Welcome to the most innovative resource for changing your organizational culture and building a positive, productive, and ethical corporate culture in a better workplace.

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Profile, Understand, and Improve the Culture of Your Entire Organization for $98.00 Building a strong organizational culture, or strengthening a good one you already have, starts with understanding the various dimensions and dynamics of your existing culture. The "Understanding" process involves answering the questions of: What does the data mean? What are our strengths? What are our areas that need improvement? Do various departments have cultures that are compatible to each other and to the organization's? How do we know that? The customizable and reproducible Organizational Culture Compass enables you to find the answers to the critical questions about your culture, and provides you with ways for moving toward a stronger, more positive and productive culture at work. The Compass comes as an MS Word file that you may customize with your organization's name, logo, and other information and print unlimited copies as a self-scoring paper and pencil tool. The Compass takes users through an exciting process of cultural discovery by answering, plotting, and analyzing 48 key questions about their organizational culture. The 48 questions cover four primary cultural orientations; People, Task, Values (and Ethics), and Synergy. The self-scoring results are then plotted on two dimensions; the People - Task dimension, and the Values - Synergy dimension. The resulting diagram reveals, both in figures and in a visual form, the current state of the organizational culture as viewed by the user(s). The Culture Compass is designed to make it easy to uncover current cultural strengths and assets, as well as opportunities for improvement and change. The Compass is sent to you in an electronic file in a MS Word format, so you can customize it by adding your organization's logo, mission statement, message from the president or the Training Department, or any other information easily and quickly. And the Compass is also reproducible, so you can make unlimited copies to profile your department, team, or organization. For One-Site License: $98.00 Consultants and Organizations who will use the Compass for more than one site or one organization, must purchase the Multi-Site License for $139.00

Here is what users said about the Cultural Compass A consultant who used our Cultural Compass with a client, wrote to us saying that the top executives loved the way the Compass revealed their corporate culture to them. They wanted her to use it with the rest of the staff. They wanted to better understand the values and perceptions that define the work environment and find ways to significantly improve it. The Cultural Compass is designed to make it easy to uncover current cultural strengths and assets, as well as opportunities for improvement and change. The customizable and reproducible Cultural Compass is also used to uncover and compare the cultures of various groups, teams, and departments, and how to overcome the Culture Gap that might separate them. A valuable by-product of using the Cultural Compass is to strengthen team spirit. 'We Are One Team' becomes more than a nice slogan. The Compass takes about 30 minutes to complete, but the discussion, comparisons and analysis of strengths and improvements can take as much as people need. A comprehensive Facilitator's Guide explains the culture discovery and improvement process with detailed instructions. The process can be a segment in a training session on leadership, supervision, culture, team building, diversity or other training topics. It can also be done in a department meeting to help the department understand and improve its team culture.

Build an Open, Innovative, and Collaborative Team Culture at Work - $98 The customizable and reproducible Culture Compass is also used to uncover and compare the cultures of various groups, teams, and departments, and how to overcome the Culture Gap that might separate them. A valuable by-product of using the Culture Compass is to strengthen team spirit, "We Are One Team" becomes more than a nice slogan. The Compass takes about 30 minutes to complete, but the discussion, comparisons and analysis of strengths and improvements can take as much as people need. A comprehensive Facilitator's Guide explains the Culture Discovery and Improvement process with detailed instructions. The process can be a segment in a training session on leadership, supervision, culture, team building, diversity or other training topics. It can also be done in a department meeting to help the department understand and improve its team culture. Detailed Facilitator's Guide and the Reproducible, Customizable Cultural Compass in Word format For One-Site License: $98.00 Consultants and Organizations who will use the Compass for more than one site or one organization, must purchase the Multi-Site License for $139.00

