Center for Professional Development

CPD's offerings range from one-day courses to three-day courses. However, if you have different time needs, please contact us to create a custom course that meets your requirements.

Our courses are highly interactive with plenty of hands-on activities and exercises that provide ample opportunity to practice what you've learned. We believe that practice, coupled with specific feedback, are key ingredients for learning retention and behavior change.

We're committed to working with you to help you improve your communication skills and create positive changes in your organization. We believe that people are the only real way to differentiate companies and products from one another.

In today's fast-paced world, it is imperative to have well-written documents that communicate your messages clearly, concisely, and quickly. Your ability to communicate and write effectively affects how you are perceived by your peers and superiors, and is critical to advancing your career.

This course provides participants with the tools needed to write documents and messages clearly and concisely. You'll learn ways to identify and avoid common pitfalls along with active and concise writing techniques to improve the clarity and focus of your messages. Throughout the course you'll have many opportunities to practice these techniques to write clear and concise messages for the intended audience.

This course progresses from a basic understanding of sentences, to the development of paragraphs, to the organization of business documents. Among the things you'll learn are specific techniques to write effective sentences and streamline your writing (less can be more in business writing); methods to bring clarity and economy to your writing; and useful patterns of organization to tap into your natural creativity and organize your thoughts. This is a hands-on class with plenty of opportunities to practice what you learn.

"Leadership is influence. That's it. Nothing more. Nothing less." These definitive words by leadership guru John Maxwell echo those of management expert Ken Blanchard who maintains that the key to leadership today is influence, not authority.

In this course, you'll acquire 20 specific tools employed by influential leaders and learn techniques for demonstrating your leadership through your language. You'll discover the persuasion tools that the master motivators use, and you'll have a chance to create your own Try-Angles, Chiasmus, and Metaphors. (World-famous examples of these three techniques are Winston Churchill's "Never give up"; Jesse Jackson's "I was born in the slums but the slums were not born in me"; and Ann Morrison's "Glass Ceiling.") Throughout the course you'll gain practice using these techniques and obtain feedback on your efforts.

Is it possible to enhance your brain power? Optimize your cognitive capacity? Maximize your mental operations? Yes, of course it is! This course will help you enhance your mental operations, thoughts, and actions through practice in the following areas: concentration, listening, memory, creativity, thinking well on your feet, organizing thoughts, problem-solving, decision-making, persuasion, and self-confidence. Come and boost your brain power!

Do you wish you had a better memory? Do you wonder if there's a better way to remember names, faces, numbers, and passwords? Do you wonder why you forget things or forget to do something? If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, then this class is just for you. You'll learn how the mind works, how to enhance the learning process, how to improve your recall efficiency, and what factors affect your brain power and memory. You'll also learn tricks, tips, and techniques to retain and recall names, faces, numbers, sequences, lists, passwords, and other information that you'd like to remember. Join us for this fast-paced session.

This active-participation workshop reviews those important grammatical concepts that you learned in school but have forgotten over time. It is designed to take mystery out of such choices as these: "Just between you and I, I think a merger is very likely," or "Just between you and me, I think a merger is very likely." You'll pick up "quick 'n dirty" techniques for knowing with 100% accuracy which of these choices is the correct one.

This course provides participants with the ingredients needed to identify, build, and facilitate a strong and successful team. It includes recognizing the elements for building relationships of trust, opening and improving lines of communication, developing trust within the group, and working toward a common goal. Participants gain practice using these elements, following an exploration of the nature of teams and expectations surrounding them.

In addition to incorporating elements of effective business writing, this course assists participants in building precision and clarity into reports, instructions, proposals, and other technical material. Participants gain practice in organizing, formatting, writing, and editing to suit a stated objective with a targeted audience.

This course is designed to help you master the skill of thinking—and speaking—on your feet. Actually, thinking well on your feet is a composite of skills that include organization, listening, concentration, self-confidence, creative thinking, and problem-solving. You will have opportunities to practice these skills and use specific techniques to respond quickly and well to unanticipated questions and situations. No matter whether it's an interview, public speaking, or simply responding to an individual, you'll be more prepared to handle these situations with confidence, poise, and professionalism.

Policies and procedures are documents that guide the activities of an organization and establish the framework for what will or will not be done in an organization. If policies and procedures are well-defined and well-written, they enable organizations to operate efficiently and legally. If not, they can lead to compliance problems and legal issues that can affect the finances and overall well-being of an organization. Therefore, it is imperative to have well-written policies and procedures that communicate the organization’s activities clearly and consistently.

This course provides participants with the tools needed to write useful and effective policies and procedures for their organizations. This includes the organization and content of policy and procedure documents; the format and layout of the documents; and the writing style. Once they master these important basics, participants will also learn the best practices for the revisions, updates, reviews, and approval of these documents.