VitalSmarts Launches Mastery Course for Business Professionals.

Business Editors

OREM, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 5, 2003

VitalSmarts, L.C., the world leader in organizational performance and leadership training, today announced the release of Crucial Conversations: Mastery Course for Achieving Results, a facilitated CD-ROM-based communications training program for business executives and training and human resource professionals. The extensive resource is the first course entirely based upon The New York Times best-selling book, "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High" (McGraw-Hill, 2002).

"Over the past 18 months, Crucial Conversations has enhanced leadership skills at every level, improved workplace relationships, and significantly increased productivity," said Joseph Grenny, president and chief operating officer of VitalSmarts. "Now this training course propels it to the next level."

The Crucial Conversations two-day training program improves corporate productivity and workplace relationships, areas that are often undermined when crucial business conversations either do not take place or are not handled very well. "We have consistently found that problems such as a worker's inability to confront a supervisor about inefficient or dangerous workplace practices or the general unwillingness to speak up in the face of misguided ideas do more long-term damage to corporate success than all of the accounting scandals of recent years rolled together," said Grenny.

Based on Training More Than 1,000 Organizations

The skills and techniques taught in the new Crucial Conversations Mastery Course are based in part on groundbreaking business management training conducted by VitalSmarts at Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems (LMTAS). "These skills have generated new techniques for working together in ways that enabled us to win the largest contract in our industry's history," said Dain M. Hancock, LMTAS president, referring to LMTAS' win of the $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter contract. A follow-up study confirmed that when LMTAS handled crucial conversations better, business metrics such as corporate productivity improved substantially (50 percent or higher correlation).

"As our team sat down to create the new training program, we wanted a curriculum that reflected the best practices of the industry," Grenny said. "We drew from experiences gained at Lockheed Martin and more than 1,000 other corporations and government agencies. This Crucial Conversations course serves the needs of trainers and audiences of all skill levels."

"The Crucial Conversations Mastery Course is the most compelling corporate training program I have used," said Kurt Southam, president of Southam Consulting and VitalSmarts Master Certified Trainer based in Ohio. "The video examples alone drive the Crucial Conversations principles home so effectively that participants can begin implementing the skills at work and at home right away. Every time we have used this training in a corporate setting, we've seen immediate positive results."

About Crucial Conversations Mastery Course

VitalSmarts selected Quest, authorizing software developed by Salt Lake City-based Allen Communication, to build the new Crucial Conversation Mastery Course. VitalSmarts further innovated with Instructional Layering(TM) Design, a proprietary instructional design approach that provides training professionals with unprecedented flexibility. Instructional Layering seamlessly integrates multiple levels of information to support highly experienced or infrequent presenters alike.

"Those teaching Crucial Conversations range from managers and leaders who conduct training only once in a while to professional trainers who teach every day," said Kerry Patterson, chief development officer at VitalSmarts and primary creator of the courseware. "For the first time, corporate trainers can invest in a single training program that can be used across all levels of their organization and adjusted 'on the fly' to the needs and abilities of the trainers and participants." In addition, he noted, "The courseware is so simple to use that executives, managers and others who are not training professionals can learn how to present the content effectively with just a few hours' preparation time."

The Mastery Course's Instructional Layering features include:

-- Video scenario branching that caters to multiple audience

types, skill approaches and topics.

-- Drill-down options that support multiple facilitator types and

levels of content familiarity.

-- Integrated video controls that allow facilitators to pause,

fast forward or replay more than 120 video clips depicting

course skills and principles.

-- Author Expert Instruction and end of lesson options (for

continuous or spaced learning) that enable facilitators to

easily extend the Crucial Conversations skills into the

workplace.

For more information on VitalSmarts or on the Crucial Conversations: Mastery Course for Achieving Results, visit www.crucialconversations.com or call 801-765-9600.

About VitalSmarts

VitalSmarts, L.C., based in Orem, Utah, is a global leader in organizational performance and executive training. Over the past two decades, the company's principals have taught thousands of individuals, groups, and organizations in more than 300 of the Fortune 500 as well as in small and midsize companies and state, local, and federal governments. They have also designed and delivered major culture-change initiatives for scores of large organizations, including the state of California, AT&T, IBM and Lockheed Martin. The principals are the authors of the New York Times best-selling book "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High" (McGraw-Hill, 2002) and "The Balancing Act: Mastering the Competing Demands of Leadership" (Vitality Alliance, 1995).