Introducing A New Kind of Training For Team Building and Change: RelationShifts- A Transformational Experience for Teams   Intensive half-day or full-day training workshop that is significantly different from traditional team building and organization change training. Purpose: Empowering People to Shift to Higher Levels of Relationships at Work. This unique experience enables participants to create a dramatic change in the way they relate to their work, their colleagues, their organization, and their customers. The result is a totally rejuvenated team working on a higher level of commitment to achieve extraordinary results.

What Is So Different About RelationShifts? RelationShifts is a transformational team experience that goes beyond traditional team building and organization change training: It is a highly inspiring, deep discovery, exhilarating passion-filled session that goes beyond traditional motivational programs. It is an opportunity to understand, accept, and create significant change in self and the organization that goes beyond traditional change management training. 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, going beyond traditional creativity training. It is an introduction of a new way of communicating with self and others in a positive, emotionally intelligent manner that goes beyond traditional communication skills training. In short, our onsite RelationShifts training is a truly unique training program. It is a carefully designed experience that pushes the envelop as it blends the best and latest concepts and techniques of motivation, individual and organization change, mission and vision creation, team building, and authentic communication.

The Man Who Wanted to Change the World In my workshop on change and transformation, I tell the following story: In the Chinese folklore, there is the story of an ambitious young man who, on his twentieth birthday, became consumed with the desire to change the world. He spent the next 20 years trying to do that but couldn’t. At age 40, he settled for trying to change China. He spent the next 20 years trying to do that but couldn’t. At age 60, he settled for trying to change his village. For the next 20 years he strived to do that but failed. At age 80, he decided to focus on changing his family. He spent the next 20 years trying to do that but couldn’t. At age 100, he decided to focus on changing himself. But the next day, he died. The lesson? If you want to change the world, you better start with yourself. Ghandi said, “We must become the change we want to see in the world” So the question to ask ourselves is: In what ways can I become the change I seek to see happening around me? (c) 2006 HumaNext LLC. From RelationShifts, our workshop on team transformation and organization change. See details on this page.

Why We Need a Different Way of Team Building In traditional team building, participants learn a few concepts about how teams are formed and how they develop and function. For example, the Tuckman's 1965 Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing team-development model is still a popular part of many traditional team building training. In addition, some training offers a comparison between a team and a group. Several exercises designed to show the value of teamwork are usually included. These programs are generally fun, interesting, and may include some physical activities in the outdoors. The lessons from most of these exercises, though, are self-evident and too simplistic. Participants seldom gain profound insights into their ways of thinking and working, or experience a lasting change in the way they relate to and work with each other. The sad fact is that teamwork in most organizations is so badly lacking that almost any type of team building training will be helpful to a degree. But there has always been a need for a more impacting, authentic, and long-lasting experience that transforms a group of people into a highly functioning team that achieves great results. People have long been searching for a different kind of experience that can transform their relationships to their work, their organization, their colleagues, and their customers.

Solve this Puzzle: Enlarging the Window - One of Six RelationShifts Insights One of the rooms in the new house we purchased had a small window. My wife asked me if I could enlarge it to get more light. The window measured 2 feet wide and 2 feet high. I took the saw and cut out some of the wall surrounding the window and put in a new, larger window that let in more light, twice as much as before. After finishing the work, I measured the new window and found that it still measured 2 feet wide and 2 feet high. How was this possible? Enlarging the Window Solution: The original window was in a diamond shape. The man knocked down the brick around this opening to make it a square window measuring 2 feet wide and 2 feet high, the same dimensions as before but with double the amount of light. The reason this was a difficult puzzle to solve was that our mind gets stock in imagining a square window from the beginning. The mind is imprisoned “Inside the Box” and was not able to free itself to see a different shape for the window other than the one engraved in its memory. The first insight we learn from this exercise is: We will not be able to truly think freely and creatively until we step Outside the Box to see new shapes and novel visions. The other insight we learn from this interesting problem is that we can enlarge ourselves without having to change our core dimensions. And we can enlarge the organization without having to change its current dimensions, measurements, or resources. This is one of Six Insights participants in our RelationShifts workshop discover through activities and experiments. They then learn to take these Six Insights with them as they explore new ways to think, communicate, and collaborate with their colleagues at work.

