The Professional Development InstituteTM
Harvard University Global System
Harvard® Planner Group

Advanced Certification Webinars (4 Days x 4 Hours each)
Advanced Management and Leadership Workshop
for Presidential, Executive and Administrative Assistants

Focus on Professional Skills for Acting with Clarity and Impact,
Building Personal and Team Excellence, and Project-Management and Negotiation Skills
Applying best practices, new skills and
Harvard University Global System Tools

 
 
November 18-19, 2024
 
 

Webinars' Local Time in Your City

Below are previous-clients' locations. If your city is not listed, please click here for your local time. Update the seminar date, if necessary. Thank you.

11am-3pm UTC-4: Atlanta, Boston, Miami, Montréal, New York, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Québec, Santiago, Sherbrooke, Toronto, Washington
10am-2pm UTC-5: Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Mexico City, Minneapolis, Omaha, San Antonio, Winnipeg
9am-1pm UTC-6: Calgary, Denver, Edmonton, Regina, Salt Lake City, Saskatoon, Yellowknife
8am-12pm UTC-7: Vancouver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle
12-4pm UTC-3: Buenos Aires, Charlottetown, Fredericton, Halifax, Moncton, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo
3-7pm UTC+0: Abidjan, Accra, Bamako, Casablanca, Dakar, Reykjavik
4-8pm UTC+1: Algiers, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lagos, Lisbon, London, Manchester, Tunis
5-9pm UTC+2: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bratislava, Brussels, Budapest, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Geneva, Liège, Lille, Lyon, Madrid, Munich, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Pretoria, Stockholm, Strasbourg, Vienna, The Hague, Warsaw, Zurich
6-10pm UTC+3: Ankara, Athens, Bahrain, Doha, Helsinki, Kuwait, Nairobi, Riyadh, Sofia, Tallinn, Tel Aviv
7-11pm UTC+4: Abu Dhabi, Baku, Dubai, Tbilisi
11pm-3am UTC+8: Hong Kong, Kuala Lampur, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei
12-4am UTC+9: Seoul, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe
1-5am UTC+10: Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
3-6am UTC+12: Auckland, Wellington
Increasing Responsibilities and Demands on Your Precious Time

Important responsibilities, once reserved for managers, are now gradually assigned to competent assistants who learn fast and are focused and tactful. There is a growing demand for these professionals who possess the skills to:
  • Act with clarity and impact;
  • Manage projects;
  • Plan work, organize and lessen the bosses' workload;
  • Anticipate the details that count for multiple bosses;
  • Manage difficult people and situations;
  • Cooperate and negotiate with peers, management, clients and others inside and outside the organization;
  • Deliver solid results with minimum guidance.

Workshop Objectives

Through practical exercises and real-life illustrations, this intensive workshop builds on the first seminar to equip you with tangible qualifications and tools to play a growing role in your team and excel. At the end of the complete program, you will be thoroughly prepared to act with clarity and impact—i.e.:
  • Play a key productive role in your organization;
  • Plan and coordinate projects with effective tools;
  • Skillfully negotiate sensitive issues with your team and better deals and conditions with suppliers and clients;
  • Deploy your strengths better to orient, coach and supervise your staff (if any);
  • Remove the main barriers to sound career growth and turn your dream and vision into reality.

Detailed Outline (2 days - 1.5 CEU)

1. Professionalism for Presidential and Executive Assistants

  • Strength-deployment (SDI) exercise to identify and learn to deploy your strengths at work and at home
  • Practical success and failure lessons from participants
  • How to improve your decision quality and acceptance

2. Project-Management Skills to Take Charge

  • Harvard® tools to make plans and progress clear to everyone
    • How to draft and validate your project scope
    • Estimating time, resources and cost: Best practices and PMI Book of Knowledge
    • Professional scheduling: Least-cost scenario
    • Personal exercises and teamwork in scheduling and time acceleration
    • How to allocate resource: Single and multiple projects
    • How to identify and manage risks; practical exercise
    • How to streamline and, if necessary, fast-track work

3. Rapid Progress-Tracking Tools and Skills

  • Work progress control: How to assess project status
  • Early warnings to prevent delays and cost overruns