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Balancing Personal & Professional Ethics Training Program $69.95 Ankerstar & Dalke's Balancing Personal and Professional Ethics: A Trainer's Guide with Reproducible Exercises, Handouts, and Case Studies - This fully reproducible trainer's guide goes beyond just talking about ethics in the workplace. It utilizes thought-provoking activities and case studies to stimulate new thinking and new ways for making sound ethical decisions. To complement this process the guide includes a tool called the Ethical Question Cycle and step-by-step guidelines for developing a code of ethics. All the training materials are fully reproducible, and are offered in a sequence that prompts participants to examine how their personal ethics impacts relationships with co-workers, management, and customers. As the facilitator for this ethics program, your goal is to provide an environment for all participants to share their ideas and feelings. This training guidebook will show you how. Each chapter contains notes for the facilitator along with approximate time limits for each explanation, activity, and summary exercise. Includes workshop designs for 2-hour, half day, and full day sessions. Training Objectives: Heighten the professional ethical standards of all employees; Integrate ethical reasoning with other work behaviors; Enhance employee commitment to developing a code of ethics; ---------- Selected Contents: Steps in Making Ethical Decisions; Ethical Choices; How Personal Ethics are Formed; Consequences of Unethical Behavior; Rewards of Ethical Behavior; Challenging Professional Ethics; Ethics: Preserve or Compromise; A Code of Ethical Standards. The other component of the Ethics at Work Kit is the Culture Compass Profile. The Compass is a self-scoring paper and pencil tool that takes users through an exciting process of cultural discovery by answering, plotting, and analyzing 48 key questions about their organizational culture, values, and ethics. The 48 questions cover four primary cultural orientations; People, Task, Values/Ethics, and Synergy. The self-scoring results are then plotted on two dimensions; the People - Task dimension, and the Values/Ethics - Synergy dimension. The Personal & Professional Ethics workshop and the Culture Compass Profile enable you to deliver a powerful session to build professional ethical behaviour for participants, and strengthen the ethical dimension of the organization's culture as a whole. 160 page Guide book, reproducible exercises, hand outs, and case studies /$69.95 Join the Thank God It's Monday mailing list Email: Send Page To a Friend

Ethical Leadership for the 21st Century Training Program: 5-minute Video with Leader's Guide and 5 Participant Booklets $495.00 For all leaders in our 21st century—upper management, middle management, front-line supervisors, and team leaders—ethics is essential to success. This program helps leaders understand the benefits of ethical behavior and to apply ethical principles in their roles as leaders. Using a well-defined system of understanding ethical decisions and choices, the program helps participants learn how to choose the most ethical choices. Ethical Leadership Program examines the concept of organizational social responsibility, seeing how values-based organizations today let principles and values guide them in day-to-day decisions, as they avoid wrong behaviors and take active steps to do what’s right. When they complete this program, participants will understand how to be ethical in their own actions, and how to lead others in their groups or organizations to be ethical. Ethical Leadership for the 21st Century Program with 5 Minute Video, Leader's Guide and 5 Participant Workbooks/ Code EL21/ $495.00 Additional participant booklets are sold in packs of 5 each/ Code 5EL21PB/ $49.95

50 Activities for Promoting Ethics in the Organization $139.95 This title is divided into five sections. Each section has ten exercises designed to stimulate discussion and promote inquiry regarding business ethics. The activities focus on Leadership, Corporate Citizenship, Salesmanship, Management, and Teamwork. Contributing to this collection is a range of trainers from a wide variety of disciplines and locations, including Europe, India, Canada, and a broad cross-section of the United States. Training Objectives include: Increase ethics awareness among managers, teams and sales personnel; Help develop values and guidelines; Provide training activities to support organizational ethics policies ; Provide activities for practice in ethical decision-making. ....... Training Methods include: Icebreakers; Assessments; Role plays; Games. 300 pp/ 3-ring binder/ Code...50API/ $139.95

