Last month I shared some thoughts about the importance of serving customers during these tough times – about making sure that an organization’s “touchpoints” focused on providing excellent service to the customer.  Apparently I struck a chord, because many of you emailed in your horror stories (and in a few cases, good examples) of customer service; I appreciate your taking the time to share.  And one of you reminded me of a special report that Business Week did earlier this year: “When Service Means Survival.”  I think some of their insights might be worth sharing, as a post script to this column from last month.  Because after all, as Business Week states: “Keeping customers happy is more critical than ever” today…

The Business Week article I referenced is written by Jena McGregor from March 2, 2009, and I think she nails it on the head: “Times are unquestionably tough.  But cutting too deeply may only make things worse.”  She goes on to cite several examples of terrible service, caused by organizations trying to cut too much during this last recession.  And she presents some data that I find compelling…

Consider this example: according to the International Customer Management Institute (a call center consultant), if a company eliminates just four representatives in a call center of about three dozen agents (that’s about a 10% layoff), the number of customers put on hold for four minutes will increase from 0 to 80.  Think about that example applied in different settings: the customer waiting to purchase something at a retail store; the length of time a patient has to wait to be seen by a medical (or legal or some other) professional; even the possible impact on a manufacturers’ delivery of product because capacity was cut along with its staff.

McGregor states: “…across the business world, managers are trying to pull off…a perilous high-wire act.  Just as companies are dealing with plummeting sales and sinking employee morale, skittish customers want more attention, better quality, and greater value for their money.  Those same customers are also acutely aware that their patronage is of growing importance to companies as others decrease their spending.”  The result: companies better get it right for the customer.  Like the Business Week article’s title: “service means survival” in almost any organization these days.

I offered a few tips last month on improving service, and Business Week offers four more complementary ideas:

• Flex Your Workforce.  Cutbacks in staffing levels may be necessary as sales slow.  But to keep service quality high, make the most of the workers you have.  Cross-train employees so they can step up to fill a variety of needs – and you can avoid making new hires.
• Spoil Surving Staff.  Slashing jobs and benefits can wreak havoc on morale.  If you must cut back, keep the front lines happy with flexibility and other rewards.  Amercian Express, for example, now lets call center reps choose their own hours and swap shifts without supervisors’ approval.
• Invest in Simple Technology.  It may not be the best time to upgrade your call center with pricey software.  But easy self-serve solutions such as in-store Web cams that link customers with remote tech experts can serve multiple locations at minimal cost.
• Baby Your Best Customers.  Now is not the time for equal treatment.  Keep your most active buyers coming back with faster service, extra attention, and flexible rules.  As business travel slows, Marriott, for instance, is extending elite status to its bst guests even if they don’t qualify under normal rules.

2009 has been an interesting year – one that has challenged even today’s best organizations.  To have made it to the end of 2009 deserves some accolades for us all (keep in mind that many organizations didn’t make it this far).  But, even as the economy begin to improve, 2010 will be challenging for many organizations as well.

The difference between success and failure, in my opinion, really comes down to doing the simple things well: focus on your customers; focus on your workforce and partners; manage your processes to maximize productivity, efficiency, quality, and output; reduce waste; select and prioritize initiatives that will provide high value to the enterprise (and reduce or eliminate low-value initiatives); and use data to make decisions.

Business 101 I guess, but why do so few organizations pay attention to what matters?  Perhaps this Great Recession has reminded us a thing or two about what matters.  I hope you and your organizations all prosper in the coming year(s).

Yours in Improvement and Happy Holidays,

Brian S. Lassiter

President, Minnesota Council for Quality

Are you interested in learning more about what makes organizations successful?  Are you interested in helping other organizations -- such as schools, hospitals, non-profits, and businesses -- around the state improve their performance?  Would you be interested in networking, learning, and sharing with others who feel the same way?

The Minnesota Council for Quality is seeking candidates for the 2010 Minnesota Quality Award Board of Evaluators.  The first of three training sessions in 2010 is February 23-25 in the Twin Cities (location TBD).

