Category Archives: Facilitation

Zoe Presenter Spotlight: Penny McDaniel

Posted by on January 31, 2011 Comments Off
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Penny McDanielby Zoe Training staff

One of Penny McDaniel’s most powerful gifts she gives to her clients is her expertise in showing others how to collaborate in a productive environment, especially in teams or meetings. In this interview, Penny helps us understand why she chose her path as a facilitator and why she is inspired to share her gift with others.

What’s your favorite topic(s) to present on? Why?

Facilitation skills and team building because I am passionate about helping people work together more effectively in groups. So much time spent is in meetings and working in teams, and it can be so frustrating and unproductive if the meetings and teams aren’t run well. Read more »

Top 10 for 2010: The Most Requested Training Topics

Posted by on January 25, 2010 Comments Off
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by Ashley Andrus

Well, it’s the time of year for “best of” and “Top 10″ lists, so in honor of the brand new 2010, we thought we’d share a run-down of the most popular training topics our clients are planning for this upcoming year:

1. Behavioral Interviewing
There is nothing more important than hiring the right people. Hiring the right person for the right job provides tremendous organizational benefits by increasing employee productivity, reducing training time, and controlling the high cost of employee turnover—not to mention the positive impact on team morale. You’d think, with double-digit unemployment rates across the country, that it would be easy to hire right now…right? Well, maybe. Read more…

2. Business Writing
Many experts estimate that as much as 90% of human communication comes from non-verbal clues such as voice inflection and body language. In business writing, however, you have only the words to get your meaning across, so the way the writer uses those words becomes more important. Read more »

Would Strategic Planning Benefit Your Municipality?

Posted by on September 1, 2008 Comments Off
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Penny McDanielby Penny McDaniel and Anne Neal

What is strategic planning? And what do you need to know about the process to determine how strategic planning could benefit your municipality? This article provides a brief overview of strategic planning—the benefits, process, obstacles, and strategies for insuring accountability and follow-through.

Strategic planning is a systematic process where you identify why your local government exists, whom it serves, benefits derived from the services you provide, and your administration’s vision for serving its citizens. Your strategic plan serves as a blueprint for how your local government will achieve its vision, and it answers three basic questions: “Who are we?” “What do we want?” and “How are we going to get what we want?” At each stage of the process you will need to involve various people and groups, and this is where the power of strategic planning comes into play.

Does strategic planning sound like a long, drawn-out process?  Well, it can take a while to do it right.  What’s the old saying?  “Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.”  This may be quite true, but we think there needs to be a lot of benefits for embarking on a time-consuming and sometimes difficult process.  Participants in previous strategic planning workshops determined a number of benefits for undergoing this process: Read more »

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