Save $100 - Order Now   Now RelationShifts is available as an Off-the-Shelf package you can order, customize, and deliver. It comes with a detailed step-by-step Leader's Guide, over 50 dramatic PowerPoint slides, and a reproducible Participant's Workbook so you can deliver the workshop to an unlimited number of your employees at no additional cost. It’s a great value and a unique team building / team transformation program unlike anything on the market today. Regular price is $495.00 - Order One-Organization-One-Trainer License now to save $100 $395   Consultant/Multi-Organization-License is $595 - now get it at $100 off for $495

RelationShifts Helps People Achieve Dramatic Shifts, and Results at Work RelationShifts enables participants to achieve a number of dramatic shifts regarding the way they relate to things that matter most. These shifts create a new reality that makes it possible for the team to achieve extraordinary results that were previously thought to be unattainable. Here are some of these shifts: Shifting from viewing work as a burden to reclaiming it as a realm of Self-Actualization, Expression, and Fulfillment Supporting Colleagues as Team Players in the Exciting Game of Work The Organization Is a Conversation: What Are You Talking About? - Shifting Language to a Place Where Words Create a New Reality. A Mental Model for Changing the Culture of Work: Moving the Organization From an Impersonal Bureaucracy to a Caring Community Envisioning and Moving Toward The Bigger Picture Together. Creating Team Identity and Mission. Moving Forward from Working Inside the Box to Thinking, Communicating and Working Outside the Box

We Use Many Activities Like This One To Change Relationships At Work.   This Activity Will Change Your Relationship With Your Colleagues Here is a positive activity to boost the way people relate to each other at work. There are several variations to this activity which has been used in many training programs, including Dale Carnegie's. The Activity creates a great deal of goodwill and appreciation among people working together in one department or team. Each person is to prepare several sheets of paper, and write at the top of each the name of one of the other members of the team, one sheet for each name. They should then write down under each name a list of the qualities or behaviors they most admired in that person in the past year, or in general. The statements should start with words like, "I appreciated it when you…" or "I really admire your way of…" or "It was great when you…" or " Thank you for your outstanding help with…" When all members have completed all the sheets about each other, collect the sheets for each member at a time and place them in an envelop to be given to the named person to read and keep. You can make variations as needed to fit your work situation. The result of this activity is that each member will receive a large number of specific compliments, commendations, and expressions of appreciation for their qualities and actions. Countless experiences, and the popularity of 360 feedback tools, have indicated that people deeply appreciate and are affected by others’ perceptions and opinions of them. The good thing about this activity is that it deliberately limits the feedback to only the positive side. The impact on team spirit and working relationships can be dramatic.

Are Your Assumptions Moving You Forward Or Pulling You Back?  If it is your assumption that most people are careless, useless, and disloyal, you will end up creating this kind of attitude and behavior in the people who work with you. If you can change your assumptions, and help people change theirs, you can achieve dramatic transformation in relationships and performance. This, however, cannot be done by preaching to people. It can only be done by providing people the opportunity to discover and experience the power and value of the new assumptions for themselves. Only then will they become willing to adopt the new assumptions and make them their own. Here are the assumptions that can produce extraordinary results for you. We hold and help people experience and adopt these assumptions in our RelationShifts training. What people focus on becomes their reality We invite people to shift their focus from the problems they want to solve to the achievements they want to accomplish. This Shift enables people to move much faster toward achieving bigger and more exciting goals. Taking the Best of the Past to the Future The most confident way for people to move to the future (What's Outside the Box) is to carry forward the best parts of the past (What’s Inside The Box.) This way people can do more of what works as they invent new ways to meet the changing environment. Our Words Create Our World The language we use to talk to ourselves and others creates our reality. We introduce to participants Outside-The-Box language that helps them relate in a more sensitive yet powerful way to their colleagues and customers. Change Starts With Me! Igniting Personal Commitment to Change We start the process of building or strengthening a team by helping each person gain insight into their own personality, and where they are at the moment. The Source of Action: I Feel, I Think, I Say, I Do Recent research in Emotional Intelligence helps us understand the value of recognizing our feelings before applying our rational thinking. We then decide by declaring and communicating our intentions. Then we act to make it happen. In each of these stages, we learn to move from standing timidly and powerlessly inside the box to thinking, communicating, and working outside the box. Mission Creates Passion We challenge participants to challenge themselves. We provide them with the opportunity to discover what they do best, and what they want to do even better in the future. We take them on a journey to create a Vision of their Best Self, and craft a Mission Statement that provides guidance and inspiration for action. The Statement must stretch, challenge, and innovate. It must be an expression of what people are passionate about and will defend if necessary. And it must be stated in affirmative, bold terms, using Outside-The-Box language of achievement. Commitment to Action One of our key assumptions is that everybody wants to do good work that brings them self satisfaction and the recognition and appreciation of others. Participants learn how to build upon this to inspire a desire for action and achievement in themselves and others. Because this desire is self-generated, it produces much better results than external incentives and rewards.

