Management Skills Articles

A staff's productivity and efficiency depend on good communication. Good communication depends on effective listening. Listening is not simply hearing, but a process of understanding and correctly interpreting a message from another. Effective listening is a difficult task as listeners usually understand and retain only about 50 percent of the message that is being communicated to them. As more time passes, this percentage decreases. Poor listening can lead to misconceptions

Is your marketing strategy currently producing dismal results? Are you stuck trying to figure out what you need to do to reach your audience and get them to respond? Sometimes you must take a step back and really assess why a marketing strategy isn’t working. Here are some of the most common things that marketers are missing in building the right business, especially in the digital age. Not Using an Integrated Marketing Approach Nowadays, people receive information from mul

You are reading this because you’re in a position of leadership. You may have some people working for you who are not quite cutting it. So, you have three options: live with them, get rid them, or help them. Said differently, you can surrender and do nothing, you can “manage” them out the door, or you can lead them to success. Let’s look at each choice more closely. 1) Live with them; do nothing – The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, or so the cliché goes.

Various management styles can be employed dependent on the culture of the business, the nature of the task, the nature of the workforce and the personality and skills of the leaders.nnThis idea was further developed by Robert Tannenbaum and Warren H. Schmidt (1973) who argued that the style of leadership is dependent upon the prevailing circumstance; therefore leaders should exercise a range of leadership styles and should deploy them as appropriate.nnAn Autocratic or authori

In the Star Wars movie's famous bar scene you knew, by appearance, what zany character was sitting beside you. Each character had a distinctive look. Yet in meetings you may have no idea the constellation of characters that you're meeting with. That's because their normal outward appearances belie often troublesome behavior. Use this article as your guide to the crazy cast of characters you're likely to encounter in your meetings. Whether or not you're armed with a light sabe

Though Roman Centurions have a history of more than 2100 years, they practiced many management concepts that are required for managers even today. The Romans created a concept of how a manager should be chosen, how to lead a team and other important characteristics of being a manager. Management lessons from Centurions are broadly applicable for first line officers, professional managers, and for many others in managerial positions. For 2100 years, it is well-known that the s

By staying alert to career alte atives, you can nimbly move from one occupation to another in ways that are personally and professionally satisfying and profitable. This article provides guidance for how to do so. Some people know exactly what they want ... and how to get it. They move single-mindedly forward and gain what they seek. When they gain something gratifying and enjoyable, the straightforward approach can feel as if it's perfect.

Why didn’t the Skeleton go to the party? Because he didn’t have any body to go with. Okay joke over and now down to business. Skeleton didn’t realise that he was the most important aspect of the physiology of coaching.

I recently came across the phrase, "Leave it, change it or accept it," and I've been using it successfully with my clients ever since. Let me tell you, I really get people's attention when I bring this up. In any situation in life, any situation, you always have three choices: 1. You can leave it. Get out. Walk away. Let it go. 2. You can change it. The catch? You can only change what's in your control. 3. You can accept it. Unconditionally. As it is. It's a simple choice, but not necessarily easy to implement. Each choice will have its own set of consequences.

This article examines sponsorships and advertising as methods for making cost breakthroughs and generating extra revenues. Let's start with sponsorships.

Take these actions to heart … one a week for 10 weeks to create the well-living workplace. Eliminate ‘but’ from your conversations. Listen for the word and clarify what the person is saying when they use ‘but’. Have your meetings ‘but free’. Declare your office a ‘but free’ zone! Ask everyone to step up and eliminate ‘but’ from your conversations. Eliminate ‘that’ from all of your writing. In doing so, you strengthen your written presentation! You step up to demonstrate your authority. Stay alert to the use of the word in your conversations as well.

You've found yourself in the position of having to deal with an employee that has a negative attitude, difficult personality, performance issue or some combination of these traits. The issue is, what do you do next? How do you confront your difficult person without escalating the situation while getting the results you need? Here's what you need to think through before you meet with your employee. There are two specific steps that you need to take in order to set up your preferred outcome. Step one is simply to “Identify the issue”.