There are many benefits to becoming an Evaluator, such as:

• strengthening your understanding of what drives organizational excellence (the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence represent a validated set of best practices for organizational excellence, and can be useful for improving any organization’s performance) – and the 2010 Criteria represent significant changes, especially in terms of customer focus/engagement, core competencies, and sustainability/social responsibility;
• networking with influential leaders and professionals (this year’s Board of Evaluators will include about 150 leaders from around the state – executives, middle managers, surgeons and physicians, superintendents and school teachers, non-profit and public sector leaders, quality professionals, and consultants);
• seeing “best practices” deployed within another organization – knowledge that you could use back at your organization and/or in your career, helping organizations throughout the state – many of them schools, health care providers, non-profits, public sector agencies, and certainly businesses – improve their performance…simply get better at what they do; and
• developing a set of other professional skills that may help you advance your career – skills such as consensus- and team-building, written communication, verbal communication and interpersonal skills, interviewing, analysis, and systems thinking.

Most Evaluators consider the experience to be among the most valuable of their careers.  In fact, many have claimed that the experience and knowledge gained from this process rivals getting an MBA or advanced business degree.

Furthermore, Evaluators can earn college (undergrad and post-grad) credit for participating in training.  For interested Evaluators, the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Stout both offer three (3) hours of credit in partnership with the Minnesota Council for Quality.

If you are interested in joining the 2010 Board of Evaluators, training will be Feb 23-25 in the Twin Cities.  In addition to the full three-day training session, new Evaluators are also required to attend a one-day orientation (either February 4, 9, or 10 – you choose, and all in the Twin Cities).

Applications for new Evaluators are due February 5.  Applications for returning Evaluators (which only require updates from your most recent application) are due February 12.

Your days are full.  Your people are busy.  Your business demands the best of you.  So the question is: are you effective?  Are your people?  With all the demands in your business and life today, it's critical that you focus on what's most imperative to your success and fulfillment.  Unfortunately, by ourselves, we can rarely see what's holding us back or getting in the way.

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to welcome Sue Hawkes, founder and owner of YESS! -- Your Extraordinary Success Strategies, Inc. -- to our January 7 program, "Managing, Leading and Coaching: Can You Afford to be Ineffective with Your People?"  We thank our session sponsor, Roadmap to Excellence, for their support of this session, helping us to keep it free for members.

In this highly interactive session, you will discover where you and your organization are limited and what you can do about it.  YESS! invested thousands in a conclusive research project targeting specific areas where most managers are leaders miss the mark.  Sue took this research and designed a comprehensive program that will show you SPECIFICALLY where you can improve working the "people side" of your business and how you can DRAMATICALLY affect performance and profitability.

The discussion is from 8:00-9:00 a.m. on Jan 7 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:30 a.m.) at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC), 1501 Hennepin (15th and Hennepin), downtown Minneapolis, Room L3000 (Wheelock-Whitney Library). 

Admission to PIN is FREE for Council members; $15 for partner organizations; $30 for the public.

Malcolm Gladwell’s 2001 book “The Tipping Point; How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference” describes a tipping point as “that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.”  How can organizations apply the Tipping Point concepts to their own business strategies?

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to welcome Michael Zdychnec, CEO, and RT Donahue, president, both of Collaboration Health Care, Inc. to our January 13 program, "The Tipping Point: Solving Complex Issues like Healthcare Reform."  We thank our session sponsors, 3M and Metropolitan State University, for their support of this session, helping us to keep it free for members.

Michael and RT will lead an interactive discussion of how the “Law of the Few,” a sticky message, and maintaining the right perspective and context can create a possible “tipping point” in highly complex issues -- issues you face all the time in business, and issues we face in society.  Michael and RT will show how these principles apply to one of today's most complex (and controversial) issues: the health care reform discussion.

The discussion is from 8:00-9:00 a.m. on Jan 13 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:30 a.m.) at Metro State University, 700 E 7th Street, downtown St. Paul. 

