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Management Articles |
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| Is ISO 9001 2000 Right For My Business? |
| Firstly you should decide your own reasoning behind considering ISO 9001 2000 registration for your business.
Is the number of registrations in your market sector increasing?
Are your competitors seeking registration?
Are your customers asking about registration?
Are registrations increasing in your industry?
Are your customers asking you to become registered?
Have your group HQ asked you to gain registration?
Do you want to reap the financial benefits of registration?
Have the number of More.. |
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| ISO 9001 and Total Quality Management |
| Total Quality Management
Total Quality Management, or TQM, has become one of the most frequently discussed topics in current business literature. Because of the competitive pressures created by Japanese companies, quality became a competitive weapon in the 1980s in most industries. Its role in economic life seems to be attaining a new level in the 1990s; in some industries, such as the automotive industry, quality no longer seems to be a competitive weapon, but rather a prerequisite to survival More.. |
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| ISO 9001 Okay Now You Have It How Do You Market It? |
| Marketing ISO 9001 2000.
Lately we've been seeing a lot of press releases from wineries and suppliers touting their ISO certifications. "We've obtained ISO 9001: 2000," they trumpet. Great! But what exactly does that mean?
In simple terms, ISO certification verifies a company's compliance to a set of globally accepted s tandards for quality management and operational systems. The name ISO refers to both the Greek word for equal, and the International Organization for Standardization, a worldwi More.. |
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| ISO 9001, What Next? |
| The overriding goal of ISO-14000. (History 1995)
As ISO-9000 becomes a way of life for the global business community, ISO-14000 is almost ready to debut with its own set of standards for voluntary environmental compliance.
Much has been heard recently about the antiregulation sentiment sweeping across the country. Lawmakers in Washington have responded with talk of "regulatory reform" and programs aimed at "re-inventing government."
One of the targets of this regulatory backlash has been the More.. |
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| Hiring Tip -- Picking The Best Candidates |
| I often hear leaders from all types of organizations ask questions about hiring the right person. Their questions usually sound like these:
? What if their resume looks great but they have a bad attitude?
? What if they put on a good act and then don't work hard?
? How can I tell how they will perform after I hire them?
A great way to answer these questions starts with a well-defined interview process. I have heard the procedure called many things. I first learned it as the Behavioral Event More.. |
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| Leading Bad Actors To Be Good Performers |
| A successful leader told me, "The biggest challenge I've had in my career is dealing with bad actors. Brent, do you have tips on how to do it?"
First, before we can deal with "bad actors", we must define the term bad actors. You already have a general idea of what the term means. You know I'm not talking about stage and screen actors but those actors you must deal with in meeting your challenges. A bad actor is a person who is not a part of the solution but is part of the problem. Every leader More.. |
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| Protect Your Organizations Proprietary Information |
| The other day one of our overseas clients called in a state of near panic, to ask a question. At issue was whether they had unwittingly violated U.S. law by transferring technical information to a joint venture partner in a European country. After hearing a two minute description, I was able to answer a resounding "Yes"! Such are the dangers of operating in a global environment. The worst part is that my client had been lead into their misdeed by following the well intentioned advice of a Fortun More.. |
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| Invoice Factoring for Goverment Vendors |
| Assignment of Claims Act of 1986"....What does this mean for you?
What does this mean to you? Simply, the U.S Government encourages their vendorsto seek accounts receivable factoring of their invoices in order to help them grow,improve cashflow, increase performance, and level the playing field.
Access Unlimited Capital Through the Creditworthiness of the U.S. Government Any government contractor, under the the Assignment of Claims Act of 1986, mayassign it's rights to be paid amounts due or t More.. |
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| The Four Key Steps In Hiring And Keeping Top People |
| "When you hire the best, the rest is easy!" We have heard this phrase many times, but how do we put this concept into action? We know that hiring the best people is vital to the success of your business, especially for fast growing businesses. And certainly, your customers have high service expectations. So?how do you hire and keep top people? Let's start from the beginning.
The job description: Often overlooked, the job description sets the tone for success when hiring new people. Start by mak More.. |
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| How To Manage A Difficult Employee |
| Having to manage a difficult employee is never fun and can be the most challenging part of your responsibilities as a business owner/executive. While never easy, this article will address a step-by-step way to consistently and confidently handle the most challenging employee situations. In addition, how you handle a difficult employee will send a strong and powerful message to those who still work for your company.
