Who Wrote Your Rulebook?

Have you ever thought how unwritten rules and beliefs influence your behaviour and performance, and consequently the performance of your organisation? You will know many of the rules in your social relationships: - 'So-and-so doesn't like me to drop in without calling first' - 'You can't ring these people between 6 and 8pm because they are busy with the children' - 'If I don't call my mum every week she will worry / give me a hard time' - 'You just don't talk about politics/religion/tax/the state of the world with so-and-so' But with regard to your working life and relationships, how many of the rules and beliefs have you ever discussed or negotiated?

Tips For Employers to Increase Employee Loyalty

When most business minded people think of the word 'loyalty', they are actually thinking of 'customer loyalty'. They understand that the key to the success for any business venture lays in its ability to gain or sustain loyalty. While having a loyal customer base is critical, it is equally critical for any business enterprise to have an equally loyal employee base. Among the first lessons to be learned in Business 101, is the fact that the cost of converting new customers is far higher than the cost of keeping an existing customer. This fundamental lesson can also be applied to the employee insofar as the cost of hiring a new employee far greater than replacing those employees who have become disenfranchised.

Why Aren t Our Systems Working?

Many people are looking around, scratching their heads and wondering why everything seems to be falling apart. We wring our hands and are abased at the poor operation of our economic system, the educational system, management systems, medical systems, insurance systems, political system, military systems, media systems, even our religious systems. What is wrong with this picture? But, before we can fix or improve something, we must first identify and eliminate or at least minimize the root cause(s) of the problem. If we don't, the problem will only recur and come back to bite us again and again.

Power and Influence

Influence is critical in leadership. In the book Understanding Influence for Leaders at all Levels, Professor Nick Forster contributes the abovementioned chapter and profiles five (5) sources of organisational influence: personal; positional; expert; reward; and, coercive. His findings, based on a large study involving 750 proponents, is telling: Key Learnings: It is granted in the article that expert power (correct data, information etc) is a cogent influencer for managers. Predictably, coercive power is very limiting in its effectiveness and should be used sparingly. Intrinsic motivation in influencing people is underscored powerfully when we recognise that 'friendliness and assertiveness' and 'forming coalitions with others' (both of personal power) featured second and third highest as most effective and production power and influence strategies.

Project Management - 4 Ways to Encourage Performance Improvement

You are planning to talk to your staff about the need to improve how they manage projects. There have been unnecessary delays in completing project tasks. You want employees to improve how they plan, coordinate, and perform project activities. You also want them to leave this meeting understanding WHY these improvements matter and feeling motivated to make changes. How might you approach this discussion? Try linking your employees' improved performance to these four positive results: 1. Budget: Consider things like fewer cost overruns, decreased expenditures, or staying within budget allocations.

Concession Facilities - Increase Your F B Revenues

For many golf course and driving range owners the question is not simply whether to offer food and beverage at their facility, but how much. Options include low-maintenance vending machines, a snack bar with more substantial offerings or a full-service restaurant. The goal of any business is to keep the customer in or at the store as long as possible. If you do not offer any food, you are almost encouraging people to go down the road to eat. If you have food and drinks and can keep customers there to eat, then you just might get them to hit another bucket of balls or buy another drink. Obviously this will increase your gross sales and should add money to your bottom line.

Telecom Expense Management and Centralized Procurement - Important?

Centralized procurement for telecom assets makes perfect sense in a comprehensive system of Telecom Expense Management. A single source for procuring devices and service is essential in keeping accurate track of assets and services. With such a system, only approved devices can be acquired, and they must be approved prior to the transaction. That ensures compatibility within your system, and eliminates unnecessary inventory. In other words, if an employee accidentally drops their Blackberry or PDA and a produce truck squishes it, they can't just wander into the local vendor and get another one.

Improving Employee Attitudes - 9 Ways to Discuss and Encourage Better Attitudes

You have an employee who does an OK job, but there is room for improvement. The problem is more about "attitude" than "performance." This employee accomplishes tasks, but only after prodding. And there is always some type of negative comment to contend with, especially with difficult or undesirable assignments. You are planning your next performance discussion. And you want to give this employee some specific examples of behaviors that reflect a more positive attitude. Try these 9: 1. Begins tasks without being told 2. Takes on new assignments without direction 3. When assignments or plans change, makes adjustments willingly 4.

Make the Right Decisions With BSC Research

There are many sources of preformatted balanced scorecards. They usually give you a rough idea how to systematize and professionalize your operations. Except for companies that are exactly the same - the same products, the same volume of output, the same number of employees, similar physical environment. This means, of course, that building an effective BSC is not just getting one of those preformatted ones and hope that it will work for you. Building a BSC demands the conduct of a BSC research. What good will research do? Well, you have to have some goal to aim for - just like everybody else.

What a Relevant KPI Framework Can Do For Your Organization

Ever feel like you are not accomplishing anything despite all your efforts? You will certainly feel like this if you do not have a framework with which you can gauge the desirability of your outputs. The same thing is true with organizations; their daily activities should have an anchor that will tell them whether what they are doing is beneficial or not. The KPI framework provides them this anchor. What is this framework? It involves a few things, like having a goal, a plan, a facilitating process, a way of measuring the quality of outputs, and having competent people. The goal, of course, is what holds the organization together.