Industry Development

Building and Managing Teams
Topics that assist financial aid office staff in developing effective team-building strategies that result in improved service to students and families on their campuses.

• Accountability That Works!™
  This workshop builds financial aid staff's and management's ability to plan and complete tasks in a way that benefits the school, their staff and students. At every level of every financial aid office, projects begin, tasks are assigned, efforts are made, and deadlines are met — or missed. Directions are given, but financial aid professionals don't understand them. Deliverables are promised, but not supplied. Agreements are misunderstood or never made. It's not really anyone's fault — it's just an example of how people within their financial aid work environment might fail to communicate in a specific and clear manner about the task they assign or accept. Accountability That Works! — provides a systematic way to overcome these tendencies. By focusing on a three-stage cycle of accountability — responsibility, empowerment, and accountability — joined by clear agreements, the financial aid professional can begin to make significant progress in the delivery of higher education services to students and parents.
  
  
• How Full Is Your Bucket?™
  This presentation will discuss how higher education institutions can create positive interactions with financial aid work teams, students and parents and impact an individual's emotional bank account. Research shows how our emotional bank accounts effect work relationships, job performance and team synergy in the financial aid office and your school campus. Can a positive interaction have an even stronger impact than a negative one? This presentation is based on the #1 New York Times bestseller book and the work of Donald O. Clifton, Ph. D. and Tom Rath and Gallup research.
  
  
• Motivation in Financial Aid
  Most of us recognize that a motivated workforce is a more productive workforce, yet developing a highly committed financial aid staff is a challenging process. In this interactive session, we use a unique "Eidetic Variations" exercise to identify specific characteristics of highly motivated people. We then brainstorm on what financial aid professionals and managers can do to create more of these characteristics in your financial aid office and on your campus.
  
  
• Today's Multi-Generational Campus
  What differentiates a member of Generation X from Generation Next or a Baby Boomer from a Baby Buster? As a financial aid professional, learn how to distinguish between generations and gain understanding on how your students became who they are today. Explore ways to motivate students and fellow financial aid team members by learning the values and work ethics of each generation.
  
  
• Teamwork: What's Your Style?
  Teamwork is essential to the smooth operation of a successful financial aid office. Participants in this seminar will identify the characteristics of great teams and assess their predominant behavior styles when working in a financial aid team. We'll discuss strengths and liabilities of each style and how each team member in the financial aid office can become a more supportive team player. (Note that class size is limited to a maximum of 30 financial aid participants.)
  
  
• Making Teamwork — Work!
  Creating a financial aid team for a specific purpose is the first step. What happens next? What makes a team work well in the financial aid office? There are predictable stages that all teams experience. In this interactive session, the financial aid professional will explore the stages of team development to help build cohesiveness and collaboration. Team work is the heart and soul of any organization. However, it is the spirit of the financial aid team that makes teamwork — work!
  
  
• Whale Done!™
  This presentation is designed to help the financial aid professional improve relationships within the financial aid work environment, increase motivation, and enhance the performance on their school campus and with students and parents How often are you "caught" doing things right? How often do you "catch" others? This presentation is based on Ken Blanchard's, book Whale Done! and the concepts of providing positive reinforcement, praising progress, and catching people doing things right at higher education institutions.
  
  
• Why Bother With Generation Y?: How this Next Generation is Impacting College Campuses and Workplaces
  Want to gain a better understanding of this latest generation of students and co-workers on your college campus? Whether you refer to them as Millennials, Echo Boomers, or Generation Next, there is no doubt that this most recent generational cohort is already impacting how higher education institutions serve their students and recruit and retain employees. They are techno-savvy, confident, outspoken, and have high expectations of the workplace and of the colleges they attend. Are you ready for the next generational wave?

Communication
Topics designed to improve how financial aid professionals communicate with each other and the students and parents they serve.

• The Elements of E-Communication
  We live in a "wired" world and college campuses are no different. Much of our communications with students, parents, and colleagues is done electronically. Want to learn how to produce e-mail messages your students will respond to? Need help determining when to use e-mail versus some other means of communication? This program addresses electronic communication issues, with emphasis on e-mail etiquette, privacy issues, internal vs. external formats, terminology, and organization.
  
