Kalmia Records Blog

There is more involved in making money than just the income - you need to be bringing in money as effectively as possible given your outgoings. One asset often omitted, however, is high quality business performance management software and all of its benefits.

Business optimization requires comprehension of the specialties and weak areas of its employees; in what areas do they do their best work? How can your system adjust to use their strengths and cover their weaknesses? There can be no more important question. While this data is important, it is not effortless to get hold of.

Determining and keeping track of progress through employee performance management on its own can be a huge amount of work. You first put employee evaluation techniques in place so that you can evaluate work carried out by each employee. If this was done with established approaches, you now need to study all of that information by eye just to define objectives, goals, and keep track of future advancement. Utilizing performance management software you know that this assessment is done for you and you need only scrutinize the different analyses and factors to find what an appropriate set of targets for this worker would be. It also renders following the worker’s advancement much simpler. This takes away the need to spend time on analysis and is likely to be far more useful. There is the option to look at the raw data yourself and use the software just to collate and track everything.

It goes without saying that it isn’t only the efficiency of employees that can benefit from use of performance management software. Such software can also be used to examine your clients as well as your suppliers. With suppliers in particular you can pinpoint their weaknesses such as slow delivery times, high damage rates, etc. Turning our attention to clients & affiliates, it’s possible to demonstrate who bringhs you the most resales if there are payment issues, which one has the highest loss percentage, and more. You can then adapt your ordering and stock handling to maximize your income while reducing outgoing money. Who wouldn’t take advantage of that? Not only that but a greater awareness of your market will permit more efficient marketing. performance appraisal software can study your suppliers to save money and analyze the market to tailor plans and boost your profits. With regular talent assessment and employee reviews such application is guaranteed to accelerate staff performance management greatly. All in all, what a careful user can achieve with this software is astounding.

A successful business depends on the efficient management of people. You can learn and improve these techniques. Having a innate skill for getting along with people can be an advantage, but there are a lot of skills you can learn that will make the process easy. Relationship Development: Begin by memorizing staff’s names. Engage in conversation; make eye contact as you’re speaking. Be respectful, also be attentive to the other person’s thoughts, regardless of whether you agree or not. Listening to what employees say is one of the best people management skills you can have. Be sure to show an interest in what people can offer the business.

Live up to promises: Keeping your word is key. If a promise is broken, it will ruin trust, and without trust your staff certainly won’t offer their best. Each time you make a statement or make a promise, do be sure you can follow through or it would really be more sensible not to give your word at all. The truth is, when you can’t be counted upon, your team can’t be relied on to be available when it’s really important.

Feedback is essential: Feedback should be a two-way process. Talent management skills mean being open to all feedback. If you are able to establish approachability and openness, you establish that other’s ideas count, your ideas will be valued in return. Encouraging discussion in addition encourages development of new ideas, ways of accomplishing goals, and improves the team dynamic. When your team members are given a voice, the project and its outcome will become important to every employee.

Promote all sorts of communication: Communication is the key to dealing with people effectively. Be approachable, listen closely to people, keep an open mind, and permit all your staff to express themselves. Encourage team members not only to speak with you, but also with each other. The growth of a business relies to a great extent on the interchange of opinions, and when the team communicate effectively, you can spot problems swiftly, permitting corrective action to be put in place to prevent further problems.

This will take time, however the rewards far outweigh the effort necessary. Through building the bonds of a good team and demonstrating good listening skills, you can have the best in business success.

A 2010 job hunting campaign is by nature quite involved. While the Web has offered a variety of new sites and ways to communicate, it also creates exaggerated rivalry for topnotch jobs and potential challenges for job seekers.

Job searches need to be thought of as a highly individual, highly targeted marketing process where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network is your lead generating machine.

So where does the Net fit in? At AACareers, we recently listed a job on Craigslist and got over 500 resumes in a workweek. For just one opening. That’s crazy competition.

