When you request a custom Stitt Feld Handy Group workshop, our course designers (who are also experienced dispute resolution practitioners and lead instructors) will sit down with you to design the right course for your goals and budget. We will then deliver that workshop at the appropriate time and place of your choosing.
We begin by consulting with you to identify your key goals for the training. We identify your anticipated audience, their learning objectives, the types of conflicts or negotiations they face, the challenges they encounter, the skills they need, and the context in which they operate. We will work with you to clarify the elements desired in the training, the optimal duration and timing of the course, and any other relevant parameters.
We will consult with some or all of your intended audience to determine what skills they would like from the workshop, what challenges they want to address, what they negotiate or manage in terms of conflicts.
We will share thoughts on strategies and exercises that could be used in your workshop and answer any questions that you have about the content and process.
Once we have completed our initial consultation, our course designers will draft a preliminary syllabus for your review that maximizes the learning value for you. We take into consideration any budgetary or timing constraints you may have. Based on your thoughts, we will then finalize the syllabus design for final approval.
In designing the workshop, we use our years of experience in offering such workshops to tailor the material and approach to your participants and their goals.
In tailoring your workshop, we can choose design elements like role plays and debriefs from our vast and well-tested curriculum that best fit your group’s learning objectives and context. For a labour relations audience, for example, we can use grievance and collective bargaining case studies. We can also create new materials and exercises specifically for your group where appropriate. Incorporating real world scenarios from your organization is something we like to do as part of our custom training, to make it relevant for your participants. We tailor our debriefs to the context in which you operate, using examples relevant to (and from) your group.
Our lead instructors have worked as trainers and dispute resolution practitioners for 15 years with a very diverse group of professions and organizations. As a result, they bring knowledge and expertise to the workshop from a vast range of experiences and perspectives.
Where certification and accreditation are desired, we will work with you to create a course design that meets both your own needs and any external accreditation requirements.
Prior to your workshop, our lead instructors will develop a firm understanding of your organization and the world in which you work, to better prepare them for teaching your staff. We seek concrete examples of the negotiations and conflicts that you struggle with, so we can work with relevant examples during your workshops.
In certain cases, particularly with highly specialized clients, we work with you to create relevant case studies, role plays and/or exercises representative of your world. Our instructors have designed hundreds of such exercises over the years.
Prior to your workshop, we provide a tailored package of useful pre-course readings for your group, including a memo describing the workshop and the training process. We design and build a comprehensive binder of materials for the workshop itself, which we deliver at the workshop.
During the workshop, we use a variety of teaching techniques including demonstrations, interactive lectures, critically-debriefed role plays, videos of negotiations, mediations and difficult conversations, direct coaching, round table discussions and games. We can incorporate videos and demonstrations applicable to your group/profession.
Our instructors use a facilitative approach that draws on the expertise, experience, and examples of your own staff to illustrate key points. They use examples relevant to your world and the challenges you face. We can work even with ongoing situations actually being faced by your staff, turning real world problems into excellent learning opportunities.
We select relevant reference material from our substantial library of handouts, tools, and readings to provide your group with a practical and informative text/manual to take away with them. Our handouts include helpful checklists, templates, tools and content related to the core lessons in the workshop. We can even tailor them to your specific organization or profession.
When the workshop ends, we seek a detailed course evaluation from each participant, which we use to make our courses even better for future deliveries.
We also follow up with you and your participants according to your needs, to monitor and build on progress from the workshop. Such follow up can include delivery of more advanced or booster courses, participant surveys, project work, self-guided exercises, ongoing coaching, tips for continuous improvement, and periodic check-ins.
Head Office
180 Duncan Mill Road, 4th Floor
Toronto ON M3B 1Z6 Canada
