FountainBlue

In our quest for fostering entrepreneurship and innovation in the high tech, life science and clean energy space, we provide consulting services to support early stage CEOs in these areas (http://www.svexecs.com), work within corporations to support intrapreneurship and leadership from within, and prepare high-integrity, competent executives to assume board positions in prominent organizations. This page provides some background about our workshops for corporations.

FountainBlue offers speaking and training workshops for our corporate partners. Specific 2010 and 2011 programs are outlined below, and we welcome your inquiries about and requests for on additional programs. Each program is designed to be 2 hours long over lunch on Thursdays or Fridays (from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.) or over hors’dourves on Tuesdays or Wednesdays (from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.).

Below is a sampling of our workshop topics and descriptions offered by our CEO Linda Holroyd. For information about pricing and other details, please e-mail us at info@WhenSheSpeaks.com.

Savvy Networking Tips for the Reluctant Networker

In this day and age when everyone knows the value of networking, the reluctant networker is at a disadvantage. For this dynamic, hands-on workshop, Linda Holroyd will share the top ten dos and don’ts of networking, and engage workshop participants in exercises designed to overcome barriers to networking with people who are different from you, under a variety of circumstances. Strategize on where you can best network and why you, and those you meet would benefit from connecting.

Expanding Your Influence, With or Without Direct Authority

Influence: We respect those who know how to get it, and we all see the need for it.

For this workshop, we will identify the top ten qualities women of influence command, and strategize on how we can build more influence within our network, while focusing on delivering results in alignment with corporate objectives. You will break up into groups and brainstorm specific ideas for getting buy-in for ideas, for managing without direct authority, for getting recognition from the executive management team, and for influencing others from afar.

Linda Holroyd's Heart-Head-Hands leadership style has guided her throughout her personal and professional career.

• Start with the heart, for your passion will drive your success.
• Move to your head, for it’s strategic to think through why you’re passionate about something and what you can do to make it happen.
• Move to your hands, for just feeling passionate and thinking about it won’t drive the results that will mark you a leader.

Linda employs it religiously as she works with entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to build their businesses. This workshop will share her leadership strategy, and help you identify and work toward your next leadership objectives.

Politics in the Workplace: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Let’s face it – office politics is a reality for everyone, regardless of the size of your organization or your position. As professionals we have all dealt with the challenges of doing our job while watching our backs, managing “up”, and dealing with difficult co-workers who treat others around them badly.

For this interactive workshop, we will recommend ten top tips for successful engagement in office politics, and break up into teams to cover some common political challenges:

• Gossip
• Passive Aggressiveness
• Playing favorites
• Reputation Trashing
• Turf battle and protection
• Undermining
• Withholding information

Building and Reinforcing Your Executive Brand

Your brand tells people who you, and what to expect from you whether at work or at home. It helps people decide whether to trust you, and what to trust you about. Effective executives, both women and men, proactively build their brand, to ensure that others think highly of them, and have the confidence that they can execute under specific circumstances, and even in situations where they have little connections and expertise. Indeed, your executive brand can limit or launch your success. 

For this interactive workshop, we will cover how to build and reinforce your executive brand, and how they leverage that brand to build credibility, position yourself, your team and your organization for success, and strategically manage your career development.

Agility - The Key to Building a Successful Career

Global megatrends are making it much more difficult to plan your career path, as there is more fluidity within and across corporations, across global markets, plus greater acceptance of people moving from one role or industry to another.

For this workshop, we will cover how agility is the key to building a successful career and what specific strategize you can embrace to transition between roles, industries and companies, always following your passion and growing your skills.

Women Making Their Own Rules

Successful women create their own brand - their own personal way of making things happen. Sometimes they play within the rules, sometimes they make up their own rules, but the results speak for themselves.

In this interactive workshop, think through how you thrive following the rules, and when you are most likely to break them. Then figure out how to best leverage your personal tendencies to command the results you seek and deserve.

Fostering An Intrapreneurial Culture

Innovation is today’s buzzword - considered integral to an organizations culture, its competitive advantage. Yet the revenue-generating demands and the cost-cutting measures taken by many corporations are reducing the capacity for companies to innovate from within.

This workshop helps you fight back! It encourages women and men to take specific actions in support of building an intrapreneurial culture, one that manages for today, and embraces new developments for tomorrow, leveraging corporate resources, connections and know-how with new ways of building and applying technology solutions.