FUSION 2012 - LEADERSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SESSIONS FUSION 2012 - LEADERSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SESSIONS

Best Practices of Great Leaders

Wes Friesen – Manager, Revenue Collection
Portland General Electric
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Intermediate # 800 – Updated Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

Organizations are crying out for effective leaders, and this presentation is an opportunity to take another step to become one. This session will identify and display the proven practices of effective leaders, and will include an overview of best practices from top performing leaders and managers based on recent comprehensive research. Twenty best practices and the five absolutes to get high performance and results will be shared.

Business Etiquette:  The New Rules in a Digital Age

Hal Conditt – Account Executive
Robert Half Management Resources
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Communications – 1.0 Credit
Overview # 805 – New Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

Is it OK to friend your boss? Can an email mistake jeopardize your career? There are many gray areas when it comes to communicating in the digital age. This presentation provides guidelines on digital protocols in the workplace, including LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as traditional communication tools such as email. Find out what executives say about etiquette in the workplace, and learn how to tend to your network in just five minutes a day.

Change Management: Keeping Morale up While Implementing Changes in the Workplace

Kathy Shannon – AVP, Accounting Systems Design and Development
Costco Wholesale
Presentation Style – Interactive Facilitated
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Basic # 810 – New Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

Costco has made change management a big focus in a system modernization project that is currently under way. This session will share Costco's approach and discuss the successes in gaining acceptance and buy-in from associates. The process used for this project can be used in any organization to make change easier.

Communicating Like a Leader

Chris Doxey
Independent
Presentation Style – Interactive Facilitated Discussion
Communications – 1.0 Credit
Intermediate # 815 – New Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

Outstanding leadership skills are associated with excellent communication capabilities. This session takes the attendees beyond basic leadership skills and focuses on the importance of communication and listening skills, matching communication styles with leadership skills.  Attendees will learn about seven key communication challenges and how to address them, as well as the top gun stealth debrief process and how it can improve communication, listening, and leadership skills.

Topics will include:

  • Definition of communication
  • Seven communication challenges
  • The top gun stealth debrief process
  • Tips for active listening

Finders, Keepers:  Hiring and Retaining Outstanding Financial Operations Employees

Krystal Gibson – Manager, Accounts Payable
MarkWest Energy Partners
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Basic # 820 – New Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

Have you ever interviewed and hired the "perfect" candidate for an open position only to discover just a few months later that the candidate was anything but perfect? Have you ever completed the training of an excellent new employee just before he decides to leave for another opportunity? Or, have you had a new employee who was able to do the work but simply did not fit in with the rest of the team?

This workshop, presented by a manager who has hired dozens of employees, will provide tools and guidelines to better equip you for recruiting, interviewing, selecting, training, engaging, and retaining outstanding financial operations employees who are "made" for your organization.

Five Ways to Motivate Your Accounts Payable Team

David Griffiths – EVP, Customer Development
FISCAL Technologies Inc.
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Overview # 825 – New Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP

Best-in-class AP managers employ a wide variety of techniques and tools to motivate and inspire their teams to achieve great performances. This session looks at five key ways any manager can use cost-effectively to create a more motivated and empowered staff that delivers increased value.

Hire the Best and Avoid the Rest

Chrys Olson – Manager, Accounts Payable
Gaiam Inc.
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Intermediate # 830 – Updated Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

This session is back by request and updated from Fusion 2011.  Have you ever made a bad hiring decision?  Did your new hire turn into someone totally unlike the person you interviewed? Learn good interview questions for identifying a candidate's skills and values. Go beyond the questions and gain a good understanding of the answers to look for.  Walk through the entire interview process from legalities to intuition.  Almost every applicant is wearing a mask. Discover who is behind that mask and determine whether that person is a good fit for the open job as well as a good fit in the team. There are no guarantees, but there are good processes and skills that will help organizations hire the best and avoid the rest.

How to Develop Your Employees in Order to Build Team Capacity

Anna Stokes – Accounts Payable / Disbursements Team Lead
Weyerhaeuser
Susie Ulsund – Accounts Payable Team Lead
Weyerhaeuser
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Intermediate # 835 – New Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

In an environment of needing to do more with less, leaders are challenged to find ways to increase employees' skill mix and build team bench strength. Leaders are responsible for developing team members so they are motivated, acquiring the skills, knowledge, and abilities to achieve their performance goals and ultimately enhance contributions to your company. This interactive session walks through actions leaders can take to elevate employees' skills through individual development planning in order to build team capacity. This session especially targets that leader who manages a large team, has a newly formed team, has added new functions to the team, or has limited experience in developing employees.