Had the right individual contacted us ahead of our posting that ad, they could have secured the job prior to getting all that competition. How? By knowing a person at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone was aware of the job for at least 10 days before it was posted. Who in your extended network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?

So the good news is that job boards give you a sense of who is hiring, and for what kinds of careers. But once those jobs are posted, the competition is intensive. You can still compete, if you have a well honed resume, designed to appeal directly and clearly to the recruiter. And if you have practiced interviewing - so you don’t stumble at a critical point.

Another problem to be aware of is how easily you can be checked out on the internet. As we Googled several candidates, we ran into some pictures and comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to sway our thinking about who to hire.

AA-Careers provides a comprehensive set of services for Bay Area job seekers, providing our clients a personal career consultant, a managed job hunting campaign, modern tools like a personal website, video, highly targeted resume, and much more. Let us know if we can help you.

Be careful out there, and good hunting!

A thriving business depends heavily on competent people management skills. People management can be developed and studied. Having a natural affinity for getting along with people and building relationships is a plus, all the same you can do some things to make this process easy. Relationship Building: Remembering employees by name should be a great start. Speak to people; get eye contact when you are speaking. Be respectful, and be sure to be attentive to everything the other person has to say, even if you disagree or have a different viewpoint. Acquiring the ability to listen is one of the greatest things you may do to improve your talent management skills. Be sure to receive any contributions from your co-workers.

Keep your word: Do not make promises you can not keep. If you can’t deliver on what you have promised, the fragile bond of trust is shattered, and without trust your staff certainly won’t perform at their best. Everytime you give a commitment or give a promise, you are wasting your time and effort if you don’t follow through. The truth is, when you can’t be depended on, you can be sure they will behave in a similar manner.

Encourage any comments: Feedback should be a two-way process. Maintaining an open mind regarding other’s opinions is an important skill in managing employees. Being accessible and open shows that other’s views matter to you, your thoughts will be appreciated in the same way. Encouraging open discourse in addition boosts development of creative troubleshooting, ways of achieving goals, and strengthens the company in general. By giving the employees a voice, every member of staff takes ownership of the outcome. Communicating is essential: Good communication is fundamental to managing people with skill. Maintaining an open door policy, use good listening skills, remember to welcome feedback , and give team members an equal voice. Inspire staff not just to speak to you, but also with each other. The sharing of ideas is necessary in the creative process, and in listening to each other, you can spot any problems at an early stage, permitting corrective action to be put in place to prevent any further problems.

This may take time, yet the payoff is worth it. Through encouraging a good team dynamic and demonstrating effective listening techniques, you can achieve the best in business success.

Building a ‘bridge of understanding’ between parties is fundamental if your business communication is to succeed.

If you are a consultant to a client, or a salesperson attempting a closer relationship with your customer, here are five techniques that help achieve just that.

1. Eliciting clients’ views and perspective on issues.

The consultant or salesperson should not be the final arbiter of what the client or customer should think.

It is invaluable, both as a dialogic tool and as a way of building rapport, for you to ask the other person how they see the situation: “What are your thoughts about what we are trying to achieve here? What are some of the solutions or approaches you’ve thought about?”

2. Helping clients think aloud

In any good business partnership, both parties participate in the thinking process.

“Have a think about what options the team has available… what ones most appeal to you? Don’t throw out any ideas just yet - no matter how weird they might seem now, you’d be surprised at how workable they might be later.” “What are the implications of some of these approaches to other teams or the project?”

3. Summarise the client’s views and test your understanding of them

You really need to understand the other’s perspective in any communication process.

The most useful tool to achieve this is ‘playing back’ what the client has said, in order to ensure that both they feel you have listened and you feel confident in your understanding of what they said. “Let me summarise what I’ve heard and see if I have it correct…”

4. React to how the client feels as well as the business implications

Business relationships are made up, primarily, of people. People with frailties, aspirations, achievements and fears. Failure to deal with the myriad emotions of clients will lead to failure, of both the relationship and the project.

