Management Information
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.
Tales From the Corporate Frontlines: Team Dynamics and Communication
This article relates to the Team Dynamics competency, which evaluates interpersonal communication, cooperation, and productivity between members of a single team, group, or department within your organization. In today's marketplace, in order for organizations to operate efficiently, it is essential that they understand how to create and utilize effective work teams at all levels of the organization.
Group Discussion Guidelines
DISCUSSION METHODS: There are two basic types of discussion methods; the conference method and the workshop method. The conference method involves meetings of staff members, usually from the same organization, and is convened to pass on information, communicate management policies or decisions, or to solve organizational problems.
Employee Motivation - Access Their Unique Talents
Your people are invaluable to you. They are the lifeblood of your business or organisation.
Got A Meeting Planned? Ask This Question
Meetings - they are a fact of our business lives. And while the number of meetings and the amount of time you spend in them may vary based on your job title, it is hard to argue that they are a significant part of business life today.
You Cant Not Communicate
Most of us would like to be better communicators. As leaders, co-workers, team members and in all of the other roles we play both professionally and personally, we know that communication is a major key to success.
Safety Policy Sample Outline
Writing a safety manual is a tough job and most larger corporations outsource such jobs or they have someone on staff with the proper credentials in risk management. Imagine writing the safety manuals for NASA? I had the opportunity to be in the unique position of being able to imagine just such a thing when writing our company safety manuals.
Drafting an Employee Manual Sample Outline
One of the hardest things I had discovered running my company was drafting an Employee Manual. Also added to the stress was the fact that if you made a mistake someone could sue you and you might lose all your hard work and money that you had earned thru blood, sweat and tears as an entrepreneur.
Passion for Profits
Business owners and managers are busier than ever. As their businesses grow and become more complex, they find that they don't have the time to be all things to all people.
Business Relationship Germs
In management seminars I often compare debt to an infection. A reasonable amount of debt will not kill a business, but too much debt will.
You Get the Behavior You Reward
On consulting assignments, here are some of the questions I frequently ask the employees I interview:1. How does your boss measure you?2.
Management Apathy
I recently received a most interesting phone call.When I answered the phone, I immediately recognized the name of the company as one of the most visible distributors in our construction supply industry.
CEOs Role in Family Business
I first met Roland (not his real name) in 1972. He was a high school student working a summer job in his father's business.
Influencing the Organisation
There is a saying about management that suggests some managers are so focussed on the details of a business, that when the Titanic was sinking those particular managers were still straightening chairs in the dining room. Whether we love 'em or hate 'em, managers are here to stay, and their job is fundamentally to manage the resources within an organisation for optimum efficiency and effectiveness, and by doing so to achieve the organisation's goals.
Saying One Thing, Doing Another...
This week I was asked to speak at an internal conference for a bank. The subject was how to build a great customer experience.
Five Steps to Successful Business Succession
The great majority of family businesses in North America are still owned and operated by descendants of the founder. The business acumen that these first, second, third, and sometimes fourth generation managers possess largely determines how much longer the business will remain under family control.
Dont Take New Hires for Granted
Hiring good people is only half the battle. The other half is keeping them, especially in a relatively strong economy where quality people are difficult to attract.
How to Reduce Temporary Employee Turnover
The use of temporary services to stock a farm of employees is beneficial in a number of ways for an employer, and detrimental in others; but the one that will always be heard is that good labor is hard to find when using these services.This is a very real and expensive reality for some, and the blame always falls on the employee.
Transparency: A Key To Your Effectiveness
Last month I talked about the Skilled Facilitator principle of being curious. This month I want to talk about the complementary principle transparency.
Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Improving Workplace Safety
This article relates to the Safety and Working Environment competency and explores how your employees feel with regard to their physical and environmental working conditions, the quality of their equipment and tools, and overall attention to safety within the workplace. Every organization is responsible for ensuring the health and safety of their employees.
I Cant Use This Approach Unless My Boss Does - Power, Accountability, and Consequences
People who work with us often struggle with this dilemma: in theory, they come to believe that it would be very helpful to use our approach with people who have more power than they do, and in practice, sometimes it seems too risky to try. Some examples of things that feel too risky include raising questions with your boss about his or her performance, disagreeing publicly with people who have more power , or otherwise sharing information that might lead you or the person in power to feel put on the sp ot.
