Webcast: Leading With Cultural Intelligence

Our own David Livermore, author of Leading With Cultural Intelligence, will be doing a webcast with our parent the American Management Association next month, so sign up to learn how to develop your cultural intelligence.

Leading With Cultural Intelligence

May 26, 2010

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

FREE

REGISTER HERE

Whether you’re a CEO, manager or solo entrepreneur, a critical skill is being able to effectively navigate cross-cultural relationships and encounters.

Yet if you’re like most of us, you don’t have the time to master all the ins and outs of every culture you come upon.

Cultural intelligence (CQ) is your capability to function effectively across a variety of cultures without becoming an expert in all the norms of the various cultures. In a nutshell, CQ helps you develop an overall repertoire and perspective that results in more effective leadership in multicultural situations.

This webcast introduces some of the seminal research on cultural intelligence and examines specific insights and implications for CQ in business management.

For 60 minutes, you’ll explore the nature and application of CQ, including:

* How CQ applies in a variety of cultural contexts such as national, ethnic, organizational, and generational
* A 4-step process for increasing your personal CQ
* The potential return on investment (ROI) for companies that use CQ
* Strategic use of CQ throughout your organization

Click HERE to join the webcast.

For more information on Leading With Cultural Intelligence click HERE.

David Livermore, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Global Learning Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In addition, he is Senior Consultant and Research Fellow with the Cultural Intelligence Center in East Lansing, Michigan and a visiting research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Livermore has done training and consulting with leaders in 75 countries across the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe. He is the author of Leading with Cultural Intelligence.

Nancy Flynn on Supreme Court to Settle Monitoring vs. Privacy Debate

The following is a guest post by Nancy Flynn author of The e-Policy Handbook, 2nd Edition (AMACOM) and Executive Director of The ePolicy Institute on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing a workplace monitoring case that could prove to be a real game-changer for employer surveillance and employee privacy.

The case involves Ontario, California police sergeant Jeff Quon, who cried foul when monitoring revealed he was using his employer-provided pager to send excessive numbers of sexually explicit texts to his wife and girlfriend, both of whom are department employees. Claiming his personal texts were confidential, Quon, along with his wife, mistress, and another officer, sued the department, the city, and the police department’s paging company.

Quon claimed that his privacy rights were violated because the department’s written policy did not specifically state that text messages were monitored along with e-mail and the Internet. Quon also argued that he was protected by the department’s informal policy of overlooking personal text messages, as long as the user paid for any overage charges.

When Quon and his codefendants filed suit in 2008, the lower court agreed that the department’s informal “no monitoring” policy trumped the formal written monitoring policy. The defendants appealed, and on Monday, April 19, the Supreme Court began hearing the case.

As I discussed last week on Fox & Friends and CNN, the outcome of this case would affect public employers and employees directly, but it’s also likely to have implications for private employers who have long exercised the legal right to monitor employees’ online activity. The federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) states that an organization’s computer system is the property of the employer, and the employer has the legal right to monitor all transmissions and activities on the system. Employees, on the other hand, have absolutely no reasonable expectation of privacy when using a company system.

It appears that the Supreme Court is likely to support the employer’s right to monitor and rule against Quon’s invasion of privacy claim. On Monday, several justices said that the Ontario police department had acted reasonably in light of its written policy that alerted employees to monitoring and warned them that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy when using company equipment. Justice Stephen Breyer said that he didn’t see “anything, quite honestly, unreasonable about that,” according to the Huffington Post.

The best advice for organizations that want to avoid similar invasion of privacy claims:

1. Use written policy to clearly spell out your organization’s rules regarding the use of business and personal tools and accounts. Implement separate policies for every electronic tool: e-mail, IM, Web, text messaging, cell phones, smartphones, pagers, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
2. Address issues including business use, personal use, content, language, netiquette, monitoring, privacy, among others. For help establishing your organization’s written e-policies, refer to my latest book, The e-Policy Handbook, 2nd Edition.
3. Support written policy with mandatory employee training. Require all employees to sign an acknowledgement form, attesting that they have read the organization’s e-policies, understand them, and agree to adhere to them, or accept the consequences, up to and including termination.
4. Enforce written policy with technology tools including monitoring tools and URL blocks.
5. For additional tips and best practices, see my Guidelines for Creating Effective Social Media Policy.