  
• Presentation Skills for the Financial Aid Professional
  This high-energy workshop is designed for financial aid professionals who want to learn and develop presentation skills and for those experienced facilitators and speakers who want to sharpen their skills to become a better leader in the financial aid office. The financial aid professional will learn how to motivate students/parents/financial aid staff by using memorable presentations that gain and hold their interest, along with tips and techniques on how to plan, create and deliver dynamic and credible presentations and how to involve the students/parents/financial aid staff by adding fun and exciting activities to any presentation — even those on the driest of topics! Participants also will gain the confidence needed to deliver polished presentations and learn techniques to overcome the fear of speaking before a group or even just one-on-one with students and families. (This program was previously offered as Presentation Nation.)
  
  
• Say What?: Communicating More Effectively With Students, Parents, and Other Financial Aid Professionals
  How we communicate with students, parents, and each other often determines the quality of both the internal and external customer service experience. Is the message received always the same as the message sent? This program reviews the basics of sending and receiving messages and explores specific techniques you can use to become a more effective communicator with students, parents, and colleagues. Topics include the use of "I" messages, non-verbal communication and active listening.
  
  
• What Do You Say?
  When faced with a difficult service challenge with a student or parent, the first few seconds and your first few words often determine your success or failure. You can become more effective in responding to challenging situations when you are equipped with exceptional listening and communication skills. This highly interactive program answers the question "What Do You Say?" when faced with these difficult scenarios in your financial aid office. The financial aid professional will learn the key words and phrases needed to handle tough customer service moments with ease and confidence.
  
  
• What's My Communication Style?
  This interactive workshop is designed to help the financial aid professional discover the strengths and weaknesses of different communication styles so that they can work and communicate more effectively within the financial aid office and with the students and families they serve. Sometimes the communication breakdowns are more of a result of style differences than the messages themselves. Using an assessment, the financial aid professional will learn their preference for one of four communication styles, identify the various facets of communication, and learn how to use their own style to improve communication with students, parents, and their colleagues in the higher education industry. (Note that class size is limited to a maximum of 30 financial aid participants.)
  
  
• Write Like a Pro
  Want to tune up your financial aid team's business writing and customer correspondence skills? This hands-on workshop covers the basics of sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, and punctuation, with a focus on higher education and financial aid terminology. Better writing skills will help get your message across to students and parents and improve the efficiency of your financial aid processes. The contents can be tailored to fit the specific needs and time constraints of your school campus.
  
  

Effective Work Habits
Topics that will help participants learn more effective work habits to improve customer service, motivation, change management, and other workplace issues that impact the financial aid office environment.

• Best Practices in Financial Aid
  This follow-up to "Crafting the Keys to Customer Service" reinforces the link between customer service and student recruitment and retention. Participants in this workshop will share specific steps and procedures that have proven successful in implementing the principles established in Keys. Participants can take away a list of best practices for each of the principles of customer service in financial aid. Prior attendance at "Crafting the Keys to Customer Service" is not required to benefit from this program.
  
  
• Crafting the Keys to Customer Service
  Develop an understanding of how to build customer-focused environment in the financial aid office. Identify your internal and external customers and work together to define world-class customer service. Review current research on customer service in financial aid industry and identify specific steps you can take to improve customer service in your office and on your school campus.
  
  
• Creative Thinking
  Want your financial aid staff to start thinking "outside the box"? This workshop encourages utilization of both sides of the brain and introduces several techniques for shifting paradigms and generating new ideas. The financial aid profession will engage in brainstorming and "sticky-charting" exercises on financial aid topics customized to meet the needs of your particular office.
  
  
• Dealing with Difficult Students
  Do your student or parent customers sometimes get frustrated or angry? Are you ever faced with a student or parent who is upset and expects you to do something you just can't do? Explore a six-step model to defuse emotional customers and deal with difficult situations. The financial aid professional will practice via role-playing exercises based on real financial aid scenarios.
  
