I met with a prospect the other day and he asked me "What do high performance managers do differently than average managers?" I paused for a moment, scanned the long list of behaviors in my mind; distilled my answer down to the critical few things and told my prospect... High performance managers: * clarify their understanding of their

A good business will not only have a business plan, but an operations checklist as well. The same goes for a restaurant. You need to be sure that you have a restaurant operations checklist, and that it includes all the different aspects of your restaurant, and the various situations that you might encounter. There are several different types of

I am not sure that many sales people, managers, and small business owners that I know really have a systematic way of planning their tasks and programs. I must be far behind but I discovered for myself recently a very good way of doing that. I have known about story boarding for a long time, however, I was not aware of the business technique of min

1. First and foremost, think twice before you jump at the thought of taking up management as your career. You have to ask yourself whether you want to delve into finance, marketing, or human resources or maybe even corporate communications. You should be very clear in your mind about what you are looking for in management. Take enough time to do y

In real terms, 5S can be described as a complete quality improvement system that aims at making continuous improvements in the immediate work environment as well as in the work conditions. To understand how it actually works, let us study each one of the given methodologies in detail: Seiri The Japanese word Seiri basically means "to sort" an

An analysis of your business reveals your company has the standard accounting package that similar industries use. You have several pieces of independent software that tie in inventory and manage your procurement process. Excel spreadsheets are e-mailed around the office and even sent to vendors and customers. As an added bonus you recently impleme

You see your father fall to the ground. A stranger runs to him and grabs your father's neck. Afraid that the stranger is choking your father, you pull the stranger away. Only then do you notice that the stranger has been loosening the tie around your father's neck to help him breathe better. Oops! Your action had delayed giving your father the

Companies can be slow to see the cause and effect relationship between a problem and an irresistible force that is creating the problem. In a budget shortfall, people search out cost cuts rather than the causes of the budget shortfall. An excellent way to improve in this area is to change the organization's questions about what to do when probl

For nearly 60 years, the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) has worked to defeat neuromuscular diseases through programs of worldwide research, comprehensive services, and far-reaching professional and public health education. MDA was founded in 1950 and awarded its first research grant to Dr. Ade Milhorat, a pioneer of modern muscular dystrophy

You have managed your own business for a while now. You have been highly successful and now suddenly you are faced with so much success that business is booming. What is your next step? Where do you go from here? How to you make sure that business stays good without becoming heavily depending on the increased sales rates to stay afloat? These

Creating the right team is imperative to your success. A team is comprised of people who can bring necessary skill sets to the venture. A team is different from partners. Partners are financially and legally tied to the venture while team members are brought in to create and continue the process. Team members can be employees or sub-contactors. The

When it comes to a business, it is very important that you form relationships. You will need to create and keep relationships that will help you periodically throughout the life of your business. Building and keeping business relationships will help you succeed but damaging relationships or leaving poor and broken business relationships can hurt yo

Frequently I am asked "how do you get information about the competition?" Most people are surprised when I tell them that getting useful competitive intelligence is actually the easiest part of managing successful business competition. One of the best methods to gain valuable competitive intelligence is so simple, straightforward, and productive th

Utilizing business consulting services is useful, effective and potentially very accessible. But, with so many consultants, publications and vendors weighing in with their own perspective and opinions, it can be very confusing. Business consulting refers to the industry and the practice of helping businesses improve their performance, usually th

What is risk assessment? Financial risk assessment is crucial for any business. One thing that is constant in any business is the implementation of strategies and planning. Every new problem faced by a business requires management to modify the strategy, while every new growth step needs execution of a new plan. Every strategy or plan is implemente