What Will Participants Learn as a Result of Experiencing RelationShifts?   Depending on the client's needs and time allowed, participants will learn some or all of the following: Discover their work style profile and how to boost their effectiveness in working with others. Develop skills to use the "I Feel, I Think, I Say, I Do" Model to achieve outstanding results. Identify where they stand: Inside or Outside The Box Learn ways to move toward more Outside Space. Learn the Outside-The-Box language and use it to communicate with others to evoke action. Learn to think outside the box in a way that generates new ideas and solutions. Learn to support each other in moving outside the box in a way that strengthens team spirit and celebrates camaraderie. Understand the conceptual and cultural barriers to change and how to overcome them Work together to develop team identity, mission, vision, and goals. Leave the session with a new commitment to achieving extraordinary results for the organization.

We Use The Power of Ideas In RelationShifts In the RelationShifts learning experience, participants are introduced to powerful ideas that stimulate new ways of viewing familiar patterns. Participants then work together to apply the ideas and test their skills in new ways of working, thinking, and relating.

Shifting People's View of What Is Possible In the RelationShifts experience, people are freed from the paralyzing fear of the unknown and the instinctive tendency to “play it safe.” People see a new role for innovation that alters risk from a danger to an opening.

RelationShifts: Speaking in Negative Tongues We all speak our own version of our native language. But some of these are negative versions of the language. Since language is the primary way for humans to communicate and interact with others, speaking in a negative tongue will have major consequences for the ability to get along and work with others effectively. Most traditional team building training programs don’t deal with this aspect at all. RelationShifts pays a special attention to the language used by team members, and helps participants discover how it impacts their ability to work together. Through real-life exercises, processes and inquiry into the nature of communication, participants discover previously-unexamined relationships between language and action. They are introduced to a structure of communication that enables them to inspire collaboration and evoke action.

Communicating Your Team's Mission Some teams achieve great results yet fail to communicate this fact effectively to anybody in the organization or the community. This is a big mistake as it deprives the team from the support it needs to continue its mission and move on to greater achievements. RelationShifts helps teams, if needed, to create their mission statement, identity, and motto in a collaborative way during the workshop. We can also help your team communicate its mission to all stake holders in an effective, creative manner, using a variety of low cost media. As a company that corporate communications services in addition to training, Communication Ideas can with your team to create and communicate your mission to your stake-holders.

Discovering the Source of Action and Satisfaction In RelationShifts, participants are coached in the source of their own effectiveness and ability to accomplish. The sense of constraint is lifted in a way that makes action exciting and personally satisfying.

A Dramatic Power of Engagement Our work has shown that people will not get engaged in an endeavor until they are invited to be full participants in creating it, with freedom to think and act toward achieving what's new. A dramatic power occurs when the group becomes fully engaged. With the excitement of participation in the creation of a new world, the whole energy of the group shifts and everyone recognizes it. With a sense of excitement, the team will feel and celebrate the difference in atmosphere and attitude.

RelationShifts Is About Transforming Your Team To Create Higher Achievements   In RelationShifts, we invite participants to take the best of what they know and talk about what could be. We challenge them to stretch what they are to become more than what they have been successful at. We involve them in creating a collective, collaborative view of where they want to go. We help participants, and organizations, break the grip of traditional limitations that are often self-imposed or are carryovers from the past. We provide people a new frame work of being and doing that enables them to consistently produce extraordinary results previously considered to be infeasible, or requiring an unreasonable commitment to time and resources. Our work in team transformation produces qualitative shifts for participants – shifts in the fundamental ways in which they view and relate to their work, to themselves, and to each other. “Today, six months after attending your workshop, (people)  still communicate and work with others in a much more positive way than in the past.”      – S.D.,  Director of HR for a large health care organization, New York.