Artists have long held a privileged role in society, allowing them to spend more time “seeing” what is going on than do most others. In addition, artists’ perspectives have often been sought by those who want to transcend the mundane to draw closer to the sublime. As a result, a greater artistic vision can open the door for ordinary viewers to experience a broader and more delightful world. What a wonderful gift! Such expansions occur today for fortunate viewers in these five ways:

If you’re in a management position and have direct reports, writing employee appraisals is an essential component of your job. Anything less than a completely honest performance appraisal will only cheat the employee out of personal development, plus it could set the stage for a discrimination lawsuit. Business Management Daily highlights the top ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ for giving and writing effective performance appraisals. 1. DON’T fall prey to ‘halo effect’ Managers sometim

So you’re not more powerful than a locomotive? Who cares? Just saw the superhero movie, Kick-Ass, and it raised an intriguing question: just because we’re not superhuman, can we lead superheroic lives? I believe the answer is yes, and I believe we can do it in five easy steps! (Okay, they’re not super easy, but anyone can do it.) No rippling muscles, awesome brain power, or fancy gadgets needed. 1.

People who know me, say that I am a very positive person. I’ve worked hard over the years at trying to find the positive in most situations and pass it on to others. I was recently sent an email by a friend who passed on one of the nicest stories I have heard. So in this season of giving, I’d ...

People literacy is knowing how to read and understand the behavioral style differences of others. Every Manager has experienced the frustration of not understanding why one management approach that works beautifully with one employee is ineffective with another. That’s because what we think ...

Created in the 1980s by Motorola and popularized in the '90s at GE, Six Sigma has been shown to improve processes and reduce error rates, but does it still stand up to today's fast-paced, hostile business environment? In comparison, Flawless Execution, a continuous improvement process perfected ...

Creating energy within a group is a responsibility of each member of the group. The leader of the group is in the best position to facilitate the proper environment and group dynamics for the team members to bring energy. "Am I an energizer or a demotivator?" is a question each one of us should be asking each day.

Americans have always had a special interest in the Japanese mini trucks. These specifically designed trucks are commonly referred to as “kei” (light weight), “kei tora” (a variation of “kei truck”), and micro trucks. These aren't only tough, reliable, and versatile, but also are very efficient in fuel economy. rnMini trucks are used as workhorses for factory yards or farming. Some are even equipped with treads or half-tracks, somewhat like those being used in mil

Expert event planning and event management requires a keen sense of detail. It's important to consider all of the elements of your entire event and how it will flow. However, even with the highest attention to detail, many last minute items may arise that need to be addressed. You should be prepared to handle anything – that's the nature of event planning.nnOften, these last minute challenges are the result of changes requested by the client, such as:nn n n Changes in p

Nobody plans to fail, but many people fail to plan. Lack of planning eventually leads to failure. 33% of Americans have no financial plan, according to a report by CNBC. Success in life and business needs a roadmap to guide us towards financial growth and success.

How frustrating, here you are managing a team of people and yet you are still being held back from achieving your goals. On management training courses all over the country trainers are asked 'how can I deal with poor performance?' Well the truth is it is not all that difficult, probably the most difficult part is finding the time to sit down with the individual and agree goals which are acceptable to you but are also achievable and realistic to the staff member. The other

The more you discipline yourself to working non-stop on a single task, the more you move down the “Efficiency Curve.”nnThe more you discipline yourself to working non-stop on a single task, the more you move down the "Efficiency Curve." You get more and more high quality work done in less and less time.nnEach time you stop working however, you break this cycle and move back up the curve to where every part of the task is more difficult and time consuming.nn Self-Disciplin

Would you like to buy a car without making an intensive research? Obviously you wouldn’t prefer to buy any of the cars available in the market without making an intensive study. You would like to compare among different cars, manufactured by different companies, different features of different cars as well as you would like to compare the prices also to buy the best one as per your expectation. In the same way, when you need to buy a degree, you need to search for the best

