Latitude International Consulting Ltd.
30+ years expertise in Leadership, Team and Organization Development

New for 2023

latitudeinternational2023

Hybrid Teams

Working Virtually

workingvirtually

New For 2023

Check out these new virtual workshop offerings for 2023:

  • Presenting to a Virtual / Hybrid Audience – Learn strategies to make impactful and engaging presentations to a mixed hybrid audience.
  • Leading Hybrid Teams – Most teams now operate in some kind of hybrid format. Learn to set a strong and lasting foundation for team performance in today’s hybrid environment.
  • Communicating to a Short-Attention Span Audience – Attention spans are decreasing (we are becoming more like goldfish 😊)! Learn several practical ways to get your point across clearly – even to the most distracted audiences!
  • Building Presence, Visibility, and Impact – One of the best ways to increase your effectiveness at work is to enhance your visibility, your presence, and your impact. Learn to increase daily visibility, manage your voice for greater impact, and explore multiple techniques for communicating with increasing levels of confidence and assertiveness in group settings.
  • Creating Psychological Safety – Want to increase team performance? Focus on building trust and increasing psychological safety. Learn how to create a team environment where team members are candid and open, and where great ideas will emerge to boost performance to new levels.
  • Dealing with Ambiguity – In times of ambiguity and uncertainty, employees often worry about taking the wrong action or making the wrong decision. Dealing with Ambiguity helps employees avoid paralysis, take clear actions, make confident decisions, and maintain proactivity even when the path ahead is unclear!
  • Business Networking – Learn tips and strategies for building your business network – with additional emphasis on how to build your network while working remotely!
  • Driving Virtual Collaboration – Learn the key ingredients for successful virtual collaboration and explore platforms and tools that enable better virtual collaboration.
  • Driving Workplace Agility – In this world of fast paced change, only the agile will survive. Learn how to drive organizational agility while also boosting your team’s personal agility. 

Please contact us for more information on any of these new offerings

Working Virtually Series

We offer the following suite of 7 programs to help leaders and employees operate more effectively in an increasingly virtual environment:

  • Presenting to a Virtual / Hybrid Audience (new)
  • Leading Hybrid Teams (new)
  • Working Virtually
  • Leading Virtual Teams
  • Leading Effective Virtual Meetings
  • Effective Virtual Facilitation
  • Driving Virtual Collaboration

If you are interested to learn more, or if you would like a detailed program outline, please contact us

5 Tips for Maximizing Productivity in the New Working Environment

  1. Create Focus Time – The highest productivity comes from creating focus blocks of 1-2 hours where you can work productively with zero distractions. Schedule time for focus blocks and lock these time blocks into your schedule. Then protect them with your life!
  2. Balance Your Week – Your week is your “building-block” for time management. You have exactly 168 hours to spend. What is the best allocation of your week?  Look at your work time, your sleep time, your TV computer time and all other areas you spend your time.  What are your real priorities?  Can you shift time from lower priority areas to higher priority activities? 
  3. Proactively Manage Stakeholder Communications – Identify your top 5 stakeholders, and proactively aim to establish a regular meeting schedule them, thereby avoiding ad hoc / random meetings that impact your schedule – especially your focus blocks.
  4. Establish Team Norms for Productivity, Effectiveness and Balance – discuss and share with your entire team best practices for productivity and efficiency. An example might be to all agree on when it is ok to shut down for the day, so that team members do not feel the need to respond to emails 24×7.
  5. Convert commute time to exercise – If you are working from home, the good news is that there is zero commute time. Why not put that 30 minutes (or more) to use for some physical fitness to kick start and /or wrap up your work day.

And just to increase your productivity further, here are a few tips on avoiding zoom fatigue.

 

Tips to Avoid Zoom Fatigue

If you are working remotely, you have probably experienced Zoom fatigue – endless back-to-back meetings on Zoom (or any other virtual communication platform). 

Here are a few easy things you can do to manage zoom fatigue:

  • Intentionally Schedule Shorter Meetings – most meetings are set at either 30 minutes or 60 minutes. And if you stick to these times, you have no buffer in between meetings. Instead of 30 minutes, set your meetings for 25 minutes, and instead of 60 minutes, aim for 45 or 50 minutes. Be clear right up front how much time you have in the meeting – and you’ll find you’ll accomplish what you need to plus you’ll have a short break in between!
  • Stand Up and Move Around Between Meetings– If you find yourself going from one meeting or call to the next without breaks in between, stress will build and burnout will set in. Use buffer time in between calls and meetings to stand up, walk around, stretch and get refreshed before the next meeting.
  • Invest in Your Home Office – if you do work from home frequently, it can really help to have the right equipment to help you be productive. Make an investment – a comfortable ergonomic office chair, a large monitor, a good headset and microphone can make a huge difference in reducing stress and fatigue from endless Zoom calls.

