Management Information

Managing Group Meetings

MANAGING SMALL MEETINGS: Keep the size of the meeting as small as possible. The larger the group, the more complicated communication becomes and the more garbled the purpose may get.

Making a Decision to Outsource: Driving Factors

Most executives view offshore outsourcing most of all as a source of cost reducing. The greatest savings are expected to come from lower labor cost and reduced project timelines.

What Cross-cultural Training Can Do for You

International business is more complex than ever before. Success in every sector is now seen in global terms.

Get It Done! Soft Skills not Hard Tools are Required

If your organization has people, then interpersonal skills are needed.I work with companies that are on a path they call the lean journey.

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.

Motivation - You Get What You Reward

There's a programme currently running on BBC Television inthe UK called - "Little Angels." It's a series that offershelp and advice to parents who're experiencing behaviourdifficulties with their children.

Finding Common Ground Through Consensus Decision-Making

It's clear to me that a workplace is a better place when employees truly work in teams, but the most familiar team models we have are those that are created to win wars and games. We have a commander or a coach who gives orders, and the soldiers or the players use those instructions to defeat the opponent.

The Importance of Business Goals

For you to get where you want to go, there are four key steps for you to take. They are not difficult, but they are vital.

Oasis in a Cash Flow Desert - Four Resources That Increase Small Business Capital Streams

For small business owners, an enthusiastic vision for smooth, steady growth can become nothing more than a mirage once company cash flow problems begin to heat up. Most will struggle with the timing of payment from clients or customers at some point, all while attempting to pay their own bills in a timely fashion.

The 6 Steps to Six Sigma

Step 1Get the proper level of Six Sigma expertise at the executive level of the company. If the top leaders don't understand the advanced six sigma principles, the company has no shot to attain total quality.

Making Powerful Requests That Launch People Into Action

Do you ever wonder why people do not simply do the things that you want them to do? Well, instead of waiting for things to happen, decide to take responsibility for making them happen. The way to do this is often as simple as making an appropriate request.

Rules for Running a Meeting

As an experienced manager, I can announce without a doubt that the primary reason for lack of effectiveness in the contemporary business world is that people don't follow the rules for running a meeting. Thousands meetings are conducted each day and most of the meeting chairmen have not even heard of the rules for running a meeting.

Hidden Consultants Within Your Organization

You've all heard the old joke about a consultant being someone who uses your watch to tell you the time, and then steals your watch. There's some truth to the story: consultant recommendations are often the same things that your employees or customers have been telling you all along.

I Said Pareto Chart? Not Potato Chart!

Does this sound familiar? You were hired for the new management position. You were tasked to turn the numbers around.

Choices in Appointing International Managers

Globalization is requiring companies to make important choices about how to deploy international managers. The costs of making the wrong choice are heavy both economically and in the emotional and physical toll it can take on employees and the impact it can have on the overseas branch.

Instantly Uncover Your Corporate Culture

Best Definition of "Corporate Culture"If you ask 10 people to define "organizational culture," you will get 11 different answers!Fortunately, from my consulting and writing on leadership and organizational change, I created my definition of organizational culture:"Corporate culture is how every employee knows she or he must act - even if no one is watching."Knowing your company's culture proves crucial for multiple reasons, including:+ Only organizational changes that fit into your company's culture will succeed.

Delegation for Business Leaders - How Letting Go Works

A leader's role is to focus on those areas of operation where he or she can deliver the greatest value and this requires huge shifts in perspective of the role. Leaders differ from managers in terms of accountability.

Reprimanding Marginal Employees

THE MARGINAL PERFORMER: Every manager must, from time to time, deal with a marginal performer - an employee whose work, for the most part, is satisfactory, but who regularly fails in some specific area or areas to maintain a satisfactory level of performance. The work of the marginal performer can be classified as substandard in some cases but not so poor as to warrant immediate termination.

Make Change Easy - Get Involved!

There are wild variances in how much involvement organisations are brave enough to offer their people in change. From those organisations where they just 'tell' (sometimes by text message even!), to the most enlightened extreme, where they enable wholesale contribution to the change process.

Counseling Interviews for the Marginal Employee

ACTIVE LISTENING: The most frequent cause of failure in therapeutic counseling interviews is the interviewer's tendency to talk too much. Numerous studies have shown that in counseling interviews the average manager will talk as much as 85 percent of the time.

