ToP Training
Participation is becoming the dominant way of making decisions in organizations and communities. The expectation that people will have genuine opportunities to participate in planning and decision-making is very real. People expect to be asked to participate, and organizations of all kinds are responding with structural changes that place increasing responsibility in the hands of front-line teams. Yet, a survey of senior managers in the United States found them saying that 80% of all the meetings they attended were “worthless.” The cost of such wasted time, money and morale, is huge.
ToP facilitation will help you increase group participation, get more ideas into the mix and make group decision making more effective. It will provide you with practical tools for designing and orchestrating meetings as well as conversations and workshops. ToP courses include valuable tools, contexts and guidelines that will deepen your capacities as a facilitative leader. You will be able to create lively and effective teamwork, build respect and trust and encourage group creativity. ToP facilitation will help you focus the group’s energy on common goals, form consensus and build commitment.
ToP methods enable you to become an excellent facilitator. You will leave these courses ready to immediately apply what you have learned. Many participants find that are able to apply ToP methods right away. The course provides you with practical tools and ways to adapt and apply them in a variety of situations. These courses promote facilitative leadership and aid those who are creating a culture of participation in the workplace. ToP courses use an experiential learning approach. You will experience the methods in use, talk about the theory behind them, prepare facilitation plans, practice them in small groups, and get feedback on your style and skills.
The ToP faculty brings a wealth of up front facilitation and training experience with large and small businesses, not-for- profits, community agencies, governmental organizations, educational institutions and neighborhoods. They are skilled at both transferring these methods and answering your questions about how these methods work. Our comprehensive participant manuals clearly outline the steps for each method and become a practical tool for your future use. Participants are welcome to call us for practical coaching following a course.
ToP courses are all presented in a relaxed and interactive small group learning environment. Courses are intentionally limited in size to insure the highest levels of participation and learning.
There are many ToP facilitation courses offered around the world. ToP facilitators are also able to design specific programs to train facilitative leaders that can be delivered on site in a community or organization.
Customers are lovin’ it
With company representatives and stakeholders in the same room, we needed serious expertise in designing the major planning session to launch our new organization. ICA helped us put the whole enterprise on a very solid foundation.
I make plans, hold meetings and conduct research using ICA’s methods of participation. They are the best methods around to involve people in groups in making sense of lots of information and making decisions about action.
All of our staff regularly make use of ICA methods and techniques in programs with colleagues and with the public. It makes them very effective in working together with others.
ICA just finished facilitating a strategic planning session with a community group, and the results were great.
In only three days, we had a way for our managers to move the entire organization toward team-based operations, and an action plan to get it done.
We had ICA Associates lead our strategic planning. It was so effective that we had them look at and enhance all of our program planning and evaluation processes.
As the new president of a large, complex organization, I had to quickly get our whole management team thinking along the same lines. With the help of ICA, it took only two days.
Online bookings are available for regularly scheduled public ToP training courses in countries including Australia & New Zealand, Canada, Taiwan, UK, Ukraine & USA. Other ICAs also offer public courses, and in-house courses on request.
For ToP training near you look at our upcoming public ToP courses or contact trainers directly on our national network of ToP Trainers directly or visit ICA Worldwide.