Mike Hourigan

Success is a moving target, so change is inevitable. Organizations and their employees must adapt and change to survive and thrive. It is possible. Mike Hourigan brings his real-world expertise to the topic of Change Management to help you and your organization find ways to weather a changing workplace and even flourish!

After Mike’s presentation, you will be better able to recognize, predict and plan for change. Managers will have the tools they need to motivate teams, and stay motivated themselves, rather than dread new initiatives.

Here are only a few of the many takeaways you can expect:

• Uncover the Five Truths about change

• Gain insight into what people fear most about change

• Learn how to keep your best people during change

• Find out how to become “change resilient” personally and professionally

• Reduce change-generated conflict between coworkers and teams

• Discover where to find support during change – it might surprise you!

How often have you said: “Why did that employee go ballistic?” Or “Why do I have to work with a jerk?” Whether you like it or not, you have to find a way to communicate with people. Mike Hourigan’s high energy, fast-paced session brings understanding to some of the most difficult communications problems like handling the back stabber, the gossip, or the difficult boss. Mike’s satirical and real world look at interpersonal communications weaves you through this mine field and provides easy to use solutions. In many cases, poor communication skills waste a lot of time. You will learn how to get off the phone quicker, how to get out of meetings faster, and how to get the “ploppers” out of your office in record time. Have you ever made someone mad but didn’t mean to? You will learn how to prevent this. You will even learn how to say “no” to people without hurting their feelings. If you hire people, work with people, or know any people, this is the program for you!

Everyone has done it and most people don’t like to admit it: made a bad hiring decision. The consequences of a bad hiring decision can range from hysterical to legal. When it comes to recruiting and interviewing, most people are a little skittish. When it comes to employee retention, most people are a little baffled. Mike Hourigan’s colorful and astute perspectives will help you decide whom to hire, how and where to find them, how to screen them, and how to keep them once you’ve got them. Participants will understand the importance of asking the right interview questions and how to develop these questions; learn how to improve the quality of interview candidates through more innovative recruiting and learn motivational techniques to allow them to keep good employees.

Simply giving out team hats and shirts does not make a team gel – but having the right management and communication skills do. All too often people think throwing a bunch of people together and calling them a team will get better results. Usually what happens is the dedicated, hard workers end up doing more work and the slackers get to do less. Mike Hourigan’s program will look at the real issues of developing a winning team. Issues addressed include: what to do with people who do not want to be team players; finding individual strengths and maximizing them for best results; understanding why it seems impossible to get along with certain people and how to communicate with them; how to deal with the “know it all, back stabbers”; and dealing with another time waster – meetings. You will learn problem-solving methods to optimize team effectiveness and get the tools you need to achieve superior results with your teams.

Is Leadership an Art or is it a Science? Business school professors will say it is a science, seasoned leaders will argue it is an art. No matter which side of the argument you are on – most people will concede it is a little of both. Mike Hourigan’s program looks at some the issues in between: what gets people promoted and what employees want. Mike Hourigan discusses some of the gray areas of management such as how to motivate people without spending money, the difference between coaching and managing, and how to praise someone to get repeated behavior and not feel like a wimp. He will also address how to stop people from plopping at your desk, how to understand the 3d’s of employee perception, and how to get people to do the job because they want to do it. You will leave with management tools you can implement immediately.