The more successfully the relationship handles personal ‘ups and downs’, as well as the feelings of both parties, the stronger the bridge of communication is built.

Wise consultants and salespeople encourage their clients and customers to express their views.

5. Allow the client (and yourself) time to pause and reflect

We all have a tendency to want to be seen as an ‘expert’ in our field. So we all jump in and answer a question straight away, hoping to both impress our client with our ready supply of wisdom and allay our fears that they will ‘find us out’.

In reality, no one knows all there is to know about a subject. But it is the rare and wonderful client who openly acknowledges to you their failure to understand fully or have a mapped out set of tactics for any given situation.

Allowing the client (and yourself) time to pause and reflect on a situation or question allows greater opportunity for bonds of mutual understanding to develop. The discussion will become more thoughtful, less reactively spontaneous (not all ‘first thoughts’ are good ones), and calmer.

Unless you are fighting fires, or taming lions, a calmer, more measured approach to a project always pays the greatest dividends.

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When you match consumer psychology with effective communication
styles you get a powerful combination. Lee Hopkins can show you
how to communicate better for better business results. At
Hopkins-Business-Communication-Training.com you can find the
secrets to communication success.

If your business is in trouble and your loosing money, then hiring any one of the qualified business consulting companies out there may be one of the best choices you can make for your company. Business consulting companies can give you the solutions you need to make your business a success that is their job. They will look and all side of your business and find its strength and its weaknesses and then draw up a plan that is right for your business. Business consulting companies will give you the answers you need for long term revenue and profit and will consistently work with you and your employees on how to use the tools they provide for you, so you and your employees will have a profitable business for years to come. Just because you open a business does not mean you know how to run it, at least to the point of being open long enough for you to see a profit from your investment. There may be a simple plan that doesn’t cost too much out of pocket expense, but may bring more customers into your business, business consultants can give you marketing tips such as web site ads and promotions, direct mail, or a half page ad in the yellow pages. You too may have come up with this idea all on your own however, unlike business consulting companies, you have no idea which one of these idea’s would be the better people getter, or how to strategically place your ad were it will get the best results.

Once you decide to hire a business consulting company, which one are you going to choose? Searching on the internet will get you thousands of hits, but then what? Of course all business consulting companies will claim they will do a good job for you and your business. Many will claim to provide their advanced expertise in all categories of business and marketing techniques. While working for you will be their main focus. While it’s a good idea to hire a business consulting company, but your not sure how to go about finding a good consultant that will work to make your business profitable and not take all your money and vanish. The best thing to do is go online and search for the right website that will give you information about business consulting companies and how you can get in touch with them. You will have to register to a specific site and give them the information about your business so they can match you with the best consulting companies suited to your needs. Most of these sites are low cost and using someone to help you find good business consulting companies is worth it. They do all the hunting for you and look for all the qualities you’re looking for in a business consultant. The business consultant company you hire can take a big burden off your shoulders. They will take the worry out of what to do next to improve your business.

Leeanna is an expert author who writes for Business Consulting Companies

Just a second ago, I picked up some paperwork my lawyer asked me to fill out.

This is normally the stuff that induces me to procrastinate, but not today.

Hmm, why is today different? I asked myself.

Answer: Immediately after getting dressed this morning, I attacked a counter full of silverware and dirty dishes, and loaded them into the dishwasher. I know, this doesn’t seem like much to do, and it isn’t.

That’s not the point.

It is an accomplishment, nonetheless, and it has given me some momentum. That’s the whole idea that I want to share with you.

You might take out the trash, first thing, as your way of getting at least one constructive thing out of the way. Or, consider feeding the dog or cat.

What you don’t want is to sit down and slowly think about everything you need to get done today. That can seem too daunting, and in my experience, that sort of planning should have been done last night.

Eyes hardly open, staggering from too little oxygen in the brain, start doing something that is nearly robotic, such as the tasks that I’ve outlined, above. Stay away from operating heavy equipment like forklifts, and vacuum cleaners.

