Natalie Johnson

Workplace culture is a common topic among organizational leaders, with good reason. Recent research suggests culture is ten times more important than compensation in determining whether valuable employees will stay or leave. But culture is a complex concept to understand – and even more complex to change. The audience will:

• Learn a simple, operational definition of culture
• Understand where culture comes from and, thus, what is necessary to transform it over time
• Identify the three most important responsibilities of every person and leader when it comes to intentionally designing and nurturing a thriving culture.

Based on the research of Brene Brown and led by Natalie who was trained by Dr. Brown, Dare to Lead™ is a training session focused on brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts. In particular, it focuses on the development of the four skills of courage: rumbling with vulnerability, living into your values, BRAVING Trust, and learning to rise. The audience will:

• Learn what it means to "rumble with vulnerability" and understand the vital importance of vulnerability in great leadership
• Identify core values and explore the difference between professing and practicing values
• Explore the seven elements of trust and learn a framework for more productively resolving issues related to trust in the workplace
• Practice a simple but powerful "learning to rise" strategy that immediately shifts mindset and improves performance

Coaching is an essential tool in a leader's toolbox, but the skill of coaching is not widely known or practiced. Further, many leaders have been taught to be the "expert", a mindset that can often impede the learning and growth of their team members. To be most effective in leading teams, leaders must know when and how to act as coaches rather than experts. Leaders who participate in this training will:

• Identify how the coaching mindset is different than the expert mindset
• Explore how to shift from the aim of "getting people to do things" to the aim of "creating the conditions" where growth, learning, and self-efficacy flourish
• Explore the basics of coaching as a leader: listening, asking powerful questions, eliciting the best thinking, and helping others reduce drama and ego
• Apply the basics of coaching for leaders to specific scenarios relevant to their workplace settings

*Often customized for healthcare leaders

Our thinking and our stories either spark empowered emotions, productive behaviors, and desirable outcomes - or they keep us stuck. In today’s uncertain, complex, and demanding workplace, mindset and skillful storytelling matter more than ever. Audiences in this session will be able to:

• Summarize two forms of thinking that lead to divergent sets of feelings, actions, stories, and results
• Describe two simple but powerful concepts to generate effective thinking in any situation
• Assess a workplace challenge through the lens of mindset and apply effective thinking tools and the power of storytelling to create a more ideal outcome.

Our relationships with colleagues in the workplace offer some of life's greatest opportunities – and challenges. Particularly when we are navigating a variety of personalities, it's important to know how to work through differences and cultivate connection, which is the key to team success. Audiences in this training will:

• Define the most significant roadblocks to cultivating productive, quality relationships.
• Learn about a "cycle of collusion", which is a common pattern of unresolved tension that often leads to unnecessary conflict and drama.
• Develop inclusive leadership skills.
• Identify at least three practical strategies for strengthening our professional relationships.

Lack of accountability is one of the most frequent frustration triggers for employees and one of the biggest culprits of underperformance and friction on teams. While most people want to be a part of teams where accountability and teamwork are the norm, many oversimplify the idea or are unsure of how to enact it. The audience will:

• Describe the accountability continuum
• Define the 4Cs of accountability
• Identify their strengths and gaps in each of the 4Cs
• Develop a plan of action

Traditional efforts to improve communication skills focus on models or strategies that, while valuable, overlook one key factor: the internal work that is often necessary to improve the way we communicate with others. Developing an impactful communication style requires that we attend to important elements of our “inner operating system” such as thoughts, feelings, values, and decision-making models. The audience will:

• Describe at least five communication traps they fall into that undermine communication.
• Identify their most pressing personal challenge when it comes to communication.
• Understand how their inner narrative and stories will influence communication style.
• Apply two simple but powerful tools for generating the right mindset to support better communication and the power of storytelling.

Especially when we are faced with a difficult conversation, we often find ourselves avoiding, sugar-coating, clumsily landing the message, or reacting defensively. This session helps participants identify and overcome these challenges so they can become more confident and comfortable giving and receiving feedback with candor, kindness, and conviction. The audience will:

• Define empathy and apply it to an actual workplace conversation
• Define radical candor and apply it to an actual workplace conversation
• List at least three ways to reduce defensiveness during difficult conversations
• Describe what it means to listen with intention

The research is clear that well-being, work performance, and organizational outcomes suffer in the long term unless leaders develop the ability to balance the demands of the modern work world through better management of their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy. This rich, interactive, and inspiring training helps leaders understand that health and wellness at work is not a luxury, but rather an absolute necessity for showing up as the best versions of themselves at work and home. The audience will:

• Connect daily decision-making regarding energy and well-being to a greater purpose and powerful motivator for change.
• Learn science-based behavioral strategies in each energy dimension (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual) to support managing and expanding energy as well as increase engagement, motivation, and learning.
• Practice a resiliency strategy that will help to identify stress as a performance enhancer.
• Define the barriers to managing energy and understand why energy (instead of time) has more value.

The importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace has become a significant topic for forward-thinking organizations. If a person doesn’t have a high level of emotional intelligence, their IQ or work ethic will only take them so far. The audience will:

• Define emotional intelligence
• Learn at least three new practices for managing their emotional energy for the benefit of themselves and others around them.
• Learn at least three new practices for better understanding the emotional states of other people.
• Learn about the connection of emotional intelligence to mental health.

