Building Powerful CONNECTIONS® in a Culturally Diverse Society

America is one of the most culturally diverse societies on earth. Whether it is based on race, age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, physical ability or communication style, you are more likely than ever to find yourself in a diverse organizational setting. While this diversity offers many benefits, it can also create barriers that inhibit the development of personal and professional relationships. This highly interactive session will teach you how to overcome these barriers with The L.U.C.A.S. Approach®. Specifically, because of this presentation, you will be able to:

1. Describe the 4 types of noise (internal, external, emotional and cultural) and the impact each has on communication.
2. Apply the 5 elements of The L.U.C.A.S. Approach®, which is an empathy-based communication process.
3. Apply skills such as the S.O.L.E.R. technique, active listening, clarification, self-disclosure, metacommunication and inclusive language to reduce noise and enhance your ability to powerfully connect with a diverse group of people.

Audience: Staff members, managers and senior leaders

Format: 60-90-minute interactive keynote presentation

NOTE: Building Powerful CONNECTIONS® in a Culturally Diverse Society for Leaders is a 2.5-hour workshop

Unconscious Bias: A Quiet Performance Killer

Noise is anything that interferes with the accurate transmission of a message between a sender and a receiver. It can be categorized as internal, external, emotional or cultural; however, unconscious bias is the loudest form of noise because it not only interferes with our ability to build powerful relationships across cultural differences, it leads to bad decisions that impair individual and organizational performance. This session will describe unconscious bias and identify the specific ways it can diminish your effectiveness. Specifically, as a result of this presentation, you will be able to:

1. Define unconscious bias and describe the different types of bias that can impact your interactions with others.
2. Identify the specific ways unconscious bias can affect your personal and professional relationships, as well as your work performance.
3. Identify specific steps you can take to reduce your unconscious bias and diminish the negative impact it has on your life and performance.

Audience: Staff members, managers and senior leaders

Format: 60-90-minute interactive keynote presentation

NOTE: Additional sessions include The Impact of Unconscious Bias on Workplace Inclusion and Unbiasing Your Organization

Why You Should Care About Unconscious Bias

Unconscious bias is a quiet, yet powerful performance killer because it interferes with our ability to build relationships across differences and impairs individual and organizational performance. Specifically, bias has a negative impact on employee engagement, satisfaction, retention, innovation, productivity and customer service. This session discusses research on the negative impact of bias on individuals and organizations, identifies the specific benefits of reducing bias and offers talking points for persuading organizational leaders to engage in an unbiasing process. Specifically, as a result of this presentation, you will be able to:

1. Describe the specific ways unconscious bias can hurt your organization.
2. Identify the specific benefits of reducing the negative impact of unconscious bias.
3. Develop talking points for discussing the need to facilitate an organizational unbiasing process.

Audience: Staff members, managers and senior leaders

Format: 60-90-minute interactive keynote presentation

NOTE: Additional sessions include The Impact of Unconscious Bias on Workplace Inclusion and Unbiasing Your Organization

A Lesson in Civility

It can be argued that as a nation, we grow less and less “civil” with each passing day. The numerous instances of rude and discourteous behavior, insulting comments, emotional put-downs, nasty tweets, dirty looks and bullying tactics are both disruptive and destructive to building safe, inclusive communities. This session will provide us with an opportunity to discuss steps we can take to increase civility in the workplace. Specifically, as a result of this program, you will be able to:

1. Describe what makes a behavior “uncivil”.
2. Describe 3 categories of uncivil behavior and the negative impact of workplace incivility on individual and organizational performance.
3. Identify specific steps we can take to reduce uncivil behavior and increase civility in organizations and communities.

Audience: Staff members, managers and senior leaders

Format: 60-90-minute interactive keynote presentation

NOTE: Additional session includes A Roadmap to Civility

Your Comfort Zone is Crushing Your Performance!

As human beings, we have a natural tendency to gravitate toward those we perceive to be most like ourselves. We do this for a very simple reason. It allows us to stay in our comfort zone, which is a psychological state where things feel safe and familiar, and where we feel in control of our environment. It’s a place where we experience relatively low levels of anxiety and stress. Unfortunately, it’s also a place that can have a crushing effect on our performance. This highly interactive session will describe how comfort zones can negatively impact your work quality and productivity, and the steps you can take to successfully expand your comfort zone in ways that improve performance. Specifically, as a result of this program, you will be able to:

1. Identify the specific ways your comfort zone can negatively impact your communication skills and diminish the effectiveness of your work relationships.
2. Identify the specific ways your comfort zone can negatively impact your work quality and productivity.
3. Use Dr. Holmes’ Change Meter to identify specific steps you can take to effectively expand your comfort zone, improve relationships and performance, and facilitate successful organizational change.

Audience: Staff members, managers and senior leaders

Format: 60-90-minute interactive keynote presentation

NOTE: This session can serve as an effective follow-up to Unconscious Bias: A Quiet Performance Killer

Building Powerful CONNECTIONS® with Any Audience

Communication and learning style differences, language differences, cultural misunderstanding, unconscious bias and communication errors can negatively impact your presentations. The good news is we can learn to effectively communicate our messages to a diverse group of individuals. This program will teach you how by introducing The L.U.C.A.S. Approach®. Specifically, you’ll learn to implement 10 steps that will allow you to build powerful connections with a diverse array of audience members. In addition, because of this sesion, you will be able to:

1. Overcome 4 types of noise that can interfere with your message and your ability to connect with a diverse audience.
2. Use effective nonverbal behaviors to successfully bond with your participants (yes, I’ll tell you what to do with your hands).
3. Use inclusive language that facilitates the successful communication of your message.
4. Use wait time to more effectively engage your audience and create interactive sessions that energize participants.
5. Increase your confidence and eloquence on the speaker’s platform.

Audience: Anyone who needs to facilitate a presentation for 2 to 100+ audience members

Format: 60-90-minute interactive keynote presentation

3 BIG Presentation Mistakes and What to Do About Each One

Whether you are a leader, trainer, facilitator, speaker, teacher or salesperson, sooner or later, you'll need to stand in front of a group and make a powerful impact. To do this, you must avoid some of the common presentation mistakes that can reduce your effectiveness, negatively impact your message and limit the effect of your program. This session will show you how to avoid these pitfalls and demonstrate true speaking eloquence. Specifically, because of this presentation, you will be able to:

1. Identify and describe 3 common presentation mistakes.
2. Use one question to clarify your message for every presentation, speech, training session, workshop or class you facilitate.
3. Apply 4 simple practice steps to more effectively prepare for your presentations and training sessions.
4. Apply 10 “activation” techniques to increase audience participation, retention, and learning transfer.

Audience: Anyone who needs to facilitate a presentation for 2 to 100+ audience members

Format: 60-90-minute interactive keynote presentation

Dr. Tyrone A. Holmes is a professional speaker, coach and author. He received his bachelor’s degree in Rehabilitation Education and master’s degree in Counselor Education from Penn State University. Dr. Holmes received a second master’s degree in Business Management from the State University of New York before earning a perfect 4.0 GPA in his Counselor Education doctoral program at Penn State. As the owner of T.A.H. Performance Consultants, he has facilitated more than 1,500 paid keynotes, training seminars, webinars and classes that have taught participants to connect with others despite their differences, to effectively articulate their messages, to connect with diverse audiences and groups, and to reduce the negative impact of unconscious bias. His most recent book is Making Diversity a Competitive Advantage: 70 Tips to Improve Communication, which is a tool we can use to build powerful connections in diverse organizations.