Torey Quinn's List: Business Skills

"People need emotional intelligence (EI) to build relationships and engage with each other. We need EI to understand our own emotions and take some control over our own emotions.
Having emotions is not enough to lead to success. Emotional intelligence drives us to acknowledge and value feelings—in ourselves and in each other. Emotional intelligence drives us to respond appropriately to feelings; to effectively apply the information from the emotion; and to harness the energy from the emotion for useful work that benefits us, our team, our company, and our customers."

"In this course, veteran talent director and author Cindy Mayer shows how to prepare for and conduct employee interviews in person, over the phone, and with video-conferencing tools. Understand what your ideal candidate would bring to the table and use that information to structure a job description and effectively scan resumes. Next, build an interviewing plan, and develop questions that elicit thoughtful, helpful responses. Finally, learn how to conduct an interview, probe for more depth with follow-up questions, navigate pitfalls, and take next steps after the interview. Cindy includes a sample interview that illustrates these techniques in action.
Topics include:
Assessing your needs
Screening resumes
Choosing your interview setting
Understanding the types of interview questions
Following legal guidelines
Understanding interview bias
Conducting an effective interview
Dealing with interview challenges
Conducting background checks
Determining the offer package
Writing a compelling offer letter"

"Do you want to cultivate leadership traits that will help you inspire your team, successfully manage change and conflict, and better serve the needs of your organization? In this course, leadership consultant and lynda.com Director of Learning and Development Britt Andreatta explains what real leadership is, how to assess your strengths, and ways to cultivate the traits the best leaders employ to make their organizations strong and innovative. The course includes information on developing and mentoring your team, creating an engaging workplace, developing political savvy, analyzing your industry, and honing your emotional intelligence.
Topics include:
What is leadership, and when are you leading?
Mapping your leadership competencies
Dealing with changing scope and stakes
Motivating and engaging others
Increasing team performance
Developing political acumen
Creating a culture of trust and integrity
Developing resilience"

"Effective communication helps us better understand a person or situation and enables us to resolve differences, build trust and respect, and create environments where creative ideas, problem solving, affection, and caring can flourish. As simple as communication seems, much of what we try to communicate to others—and what others try to communicate to us—gets misunderstood, which can cause conflict and frustration in personal and professional relationships. By learning these effective communication skills, you can better connect with your spouse, kids, friends, and coworkers."

"Join author and business coach Dave Crenshaw as he shows you the keys to becoming a respected thought leader and authority in your field. Whether you're already a visible professional or hoping to improve your presence, decision-making ability, and influence, this course can prepare you to take a meaningful step forward. Being recognized as a thought leader and authority inside and outside your company builds career capital and paves the way for new opportunities. This course demonstrates a step-by-step process to help you identify your thought leadership focus, find a mentor, develop expertise within your company, build a meaningful network externally, and develop personal publicity.

This course is one of a series of five Dave Crenshaw courses based on his Invaluable teaching methodology for professional development.
Topics include:
Discovering areas where you can contribute thought leadership
Developing company knowledge that makes you an expert
Building an authority ladder externally
Gaining publicity"

Lynda.com course, requires subscription account.


"Join author and business coach Dave Crenshaw as he shows you the key to enhancing your productivity—focusing on your most valuable activities and minimizing the distractions that waste your time. This course shows you how to determine where you make the most valuable contributions to your company while minimizing and offloading distractions. Create a plan to mind your time and effort and help coworkers and employees discover their most valuable activities, which can result in an office-wide productivity boost.

This course is one of a series of five Dave Crenshaw courses based on his Invaluable teaching methodology for professional development.
Topics include:
Discovering your most valuable activities
Focusing by offloading tasks that weigh you down
Enhancing productivity around the office
Eliminating distractions"

Lynda.com course, requires subscription account.


"In this short course, author Todd Dewett, PhD, shares four time-management tips that help everyone from busy executives to new employees get more out of their work day. Learn how to think differently about time management, embrace the 80% rule, find your "Einstein" window, protect that window, and broadcast your availability to ensure others know when you'll be available."

Lynda.com course, requires subscription account.


"Effective time management is an indispensible skill. In Time Management Fundamentals, Dave Crenshaw explains how to sensibly allocate time in order to achieve greater productivity. Starting with an exploration of productivity styles, Dave details a set of principles for staying organized, consolidating the workspace, keeping a clear mind, and developing a time budget. Also covered are techniques for managing a full inbox, processing email, and reserving time for the most important activities. Exercise files accompany the course.
Topics include:
Understanding the principles of productivity
Avoiding the pitfalls of multitasking
Practicing mind-clearing techniques
Saying no with tact
Choosing the appropriate calendaring software
Mastering the What, When, Where processing system
Processing email vs. checking email
Maintaining productivity gains"

Lynda.com course, requires subscription account.

"Coach, negotiation expert, and author Lisa Gates demonstrates the skills empowered communicators use to achieve mutual benefit at the negotiation table. The course delivers repeatable strategies for negotiating common issues such as asking for a raise, setting fees, promoting teamwork, and bringing out the best in those you manage. Along the way, discover how to use interest-based negotiation, distributive bargaining, diagnostic questioning, and conflict resolution to handle both simple and complex negotiations.
Topics include:
Preparing for a successful negotiation
Using diagnostic questioning
Opening the negotiation
Dealing with conflict
Framing and anchoring the discussion
Making concessions and asking for reciprocity
Encouraging cooperation"

Lynda.com course, requires subscription account.

"In this course, author and business coach Dave Crenshaw teaches you to get the most from your meetings—turning them into productive avenues for communicating, connecting, and accomplishing real work. The course demonstrates a simple, usable framework that will help you lead and participate in meetings large and small and provides insight into how to schedule, conduct, and follow up on meetings with minimum time and maximum results.
Topics include:
Reducing the length and number of meetings
Making sure everyone feels heard and appreciated
Using one-on-one meetings to minimize workplace distractions
Following up on meeting work"

Lynda.com course, requires subscription account.

"Improve your relationships with your coworkers, clients, and managers and find your way through conflict back to cooperation. In this course, negotiation consultant Lisa Gates shares the secrets of effective conflict resolution and reveals simple, repeatable techniques that apply in most business situations. She'll present a six-step framework for exploring and navigating conflict resolution, including identifying the issue, separating the people from the problem, overcoming roadblocks to resolution, exploring cultural differences, and getting to agreement.
Topics include:
Understanding how conflicts arise
Navigating cognitive bias
Exploring the principles of influence
Building trust
Reframing the argument
Brainstorming solutions
Working with difficult people"

"E-mail provides easy interconnectedness. You can initiate contact with someone you might feel uncomfortable calling. You can keep up low-maintenance acquaintances with little cost of money or time, and you have the best chance of getting a response because it’s easy for them to click and reply. And unlike the phone, which is quick and inexpensive, too, you can provide a rapid response while creating a virtual paper trail. But remember the Golden Online/Offline Rule: Don’t send any virtual message or anything via e-mail that you wouldn’t want to receive yourself. Following are some other key guidelines that may be helpful for any professional who must navigate the virtual world, while ensuring critical relationships and results."

According to Dharmesh Mehta, Senior Director of Outlook.com, the average inbox-throttled person receives a staggering 15,000 emails per year--that's about 41 every day. Without the proper planning and rules, you'll be lucky to make it past your morning coffee.