Workshops
Graduate Workshops
It can be assumed that graduate students have already completed one or more Social Skills classes while being an undergraduate. At this point, many already have some work experience, were able to attend in-house trainings and they have also been able to apply their acquired skills and knowledge.
In order to be able to offer these students a program that corresponds to their interests and skills, there are general workshops that are of interest to all graduate students. On the other hand, there are workshops that are designed to complement essential professional domains of graduate students.
Undergraduate Workshops
The program for undergraduate workshops is designed to teach fundamental social skills. In detail, these basic workshops cover the following topics:
Communication and Conflict Management
As all communication is based on verbal and non-verbal communication, this workshop provides the actual foundation for all other courses in the area of social skills. After the theoretical introduction of communication theories and the basics of conflict management in the lecture, these will be deepened and applied in the workshop with role plays and case studies.
Convincing and Clear Presentations
When it comes to presentation techniques, practically all first-year students have experience from various presentations and project work back in school. However, as these are very heterogeneous and sometimes incomplete, it is necessary to offer workshops in this area. In the Convincing and Clear Presentations workshop, the basics of informative and persuasive presentations are taught and practiced with video analysis.
Voice, Movement, Body Language
Fundamental physical forms of expression such as facial expressions, gestures, posture, breathing, speech and articulation play an important role in all communicative situations and should therefore be consciously trained and reflected upon. During the workshops, individual aspects such as achieving a pleasant, full voice, the conscious use of one's body language, the effect of body signals on the course of communication, etc. are discussed and practiced in many individual and group exercises.
Negotiation Skills
Negotiation techniques are an essential skill for business graduates, as they will be constantly required to behave fairly and in a results-oriented manner in difficult conversational situations in their work environment. The negotiation skills training is based on the globally used Harvard Concept, which was developed from the Harvard Negotiation Project at the Harvard School of Law. This concept focuses on the greatest possible benefit for both negotiating partners. After an introduction, the elements of this concept are practiced in negotiations with video analysis.
Facilitating Meetings
Executives (and not only them) spends a lot of time in meetings, whether as a participant or a chairperson. If labor costs of the participants are included in the calculation, companies and public organizations lose a lot of money every day due to inefficient meetings. Therefore it seems sensible and necessary to familiarize students with moderation techniques and the efficient management of meetings. As part of the workshops, students experience a short moderation and, after an introduction to the typical course of a moderation, conduct short moderations themselves.
Working in Teams
Working in and with teams is probably the most frequently requested key qualification in the context of job offers. Imparting knowledge about working in teams and, above all, the opportunity to experience and reflect on oneself in team situations is therefore another basic workshop that has been offered since the 2009 summer semester.
In addition to 100 % attendance during the workshop, participation in the case studies and role plays, etc. and a written assignment at the end of the workshop are required for successfull completion of the workshop. Depending on the content of the workshop, this paper must be submitted in the form of a reflection, a protocol and/or an application of what has been learned to a personal case study. All the tasks are assigned in the course of the individual workshops.