Admission to PIN is FREE for Council members; $15 for partner organizations; $30 for the public.

Faced with a financial challenge applying systematic quality improvement logic over the years has transform its hardware product warranty management process.  IBM kicked off a corporate effort to better manage hardware product warranty cost in the mid ‘90’s. Over the last 15 years the effort has resulted in significant cost reduction while adapting to the needs of the business in a highly competitive environment. The effort also transformed many aspects of IBM’s hardware product development, product and service offerings, and service delivery processes.

The Rochester Area Quality Council, an affiliate of the Minnesota Council for Quality, is pleased to announce their Jan 12 program “IBM's Transformation."  The session will be led by Thomas Bellinger of IBM.

Four key points attendees will learn from the program…

1. How quality improvement tools can help in facing financial challenges      

2. The challenges of obtaining the right information to track performance     

3. The business transformation that occurred

4. Lessons learned during the journey

The session is Jan 12 from 7:45-9:00 at RCTC.

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to welcome Jon Obrecht to our January 19 Twin Ports Performance Excellence Network.  Jon will be speaking about the four generations of workers who are side-by-side in the workplace for the first time in our history. Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and Millennials have preferred ways of managing and being managed.  And, because of the shared experiences, employees of similar ages often bring common approaches to the workplace.

The session is from 7:30-9:00 a.m. on January 19 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:00 a.m.) at UMD’s Center for Economic Development.  Admission to TPPEN is FREE for Council members and guests.

Times are tough for all Minnesota organizations, which is why the Council’s mission of advancing continuous improvement and performance excellence throughout the state is more relevant than ever.  Our work supports schools, healthcare organizations, non-profits, and businesses.  Through a volunteer network of more than 140 leaders and professionals, we help make good Minnesota organizations better, making this a more productive, more competitive, more livable state.

Council stakeholders can support the Council’s mission of advancing performance excellence in Minnesota by donating through www.GiveMN.org.  You can even become a member by pledging $100 (for an individual) or $250+ for an organization.  Just follow this easy process:

• Go to http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Minnesota-Council-For-Quality
• Click on the green Donate button at the right of the screen.
• Enter the desired donation amount and information, and click on the green “Donate Now” button at the bottom of the page. 

The Council works with over 300 members representing more than 150,000 employees and citizens of Minnesota.  We help leaders identify strengths and improvement opportunities and build networks that bring information, resources, knowledge, and best practices to organizations desiring to improve. 

All Council members are invited to a luncheon open house to learn more about our newest service in 2010: professional roundtables.  The luncheon will be Tuesday, January 12 from 11AM-1PM at a location TBD (West Metro, around 394/100).  We thank the University of Phoenix, Forthright, and Aveda Corp for their support of this luncheon.

Earlier this year, based on Council member suggestions, we began exploring the possibility of creating some affinity groups to help improvement-related leaders and professionals learn from their peers.  After focus groups, we have designed a service that will facilitate actual peer problem solving, the exchange of ideas and best practices, and deep networking (much deeper than our PIN format).  These small, invitation-only forums are designed for leaders who are short on time but long on experience.  The purpose is to accelerate performance and improvement within participants’ organizations and to facilitate professional and personal growth in a safe, open, confidential environment. Specifically, the goals of these roundtables are to:

• Share ideas, solutions across organizations
• Solve real business problems in a collaborative format
• Explore best practices from regional and national experts
• Enhance leadership skills and build long-term relationships with like-minded individuals
• Promote value beyond your investment of time/money: provide a measurable ROI

There are similar roundtable concepts for business owners and CEOs; however, there are not many that focus on quality leaders and/or middle management.  We believe that this concept will have deep value for many Minnesota organizations, and we invite you to learn more about the concept.

