Want to Change the Corporate Culture? You will find here all the tools you need to create an organizational culture so positive and exciting people say, Thank God It’ Monday! We offer training tools and programs to assess the corporate culture, profile your organization’s culture and values, and effect culture change. You will also find programs on corporate ethics, ethical leadership, and ethical workplace. Register below to receive our popular Thank God It’s Monday newsletter to get free ideas and tools for creating a better workplace. Join the Thank God It's Monday mailing list Email: Send Page To a Friend

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A Broken Culture at the CIA? What About at Your Organization? On July 9, 2004 a Senate panel assailed the CIA on Iraq, saying the prewar threat was overstated. Our interest in this article is not in the political aspects of this finding. Our interest is in the organizational and corporate culture dimensions that the report highlights, and the lessons you can take from this to apply to the corporate culture of your workplace. The 511-page report, endorsed by members of both parties, spoke of "a broken corporate culture and poor management,” at the CIA. What were the consequences of this “broken culture” at the CIA? Senator Pat Roberts, a Republican from Kansas, said the CIA had abused its unique position by failing to cooperate sufficiently with other intelligence agencies. Senator John Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the committee, described the intelligence failures in strong terms. "Our credibility is diminished," he said. "Our standing in the world has never been lower. We have fostered a deep hatred of Americans in the Muslim world, and that will grow. As a direct consequence, our nation is more vulnerable today than ever before." Rockefeller said he was certain that Congress would not have authorized war had it been given more accurate intelligence. How did this ‘broken corporate culture’ manifest itself? The report said that a "collective groupthink" had led to ambiguous evidence being widely accepted as conclusive. While Tenet should have been coordinating the work of the various U.S. intelligence agencies "to provide the most accurate and objective analysis to policy makers," the arrangement had signally failed. It "actually undermined the provision of accurate and objective analysis by hampering intelligence sharing and allowing CIA analysts to control the presentation of information to policy makers, and exclude analysis from other agencies." Does your organization suffer from symptoms of a “collective groupthink”? How is your organization’s corporate culture? And how can you trust it is not broken? Here is a quick list of twelve signs that your corporate culture is broken, or about to be: Most office doors are closed most of the times, hiding what’s said behind them. Top leadership does not “walk the talk.” They talk about sacrifices while keeping their executive previlidges. They talk about teamwork while stories of their in-fighting are everywhere. People are afraid to bring critical issues up to their superiors. People are punished for the failure of experimental projects. Departments act as fiefdoms, do not collaborate and do not share information. Managers blame each other for organizational problems. There are separate cafeterias, parking, rest rooms, and other facilities for executives only. Secreteries tend to bring coffee to their bosses and never the other way around. You hear about things more through the rumor mill than through the organization’s communication channels. There is pressure to do what the bosses want without regard to questions of ethics or personal integrity. You do not see people like yourself in positions of responsibility, especailly among top leadership. Training and HR practices are totally focused on advancing the organization’s interests with little or no attention to developing people’s talents and careers. © 2004 TGIM Newsletter at www.communicationideas.com  For a tool to help you uncover the values and profile of your organization’s culture, take a look at our Culture Compass below. You can offer our TGIM newsletter subscription free to your web site visitors. Email us at info@communicationideas.com to get the speical code. Feel free to link to our web sites www.newtrainingideas.com and www.communicationideas.com Get the Thank God It's Mondaynewsletter Email: Send Page To a Friend

A Profile to Discover and Boost the Culture of Your Entire Organization 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 with each other and with the organization? How do we know that? The customizable and reproducible Cultural 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 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. 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).

Here is what users said about the 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, ethics, or other training topics. It can also be done in a department meeting to help the department understand and improve its team culture.

