The New Class of 'World Class'...

The World Class Assistant™ specializes in high-end, high-results training strategically developed for career-minded professionals who want to highlight their excellence!

This proven program, highly rated by WCA graduates and attendees, has been newly re-invigorated into a virtual powerhouse of learning!

Joan Burge, Founder and CEO of Office Dynamics, Ltd., presents a dynamic, intense workshop where you will gain the powerful insider’s knowledge of skills, attitudes and strategies necessary for success in today's business environment. Success is attained by those who strategically position themselves as World Class Assistants...and YOU can be one of them!

As a past corporate employee in the administrative profession for 20 years and business owner and CEO since 1990 specializing in professional development for success-minded assistants, Joan knows exactly what it takes to excel in the field. She will share with you her secrets to success and challenge you to become the best you can be in your profession.

The World Class Assistant^TM is a learning experience like no other!

You’ll achieve the highest training results if:

• You have already accomplished and achieved much in your career but know there is more you can contribute and more areas in which you can grow.
• You want a breakthrough experience.
• You are ready to move to the next level.
• You synergize with other high-achieving administrative professionals.
• You want to learn from one of the best of the best - someone who sat in your position for 20 years and knows precisely what it takes to be taken seriously in the profession.
• You aren’t a career spectator…you’re willing to put in the work to make exciting things happen for yourself!

Who should attend? Seasoned executive assistants and other high-caliber, high-profile assistants looking to expand their career.

Isn’t it time you experienced

the highest quality in training?

Go World Class!

VIP Experience

This exclusive, personalized program is limited to just 20 high-achieving assistants so you can receive the personalized, detailed and specific attention and support you need to move forward quickly.

World Class Assistant ™ is a unique, comprehensive program. You’ll eagerly participate in insight-generating activities with new, innovative materials, coupled with practical proven techniques. Your experience will begin with pre-workshop assignments to prepare you for the WCA intensive program, which is presented in 2 parts. NOTE: Attending Part 2 is optional.

• WCA Level 1 is 2.5 days
• WCA Level 2 is 2.5 days

The workshop is highly interactive, synergistic and fun. It will utilize your intelligence, creativity and work experience. Joan uses interactive techniques to motivate adult learners to listen, participate and try new behaviors with ease.

Through a series of assessments, individual and group exercises, discussions and dynamic teaching segments, you will assimilate key learning points. Each session includes application opportunities so you can take the learning and apply it to real situations.

Following your workshop experience, you’ll remain motivated, connected and focused, applying what you learned and staying on course through a 30-day personalized email follow-up with Joan Burge.

This program is unique—designed for high-achieving administrative office professionals—melding professional development with a small, select participant group delivered in a world-class setting, with monthly follow up, led by one of America’s premier professional development leaders for administrative professionals!

Are you ready to experience the prestige?
Go World Class!

World Class Assistant^TM Part 1 Curriculum Overview

As an Executive Assistant for any length of time knows, business trends and economic “weather patterns” require EAs to be catalysts of synergized power, emotionally intelligent and nimble users of a “know no limits” work style.

There are many capable Assistants. But what makes one “World Class”? World Class Assistants are those who work fearlessly using a broad array of resources, talent and expertise, coupled with an unparalleled passion for excellence and the desire to continually improve while removing any limits in “how far” they can go.

The World Class Assistant™ Workshop will advance your fearlessness, enable your ability to aim high, reach far and accomplish much. You will discover there is NO limit to what you can do and how far you can go! NOTE: Attending Part 2 is optional.

I. PARTNER STRATEGICALLY FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

You’ve heard it a hundred times: You don’t work "for" someone. You work "with" someone. That is the way it should be. Do you truly believe you and your leader are business partners? Are you included in the decision making process? Do you attend your leader’s staff meetings as more than a note taker? Does your leader take your input seriously and empower your contribution toward your common success? While you have attended programs on how to become more valuable to your manager, this session focuses on how to partner strategically for business success.

In this session of the program, you will learn to:

• Identify and contrast strategic partnerships and teamwork.
• Know your department’s pulse and confidently assess next steps.
• Be more involved in decision making.
• Align your professional goals with company and departmental goals.
• Engage more of the scope of your leader's work.
• Maintain information flow to your business partner.

II. LEVERAGE COMMUNICATION FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

You know that establishing rapport is critical to successful business relationships. While everyone retains competency on leading edge information technology tools, too many ignore interpersonal communication skills altogether. Unlike a document software package which is appropriate for preparing a letter, memo or technical report, communication must be leveraged strategically as no single method works in all situations! You must understand the impact and array of options available and when each is appropriate. You must know how to find common ground when encountering broad diversity and how to embrace the significance of multi-generational workers, style differences and leverage persuasive input using tact and diplomacy; you must know how to “read” style preferences and tactfully voice your opinions so that you are heard.

