Performance & Leadership Academy

The Brighton Performance & Leadership Academy is excited to announce the launch of Spark! Events. Please check out this new facilitation opportunity here.

Welcome to Brighton's Leadership and Performance Academy!  This award-winning five-week program teaches participants LEAN skills for identifying, analyzing, and solving pain points in their day-to-day work.  It also empowers participants to lead from any seat, build winning teams, and deliver exceptional customer service both internal and external. Combined, these skills reinforce Brighton's core values and promote a positive culture. Graduates will receive their black belt in process improvement. To date, students in the Academy have used their tools from this course to implement 24 projects yielding $212,397 in projected annual savings for the City of Brighton.

Modules

Module 1: Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Takeaways: Understanding the role of core values in building strong organizations, how to build organizational culture, storyboarding and voice of customer tools

Module 2: Using the Employee Cycle to Reinforce Culture

Takeaways: Building winning job descriptions, designing effective orientation and onboarding programs, understanding the employee retention curve, using temperament assessments to improve communication, and developing a positive exit strategy.

Module 3: Innovation- Performance and Process Improvement

Takeaways: What is continuous process improvement, process mapping tool, identifying process waste, using data to measure and tell your innovation story, and gap analysis tools

Module 4: Leading From Any Seat

Takeaways: Leadership v. management, understanding leadership styles, tools to eliminate waste, how to calculate return on investment, and the role of leadership in innovation.

Module 5: Executing Change

Takeaways: Developing and executing strategic plans, PESTLE analysis tool, creating SMART goals, impact/effort matrix tool, building an action plan, utilizing behavioral nudges, telling your data story

Innovation Project

To graduate participants must implement one innovation project utilizing two tools from their time in the Academy. 

Graduation

Upon completion of their projects and all five modules, participants are invited to graduate as part of a regularly scheduled City of Brighton Council meeting. Friends and family are welcome and these meetings are viewable live on our website. 

**Please note that we are constantly refreshing our course based on feedback from participants. Lessons may be moved or switched out at any time to improve the participant experience. 

Sample Innovation Projects

Innovation
Annual Hours Saved
Annual Cost Savings (Hard + Soft)
Rework of sports staff timesheets40$1,207
Wastewater dashboard638.75$32,466
Financial models automation384$21,584
Community Development Employee Onboarding33$993.75
ACA Reporting42$1,529
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Schedule

Standard Academy:

The original Brighton Performance and Leadership Academy offering is conducted across five weeks with a four-hour training session each week. Sessions are held on Thursdays from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm at the Brighton City Hall, 500 S. 4th Avenue. In the event of a weather-related cancelation on one of the weeks, please note that a make-up day will be added to the Thursday following your original completion date. This format is at a medium pace giving more time between modules to complete homework and ask questions.

Flash Academy:

New in 2024 we will be piloting a Flash Academy format for our May Cohort. This program maintains all of the same great content from our Standard Academy in a one-week format. Please see the schedule below. This program is considered more intense than our Standard Academy as there is less time to complete homework between modules. To support your success through this change we will have optional office hours from 8:00 am to 8:30 am each day to go over homework and answer questions.

  • Monday: Module 1 (8:30 am to 12:00 pm), lunch on your own, Module 2 (1:00 pm to 4:30 pm)
  • Tuesday: Module 3 (8:30 am to 1:00 pm)
  • Wednesday: Module 4 (8:30 am to 12:30 pm)
  • Thursday: Module 5 (8:30 am to 12:30 pm)

Upcoming Dates

2023Standard Academy: August 24, 2023- September 21, 2023
2024Standard Academy: January 4, 2024 - February 1, 2024

Flash Academy: May 13, 2024 - May 16, 2024

Standard Academy: August 22, 2024 - September 19, 2024


How to Apply

Please note that all training dates are in-person only. A hybrid or virtual option is not available.

Internal Candidates

Please complete the application found here and mark that you are a current City of Brighton employee. City of Brighton employees are offered this training for free as part of their employment.

External Candidates

Starting in 2023, the Academy is now open to other government entities and nonprofits on a limited first come, first serve basis. Please note that we cannot accept applications from for-profit entities.

External Applicant Training Cost: $1,800 per attendee.

Please complete the application found here, denote whether you are a government or nonprofit entity, and provide the organization name. Based on your preferred cohorts and our availability, someone will reach out to you to confirm your date and provide instructions for payment. Please note, you are not confirmed until your payment is received. 

Contact Us

Please email budget@brightonco.gov with any questions.