"I have spent many years managing teams and working with teams motivation. A project like this allows a low risk alternative to meshing teams in the forming and storming stages of team development." M.B. HR Specialist - IT Engineer

"This course put interpersonal skills to the test..if you didn't have them before the course, you most assuredly have developed some now." J.M. Defense Contractor - ex-military

"It was a great simulation to make us aware of the business aspects as well as other practical aspects like communication, team dynamics, working in a virtual team of people with diverse background, etc." A,G, Information Technology Specialist

Keeping up with critical technological change.

The rate of change in communications technology, IT and telecom, may be overwhelming. How to keep up with it? How do you make sure that your knowledge workers have adapted to the change and therefore are on the cutting edge of managerial productivity? How do you make sure that - on the other hand - your company is not slipping and losing its edge to the competition?

Change is disruptive. Firms and employees that use these technologies to the maximum extent possible, and as skillfully as possible, have set up and practice extremely important managerial programs:

- Distance Work. (Telework, or telecommuting, work done away from the employer's premisses as well as work done by globally dispersed team members). Telework benefits are a win-win-win proposition. Telework statistics tell us that telework jobs are multiplying fast, moved either to telework centers or to home offices.

- Distance Collaboration, including online collaboration, especially team collaboration or project collaboration with participants using collaboration software and other collaboration tools when they may never meet in person to communicate between each other.

- A concept that ties together the two above-mentioned programs above is the concept of mobility. Many employees are now expected to function from more than one office. They are also expected to function on the road. Mobility of the body should also transfer to mobility and agility of the mind for the knowledge worker but also for the organization as a whole.

How do you successfully implement all these programs and strategies?

Lowering Barriers to Collaboration. Removing threats to your HR ROI!

However, in spite of being supplied with excellent hardware, software and managerial processes and policies, human beings often exhibit Barriers to Collaboration which lowers their effectiveness at teleworking.

The vendors of Collaborative tools prefer not to discuss such barriers. Like the usage of a telephone handset, they claim, their tools do not require any training. To this we would say, "just think of how many skills it takes to use the telephone and make sales call effectively or successful calls to ask for a job interview, etc."

We are all fond of technological solutions. So problems that exist beyond technology get little publicity. Barriers to Collaboration are cultural and behavioral in nature, not technological. Naturally, they can be lowered with mentoring services, one-on-one consulting, etc. But mentors and team-work consultants do not constitute a large advocacy body. Their work is not "scalable" enough; not as scalable as the production and marketing of Collaborative tools. Also their services may not be inexpensive. So the issue of the need for training in online collaboration is oftentimes swept under the rug!

A unique solution

Enters a new solution. Our founder, Dr. Jean-Francois Orsini was teaching an Online Business Simulation course, when he realized that students who were initially very reticent towards teamwork at the beginning of the course slowly came to accept the premisses and - as they turned out successful decisions and made their virtual companies flourish - felt very good about it, got fascinated by the challenge, bonded and committed to full collaboration with one another in order to bring their team to victory - without having ever met face to face.

Thus when you order the course for special teams or whole sections of your workforce, or for yourself you can be assured that all those who take the course will learn to collaborate at a distance because they would have done it during the course.

This training in collaboration skills actually is icing on the cake in the course. The course is primarily designed as a mini-MBA and provides a long list of benefits and learning outcomes. So, the training to lower Barriers to Collaboration comes on top of these benefits and is virtually free. Fortune 500 companies are offering this course, solely as a mini-MBA, to their employees; a course that is the most popular in the world.

It is the IBM of simulation courses and, as they say, nobody got in trouble buying IBM. Especially when you can resolve a vexing problem - like lowering Barriers to Collaboration - for which many HR professionals are still looking for a solution.

But we are very specifically teaching this course to lower Barriers of Communications. We have thoroughly researched these barriers as you can see. We know what it takes to bring these barriers down for each and every knowledge worker. Because our founder has done it again and again, having taught the course about 50 times.

Contact us. We can schedule a session within days. As you order today, you will have taken the steps to meet fast technological changes and, at the same time, resolved the number one problem related to implement these changes. You'd be ahead of the game!

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