Management Skills Articles

After working for the same software company for several years, a young professional moved 90 minutes away from the organization. nnInstead of resigning or dealing with a grueling commute, she proposed that she could come into the office just one day a week, and work the rest of the time from home. The company leadership agreed. nnThe young woman found a mutually agreeable solution that allowed her to achieve work-life balance. Unfortunately, many employees in the same situati

When you have an employee who is underperforming for any reason, you must quickly and honestly discuss this with that employee. This discussion will be more easily directed if you have a solid, up-to-date “Job Description” document for this employee’s position, which has been ...

"Sales-y." Just the sound of the word is irritating. Yet if you don't get out and meet people to share what your business is all about, how will you generate customers and keep doing what you love? It all starts with YOUR beliefs and perspective. Are you selling or serving? What comes to mind when you hear the word "sales?" For many, it conjures up all those negative thoughts of someone whose main goal is to make that sale even if it isn't right for the customer. Though that's not necessarily true, most people share that perspective and it's difficult to change.

If something is a good idea, consider it, and then work out how to make it happen. No fear approach to life. Richard is an opportunist who has been able to amass great wealth as a result of his passion and drive. Often referred to by his staff as “Dr Yes” Richard do not acknowledge the word “Can't” as he is always eager to attempt and experiment with new stuff. His philosophy of taking on new challenges head on has led him to the successes beyond his own initial dreams.

When you watch most people working, you notice that they are doing many things at once: what is often described as multitasking. Recent research has shown that while such an approach seems to be highly efficient to the person using it, quality and quantity of results are actually less than when concentration focuses on one task at a time. A recent book, The One Thing: The Surprising Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, pays attention to the important implications of concentration by noting that in addition to such focus, you also need to: 1. Work toward the right goal.

Ever had to deal with an angry customer? In a workshop I facilitated on the subject of customer retention, a bank manager (let’s call her Betty), shared a story about a customer (let’s call her Ms. Maddy), who came in questioning whether she should continue to deposit money with the bank. Using language unfit for this page, Ms. Maddy expressed how upset she was and said, “It better not happen again!!!!” Then she said she didn’t want to talk about it any more. END OF STORY.

A few years ago, Mick Mixon was our guest during a Business Class interview. At the time, he was color commentator for football and basketball games for the University of North Carolina. Now he is the Voice of the Carolina Panthers. It was close to Father’s Day and so we talked about lessons he had learned from his father that had shaped his career. Here is one of them. He said his Dad emphasized the importance of work.

If you are reading this, I assume you have a stalled project and you want to get it moving again. Here are some tools you can try, developed over the course of my work with hundreds of clients. Review them all, and then try one. If that works, great, you’re going! If not, ask yourself what you learned. Perhaps you learned that a particular system or technique didn’t work. That may sound like failure, but it’s not, it’s success, and through experimentation you will fin

Too many companies lose money because their sales management team continues to make the same preventable mistakes. These common mistakes result in poor sales performance. The following are some of the most common sales management mistakes: 1. Confuse Product Training for Sales Training – Companies spend thousands of dollars and their sales people spend countless hours every year trying to keep up with all the new bells and whistles of their latest products. Unfortunately, th

A good measurement system always has key performance indicators or KPIs. And it follows that these KPIs are the main features of performance evaluation systems. This demonstrates how balanced scorecard systems and strategy maps rely on key performance indicators. And these indicators are often the basis for improving performance, especially in determining how to increase profitability. By doing so, managers and executives can find it easier to keep track of the performance of

Unless you are in the top 2% of sales professionals worldwide it's pretty hard to create need. Only those who are able to ask questions which surface a subliminal need and then develop that need into want will be able to make that sale. Sales people should find other ways to identify need ...

Building a high performing Team is a key part of the role of a Manager. ‘High performing’ comes from two distinct elements, high performing individual Team members, and a Team that is moving towards the stage of High Performance. An effective Manager is working one to one to improve individual performance, and working actively to develop his or her Team through the stages of Team development. Using Tuckman's model as a framework, we can tease out the Manager's focus and t

When it comes to building a business, solo entrepreneurs face decisions every day. We need to decide if we want to take on a certain client, who we want to partner with for joint ventures, or if we want to take on a new marketing project. One reason businesses suffer from indecision or poor decisions is that they skipped over the foundational work that sets the stage for what the business stands for.