Using a unique blend of stories, tips, charts, and tables that can be adapted to any organization, “The Making of a World Class Organization” by E. David Spong and Debbie Collard shares the stories, wisdom, and “silver bullets” gained by two divisions of the Boeing Corporation as they won the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award.  The “silver bullets” are the kernels of management wisdom that set this book apart and provide the simple insights that anyone can adopt.  This book uses a systems perspective to provide solutions that will inspire leaders to champion such approaches, while also providing tried and true details and “how-to” applications to the in-house practitioners and consultants.

Whether you are looking for tools and techniques to make your organization and processes more effective or you are starting from scratch, this book provides you with a set of proven approaches to achieving excellence.  The insights into excellence and the Baldrige journey that Spong and Collard have mastered have allowed their organizations to celebrate with great processes, loyal customers, engaged employees, high quality products and services, and significant profitability.

The book retails at $42.  But, in partnership with ASQ, Council members can purchase “The Making of a World Class Organization” at a special rate:

MCQ Member Price: $25 plus shipping

Non-member Price: $35 plus shipping

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The Minnesota Business Ethics Award, a partner of the Council, recognizes Minnesota businesses that have exemplified and promoted ethical conduct for the benefit of the workplace, the marketplace, the environment and the community. It was founded in 1999 by the Center for Ethical Business Cultures and the Minnesota Chapters of the Society of Financial Service Professionals.

Each year a call for nominations is issued. A business may be nominated for an award by a customer, client, employee, vendor or a private citizen who is impressed with a company’s demonstration of ethical business conduct.  Business people and organizations from throughout the state are encouraged to participate in the nomination process by completing a Nomination Form.  Nominated companies are required to complete an official Entry Form and provide documentation of “ethics-in-action” at their company.  The MBEA is presented in three categories: large companies with over 500 employees, medium size companies of 100-500 employees and small companies of under 100 employees.

The entries are judged by a preliminary and a Blue Ribbon independent panel of judges representing business and academia.  Award recipients are recognized at an awards luncheon banquet, this year held May 19.

The Minnesota Chapter of Project Management Institute (PMI), an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce a special full-day session: “Leading in Turbulent Times.”  The session will be held January 26.

You are sitting in your office taking a brief sanity break in a day filled with back-to-back meetings. There are stacks of papers and ''to read'' folders on your desk. Your Blackberry vibrates incessantly signaling incoming mail and you have more than a half dozen callbacks to make before going home. Just a typical day at the office…You’ve heard fellow businesspeople refer to ''being in permanent whitewater'' – this aptly describes your situation and what many experts predict will characterize the business environment for a long time to come. You have a strong desire to freeze everything just long enough to have time to think, to plan, to find the answers, to plot your course.

So begins a fun, engaging, and informative one-day seminar, designed to tap everything you already know about leadership and enhance it for leading in turbulent times!  We effectively mix hands-on, team discussion with research and best practices from leadership and complexity science, to help you navigate your organization through these tough times.

• Typical Seminar Schedule
• Introduction to the complexity landscape
• Individual and Team Scenario
• Scenario debriefing based on research and best practices
• Focus on key leadership strategies for uncertain and turbulent times
• Putting it to work: Planning your next move back home

The session will be facilitated by Anne Knapp, PhD, HSDP, of Ready for Change, LLC and Catherine Perme (Cathy), M.A., HSDP of C. M. Perme & Associates, LLC.  

The Association for Strategic Planning-Minnesota Chapter, an alliance partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce its next meeting: “Adaptive Action: Beyond Strategic Planning.”  The session is facilitated by Glenda H. Eoyang, PhD, Founder and Executive Director, Human Systems Dynamics Institute.

In today’s global, interconnected, and turbulent business environments, traditional strategic planning approaches which rely on assumptions about stable markets and predictable futures are shaky at best.  Adaptive action provides a clear alternative with principles and practical tools to help you and your clients build your adaptive capacity.

Senior leaders from Baldrige Award recipient organizations are sharing their insights on organizational transformation in an innovative new leadership program. 

