If you have the entrepreneurial spirit (which clearly you have!), you probably have a tendency toward being a control freak. I know the feeling well — “No one can do it as well as me, so I’ll just do it all!” While this may seem to be more efficient than trying to bring someone else in to help out, it’s actually more time-consuming in the long run. See if this scenario is familiar — you find that you can’t see as many clients as you would like, because you have to spend at least one day each week catching up on paperwork. You spend nearly 6 hours that day...

How many times have the management consultants been in and after leaving, have left little or no trace of their passing? Despite massive investment there is no discernable performance improvement, the retention figures still look as if we are running a call centre and our safety record is second to everyone. Why is it that what seemed a logical and progressive implementation model failed to have any lasting impact on our business? Could it have anything to do with Middle Manager Bounce Off? Middle Manager Bounce Off is a little understood phenomenon that appears most frequently in the wake of a...

When executives see themselves as solely responsible for the overall success of their enterprise, subordinates can hardly be blamed for acting according to predictions. Let’s look at a familiar scene in classical American – if I may use the word – mythology. Panic and terror have brought all normal activity to a standstill in some pioneering settlement in the Wild West. A bunch of bad guys have been scaring the pants off the innocent, helpless and disorganized townsfolk. Then an imposing masked figure rides up on a white horse. He arrives just in the nick of time. With the right...

Have you ever tried to drive somewhere without proper directions? This almost always turns out to be a frustrating experience. Sure, if you stop and ask enough people you may eventually reach your target destination, but think of all the wasted energy, time, and resources needed to accomplish your goal. Let’s take this concept and move it to the realm of managing a business. Does it make sense to expect your employees to reach a goal or strategic objective without providing them a road map of where they are headed? This is the reason clear and detailed employee performance objectives play...

Before you call your next meeting, the FIRST step is to decide if it is really essential. To determine that, ask yourself the following: Is this meeting essential? Can we do without it? Can we accomplish the task without a meeting? Can it wait another week? Can we get things done with few meetings? Then, if you have decided a meeting is the best way to accomplish your objective, the following tips can help you conduct more effective meetings: 1. Start and end meetings on time. Make sure everyone knows what time you are to start and to end. If you have an ending time, you will find your time...

A major problem for employers today is attracting the best talent, and then retaining key employees. Research shows that the key ingredient for retention lies within the managers ability to understand what employees really want. The survey results below first came out in 1946 in Foreman Fact, from the Labor Relations Institute of NY and was produced again by Lawrence Lindahl in Personnel magazine in 1949. This study has since been replicated with similar results by Ken Kovach (1980); Valerie Wilson, Achievers International (1988); Bob Nelson, Blanchard Training & Development (1991); and...