I thought we’d end the week with a little exercise - perhaps one of the most thought provoking yet.

Imagine that you work for a company that, for whatever reason, had a workforce that consisted primarily of white males. Throughout the years you have managed to change the face of the workforce and the company now has a significant number of female, African American, Asian, and Hispanic workers.

Your organisation is experiencing severe financial difficulties and you will need to lay off about 1/3 of your 1,000 member workforce. If your plan works you will be able to hire them all back in approximately 6-9 months.

What will you do in order to:

• Choose which employees to lay off while not changing the diversity you’ve worked to hard to create?
• Communicate the decision to lay off a significant number of employees to the rest of the team? and
• Make sure your team understands the change is temporary in nature?

It’s a tall order, for sure. How will you handle the decision making process?

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Courses

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

As you grow as a manager you’ll quickly discover that there are not only different levels of management but different levels of authority as well. Several individuals on the same level of management (middle management, for example) may have similar job duties but one may have a higher level of authority than the others.

The three main authority types are as follows:

• Line authority
• Staff authority
• Functional authority

Individuals with line authority are managers who have the ability to supervise employees or, in some cases, other managers. They give direct orders, evaluation performances, reprimand mistakes, and reward positive behaviours.

Those with staff authority are seen as advisors. They don’t necessarily have direct control over their subordinates but will help the managers beneath them to make decisions. They can and do have authority over their subordinates and can exercise that authority if the need arises. For the most part he will simply offer advice or assistance as it is needed in between taking care of his own day to day tasks.

Functional authority is often exercised by managers with staff authority as well. Functional authority gives individuals the ability to make decisions regarding the way a department will be run. They can create, manipulate, or change procedures in order to complete a project. Functional authority applies to the department the manager works in and no other. The marketing manager, for example, can not tell the accounting department that they must change their procedures.

What type of authority do you currently have in your own management position? Are you exercising your authority or are you depending on others because you are unsure of your own position?

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

When you are training new employees it is important to keep your organisations specialisation (or division) of labour in mind. Specialisation of labour refers to the way organisational jobs are divided and subdivided to ensure that they are properly completed. As a manager you may be responsible for breaking a task down into parts and then assigning each part to a different individual.

Specialisation of labour has its benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand you will have a highly specialised workforce in which each person, responsible for only one task, can contribute his very best work. Because employees are allowed to specialise they are more likely to work efficiently and get more done.

On the other hand, you can’t overuse the idea of specialisation. If an employee is only allowed to do one repeatedly he will easily become tired - both physically and mentally. When fatigue sets in he will suddenly become more likely to make mistakes. He’ll also become bored with his job and will begin to start calling out more frequently.

If you want to ensure that individuals have specialised tasks than you need to build those tasks into a complete job description. In order to remain productive and safe you’ll need to stay away from specialising simple tasks alone!

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Manager Training

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

I thought we’d take a few minutes today to go over a few more tips designed to make your customer service relationships even stronger. Remember, great customer service should start from the first moment you make contact with a client or prospect.

5. Learn to be Flexible

Or, in reality, learning how to stray from company policy. Let’s say, for example, that the widget you sold Mrs. X broke 2 days after her warranty expired. She’s been a long time customer but your company policy is to never replace widgets after the warranty expires. Would you rather replace Mrs. X’s widget one time or lose her business for the rest of your existence?

4. Be Responsible

If your company made a mistake, own up to it and make a correction. Customers are able to better identify with organisations that can accept responsibility for their shortcomings rather than make excuses for them.

3. Don’t Place Blame

Responsibility and blame really go hand in hand. If you sell computer products - printers, for example- and a customer is having problems installing the drivers what will you do? Will you blame the computer operating system or will you do the research necessary to help your client make the printer work?

2. Avoid Paranoia

There’s an old story about a guy returning a tire to Nordstroms, a popular high-end department chain in the US. The elderly gentleman insisted he had purchased the tire at Nordstroms but there was one problem - Nordstroms doesn’t sell tires. At all. Anywhere. They’re customer service policy, however, is that the customer is always right and they did accept the return of the tire. Weird instances like this shouldn’t send you into a panic. Just because you take back one tire doesn’t mean everyone in the county is going to try to do the same. They’ll likely laugh it off (and you migth consider rephrasing your customer service policies).

1. Make Your Customers Happy

The easiest way to make your customers happy is to “underpromise and over deliver.” If you’re constantly giving customers the best service possible even though they expected less they’ll always be happy.

Try to incorporate a few of these ideas into your customer service training plans. The more skills your customer service representatives develop the happier your clients will be.

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

You’ve all been excited about a new product or service launch at least once over the course of your career. If you haven’t, I’d have to question whether or not sales and management are the right career paths for you.

I find that one of the most important things we have to consider when training our customer service representatives is teaching them the difference between hype and excitement. Knowing the difference will make it easy for your customer service reps to present new products to clients without making false statements.

Hype…

• …is deceptive.
• …attempts to predict outcomes.
• …makes unrealistic promises.
• …doesn’t last long.
• …is impossible.
• …is sales-driven.
• …is not trustworthy.

Excitement…

• …is honest.
• …doesn’t eliminate flaws.
• …is wild and unpredictable.
• …has no set time frames.
• …is realistic.
• …is value-driven.
• …is believable and trustworthy.

Are you starting to see the differences? We can hype up a new product or service but much of what we say will have been fashioned to sound good whether it is true or not. If your customer service team is really excited about a product they’ll be able to talk about it and sell it without making false statements or misleading your current and new customers.

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Courses

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”