  
• Diversity: A Mosaic of Possibilities for the Financial Aid Office
  Like the varied pieces of a mosaic, your office and school are made up of people with different backgrounds and experiences. To help students and families of all backgrounds, it's important to build awareness and understanding of diversity to enhance communication. You and the students and families you serve benefit when an inclusive environment of mutual respect is promoted.
  
  
• Ducks in a Row: Staying Organized in the Fast-Paced World of Financial Aid
  Even when it's not peak season, financial aid offices can be inundated with work. Feeling overwhelmed by paperwork, looming deadlines, and conflicting priorities? Improve your organizational skills and learn a streamlining formula that will make your work more efficient. You can save yourself valuable time and energy by making a few modifications in your financial aid office and move closer to the elusive work/life balance most people desire in their lives. You and your students will benefit when you focus on what matters most.
  
  
• Embracing Change: Promoting Excellence in Financial Aid
  As a financial aid professional being a "change-agent" means more than just "being on board" with change. In this interactive session, the financial aid professional will be able to assess and understand responses to change in the financial aid work environment, work effectively with their peers, students and families during change and take positive actions to successfully navigate (not react to) change. Most people view change as a threat to what is familiar to them. However, change is inevitable. And while we can't control much of the world changing around us, we can control how we respond to it. Embracing change is a great way to promote excellence at your higher education institution.
  
  
• Emotional Intelligence™
  This course will assist the financial aid professional with maximizing productivity and is based on adult learning principles. What makes someone a top performer in the world of Financial Aid? This course will explore the area of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and the importance of EI in a work environment. Emotional intelligence will help the financial aid professional be less reactive, more inclusive, more creative, more resilient, and enables us to enroll others in a shared vision of higher education access to students and families. We will identify personal EI competencies and areas for improvement, examine some of the common misconceptions about IQ versus EQ, and define three key areas of focus: self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation, and identify the EI attributes in top performers.
  
  
• For the Love of It
  Why do you work in financial aid and how can you find a way to love what you do? Utilizing an inspiring video from photographer Dewitt Jones, participants will be given specific techniques for finding joy and meaning in each day. We all have the ability to love what we do if we begin each day with a full cup, honor our passion, make contributions to those around us, and express our gratitude regularly. When you work for the love of it, you will serve as an inspiration to your students and your co-workers.
  
  
• Paradigm Shifts: Financial Aid in the 21st Century
  Based on a video by futurist Joel Barker, this workshop explores commonly-held paradigms in the financial aid industry. Identify the harmful and helpful roles that paradigms play in innovation and coping with change. Focus on your financial aid office and explore how existing paradigms might have to be challenged in order to achieve your vision.
  
  
• The Poison Grapevine — The Truth about Gossip in FA
  Gossip in the financial aid seems to satisfy a deep-seated psychological need for self-esteem. What better way to pump up our image of ourselves by using gossip to prove that we are clever, knowledgeable, and otherwise superior. This training session will provide the financial aid professional with ways to dispel rumors and gossip, help them understand the importance of trust and confidentiality in the financial aid office, and how to distinguish between gossip, rumors, and griping. Be prepared to learn the truth about gossip in the financial aid office environment.
  
  
• Resolving Conflict: What's Your Style?
  Experts recognize five basic methods of dealing with conflict: competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating, and avoiding. Complete a brief assessment designed to reveal your dominant conflict resolution style in your financial aid work environment. The financial aid profession will participate in a discussion of appropriate and inappropriate uses of each style within the context of a financial aid office. If time permits, this topic can be combined with an interactive exercise that tests your financial aid team's ability to resolve conflict using a 'survival scenario'. (Note that class size is limited to a maximum of 30 participants.)
  
  
• Trends in Financial Aid
  Major changes are happening in the financial aid industry. Required skill sets, desired staff qualifications, the scope of job responsibilities, staff diversity, technology, ethical paradigms, and organizational structures have all changed. If they haven't in your financial aid office, they probably should. In this session we will have an open discussion about what's happening in the financial aid industry and why and give participants a chance to sound off on what's happening in their financial aid office. This program is designed for financial aid association conferences or regional events where multiple schools are present.
  