Is Your Corporate Culture Fancy and Cold or Simple and Warm? The best description I read recently that illustrates the concept of corporate culture is in this two paragraphs from an article in Fast Company magazine by Margaret Heffernan: The most gorgeous office I ever had was on the 40th floor of a glass tower overlooking Boston Harbor. Through the huge window, you could watch boats come in and planes take off. But even the most senior people there bickered like children. And I'll never forget the evening when we waited past 10 p.m. to get sign off on a document. I didn't mind much, but my colleague eventually confessed that it was his daughter's birthday. He stayed at work for what turned out to be two minutes of face time. By contrast, when I was a copyright clerk in radio, working in a grimy office for low pay, I was surrounded by talented people who treated me with respect and encouragement. Everyone talked to everyone, assistants lunched with producers, doors were -- literally -- propped open. My peers and bosses were male, female, gay, straight, black, Asian, Welsh, fat, thin, young and old, glamorous, and scruffy. Only years later did I look back and notice the absence of any discrimination, harassment, or injustice. I thought everywhere was like that.” Most of us can easily relate to Heffernan’s experience, prefering the simple yet warm corporate culture of the radio station over the inhumane culture at the fansy and cold Boston Harbor office she describes. Ultimately, what creates the corporate culture are the day to day practices, behaviors, communication patterns, relationships and interactions of people working there. These are the areas you need to look at to improve your corporate culture.

End-of-Year Celebrations: How to Plan Something Different This Year In the "Bad Old Days", holiday parties, or Christmas parties, at many American workplaces used to be scandalous affairs in which men got drunk and women sexually harassed, all under the pretense of celebrating the end of a year of accomplishments for the company. Those were the days before working women started to openly object, then file law suits, against the prevailing practices that denigrated women and sexually harassed them. It took a decade or so for most organizations to start modifying their holiday celebrations. Although the types and activities of celebrations vary wildly from one organization to the other depending on the work culture and type of business, it's safe to say that the vast majority of businesses have changed their end-of-year celebration practices to make them more safe and pleasant for everyone involved. Many also try to mix business with pleasure as they incorporate ways to add value to such celebrations and connect them more to the business of the organization. If you've been asked to serve on a team to plan your organization's year-end celebration, here is a list of ideas to help you: Assign a small team the task of planning the event. Small organizations (up to 200 persons) can join together in one celebration. Larger organizations might have each department hold its own celebration. Hold your event at a time most people can attend. If possible, have people attend during work hours, or at least for part of the event. For example, if work normally ends at 5:00 PM, invite people to attend at 4:00 and then stay till 6:00 If you are going to mix a bit of business, the best way is to focus on accomplishments. Have each team or department present their accomplishments in a creative way to the entire organization. If you offer prizes or other means of recognition, do it at that time. Don't go to extremes in either direction. Don't go over board on lavish and fancy items unless the organization's performance and financial health can justify this. But don't be too stingy either. People shouldn't feel that you are too strict when it comes to acts of appreciation of them and their year-long efforts. Some organizations dedicate a whole day to an off-site retreat with the theme of "Lessons Learned and Accomplishments Achieved Through the Year." This could be a very exciting and memorable way to end the year, offering a mix of learning, recognition, teamwork, and celebration. You may invite a speaker to talk on a relevant topic, or on a light appropriate topic, such as Humor At Work, or Team Building with a humorous bent to it. If your budget is very limited, you can rent a video that offers learning or inspiration in a fun way.

How To Thank Them This Week Administrative Professionals Week – April 22-28, 2007 Administrative Professionals Day – Wednesday, April 25, 2007 Professionalism Should be the Focus In Observing Administrative Professionals Week- Suggestions for Employers, Supervisors Administrative Professionals Week is an opportune time to recognize the valuable and growing contributions of administrative professionals in the workplace. Members of the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP), sponsor of Administrative Professionals Week, suggest that observances of the event recognize and support the professionalism of administrative support staff. Specific recommendations from IAAP for observances include: Hold a company-wide observance or special event for administrative staff, such as a presentation by an educational speaker, or group recognition of administrative professionals by the chief executive. Provide registration for a professional development seminar to build the individual’s technical, interpersonal or business skills. Support membership in appropriate networking and professional associations. Encourage study for and attainment of professional certification. Additional gift suggestions include appropriate business-related items such as personalized business cards, a desktop nameplate, a gift certificate, ergonomically correct desk accessories or equipment, computer hardware/software upgrade, or a monetary bonus for exemplary performance. “Surveys of administrative professionals have shown that they prefer professionally oriented observances,” said Sandra P. Chandler CPS, 2006-07 IAAP international president. “While gifts of candy and flowers are appreciated, an observance related to professionalism is more meaningful. And, of course, it’s always wise to ask the administrative staff members in your organization how they would prefer to observe Administrative Professionals Week.” Held annually since 1952, Administrative Professionals Week is April 22-28, 2007, with Administrative Professionals Day on Wednesday, April 25. Further information is available from the IAAP Web site, www.iaap-hq.org We have an eCard you can send to the Administrative Professionals in your office or department. Go here to get it: http://www.communicationideas.com/Administrative-Professionals.html

