In every business in every part of the world there is one situation that baffles even the most gifted professionals: poor performance. Most supervisors view poor performance as an issue of the employee; but I believe that poor performance is an all inclusive situation. Everyone in Executive Leadership should bear some responsibility in creating and maintaining poor employee … [Read more...]
Stop dipping your big toe in the water…the others might get JEALOUS! 5 steps to avoiding analysis paralysis.
In my last post, I expressed the importance of listening to your intuition and going with your gut. You might agree that the flipside of gut-based decision making is analysis paralysis. So, if you are continually dipping your big toe to test the waters and avoiding taking the plunge, take a step back from what appears to be wildly uncertain waters and ask why? Do you ever … [Read more...]
How to Handle Poor Performance in the Workplace
In every business in every part of the world there is one situation that baffles even the most gifted professionals: poor performance. Most supervisors view poor performance as an issue of the employee; but I believe that poor performance is an all inclusive situation. Everyone in Executive Leadership should bear some responsibility in creating and maintaining poor … [Read more...]
A New Look At Budget Setting
Corporate budgeting used to be simple: review fixed costs once a year, control variable expenses as much as possible, calculate the ROI on capital expenditures and relax until the end of the fiscal year. The goal was clear and easily quantified (though not so easily achieved): maximize profit. Smart organizations are adding three elements to the post-recession budgeting … [Read more...]
What Did You Say?
I was turned onto a site (PG-13) this week that made me laugh out loud. This site is about funny and embarrassing text messages sent out due to erroneous auto-corrections made on phones and computers these days. As funny as I found these messages to be, alot can be learned from them. Take your time when sending a message, think twice about your recipient/audience and most … [Read more...]
Staff Expectations and Your Business
British Airways narrowly averted a disaster the holiday season when a vote to strike was held illegal by the British high courts. The company is facing a showdown with its employees and many believe that the root of the problem is an unrealistic attitude towards pay and privilege from the staff. The question rolling through every company is how do your staff’s … [Read more...]
Do You Feel As If You Are Swimming Upstream?
Are we taking advantage of the natural flow of an organization or are we swimming upstream? Below are two critically important topics for Women in Business 1- Are you working on the right things? 2-Do the right people know you are working on the right things? These two topics are important guiding rules for women navigating a career in business- particularly in … [Read more...]
Unconditional Fans
Win or lose, true fans don’t stop cheering for their team. Unconditional fans cheer for their favorite team to win again and again, to move closer and closer to their goals (beating a rival, clinching a series, winning a championship, etc). When our team is losing, we figure out ways to cheer for them some more (rally caps on!). And when they pull through, we share in … [Read more...]
The Importance of Testing in an E-marketing Campaign
Traditional direct marketing, whether using print media, direct mail or television, has always used testing as a prelude to a large direct marketing campaign: that is, before committing huge dollars to a large campaign, smart marketers test strategies and offers on a small, targeted audience before rolling the campaign out to the masses. The same principles apply to … [Read more...]
Gut Check — Score One for Intuition
We really are smarter than we allow ourselves to believe. We know what we know. We just need to have the confidence to believe in our own thoughts and feelings. Intuition is a powerful thing. Call it a 6th sense, a vibe, a hunch or even ESP. Whatever term you prefer, we feel it in our bones. Unfortunately, we don't always pay attention to the critical information our bodies … [Read more...]