The Punitive Approach to Marginal Performers

MANAGING A MARGINAL PERFORMER: Often a marginal performer, even after therapeutic counseling, may not understand that his or her work is seen as substandard. The manager will have to ask the employee directly how the performance could be improved.

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

Today's successful organizations are the ones which carry on open and honest communications with their employees. If employees know and understand the mission, they will help communicate it to customers.

Competencies for HR Professionals in Knowledge-based Industry with Reference to IT, ITES-BPOs

Introduction"High performing HR function affects bottom line nearly 10%"- A surveyCompetencies have become integral part of HR field. In the last 25+ years, the competency approach has emerged from being a specialized and narrow application to being a leading method for diagnosing, framing and improving most aspects of Human Resource Management.

Dealing with Marginal Performers: The Therapeutic Approach

--PREPARATION: The purpose of the therapeutic approach is to spark an employee toward improved performance through counseling. The manager's goal is to help the employee recognize the existence of a problem, accept the need for change, and formulate his or her own program for improvement.

Big Company Intelligence on a Small Company Budget

Information is the lifeblood of the economy. That's especially true for businesses, because the ability to identify current customers and locate new prospects makes the difference between boom and bust.

Assessing Managers for International Competence

How do you select staff for international assignments? It's an important question because, no matter how effective and successful your employees may be at home, they cannot be guaranteed the same performance in a different culture-unless, that is, they can demonstrate some key competencies. But beware, these may be quite different from the competencies they need to succeed in their own environment.

Behavioral Extensions and Its Implications at Workplaces

The study of Behavioral extension involves investigating the source of an actual demonstrated behavioral action. According to Behavioral Extension belief, no action can be seen as a disconnected expression.

Teamwork Training: Learning to Build a Successful Team

Teamwork is a process that can be experienced outdoors and well as in the workplace. A lesson learned in one environment can be applied equally well in another.

Setting Direction Within an Organization

FINDING DIRECTION: An organization can't succeed without direction. Direction means having clear goals and guidelines; set goals and guidelines for staff to follow.

Understanding Every Aspect of Your Organization

GET TO KNOW YOUR ORGANIZATION: If you don't understand an aspect of the organization or a procedure within it, ask. If you still don't understand, ask again.

Juggling Demands in an Organization

JUGGLING DEMANDS: All leaders constantly juggle a multifarious array of demands from those of their organization, employees, and themselves. Good leaders, never drop one demand at the expense of another equally important requirement.

Management Team Section of Business Plans

Writing an award winning business plan is a great skill, but rather than winning any awards you need to get funded. In order to be funded the bank, venture capital firm or even family members need to be sure they will either be paid back or receive their required return on investment.

Industry Analysis Section of Your business plan

Writing a Business Plan for your next entrepreneurial endeavor is crucial. You will need sufficient capital and a guide to keep you on track.

Mantra for Managers

What do organizations look for in a prospective employee with special reference to fresh MBA graduates? The two key assets that an organization looks for is the potential of the individual and ability to pursue his goals in all situations. Every organization expects its team of fresh recruitees to grow into top quality Managers and therefore it is very important to evaluate the potential of the fresh graduate.

What Makes A Good Media Story?

Media relations can be difficult, but also rewarding. And the lessons we learn from working with newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and online publications should increase the effectiveness of all our communication initiatives.

From Boring to Interesting - Making Training Effective

Being a good trainer requires experience and skill. Experience comes from practice and skill from learning the theories, applying them, getting feedback and consciously improving.

Working with Hearing Impaired Employees - Giving Them a Fair Go

Hearing impaired people often encounter difficulty at workbecause their disability isn't visible. I'd like to relateto you, briefly, the sorry saga of a young man who has recently been dragged through a performance managementprocess, essentially brought about by misunderstanding,frustration on his behalf, and failure by an employer tomake a 'reasonable adjustment' [Australian law includes the concept of reasonable adjustment which in effect means that employers are required to make reasonable adjustments necessary to enable employment opportunities for disabled people]in relation to this person's employment.

6 Steps To Effective Management During Change

Take the pain out of gain and decrease the upheaval surrounding change by following six commonsense steps to effective management.Step 1: Establish ObjectivesThe process must begin with a clear and detailed statement of objectives and move from there to goal design.

You Didnt Use Brainstorming to Select Your Measures, Did You?

IntroductionWhen Alex Osborn invented the creativity technique called brainstorming, I wonder if he had any idea just how extensively business would apply it. Almost every meeting employs some kind of brainstorming event, but there's one meeting that really should leave it off the agenda: the performance measure selection meeting.

