CTC (Travel Agent Certifications) cheat sheet

Coaching is typically short-term, performance-focused, and question-led; mentoring is longer-term, development-focused, and experience-led.

GROW sequence: Goal (what do you want) → Reality (what is happening now) → Options (what could you do) → Will (what will you do, by when).

Open 'what' and 'how' questions invite reflection; 'why' questions tend to trigger justification and defensiveness.

SBI feedback structure: Situation (when/where) → Behavior (observable action) → Impact (effect on others or results).

Kram's mentoring phases: initiation, cultivation, separation, redefinition; the separation phase is planned, not a failure.

Skill-versus-will diagnosis: low skill with adequate will calls for training; adequate skill with low will calls for motivation and consequence clarification.

A coaching agreement should state goals, session cadence, confidentiality limits, and how success will be measured.

Coaches withhold advice unless contracted otherwise; mentors routinely transfer tacit knowledge and give direct guidance.

Thomas–Kilmann modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, accommodating, plotted on assertiveness (satisfying own concern) versus cooperativeness (satisfying other's concern).

Collaborating fits high-stakes issues with time available; avoiding fits trivial issues or a needed cooling-off period; accommodating fits low-stakes relationship investment.

Positions are stated demands; interests are the underlying needs. Interest-based framing multiplies available options.

Escalation markers: issues become personal, communication shifts from open to covert, and the number of involved parties grows.

Fisher and Ury's four principles: separate the people from the problem, focus on interests, invent options for mutual gain, insist on objective criteria.

Every conflict mode has a cost when overused: chronic avoiding breeds resentment; chronic competing erodes trust.

Mediation sequence: convene and set ground rules, clarify each party's account, surface interests, generate options, document the agreement.

Task conflict about ideas can improve decision quality; relationship conflict about people reliably degrades it.

Osborn–Parnes CPS stages: clarify (mess, data, problem), ideate, develop, implement.

Divergent and convergent thinking are separated in time; evaluating while generating suppresses both quantity and originality.

Brainstorming ground rules: defer judgment, aim for quantity, build on others' ideas, welcome wild ideas.

SCAMPER prompts: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse.

Six Thinking Hats: white facts, red feelings, black caution, yellow benefits, green alternatives, blue process control.

'How might we…' restatement widens the solution space by converting a complaint into a design question.

Nominal group technique and affinity diagramming reduce dominant-voice bias and cluster large idea sets.

5 Whys and the fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram target root causes; 5 Whys can stop early and miss multiple interacting causes.

Marston's four styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness.

Underlying axes are pace (fast versus deliberate) and focus (task versus people); D and I move fast, S and C are more measured.

High D: direct, decisive, results-driven; fears loss of control; dislikes rambling and vague detail.

High I: enthusiastic, persuasive, collaborative; fears social rejection; dislikes isolation and rigid routine.

High S: patient, loyal, steady; fears sudden change; dislikes conflict and rushed decisions.

High C: precise, systematic, analytical; fears criticism of work quality; dislikes ambiguity and unsupported claims.

DISC measures observable behavioral style, not intelligence, values, or competence; no style is superior.

Adaptation rules: with D be brief and bottom-line; with I be interactive and enthusiastic; with S be patient and personal; with C be precise and data-backed.

Goleman's four domains: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management.

Self-awareness is the foundation; without accurate self-perception the other three cannot be calibrated.

Mayer–Salovey ability model: perceiving emotions, using emotions to facilitate thought, understanding emotions, managing emotions.

Affect labeling - naming the emotion - measurably reduces its intensity compared with venting or suppression.

Under threat arousal the limbic response outpaces deliberate reasoning; a short pause allows prefrontal reappraisal before responding.

Three empathy types: cognitive (perspective-taking), emotional (feeling with), compassionate (feeling plus motivation to act).

Cognitive reappraisal (changing the appraisal of an event) is generally more effective and lower-cost than expressive suppression.

EI is a developable set of skills, not a fixed trait; it predicts leadership effectiveness beyond cognitive ability in many studies.

BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) sets the true walk-away point; improving it before talks raises leverage.

ZOPA (zone of possible agreement) exists only when the buyer's maximum exceeds the seller's minimum.

Distributive bargaining divides a fixed pie; integrative bargaining expands the pie by trading on differing priorities.

Fisher and Ury principled negotiation: people, interests, options, criteria.

Anchoring: early offers shift the perceived range, so prepare a counter-anchor instead of reacting to the first number.

Logrolling trades low-priority issues for high-priority ones and is the engine of integrative deals.

MESO (multiple equivalent simultaneous offers) presents two or three packages of equal value to you, revealing the other side's priorities.

Contingent contracts (e.g., pay tied to a future metric) resolve disagreements about forecasts or valuation without conceding.

State the audience benefit (WIIFM) within the first 30–60 seconds rather than opening with background or biography.

Rule of three: structure the core message into three points and restate them at the close.

Classic structure: tell them what you will tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.

A common slide guideline is six or fewer words per line and six or fewer lines per slide; slides support, never script, the speaker.

Replace filler words with a silent pause; it reads as control and slows perceived pace.

Rehearse aloud and time to about 90% of the allotted slot to leave room for questions and overrun.

Answering questions: listen fully, restate neutrally, answer briefly to the whole room, then confirm the questioner is satisfied.

Pre-talk diaphragmatic breathing with a long exhale lowers physiological arousal more reliably than telling yourself to calm down.

Income statement cascade: revenue − COGS = gross profit; − operating expenses = EBIT; − interest and tax = net income.

Gross margin = (revenue − COGS) ÷ revenue; operating margin = EBIT ÷ revenue; net margin = net income ÷ revenue.

Balance sheet identity: Assets = Liabilities + Equity.

Liquidity: current ratio = current assets ÷ current liabilities; quick ratio removes inventory from current assets.

NPV = sum of CFt ÷ (1 + r)^t minus initial investment; accept when NPV > 0, and among mutually exclusive projects take the highest NPV.

IRR is the discount rate that makes NPV zero; accept when IRR exceeds the cost of capital. Payback ignores time value and post-payback cash flows.

Break-even units = fixed costs ÷ (price − variable cost per unit); the denominator is contribution margin per unit.

WACC weights after-tax cost of debt and cost of equity by market-value proportions; it is the hurdle rate for average-risk projects.

Iron triangle: scope, time, cost (with quality as a fourth constraint); changing one constraint pressures the others.

The WBS decomposes deliverables; the lowest level is the work package, which supports estimating and assignment.

Critical path = longest duration path through the network; it sets minimum project duration and carries zero float.

Float (slack) = LS − ES = LF − EF; total float is shared along a path, free float is not.

Risk responses for threats: avoid, transfer, mitigate, accept; for opportunities: exploit, share, enhance, accept.

RACI: Responsible performs the work, Accountable approves and must be exactly one per task, Consulted gives input, Informed is updated.

Earned value: CV = EV − AC; SV = EV − PV; CPI = EV ÷ AC; SPI = EV ÷ PV; CPI or SPI below 1 signals adverse performance.

Scope creep is uncontrolled change without change control; gold plating is adding unrequested features that add cost, not value.

Tuckman stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning; storming is normal and suppressing it delays norming.

Psychological safety is the shared belief that speaking up with questions, mistakes, or dissent will not be punished.

Lencioni's five dysfunctions stack bottom-up: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, inattention to results.

Optimal interacting team size is roughly five to nine; coordination costs rise faster than capacity beyond that.

Belbin's nine team roles include plant, coordinator, shaper, monitor-evaluator, implementer, completer-finisher, resource-investigator, team-worker, specialist.

Social loafing grows with team size and falls when individual contributions are identifiable and the task is meaningful.

Norms are unwritten rules of behavior; explicitly agreeing them early accelerates the shift from storming to performing.

Specific, shared goals reduce social loafing and role ambiguity more effectively than general statements of purpose.