Then, you’ll be ready to face those tasks that REALLY need your clear-eyed, energetic attention!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.

“Its never lonely at the top of an IT organization, primarily because the IT Director is never there.”
- Bryce’s Law

INTRODUCTION

In past bulletins, I have discussed how the corporate culture can be greatly influenced by the “Top Dog,” meaning the head of the company. There are also subordinate “Top Dogs” who lead departments and their influence is limited only by what is allowed by their superior. This can be considerable if departments or divisions operate autonomously and inevitably results in subcultures that often operate at odds with the overall corporate culture. This phenomenon is particularly apparent in IT Departments who often have a revolving door policy for appointing managers or directors. This “changing of the guard” can be construed as good or bad depending on the current
environment. What is important for the employees in the trenches is how to roll with the punches during this transitional state from one manager to another. Let me give you an example.

INSURANCE COMPANY

Years ago, we were engaged in a consulting contract with a large insurance company located in Toronto. Prior to our contract, the IT department was in disarray. End users weren’t happy with their systems, they didn’t trust the information produced, projects were late and over budget, and nothing was documented, making maintenance a nightmare. Things were so bad, that the executives were dependent on a certain systems programmer remembering to run the year-end financial reports (usually late). The current IT Director liked to hobnob with the corporate brass instead of his own staff, thereby leaving them in the dark. This helter skelter mode of operation affected harmony in the IT staff who ran around second guessing as to what was to be done. Conditions became so intolerable that the IT Director was finally ousted and replaced by a senior end-user who was also the most vocal critic of the department. Interestingly, he had no prior experience with systems and computing but was bent on cleaning up the mess left by his predecessor. This is when we were asked to come in.

Remarkably, the IT Director didn’t find it necessary to fire anyone from the current staff but, instead, instituted a new organizational structure, imposed discipline, and created a quality consciousness. We were contracted to install the “PRIDE” Methodologies for IRM which greatly facilitated his goals.

To overcome his immediate problem of constantly working in a fire fighting mode of operation, his first project was to document the company’s information resources, which was no small effort. There was a great temptation by developers to try to correct or improve the existing systems but, based on our suggestion, they resisted doing so since it would have resulted in a never ending project. Instead, problem areas were identified, cataloged,
and prioritized. After the documentation project, this listing was used to formulate a systems strategy for improvements.

The documentation project benefited the company almost immediately. First, Operations began to run smoothly and on time. For example, with adequate documentation in place, they were no longer at the mercy of waiting for the systems programmer to run the year-end financial reports. Further, redundant data bases were spotted and merged, thereby bringing consistency to the information being produced. Also, the IT staff’s morale picked up noticeably during this period as they now had a sense of direction and were cognizant of the strengths and weaknesses of their systems. Over the next few years, the company went on to conquer several major systems assignments much to the delight of the end-users and executive management.

Inevitably, the honeymoon came to an end when the IT Director announced he was going to retire after many years of service to the company. Unfortunately, he was not allowed to appoint his successor. Instead, he was replaced by a younger manager (30-ish) who was recruited from outside the company by an executive search firm.

The new IT Director was touted as a whizz kid who was intimate with the latest technology and wanted to make a name for himself. To do so, he had to distance himself from his predecessor and began to dismantle the organization and methods, and replaced them with 4GL’s and other program generators. The new tools were impressive but the staff became unnerved when the Director disbanded the methodologies that worked in the past, and removed the IRM Repository containing all of the intelligence of the company’s information resources.

I had an occasion to visit with the new Director to discuss his plans and,on behalf of the staff, pled with him not to delete the IRM Repository as it represented a substantial investment by the company and could be used to interface with his new programming tools. The Director was undeterred and went about his plans. Although his new tools could generate software at an impressive speed, documentation was sacrificed, data redundancy raised its ugly head again, and a rift began to reemerge between the end-users and the development staff. After only a few months under the new regime, the developers found themselves again putting out fires as opposed to upgrading or developing new systems.