• John Timmerman, Corp. VP, Operations, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company
• David Spong, President, Boeing Aerospace Support (Retired)
• Charles Korbell, CEO, Clarke American (Retired)
• John Latham, Executive Professor, Monfort College of Business
• Added bonus: Site visit to 2008 Baldrige recipient Poudre Valley Health System

That’s 5 Baldrige recipients who will help executives discover how to continuously evaluate the needs of multiple stakeholders and create a sustainable transformation in their organizations.

Learn more about this 5-day intensive program

Apply now (**Please select the MN Council for Quality when you fill out the online application so we receive credit for each referral!**)

Visit the Monfort Institute blog.

The Minnesota Section of ASQ, an alliance partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce its next monthly program: “Six Sigma” on January 12.  They are also pleased to announce several certification courses (listed at the end of this article).  Here are the specifics: 

Pre-Dinner 1: SIPOC:  Practical Application

The SIPOC tool is used to identify all relevant elements of a process improvement project before work begins and helps define a complex project that may not be well scoped.  It is similar to process mapping but provides additional detail.  The tool name prompts the team to consider the Suppliers of your process, the Inputs to the process, the Process your team is improving, the Outputs of the process, and the Customers that receive the process outputs.  Doug Stohr will provide a comprehensive overview of this tool using a variety of case studies and project examples.  Participants will leave with a solid understanding of the tool definition, when to use it, how to use it and what to do with the results. 

Pre-Dinner 2: Leadership Challenges: Assuring Six Sigma Quality Leadership

The success of a six sigma project depends on the skills of the leader. The leader must identify the best way to drive results and also support team members. Four essential principles will be discussed: Alignment, Mobilization, Acceleration, and Governance.  Theo Black will provide insights into quality leadership and the skills necessary to assure six sigma project success.  In this interactive presentation, you will be challenged to think creatively as a means to ensure project success.

Post-Dinner:  Simplify and Energize Your Enterprise: Being World Class

While preparing for The Juran Quality Handbook 6th Edition, due out in 2010, Juran Institute research and experience indicates that world class enterprises are financially sound, deemed as having the highest quality products, sustain long-term performance and are vanguards in society.  In the 1950s, many Japanese manufacturers applied new management techniques from the likes of Dr. Shewhart, Dr. Juran, and Dr. Deming from the US and others like Dr. Kano from Japan. Today 60 years later, the world is full of new research and consultants helping many organizations move from past product centric means to attain superior results to enterprise and supply-chain centric methods.

In this presentation we set out to define, with as much precision as possible, what it really means to be designated as world class and answer the following questions:

1.           Does being world class mean better financial performance or just high quality?

2.           What are the key factors that lead to world class?

3.           What methods are best used to attain world-class quality?

The discussions are at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Bloomington, January 12 from 5:00 to 8:45PM.  Cost is $35 ($25 for MCQ members as partners).  For more information or to register, visit http://www.mnasq.org.

In addition, ASQ is pleased to announce the following certification courses:

Jan 7-Feb 25: Certified Quality Manager, Organizational Excellence, $600

Jan 11-Mar 1: Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, $675

Jan 20-Feb 24: Certified Quality Technician/Inspector, $400

March 22-May 24: Certified Six Sigma Green Belt, $675

March 30-June1: Certified Quality Engineer, $600

April 7-May 26: Certified Software Quality Engineer, $600

April 28-June 2: Certified Quality Auditor, $470

May 13-June 3: Certified Quality Improvement Associate, $330

The Minnesota Section of ASQ, an alliance partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce its 56th annual quality conference March 8-9: “Help Yourself, Help Your Customer, Help Your Company.”

Several tracks focus on topics such as Lean, conflict resolution, systems integration, Six Sigma, risk management, customer focus, and others.  Conference at Earle Brown Heritage Center, Brooklyn Center.  Council members entitled to $50 discount.  Don’t miss it! 

