Empowering Good teams to be Great!
When faced with a hard choice, it’s comforting to think that if you can just get the right information and use the right analytics, you can make the right decision. But serious problems are rarely black-and-white, and tools and techniques […]
It’s no fun when you’re alone in the office and every email you send gets an autoresponder, reminding you that you’re the only one who’s not on holidays. But there are benefits to working when everyone else isn’t. You can […]
When you find an organization that survives and thrives over time, it’s usually because managers like you have learned how to adapt to their changing circumstances and sometimes even keep ahead of the changes taking place around them. Managers who […]
When employees pull together to compete in the marketplace, their level of motivation rises proportionately when they understand just who and what they are competing against. Nothing brings a team together like the challenge of performing at higher levels than […]
To succeed in today’s business environment, your employees need to know far more about the business than just how to do their jobs. They need to know how it operates. Influential managers must take the responsibility to help workers better […]
Good managers know it’s important to regularly check in with each of their employees, but too often one-on-one meetings feel hurried and disorganized. To make the most of these meetings be more deliberate about how you structure them. First, schedule […]
As a manager, if you really want to influence people’s motivation, you have to uncover their reasons for doing things. You have to question their purposes and their causes. People aren’t going to be truly motivated for your reasons and […]
Here’s the million-dollar question: Who would want to be influenced and inspired by you? If you cannot answer this question, then you have no business managing anyone. As a professional speaker and corporate trainer, I have asked this question of […]
Schedule a project Select the most useful tool for creating a draft schedule—such as Gantt charts, PERT charts, and critical path diagrams. You can create these with paper and pencil or with project management software; use whatever approach you’re most comfortable […]
If you manage a business unit or group, there are certain steps you can take to help your organization become change-ready: Encourage participative work within your unit. Develop more participative approaches to how everyday business is handled. Specifically: Push decision […]
We’re genetically wired to belong; it’s how we survive and thrive in life — and at work. This is especially important for minorities who often don’t feel included at the office. New research shows that fostering a sense of belonging […]
Create a project charter Answer these questions to draft your project charter: What are the project’s objectives (deliverables)? What is the business need that the project will address? What is the relationship between the project’s goals and the organization’s goals? What […]
Manage project risk Every project contains risks—for example, a supplier to whom you’ve outsourced an important task falls a month behind schedule or a key member of your project team is suddenly hospitalized for several weeks. While executing your project, you […]
Develop a vision for change Describe a desirable future – one that people would be happy to have right now if they could. Make the vision compelling. It must be better than the status quo so that people will gladly undertake […]
Craft a plan to implement change Involve people at all levels in the planning and implementation processes. An implementation plan should not be imposed on the people asked to move it forward. Rather, the people affected by the change should be […]
Encourage people to openly express their thoughts and feelings about the change. Create an environment that fosters open communication and exchange of ideas. Actively reach out to employees—using informal hallway conversations, more formal one-on-one meetings, e-mail, and other channels—and ask […]
High-performing organizations implement proven PMI management practices. As a result, their original project goals and business intent is reached on 89% of projects versus 34 percent for those who don’t. They also waste 13 times less money. -PMI Pulse of […]
Analyze a business process Map the existing process (documenting the way work flows through the process.) Examine the process map to identify problems. Interview stakeholders (including customers) to gain their insights on the process. Benchmark how other organizations handle this process. […]
If you’re leading an important project, chances are you’ll need to communicate with senior executives. Whether it’s a presentation to a group or one-on-one, how do you get executives to listen to you? Here are a few reminders … Know […]
Ineffective Assessment Items If you are not asking the right questions, how can you expect to get good data? You need to consider organizational expectations as well as job-specific competencies. Moreover, your assessment items need to be well written to […]
