Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

When your business or department starts to grow, retaining your employess will eventually become "your job." When you keep your good employees, you keep your good customers. They work together hand-in-hand.

A saying that is easy to remember and understand concerning this is be “slow to hire” and “quicker to fire.” This is a statement that we need to experiencially embrace in our strategies.

How long should we go through the hiring process? The answer is: As long as it takes! How about the firing process, how long should we take to handle that? As quickly as possible. If someone doesn't work out, there is nothing you will be able to do to change the situation. Learn from it and go on. Businesses can't afford to take on people as projects; it's not the place for someone putting their life together.

Workers need to know that management cares about them. As a result we have to take time occasionally to ask them what it is they need to make the workplace better. The reason I say 'occasionally' up above is because... Continue Reading

Unless you're a sole proprietor, managing involves being envisioned by someone else and taking that vision and making it a reality. To do this you must first buy into what it is being shown to you. That's the beginning of... Continue Reading

The one thing that all of us know won't change, is the fact that everything is going to change. How do we as managers and leaders handle this reality? I think one thing we all need to consider, that's different... Continue Reading

All great managers have within them the desire to know their people. Not necessarily because they have some great feelings for them, but because they know that there is no way that there can be a team created that will... Continue Reading

Reuters Photo a In an interesting article by Del Jones of USA Today, he looks at executives and what it means to be an introvert or extrovert in those various leadership positions. Here are some of the findings in this... Continue Reading

We hear a lot about innovation, creativity, inputs, focus groups and all other things that deal with coming up with new ideas. Certain people thrive in the more chaotic stage of brainstorming and throwing ideas around, while others are waiting... Continue Reading

One of the things that all of us do, but probably don't get too much out of, is reading those motivational management books that make everything look so inspiring and glamorous. While I read and have read a ton of... Continue Reading

Helen Keller said one time: "Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will... Continue Reading

Every once in a while on any job, no matter how much you like it, you can begin to get that feeling of burnout, or not being able to draw any deeper within, and you feel tired. You even begin... Continue Reading

It doesn't matter what it is you're trying to accomplish in life: only those that continue at it win. Management is an area that can cause the unprepared and unlearned to go through wild emotional swings that eventually causes them... Continue Reading

Probably the biggest problem the HR departments or business owners have in performance reviews is putting too much emphasis on ratings and paperwork, rather than working on improving communication between employees and managers. Performance feedback should be put into practice... Continue Reading

In any endeavor in life, there is one thing that separates the successful from those that don't succeed: their ignoring of time. I mean this in a positive way in this context. When you go about trying to achieve something,... Continue Reading

We can never allow ourselves to get to a place of complacency and self-satisfaction in our businesses or departments, but must be always looking for ways to improve. On the other hand many people I have talked to misunderstand the... Continue Reading

The staff of Entrepreneur.com recently released a list of America's Hottest New Companies. One in particular reminded me of how managing and running a company isn't as complicated as many make it out to be. According to MSNBC.com: It took... Continue Reading

True leaders and great managers, when it comes down to the bottom line, are one thing: servants. I have seen time after time when someone who has never been in management or leadership are unexpectantly installed there, that their entire... Continue Reading

I was reminded recently about the strength of keeping the zeal we had for things as a child. John Lasseter who was the chief architect of the success of Pixar (PIXR) in their release of animated hit after hit, was... Continue Reading

If you believe that most people really want to do well at work, you can take that and use it in a right way to draw out of them everything that they have to give and offer to the company.... Continue Reading

An interesting thing happens when you reach a certain stage of your career and you're promoted. What usually happens when you're promoted is that the mentor you had was also promoted or a person you had valuable interaction with has... Continue Reading

In managing change, as we talked about in the last post, communication is they key to it all. There are several other aspects that can and must be added later, but lack of clear communcation will make the rest useless.... Continue Reading