Management Information
A Facilitators Guide to Running a Stakeholder Analysis Workshop
This facilitator's guide to running a stakeholder analysis workshop is for people whose success depends on getting other people involved with their objectives.It contains two exercises, one to work with stakeholder groups, and one to emulate stakeholders where it is not easy to bring them all together.
Learn About Commercial Collections Agencies Fees
As with any other service, there are good and bad commercial collection agencies. Beware of any agency that offers you cut rate commissions far below the accepted Commercial Law League rates, offers you kickbacks on commissions, or makes outlandish promises about recovery success.
The Role of the Machine Metaphor in Mixed-initiative Organizational Leadership
"Can This Marriage be Saved?" So reads the title of the cover story in the August 15, 2005 issue of BusinessWeek (www.businessweek.
How Can A Communications Audit Help You?
Organizations communicate in two directions: internally to staff and externally to clients, customers, shareholders, stakeholders, the media. Faulty internal communications can lead to mistakes, discouraged and unhappy staff, employees leaving the company.
The 5 Obsessions of a Passionate Employee
A recent report entitled "How Google Grows?and Grows?and Grows" stated that the 650 people that work at Google are the most passionate bunch of geeks in the high tech industry. Google was also recently called the fastest growing company in history.
A Leadership Lesson: Two Guys With Guns
PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.
Building the Trust in Your Employees - 12 Easy Tips
In Stephen Covey's great book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", he talks about the 'emotional bank account', where you have to build a credit in your relationship with the individuals who you work with (and everyone else as well!).If what you do isn't 'trustworthy', then all you have done in your gentle listening and asking great and interested questions to build, is to 'debit' your account.
Outsourced Learning: Are You Ready for Learning BPO?
As the business world enters a period of hyper-competitiveness, every business process will be subjected to examination and possible restructuring. We have already seen outsourcing and offshoring used to an extent what nobody would have dreamed of a few years ago.
7 Essential Elements To Every Organizational Change
[This article is based on excerpts from the special report "Overcoming Resistance to Change" by Dr. Mike Beitler.
Its All In The Systems
Have you ever noticed french fries taste the same at every McDonald's? The same can be said for Subway and its Italian BMT. How do these fast food icons replicate themselves at nearly 40,000 locations when some eateries struggle to get it right in a single restaurant? The answer is simple: it's all in the systems.
Toxic Bosses
What's everyone's favorite topic around the water cooler? Bad bosses! You know, the ones who make life in the office unbearable? Here are some of the more common varieties you'll find.1.
Be a Change Agent ( Part 1)
Aligning business organizations to be successful in the present and keep on doing this in the future means to develop a new style of Leadership.To celebrate success in our days a leader most is able to craft a strategic vision, define objectives, design, implement and monitor the execution of a strategy and be a change leader in those same organizations.
Hire The Person, Not The Resume
"? [get] the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats (and the wrong people off the bus) and then [figure] out where to drive it." - Jim Collins - Good To Great"Hire the best staff you can find, develop them as much as you can, and hand off everything you possibly can to them.
Holding Effective Meetings Can Be Easier than You Think!
I'm sure you've experienced those typical "headache" meetings! You know the kind I'm talking about -- the ones where the key players are running late, no one knows exactly why the meeting was called, and there's not a single agenda in sight. Everyone's sitting around wondering, "Will this last 20 minutes or will we be here all day?" It's impossible to tell!Then, once the meeting finally gets off the ground, the real pandemonium starts.
Directed Introspection
One of the greatest obstacles to progress can often be our awareness of past failures. If we tried something a couple of years ago and fell flat on our faces (and especially if we were ridiculed or derided as a result) we tend to be reluctant to rock the boat again.
Diversity Training: The Worst Possible Reasons to Request Executive Funding
You're on your organization's diversity committee. You have the best of intentions.
Allowing Employees Responsibility
Merely assigning a task with detailed instructions is not effective delegation. An employee cannot grow without the freedom to make decisions on how the job should be done.
Qualities of a Great Manager
In the call center environment we are often only as successful as the people we hire. While our front line employees are critical to our business, choosing the right managers powerfully impact your success.
Regaining Control - Nine Steps for New Managers
My client had faced the same challenge, which was frustrating as well as intimidating for him as well - yet he was determined to break the mould.With my background in a similar business, I have faced this several times.
