What Slate Does
Slate Communication provides tools and education for people looking to improve communication behavior in the workplace.
Slate is a management consulting and education company that helps people communicate, plan and act effectively so they have better successes at work. We identify the causes of problems at work and then design and facilitate practical remedies for what ails your organization.
Slate specializes in teaching clients to improve communication behaviors and meet organizational goals. Slate helps you discover and use all of your communication data to make your workplace thrive.
Management Consulting
“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
~Robert McCloskey
Have you witnessed:
- Resistance to initiatives or management
- Failure to meet organizational goals
- Decreased alignment to vision
- Growing cynicism
- Errors in performance that seem avoidable
- Status quo mentality or passiveness
Identifying the need for an outside view on your work can be difficult. If you are frustrated, stressed or stuck, it’s easy to lose faith in the fact that people can learn and do things differently. If you sense that things are out of whack – goals aren’t being met, morale is low, or teams just aren’t working as smoothly as you know they could – Slate can help.
Businesses are much more than their logos, products or services. Businesses are comprised of the people who make them run – and people are complex. The way people communicate within and about an organization can make or break it. Every business problem is, at its core, a problem of communication.
Maybe your business is not reaching its objectives. Maybe you have operational issues, large turnover, or little to no innovation. All these problems stem from communication issues within the company.
Slate’s expertise is uncovering these communication issues and translating them into actionable steps to change your business for the better. We analyze the issue, discover the root communication patterns that contribute to it, and work with employees to create behavioral changes that activate growth. Helping people communicate better internally and externally has a dramatic effect in business outcomes and performance.
If you suspect that your organization needs to improve its communication skills, there are general symptoms you can look for to identify the need for improvement. Noticing these signs early and actively giving them your attention prevents them from having a negative effect on your business outcomes.
Executive Development
“The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings… what to say and how to say it.”
~Edward R. Murrow
Consider Executive Development if:
- You value feedback and work toward developing your own skills and behaviors as a way to improve your workplace
- You want to remain competitive in your career
- You are practical and idealistic and know that the two go together
- You are passionate about your work (or want to become so again)
- You like learning and want to be an active participant in seeing your organization progress
If you want to get better at what you do and help those around you, contact Slate and learn how this approach to executive development can be a good fit for you.
How is your company performing? How are you performing? Everyone needs feedback about his or her work. It’s valuable to have someone who can give you practical tools to become more satisfied with what you and how you do it. That’s true whether you’re new to an organization or want to bring an innovative approach to a seasoned work experience.
Most organizations and the people who make them run have areas where they can improve their performance. Executive development and coaching is reflective, strategic and practice-based:
Examples of client goals:
- Communication for effective management – focus on increasing confidence and competence in leading your team
- Developing transparent leadership skills – including leading with financial transparency and managing through change
- Becoming a better boss – developing skills to manage conflict with confidence and respect
- Transitioning into an Executive Role – Learning to leverage your strengths and create connections with your team
Coaching can also be focused around existing organizational strategy and integrated with previous frameworks or goals. The process is practical, supportive and useful. We will pick a goal you want to move toward or an idea you want to incorporate and make it happen.
Behavioral Assessment for Job Matching & Team Design
“ ‘Know thyself’ is a good saying, but not in all situations. In many it is better to say ‘know others.’”
~Menander
More Than Just Numbers and Letters.
- Understanding your own comforts and aptitudes is vital to being able to communicate well. Using good data well promotes solid and resilient work relationships.
- Assessments get your team on the same page – literally. Charting your team’s strengths shows why some projects are effortless and some are agonizing.
- Assessments provide a neutral frame of reference that helps teams better understand their differences and similarities.
- Assessments can help you identify the behaviors needed for a specific job, where those qualities exist in your team, and what to look for when interviewing new candidates.
If you want to gain further understanding about yourself and your team, Slate can help.
Know thyself. This is the core concept behind communicating well and performing well in what you do. Using behavioral and learning style assessments is a way you can get more insight into how you work and how you perform best.
Assessments can be used for one-on-one coaching, clarification in job descriptions and candidate selection, and for assembling teams that complement each member’s strengths and interests. The data from assessment creates a lens through which we can gain insight into our own behaviors and the behaviors of those around us.
Human resource managers find these tools useful for hiring and on-boarding. Managers of all levels use these tools to help them gain insight into how their teams can be best managed and directed. Click here to learn more.
Corporate Education and Training
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
~Benjamin Franklin
Class Titles Include:
- Across the Great Divide: resilient and practical communication for the intergenerational workplace
- Becoming a Good Manager: essential skills for career successes
- Humans Are Hard: the best-kept, well-known secret of organizations everywhere
- Job Matching for High Performance: understanding what – and whom – your business needs
- 4 Things To Do Forever: communication fail-safes for leaders of all types
Presentations Include:
- Mindful Communication: conversations that work at work
- Discovering Your Best Teams
- Emotions are Data: making use of subjective information in the workplace
- Curiosity: the workplace expectation we forget to discuss
- The Most Coveted Behaviors in the American Workplace
Whether you need a speaker to address your group and set the context for your meeting, or you need professional development workshops that help create positive behavioral change within your organization, Slate can help.
It’s been said that that the organizations that learn the fastest, win. The good news for organizations that want to succeed is that humans learn really well when they get to learn together. We can improve our effectiveness, agility and adaptability when there is opportunity to learn at work.
Corporate Education and Training works to target where skills need to be developed within your team and creates a plan for making use of them. Whether you need basic skill development for new managers, new ways to manage difficult conversations, or want to learn how to begin creating a new level of operational transparency in your business, we will assemble the right pieces to create better skills and confidence for your team.