CONCLUSION

The roller-coaster ride experienced by the IT department in Toronto has been played out time and again in many other such organizations. It seems IT organizations go through cycles, such as from bad to good, and back to bad again (as in the case in
Toronto). Others seem to go from bad to worse; and some from bad to outsourcing. Regardless, the IT staff should be ever watchful of any change at the top and observe the executive’s management philosophy as it will impact the corporate culture you are living in. As I mentioned in my bulletin on Corporate Culture, in order for employees to succeed, they must be able to adapt to the corporate culture. This usually means that it will be you, the employee, and not the manager who will have to adapt. But do not despair; let us not forget that the average tenure of service for an IT Director is under three years.

And in case you are wondering, Yes, the insurance company is again dependent on the systems programmer to run the year-end financial reports.

For additional information pertaining to this bulletin, see:

No. 28 - “Understanding Corporate Culture” - June 13, 2005
http://www.phmainstreet.com/mba/ss050613.pdf

Part One of Creating Well-Defined Processes Series

What if your sales increased from $100,000 to $110,000 per day and your profit increased from $10,000 to $11,000 - did you improve by 10%? The answer might shock you…

Because the answer is no. No improvement occurred. In fact, your process deteriorated. Sure, revenue increased, but is this really an improvement? Let’s take a look at the problem by looking at revenue and expenses.

Extra Expenses Prevent Process Improvement

Let’s examine the before and the after scenario. Say, in the before picture, you have sales of $100,000, fixed costs of $20,000 and variable costs of $70,000. Total expenses amount to $90,000, giving you a gross profit of $10,000. In the after picture, sales increase to $110,000, while variable costs rise to $77,000 in addition to $2,000 in Extra Expenses - which give you total expenses of $99,000 and a gross profit of $11,000. In the after picture, remember though, fixed costs are fixed, and do not change with additional revenue. So you should get more than 10% (11.8% to be exact) profit from 10% growth.

But in order to maintain a 10% profit we have to spend $2,000 in Extra Expenses. These Extra Expenses represent your process inefficiencies. These expenses could be sales discounts, travel, overtime, or something else. The names don’t really matter. What does matter is that we are not improving.

Process Evolution Enables Improvement

Improvement results from process evolution, not from an increase in scale. What’s the difference? Scale increases when we hire another person, increase expenses, or purchase more assets in order to acquire or service more business. Process evolution occurs when we change the process and as a result can release hidden capacity and service more business without adding any costs - and this is a form of efficiency. You can measure efficiency with the formula:

Efficiency = Output / Costs

But process evolution is about more than just changing costs. It is about changing time, increasing process velocity, and getting more output from the costs you already have. Cutting costs, by itself, does not evolve a process. In fact, reducing costs, without properly understanding how those costs relate to the process, can actually decrease process evolution (devolution). Let’s review an example…

A Cost Reduction and Procedures Training Case Study

A company decreases costs by switching suppliers and using cheaper materials for their manufacturing process. Now the purchasing department is happy they are saving money. The bottom line is starting to look better as profits initially increase. And so this improved the process, right? Well…

But then complaints start rolling in from the field. Products are breaking down faster. Technical support costs rise, and customers start reducing their orders. Not only do profits evaporate, but customer goodwill does too. To offset this, your first reaction might be to switch back to the old supplier. This is much easier and it fixes the immediate problem, but it won’t recapture the lost sales, customers and damage to the company’s reputation.

But, again, you need to focus on the most important issue. There is a limit to the amount of costs one can reduce in any process - zero. You can’t reduce costs below zero. On the other hand, there is no limit to the process potential we can achieve. Process evolution concerns the numerator (the output), not the denominator (the costs) in the efficiency equation above.

Change in Process Evolution = New Output / Old Output
(Assuming costs are held constant)

By focusing on process evolution instead of costs we can continue to increase our output forever. We just have to make sure that the output increases faster than the costs. Then what we have is incremental improvement. But what procedures can you use to achieve this?

