Management Articles & News
My Company's 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.
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. However, many managers still limit their own effectiveness, create imbalances in the organization, waste their department’s time and energies, and fail to develop their subordinates by either ignoring or mismanaging the techniques of delegation.
Steps in Using the Critical Incident Technique
STEPS IN USING THE CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE: 1) The incident. Read, review, or assume roles. Begin the investigation of the incident situation. 2) Fact-Finding. Collecting the details of the incident occurs in the small group discussions where the participants determine what they know about the situation and what else they need to know before making a decision. They decide what questions to ask the instructor. 3) The issue. When the groups have all the facts needed ...
Team Development in the Little Leagues
A grassy field, two nets, a soccer ball and some playful youth is the ideal setting for a little league soccer game. You may have recalled yourself of a time when you observed these little league events. You enter a spacious field of green, housing numerous miniature soccer fields all lined up next to each other, and young athletes running after a ball. You may have been more overwhelmed by the abundance of children playing, rather than the actual soccer game itself. But what you can ...
When Being A Facilitator DOESN'T 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. They weren't always sure what role to be in and they felt that all this role-switching was draining them and was decreasing their credibility and effectiveness.
A Case Study on Selecting Contract Management Software
Professional Services Firm Cuts Costs and Improves Productivity with Integrated Software System.
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. Usually, the entire scope of project management is taken care of by an individual project manager.
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.
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.
I Can't 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 ...
Are Your Business Proposals Losing You Sales? 10 Steps to Get the Yes You Deserve
Your ability to write an effective and persuasive business proposal directly relates to your level of success. Write a great proposal and you’ll get the contract or make the sale. Write a ho-hum proposal and your prospect will go elsewhere.
When Is Time Management Not Enough?
A working manager needs more than time management. That old saying, “Dance with the one that brought you to the ball,” came to mind as I received a reality jolt recently. Let me share with you that jolting insight. I was in transition away from managing several groups of technicians and professionals to more personal hands-on production management. My self-image and reputation lead me to assume that simply putting in the same hours in my usual efficient manner would do the trick. So, I ...
Breaking The Growth Barriers In The It And Software Sectors
There's nothing automatic about corporate growth, particularly in the information technology industry; "build it and they will come" is a myth. In the real world there is either a structured, process-driven growth cycle, or stagnation — and stagnation IS automatic. Inherent to growth cycles are barriers, real-world business challenges that put some software companies out of business and spur others on to break through those barriers to higher levels of success. Overcoming those barriers is ...
Brainstorming Secrets
Have you been in a "brainstorming" session where each person just defended their own ideas? Worse is when people don't suggest ideas at all, for fear they'll be attacked. That's no way to brainstorm. Brainstorming is using the power of many minds, and ideas should flow freely and trigger other ideas. How do you make that happen?
you Can't Direct The Wind But You Can Adjust The Sails
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Five Things Smart Leaders Do To Lower The Barriers To Change
Smart leaders understand that they don’t “make” a change happen. They recognize that the people in their organization do the work, change behaviors, and, ultimately, make the change happen. They understand that their role is to make the change meaningful and easier to accept. Smart leaders facilitate change.
Manage Communication To Add Value
Management guru Tom Peters says white collar workers and managers in functional departments need to protect their futures.
7 Steps To Launching A Top Media Relations Program
7 Steps to Launching a Top Media Relations Program Newspapers need to fill real estate in the form of column inches, and you need media coverage. If handled correctly, "this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship." A top-notch media relations program is essential for every business and organization. Most, however, never even bother to try launching a successful medial relations program. You would not believe how often reporters find themselves at a loss for content. In ...
The Proper Care And Feeding Of Revenue Partners
You’ve had a couple dinners and a few phone conversations; there is chemistry and a further relationship looks promising. But, how do you really know if that next step is worth taking? Advanced Internet Technologies has talked to, literally, hundreds of companies about partnership possibilities. By partnerships, I mean the type that produce revenue, not vendor agreements. As the IT industry matures and customer demands evolve, the growth of a services company like AIT depends on our ability to ...
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.
3 Secrets That Set The Context For Sales Success
In today’s competitive environment, every organization is trying to improve sales results. In every company, the most important – and vulnerable – link in the success chain is the performance of their people. As a sales management trainer and coach, I see that managers across every industry fail to take a hard look at the capacity of their people to provide the service -- whether it’s to internal or external customers – that puts them in a league apart from the competition.
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". They say "glass ceilings" are holding them back in terms of advancement, pay equity, recognition and career satisfaction. While I have no doubt their assessments are valid; it's important that we don't generalize too much. There are ...
Free to Succeed: Effective Sales Leadership Using A Coach Approach
About 2 years ago, I participated in a training program I'll never forget. The leader divided us into two teams. Each team's task was to fire a whack of darts into each number on a dartboard. The leader of Team A was given instructions that his team had to hit the numbers in a certain sequence. He then related the sequence, number by number, to his team.
Great Employees = Passionate Consumers
Companies spend millions of dollars each year identifying their brand, and then communicating their brand promise through various media.
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. The manager/supervisor competency covers topics like clarity of goals, manager support, coaching and feedback, and regular reviews of performance. The old adage that "people leave their managers, not organizations" is often true. Of all the workplace stressors, a bad immediate manager ...
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 ...
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. Research shows that by fostering a climate where equity and mutual respect are intrinsic, an organization can create a success-oriented, cooperative and caring work environment that ...
The Top 5 Signals That Your Business Is Running You
Starting your own business is a great undertaking but running the day-to-day aspects of your business is the true challenge you will face as an entrepreneur. Do you find that the business you started to suit your lifestyle somehow taken over your life and home? If this sounds familiar, then your business is running you. Learn how to run your business again with these top five warning signs and helpful tips.
The Significance of the Mundane
This article begins with a tip of the hat to a scholarly publication called the Journal of Mundane Behavior. Unlike other publications, which herald important issues, this one trumpets everyday, but rarely noticed, behaviors. It sees what the rest of us overlook because that stuff is so, well, mundane (my dictionary defines 'mundane' as being ordinary or common).