When Being A Facilitator DOESNT Help
I talked with a group of internal consultants last week - they felt they had to wear too many hats in their work. They had to be consultants, facilitators, coaches and trainers - sometimes in the same one-hour session.
My Companys Leadership Sucks!
Maybe it's the season or just a more buoyant job market; but lately I'm sure involved in a lot more discussions about leadership.I'm receiving more requests for help defining the key characteristics which make a great leader; and I'm hearing a lot of negative stuff from clients about their bosses.
Muggers in Our Midst - When Rumour and Gossip Pay You a Visit
'I heard it on the grapevine' the old song goes. But the grapevine has the potential to cause your business strife, misunderstanding and ruin! In effect the rumour mill and gossip are dangers you cannot ford to ignore.
Human Resources: The Misidentified Subject
Interest in the field of human resources has exploded in recent years due to the promises it offers for a better understanding of human beings at work. The term is now as ubiquitous as it has once been obscure.
How to Overcome Your Fear of Firing
OVERCOMING FEAR OF FIRING "It was obvious that this employee could not relate well to clients. But I could not bring myself to fire him.
How to Delegate Effectively
ACCOUNTABILITY: Delegation is not complete unless subordinates are held accountable for their work. They should be accountable to only one person-usually their immediate manager-and must understand what criteria will be used in judging their performance.
Delegate Tasks to the Right Person
SELECTING THE RIGHT PERSON: To whom should tasks be delegated? Selecting the right subordinate to do the work is an evaluative process, and managers must be able to identify individuals both capable and willing to handle responsibility.DETERMINING EMPLOYEE RESPONSIBILITY: A careful review should be made of past assumptions about personnel.
Deciding What to Delegate
DECIDING WHAT TO DELEGATE: Once the benefits of delegation are established and obstacles removed, the next step in the delegation process is to decide what work can and should be delegated. In general, work to be delegated should adhere to the following guidelines: - It can be handled adequately down the line.
Delegation Obstructions
OBSTRUCTIONS: 1. Staff deficiencies.
Delegating Responsibility
Too many managers waste both time and energy performing tasks an employee could perform just as well, thereby lowering productivity while raising operating costs. The answer to the problem is easy-delegation.
Effective Meetings: Why Most Meetings are a Waste of Time
Whether your company holds one meeting a week or dozens of meetings a day it is essential that this time is used efficiently and effectively. Most meetings are less effective than they could be not because they are poorly managed, but because meeting managers spend all of their time focusing on the one or two hours when people will be gathered around the conference table or video screen.
The Dripping Faucet in Every Organization
Each day millions of workers spend 8 hours or more at their respective jobs with many contributing to the dripping faucet within every organization. This faucet much like the leaking kitchen or bathroom faucet's steadily waste drops of a previous resource - water - every minute of every day until fixed.
Implementing Change
There are different reactions that individuals experience during time of change. Understanding the emotions of an individual may better help them get through the period of unexpected change.
Giving a Good Appraisal Interview
Although this performance discussion is an opportunity for you to discuss your employee's work during a given period of time, it is also, and importantly, a time for you and your employee to check perceptions and reach mutual understandings and agreements about the purposes and priorities of their jobs. This discussion can positively influence your mutual working relationship.
Learn to Assert Yourself
Pinpoint your own blocks to assertiveness: fear of disapproval, need to please others, fear of being too masculine or feminine, or the dread of making mistakes.Visualize yourself dealing effectively with a problem situation by considering alternative responses.
Across The Interview Table!
Job interviews are easier for the interviewer or the interviewee if you plan and prepare and use proper interviewing techniques. On this page are job interview questions and purpose of each interview question, because there is a purpose behind each and everything that we do and similarly there should be a purpose behind each and every question that we ask in interview.
Project Management 101
Project management is a very important business concept because it is in place to ensure that projects are completed in a timely fashion as well as to the best of the company's ability. Project Management is basically the discipline of making goals and reaching those goals.
Problem Solving
When problem solving, you may recognize that you were working on a symptom instead of the problem. An analysis of the more clearly defined problem may require an alteration to the objectives or the ideal solution.
Steps in Using the Critical Incident Technique
STEPS IN USING THE CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE:1) The incident. Read, review, or assume roles.
