamless Adaptationã - The future is change. The trick is getting your people to learn how to adapt and progress without missing a beat. Profiting from Change covers the basics of human reactions to change and then trains your teams in the art of Seamless Adaptationã. We’ll help your people stop resisting the inevitable and start using change for competitive advantage.

SALES TRAINING

Achieving the Impossible - Show your sales teams that they can accomplish more with less! Our Remarkable Results for sales teams challenges their perceived limitations and demonstrates that their potential far exceeds their current levels of performance. They will leave ready to take on the world!

Can-do Culture - Whether you think you can, or think you can’t—you’re right! Research and experience regularly show that people and teams can accomplish more than they think they can. This high-adventure program helps participants see that they can do more, create a vision of what they can accomplish, and create realistic action plans to get there.

Consultative Sales Training - Transform the way your clients think of you, and create the Ideal Client Relationship. CST will teach you how to use facilitation skills to: · Establish Ideal Client Relationships· Build accounts instead of just making sales· Increase the value of your services so that clients gladly invest more with you You will also learn:· How to write powerful proposals· How to follow-up with clients you have already served · How to double or triple your average contract · How to reach the clients you want to serve · How to succinctly express the value of your services to anyone you meet CST consists of three full days of interactive learning, skill building, classroom lectures, role-plays, group discussions, and powerful simulations. As part of the process, every attendee will also produce a detailed marketing strategy for their organization and set realistic sales goals for the coming year.

OTHER PROGRAMS

Complementing the Authors - Programs that Complement Widely Known Experts, include a copy of the text for each participant, exercises to teach and emphasize the author’s lessons, and special visual aids to anchor the experience.

§ Who Stole My Cheese?, Spencer Johnson

§ The Wisdom of Teams, Katzenbach & Smith

§ High Five, Spencer Johnson

§ The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes & Pozner

§ Jesus:CEO, Laurie Beth Jones

And we’re adding new ones all the time.

Strong Employee Families - The first thing that strikes you about Family Camp with Peak Performance!^™ is how much fun everyone's having! In many so-called "family events," analysis suggests that the event is either an adult interest that the kids are dragged to, or a kid interest that parents attend for the benefit of the kids. Not so in our Strong Employee Families program! These activities, facilitated by caring professionals who become guides, coaches, leaders, and--most of all--friends, engage the whole family. No one is left out, everyone is needed, they all have an important part to play, and they all LOVE it!

Family members are invited to complete a unique challenging non-competitive activity which is completely new to them, and which they'll have a blast doing. Along the way to success, they have to develop and agree on a plan, execute the plan using all family and team members, and react to unforeseen changes in the exercise. After the exercise, our staff guide family members in analyzing and learning lessons which are important building blocks to higher achievement.

New Employee Orientation Programs - If you want your new team members to show up ready to collaborate, you have to show them what you expect. These fun and exciting programs are a great way to introduce new employees into your culture and create a clear sense of expectations for teamwork, team communication, proactive contributions, and personal accountability. We’ll get them excited about your organization and they will leave thinking about all the ways they can contribute.

“TRY BEFORE YOU BUY” PROGRAMS

Qualified decision-makers from organizations are invited to participate in a “sampler” program that:

- Shows them the power, effectiveness, and FUN of Experience Based Training (EBT),
- Gives them specific tools to use with their teams to improve group effectiveness,
- Gives them a Team Leader’s Handbook to implement action plans created during the program, and
- Provides first-hand experience with which to advocate for their group’s participation.

These programs last between 2 and 4 hours and are offered at a reduced price to provide maximum value for a minimum time investment. Besides being able to evaluate bringing the power of EBT to their organizations, participants learn valuable performance enhancement techniques and activities they can lead with their teams to introduce them to the fun and effectiveness of Experience-Based Training.

ASSESSMENTS

Team Surveys § Where to Begin? Which Module Will Pay the Biggest Returns -§ Meeting Diagnostics -§ Team Effectiveness Survey -§ Customer Satisfaction - Individual Assessments § Leadership § Sales Effectiveness § Am I a Team Player? § Customer Satisfaction § Organizational Climate § Relationship § Sales Professional § The Six Sigma § Total Team Assessment § World Class Leadership - The World Class Leadership Self Assessment is a 30-question instrument which measures the predictors of creating a customer focused organization, where customer preference, loyalty, return, and recommend rate reach distinctly higher levels. This valuable self-assessment and personal improvement process will measure to what extent you are effectively leading the people and circumstances in your situation to produce world-class results. Each participant completes a World Class Leadership Self Assessment. Individual leadership behaviors will be statistically measured with each individual developing a personalized leadership behavior impact chart. Each individual will learn his or her own World Class Leadership Strengths and opportunities for improvement on an objective mathematical basis, without judgment or labeling. Self-assessment is a powerful process, which yields new awareness and forms the basis for individual commitment to change.§ Myers-Briggs® § DISC § PACE®

OPEN ENROLLMENT PROGRAMS

Most people’s first Peak Performance!^™ experience is as part of a group learning how to achieve more together. But some people either want to continue on to the “graduate” school of higher achievement or want a “head start” before their group programs. Open enrollment programs accept motivated individuals and smaller groups who want specialized training. LEADERSHIP FORUM The Peak Performance!^™ Leadership Forum is a community of like-minded individuals who come together to increase their personal and professional effectiveness and achievements. Attendance is by invitation-only, based on the individual’s accomplishments in a prior Peak Performance!^™ group program. The Forum is an intense, two-day retreat that helps participants identify their own “personal best” leadership style, teaches proven group effectiveness techniques, and prepares them to lead team members to greater accomplishments. It begins before the program starts, with leadership and teamwork assessments and pre-program preparation. The retreat itself is fast-paced, highly interactive, and activity-filled. Participants develop personal mission, values, and leadership statements to guide them. They learn building blocks of group effectiveness, practice giving and receiving feedback for continuous improvement, create action plans to optimize their team leadership, and commit to ongoing assessment and development programs. Participants come home with a “toolbox” full of tried and true tools that they can use with their teams, and receive a complimentary subscription to Teamwork Report^™, Peak Performance!^™’s monthly electronic resource of tools for success. To ensure maximum value in their post-retreat lives, participants form a coaching triad to help each other implement the action plans they create during the retreat. Their Leadership Handbook will inform their work. And, Peak Performance!^™ facilitators are available to them for follow-up coaching.