| |
| |
|
Management Information |
|
Change or Die! To Change Your Organization, Hire a Business Coach
It is a common business axiom - change or die. As a small or mid-sized business owner or a manager, there will be times you will need to make changes in your organization but may not be sure how to go about it. Change is hard to implement and even harder to sustain. Think about all of the people who have trouble sticking to a diet or quitting smoking or keeping up with an exercise program, let alone just starting. If changing yourself is hard, how can you change an entire business, organization, process or department? As a Certified Business Coach, one of the biggest challenges my clients face is this issue of change. Did you know there are eight reasons why organizations fail to change from a lack of urgency to underestimating the power of vision to failing to create short-term wins? The eight reasons are: Take the third reason, for example, underestimating the power of vision. A clear vision helps direct, align and inspire actions on the part of large numbers of people. Lack of vision, on the other hand, leads to lots of debate and confusion. Think about the organizations you have worked for or know. When everyone understands the vision, work gets done, employees are energized, and processes get put into place. Without a guiding vision, employees lose passion, urgency and focus. And, it is just as critical to communicate your vision - reason number four - instead of keeping it in your head. Communicate your vision to your employees, vendors and clients - often. How can a business leader do it all - create and communicate a vision, get the work done and make a profit? Business coaches help business leaders step back and create the processes necessary to communicate and sustain their vision for their organizations by focusing on sales, marketing, systems and team building. One strategy I use is to facilitate a team alignment day. I often start out with a number of traditional and non-traditional teambuilding exercises. Then, I introduce a game called "Leverage: The Game of Business," in which employees learn the five key areas to impacting the bottom line. By playing the game, each employee learns how he or she plays a pivotal role in making the business work and impacting its cash flow. By the end of the day, the team is aligned with the business owner's goals as well as the team and the business manager being aligned as people. When everyone is on the same page, change can take place and things happen more efficiently and effectively. A recent article in Fortune Magazine, entitled, Executive Coaching - With Returns a CFO Could Love, stated, "Asked for a conservative estimate of the monetary payoff from the coaching they got, these managers described an average return of more than $100,000 or about six times what the coaching had cost their companies." My goal as a business coach is to help business owners step back and think about new and innovative ways to achieve profitability and business growth ? and to do it in a way that provides a good return on investment of a business manager's time and money. The ability to change, while remaining focused, is an integral part of this philosophy. About The Author David S. Levine, B.S., Certified Action International Business Coach, holds both a BS and MBA, and is a seasoned executive with more than 25 years of business experience in the retail, high-tech, business-to-consumer and business-to-business arenas. His extensive experience in marketing and sales, finance, process analysis and systemization uniquely positions him to mentor business owners looking to become more successful. David is also an adjunct professor at Rutgers University. David's next free Success Business Seminar, entitled "How to Impact Your Bottom Line," hosted by Wachovia Bank, will be held January 27, 2004 in North Brunswick, New Jersey at 6:00 PM. To register and for more information, go to www.ABIcoaching.com or call 732-828-4300. DavidLevine@action-international.com
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Team Motivation - Tough Enough to Care Sir Alex Ferguson has just celebrated his 1000 game incharge of Manchester United, probably the world's mostsuccessful soccer team.I have a great deal of respect for Sir Alex as a manmanager. 5 Steps to Identify Core Processes Part Two of Creating Well-Defined Processes SeriesNext Week: ImplementationLast week, we raised the question: how do you know where to begin? How can you identify a gap in one of your company's core processes?The answer: follow the money trail?But how do you follow the money trail, and what will that mean for your business? To answer this, let's look at five steps to identify your core processes and any needs for change.Step 1: Define Your Business ModelThe following question might sound very basic, but you should first ask yourself: what business am I in? You'll ask this because you want to follow the money trail: to identify how exactly you earn revenue and from where that revenue comes. Growing Profits is Easy! Everyone involved in running a business from the smallest start-up to a major corporate dreams about how to achieve sustained profitable growth. I'm a great believer that business is simple - it's only us human beings that make it complex. Introducing the 15 Frameworks of Successful Self-Employed Professionals A framework is a way of thinking, a point-of-view, a perspective on something. Here are the 15 frameworks of the successfully self-employed professional. Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Creating a Culture of Empowerment This article relates to the Culture & Climate competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. AlphaMeasure defines climate as the effect an organization has on the employees, while culture refers more to the acceptable behaviors, attitudes, and habits of the organization as a whole. Creativity and Innovation Management - Feasibility Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. What is Six Sigma? Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process focused on satisfying customers by delivering nearly perfect products and services. In today's competitive market, consistently maintaining satisfied customers is essential to growth and success. Innovation Management - Six Crucial Steps Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. Weaknesses of Wishing When you're starting a business, you might wish for a lot of things, like having more than enough customers or not having to do marketing. But wishing is weak willed, having no momentum behind it. Do You Need a Personal Assistant? It's great to be multi-skilled?be able to type your own correspondence, do your bookkeeping, answer all phone calls, prepare your PowerPoint presentations, organise your own travel, seminars, pick up and send your mail, pack orders, do your own marketing, do all the photocopying, ring your clients and prospects. However it may not leave you with enough time to focus on what really matters. Innovation Management - idea selection, development and commercialisation, what are the differences? Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Give Yourself a Boss Day Gift, Part 2: Are You the Position or the Person? Are you the position or the person?Bosses can lose their own identity sometimes. It's easy. Organizational Techniques - Tickler and Chron File One of the biggest problems we encounter in our consulting with businesses, and our students is time management and organizational techniques. This article will concentrate on some good organizational strategies. Using Outlook to Count Responses Here's a productivity tip that will save you a lot of time and trouble if you need to collate responses from staff for any reason, especially if you work for an organisation with a lot of staff.Case Study: I worked for a financial institution with 3,000 plus employees and had to identify how many employees needed compulsory training in certain legislation so that we could plan and resource the training. Proven Secrets to Keeping Your People and Increasing Your Profits Why are people changing jobs so quickly these days?Here are a few reasons why:They have a boring job therefore they feel they are not achieving anything.They have no leader to follow. Hows Your HUB? Marketing gurus are always coming up with new lingo but oftentimes they are restating the old tried and true concepts in new terms. Marketing students from the 70's and 80's will be familiar with the acronym USP. 3 Innovation Keys - Do Your Innovative Efforts Need More Power? Recently, I attended a webinar with nearly 400 other Chief Learning Officers - during one polling period, we were asked what primary driving force pushes organization-wide or individual innovation - the majority agreed that leadership is that force.Indeed, those CLOs agreed innovation was the most important quality their organizations desire in teams, individuals and leaders. Provisioning/User Management System Upgrades: Part I -- Ten Reasons Why Not To Do An Upgrade Tommy Sherman daily monitors a helpdesk-provisioning queue for a large company. The current provisioning/user management system was written with homegrown software. The Inferno of the Finance Director Sometimes, I harbour a suspicion that Dante was a Financial Director. His famous work, "The Inferno", is such an accurate description of the job that it cannot be otherwise. Innovation Management: The Power of Emotional Attachment Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation.
|
| home | site map | contact us |