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Become the leader you wish you worked for.

About Us

Valerie Grubb Headshot
Certified Everything DiSC® Facilitator & Authorized Partner Valerie Grubb

Val helps companies improve productivity and grow their bottom line by elevating employees from tactical thinkers to strategic leaders. With extensive corporate experience including founding the Oxygen channel and InterActiveCorp (parent company to Expedia, Home Shopping Network and TicketMaster just to name a few), and senior leadership roles in NBC Universal and Rolls-Royce, she can translate complex skills such as leadership, inspiring accountability and motivating others into actionable steps that resonate with new managers to senior executives.

In her keynotes and training programs, she covers topics such as strategic thinking, developing next gen leaders, finance for non-financial managers, building a culture of accountability, leading change, managing managers and many others—in short, the skills, knowledge, and capabilities that are key to successful leadership. Her presentations are highly interactive: rather than “talk at” her audience, she invites them to participate in an extended conversation. Described by one client as “engaging, humorous, insightful, and inspiring,” Val has a confident, easygoing, and intelligent style that enables her to build a strong connection with her audiences that helps them get the most of their time with her and leaves them well-positioned to follow up on what they learn.

Valerie is certified as a Marshall Goldsmith Executive Coach, and she is an Everything Disc® and Patrick Lencioni 5 Behaviors of a Cohesive Team authorized partner and facilitator. Valerie is also a skilled moderator, helping to elevate company-offsites and senior leadership meetings to achieve goals and elevate outcomes.

Valerie graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from Kettering University and obtained her MBA from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. She is a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program, the Institute of Politics at Loyola University, the Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL) Leadership Louisiana program and the New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute (NORLI). Valerie has published two books: Planes, Canes, and Automobiles: Connecting with Your Aging Parents through Travel (Greenleaf) and Clash of the Generations: Managing in the New Workplace Reality (Wiley).

Val Grubb Speaker Reel

Testimonials For Val Grubb & Associates, Ltd.

  • Val is a phenomenal speaker-- funny, motivational and a little bit kick-ass. I go out of my way to hear her, and even though I have come to expect a lot from her presentations, I still find myself WOWed. I leave with pages of notes that I actually follow up on.

    Shannon Edmondson Curriculum Developer, Matrix Educational Consulting, Inc.
  • I hired Val to present several programs to senior HR and business leaders and she conistently knocked it out of the park with a home run presentation each time. Feedback from all stakeholders was universally strong. Her content, style, delivery, and ideas are all top-notch. After hiring over 160 speakers for various events, I would rehire Val again

    David Newman, CSP Marketing Speaker, Coach, Founder, Do It! Marketing
  • Val Grubb is one of those keynote speakers that when she gets on the stage with her confidence and professionalism she just makes you want to think outside the box.

    Ashley Hilsman Events Director, New Orleans Chamber
  • I have had the honor of getting to see Val speak no less then 4 times. Each time has been subsitive, engaging, funny and has taken all of her crowds to places they never would have thought of going on their own. She is highly impactful.

    Myra Corrello Business Strategy Speaker, Master Facilitator, Advisor
  • Valerie has been a speaker at two of our Professional Networking events - she is one of the most informative and engaging speakers to grace a stage. She quickly engaged the audience and shared her knowledge with a combination of pure wit, knowledge and inspiration. I highly recommend you have a conversation with Valerie Grubb. Dynamic!

    Yvette Henry President, DisruptHR New Orleans

Solutions

  • Everything DiSC Agile EQ

    Everything DiSC® Agile EQ™ is a group training and personalized learning experience that teaches participants to read the emotional and interpersonal needs of a situation and respond accordingly. By combining the personalized insights of DiSC® with active emotional intelligence development, participants discover an agile approach to workplace interactions. This approach helps them navigate outside their comfort zone, empowering them to meet the demands of any situation. The result is an emotionally intelligent workforce that can support your thriving agile culture.

    Participant Takeaways:
    1. Discover the instinctive mindsets that shape their responses and interactions
    2. Recognize opportunities to stretch beyond what comes naturally to them
    3. Take action to become more agile in their approach to social and emotional situations

  • Everything DiSC® Workplace™

    Everything DiSC Workplace® is a virtual or classroom training and personalized learning experience that can benefit every person in the organization—regardless of title or position, department or function—in building more productive and effective relationships at work. It teaches participants to understand themselves and others while learning to appreciate different priorities, preferences, and values each individual brings to the workplace. With personalized insights and actionable strategies.

    Participant Takeaways:
    1. Learn how to adapt to the style of others
    2. Ultimately improving engagement, collaboration, and the overall quality of the organization

  • Everything DiSC 363®

    Everything DiSC 363® for Leaders combines the best of 360-degree feedback with the simplicity and power of DiSC®, plus three strategies to put into action immediately. It uses clear visuals and a conversational narrative style to interpret and explain the data, making the report easy to understand and use. Whether an emerging high potential or an experienced executive, participants incorporate critical feedback from direct reports, peers, and bosses into a development plan that is both productive and satisfying, ultimately elevating leadership effectiveness.

    Participant Takeaways:
    1. Incorporate critical feedback from direct reports, peers, and bosses into a development plan that is both productive and satisfying
    2. Elevating leadership effectiveness

  • Everything DiSC Work of Leaders®

    Everything DiSC Work of Leaders® is a classroom training and personalized learning experience that connects unique leadership styles to real world demands. It brings together best practices from 300 experts in over 150 organizations, the important work of the most prominent scholars, and over four years of additional research and development to provide participants with an actionable path toward more effective leadership. With one unified model of leadership—Vision, Alignment, and Execution.