The MNODN, an affiliate partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce its next monthly program: “Did Douglas McGregor put OD on the wrong track back in 1960 with his landmark book, The Human side of Enterprise?,” featuring Peter Vaill, Senior Scholar and Professor Emeritus of Management in the Ph.D. program in Leadership and Change of Antioch University.

This session will reexamine the foundations of OD for the purpose of better understanding its current and near-term future situation. OD people are somewhat in the positions of the blind men and women and the elephant. Each has hold of a different part (perhaps not knowing it) and thinks he/she knows what it really, really is. The goal is for participants to leave with a stronger sense of what the issues are, with what some possible future directions may be, and how their own practice of OD can be enriched and energized by these questions.

The MN Chapter of ISPI, an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce its next meeting “Leveraging the Power of Peers: Self-Facilitated Peer Coaching Groups” on January 19, facilitated by Carter McNamara.  Topic details are forthcoming.

Enterprise Minnesota, a partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce several events, all focused on using Lean or other methods to improve organizational performance:

Jan 20: ISO - Positioning Your Business for Success, Oakdale

Feb 17: Business Problem Solving - The Toyota Way, Twin Cities

Mar 17: Investing in Your People, Changing Your Organizational Culture, Twin Cities

April 21: The Next Generation of Lean, Twin Cities

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The MN Healthcare Quality Professionals, an alliance partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to host a (free) monthly webinar seminar series.  The series, hosted by MHQP and HealthForce Minnesota, is a monthly "quality in the trenches" brownbag education series.  The objective of these sessions is to provide a healthcare quality "survey course" using selected materials from the National Association of Healthcare Quality (NAHQ)'s Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) preparation materials. 

Upcoming webinars include (over the lunch hour):

1/28        Decision Support as a Quality Topic

2/25        TBD

3/5-6       CPHQ Exam Prep Course

3/25        TBD

The intended audience includes healthcare quality professionals who want a re-grounding in the breadth of their profession, and clinicians who want to learn more to become champions of change.  MHQP especially wants to reach out to healthcare professionals in rural/outstate Minnesota who don't get many quality education opportunities.

The Universty of Minnesota’s College of Continuing Education, an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce their winter/spring improvement and business courses.  Council members receive a 10% discount on all CCE courses.