Retail Management is a dynamic field and offers lucrative opportunities to those who are willing to study for it and learn the ropes. What makes it more exciting is that you don’t need to finish a college degree to get started or become a successful retail manager. A short online course which you can take while you are working full-time can pave the way to a new and rewarding career in this industry. Since you will be dealing with different types of people, you must have go

Humour at workplace - A QuestnnMadan Mohan Tripathyn nnIt happened about 30 years back when I was a school going kid. On a visit to my maternal uncle, an agriculturist, in a remote village, during winter, I became interested to get a firsthand experience of rice harvesting. I accompanied his Gumasta, the person taking care of landed-property, to the paddy field in a cool afternoon. The scenery was picturesque beyond description, with the mother nature smiling with a brand new

Developing people is one of the important ways in which managers add value, but the process must be focused. Specifically, what combination of skills and experience does your operation need to fulfil its objectives? By now you’ll have a clear picture of your objectives and the job descriptions required to carry them out. You’ll be able to derive the skills and experience base you need from those descriptions. What combination do you currently have?

Many people have trouble deciding where to start when considering possibilities to establish a better business model. With these questions, you'll make more effective changes ... and faster. Let me start by describing what a business model is so that you'll better understand the questions. A business model incorporates all the ways that a company provides its goods and services, receives value for its efforts, and affects others. Consequently, a business model is the combined

Humans excel at solving complex problems. Unfortunately, humans are also prone to making simple errors without a reliable 'road map,' or operations checklist. In the digital age, we are amazed at the abilities of computers to solve problems. But the computer's capacity to solve problems is limited. Computers are fast and accurate. But they are still incapable of solving the tough problems that face us every day in our working lives. We humans need help. We need other humans to help us solve complex problems more effectively.

In today’s modern business world, I am consistently asked for new ways to motivate employees that will not cost the organization in additional expenses. While we all know that money talks, it is interesting to dig deeper and determine money is not always the answer when motivating your organization for higher performance. An article published by McKinsey & Company, Motivating People: Getting beyond Money, November 2009, cited their Quarterly Survey results based on 1,047 executives, managers and employees around the world. More than 25% were corporate directors or CEOs.

When marketing to younger generation context is everything; therefore most traditional marketers must learn how to position their products or services to fit the expectations, life experiences and perceptions of a younger consumer base. Here are the 6 mistakes most marketers make when marketing ...

The only one who will ever truly put your financialnwell-being first is you. When you arm yourself with facts,nand you develop your money-making strategies, you'll seenthat it is much less of a chore (and much more fun) to takencontrol of your finances than you might think. You can makenyourself ...

Be a Quality Freak nnIn a highly competitive environment , it is needless to mention that there is no space for being second best or complacent , whichever way you like . For a second throw off your covers , and in no time you shall award game , set and match to your competitors . nnQuality is not about Statistical Quality Control . Quality is not about lectures by Deming and the ISO Inspectors . Quality is about the state of the mind . nnThe way you dress up and comb your ha

If you run an office with a small (or large) support staff, you appreciate the value of good employee training. New employees may frequently ask questions, interrupting you or experienced coworkers, or worse yet they may waste time trying to figure out how to complete crucial tasks on their own. A clear and thorough employee handbook would prove helpful in such situations. Not only that, but it can inform employees of important company policies and procedures. It could also b

Are you a perfectionist? Let me reveal to you this important fact… Perfectionism can hinder you from achieving excellence at anything you do. Usually, Perfectionists are procrastinators. They don’t start unless everything is just perfect. They don’t even finish a task. They keep on delaying ...