Tales From the Corporate Frontlines: An Unexpected Benefit
This article relates to the Compensation and Benefits competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It tells the story of a company that offered a new benefit to its employees, solved the problem of lagging productivity, and boosted morale at the same time.
The Measurement of Manager Training
THE MEASUREMENT OF TRAINING: Evaluation is one of the most valuable - and challenging - aspects of a training manager's job. A well-planned and on-target evaluation process can be the tool which separates a superlative training department from a merely satisfactory one.
Meeting Your Meeting Expectations
"To get something done a meeting should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent."~Author unknownOne of the complaints I hear most often is about the number of meetings people attend during any given week.
Top Ten Things About Creating a Business Vision
To visualise where you are going, is deeper and more sensory than anything you have ever done before. And these are the skills of those who are able to create a vision you can really live and breathe.
Top Ten Tips About Communicating with Your Employees Effectively
Communication is the basis of who you are as a manager/leader in business. The rules are simple and the good news is that you can learn them and develop your skills.
Top Ten Tips About People Management
To get the best results you have to be very good at Managing People..
Communication Mix-Up
My friend Delia is the owner of a small private school. This spring her school is experiencing the crunch of reduced enrollment for next September and all staff have been asked to take a six percent salary decrease.
Plan for Business Success - 6 Reasons to Succession Plan
Succession Planning provides many valuable assets to your business. Yet it is easy to do, with a game plan.
Succession Planning for Your Business - 7 Key Benefits
A core activity in many successful businesses, Succession Planning is simple and quick to implement - here are seven reasons why you will find it of great value in your business or organisation. But, you need to lead - it works only as well as the support it gets!TimeSuccession Planning creates capable people.
Entitlement Programs Kill Productivity
In articles I've written over the years, I have used "laissez-faire," a term more frequently used to characterize governments than businesses, to describe a rather laid-back management style. When I use this term, I am referring to management personnel who put very little pressure on employees to achieve their full potential by pushing them toward peak performance levels.
Top 5 Services Your Company's Accounting Department Should Outsource
Accounting is one area which every company has to maintain but mostly not part of their core business. It is also one of the areas that keep changing every year and the company has to aggressively keep up with the changes in the tax code.
Manage Communication to Add Value
Management guru Tom Peters says white collar workers and managers in functional departments need to protect their futures.They have to learn "the difference between doing totally acceptable work and creating very new value.
Business Knowledge Management
In the last few years a lot has been written about Business Process Management, and about technologies supporting it such as BPMS, SOAP and Web Services. Most of these theories, tools and techniques refer to processes of a highly structured nature.
Workplace Violence - People are Dying Going to Work
Workplace violence has become a tragic reality today. From minor instances of harassment to homicide today's workplace is littered with danger.
Great Employees = Passionate Consumers
Companies spend millions of dollars each year identifying their brand, and then communicating their brand promise through various media.Employees are the primary "media" in the majority of brand contacts.
Reflections in the Glass Ceiling
The recent news about one of America's most powerful woman ceo's being removed from office has raised the discussion about gender bias, again. It disappoints me that in 2005, I still hear women clients talking about "the old boys' network".
Tales From the Corporate Frontlines: Diversity in the Workplace: Ethnic Considerations
This article relates to the Diversity in the Workplace Competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. This competency explores whether your organization provides understanding and supports interaction among diverse population groups while respecting individuals' personal values and ideas.
Tales From the Corporate Frontlines: Managerial Influence
This article relates to the Manager/Supervisor competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. This competency evaluates an employee's feelings regarding their direct manager or supervisor.
Five Days to More Effective Inventory Management
The litany of headaches related to the implementation and on-going care-and-feeding of enterprise-based inventory management applications (upgrading, downtime, maintenance, hardware obsolescence, and so on) is long. These implementation issues are enough make the savviest of companies want to engage in anything but another supply chain or inventory management software implementation.
The Top Six Reasons to Buy Rather Than Build an Inventory Management Solution
Is building your own inventory management solution really your best bet?The issues that companies face when they decide to build a solution in house are numerous: Scarce development resources, project cost overruns, delivery delays, unexpected technical issues, long-term maintenance issues.For these reasons, you should consider purchasing hosted, flexible, "out-of-the-box" vendor managed inventory (VMI) and web-based inventory solutions that can be running in a matter of days -- rather than months -- all at a fixed monthly price - with no delays, low risk and a lower total cost of ownership.