    Participant Takeaways:
    1. Understand their own leadership styles
    2. How their tendencies influence their effectiveness in specific leadership situations

  • Everything DiSC® Management

    Everything DiSC® Management is a virtual or classroom training and personalized learning experience proven to increase the effectiveness of anyone in a management role. Participants deepen their understanding of themselves, their direct reports, and their own managers using the DiSC model while learning how their management style influences their approach to decision-making, time management, and problem-solving.

    Participants Takeaways:
    1. Walk away with concrete strategies to help them adapt to the styles of their direct reports
    2. Enabling them to bring out the best in their people, no matter where they are

  • Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict

    Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict is a classroom training and personalized learning experience that increases self-awareness around conflict behaviors and helps participants effectively respond to the uncomfortable and unavoidable challenges of workplace conflict. Rather than focus on a step-by-step process for conflict resolution, this training program combines the personalized insights of DiSC® with the proven science of cognitive-behavioral theory to help participants recognize and transform their destructive habits into more productive responses.

    Participant Takeaways:
    1. Learn how to effectively respond to workplace challenges and conflicts
    2. Improved workplace relationships that drive results

  • The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

    Based on Patrick Lencioni's NYT best-selling book, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, this program outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome even the most challenging hurdles amongst your executives to build a cohesive, effective leadership team. One prepared to catapult the organization to the next level.

  • Building a Culture of Accountability even while Working Remote

    Why are some managers better than others at achieving goals? They all have the same motivational tools at their disposal: They can give employees raises, promotions and non monetary rewards when deserved. They can all use the performance review process to provide positive feedback and fire people up. But why do the best managers dramatically outperform the rest? What’s their secret?

    Two words – personal accountability.

    Great managers have a unique talent for tapping into an employee’s sense of personal accountability. However, getting employees to “own” tasks and goals isn’t a skill you acquire accidentally. At some point in their careers, great managers recognize the power of personal accountability and learn how to build and use it to their advantage.

    Participant Takeaways:
    1. Step-by-step process for learning what it takes to truly build a culture of accountability in your organization

  • Managing Remote Employees for the Long Haul

    Managing employees can be one of the most challenging—and also most rewarding—responsibilities as you move up within a company. When your management works and you see your employees surpass even their own expectations, it’s wildly exciting and incredibly fulfilling!

    However, managing just got tougher with all your direct reports (and their direct reports) working from home. Even your best employees need a different leader to help them achieve their best in these chaotic times.

    Participants Takeaways:
    1. How to manage your expectations in turbulent times
    2. Techniques that motivate and engage a remote workforce
    3. How to properly delegate assignments with employees in different locations
    4. How to hold critical conversations

  • Moving from Tactical Thinker to Strategic Leader

    The inclination facing all managers is to deal with what's right in front of them—that is, what's due today. And yes, sometimes you do have to take that "here and now" approach. But if you find hours, days, or even weeks going by during which you're focused only on tactical issues, you're doing yourself, your department, and your company a disservice.

    To keep pace with the demands of tomorrow, leaders in every department must actively engage in strategic thinking, then prepare themselves, their people, and their organizations to meet those future goals. What progress have you made toward developing your skills as a strategic leader? If you’re still lost in the trees, it’s time to step back and navigate the forest!

    Participant Takeaways:
    1. Understand exactly what it means to “think strategically"
    2. Learn how to delegate (or relegate) the small stuff and how to make time for strategizing when you’re already underwater
    3. Understand the 7 traits of strategic thinkers

  • Budgeting Bootcamp: Finance for Non-Financial Managers

    Successful organizations rely on high-performance CFOs and Controllers to keep their financial houses in order. But the best leaders also realize that the burden of financial management cannot fall entirely on the Finance Department.

    To truly maximize return on company resources, every department head and manager must be well versed in the basics of finance. In today’s challenging market, those who make P&L decisions require a solid grasp of budgeting, cash efficiency, and financial statements.

    Are you prepared to help manage your company’s financial future? Do you understand how your department’s budget fits into the big picture? Are you able to read your company’s financial statements and offer insight into how you can contribute more to the bottom line?

    Participant Takeaways:
    1. Understand the fundamental elements of the three key financial statements
    2. Develop a budget that couples spending to the company’s goals
    3. Demonstrate ROI for projects under consideration

Everything DiSC® Certification

Choose your learning format:

New Everything DiSC Certification

Online

Help People Work Better Together as an Everything DiSC® Certified Practitioner

At the heart of your organization are thousands of human interactions. These interactions make up what we know as organizational culture. However, as the world of work becomes more reliant on technology, your organization has been challenged to recreate the authentic human connection that drives engagement and performance.

As an Everything DiSC® Certified Practitioner, you’ll help your organization engage and connect people on a more human level by delivering impactful DiSC experiences that help people work better together. During this two-week course that combines virtual, instructor-led sessions with self-directed online learning, you will:

  • Deepen your understanding of the DiSC model, theory, research, and key principles
  • Explore how to build custom solutions using the all-new Everything DiSC on Catalyst experience
  • Familiarize yourself with the full Everything DiSC application suite
  • Practice facilitation techniques while receiving feedback in a safe environment
  • Gain ongoing access to Wiley’s online training center, connecting you to course content, fellow Practitioners, and Wiley’s education specialists
Upon successful completion of the exam, you will earn the credential of Everything DiSC Certified Practitioner, signaling proven competence in shaping an engaged, collaborative, and high-performing culture—knowledgeable in the language of DiSC.
 

Upcoming Classes

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Featured Skills

  • Strategic Thinking
  • Leadership Development
  • Team Optimization
  • Increasing Accountability
  • Measuring Productivity
  • Leading Remote Teams

Credentials

  • Certified Everything DiSC® Facilitator
  • Certified Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Facilitator