8 Questions to Motivate Your Team to Reach the Next Level by Paul Cherry Her name was Cindy, but around the office, she was better known as "Solitaire Cindy." Whenever I walked by her desk, the Solitaire screen on her PC was running. Frankly, it bugged me. Why should Solitaire Cindy game her day away while I busted my hump in my job, along with my fellow employees? I asked her manager how she felt about that. She sighed, "For what we pay Cindy, she does a decent job, so she

Albert Einstein once said, “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” How much money do you have in your bank account? And when was the last time you spent some quality time with your family? We tend to give ...

Have you ever counted the minutes until the work day was over? If so, you are not alone. Business work can be stupefying, leaving you feeling dull while randomly musing about more pleasant activities and places. That's the bad news. But... wait! There is good news, as well. Your time at work can, instead, be fun, stimulating, and personally fulfilling. What makes the difference? Use your business work to learn more about what fascinates you and then apply what you learn to make improvements.

Feedback is perhaps the single most powerful tool a leader has at his or her disposal to bring about significant improvement in levels of employee engagement and performance. Ken Blanchard wisely noted that "Feedback is the breakfast of champions." The positive outcomes of giving effective feedback are astonishing and oftentimes bring about company-wide improvements. Effective feedback can increase productivity and sales, decrease conflict, streamline business processes, unc

An Intro to 7 Steps to Removing the Blocks to Writing Your First Book So many of us have struggled with procrastination and continue to procrastinate on projects we would like to complete. There would be many more authors in the world if it wasn’t for the inner struggles to get it done. Yet, some people are able to get things done.

Achievement of any channel partner marketing program depends exclusively on the effectiveness as well as devotion of channel partners. You might be undertaking everything suitable for your business however if your channel partners are not that inspired you might still be lacking achieving success. The easiest method to make the best usage of your channel partners is to foster a relationship of confidence with them. Don't treat them as someone unfamiliar to your central busine

Being a manager has its ups and downs. Its ups are that you have certain privileges that others don't, more respect due to your position and hopefully, you are making more money than you were before you got your promotion. The downs are: longer hours, more stress, more responsibilities, heavier workload just to mention a few. But, the most pressing one is that 'the buck stops with you'! When things go wrong, ultimately you are responsible. Not Joe Blow or Jane Beasleyetanetta

Problems, Problems, Problems – Wouldn’t life be grand if we never had any problems. Everything would work perfectly, everyone would always get along and be happy, everything would be wonderful for everyone everywhere, and things would only get better as we live happily ever after.nnUnfortunately, in the real world there is no avoiding the grim realities of the dark side. Viewed from a business perspective – take the number of problems of each person, multiply by the num

OVERVIEW How would you like to leverage sales into a largely untapped market segment of potentially lucrative customers for your business that number in the millions and are convenient to target? The segment we recommend is the growing U.S. Hispanic market. According to the current U.S. Census, ...

For many business women pinpointing a target market can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. In reality it’s right there in plain sight. Smack in the middle of “everyone”. Your target market is, of course, the bullseye. It is the smallest point but has the biggest payoff. Sure, you can aim wide and hope you’ll hit your target but you’ll find out quickly that is not a winning strategy. Practice and focus will have you hitting the mark consistently resulting in sweet rewards . Here are some tips to get you there as quickly as possible:r

Organizations must possess both formal and informal learning structures to adapt and thrive, and safety debriefing skills learned from a qualified consulting firm is just such a structure that is a necessity in any rapidly changing environment. Anyone who has not recognized the need for continuous learning in modern business has missed out on one of the most significant lessons learned in recent decades. The forces of rapid global change can render limited professional skill sets obsolete almost ove ight.

One of the greatest challenges of leadership is the definition. There are literally thousands of books, documents, and lecturers that have each defined what their idea of leadership is. There are definitions for corporate leadership, civic leadership, home leadership, and more. We attempt to ...

The wisest man in history summarized success and achieving full potential in just two words - literally! Who was this man? He was an ancient Greek philosopher credited with exerting a powerful influence upon the founders of Western philosophy, particularly Plato and Aristotle. His name was ...