Before you can effectively manage change within your organisation you must realise that there several different categories of change. The three main types include:

• Developmental change
• Transitional change
• Transformational change

Developmental change applies to times in which you recognize a situation that doesn’t need to be eradicated completely but needs improvement. Perhaps your marketing team isn’t completing certain tasks on time or your human resources department needs to find a better way to monitor employee hours. Sometimes you can find the right answer by making a simple modification that gives you the change you desire with little impact on the entire workforce.

Transitional changes occur when you are attempting to introduce a new phase to the organisation. You may be adding a new department or procedure or you may be doing something as simple (or complex) as moving your organisation to a new building. During these types of change it is important to keep a tight reign on your employees for a specified and controlled period of time.

Transformational changes are often the result of transitional change. Somtimes moving to a new phase in your organisation’s growth presents the need for new policies and procedures. Often times these needs appear very suddenly, so you’ll need to be on guard during transition so that you can react quickly if the need should arise.

What type of change do you see occuring within your organisation regularly? Are you constantly undergoing some sort of change or do things remain stable? Can you identify an areas in which change is inevitable?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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

Goals are goals, true – but when you’re in business it’s important to recognize that there are several different types of goals to keep track of. For the most part therea re three main types of goals:

1. Goals set at individual levels
2. Goals set for different areas
3. Goals set to meet time frame requirements

Goals that we set for individual levels of the organisation refer to a company’s mission statement and operational ideals. They govern the purpose of the organisation and involve setting both strategic goals (usually set by upper management), tactical goals (usually set by middle management), and operational goals (usually set by lower management).

Different areas of an organisation need goals as well. For example, the marketing department and manufacturing plants are definitely going to have a different set of goals. The same applies to finance departments, maintenance, and even support staff.

Time frame goals refer to short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals. You may want your processing plant to complete 1,000,000 widgets in two days (a short-term goal) or you may want to open 25 new stores over the course of 5 years (a long-term goal). Time-oriented goals can apply to any of the levels or areas of an organisation separately – or to everyone as a whole.

It’s important to recognize that you can’t simply set a goal and hold your breath waiting for it to be met. You have to set focused goals and make sure that the people who need to work towards meeting that goal are properly educated and advised. Use your decision making skills to decide who is best suited to complete a given task and then delegate the project. You’ll be pleased with the results you get from a focused group.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Manager Training

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

One of the most important parts of the decision making process is proper planning and goal setting. Goals are incredibly important to the success of any organisation, and for good reason. They serve four main purposes:

1. Goals provide direction – whether for individuals, teams, or an entire organisation. Why does your company exist if not to meet some sort of goal? Do you want to make sales, increase revenues, or build your client list.
2. Setting goals leads to proper planning which leads to meeting goals and setting new ones. It sounds silly, but if you have a goal you should strive to meet it. If you meet your goals you should be prepared to move on to the next one.
3. Goals tend to motivate people to work harder. They’re even better at motivating people if they know they will be rewarded for meeting their goals.
4. Setting goals will allow you and your organisation to evaluate your processes. If you set a goal that you are unable to meet you’ll need to find out why it was unattainable. This process will give you the knowledge necessary to make changes to your processes and procedures.

We’re going to spend some time over the next week discussing decision making, planning, and goal setting. We’ll look at different aspects of each, how they relate to each other, and how you can use these skills to improve productivity in the workplace.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

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

What does it mean to be innovative? Ask any of your current employees and I guarantee you’ll get a host of different answers in response. Some view it as being creative while others believe innovation means coming up with new ideas or uncovering a new untapped market. What very few will focus on, however, is the element of risk. Without risk, very few innovative people would have succeeded.

So what’s the formula for innovation? It’s merely a combination of creativity and risk taking. Each has its own set of drivers. Creative people, for example, tend to be independent, unique, and ambiguous. Risk-takers have to be resilient and accpet themselves completely. Put these characteristics together and you’ve got the formula for a cracker-jack innovater.

The Creatrix model for innovation is a bit more complicated than I described. The folks at Creatrix developed an online questionnaire in which a series of questions determines what tyepe of orientation a person leans towards. They include challengers, innovators, practacalizers, modifiers, synthesizers, planners, sustainers, and dreamers. They believe that a person who scores highly on this test is a great innovator – or someone who can come up with a myriad of useful ideas.

You’re probably wondering why you would even bother to use this model? On an individual level, you can gain some insight about your own thought process and, as a manager, you can use the results to help guide your team, provide individiual coaching, and for making individual career plans. You can also use the results on both a team and organisational level – allowing you to clarify the roles of each team member, understanding how the team functions as a whole, and recognizing how the organisation’s overall thought process works. Perhaps you’ll identify things that need to be changed in order to promote future innovation.

How innovative is your workgroup? Do you struggle to find new ideas or do they flow freely on a regular basis?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

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

You may have your own methods for understanding and coping with diversity, but your organisation will have methods for dealing with these types of changes as well. Most often you’ll find that organisations deal with workplace diversity by setting policies and procedures that govern the entire workgroup. Here are a few examples.

Organisational practices are methods an organisation takes to monitor and control the way their employees are treated – both by management and by their fellow employees. For example, your employee manual will likely have pages discussing how to handle harassment (specifically sexual harassment) within the workplace. These policies apply to victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. I now see companies issuing separate mission statements outlining exactly how they feel about the way their diverse culture should grow.

Organisational policies are a little different than practices. These policies govern how individual can be treated on a professional level – including the way they are compensated. For example, single parents may find they need specific vacation holiday schedules while a woman who wants to help her ailing grandparents may want to flex her work-week schedule. Some people need less insurance than others and may be compensated accordingly as well.

Diversity training is also becoming more and more popular these days. Diversity training is an organisation’s method for making sure all employees are properly informed when it comes to understanding the differences between their cultures, beliefs, and work ethics. Employees who are educated often find it easier to cope with differing personalities.

Does your organisation have a diversity training program? If not, what methods does your organisation take to control or educate its employees about diversity?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Manager Training

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