  
• Working Without a Script
  Want to improve the communication process in your financial aid office to solve problems more creatively, build stronger teams, and create a more positive, collaborative work environment? This interactive program shares the basics of improvisation developed by the Second City Comedy Troupe to help financial aid professionals improve how they communicate and solve problems so that they can better serve their students and families.
  
  
• Working with You Is Killing Me™: Freeing Yourself from Emotional Traps at Work
  Feeling caught — or "hooked" — in an emotionally distressing situation at work? This session helps participants "unhook" from emotional pitfalls in the financial aid office as well as manage difficult personalities.

Leadership
Topics that develop and reinforce skills for those in leadership positions within the financial aid industry.

• Adding Leadership Skills to Your Management Toolkit
  Learn to clarify the distinction between management and leadership in your financial aid office. Working together with other financial aid professionals, you will identify characteristics of great leaders. Recognizing that leadership complements management rather than replaces it, you will identify ways to become a more effective financial aid leader. This session is intended primarily for supervisors and managers.
  
  
• Ethics4Everyone
  You read about it in the papers and you hear about it on the evening news. The "it" is ETHICS and it has quickly become one of today's most critical concerns about financial aid. This presentation will provide financial aid staff with practical tools to know what is right, do what is right, manage competing rights, and know that everything you do counts toward ethical behavior on your campus.
  
  
• Leadership at Work
  Explore the concept that leadership in a financial aid office is not a matter of job title but of style. Leadership attributes such as building trust, embracing change, helping others succeed, thinking creatively, and overcoming adversity are important elements to leading an effective financial aid office. Higher education institutions will discuss tips and tools to use in becoming a better leader in their financial aid office and on campus. This session is primarily for non-supervisors.
  
  
• Leading to Ethics — Ten Leadership Strategies for Building a High-Integrity Organization
  Ethical business starts with ethical leadership in financial aid office. Ultimately, it is up to the leadership to ensure that a financial aid office avoids the pitfalls of wrongdoing and reaps the rewards of doing right. Ethical leadership is a responsibility that comes with the territory and the title. This program can assist financial aid leaders with the tools to maintain a values-based environment and meet their ethical leadership responsibilities on campus.
  
  
• The Leadership Secrets of Santa Claus™
  Are Santa's challenges any different than what is experienced in financial aid offices? Think Santa's job is easy? Think again! From motivation and communication issues to reindeer recruitment and red wagon production problems, Just like leading a financial aid office, Santa's got a REALLY tough job with never-ending challenges. To discover how Santa meets these leadership challenges, take this amazing journey to North Pole University and learn firsthand how Santa and his team of elves and reindeer get big things done in their workshop - all year long! Learn how Santa builds a high performance team, attracts and retains the best and brightest, sets goals and performance measurements, deals with change, and solves "people problems." Financial aid professionals will learn the leadership secrets of Santa Claus.
  
  
• Visioning: The Financial Aid Office of the Future
  Come peek into the financial aid industry's crystal ball! In this interactive exercise, teams of financial aid professionals will draw pictures of financial aid in the years ahead. By comparing these pictures, we identify similarities and differences, opportunities and threats, and think of ways that we, as proactive financial aid professionals, can embrace the future and make it work to everyone's advantage.

Personal Empowerment
Topics that empower those who work in financial aid to make a difference, achieve goals, and help their students achieve their higher education dreams.

• Getting to the End of Your Rainbow
  As a financial aid professional, you probably set goals to help many students and families reach their higher education dreams. Achieving these goals is easier when you are equipped with proven strategies that can help you maneuver certain roadblocks like negative thinking and procrastination. In this interactive session, the financial aid professional will discuss goal-setting roadblocks, value clarification, SMART goals, action planning, the power of persistence, and the value of visioning. What lies at the end of your rainbow? Why aren't you there yet?
  
  
• Making a Difference: One Student at a Time
  Utilizing an inspiring video from award-winning photographer DeWitt Jones, this seminar helps you take the time to affirm your strengths and celebrate everything that's right in the financial aid industry. Recent trends will be reviewed to remind you of the difference you are making in the lives of your students and their families.

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To schedule a program or to find out more about the TG Speakers Bureau, contact your TG account executive at (800) 892-1357.