A recognized expert on e-mail and Internet policy, compliance, and communications, Nancy Flynn is founder and executive director of The ePolicy Institute. The ePolicy Institute helps employers limit electronic risks, including litigation, through effective policy, training, and technology. The author of books including The e-Policy Handbook, Instant Messaging Rules, and Blog Rules, Nancy Flynn is an international speaker and seminar leader who also serves as an expert witness in Internet-related litigation. The ePolicy Institute conducts widely reported annual surveys in conjunction with American Management Association. A popular media source, Nancy Flynn has been interviewed by Fortune, Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, Readers’ Digest, USA Today, New York Times, NPR, CBS Early Show, CNBC, CNN, and Fox among others.

Green Your AMACOM Library for Earth Day

This post originally appeared on April 22, 2009.

AMACOM has been publishing books in the environmental field, so today is a great day to highlight some of our eco-friendly titles on the blog!

GREEN YOUR BUSINESS

Investing in a Sustainable World: Why Green is the New Color of Money by Matthew J. Kiernan, Ph.D.

“Matthew Kiernan has successfully scaled the Green Wall that often separates those working in the financial and sustainability domains. His latest book demystifies the concept of sustainable investment and provides a compelling rationale for Wall Street to consider environmental and social criteria, not as afterthoughts but rather as core considerations in our investment decision-making framework.” –Abyd Karmali, Managing Director, Global Head of Carbon Markets, Merrill Lynch

“If you’re a long-term investor, you have to care about sustainability, because it also equates to the ultimate sustainability of corporate earnings. As a Fund that invests across multiple generations, seeking short term gains at the expense of our planet and mankind, will ultimately prove too costly to long-term corporate earnings and therefore reduce our overall return. We at CalSTRS take this book’s messages very much to heart.” –Christopher Ailman, Chief Investment Officer CalSTRS

The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook: When it All Comes Together edited by Jeana Wirtenberg, Ph.D., William G. Russell, David Lipsky, Ph.D.

“this book offers a compilation of excellent, practical resources for developing a sustainable enterprise.” –Choice

“A very user-friendly and practical book on sustainability. It is well written and comprehensive, very clear, and concise in its explanations and applicable examples.” –People & Strategy

Green Tech: How to Plan and Implement Sustainable IT Solutions by Lawrence Webber and Michael Wallace

With today’s electronic systems consuming massive amounts of energy, and improper disposal of old equipment threatening to release dangerous toxicity into the atmosphere, any company whose IT department isn’t actively working to shrink its carbon footprint isn’t just hurting the environment…it is also probably wasting money. Green Tech provides readers with practical, easily implemented strategies for sustainable computing. Filled with realistic, cost-efficient ideas, this book shows that going green isn’t just the right thing to do, but also a good business strategy.

GREEN YOUR HOME

Your Eco-Friendly Home: Buying, Building, and Remodeling Green by Sid Davis

“…easy to understand book for both readers who are interested in making small changes, or who want a completely sustainable home.” –ForeWord

“For anyone with questions about ways to buy, build or remodel a home so that it meets more environmentally friendly standards, this book provides the answers.” –Long Island Newsday

“…addresses practical considerations of how to find and finance eco-friendly real estate as well as use environmentally sound materials and techniques to make homes more efficient.” –Home Maintenance Club

“This guide gives you all the general home building, buying or renovating information you need…but Your Eco-Friendly Home then takes you a step further, explaining how to make your home as green as possible while keeping your budgetary and other individual needs in mind…this no-nonsense book…points to a wealth of resources and green websites to help you towards your eco-friendly journey.” –LowImpactLiving.com, review by Green LA Girl

“I can certainly see myself referring back to the book as a resource and a launch point to help weigh my options. I like this book because when I finished it, I left knowing more than when I started, but also feeling a little more realistic in both my home buying and my green home aspirations.” –Treehugger.com

“Davis’s latest book guides buyers who are searching for eco-friendly real estate down the right path in a market that offers little or no resources…The book is a must-buy for those home buyers or owners wishing to go-green” –Gay Real Estate USA

“Clear, understandable language brings readers up to speed on green real estate concepts that could otherwise be tricky for beginners.” — The Sierra Club’s Green Life Blog

GREEN YOUR MIND

Food Fray: Inside the Controversy over Genetically Modified Food by Lisa Weasel, Ph.D.