The session covers:

  • Employee development and goal planning.
  • Finding the development "sweet spot."
  • How work and leadership styles influence employee development.
  • Building skills to support the work.
  • How to eliminate barriers through a team based approach.
  • Managing team capacity.

IFO Certification Programs

Lorraine Creek – Assistant Director, Finance Operations
Cambia (formerly Regence)
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Overview # 840 – Updated Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP

The IAPP certification programs provide professionals and associates with the opportunity to be recognized for their expertise and experience in the AP discipline. By demonstrating a high skill level and knowledge base, AP personnel can attain the unique distinctions of Certified Accounts Payable Professional (CAPP) or Certified Accounts Payable Associate (CAPA). And, with continuing education, certificants can maintain the CAPP or CAPA designation throughout their AP careers.

Topics for discussion will include:

  • Definition of CAPP and CAPA
  • Benefits of earning certification
  • Eligibility requirements
  • Certification exams
  • Re-certification through continuing education

Keys to Developing Powerful Teams  UPDATED DESCRIPTION

Wes Friesen – Manager, Revenue Collection
Portland General Electric
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Intermediate # 845 – Updated Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

People in management roles have great potential to make a positive difference in the lives of their work teams and their organizations. This session will present the latest research and practical ideas to help motivate people and build teams that are winners. Participants will learn the three key characteristics of high performance teams, and will walk away inspired and equipped to help teams be even more successful.

The workshop also includes explanations of:

  • AMA's seven needs that motivate people.
  • Bob Nelson's top 10 motivators for workers.
  • 20 ways to retain the best employees.
  • The 12-question "measuring stick."

 

Leading to Serve:  The 10 Attributes of Servant Leadership

Rick VanBeek – Supervisor, Cash Remittance
Portland General Electric
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Basic # 850 – New Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

Who works for whom? Do your employees work for you or do you work for them? In this session learn about the key attributes of a leadership style that is bringing success to companies and individuals across the country. Learn why it can be possible to be both a leader and a servant.

Navigating Change Management

Mary Lynn Scalf – Manager, GL, AP Shared Services and Property Accounting
Verallia North America
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Basic # 855 – New Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

This session will discuss change management, both as the initiator and the one impacted by the change. Participants will learn how to "sell" the need for change and manage the various personalities impacted.   In addition, the presentation will cover how to personally adapt when change is inevitable in an organization.

Radical New Thinking Has to Start Somewhere:  Revolutionize Your SAP Finance Organization with Process Disruption and Reinvention, and Be the Catalyst for Change

Brian Shannon – Principal Process Strategist
Dolphin
Presentation Style – Traditional PowerPoint
Personal Development – 1.0 Credit
Overview # 860 – New Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

It has been known since at least as early as 500 BC that "Nothing endures but change." (Heraclitus) We must be flexible and adaptable to changing economic conditions. Unfortunately, change doesn't always seem constant in our financial processes. This session highlights the importance of effectively managing processes and change in the finance organization, and provides valuable insight toward becoming the catalyst for reinvention of an organization's finance organization.

Hear how the finance leadership in several organizations has led teams through the murky waters of change to develop new ways of automating and optimizing business processes with emerging technology, by addressing fractured integration touch-points, and through the introduction of centralization and shared service environments.  By removing manual and paper-based non-value-added work, these organizations have reduced their overall risk by introducing flexibility to address timing or seasonal volume variances, looking at new ways to do old tasks, all the while preserving process integrity.

Retail Recovery Audit Certificate Program  CANCELLED

Basic #870

Successful Employee Evaluations and Performance Reviews

Chrys Olson – Manager, Accounts Payable
Gaiam Inc.
Presentation Style – Interactive Facilitated
Communications – 1.0 Credit
Intermediate # 865 – Updated Session
Discipline of Focus:  AP, AR, P2P, TAWPI

This updated workshop was last presented in 2009.  Many managers and employees alike feel about performance reviews the same way they feel about the dentist: fearful, running in the other direction as fast as they can. It doesn't have to be that way. This interactive workshop will teach managers the skills needed to effectively address any performance situation, good or bad.  It will help employees approach the review with confidence, and will discuss:

  • How to give constructive criticism.
  • How to give productive praise.
  • Avoiding an ambush.
  • Words to avoid.
  • How to truly share the experience and reach agreement.
  • Setting goals and expectations.

The session will also discuss why we do performance appraisals, and how to find  value in the process beyond just a means to justify Sally's 3 percent increase.