Todd King brings a wealth of experience and diversity garnered from his more than twenty-five years of experience in the training and consulting industry to the VitalSmarts Facilitator Faculty. Crucial Conversations®, Crucial Confrontations™, and Influencer Training™ have been favorite topics and an integral part of his repertoire throughout his long career.

Whether conducting a training session or delivering a speech, Todd's personality and flair lend to meaningful and hard-hitting content that can be tailored to assist organizations mired in business challenges.

Crucial conversations (conversations where stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong) happen every day and impact all of our results, yet few people invest in the skills for holding them well. Studies show that the inability to discuss a problem can be more destructive than the problem itself. Issues like poor productivity, declining quality, lack of teamwork, or strained relationships are often the effects of crucial conversations that aren't being held or aren't being held well. Learn to step up to high stakes conversations skillfully and respectfully and begin to resolve the problems by.

• Surfacing the best ideas
• Making important decisions
• Act on decisions with unity and commitment

Dr. J.P. Pawliw-Fry is a highly sought after thought leader on the subject of Emotional Intelligence to increase leadership and performance; delivering programs on five continents this year alone. He is one of the highest rated lecturers at the prestigious Kellogg Business School of Management's Executive Education Program.

As an expert with in-depth understanding of high performance, he now spends his time acting as advisor to the US Army and Navy, Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Mercedes Benz, and Pfizer, and as performance coach to NHL and NBA teams, and Olympic medal winning athletes, as well as researching and writing on the variables that drive performance and leadership.

His training includes Harvard Medical School's Mind Body Medical Institute, University of Massachusetts Medical Center Stress Clinic; and Queen's University.

Many factors have been attributed to great leadership and outstanding performance. In this program, you will find out why more and more organizations are turning to Emotional Intelligence (EI) as their most important lever of getting to the next level of performance. You will learn about both the business case and the scientific case for why EI matters and how you can bring it into your organization to retain and develop your people. You will also learn how you can use it yourself to be effective in relationships at work and at home!

Before joining The Refinery, Tim McGrady spent ten years designing and running experiential outdoor leadership development programs in Canada, Mexico and the United States. He took his leadership training classroom to some of the most remote parts of the planet from the glacial fiords of Alaska to the Sierra Gigante mountains of Mexico to the offshore waters of the Pacific Ocean. In these places he taught participants to lead their peers and negotiate the myriad interpersonal and environmental challenges of extended self-supported wilderness expeditions.

Tim has grounded his outdoor leadership development work with more traditional corporate management experience in the tourism sector. He has also co-authored a monthly series entitled "Leadership Lessons" in a prominent Vancouver business publication. Besides the corporate work that Tim does, his passion for coaching is evident in the more than 100 hours a year he dedicates to volunteer youth athletic coaching in his community. Tim is The Refinery lead for Latin America. He holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of British Columbia and an M.A. in Leadership and Training from Royal Roads University.

The Refinery Leadership Partners uses a portable rock climbing wall and experienced facilitators and instructors to engage participants in a fun yet powerful exploration of the fundamental metaphors of life in the corporate and personal spheres. The workshop is designed for all ages and abilities.

Ian Cook, CHRP is focused on presenting the most informative and accurate business-related HR material to the business community in BC. Ian's international career has involved developing performance-oriented people practices for global companies in Europe and North America. Ian has held roles in operational management, sales and consulting and has founded his own business.

Ian specializes in linking HR practices to business and is continuing to develop the complex area of measuring HR's contribution to business. An engaging speaker, Ian has presented at several conferences on the financial return of HR practices.

Ian holds a Masters in Politics and Philosophy from Edinburgh University, an MBA from Lancaster University and is a CHRP. He is a native of Edinburgh in Scotland and in his spare time is found hiking with his family or ski touring in the mountains of BC.

The perceived wisdom has been that for organizations to succeed they need as many 'A' players as possible. The costly war for talent, and current economics has led to the recognition that we cannot afford this approach. Our new world requires new strategic thinking. In the past we pursued 'A' players. Now we must think about 'A' positions and align our HR resources and services to optimize the contribution of the 'A' positions, whilst effectively managing the rest of the organization. We need to differentiate the type and extent of HR service delivered, relative to the strategic importance of the role. Your 'A' positions are not your executive team. 'A' positions happen all the way through your organizational structure and they shift as your organization's strategy shifts. Differentiating at all levels within your organization offers the maximum impact for the resources available.

In this session we will explore in detail the value of a differentiated approach to HR, how other HR functions are making a strategic impact through the application of this approach and provide tools and techniques for identifying 'A' positions and applying the differentiation methodology to your organization.