Personal Effectiveness

At the U of A we are in a time of tremendous change and yet we strive to always be seeking, challenging, and leading. We seek to generate solutions that make us healthier, safer, stronger, and more just.

In meeting these goals, our ability to build personal effectiveness is cornerstone. Personal effectiveness enhances performance, supports us to achieve desired results, and to work towards personal goals.

We all share responsibility to develop positive personal strategies for coping, wellness, self-development and the ability to develop and maintain relationships.

Personal effectiveness means that we:

• Demonstrate the ability to effectively cope with change.
• Make effective decisions even in the face of uncertainty.
• Engage in a growth mindset and self-development that supports our work performance and career growth.
• Hold ourselves accountable to commitments, actions, and behaviours.
• Develop strategies to manage workload through effective time and priority management.

Learn more about how we define workplace skills.

Curriculum

Managing Time Authentically

Facilitator: Wendy Wilton

We all have the same number of hours in a day. Why, then, do we so often feel like we are constantly working against the clock? This workshop is for faculty and staff who want to take control of their time and to use it in a more holistic, authentic way. Beginning with an examination of your values, you will discuss the connection between what is really important to you and time management. You will engage with specific tools, tips and techniques to help you determine your priorities and to discuss what is standing in your way of setting and maintaining appropriate boundaries.

At the end of this workshop, you will commit to a plan of action for improving time management and prioritization in your personal and professional lives using the tools and techniques explored and applied in the session.

Learning Outcomes:

• Identify key issues impacting effective time management and prioritization.
• Apply a values based lens to time management and prioritization.
• Explore tools for establishing priorities and goal setting.
• Examine work specific challenges that impact effective time management and prioritization.
• Discuss alignment strategies and how to have boundary setting conversations.
• Identify time wasters and minimization strategies.
• Commit to a time management action plan around personal and professional time management.

Finding Your Path: Career Explorations and Strategies

Facilitator: Tyree McCrackin

In this session, faculty and staff will engage in a guided career wayfinding process with a career development expert. Participants will become familiar with best practices in career development and gain insight into their values, strengths and future career possibilities. Participants will leave with a plan full of practical activities that they can undertake to advance their career.

Learning Outcomes: 

• Explore the role of chance and the myth of control in our career paths
  
• Analyze action we can take to move towards a preferred future
• Identify opportunities for building agency and increasing positive events through planned happenstance 
• Create an action plan to move towards a preferred future

Navigating Change

Facilitator: Andrea Graham

Our ability to recognize and navigate change is a critical skill for anyone who wants to be a strong contributor to the success of a team, a unit or an organization. And perhaps, just as importantly, it’s a critical skill to develop for personal well being and career satisfaction.

Navigating Change is designed to help faculty and staff make sense of the change journey at the individual, team and organizational levels. In this interactive workshop you will engage with specific tools and frameworks to support your own navigation of change, while giving you the opportunity to experiment with new ways of supporting others.

The session will begin with an examination of your personal response to change. What does it feel like when you are presented with a change? We will then look at why we may resist change and how it may be tied to uncertainty, loss, and fear. You will learn to understand why you and others may have difficulty letting go of “what you have” when faced with something new. We will then explore the stages of the change transition - the period of time when you begin to move from the now to the future on a path that could be clear or murky.

At the end of this workshop, you will have the opportunity to understand the role and identify the successful behaviours of change agents.

Learning Outcomes: 

• Explain what change is and how neurology impacts individual responses to change.
  
• Apply Steven Covey’s model of concern, influence and control to different categories of change to reinforce the connection between control and personal choice.
• Outline the five key factors that affect our ability to navigate change with a healthy or above-the line perspective.
• Describe why navigating change with intentionality supports leading with purpose.
• Identify strategies to thrive and not just survive personal or professional changes.
• Complete a stop-start- continue exercise to improve this important leadership and life skill.