Employee Power: How The World Bank Staff Forced Out Its President By Wearing Blue Ribbons and Using Blogs An Organizational Communication Case Study In a fascinating demonstration of the power of employees to influence events in their organization, it has been revealed that employees’ actions have helped force the World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to resign. It’s also a remarkable case-study for professional organizational communicators, showing how employees effectively used visual symbols (blue ribbons) and blogs to communicate their views, create a public relations campaign, and exert moral pressure. It’s a case study of how employees can communicate back using tools and media similar to, and even more powerful than, those used by organizational communicators. This may signal the start of a major new challenge for corporate communicators and corporate leaders everywhere. In an article in the Washington Post of May 18, 2007 staff writer Sridhar Pappu described how “thousands of bank employees were livid, after the disclosure that Wolfowitz had arranged for a hefty raise for girlfriend Shaha Riza, when she was sent from the bank to the State Department. The ribbons were initially intended to show support for good governance in the World Bank and beyond. Since most staffers saw Wolfowitz's role in Iraq policy as governance gone horribly bad, the ribbons became a symbol of anger, a silent demand for the big boss's resignation.” It all started when an employee suggested in an e-mail that they wear ribbons to show their concern for the bank's future. Blue was chosen because it symbolized wisdom and honesty. “On April 18, staffers put their plan into action. Some volunteered to buy up all the rolls of blue ribbon from a nearby fabric store. Others hurried out to CVS for safety pins. By that afternoon they'd made 1,000 folded ribbons. At the end of the day, all had been snatched up. In the conference room of the staff association, people cut and assembled in 15-minute shifts. The rank and file came on coffee breaks, lunch breaks, any free time they had. Soon after, volunteers (including retired World Bank employees) were handing out ribbons in the common areas. A fashion trend was born. Later, Wolfowitz himself was seen wearing a blue ribbon around the office, which he claimed -- wait for it -- was a symbol of malaria awareness. In addition to the blue ribbons, employees resorted to the power of blogs to communicate their views to other bank employees, to the bank’s board of directors, to the media, and the world. The result was that major world media like the Washington Post and Business Week wrote about the employees’ blue ribbons and blogs (http://wolfowitzmustresign.blogspot.com )  By close of business the day Wolfowitz’s resignation was finally announced, the blue ribbons had become a new symbol of employee power. They may become a symbol of employee power for all future actions by employees who want to express their feelings about what happens in their organizations everywhere around the world. (c) 2007 TGI Monday Newsletter. Subscribe to receive it at no cost. Get the T.G.I. Monday Newsletter Email: Send Page To a Friend

The Complete Guide to Wellness in the Workplace The Complete Guide to Wellness is the culmination of over 20 years of applied research in over 100 companies. The materials in this book were first tested in hospital settings under physician supervision and were later implemented in companies with leading behavioral psychologists and organizational change experts. The training modules contained in this book have been used successfully by hundreds of thousands of employees in companies such as AT&T, Southwestern Bell, and Ford Motor Company. The results from these interventions have been published in numerous journals including the Journal of the American Medical Association. This resource incorporates recent findings from behavioral medicine, cultural medicine, organizational behavior, and medical research. The Complete Guide to Wellness includes all the reproducible materials you need to run either a self-study or group training program on any of the topics covered. The Lifestyles Possibilities Assessment is a full-screen assessment that correlates to the workshop, so you know which topic is the most important to start with. Section I: Assessment Lifestyle Possibilities: Orientation Section II: Risk Reduction—Keeping the Killers from Precluding Your Possibilities Stop Smoking Weight Control Cholesterol Reduction Blood Pressure Control Stress Management Present-Moment Thinking Low-Back Care Section III: Health Enhancement—Optimizing Your Possibilities Fitness Primer Nutrition Interpersonal Communication Self-Esteem Managing Change Creative Thinking Job Satisfaction A Healthy Home Connectedness. 600 reproducible pages/ 3-ring binder/ $199.95

