It’s been said that there are three types of people in business: – those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who ask “what the heck happened?”!

At the start of each month, it’s a good time to analyse how you want the next month to be, so you can look ahead with control and anticipation, rather than look back with regret.

The start of the month gives you a chance to review what went right last month, what can be corrected, and gives you an opportunity to renew, regroup, recommit and reinvent yourself as a manager and leader.

It’s a process that can renew your energy and rejuvenate your motivation. So, what’s the best way of going about it?

• Spend 30 minutes or so with your monthly calendar. Write down all your deadline dates, when projects are due, important meetings, personal and business appointments, and other important dates. Then, working backwards, estimate how much time you’ll need to prepare for each event or project. Enter the start date on your calendar, and then you’ll have a vision of how you need to work to accomplish the goal.

• Make a plan for your own development this month. Read a professional journal, improve a specific skill, write an item for a newsletter or journal, attend a short seminar or course…anything that will improve your contribution to your own personal and business development.

• Now work to a weekly plan. Set deadlines for next week, so you know what are the urgent things that need doing. Practice efficiencies with paper, e.g. handle each piece of paper only once. Notice when you procrastinate, prepare and be on time for every meeting and become a better delegator.

• A strategy you might want to follow is the OATS formula: Have Objectives written down in priority order, plan Activities that will help you achieve your goals, allow the Time to achieve those goals, and Schedule when is the best time to acco0mplish each goal

• Manage your relationships well this month. Make an effort to ensure every member of your team feels important. Remember the old phrase ‘catch someone doing something right’. Be consistent in the way you lead your team, rather than making it depend on whatever mood you are in, and do just one thing this month that will make your work environment a better place for others to work in. For example, when was the last time you bought some fruit or doughnuts in for your team?

• Make a monthly resolution to do one thing better this month. Then do it again next month. And the next. Slowly but surely, you’ll see the team respond to you and, by setting this example, you encourage all to contribute to the whole business in a positive and motivational way.

All this will mean maintaining a proactive management style, giving you the chance to make a really good impression on higher management and clients.

Let us know how it goes. Be the kind of person who makes things happen; then you won’t have to look back and wonder what the heck happened! Have a great month!

Thanks again

Sean
Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

MTD, the Management Training Specialists, have moved to larger premises to cater for the extra demand for their training, coaching and consultancy services.

The Midlands-based company have larger administration offices, bespoke training facilities and a video/audio recording studio to support the hundreds of companies that they work with every year.

MTD managing Director, Sean McPheat, is excited about the future and what the new premises can offer clients.

“I’m delighted that our new premises will enable us to offer even greater quality and service to all businesses. With a growing and supportive team offering assistance to companies of all sizes, MTD can now provide facilities that will enhance all our clients’ businesses. We look forward to welcoming new and existing clients to our offices in Coventry.”

Click here to see the new offices and learn more about how MTD can help you and your team.

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

The process of measuring best practice involves looking at other companies to uncover basic principles that you can model within your own business.

When GE developed their Best Practice Project, their main ethos revolved around asking the question, “What’s the secret of your success?” The answers they got were surprisingly similar.

Most companies reported that they managed processes, not functions, and concentrated on how teams worked together rather than on the performances of individual departments. GE realised after their research that they had been measuring and managing the wrong things. They had put their emphasis on setting goals and keeping score; instead, they should have been focusing on how things got done rather than on what got done.

Following ‘best practices‘ – co-operative, integrated and comprehensive approaches to continuous improvement – helps you achieve higher standards of performance and keeps you aware of the competitive advantage you can achieve.

Here’s how you can start looking at best practice management:

Develop a shared vision and strategic plan. This gives you a vision of world-class performance and helps everyone in the business see exactly what best practice looks like.

Ensure commitment from top management. This will encourage all team members to put their efforts into the changes and improvements needed to achieve great results.

Create a learning environment. This allows everyone to advance in the skills, knowledge and attitude that is required to achieve best practice.

Create innovative workplace initiatives. Everything you put into place should reflect the company’s commitment to improvement.

Focus on customers. Be responsive to the current and future needs of your clients, because they are the ones who will reap the benefits of any new initiatives you put in place.

Develop closer ties with your suppliers. These companies need to know what you are doing so they can support your change initiatives.