Communicating CEOs

I see a PR firm has done a survey on the amount of time Canadian CEOs spend on communication, and found they spend almost half of their time on communication.I think we're supposed to be impressed that CEOs spend that much time on communication.

Delegation - The Basic Steps To Reducing Your Workload And Creating A Successful Team

If you have a task greater than you can handle on your own, then you need to delegate. Not a choice many of us choose to make, but one we can all learn.

Using the Six-Sigma Methodology to Improve Wafer Fab Productivity

As a result of consolidation of operations and significantly increased production requirements, Intersil's main Fab was facing bottlenecks in supply versus demand. Intersil enlisted Tefen USA first to support identifying the Fab bottleneck, and then to develop a comprehensive roadmap for capacity and cycle time improvements.

Taking on Six Sigma Programs - Guidelines for In-House and Outsourcing Decisions

Based on a wild guess by a close associate of mine, there are well over 2,000 restaurants in the Manhattan area and its surrounding boroughs. Although I cannot validate the absolute accuracy of his count, I do trust it is in the ballpark, since he happens to be one of those guys who seem to know everything about everything in life (and more).

Collections Management

How long does it take your customers, clients or patients to pay you for the products or services you have provided?Have you developed a consistent collection management program?Your answer to the above questions is a leading indicator as to how well you collection management is. Sending an invoice doesn't always result in payment.

Inventory Management 101

Inventory management may seem complicated to some, but if one truly thinks about what the words "inventory management" mean, it is a simple concept. Inventory is basically a list of goods and materials that are held by a business and are available in stock.

Lean Principles in Action

AbstractThe electrical products industry is one characterized by fierce competition, declining margins, and legislative regulations, all that have forced the majority of electrical product manufacturers to rethink their business models. This article describes a successful story from a leading electrical products manufacturer and its journey towards lean, which to date, has saved the company over $65 Million in hard -dollar savings.

Attract and Retain Positively Great Employees - An Action Plan for Employee Training

Everyday a business owner, CEO, or manager somewhere is complaining about the lack of good employees. On the same day, in a break room, employees are complaining about the lack of good jobs.

Sharing the Reins: 10 Reasons To Sell Your Company To Your Employees

In 1987 I sold my business, South Mountain Company, to my employees (and myself). My sole proprietorship became an employee-owned cooperative corporation.

The Top 10 Things They Don't Teach You In Business School

Here are 10 subjects that academia should be teaching their students in business school:1. Generate revenue for your companyWhat academia doesn't teach you is that the real purpose organizations hire you is to generate revenue.

Quick Tips On Bringing Out The Best In People

Want to bring out the best in people?Edward W. Smith, motivational speaker, author and TV show host, who specializes in quick tips on how to move your life ahead even faster, offers the following advice.

3 Reasons Why CRM Strategies Fail

Customer relationship management (CRM) is one of the most effective tools for improving customer relationships and therefore increasing revenue, customer satisfaction, and customer retention. Unfortunately, some CRM strategies fail.

Is Chess Good for Management?

The game of chess has been applauded and taught in business school as a game that gingers creative intelligence.Chess is a game involving kings, queens, bishops, knights, castles, and pawns like a real life.

Characteristics/Attributes of a Lean Operation

Fundamentals in Place? There is a designated place for everything and everything is in its place. No time is wasted while looking for things.

Never Punish Yourself or Others for Failures

If you want to find success in various ramifications, be it in business or personal relationship, don't punish yourself or others for mistakes, or blunders, or failures, instead encourage yourself.Kim Woo-Choong, founder and chairman of Daewoo, said, "One of my employee went to a casino and lost $10, 000 of the company's money which would certainly get him fired by a normal manager.

How to Approach Group Decision Making

GROUP DECISION MAKING -- IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM: Tell specifically what the problem is and how you experience it. Cite specific examples.

Problems with Group Decision Making

DECISION BY AUTHORITY RULE: Many groups start out with-or quickly set up a power structure that makes it clear that the chairman (or someone else in authority) will make the ultimate decision. The group can generate ideas and hold free discussion, but at any time the chairman can say that, having heard the discussion, he or she has decided upon a given plan.

The New Economy

This technological revolution has organization, efficiency and productivity requirements well above what was needed in the past. And although all three of these have always been important, they are now considered crucial in the growth and maintenance of businesses worldwide.