Exercise Boosts Your Brain Power. Implications for Your Work Culture The March 26, 2007 issue of Newsweek magazine carries a cover story on the latest research on the effects of exercise on people’s ability to think, learn, and live longer. The findings have implications for you at work, whether in a meeting or a training environment. Here are some of the article’s ideas, with our suggestions for your work culture: Exercise does more than build muscles and help prevent heart disease. New science shows that it also boosts brainpower. Researchers announced that they had coaxed the human brain into growing new nerve cells, a process that for decades had been thought impossible, simply by putting people on a three-month aerobic-workout regimen. Other scientists have found that vigorous exercise can cause older nerve cells to form dense, interconnected webs that make the brain run faster and more efficiently. Impact on Learning: With regular exercise, the brain's nerve cells start to branch out, join together and communicate with each other in new ways. This is the process that underlies learning: every change in the junctions between brain cells signifies a new fact or skill that's been picked up and stowed away for future use. Applications for Your Work Culture: Create a wellness program at work. Provide people with information, resources and support to maintain a healthy life. Provide meeting space for groups like Weight Watchers and others for smoke –cessation, Yoga, aerobics, etc. Put a Ping Pong table in a corner of the cafeteria. Provide a Gym for employees to use during lunch hour or before or after work. Form sports teams to play after hours. This will help employees build teamwork as they build both body mussels and brain cells for better thinking and learning. Introduce awareness of exercise benefits by starting your training sessions with a short physical activity or exercise, and then taking time for one every 90 minutes. Participants in meetings or training workshops should not be left sitting for more than 90 minutes without an exercise break.

Own It- Take Ownership of Your Job. Powerful Video-based Training Imagine a workplace... Where the employees are supportive of one another / Where they strive to be more effective in their jobs / Where each employee makes a positive difference / Where everyone contributes to the success of the / organization It's not a dream! It can be a reality! We can facilitate a dynamic half a day or one day training session at your workplace using the powerful "Own It" training video. Owen the "OWN IT!" guy introduces you to the good people of one of the nation's most successful pediatric clinics and helps you establish that kind of culture in your organization by presenting the four key principles of job ownership: Caring about what you do / Being a team player / Going above and beyond / Being proud of what you do and where you do it / This 20-minute video delivers its messages by sharing the wisdom and experiences of supervisors and front line personnel who have greatly enhanced their work experience by taking ownership of their jobs. OWN IT! shows that when employees own their jobs, productivity improves, customers remain loyal, and frowns turn into smiles. Now only $495. Call for a FREE PREVIEW: 973-427-3004

The Respectful Workplace Video Training Series: Winner Telly & Cindy Awards - Free Preview The Respectful Workplace is a 3 part video training series that can be delivered by you or by our facilitators at your workplace in one day training session. It's designed to help organizations address the behavioral and value issues that can allow conflicts to escalate. The series treats workplace violence as an outgrowth of hostility, harassment, bullying and intimidation which has not been effectively dealt with, and arms employees and managers with the tools they will need to ensure respectful workplace relations. Each video program is $625. The three together are $1462.50) Program 1: Opening the Right Doors, teaches employees skills for dispute resolution and diffusing hostility. We learn to take responsibility for eliminating intimidation, bullying and harassment from our workplace culture. PURCHASE $625 RENTAL $295.00 Program 2, Diffusing Hostility through Customer Service, takes a strong customer service training approach to the issue of working with hostile customers. PURCHASE $625 RENTAL $295 Program 3, Managing Harmony, defines the role leaders must play in creating and supporting a non-violent, respectful workplace. PURCHASE $625.00 RENTAL $295.00 All three prgrams together, PURCHASE for $1462.50