01/11, FastTrack Business Analysis Certificate Program, $1850

01/11, FastTrack Essential Project Management Certificate Program, $3500

01/26, Introduction to Human Resource Practices, $395

01/26, Successfully Dealing with Conflict at Work, $395

01/28, Foundations in Business Writing, $395

01/28, Fundamentals of Organizational Development, $795

02/01, Online Certificate of Business Analysis, $1850

02/06, Certified Internal Auditors (CIA) Test Prep – Part 1, $750

02/09, Negotiating for Agreement, $395

02/09, Principles of Supervision, $995

02/09, Process Mapping and Analysis, $995

02/10, Management Fundamentals, $750

02/10, Introduction to Human Resource Practices, $395

02/10, Problem Solving and Decision Making, $395

02/10, American Accent Improvement or Modification, $750

02/11, Leading Successful Team Intervention Strategies, $795

02/12, Introduction to Business Analysis, $395

02/16, Employee Benefits Practices and Trends, $395

02/17, Creative Training Techniques, $1485

02/19, Managing Business Requirements, $750

02/23, Strategic Planning and Measurement, $750

02/23, Working Assertively, $395

02/24, Business Acumen for Technical Professionals, $395

02/24, Business Acumen for Human Resource Professionals, $395

02/24, Delegating to Enhance Job Performance, $395

02/25, Technical Writing, $395

02/25, Human Resource Certification Test Prep Online, $1095

02/26, Ethical Business Decision Making, $395

02/26, Project Management Foundations, $395

02/27, Human Resource Certification Test Prep, $1095

03/02, Project Management for Human Resource Professionals, $395

03/02, Implementing Process Change, $995

03/04, Creativity and Innovation, $395

03/04, Eight Steps of Instructional Design, $990

03/05, Project Initiation, $395

03/05, Financial Intelligence, $395

03/05, Data and Process Modeling, $750

03/06, Certified Internal Auditors (CIA) Test Prep – Part 2, $750

03/09, Increasing Power and Influence through Listening, $395

03/10, Project Management Foundations, $395

03/11, In-depth Coaching: Leading Individual Change Interventions, $795

03/12, Project Leadership, $395

03/15, Principles of Systems Engineering Online, $1995

03/16, Principles of Supervision, $995

03/16, Legal Issues in Human Resources and Management, $395

03/17, Developing Leadership Skills, $750

03/19, Technical Writing, $395

03/22, Measuring and Improving Work Processes, $995

03/23, Personal Influence and Leadership, $395

03/23, Online GPHR Test Prep, $1395

03/24, Interviewing and Selection Processes for Supervisors, $395

03/24, Foundations in Business Writing, $395

03/24, Exercising Organizational Influence, $395

03/25, Writing Persuasive Business Proposals, $395

03/25, Project Planning, $750

03/30, Staffing:  Recruitment and Selection, $395

04/06, How to Deal with Difficult People, $395

04/07, Introduction to Business Analysis, $395

04/07, Advanced Editing and Proofreading Strategies, $395

04/10, Certified Internal Auditors (CIA) Test Prep – Part 3, $995

04/13, Principles of Employee Compensation, $395

04/13, Process Innovation, $995

04/14, Building Teamwork and Commitment, $395

04/14, Developing Leadership Skills, $750

04/15, Managing Virtual and Remote Teams, $395

04/15, Introduction to E-Learning and Webinars, $990

04/16, Project Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, $395

04/20, Problem Solving and Decision Making, $395

04/21, Coaching for Excellence, $395

04/21, Small Group Professional Communication, $750

04/21, Managing Business Requirements, $750

04/22, Successfully Leading Enterprise-Wide Change Management, $795

04/22, Writing Business Reports, $395

04/23, Project Risk Management, $395

04/27, High Impact Presentations, $395

04/30, Project Management and Chaos Theory, $395

05/01, Certified Internal Auditors (CIA) Test Prep – Part 4, $395

05/04, Performance Management Process, $395

05/04, Enterprise Process Management, $995

05/05, Managing Performance and Developing Talent, $395

05/05, Strategic Planning and Measurement, $750

05/05, Data and Process Modeling, $750

05/05, Verbal and Nonverbal Communication, $395

05/07, Project Management for IT Professionals, $395

05/11, Handling People with Tact and Diplomacy, $395

05/11, Successful Manager’s Leadership Program, $2995

05/14, Project Management and New Product Development, $395

05/18, Employee and Labor Relations, $395

05/19, Improving Work Processes, $395

05/20, Advanced Editing and Proofreading Strategies, $395

05/20, Advanced Creative Training Techniques, $495

05/20, Integrated Management, $395

05/21, Project Execution, $395

05/25, Exercising Organizational Influence, $395

06/01, Organizational Training and Development, $395

06/04, Project Control and Closure, $395

06/08, Verbal and Nonverbal Communication, $395

06/10, Legal Issues for Managers and Supervisors, $395

06/10, Coaching for Excellence, $395

06/11, Applied Project Management, $395

06/15, Business Acumen for Human Resource Professionals, $395

06/16, Creative Training Techniques, $1485

06/17, Writing for the Web, $395

06/18, Business Acumen for Technical Professionals, $395

06/22, Strategic Human Resource Planning, $395

06/23, Leading Through Change, $395

06/25, Project Procurement Management, $395

The University of St. Thomas’ Executive Education and Professional Development, a partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce the following upcoming programs:

1/4 – 1/14 Six Sigma Green Belt Certificate, $3795

1/25 – 2/28 Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, $8200

3/26 – 4/10 Six Sigma Green Belt Certificate, $3795

2/22 – 5/17 Mini Master of the Lean Enterprise, $2495

Also, coming in the fall of 2010: Mini MBA for Technical Professionals and Mini Master of Supply Chain Management.