Addressing the problem: When you first realize you are having a problem with an More.. |
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| How To Hire Superstars |
| Can a person's behavior and values really determine if they will be a future SuperStar for your company? If you knew the formula for hiring SuperStars and could cut your recruiting costs in half, would you start today? This article outlines three simple but critical steps for adding structure to your hiring process and raising your level of success.
Strengthening the interview process: Prepare a consistent written interview game plan, to be used by each person conducting the interviewing for yo More.. |
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| Understand What Flows Through Your Business to Find Improvement |
| I remember once seeing a cartoon which showed two people working a counter. On the wall behind them was a sign which read, "Quality Work, Low Price, Fast Service - Pick Two." In order to deliver all three, which is what customers expect, it's important to understand the flows of your organization.
The first flow is, of course, cash flow. This comes in two varieties, money coming into the organization, revenue, and money going out, expenses. Understanding cash flow is not as easy as it appears. More.. |
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| Training and ROI (Return On Investment) |
| Statistics consistently reinforce that the biggest challenge in today's contact center environment is agent training. Turnover continues to be high; new hire costs are on the rise--$6500 per agent! At the same time, losing customers because of bad call experiences negatively impacts your bottom line. What can you do? How do you justify the training expenditure?
Research has been making a case for how spending in human performance areas such as training, translates into bottom line growth. Accen More.. |
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| Effective Meetings Begin With a Real Agenda |
| Everyone knows that an agenda is the key to an effective meeting. But an agendathat consists of a list of nouns, such as budget, software, and picnic, is useless.Here's how to prepare a real agenda that puts you in control of the meeting.
1) Goal. Every real agenda begins with a goal that describes the result wanted at theend of the meeting, such as: find a way to reduce travel costs by 10%. Ideally, thisgoal should be stated so clearly that someone else could use it to design a meetingthat ach More.. |
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| The Power of ?Ask? |
| For Call Center managers, it is not a pipe dream to improve employee moral while increasing productivity. It may even come easy to some to find fresh, new ways to reduce performance problems. Sound like an advertisement for something unattainable? Perhaps try to engage, involve, and connect employees to their work by the power of ASK.
Of course Call Center managers encounter unique problems and situations each day for which they are required and expected to resolve regardless of other demands. More.. |
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| What are Your Best Practices? |
| Best Practices Studies
These studies can be defined as inquiries into the skills and methods of your high performers to recognize their achievements, document their methods and skills and then share this information with team members to improve overall performance. The responses generated from your study may hold the solutions to a variety of team challenges in the Call Center. As a team leader, you can approach these studies by conducting short, one-on-one interviews, focus groups, or surveys. More.. |
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| Partnering for Performance |
| "The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, 'Go!' - a leader says, 'Let's go!'" -E. M. Kelly
* Are you a boss or a leader?
* Do your employees see you as part of the team or as looking over it?
* How would your team members define your management style?
I ask these questions as a challenge, and offer the opportunity to take a look at your manager/team member relationships.
Merriam-Webster states that a boss is someone who exercises control or supervision; someone who dictates More.. |
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| Five Ways to Turn Resistance into Opportunity |
| Resistance. It isn't something people cherish or enjoy encountering. We experience resistance everywhere at work:
People don't like that idea.
People don't want the work flow to change.
Someone doesn't agree with the feedback they received and becomes defensive.
Someone doesn't see the value in a revised policy and they become resistant.
People don't want to buy what we have to sell.
I've had leaders and supervisors tell me that resistance is the number one problem they face. But I don't More.. |
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| Get Over Yourself |
| Let me tell you a secret.
Things don't always go the way we want them to.
Let me tell you another secret.
We don't always hear what we want to hear.
Duh.
These two statements are hardly secrets; we all know they are true. If they aren't secrets, then why do we act surprised when it happens? And worse, why does the surprise often turn to pouting?
Adult Pouting
Most adults don't walk around with a pout on their face, but that doesn't mean they aren't pouting. Pouting is when we are having a More.. |
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| Business Fails When We Do Not Talk |
| You may remember being told as a child, "Keep quiet!" "Children should be seen, not heard," and "You talk too much." You were a "good" kid if you kept quiet. However, being quiet when you are little causes big problems later in life.
As an adult, you may have been punished for communicating. For example, if you admit you committed a crime and are sorry about it, no one cares. You still go to jail. If you honestly tell your spouse you are thinking about an affair, your marriage suffers if your s More.. |
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| The 10 Realities of Change |
| I've seen several articles that begin with lines like "the only constant today is change." I assert that change that is constant can't really be called change. It's simply a new reality. It's time that we accept that things simply don't stay the same and speed to change is the new reality of business. Like any other new reality it requires new responses.