In this session of the program, you will learn to:

• Select the appropriate medium for maximum impact and build common ground to strengthen work relationships.
• Bridge the multi-generations through understanding generational differences.
• Diplomacy, confidence and tact: how to be Heard with a capital “H”.
• Persuasive communications: when and how?
• Avoiding intimidation: express viewpoints so that others are open to them.
• Tap into preferred communication styles to build rapport.

III. “I THINK, THEREFORE I AM” FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

Do secretaries actually think differently than Administrative Assistants? Yes! Even progressive Administrative Assistants and Executive Assistants still embrace perceptions and paradigms about their role that hold them back from being seen as career-minded Administrative Professionals. While the Administrative Professional’s role is viewed more positively by management there are still obstacles to overcoming damaging stereotypes. Do paradigms provide rules, regulations and parameters? Yes! But when do they become roadblocks to success? What tools can you use to determine if you are holding on, holding back and how do you know when to let go?

In this session of the program, you will learn to:

• Tear down stereotypical attitudes or perceptions that prevent you being taken seriously...even when they’re your own!
• Set appropriate boundaries without offending others.
• Gauge your effectiveness in the workplace.
• Identify administrative paradigms and which ones enhance your success.
• How to retool your mind set about how your job and organization should operate.
• Realize certain beliefs are so deeply rooted they become barriers to exploring new ideas and opportunities.

IV. BE TOMORROW-FOCUSED FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

It is so easy to be focused on the daily “to do” activities. One fiscal cycle slides into another….suddenly the future has quickly become today! To truly become a World Class Assistant you must learn to anticipate the future TODAY. What is coming up on your leader’s calendar? What new projects will need to be implemented to keep your organization competitive? How do you become more valuable to your executive by planning the next step and the three steps that follow?

In this session of the program, you will learn to:

• Develop front-brain thinking; be a visionary thinker.
• Seek opportunities and propose solutions.
• Identify and perfect approaches that guarantee future success.
• Ask the right questions to help you forecast future events, projects, and tasks.
• Project yourself--and your career--forward.
• Proactively road mapping

V. PROFESSIONAL TRADEMARK FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

You constantly reflect your organization and yourself. You are a calling card. How do you want to be perceived? Is it different than how you are perceived? What do you project through your appearance? Professionalism isn’t a particular business “uniform” nor is it just savvy technical skills! World Class Assistants are poised, polished, and professional. Each day they cognitively choose to present a signature trademark: who they are, what they represent and how they view their own contribution to the organization. Every moment of each day, the World Class Assistant acts, thinks and believes, “I’m here for excellence. I care about our joint success and through my work I will achieve my professional best.”

In this session of the program, you will learn to:

• Wield the power of a professional image.
• Define how to sell yourself with Personal Packaging.
• Refine your overall professional image as a leader: appearance, correspondence and interpersonal relationships.
• Learn which visual distractions hold enormous negative power.
• Explore how to create a signature trademark that connotes sound judgment and high quality service.
• Expanding your inner character strengths and values for stellar performance.

World Class Assistant^TM Part 1 Agenda

Day 1/Wednesday

World Class Assistant^TM Part 2 Curriculum Overview

I.  SUCCESS IS 90% ATTITUDE

Many people carefully select their clothing to project a successful image…yet what happens to that image when “oops, their attitude slip” shows!  Did you know that attitudes are a choice?  Do you know we can choose to respond [not react!] to what happens around us? It is not unavoidable or uncontrollable based on what someone does or says to you! What happens to you at work is not nearly as important as the attitude you choose to embrace in response.  While many people think they have to react negatively to a certain person or situation, it is totally within one’s choice and control.  In this segment you’ll discover the critical impact attitudes have on your success in developing work relationships, producing quality work, building strategic relationships, overcoming obstacles and creating even better ways to do old things.

• Explore the delicacy of attitudes – and why projecting a positive attitude is the best way to remain successful.
• Discover the difference between reacting and responding.
• Analyze the common scenarios that influence workplace attitudes.
• Examine how “outside,” negative influences affect you and your work.
• Reinforce the cognitive choice of attitude.
• Successfully overcome obstacles to making better choices.