If you’re hosting a large event then you realise that with it comes large crowds of people and a whole host of possible complications. The main focus of this article is security and access and how the use of event wristbands can benefit the event organiser. In the past 8 or 9 years wristbands for events have proven their worth as a low cost, effective tool in the management and streamlining of security and access to your event. Considerations for Your Event Wristbandr The se

Do you prioritize tasks and projects in your head? Have you tried to block out appointments, but emergencies always throw everything awry? Discover some quick power tips for greater effectiveness managing people, projects …and time. It’s not about working harder, it’s about working smarter. The key: Try managing projects instead of time. That way, you won’t need to check your watch every few hours or grow frazzled trying to jam too much into your day. Here’s some of the bes

When routine work becomes boring and redundant, the tendency of the employees’ attitude when it comes to beating the deadline is less serious. And there are so many ways to beat this kind of character in order not to cause problem with the company. “I like it when I have a deadline to beat”, says someone—but not everyone. Deadline of things to be done or work to be accomplished comes as a challenge for anyone who wants to beat the odds of last minute work. I’ve met

Regardless of ability and experience, most people wish they could accomplish more in doing whatever matters most to them. The struggling golfer dreams of breaking 100, a score that would be a nightmare for a good golfer. The solid B student fondly contemplates the satisfaction that a single A would bring. Top performers have different kinds of goals. They may seek to pass their best prior accomplishment on every attempt. Their eyes might even be fixed on surpassing all others, feeling intense disquiet until they do.

Ever leave a meeting and wonder why you met? Ever have a meeting and after much discussion, decide on a plan but then – nothing ever happens? Here are three questions can lead the leader to conducting more efficient, more effective and maybe even fewer meetings. Questions to ask and know the answers to before even calling the meeting: 1. What is the purpose of the meeting? Is it to inform, to get ideas, to problem solve, to make a decision, to build morale or…? It will help participants if you state the purpose at the start of the meeting.

Have you ever wished you had a crystal ball that would tell you BEFORE you hired a candidate if they were actually going to be a good fit? Have you ever scratched your head AFTER you made a bad hiring decision, and wished you never even hired an employee in the first place? Making sure you have the right person, in the right position, at the right time, takes much more than a crystal ball. It takes knowledge of effective interviewing skills, and the ability to implement them. One of the most effective approaches for interviewing is called Behavioral Interviewing.

Chances are good that you don’t know too many people who learned to run before they began to crawl. Likewise, you may not have met anyone who broke par while playing golf for the first time. As beginners, even people whose skill now causes us to marvel would more likely have produced laughter and grins rather than applause. Now, why is that?

Cleaning business has long been around and there continually will probably be a demand for quality and professional cleaning services. People and businesses are ready to pay for cleaning service. The demand for your service is out there and what you need is a successful cleaning service business plan to start your organization the right way.rn rnDeveloping a very good business plan is a starting step for building a effective cleaning business. Cleaning services are used by a

Expectations, Standards, Goals, Measures, Criteria, Benchmarks, Accountabilities. Whatever you call them, make sure you have them. Setting expectations is the foundation of good management skills. First, it shows that you are confident about what you want and you are able to make decisions. If you have no standards you have nothing to communicate, nothing to give feedback on and nothing to hold people accountable for.r

The cost of investments that benefit many stakeholders can unfairly fall more on one organization than on another. Amtrak, the American government-owned passenger rail corporation, is an example of this problem.

Have you ever worked with someone who you just don’t seem to get along with? It can make your working hours feel long and awkward, but the next step doesn’t have to mean looking for a new job. There are many approaches you can take to stay in control. 1. Set some ground rules on how you expect to be treated Research shows that 60% to 80% of difficulties at work are caused by strained relationships, so take control by setting clear boundaries of what you won’t tolerate i

When it comes to “making it” in business, many people feel as if they have more to hide than to display to impress employers, bosses, colleagues, and customers. To compensate for lacking credentials, skills, knowledge, and experiences some insecure businesspeople wish they had, some of them choose to adopt a “know-it-all” attitude.