To Order the Cultural Compass The Paper-and-pencil version of the Cultural 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 the entire organization for only $98.00 Detailed Facilitator's Guide and the Culture Compass in Word format $98.00 Paper- One-Site License: $98.00 Consultants must purchase the Multi-Site License for $139.00 Online Culture Compass Profile for a Department or Entire Orgtanization: For 10 Users $195 For 20 Users $295

Balancing Personal and Professional Ethics Training Program $69.95 Ankerstar & Dalke's Balancing Personal and Professional Ethics comes with 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. 160 page Guide book, reproducible exercises, hand outs, and case studies/ Code: HR-BPPE/ $69.95

Onsite Training that Builds a Better Organizational Culture, Starting with Your Team RelationShifts is a transformational training experience that changes the way employees view their job and relate to their colleagues and the organization. The training builds a sense of ownership of one's work and shows managers and staff alike a more effective and liberating way of working together to achieve extraordinary results: It is a highly inspiring, deep discovery, passion-filled half-day or full-day session that goes beyond traditional motivational / team buliding training. It is an opportunity to understand, accept, and create significant change in employee relations, the team and the organization. It is an invitation to experience and adopt a different Mental Model for doing business in a Not-As-Usual way to create extraordinary business results. It is an introduction of a new way of communicating and working in a positive, emotionally intelligent manner that creates collaboration and commitment. Click here for more information on this unique training experience

The New Work Culture Resource Book $44.95 This book is an indispensable 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 meta-industrial 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..HR-NWC/ $44.95

The Culture Wins: No-Gimmick Management Makes You No.1 “A culture and management style as straightforward and likable as strawberry jam” has won J. M .Smucker the coveted Fortune magazine’s No.1 position in “The 100 Best Companies To Work For” annual competition. In its January 12, 2004 edition, Fortune describes that winning culture in an article by writer Julia Boorstin. Here is a summary of the key attributes of that culture: Core Values, Not Fads: The 107-year-old, family-controlled business is run by two brothers who tend to quote the New Testament and Ben Franklin. It’s a throwback to simpler time. “If Norman Rockwell were to design a corporation, this would be it,” writes Boorstin. No Razzle-Dazzle Perks for Employees: No pet insurance, no subsidized feng-shui consulting. Role-Model Leadership: “Smucker’s gimmick-free management starts with the CEOs, Tim and Richard Smucker, who took the reins in 2001. Tim and Richard are popular with their 2930 employees- they are affectionately known as the “boys” – which isn’t too surprising given that the company’s stock has had a total return of 100% over the past five years. They engineered Smucker’s purchase of Jif and Crisco from Procter & Gamble in 2002, doubling the company’s revenues to $1.3 billion in 2003. Code of Conduct: The boys have made sure Smucker adheres to an extremely simple code of conduct set forth by their father and CEO No. 3, Paul Smucker: Listen with your full attention Look for the good in others (and play well with them) Have a sense of humor Say thank you for a job well done.    5-    Employee Recognition; Smucker managers takes the last command of the Code of Conduct, in   particular, very seriously. They create a lot of opportunities and activities to thank employees; from celebratory barbecues to lunches, gift certificates, commemorative Christmas plates, and holiday turkeys, to screenings of films in which Smucker’s has a tie-in, like The Cat in the Hat. Tonie Williams, director of marketing for peanut butter, says she’s been thanked more in her two years at Smucker than she was in her nine years at Nestle, Kraft, and P&G combined. The biggest challenge the “boys” have to deal with? “To make sure the company’s culture stays the way it is,” they say. How does your organization compare to this Best Company To Work For In America? And what can you personally do to help it move up the ladder? Want a tool to profile your organization’s culture and discover its strength and weaknesses? See the Cultural Compass tool at this page.