II.  ENGAGEMENT

There is a proven correlation between how engaged you are in the office and the greater value your career will add to your personal life. “Engaged” means how genuinely you care about some aspect of your work.  You’ll find the truth of that statement in the people you admire most.  Almost without exception, highly successful Administrative Professionals are “present” in a way many others are not.  They choose to actively participate in their lives, rather than sitting on the sidelines hoping that someday, someway, they’ll stumble onto Success with a capital “S.” So what do YOU bring to the table? 

• Discover how to create a work culture of engagement.
• Learn the active participation steps to bring greater satisfaction to your life.
• Identify the payoffs for setting goals and being engaged at work.
• Tackle problems, processes and issues that hamper your effectiveness.
• Analyze your current career-cognition and determine career-care enhancements.

III.  CREATING A CAREER PORTFOLIO

Many people think a career-focused “performance brief” as something they either once did to obtain their current position or as an annual “ho-hum” requirement. The Career Portfolio is NOT about job hunting.  It is a Professional Journal created to detail how “You, Inc.” has capably and measurably demonstrated professional contributions to your organization and leader’s overall successes. The Portfolio captures current-and-building skill levels, recognition, career enhancements, development activities and accomplishments.  It’s what a cognitive business professional brings to the table to articulate, “Game on!”

In this energized learning segment with plenty of hands-on time you will give yourself AND your company one of the highest assets possible: a comprehensive professional Career Portfolio! Learn how to demonstrate your accomplishments and leadership with a Portfolio highlighting your successes, and what value a Career Portfolio can add in performance reviews or interviews for promotions within your company. Capably demonstrate “stretch” skills, innovations, creativity and what you are capable of doing!  (Registered attendees will receive pre-workshop assignment instructions to prepare them for this segment.)

• Learn how to establish your worth in the workplace.
• Discover new ways to promote your valuable skills and build alliances.
• Find out where and when to use a Career Portfolio.
• Brainstorm specific ways to build your own Career Portfolio in a hands-on exercise designed to spur creativity.
• Show your leader your proactive and creative capabilities!
• Address the emerging necessity of required social networking skills.

IV.  EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Daniel Goleman, author of Working with Emotional Intelligence says, “Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection and influence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant.  They do matter, but mainly as threshold capabilities.”  A World Class Assistant needs to know when and how to use emotional intelligence while managing day-to-day situations.

• Learn the Four Dimensions of EI: Self-awareness, Self-management, Social awareness, and Social skill.
• Apply this knowledge in fun, dynamic and energetic Case Studies featuring Administrative Professionals.
• Recognize how feelings affect performance.
• Step forward with leadership skills, as needed within the situation.

V.  ADVANCED CONFLICT RESOLUTION SKILLS

A World Class Assistant employs outstanding conflict resolution skills.  While we tend to think of conflict as a full-blown disagreement, isn’t it funny how it most often occurs with anyone anytime and anywhere, at the heart of our busy day!  Any difference of opinion or perception can be considered a conflict because we have dissimilar views.  This session will take you beyond the typical “create win-win situations” advice and provide the newest information and strategies for coming clean, staying engaged and on task while creating success wherever your business takes you.

• The myth about letting sleeping dogs lay: discuss the negative “domino effect” of unresolved conflicts.
• The truth about winning starts with beginnings: mapping the benefits of creating win-win situations.
• Learn the 9 strategies to successfully manage conflict.
• The winning mind set: change your view of conflict from “me against you” to “me and you against the problem.”

VI.  LEADERSHIP ATTRIBUTES

• Leverage administrative talent in your organization.
• Recognize and cultivate what your Power of One can accomplish.
• Lead peers by creating an environment of community and unity.
• Promote teamwork by tapping into administrative peers’ talents.
• Welcome input and respect other’s ideas.
• Trust, Power & Leadership: how do they coexist? 

VII.  360 DEGREE AWARENESS

Professionalism is a 360-degree awareness of the impact that your behavior, words and actions have on the people you support, as well as your overall effectiveness.  Professionalism is accepting responsibility for your actions because it affects how others view your employer, your immediate supervisor and, ultimately, your performance. It’s about ownership and integrity.

• Examine how you “fit” into the Big Picture.
• Look at the impact you have on your employers’ and colleagues’ success each and every day.
• Put your World Class Mastery into action by discussing the 360-degree ramifications in various business scenarios.
• Create action plans to address items for future change.
• Eliminating unnecessary focus and enhancing 360-degree awareness. 

VIII.  THE DNA OF A STAR ASSISTANT™

What are the qualities, attributes, attitudes, and behaviors that combine to create the DNA of star assistants?  Why do certain assistants stand out, shining brighter than others do?  Can star assistants be created or do they have innate abilities that make them star assistants?  After working with and studying administrative professionals for 38+ years, Joan Burge sheds light on this topic and helps you explore your DNA.  Joan will share her secrets and research of many years’ expertise to illuminate both the DNA of a star assistant and what you can do to generate more star-power shine!  This topic will stimulate your thinking and energize your spirit. (Pre-class assignment.)