You know how you can have a stack of papers piling up on the corner of your desk? You see it there every day. You dread dealing with it. Maybe even try to ignore it, yet when you are on the phone, it distracts you. You can’t help but take a peak. Maybe even pick up a piece of it, thinking you can multi-task while on the phone. In miscellaneous ways, it gnaws at you for days or weeks – even months. And then it comes time to go out of town, perhaps headed for that much needed vacation and you kick into overdrive and PRESTO – that pile is done.

Since the headline is the first contact your readers have with your message, it must reach out to them. Promise them a benefit. Tell them how they will be better off if they read the rest of the ad. Use action verbs. Save ten dollars is a stronger heading than Savings of ten dollars because ...

Joe Girard was the champion vehicle salesman for many years in the United States, averaging more than five daily sales of cars and trucks. What were his secrets? According to Mr. Girard, it was simply due to offering a fair price and being someone customers liked to buy from. Mr. Girard made the car-buying experience pleasant; he asked for referrals from customers to family and friends by sending out preprinted holiday cards monthly to everyone who had ever bought from him that said on the front, "I Like You."

We consider an older concept in this article, one that has often been applied to cost-reduction thinking: zero-based analysis. You may know this concept as "zero-based costing." Zero-based analysis reverses the usual way of thinking in which many people start by looking at how to remove costs from what is already being spent. Zero-based analysis starts, instead, by assuming that no costs need to be spent and grudgingly adds costs only after being convinced that they cannot be avoided.

Applied strategic thinking is a very important thing to know more about in the field of business. But what does it really mean? It is a way of thinking that involves visualizing the potential outcomes in the future. It is like a discipline on why things and actions yield the kind of results they brings. The great things we are enjoying now are all products of the great minds of applied strategic thinkers of the past. This is the effect of this kind of thinking: it develops a

What CRM actually means is Customer Relationship Management and these are software solutions that aid the work with customers in a business environment. Each enterprise treasures the relationship with its clients because it is crucial for success. The newest software on the IT market has taken the whole process to a new level. This article presents several examples of how useful CRM systems might be and gives advice on choosing the best solution of this type. CRM can be of g

In 1900 few Americans finished high school. Those who did had a huge advantage over everyone else. By 1950 high school graduates were common, and gaining a career advantage from education required a college degree. By 1970 people with bachelor’s degrees often began adding master’s degrees to stand out from the crowd.

The workforce in society today is different to the ones of the past, where different methods had been put into practice. Modern organisation today would need to address the diversity of people such as age, ethnicity, religion, gender and class and also the stress that would be evident in the workforce. The essay will look at the certain cases of diversity and causes of stress apparent in the organisation and how the post modern theories of management such as workplace democra

Entrepreneurial focus is immeasurably helped by finding engaging problems - ones to which you and others are irresistibly drawn. Many people make a mistake by instead picking problems to solve that are of interest only because of the potential financial gain that might result from solutions. Others make a different mistake: picking problems that bore them.

Eager business-evangelist customers are always telling others how wonderful your business is and encouraging potential customers to try your offerings. Most network marketing businesses are based on word-of-mouth promotion. You learn about a great product or service from a relative, friend, or neighbor who then helps you to experience the offering's benefits. Soon, you can't wait to share your happiness with others to improve their lives, too!

If you want to add more elegance to your property, you may want to think about constructing a gazebo. Gazebos no longer need to be the traditional octagonal shaped building hidden away in a corner of your garden. With the right gazebo blueprints, you can build a gazebo right on your front lawn and create a beautiful and stunning addition to your land. The design of the gazebo can become more complex if you wish to build it with a more artistic touch and want to include variou

As a managing partner or leader in a professional services firm, your role is to encourage, develop and coach people towards reaching the business development goals you've decided on together. A crucial part of that process is scheduling regular accountability meetings and using a system to ensure follow-through between meetings. For maximum effectiveness, these conversations must be both intentional and structured. The following is a step-by-step process you can use to guide these conversations:

Years ago, in his book, The Pursuit of Wow!, Tom Peters talked about the “bump-into factor.” He said that the objects and ideas we find ourselves surrounded by and bombarded with regularly are what get our attention. I know the bump factor is my excuse for a messy desk. I have no intention of ...