There is not more change than there was in the past the change just comes more quickly. Compared to the "good old days" the impact of change t More.. |
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| First Things First -- Process BEFORE Technology |
| Here's a brief story I encountered while leaving Newark International Airport following a recent business trip. Hard to believe, but true.
After a long flight home from the West Coast, I took a short train ride to the long term parking facility, located my car (which is becoming more difficult with age it seems), and proceeded to the parking exit. Note that it's been a while since I've used the long term parking facility, as I normally use a car or taxi service, so I was largely unfamiliar with More.. |
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| A Tricky Supervision Challenge |
| Many managers believe that treating their team members as responsible adults will assure excellent results. The truth is that while this usually is effective, some people need much firmer limits than others to perform their jobs.
Ellen, the manager of a rehabilitation hospital unit, was discussing her frustration in supervising one of her social workers. Ellen would much rather help Angelique be successful at her job than to fire her, but things have not been going well. "When I give her a dire More.. |
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| Your Biggest Problem in Business? Work Ethic |
| US Work Ethic Issues
and Lack of service
Well many of us are getting upset with the lack of service these days and no one cares and somehow we have all lowered our standards to the fact that getting good service is not to be expected, but rather a nice surprise if it ever does occur. Many great companies have derelicts, under achievers, cry babies, and people which could really careless and this is causing a rift between the best customers and businesses. Mediocrity is common place and to be ex More.. |
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| 10 Ways To Maintain Profits In A Slow Economy |
| 1. Sell more back end products to your existing customer base. You already created rapport, trust and proved your credibility to them.
2. Make it a practice to up sell to new and existing customers. After they decide to buy one product, offer them another product.
3. Cross promote your products and services with other businesses that aren't competition. You will reach a wider audience at less cost.
4. Create joint venture deals with other businesses. You can expand your product line and targe More.. |
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| Managing Motivation |
| "Without the chance to meaningfully participate in steering one's own destiny, without the opportunity to gain the sincere respect of one's own peers, without an honest stake in making the community more successful through one's own work and ideas, employability can quickly decay into generic training programs or bogus choices..." --"Beyond Empowerment: Building a Company of Citizens" by Brook Manville, Josiah Ober, page 52, Harvard Business Review January 2003.
Today, businesses are dealing wi More.. |
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| 10 Fool Proof Ways To Intensify Your Profits |
| 1. Create benefit intensifiers for your list of ad copy benefits. Example, The Benefit: "Save More Time", The Benefit's Intensifier: "Never Seen Before".
2. Use a little humor in your ad copy. It could be the little extra motive you need to close a sale. People are usually persuaded easier if they're in a good mood.
3. Ask your visitors questions that induce thoughts, feelings, memories and emotions that will influence them to buy.
4. Tell your visitors what their friends or family will proba More.. |
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| Dividing The Loot |
| It is when the going gets better, that the going gets tough. This enigmatic sentence bears explanation: when a firm is in dire straits, in the throes of a crisis, or is a loss maker - conflicts between the shareholders (partners) are rare. When a company is in the start-up phase, conducting research and development and fighting for its continued, profitable survival in the midst of a massive investment cycle - rarely will internal strife arise and threaten its existence. It is when the company t More.. |
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| The Inferno of the Finance Director |
| Sometimes, I harbour a suspicion that Dante was a Financial Director. His famous work, "The Inferno", is such an accurate description of the job that it cannot be otherwise. He is fervently hated by the workers. He is thoroughly despised by the other managers ("mean bastard" is his common nickname among them, mostly for scrutinizing their expense accounts). He is dreaded by the owners of the firm because the powers that he has often outweigh theirs. Shareholders hold him responsible in annual me More.. |
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| Making Your Workers Your Partners |
| There is an inherent conflict between owners and managers of companies. The former want, for instance, to minimize costs - the latter to draw huge salaries as long as they are in power (who knows what will transpire tomorrow). For companies traded in the stock exchanges, the former wish to maximize the value of the stocks (short term), the latter might have a longer term view of things. In the USA, shareholders place emphasis on the appreciation of the stocks (the result of quarterly and annual More.. |
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| CRM ...The Emperors New Clothes |
| The story of the emperor's new clothes is a fairy tale about men who fooled the emperor into believing that they had made him a beautiful suit of clothes. In fact they had not made anything. The emperor went out in public wearing nothing but his underwear because he didn't want to appear stupid since they had told him only the wisest people could see the fine fabrics.When the emperor went out in public a little child yelled..."The emperor isn't wearing any clothes!" Today I am that child.
"CRM More.. |
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