Errors can and do occur every day in every business and in life generally. Often, the aggrieved parties will not tell you of their experience, though they may tell others.
When they do confide in you, it is often no more than a plea to have their feelings acknowledged. This is your opportunity to utter the eight magic words:
“What can I do to make things right?” (read more…)
An estimated 30% of “blue collar” employees, and 10% of others, leave within the first four weeks of employment. And, guess what? They’re not the nuts, lemons and lay-abouts!
Yet, both the early leavers and the nuts, lemons and lay-abouts are major components of the same problem – poor staff selection.
Estimated Costs Of Recruiting An Executive – $15,000 to $120,000
Note this well: The costs of staff replacement are enormous and not readily understood by managers. Recent studies indicate that it costs between $15,000 and $120,000 to recruit somebody for a middle ranking executive position.
Dreamer’s “dream” and doers “do”.
If they keep any lists at all, dreamers will keep a “procrastination list” whereas doers keep an “implementation list”.
Irrespective of the possible awesome power of the dreamers “dream”, ultimate success (measured in any way you want) is to be found in the implementation by the doer.
Are doers more successful than dreamers? (read more…)
It’s not really a secret…it is just plain common-sense completely overlooked and here it is:
Pay Yourself First…Not Last!
Can you imagine how perplexed a Martian looking down from on high must be as he tries to figure out the logic of what happens every week in most small to medium businesses?
This is what he sees and tries to rationalize:
- A group of people line up at the end of the week to receive their wages.
- All of them are happy as they receive their pay and walk away to enjoy the weekend.
- The last one in the line doesn’t look happy…he looks worried. After he receives his wages (which is less than the others got) he goes back to work again.
Firstly, let me share with you the epitaph of someone who avoided the seven key questions and later I’ll tell you his story:
“Here lies John Averageman.
He was born in 1933; he died in 1970 and was buried in 1995.
He tried never to try and cringed at the thought of change.
He asked little of life and was not disappointed.” (read more…)
Your Attitude, Responsibility & Accountability are the missing links between mediocrity and success and their application in your business will see it SOAR and Avoid DEBT!
Now that I am at the end of my business career I can reflect on the changes I have witnessed over the years.
One of the biggest of which is the growing trend to shirk responsibility and avoid accountability; witness the massive growth in legal actions.
It’s almost as if we need to blame anybody and everybody else but ourselves.
Age & experience provide us with the absolute certainty that we are mortal. We know (give or take) that 657,000 is all we are given and we know that the sands of time have largely ebbed away, making those that remain much more valuable and not to be frittered away!
At 64 years of age I fully appreciate the impetuosity & excitement of youth, for I was once young. I didn’t heed the advice of my elders when young and I dare say the young will ignore my plea of today.
With hand on heart, I can honestly say that time, my time, has passed incredibly fast and as each year goes by, the faster it goes. I’ve yet to hear anyone of my age or older who would reject these observations. It’s just one of those “you only know and understand by experiencing” things.
Give or take, 657,000 hours is all we get on planet Earth! (read more…)
Ever wondered why university professors & teachers never make the entrepreneurial rich lists and are often forced to wear jackets with patches on their sleeves?
Maybe, it has something to do with George Bernard Shaw’s expression “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”
The answer though, as applied to we who are in business:
Business Knowledge of itself has no value – the value only occurs when somebody does something pro-active with it.
True, it’s not what you know that’s important; it’s what you do with what you know! (read more…)
Image acquired from www.shutterstock.com
In Part 1 of this blog we discussed precisely why “tell and yell” management doesn’t work and now we will flip the issue and discuss a management approach that does work…and work extremely well, as measured by results delivered.
It’s the “coaching” management approach and whilst the C word for coaching hasn’t enjoyed a stellar ride in business communities in recent times, there’s no doubting the success of the methodology.
You see, Coaching isn’t a “telling” methodology, it is a “questioning” methodology and by asking the right questions, a manager/coach gets the other party to arrive at his or her own answer. When this happens, guess who now owns the answer? (read more…)
Image acquired from www.shutterstock.com
Most professional advisors, consultants and managers are “tellers”; they tell others what to do and very often, not that clearly. Then, when it becomes obvious that “the tell” did not sell that well…they yell!
The When You Insist I Resist Attitude
The trouble is, there are many staff who adopt a when you insist, I resist attitude. This probably explains why many a manager is left discouraged when staff members just do not do as they are told. Be very mindful of the when you insist, I resist scenario, for it is happening all day, every day and it is very debilitating upon productivity. (read more…)