2009 Green Book Festival Competition Winner in the Scientific category

“The well-written and well-researched book combines interviews with scientists, activists, farmers, and consumers with scientific insights into this contemporary controversy.” — SciTech Book News

“An intelligent synthesis of solid research, firsthand reporting, and comprehendible analysis that manages to stay objective while critically examining the issues at hand.” –World Future Review

“A riveting and disturbing reality check, Food Fray is a crucial reminder that it’s time to be informed, not passive. Weasel’s is a compelling voice affirming that the desire to know more about GM foods before eating them and to allay concerns about safety and environmental impacts, isn’t at all anti-science. It’s a decidedly pro-human stance.” –The Miami Herald

“Weasel asks and answers important questions about the world’s food supply.” –The Oregonian

“Dr. Weasel masterfully navigates the complicated and multi-faceted history of the storied GM debate, giving equal treatment to the various sides and ultimately entrusting the readers to come to their own conclusions. The end result is required reading for anyone curious about GM technologies, past, present and future.” — Common Ground Magazine

Nuclear Nebraska: The Remarkable Story of the Little County That Couldn’t Be Bought by Susan Cragin

“This inspiring story teaches a wonderful lesson of democracy in action.” –ALA Booklist

Where We Stand: A Surprising Look at the Real State of Our Planet by Seymour Garte, Ph.D.

“Garte’s reasoned discussion[…]a valuable tool for increasing science literacy with regards to the important environmental issues of the day” –Publishers Weekly

“For people who are put off by all the talk of global warming these days, a new book, ‘Where We Stand: A Surprising Look at the Real State of Our Planet’ by Seymour Garte, Ph.D., gives a balanced and in many ways positive view of the state of the planet. Garte, a professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, goes over both the critical issues still facing man, as well as the often-forgotten progress and positive developments. Perusing the book, I find the author’s messages to be more insightful than I would have expected with a level of optimism that’s refreshing.” — Green World Blog, BostonHerald.com

“Where We Stand, is an antidote for an overly pessimistic view of the future of the environment…He presents an authoritative and compelling argument for the role of technology and scientific discovery — an unusual stance in the ecological worldview.” —HealthNet Media

“Dr. Garte does a very good job of spelling out where we’re doing well, how we’ve failed, and what we can continue to do to improve. This book is a testament to the academics and good attitude of Dr. Garte, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. Hopefully, by reading it, everyone can learn something, whatever your personal or political views on the subject. I highly recommend this book!” –MilitantLibertarian.org

Happy Earth Day everyone! Keep making the world a better place to live!

Webinar Reminder: How To Be A Communication Problem Solver

Our American Management Association New Media team will be doing a webinar with Nannette Rundle Carroll, author of The Communication Problem Solver: Simple Tools and Techniques for Busy Managers, next week. She will be sharing how practicing successful communication tactics helps to eliminate misunderstandings.

How To Be A Communication Problem Solver
April 29, 2010
1:00 – 2:30 PM
Price: $149
REGISTER HERE

How you communicate on a daily basis affects your career success.

When you deliberately take the initiative to make every communication cooperative and clear, you can enjoy successful relationships and accomplish more of your goals.

This Webinar explores simple yet powerful techniques that can turn you into a people ‘magnet’ and make others want to work with you. In addition, you’ll see how you can use these tactics to cope with difficult situations and deflect others’ antagonistic comments.

Click HERE to sign up for the webinar.

For more information on The Communication Problem Solver click HERE.

Nannette Rundle Carroll is a popular speaker, management trainer, and communications consultant. She is also a top-rated faculty member with American Management Association. She is the author of The Communication Problem Solver: Simple Tools and Techniques for Busy Managers.

Webinar: Difficult Performance Reviews: How to Turn Painful Conversations into Positive Results

Our American Management Association New Media Team will be doing a webinar with Paul Falcone, author of 2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews, next month. He will be sharing how to have more effective review meetings with your employees.

How To Turn Painful Conversations Into Positive Results
May18, 2010, June 15, 2010, 1:00 – 2:30 PM
Price: $149
REGISTER HERE.

For most managers, the toughest discussions of the year are coming up soon in the form of annual performance reviews.

Naturally, these sessions can lead many to feel uncomfortable.

The way you handle these conversations is even more difficult when you have to deliver feedback in this environment of economic uncertainty.

However when conducted properly, these sessions provide you with a great opportunity to help your employees focus on their goals and boost their morale—while correcting flaws that can hold them back.

This 90-minute interactive Webinar provides tested methods to help you prepare for and conduct these discussions in a way that invites balanced participation, stays true to your message, focuses on performance, gains acceptance and reduces defensiveness.

Click HERE to sign up for the webinar.

For more information on 2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews click HERE.

Paul Falcone is Vice President of Employee Relations at Time Warner Cable in Los Angeles and was formerly Vice President of Human Resources at Nickelodeon. He is the author of 2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews, 101 Sample Write-Ups for Documenting Employee Performance Problems, 101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees, and 96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire. He lives in Valencia, California.