Look at technological, process and product innovation. Look at what market-leaders have done to create higher market share and adopt a similar policy, using the faster, leaner methodology that will help you keep costs and investment down.

Use performance-measurement systems along with benchmarking. Remember that if you try to match a competitor’s performance now, you will take time to catch up, because they set their standards in motion some time ago to be where they are now. See benchmarking as a finger-in-the-air process; identify where you need to be in one, two or three years’ time, then plan for that eventuality.

Network external relationships. By sharing information, accessing new services, developing new products and services, reviewing use of staff skill-sets, minimising costs in entering new markets, etc, you build a firm foundation for creating best practice for your company’s future.

Remember…unless everyone in the business is committed to best practice and understands the meaning of the term to them personally, you run the risk of any changes being seen as just another management fad. You must ensure that you communicate the reasons why you are pursuing this process. That way, you stand a better chance of any new initiatives succeeding.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Have you been affected by downsizing in your organisation during the economic downturn?

The after-effects of downsizing in a company can last for years, as you try to encourage the people who stay to commit their loyalty to the future benefit of the business.

But we’ve found in our research that many companies spend a disproportionate time on helping the people laid off and less real-time on the people who will be left, and that may store up difficulties for the future.

When you manage downsizing ineffectively, there’s a danger that a downward spiral will be set up, which can be damaging to the morale and performance of the whole company.

So you need to take action when downsizing occurs, rather than leave it until problems arise. How can you proactively take action with renewal strategies that will help you look forward rather than back when this situation arises?

1. You must be proactive in your management stance, especially in the time period just after the change has occurred. Your action or otherwise at this point will create either an atmosphere of hope or one of despair. This should be a time when you offer your skills and communication to the long-term future of the business, by clarifying expectations, supporting team members and rebuilding trust. You need to communicate direction, vision, mission, strategies, priorities, commitment, objectives and goals for the future. Without these, the people who stay with you after the downsizing will still be fearful of the risks ahead.

2. Your prime attention should be on supporting the people who stay. If you are using outside help to assist in the downsizing operation, most attention, quite rightly, will be on the staff whose jobs have disappeared. However, enlist the help of the agencies you are using to create firm foundations for growth in the people who will be staying with you.

3. Think of the future now with a long-term perspective. One-off meetings to reassure staff, or one-hit training courses, will not offer the necessary support that people need for long-term safety and security. Put yourself in your staff’s shoes…what reassurance would you need to confirm that your future job is safe and that your role is more important than ever to the company’s successful future?

Remember that the business may have been on a downward trend for some time, and it may take a long time to get confidence back after a cut-back. Positive, proactive action on your part will play an important role in re-establishing trust in the company and its future. You may need, with your management team, to re-assess the strategies that your business uses to go to market in the future.

Ideally, the time taken to reassess your future operational needs should be as short as possible, so you have the continued support of your team members and colleagues to take the company forward during the difficult rebuilding time.

By spending time thinking about the needs of the people working with you in the future, and how to manage performance, you give yourself a good chance of rebuilding towards a successful outcome.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Outsourcing has become very important to many companies due to its strategic implications and cost saving benefits, but many companies have not derived the most effective benefits from it. How can you ensure that if you outsource work, you stand the best chance of success?

Firstly, identify your company’s core and non-core activities. Your core activities are those items central to your successfully serving the needs of existing and potential customers in your markets. These are seen as adding value and giving you a distinct competitive advantage, and the process of identifying these activities should be carried out at a top management level. You should therefore build your capabilities around these core areas that are critical to your business success. All non-core business can then be outsourced.

Take a strategic view of your outsourcing decisions. You shouldn’t act on short-term factors like cost saving and capacity constraints without highlighting whether the outsourcing will affect your competitive advantage and abilities to serve customers.

You should outsource what makes sense for the long-term business.

Benchmark each activity you wish to outsource against the capability factors of all potential external providers.

Keep core activities internally only if you can achieve a competitive advantage by doing so.

Measure all the actual and potential costs of outsourcing the activity, not just the cost of purchase.

You can establish a collaborative relationship with a supplier so you can exploit their capabilities, and this will offer the best of both worlds. You’ll be able to concentrate on what’s important to you and your customers, and you’ll be able to outsource the fringe business that will support you in assisting your customer base.

Make sure you choose wisely, because outsourcing can create more problems than they solve, as you haven’t determined the precise reasons for doing it in the first place.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”