Smartphones, stressors, to-do lists, interruptions, and distractions deplete our mental and emotional energy, leaving us feeling overwhelmed and “crazy busy”. If we’re not proactive there can be a negative impact on mental health, engagement, and productivity. Today’s world requires skillsets and practices around mental attention that help us sift through the stimuli, create clarity, and stay present. The audience will:

• Identify how their personal relationships and professional contributions would improve through the development of a stronger mental focus.
• List the two most powerful disruptors of mental focus
• Identify at least two internal practices and external strategies that will reclaim mental energy
• Commit to a realistic action plan for improving mental focus and clarity

Work and life today are busier and more emotionally demanding than ever. Although stress is a predominant factor in all our lives, research has revealed that the traditional way of viewing stress isn't helpful and contributes to burnout. The science suggests we can use our stress to foster performance, better connect with those who matter, and even extend our lives. This session will allow the audience to understand how they can create resilience during times of uncertainty. The audience will:

• Update their thinking on stress based on the newest research
• Identify their biggest stressor and practice a powerful technique for changing their stress response
• Connect their experience of and response to stress to a greater purpose that serves to increase resilience even during times of uncertainty 

Advancements in sleep research have taught us that sleep is even more important than we thought. Adequate sleep is necessary for optimal levels of focus, engagement, emotional regulation, cognitive power, and many other fundamentals essential to performance in the workplace. Despite this, the average adult is getting less sleep than ever before. Participants in this training will: 

• Learn what happens during sleep that is essential to top performance
• Describe their “sleep story” and determine whether it supports optimal sleep
• Identify barriers to getting adequate quantity and quality of sleep
• Discuss more than ten practical strategies for improving the quantity and quality of sleep
• Commit to a realistic action plan that will lead to better sleep  

As Steven Covey says, “Trust is the glue that holds all relationships.” Research supports the importance of trust in creating and maintaining connected, collaborative relationships and high-performing teams. Participants in this training will:

• Learn a simple but powerful framework for understanding the elements of trust including care, sincerity, reliability, and competence
• Identify specific examples in their own working experience of each of these elements of trust (and mistrust)
• Apply the trust framework to a working relationship to identify specific issues and develop the best approach for rebuilding trust with that person.

This session is appropriate for individuals and teams who would like to build or repair trust with another person and/or with their team.

The “vault” is the word Dr. Brene Brown uses to describe the importance of sharing only what is ours to share. While it is human nature to gossip, breaking the vault this way has detrimental effects on trust and performance in the workplace. Participants in this training will:

• Normalize gossiping and understand its negative effects on performance and connection
• Learn to make more thoughtful decisions about information sharing
• Discover simple and tactful ways to discourage breaking the vault when they 
  see it happening around them

Setbacks and crises are inevitable. Recovering from difficult times requires resilience and can even be an opportunity to set out on a new path that’s better than before. Participants in this training will: 

• Establish clarity on purpose and values as guiding forces for returning from adversity
• Learn tangible practices for facing and recovering from adversity with resilience
• Discuss practical and powerful ways to create the conditions for their teams to navigate difficulties well and come back stronger.

This session is ideal for audiences who have recently experienced adversity at work or home. Examples include layoffs, mergers, pandemics, company restructuring, or other setbacks.

This training focuses on the three most significant elements of organizational well-being that allow organizations to function at full capacity: energy, connection, and courage.

Energy: Energy is one of our most valuable resources yet most of us fail to manage it effectively. This workshop will focus on how we can manage and even expand our energy capacity by connecting to a valuable motivator. I’ll introduce how to increase well-being and workplace performance through intentional management of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy.

Connection: Many teams struggle with ego, ineffective communication, and a lack of trust. This workshop will introduce foundational skills that will elevate team performance by increasing psychological safety, improving communication, and building skills to better manage change and conflict.

Courage: A type of leadership that still exists in all organizations is command and control leadership. It exists because you can scare people into doing what you want. However it’s not sustainable and the consequence is burnout, lack of organizational trust, and wasted resources. This workshop will define courage and introduce ways to create sustainable leadership.

The audience will:

•  Recognize the four dimensions of energy and create a powerful motivator, the best self vision that supports behavior change in each dimension
•  Review definitions of trust and psychological safety and understand how they increase and decrease trust in their teams.
• Recognize vulnerability as the foundational skill of courageous leadership and learn that it’s an indicator of courage on teams and within organizations.

In the face of stressful situations, we often default to fear and anxiety. While this is a natural human response, it has negative consequences for our well-being, our families, our communities, and our workplaces. In times of disruption, change, and uncertainty, what’s most needed is calmness, kindness, and the ability to stay focused on what’s most important. This training will inspire and guide participants as they define what greatness in the face of adversity means for them and begin to operationalize that through their daily choices. The audience will:

• Have an increase in self-awareness and effective thinking that will be the foundation for their ability to rise and call others to greatness
• Gain a new understanding of how crisis emotionally triggers us in ways that can negatively impact our wellbeing and the way we show up for others.
• Assess their current leadership story – where you’re doing well and where there is room for improvement.
• Learn a different way to think about self-care as the gateway to living in alignment with your desired leadership story and your best self.

Research from the field of organizational psychology suggests that the most important key to bringing our best selves to the workplace, even in times of demanding change, is to put our egos in the backseat and lead with vulnerability and empathy. This session will offer important insights into the role of vulnerability and empathy in today’s changing workplace and guide participants as they identify ways to practice both. The audience will:

• Define psychological safety and understand the relationship between vulnerability and empathy.
• Create an internal navigation system for themselves and understand how vulnerability and empathy are necessary.
• Re-define empathy and use it in a tough conversation that requires vulnerability