Process Training

It’s all about collecting feedback to set the right priorities for your change process. You need feedback to drive the change process. The more feedback you get the better you will be able to evolve your process. So let’s take a look at what your change process needs to include.

1. Feedback Records with Deficiency Notations

2. Trend Analysis

3. Corrective Action Process and Criteria for action

4. Audit Process

5. Management Review Process

And then ask yourself the following questions about your change process:

• Are process feedback records created?

• Have the feedback records been analyzed for process deficiencies?

• Are the deficiencies analyzed for statistical significance?

• Are the deficiencies of statistical significance written up for corrective action?

• Is corrective/preventive action implemented?

• Is there an objective review of all processes to ensure the change process is working?

• Does management review all findings to ensure the change process is working — and that processes are evolving to meet or exceed organizational requirements?

Next week: Business Modeling

With these thoughts in mind, you can see how important it is to first define continuous improvement and note how it can actually affect your business.

But you can’t gather feedback from all processes at once. If you did, that would generate a process overload. So where do you start?

Next time we will show you show how when we discuss business modeling. Business modeling prioritizes which core processes you should improve. It tells you which processes are most important to not only achieve your company goals - but also to survive as a profitable business.

Chris Anderson is the managing director of Bizmanualz, Inc. and co-author of policies and procedures manuals, producing the layout, process design and implementation to increase performance.
To learn how to increase your business performance, visit: Bizmanualz, Inc.

If you’re like approximately 90% of the American population, you firmly resolve to accomplish this or that every January, yet your interest wanes within about 3-8 weeks. Perhaps you are so saddened by past results that you lack the will to even set New Year’s Resolutions at all. Well, don’t despair. I’ve whipped up some practical hints to help you maintain your resolve all year long and finally accomplish what you’ve wanted to achieve for so long.

The most common New Year’s Resolutions include fitness goals and smoking cessation. Many people also vow to “get organized” once and for all, as if it were a one-time event! If “getting organized” were a one-time activity, a lot more people would achieve that goal. Unfortunately, it requires a constant choice to “get” and “remain” organized. We humans are creatures of habit, and even weeks of progress can be set back by a few poor choices. That’s why they call them “resolutions” — because the “resolve” is such a key factor!

Step one in your nuts-and-bolts guide to “setting goals that stick” is to figure out exactly what you want. This may seem like an obvious step, but you’d be amazed at how many people attempt to set goals without any idea what they really want. Here’s a hint: you don’t want to lose weight, get out of debt or get organized. Perhaps what you really want is to look sexy, feel healthy, be in control of your finances and live life without stress. You’ll get far better results when you focus on what you do want instead of what you don’t want.

Figure out exactly what you want to be, do or have, and get specific about it. Do some research if you have to. If you want to win the lottery so that you can take that luxurious vacation you’ve always dreamed about, stop dreaming and start taking action that will get you there. Start by doing some research on the internet, at your local bookstore or library and by talking to people who’ve been there. For example, which countries do you want to visit? Which cities in each country? What national or historical landmarks do you have a burning desire to experience? What time of year is best for the geographic area? What documents or immunizations will you need? What languages are spoken and do you need to learn these or can you get by in English? Start getting really clear on what you want to get out of this once-in-a-lifetime vacation you’ve been wanting.

In Part II, we’ll cover the main reason that most people don’t achieve their goals. Until then, start thinking about exactly what you want to accomplish this year. Right now, you have unlimited potential and a clean slate for the year. Whether your New Year’s resolutions involve weight loss or Dr. Phil, the next two installments will put you on track to make 2006 the best year of your life so far.

Amy Scott Grant is a writer, coach and public speaker who has assisted hundreds of people in realizing their dreams by setting powerful, meaningful goals. She has recently released The Success Method http://TheSuccessMethod.com and is the creator of http://NewSuccess.org