Management Development - Micromanagement Works!
Getting into the detail of everything each of your people does, will really damage your relationships with them. Sure, there are times where their hand needs to be held, and then there are times when you have to be sensitive enough to their needs to back off and let them learn for themselves.
Accountability Equals Meeting Success
Leslie was the new manager of the group. She was replacing Tom, a well respected manager who was retiring.
Problem Solving the Problem Solving Meeting
We go to meetings to share information, to report on project status, to make decisions, to get the free lunch, and because we were invited. (Sorry that I digressed).
The Golden Key to Meeting Success
We all attend many meetings. I'm sure you have been to some great meetings and some poor ones.
Phone Sex is Bad for Business
On August 3rd/2005, Reuters reported that a German man had colluded with a phone sex operator to defraud his employer's company out of approximately 16,000 Euro or almost 20,000 US dollars, by making 160 phone calls over a year and a half from work. He apparently split the profits 50/50 with the phone sex operator.
Take The Guesswork Out Of Problem Solving
In today's chaotic world and uncertain economic times too many good people are burdened by too many problems that seem insurmountable and too many businesses find it increasingly difficult to compete effectively. The old traditional methods of finding solutions to these problems don't seem to work like they used to.
The High Cost of Employee Turnover Among Project Managers
Imagine for a moment this scenario from a frustrated Senior Manager of a large pharmaceutical organization: "Our organization has experienced a large turnover among project managers in the past year. This creates problems providing ongoing quality and service to our stakeholders.
Beyond Management Coaching: When Things Are Getting Out of Control
Leaders and Managers often ask us, 'What do you do when you have tried to coach and counsel an employee about a performance concern, and the employee has not responded?Unfortunately, we see far too many cases where the leader hasn't, in good faith, tried to coach the employee or to put the leader's concerns into words. Often, leaders look for a quick fix alternative to what is perceived as a difficult and painful confrontation.
Business Fit
I have been an entrepreneur for over twenty years and have absolutely embraced information that would help maintain a well managed and profitable business. We have been a part of the information era for sometime now.
The Three-category Approach to Performance Management: Effort, Ability, or Environment
Performance Management is the act of managing personal or organizational performance. What can complicate this process are all the factors that can arise where a textbook process meets the situations and people that exist in your world.
Follow Up: It Makes A Difference
A while back the headlight switch on our minivan quit working, so early one Saturday morning we took it to the neighborhood repair shop that has been mailing postcards to us the past three years. They said it would take 90 minutes to check things out.
Ten Steps to Take the Work out of Work - Replicate Yourself!
They say that management can be a lonely place. A manager has to lead from the front, make challenging demands of their people and if part of an organisation, pass on the dictats of the more senior and remote bosses up at the top.
Status Quo Pep Talks That Can Threaten Your Leadership
Organizations live and die by results. Yet most organizations get a fraction of the results they are capable of.
Successful Managing Through Delegation
Managers should avoid the tendency to constantly delegate to the same one or two capable individuals. This practice only overloads the best personnel while slighting all others.
Turning a Negative Employee Into a Positive Asset
Several years ago, I took over the supervision of a section in a Public Agency. I was a newbie in management, enthusiastic, and excited about the opportunity that lay before me.
Is A Bad Attitude Permanent
Today there is great weight put on a person's attitude.It is as if this is something for which they are individually responsible and should be held to account for.
Understanding How Change Has Changed
There seems to be an assumption that change is a single traumatic event that is thrust upon us and over which we have no control.In the recent past this was definitely true, in industry there would come a sudden realisation at the end of the financial year that unless we did something radical we were going to the wall.
A Management Strategy
I witnessed some interesting behaviour from one of our premier management schools this summer. A behaviour that I have since discovered is not uncommon.
How To Use W Edwards Deming
Human beings and the way they interact are extraordinarily Complex.Deming tried to define that complexity.
Boost Your Leadership Skills By Disciplining Yourself In The Way Of The Question Mark
I'm often asked to come in to organizations and give a motivational speech to their employees. I reply that I'm not a motivational speaker.
Tales From the Corporate Frontlines:The Importance of a Competitive Wage and Benefit Package
This article relates to the Compensation and Benefits competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It tells the story of a company that needed to attract new employees and discovered how a competitive wage and benefits package was integral to this process.
Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: The Role of Character in Leadership
This article relates to the Senior /Top Level Management competency, designed to measure satisfaction levels regarding top-level management at your organization. AlphaMeasure defines senior management as the team of individuals at the highest level of management who have the day-to-day responsibilities of operating the organization.
Classifying Motivational Needs
While there exist several useful definitions of motivation, for our purposes we will define it as an individual's desire to do something based upon a need. When a person is confronted with a need (either perceived or actual), he or she usually is motivated to perform specific actions for some sort of gratification.
Do You Hear That?
I read a report in the Toronto Star stated that 70% of workplace errors happen because of communication breakdown and that many of them directly relate to a lack of listening skills.The challenge is most people filter out sounds, noises and people talking as much as they filter out most of the things their eyes see.
Align The Enterprise & Make Beautiful Music Together
Q: Why is a great business like a great marching band?A: The players in both organizations are in alignment.Alignment? Yes, Alignment.
The Survey Feedback Process for Organizational Development and Change
THE PURPOSE OF SURVEY FEEDBACK:In globally competitive environments, organizations are seeking information about obstacles to productivity and satisfaction in the workplace. Survey feedback is a tool that can provide this type of honest feedback to help leaders guide and direct their teams.
Why Your Company Needs An E-Mail Policy
Everyone at the office thought that using the company e-mail system to share jokes and funny stories was great fun. That is, until one offended employee decided to sue his employer for having helped to create a hostile work environment.
The Art of Motivation and Need Fulfillment
Industrial/clinical psychology and applied psychiatry have made tremendous strides in understanding human behavior. New discoveries and applications toward understanding human behavior are being announced with increasing frequency in these inexact sciences.
Tales from the Corporate Frontlines:Choosing an Effective Employee Recognition Program
This article relates to the Recognition competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It tells the story of how one company found the right recognition program by paying attention to employee feedback.
Towards Intercultural Understanding
An individual's ability to forge effective relationships across cultures is influenced by a very personal and highly complex mixture of emotional and cognitive processes. Anyone contemplating an overseas posting feels apprehensive about stepping into the unknown.
Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: A New Managers Tale
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.
Coaching Employees in the Workplace
After a full week of training, you are still a little nervous about your new job. All of the information you need to digest, the new environment you are adjusting to, and the new faces you will be getting acquainted with is just a bit overwhelming.
How to Manage Your People Well: Tips for Managers of Training
As a training manager, there are two important aspects to managing your people well: hiring, supervising, and motivating (managing with your people) and building up corporate support for your department (managing for your people). Unfortunately, training is not well understood by some executives, and its benefits can be hard to assess.
The Ins and Outs of Internal and External Relations
INTERNAL PUBLIC RELATIONS: Never overlook an opportunity to do internal public relations about your department and its offerings. A training department must, first and foremost, be visible in the organization it serves.
Training Managers and New Trainers
Training managers use many of the same interpersonal and analytical skills that other types of departments use. In particular, they need to be good communicators, and highly skillful in interpersonal relations.
Keeping Team Meetings Vibrant
Meetings can be the life-blood of an organisation or the death.It all depends how you approach them.
Medical Malpractice: Three Myths That Cost Your Hospital Millions
What's the use?Nothing you do will hold down the cost of medical malpractice. It feels that way sometimes, doesn't it?Unfortunately, for many risk managers, that's not too far off the mark.
Retaining An Expert -- What Every Business Owner Needs To Know
As an entrepreneur, hiring an expert can be one of the most efficient ways to turbo-charge your business. However, thousands of consultants flood the Information Highway, and each one promises to positively impact your bottom line.
Take This Into Consideration Before You Write Your Mission Statement
What principles should a company keep in mind when developing a mission statement? Appropriate criteria must be chosen for defining the business. There are several alternatives for defining one's services: by the products one produces, by unique resources that the company possesses, by a particular strength that the company has, by unique financial measures, or by needs that are met.
Being a Great Boss
Are you one of those bosses that people just love to hate? Maybe successful, maybe very intelligent, maybe organized and moving forward but just can't get along with people. Communication and other people skills are as important to the success of your business as your talent, knowledge and entrepreneurial drive.
How to Use an HR Consultant
Bringing an HR consultant into your organisation can often be the only way to get a particular objective achieved. It may be a project that needs to be delivered such as a recruitment campaign, a compensation & benefits review or the implementation of an HR information system.