By Mike Krepsik, PE
In May, the Continuing Education Committee for the Pittsburgh Section of the American Society for Civil Engineers hosted the leadership training seminar Performance DISCovery at Roland’s Seafood in the Strip District. Presented by national speaker and renowned performance consultant, Chris Flickinger, the seminar coached ASCE members how to use advanced behavioral science to get farther, faster and be more effective during their interactions with others.
Internationally ranked among the top 1% of performance consultants in the world, Flickinger works with large Fortune 500 companies as well as family-owned businesses and mid-sized companies. Chris’ background includes the Fox News Channel, Dale Carnegie Training (former leadership training instructor), the Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Psycho-Metric Analysis and Positive Psychology Coaching under the guidance of Harvard’s world famous professor, Dr. Ben Tal-Shahar.
Attendees learned techniques and honed their abilities through group interaction to quickly “read” and adapt to people to easily anticipate and connect to their interests, needs, wants, challenges, and expectations using DISC personality traits and identifiers. From simple things, like a person’s style of dress or grooming to mannerisms and word choice while speaking, these and other identifiers provide clues as to that person’s dominant DISC personality profile. Once you’ve identified the dominant DISC personality profile, you’ll gain insight into the best way to modify your sales pitch or negotiation tactics by addressing those aspects of the conversation your receiver cares about most. By learning these skills, the attendees increased their negotiation power and leadership potential during business and interpersonal interactions.
Twenty-seven attendees received attentive instruction and practiced what they had learned in group role-playing exercises during the three hour seminar over dinner, earning 3 PDH credits.
Feedback from the group was overwhalmming positive. with numerous requests requests for additional material from our presenter. “Chris is very knowledgeable and very good at presenting the material in a way I could understand,” said one participant. “This was by far the most useful/beneficial professional seminar I've attended,” another participant added.
The ASCE Board graciously sponsored the event by defraying the cost of a national speaker and allowing the Continuing Education Committee to offer Chris’s insightful instruction at a reasonable cost to members. Performance DISCovery comprises part one of a three-part lecture series Flickinger has developed on leadership in the professional arena. Keep an eye on the Upcoming Events section of your ASCE Pittsburgh Section e-mails for the announcement of the second installment of our leadership training series presented by Chris Flickinger in the spring of 2018.