The New Work Culture Resource Book $44.95 This book is a reference for leading-edge managers approaching the 21st century: a comprehensive guide to the new work culture. New Work Culture deals with organizational transformation challenges, perspectives on the new work environment, human resource development in the metaindustrial work scene, and strategies to exercise leadership in high-tech corporations. This is an ideal resource for everyone from the MBA student to executives to HRD managers, providing a roadmap to the new work environment in the Information Society. Selected Contents: Getting Ready Today for Tomorrow's Organization; Impact of Culture on Organizational Behavior; New Organizational Rationale and Identity; Changing Organizational Purposes and Standards; Transforming Organizational Look and Style; Revolutionizing Organizational Processes and Activities; Transforming Organizational Communications; Emerging Technological Work Culture; Transforming Work, Organizations, and Management; Creating the New Work Culture; Venturing in Entrepreneurialism and Innovation; Remaking Roles in Automated Enterprises; Realizing the Potential of Robotics; Changing Career Development Patterns; Transforming Organizational Relationships; Transforming Organizational Recognition and Rewards; Developing Organizational Potential; Advancing Human Resource Development Through New Technologies; Managing Effectively Through Teams; Promoting Employee and Executive Wellness; Succeeding in Personal, Role, and Work Transitions; Succeeding Through Transformational Management 650 pp/ Paperback/ Code...NWC/ $44.95

Are You Among the 55% of U.S. Employees Who Are Unhappy at Work? Managers know that more than half of their staff are unhappy at work, but they wouldn't do anything about it. That's what a new study by the consulting firm Towers Perrin has uncovered. (Potentials magazine, April 2003) Why wouldn't the managers address the issue? Because they don't know why employees are unhappy. In the same study, 45% of employees said they would leave for another job when the economy improves. Other studies have shown that an unhappy employee will most likely create an unhappy experience for the customer. According to an Employee Benefits Conference statistics reported in the US News & World Report, 68% of customers stop coming to a place of business because of a negative attitude or indifference towards them by employees. So managers who are not addressing employee unhappiness are indirectly causing their business to lose customers. But what makes employees unhappy? And what can managers do about it? The biggest cause of employee unhappiness? A lack of recognition for employees' ideas, performance, and contributions. "What managers get wrong is that employees need to feel connected and competent in their work," says David Rhodes, a Towers Perrin principal. “Managers who focus on doing things that give employees a sense that they're important and that their ideas are being listened to, seem to have the most powerful work environment," he adds. But even when managers recognize the importance of recognition and praise, many do not know how to do deliver it effectively. Read below for help.

How to Effectively Recognize and Praise Employees Praise to the human being is what sunshine and rain are to the flower. The value of recognition and praise has been acknowledged by many. Mark Twain said, "I can live for two months on a good compliment." John Masefield said, "Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once a minute something generous dies for want of it." But even when managers recognize the importance of recognition and praise, many do not know how to do deliver it effectively. Praise can have its pitfalls. In communicating praise effectively, four conditions should be met. 1. When praising someone, you should be sincere. Insincere praise is worse than no praise at all. Insincere praise insults the receiver, cheapens the speaker's comments and causes the loss of credibility. 2. Give praise in a timely fashion. "Better late than never" does not apply here. As soon as you recognize something praiseworthy, communicate your praise. 3. Praise should be based on specifics. That gives your words more substance, and enforces the outcomes you want to nurture. “Your report was effective and to the point" is much better than "You're a great person." 4. Communicate your praise in public. Recognizing a person in the presence of his/her peers gives the praise more impact, and encourages others to do better. The above article is one of 30 CommUnicate articles you can get to use in your company publication, intranet, or as meetings/ training handouts when you subscribe to CommUnicate for $98.00 You can get 30 inspiring and educational 'CommUnicate' articles like this - use two a month for 15 months - to post on your Intranet, publish as a regular column in your publication, or copy and hand-out in meetings and training sessions - to help people communicate more effectively at work for just $98. The CommUnicate! Program can improve the quality of communication throughout your organization. Cost: $98.00

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