IX.   WCA CHALLENGE™

The “110% Leader” WCA Challenge is a great opportunity in the making for World-Class Assistants! After attending all segments of WCA 1 and 2, and completing all pre-workshop assignments, one task remains in order to receive your CWCA designation: Participate in the World Class final activity designed to demonstrate your growth and learning accomplishments!

This fun, final group activity will engage you and your peers dynamically while providing ample opportunities to hone your learning and finesse your development in style! You won’t want to miss this rewarding final drive to excellence!

(Open only to WCA Part 1 Graduates)

WCA Part 2 Agenda

Day 1/Wednesday

World Class Setting

The beautiful, intimate setting of Red Rock Country Club, located west of Las Vegas near the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, is quiet and serene, far away from the activity of the Strip. Access to McCarran Airport is easy and convenient. 

“The Country Club made us feel special and the atmosphere is relaxing. It also helped keep us focused.”

Cheryl Meyer, Xilinx, Inc.

Where else could you attend a seminar and do small group activities outside by a fireplace or overlook beautiful mountains and palm trees?

World Class Materials

The World Class Assistant™ comprehensive workshop materials personally developed by Joan Burge are based on her 38+ years of research and experience with administrative professionals. Following the class you’ll refer to these valuable materials again and again as desk reference must-haves.

Real World Communication Strategies That Work. A power-packed collection of insights and strategies from professionals who infuse a difference into American business daily! Featuring Joan Burge and eleven other dynamic elite experts! Imagine sitting down in a roundtable forum with 12 successful men and women and being able to glean from them the communication principles that propelled them in life to unparalleled success! These dynamic leaders provide proven techniques on topics such as: assertive communication, presentation skills, communicating tactfully, listening skills and communication styles.

You will walk away with a clear, concise Development Plan. Joan will use this for your personalized 30-day follow-up. Your Development Plan will be unique to your career and your work. It will provide useful guidance and workable solutions to your specific needs! This Development Plan will become strategic to your future success!

Show Everyone You Mean Business:

 Become a World Class Assistant™.

Joan Burge Founder and CEO

Joan Burge, a renowned author and administrative expert, has been a visionary for administrative training and development since 1990. One of the first to venture into the administrative training industry, she has become an international administrative expert, trainer, author, and consultant. Joan’s never-ending quest for providing top-notch educational programs has earned the respect of premier clients like Boeing, Cisco, Chevron, Humana, National Security Agency, Nationwide Insurance, Nokia, Procter & Gamble, Rockwell Collins, Steelcase, and Sunoco.

Certification & Continuing Education Units (CEUs)

Not only will you experience VIP training in a luxury country club environment with personalized attention in our elite small-workshop setting, you will also receive continuing education units for each World Class Assistant™ Workshop:

• Completion of WCA I: Certificate of Completion and 1.5 CEUs
• Completion of WCA II: Certificate of Completion and 1.5 CEUs

Through the Continuing Education Unit (CEU) system, you receive formal recognition for improving your administrative management skills by completing Office Dynamics seminars.

When you earn CEU’s, you receive immediate recognition for your career development efforts.

Graduates of World Class Assistant™ Parts 1 and 2, earn a Master Certificate of Completion and the opportunity to achieve a curriculum-based designation, CWCA.

The Master Certificate of Completion demonstrates to your employer, HR department, colleagues and business associates at every level that you are the “new class of world class”…and your accomplishments and professionalism are above par in every respect.

The CWCA designation may be achieved by:

• Attending both workshop sessions,
• Completing the pre-workshop assignments,
• Demonstrating skill in class,
• Completing a Development Plan, and
• Participating in a World Class final activity designed to demonstrate learning accomplishments

– Highlight Your Excellence –
Achieve World Class Assistant™ designation in 2010!
 

World Class Assistant Part 1

Dates for the 2010 World Class Assistant programs are now available. Register early and save!

• March 10 - 12, 2010
• May 5 - 7, 2010
• October 27 - 29, 2010

Register Online

World Class Assistant Part 2 (only previous Part 1 graduates are able to attend)

• July 21 - 23, 2010
• November 3 - 5, 2010

Register Online for World Class Assistant Part 2.

REGISTRATION FORM

Print out the Registration Form and mail to:
Office Dynamics
2766 Evening Rock Street, Las Vegas, NV 89135
Or Fax to: (702) 360-5356