We Use Blended Media / Experiential Training Approach for Best Results   Our continuously interactive onsite training is a multi-sensory, multi-style experience that stimulates and appeals to participants' various learning styles. Our workshops use a Blended Media / Experiential learning approach for maximum learning impact. We use music, language, images, stories, activities, role-plays, and self-discovery tools to meet a variety of learning styles. We use stimulating quizzes, powerful role plays, mind-expanding activities, videos, music, and slides, all working together to deliver an exhilarating, passionately positive learning experience.

What They Wrote About RelationShifts   Here are some of the participants' written evaluations of a RelationShifts workshop delivered at the American Diabetes Association: - Very informative. Emphasized breaking habits to learn to communicate more effectively. - Exercises, examples, and role-plays were very well done and corresponded with the subject matter. - I will use these skills everywhere, not just at work. - I most enjoyed the way exercises were tied into the lessons. - I wish it was longer. - The knowledge, ideas, and skills will definitely help in everyday situations that arise in the workplace. - Most activities required group work. Very good. - The exercises were entertaining and evident how they applied to concepts. - Well done. I recommend this workshop to others. Here are other comments about RelationShifts by Other Participants: -         A very interesting, educational & motivating experience. Can’t wait to get back to put into practice!! -         A wonderful experience. Absolutely will apply the concepts to my professional & personal life. -         Great tools we can use. -         Exercises were great. Loved the team building. -        What I enjoyed most was discovering the thinking outside the box. -         Extremely helpful. Exercises and examples: great! Great!

Francois Basili, Developer and Facilitator of RelationShifts Mr. Basili is a multi-cultural consultant with more than twenty years of US and international experience as a training/ HRD executive and communication expert. He led a number of major organizational/ cultural transformations in the US and abroad. He developed nationally recognized training programs and culture change initiatives that dramatically improved performance at some of the toughest work cultures in the US and overseas. Basili's innovative and pioneering work in a number of training areas has attracted national attention, with articles and interviews in The Ragan Report, Hospital Magazine, Diversity Inc. magazine, and others. He collaborated with the Bureau of National Affairs in developing their pioneering "Bridges" training program. Basili has developed cutting edge training programs currently used by training professionals at leading American organizations in the fields of communication, creativity, diversity, emotional intelligence, and others. He served as Director of Training and HRD of a $1.2 billion, 12000 employee organization in New York. He delivered workshops to thousands of executives and staff of American, European, Asian, and African organizations.

Save $500 on RelationShifts - For a Limited Time   Celebrating the launching of our RelationShifts workshop - for a limited time we will come to your site to deliver this powerful training experience at $500 off the regular fee of $3500 per session. You will pay only $3000. (Plus a Per-Participant-Fee for workbooks that varies with the number of participants.) Call us to reserve your date before all dates are gone: 1-973-427-3004 Or email us at: info@communicationideas.com

Use With RelationShifts: Online Team Effectiveness TEAM Profile Team Effective Action Map (T.E.A.M. Profile) The purpose of a team is to take necessary action to achieve results. This T.E.A.M. Profile tool provides teams with a profile of their effectiveness in taking action to achieve results. This profile can serve as a map for the team’s development, learning, and change to increase its effectiveness. Taking only a few minutes to answer 30 questions online, the TeamProfile reveals the team’s effectiveness in the six areas that most impact team performance: Mission & Goals Roles & Responsibilities Processes and Procedures Commitment & Enthusiasm Interpersonal Relationships and Communication Learning & Continuous Improvement For Five Users total fee is $69 For 10 Users $119 For 20 Users $220.00

Coming Soon: RelationShifts Team Transformation Certification: An Innovative Program for Trainers, Consultants, and Managers   Do you want to be trained and certified to deliver our powerful RelationShifts training workshop to your internal or external clients in the US or abroad? Watch for details coming soon in our TGIM newsletter. Subscribe below.. Join the Thank God It's Monday mailing list Email: Send Page To a Friend

More Team Building Tools and Programs   More training tools, assessments, and programs are available. Click here to preview them We have a free newsletter your entire team can get to help them build a more collaborative workplace. Join the Thank God It's Monday mailing list Email: Send Page To a Friend