Creating the Spirit of the Olympics in the Workplace In the Olympics, we see a lot of the same human issues that confront us at the workplace. What can we take from that international event to apply at work? If you look carefully, you will find that the ways world athletes behave before, during, and after the Olympics offer us a lot of lessons we can learn from to improve people's performance in the workplace. After all, sports have always offered us metaphors, models, and motivating examples to apply at work. Naturally, the Olympics offer us the ultimate best of these. Here are ways to create the Olympics' spirit at work. The most significant lessons we can take from the Olympics to the workplace are:  Every Four Years, Not Every Quarter: Most American organizations put too much focus on the quarterly reporting of results. Real change in human performance requires a longer view of things. Coaching for Performance: To perform at their peak, people need to be coached, not managed. The Coaching process of tough yet friendly feedback, modeling of desired behavior, constant guidance and continuance, incremental improvement is a model that works well at work too. Practice Makes Perfect: No athlete will think to perform in the actual competition without rigorous practicing for years before the event. At work, people cannot suspend work to practice. They must work and practice at the same time. Build Teams, Not Individuals: Even competitions that do not involve a team require effective teamwork between the coach and the athlete, and perhaps other people as well such as the managers, administrators, and the medical team. No Basketball team or Soccor team can achieve much without effective teamwork. How much training on team building have you participated in at work lately? Motivation and Rewards: The motivation for the Olympic athletes is never money. It's the global recognition of being the best. It's the satisfaction of beating the previous world record, and going just a notch beyond what was previously possible. That's the kind of culture you need to create at work. Monetary rewards are necessary to prevent good people from seeking work somewhere else, but it's never the main motivator for achieving truly great things at work. Recognition, of both team and individual performance excellence, is the greatest motivator. Failure Is The Beginning, Not the End: No athlete will strive to participate in the Olympics just once in a lifetime. Most keep going back and trying more. If they fail, they strive harder to win. If they win, they try harder to break their own record and win even bigger. © 2004 Communication Ideas. This article is part of our Content for Communicators program. You can get many positive, educational articles like this one to publish in your electronic or print publications or inranet with Content for Communicators. Click here for more information and samples of Content for Communicators.

Ethical Leadership for the 21st Century Training: Leader's Guide, Participant Booklets and Video 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 HR-EL21/ $495.00 Additional Participant Booklets in a pack of 5 for $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

Implementing Strategy: Managing Through Organizational Culture (Video Presentation) Program Highlights: Identifying the elements of organizational culture. How an organization's culture impacts its success. Case histories of firms with strongly identified cultures. "Organizational culture" is an elusive, yet powerful management tool. Professor Chatman defines organizational culture in terms of observable behaviors and shows examples of firms that use strong, strategically aligned cultures to enhance organizational performance. She outlines how to establish and maintain a healthy and thriving culture by focusing on the power of effective selection and socialization processes. Jennifer Chatman is a leading scholar in the areas of developing and managing organizational culture and employee commitment. Her articles appear frequently in leading academic journals, and she is a member of the editorial board of Administrative Science Quarterly and the California Management Review. Her consulting clients include CitiCorp, PG&E, the U.S. Postal Service, and the Big Four public accounting firms. Video type: VHS / Length: 60 mins.(1997) - $95.00

People-First Management: Creating a Culture of Trust (A Video Presentation) Program Highlights: The cornerstones of good business: credibility, respect and fairness. How to give your employees a vested interest in your company's success. The critical need for setting clear expectations, and acting accordingly. There's more to AFLAC's success than just simply a duck. Granted, this advertising campaign has skyrocketed AFLAC's brand awareness in the US to 89% (up from 8% just a decade ago), and has helped to triple AFLAC's sales since 1997. However, name recognition carries a significant burden. Once you become a household name, any wrong move you make will be remembered. AFLAC's Dan Amos believes that his company's success has come from a reputation for doing the right thing and for putting employees first. When employees trust the company to go the extra mile for them, they go the extra mile for customers. It is this level of integrity and customer service that has created shareholder returns for AFLAC double the market average. During Mr. Amos' 13-year tenure as CEO, the market capitalization of AFLAC has grown from $1.3 billion to more than $16 billion. AFLAC has been on Forbes' "Platinum 400 List of Best Big Companies" for four consecutive years, and Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work for in America" for five consecutive years. Video type: VHS / Length: 50 mins. (2003)- $95.00

Own It ! Take Ownership of Your Job: Video Training to Build a Culture of Accountability- Free Preview 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 to purchase For a Free Preview, Call: 1-973-427-3004