4. Negotiation Skills Critical to Your Success

  • How to prepare for formal and impromptu negotiation with bosses, peers, clients, suppliers and subordinates
    • Common errors and tips to avoid rigid positions
  • Subtle elements that can make or break deals
  • Practice exercises: Dealing with objections, power, ploys, hostility, lack of commitment and concessions
  • How to express disagreement and avoid deadlocks
  • How to reach good deals or exit amiably, if required

5. Putting It All Together

  • Preparing cautiously for important managerial responsibility: Vital knowledge, skills and attitudes to move forward.
Webinar Leader: Alain Paul MARTIN

Alain Paul Martin, Workshop Leader

Alain Paul Martin has a deep commitment and an extensive experience in mentoring, training and coaching executive, administrative and presidential assistants and their leaders, both the public and private sectors, NGOs and unions. While he teamed-up, in a wide variety of working conditions, both face-to-face and in virtual teams, with senior executives and their respective assistants, he has witnessed first-hand the grueling workload and challenges facing assistants, most of whom are competent, capable and dedicated professionals, eager to excel.

That is why at Harvard University, he devoted an important part of his research to the advancement of administrative professionals in the workplace, to enable them to build and harness career opportunities of lasting value. He continues to focus on developing universally marketable collaborative, organizational, innovative and high-paying skills and practical tools, that make a difference to the users' performance and their organization. He is credited by many of his professional-development alums to have had an inspiring and positive impact in their advanced education and upward mobility.

As Chief Architect, Harvard University Global System and CEO, The Professional Development Institute, Alain continues to lead workshops/webinars and the development practical innovation instruments for teams comprising executive and administrative assistants, managers, scientists, engineers, production, marketing, sales and other professionals of various levels. He is a lifelong student and practitioner of innovation and decision sciences (generative AI, leadership, system thinking, operations research, cognitive neuroscience, organization behavior and alternative dispute resolution).

Alain is a 2012 Harvard Fellow, Advanced Leadership and a Harvard Business School's entrepreneurship alumnus (1997-99 OPM). He graduated in Commerce (Quantitative Methods) from Concordia University (Montréal) and studied advanced technology in Lille, France. He acquired skills in innovation, system thinking, change management and organization behavior at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland (GIC), and mediation and advanced negotiation for lawyers, at Harvard Law School, from which he is certified to teach negotiation in corporations. For more: C.V. in PDF format and at LinkedIn.

Workshop Locations and Hotel Accomodation

Tuition Fees
Tuition Fees    Regular    Govt.    Groups of 3
Seminar I (2.5 days) $1395 $1345 $1295 each
Adv. Seminar (2 days) $1095 $1045 $995 each
Complete 4.5-day program $2395 $2345 $2295 each

Registration and Cancellation Procedures

To register, please contact us either by:
  • email at rsvp@eharvard.org. Specify your name, position, organization, phone number(s) and the webinar you wish to attend.
    or
  • call us toll free in the USA and Canada: 1-800-HARVARD; international: +1 819-772-7777. voicemail: 24/7.
Please pay in advance by credit card.

Cancellation Policy
Participants registering as a group must send substitutes in lieu of canceling. For other clients, cancellations are accepted if made at least 10 working days prior to the course, and are subject to a $150 service charge per person. Full fees are payable by anyone who fails to attend or cancels less than 10 working days prior to the session. One substitution or transfer to a later course of the same duration is accepted.

Bring This Program to Your Organization

We deliver private versions of this program worldwide, online, at the client's site and in tailor-made hybrid variants, to business and governments, NGOs and bar associations and other societies. We would be delighted to work together with your team anywhere. Ask us for a proposal based on the number of participants, the seminar duration, and a selection of cutting-edge course materials and case studies, most applicable to your specific environment.

Our fees are reasonable. Sales and value-added taxes (HST and PST or VAT) are extra.

The client is responsible for the conference room and audio-visual materials.




International 
The Professional Development Institute® PDI Inc.
Toll-free: USA and Canada: 1-800-HARVARD (1-800-427-8273). +1-819-772-7777
Monday through Thursday: 9 AM to 4:00 PM, EDT. Voicemail: 24 hours 7 days
Worldwide Order Center & Main Training Campus
70 Technology Boulevard, Gatineau, QC J8Z 3H8 CANADA. 
Note: We are near Gatineau Federal Park, across the river from Ottawa, Canada's capital.