• Set and negotiate goals and priorities in partnership with your manager(s);
• Organize your day and manage your time including deadlines, e-mail, voice mail, meetings, drop-in visitors and time-wasters;
• Validate where your time actually goes (based on facts not perceptions)
• Prevent crises, manage conflicts, difficult people and awkward situations assertively using Roger Fisher's method
• Make your manager(s), peers, teammates and staff (if any) more effective; improve your working relationships; assume more leadership and managerial responsibility without the benefit of authority;
• Clarify your role, prevent role conflict, and excel in working with peers, multiple managers and demanding clients;
• Harness the untapped opportunities brought about by the power of new technologies
• Practice in a friendly atmosphere and seek guidance from the seminar leader
• Make your job more meaningful, build trust, and take charge of your growth and career plans.

Why Is This Program Unique?

This workshop is practical in every sense of the word by virtue of several unique features:

1. You will leave with proven techniques and skills to effectively manage the obstacles facing experienced secretaries and management assistants such as the constant change in priorities and task urgency, the need to meet the expectations of multiple bosses, limited authority, dealing with powerful individuals, scarce resources, coupled with the challenges to balance relentless work demands with personal obligations.
   
   
2. The curriculum integrates a rigorous, thorough and practical approach that goes beyond what colleges, universities and other competitors cover in courses of same duration. You will be trained to apply a unique framework derived from the seminar leader'S own practice, and marketed under the prestigious trademark of Harvard University Global System. Originally developed for managers, this framework was found practical and highly relevant to the needs of executive secretaries and administrative assistants who have attended this program.
   
   
3. You will acquire the best available course materials, totaling a market value that far exceeds what is currently available elsewhere. Your main workbook covers the agenda and includes supplementary papers and management references for keeping current and growing professionally at your own pace. In addition to the workbook, you will receive a set of Harvard management road maps, the latest Harvard Planner^®, two books (Herbert Shepard’s Essence of a Proactive Life, A. P. Martin’s Bringing Time to Life: 120 Practical Tips for Managing Your Time and Enjoying Life), and several work-improvement templates (checklists) for running effective meetings, auditing your performance, and clarifying your role. You will also use FIRO-B, a powerful instrument to help you examine and improve your relationshipS, openness, trust, and communication with others. This instrument has been found invaluable by the participants in this program.
   
   
4. The workshop leader is also unique. Alain Paul Martin coaches executive secretaries, administrative assistants, managers and executives to turn their potential into a lifelong success. Prior to presiding over PDI, he held managerial positions in operations research and systems development at Du Pont, Domtar and Bombardier Aerospace. He has also managed a variety of international projects including telecommunications, airport security, R&D, TV news-coverage evaluation, and the strategic turnaround of Desjardins Group (GDAG), a large financial institution. Alain was a Faculty Member of the Graduate Business School of the University of Quebec. He also teaches advanced risk management to senior managers and engineers assigned to nuclear-power projects (Atomic Energy of Canada, Babcock and Wilcox, Bruce Nuclear, and OPG). He is the author of Bringing Time to Life and Harnessing the Power of Intelligence.
   
   Mr. Martin is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School. His training background includes people skills at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, and negotiation at the Harvard Law School. Alain has created the Harvard Business Planner and Harvard University Global System^TM He is currently the President of Harvard University Club in the National Capital area. His clients include Boeing, Boliden, Bombardier, EDC, GE, Cap-Gemini, GM, Hilton, MetLife, Procter & Gamble, Skanska of Sweden, Ontario Power Generation, governments and NGOs.
   
   
5. While taking a buffet luncheon with the compliments of the Institute, you will have the opportunity to view important video assignments on difficult people, and on running effective meetings. Note that the seminar starts daily at 8:30 a.m. sharp and finishes at 4:30 p.m. For sessions held at PDI Ottawa-Gatineau campus, a continental breakfast is offered starting 8:00 a.m. Lunch is from 12:00 noon to 1:15 p.m.