Spring Forward: How to Take a Spring Break at Work Spring is a time for renewal and new beginning. College students take a spring break to rejuvenate their senses, recharge their free spirits, and get a jolt of fun and joy to sustain the body and stimulate the mind. Spring break is a great concept. There is no reason why you can’t apply that concept at work too. Here are a number of creative ways to “Take a Spring Break at Work”: First of all, put yourself in the spring state of mind. You can’t create great things unless you have enthusiasm and energy. Your enthusiasm will be contagious to others. They will all catch it. Start that project you’ve always dreamed of doing. Create a positive proposal and offer it to your boss or your team. Get their involvement. Do a "Spring Cleaning" at your workplace or department. Get others involved and get the team to take a look at everything they do with an eye on cleaning it. Throw away what didn’t work and strengthen and polish what did. Bring the spring in. Get the team to think of ways to brighten the workplace and bring the exuberance of the spring to it. For example, hang new motivational posters or corporate art pieces to stimulate new thinking and stir passion. Designate a Spring Break Day and take the team on a picnic in a nearby park. Play Volley Ball or other group games. Hold the next department or project meeting outdoors. Create a Spring Break process to renew the organization’s culture. Invite the editor of your organization’s publication to attend one of these events and write about it to the whole organization. Ask others for ideas and add them to this list of Spring Break activities.

Must your company be 'Lean and Mean' to succeed? Here is one that is caring and successful One of the totally misguided notions of management is that for a business to succeed it must be “Lean and Mean.” Being “lean” is understandable, for it really means efficiency and effectiveness. But why “lean and mean?” Does it really take meanness to produce good products or services, market it intelligently to the public, and make a decent profit in the process? The “Lean and Mean” advocates used the need to make a profit as an excuse for treating people badly. But the facts of business life, not Utopia, have shown time and again that the opposite notion is the true one. Only when a business treats its employees well can it succeed in treating its customers well, thereby staying in business and growing a profit. Need a real-life proof? Here it is, from the highest pinnacles of power, the story of how Paul O’Neill, who served as Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush, proved that what was good for people was good for business. When Paul O’Neill became C.E.O. of Alcoa in 1988, he knew nothing about aluminum. Alcoa was in trouble at the time. In fact, the whole manufacturing industry in America was in bad shape. Experts were saying that commodities like steel and aluminum would inevitably be supplied by countries with cheap labor, and that the US would have to abandon its futile attempts to compete in manufacturing. Alcoa’s previous CEO listened to this advice and tried to take the company out of the aluminum business by buying other kinds of businesses. O’Neill did not give up on American manufacturing, though. He got rid of all the non-aluminum businesses and focused exclusively on making aluminum. Within twelve years, he doubled the company’s global market share and more than doubled the number of employees. After years of depressed earnings, he took the company from a profit of just $4.8 million in 1993 to a staggering profit of $1.5 billion in 2000. So what was his secret? Here is how Michael Lewis, in a story in the New York Times Magazine, described it: “ He (O’Neill) also created, pretty much by an act of will, a new corporate culture. How he did this is actually interesting....He began by making a big pain in the rear of himself. On his first day, he told Alcoa’s executives that they weren’t going to talk people into buying aluminum and that they weren’t going to be able to raise prices, so the only way to improve the company’s fortunes was to lower its costs. And the only way to do that was with the cooperation of Alcoa’s workers. And the only way to get that was to show them that you actually cared about them. And the only way to do that was actually to care about them. And the way to do that was to establish, as the first priority of Alcoa, the elimination of all job-related injuries. Any executive who didn’t make worker safety his personal fetish- a higher priority than profits- would be fired. On his second day, O’Neill told the same executives that he was eliminating the longstanding practice of paying their membership dues at a Pittsburgh-area country club that excluded women and blacks. He also, before it became fashionable, replaced the old corporate hierarchy with a flatter management structure. It took him several years, and he was forced to fire a few otherwise useful people who refused to believe he was serious about worker safety, but eventually established Alcoa as the world’s safest place to work. (To give you an idea of what he achieved, Treasury Department employees, most of whom don’t do much but sit at desks, missed work because of injury 20 times as often as Alcoa employees.) He proved to the satisfaction of people who worked for him that their old ideas of what was possible were based on artificial limits....Having persuaded the workers that he was on their side, they paid him back with greater efficiency.”

Is your organization wrestling with the impact of major change? Take a look at our change management tools and training at our "Change" page link at bottom.

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