Paul Falcone Speaking Topics

• Effective Interviewing, Hiring, and Onboarding

  Everything begins with effective hiring. Few professional investments pay off more than building muscle and self-confidence around candidate selection and onboarding. Who and how you hire can lead to tremendous success in your business development efforts or leave your organization prone to lawsuits, workers' compensation claims, and general underperformance. Join us to discuss key highlights from Paul's books, "96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire" and "Effective Hiring: Mastering the Interview, Offer, and Onboarding," to capture key highlights regarding:

  • Interviewing and selection techniques for fully onsite or partially remote staff members that go beyond technical match and look for compatibility with your organizational culture.
  • Interviewing by discipline: creative questions and approaches for sales hires, recent college grads, C-suite executives, and professional/technical candidates.
  • Onboarding techniques at days 30, 60, and 90 that lead to quarterly self-reviews and annual performance appraisals that focus on codifying achievements, especially in the key areas of collaboration, agility, accountability, and innovation.

• Tough Conversations to Have with Employees: Employee Accountability, Conflict Resolution, and Effective Team Turnarounds

  Sexually offensive behavior, poor communication and leadership skills, body odor, and attitude problems – whether you’re encountering commonplace or exceptionally serious employee relations issues, you’ll need a down-to-earth strategy to protect yourself and your organization and get your employees back on the right track. Verbally addressing problems head-on can be daunting because of the confrontational nature of “constructive feedback,” not to mention the record you’re creating, which can land your company in legal hot water if not handled correctly. But fear not – former CHRO of Nickelodeon and employment expert Paul Falcone will share insights from his book, "101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees—A Manager’s Guide to Addressing Performance, Conduct, and Discipline Challenges," ranked #1 in the Amazon categories of “Best Workplace Culture,” "Best Business Teams," "Best Business Mentoring and Coaching,” “Business Conflict Resolution & Mediation,” and “Business Decision-Making and Problem Solving.”

  We’ll address handling some of the most challenging conversations you’ll ever encounter in the workplace (and teaching your operational leadership teams to do the same), including:

  • Foul language and insubordination
  • Bad hair days and body odor
  • Tattletales, whiners, and subordinates who leave you flying blind
  • Terminations for cause and layoffs
  • Convincing an employee to leave voluntarily when there are no formal warnings on file

  We’ll discuss the rules of workplace engagement, holding people accountable for their actions, and treating adults like adults – all while shifting responsibility for individual improvement away from the company and back to the employee – where it rightfully belongs. More importantly, we’ll develop a structured model and framework that will allow you to deliver even the most difficult messages effectively while treating people with dignity and respect at all times.

Reinventing Performance Management: Real-Time Feedback, Quarterly Individual Development Plans, and Annual Reviews Done Right

Profitability goals hinge on revenue growth (sales), expense management (finance), and productivity improvement (operations). Yet while human capital is every organization's primary profit lever, few organizations recognize the value of providing real-time and quarterly feedback that culminates in each employee’s “annual report” or “performance scorecard.” Join us for a fascinating look at how to reinvent your organization’s performance management program and overall people leadership strategy. We’ll focus on key takeaways that include:

• Accommodating Gen-Y Millennial and Gen-Z Zoomer priorities for career and professional development.
• Updating your organization’s performance appraisal template to reflect current challenges and values while setting future direction.
• Setting performance goals that offer both organizational and individual value to create a win-win exercise that motivates both managers and staff.
• Establishing appropriate feedback intervals and rhythms to allow for recognition as well as course correction as staffers learn to master their craft and profession.
• Focusing on key performance areas like collaboration, agility, innovation, team building, change leadership, and upskilling by creating a coaching culture and learning organization.

Talent is your company's emerging single, sustainable, competitive advantage. The greater your ability to quantify and manage its talent asset, the more value you will create for your firm. This presentation will help your performance management program stand out as a key advantage that drives individual and organizational change.

The Leader-as-Coach Model: A New Leadership Paradigm for Today's Realities

Coaching has been defined as a “facilitated process for self-discovery.” Yet it takes a certain type of leader to foster a coaching environment that taps into a person’s or a team’s potential, fosters a greater sense of teamwork, and creates an achievement mentality that helps everyone succeed. Whether you’re coaching senior executives, emerging leaders, or individuals lacking self-awareness, a coaching culture builds trust and strengthens camaraderie. It allows successful leaders to “move the middle” of the performance curve because workers respond best when they know their boss has their back.

Join us to discuss high-impact strategies for motivating staff members to reach new heights in their careers while solidifying your own reputation as a leader and people developer. Specifically, we’ll address:

• Establishing a coaching culture from the very first interview
• Asking appropriate questions that tie personal and career interests to organizational success
• Engaging top performers in “stay interviews” to ensure retention and career balance
• Engaging in “constructive confrontation” discussions without resorting to formal discipline
• Transitioning from an individual contributor culture to one that focuses on team building, team engagement, and team accountability

The “leader-as-coach” model views talent as the greatest asset to acquire, develop, and leverage, bar none . . . Join us as we train business leaders to coach and prepare the next generation of leaders to pay it forward!

Leading Effectively Through Workplace Crisis and Disruption

Each new year ushers in volumes of sweeping changes, from continuing to manage through the post-COVID integration to large-scale employee turnover, silent quitting, and returning employees to the office. How organizations lead their operational management teams through extended periods of upheaval directly ties to organizational effectiveness, culture change, and the bottom line. Join former CHRO of Nickelodeon and bestselling author Paul Falcone as he highlights key learnings from his book, "The First-Time Manager: Leading Through Crisis," and helps to identify new ways of mastering the ongoing aftershocks to our teams and organizations in addressing:

• Individual Crises, including addressing “silent quitting” syndrome, termination and layoff communications, and dealing effectively with employee burnout
• Departmental & Team Crises, including mediating employee disputes, putting a final end to bullying and passive-aggressive behaviors, and making it safe for your teams to share their concerns in a “psychologically safe” way
• Company Crises, including demands for hybrid work and returning reluctant employees to the office, threats to unionize, and being prepared for further global crises and natural disasters

By no means a “gloom and due” approach to the many changes before us, Paul places a healthy and constructive spin on reinventing your role in light of your organization’s and team’s changing needs and provides timely tools and guidance to help you every step of the way.