Recent Certifications

Recent Certifications:

  • Agile Change Agent – We are now certified to support you to drive change in your organization using Agile Change methodology.
  • Design Sprint Master – We have a great Design Sprint toolset to help you innovate new products and services or streamline current processes.
  • STRONG Career Interest Inventory – We can help teams and individuals get greater clarity on career direction and opportunities for growth.  

2023 Update

While Covid remains a global concern, most of the world is back to business!

The majority of employees are now back in the office – and truly appreciating the chance to interact with their colleagues in a face-to-face environment. One major difference from our pre-Covid days is that most companies now have flexible work-from-home policies.  Studies show this flexibility is good for both employee satisfaction and productivity. One challenge for managers is that these flexible hybrid working environments are here to stay, and managers need skills and strategies to lead their teams in this hybrid working environment.

With over 15 years of global webinar experience, we have been able to support our global and regional clients with a variety of virtual workshops aimed at helping managers and employees work more effectively in a virtual environment. Over the last 24 months, we’ve supported our clients with over 250 virtual sessions, as well as several face-to-face workshops with proper social distancing measures in place!

Over the last 24 months we’ve supported a variety of regional and global firms and have delivered the following interactive virtual workshops:

  • Global Sports Brand – worked with top APAC Leadership Team to identify top level strategies for success and co-create core values to support future direction of the brand. This was a 5-month journey of multiple modules, all conducted virtually!
  • Global Luxury Brand – developed and delivered an intensive two-day face to face Crucial Conversations workshop; developed and delivered a two day face to face Effective Coaching Skills workshop
  • Global Investment Bank – Leading Hybrid Teams, Presenting Virtually; Working in a Remote Environment; Dealing with Ambiguity; Leading Larger Teams; Conflict management; Judgement and Decision making; (40+ sessions)
  • Global Luxury Brand – Leading a Virtual Team (30 + sessions) – Americas, Europe and Asia; Advanced Management Program (2 day face-to-face); Customized workshops to support the launch of a global mentoring program.
  • Global Investment Bank – (Japan) Female Leadership Talent Program
  • Regional Luxury Retail Brand – A 6-module Leadership Series including modules on: Leadership Mindset, Vision and Strategy, Managerial Courage, Leadership Communications, Leading Change, and Driving Collaboration
  • Global Insurer – Sessions on Presenting in a Hybrid Environment and on Leading Hybrid Teams
  • Global Investment Bank– Mastering Virtual Presence; Escalation Management; Personal Branding; Leading Effective Meetings, Negotiation Skills, Delegation Skills; Stakeholder Management; Leading and Presenting on Conference Calls, Story Telling for Business; Managing Time and Priorities; Problem Solving; Navigating Change; Growth Mindset, Managing Client Relationships (50+ sessions)
  • National Financial Regulator– Presenting Virtually, Management Essentials, Personal Effectiveness
  • Global Luxury Brand– A 4-module Leadership program for retail store managers covering the following topics: Performance Management, Career Conversations, Feedback and Difficult Conversations, and Interviewing Skills
  • Global High-Tech Firm– A 4-module Leadership program covering the following topics: Business Mindset, Communicating with Presence, Partnering with Business Stakeholders, Managing Stakeholder Expectations
  • Global Retail Brand – A 6-Module Leadership Program covering the following topics: Effective Leadership, DISC Communication Styles, Motivation, Delegation, Coaching and Feedback, Managing Team Dynamics, Making Connections and Influencing Others
  • Executive Coaching– selected executive coaching engagements
  • Plus many other projects with a variety of global and regional clients!

Let us know if you are interested in learning more about any of the above projects. We can support you in a variety of virtual formats – WebEx, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business and others. And of course, face-to-face if circumstances permit.

 

Please tell us about your needs and we’ll find a way to support you!

Working from Home vs Office

Many organizations now offer greater flexibility for employees to work from either office or home. But how can you maximize your output by taking advantage of this flexibility?

Office:

  • The office tends to work better for in-person meetings, relationship building, and activities requiring collaboration.
  • The office also offers you better opportunities to increase your visibility with key stakeholders.
  • In addition, the office offers advantages when it comes to technology – for example, more reliable internet connections and access to quality / high volume printing.
  • So leverage your office days to take advantage of relationship-oriented work and for when you have special technology needs.

Home:

  • Working from home tends to work best for asynchronous tasks where you need deep focus time and you can work undisturbed for longer periods of time.
  • Working from home also works better for tasks that can be done independently and are less dependent on team interactions.
  • From a personal perspective, working from home allows better work life integration where a more flexible schedule can allow some key personal tasks to be done while still fully meeting work commitments.