How can I say that price has nothing to do with sales? There is a very simple way to test whether price is the biggest barrier to you selling your product or service. Sell your product or service on approval. Most software and many services are now sold with a thirty day trial, or on approval. You can get a free trial of Microsoft Project or Go to Meeting. Your PC, if you are unfortunate enough to use a PC and not a Mac, will probably come with a trial version of office.

In present day business parlance channel management marketing is a highly effective technique to improve sales as well as business. Manufacturers utilizing the idea of channel management take help of channel partners which basically are merchants or else marketers to get their goods get to the user's hands. Channel marketing is viewed as an efficient as well as a effective program to improve gross sales as it might not usually be achievable for a producer to reach the end cus

Let’s face it. Information is coming at us faster than ever before. We are constantly receiving a steady flow of emails, text messages, phone calls and voice mails. The downside of communication technology is that it is making everything URGENT. It takes real discipline to determine the difference between what is really important from what is just urgent. But it’s this difference that gives you the ability to be really productive, as opposed to just really busy. The 5 key steps to gain control and mastery of your time include:

I recently watched a televised interview with John Scully, the CEO Steve Jobs recruited from PepsiCo in 1983 to lead Apple when Jobs was twenty-eight. Reflecting on what happened to Apple over the subsequent twenty-seven years, Scully commented that Apple's board made a mistake in hiring him.

Most people don’t realize how unique and valuable they are. How could personal characteristics seem to be unusual, or even rare, to oneself? After all, people are with themselves at every moment, view their own qualities as being normal, and cannot hope to perceive and understand others nearly as well. As a university professor, I am constantly astonished and filled with joy by the unusual, delightful qualities of my students. It’s as if God had convened a symposium of world-class learners about to accomplish amazing things just for my benefit.

Why do some teams perform well while others struggle? How can you assess how effectively your team is working now, and identify methods for improvement? Research shows that 85% of the reasons that teams of people succeed or struggle has more to do with interpersonal issues, than technical ...

Operations management is a crucial job in every business, it holds the responsibility of handling and controlling the business operations for business growth. For that task, the operations manager is hired to take care of the entire operations and bring them on track for higher productivity. Before applying for a job, it's essential to go through its roles and responsibilities. If you are looking for operation jobs in San Francisco , this will help you learn more about the jo

“Leadership is demonstration not definition.” Dr. Thaker recently shares in his Leadership 2020 Programme.nnThe economy is slowing and isn’t going to get better anytime soon. nnThe first thing you should ask yourself is: "What is a Tough Time?" The answer is that's it's a belief. What you see is what you get…believe is a thought in your mind and what you think you creates and all the predictions and projections of the experts often become self-fulfilli

This article describes a new concept for creating and implementing 96 percent cost reductions: fast-expanding exponential solutions. This is a subject I'm very excited about, and I hope you will share my enthusiasm for and interest in this process. When I was a youngster, controlled atomic chain reactions were being developed as a source of electricity. To help children understand the difference between an atomic blast (an uncontrolled atomic chain reaction) and an atomic power plant (a controlled atomic chain reaction), scientists designed impressive demonstrations.

People who want to lift heavy weights usually start with light ones. After that they gradually increase how much they lift. When their muscles strengthen enough, heavy weights that were impossible to lift at first are then raised with ease. Similarly, those who want to improve other capabilities often start by learning how to better perform simple tasks. When doing these tasks is mastered, the improvers move on to enhancing their performance of more difficult activities. Eventually, these learners can accomplish much more in less time with fewer errors.

Leadership in a competitive marketplace is extremely challenging. You must always be scanning the horizon, looking for the next critical trend, while still paying attention to the here and now. The challenge increases in difficulty exponentially when your marketplace is not only competitive, ...

With so much global competition, the customer is more in charge than ever. That doesn't mean that you need to offer services that cost you a fortune: Better designed pricing can be a great help. Let's consider an industrial example. A building materials manufacturer studied its customers in terms of how the mix of products they ordered affected profits.