When it comes down to effectively managing your time you’ll find that there are dozens of resources offering tips for how to save time. Most of these resources tell you that you should prioritise your tasks but they don’t really tell you how to prioritise. How do you choose which tasks are more important than others?

A method I’ve found to work very well is to take every task and place it in one of four categories. Each category has a level of importance and it will make it easier for you to determine which ones should take priority over the rest. Here are the four categories:

• #1 – Important and Urgent – These are critical items that must be taken care of before anything else.
• #2 – Important but not urgent – These are the tasks you really want to complete in a given time frame but don’t find as pressing as those you placed in the first category.
• #3 – Urgent and not very important – You may find something to be urgent but at the same time not very important to the success of your day. Don’t let someone make you feel like you need to complete something faster than it deserves to be completed. If it’s not important, how urgent can it really be?
• #4 – Neither urgent or very important – You’d like to complete these tasks but not doing so won’t have an impact on your day either way.

Can you look at your calendar for the day and place each of the items on your to-do list into one of these categories? If so, you’re well on your way to effectively prioritising your day. Good luck!

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Manager Training

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

Now that we’re a bit more familiar with the knowledge management cycle and some of its key factors I’d like to take a few minutes today to discuss the importance of conducting a knowledge audit. A knowledge audit is the process through which you take an inventory of the actual knowledge stored within your organisation and how it is used.

The knowledge audit is incredibly important for a number of reasons. It allows you to identify some of the strengths and weaknesses associated with your organisation’s overall level of progress and method of storage. The following are six signifcant outcomes an audit will provide:

• First, you’ll be able to identify areas in which you either have too much or not enough information;
• You’ll be able to identify how good your organisation is at keeping up with current events and then updating its resources with the most up to date knowledge;
• Your audit will tell you how often your employees or team members are making use of information that is outdated;
• An audit will usually help you to identify areas in which people are holding on to valuable information that should otherwise be archived and shared with the rest of the organisation;
• Your audit process will help you to identify places where people are reinventing the wheel, or duplicating each other’s work, because they don’t all have access to the same knowledge; and
• You will be able to identify resources you may not have known you had available to you, including old pros and those who are experts in certain areas.

The conduction of a knowledge audit is essential to the success of your business. It is imperative that you keep your resources as up to date as possible so that your potential customers see you as a valuable source of information – and want to do business with you instead of your competition!

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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

The fact that you and your organisation have knowledge to share or use in your day to day operations is one thing. Having a firm grasp on when and how to store that knowledge is another concept altogether. As a manager, it will be your responsibility to determine what knowledge is stored, what is destroyed, and how best to keep it safe.

There are four main factors to consider when it comes to managing knowledge. They include:

• Culture
• Old Pros
• Archives
• Processes

By culture we mean the culture of your organisation. Are the people who currently work for you willing to make use of the new knowledge you are sharing with them? Will it be incorporated into your day to day operations or are you trying to incorporate the information too early or too late?

The concept of the old pro refers to your organisation’s seasoned veterans. The people who have worked for you the longest may not be the most up to date when it comes to technology but they are an invaluable source of knowledge and usually know their business better than anyone else. As a manager you must know when and how to take advantage of the knowledge these people have to share.

You should be storing explicit pieces of information, things that you will need in the future, in some sort of archive. The archive can be paper or scanned into some sort of database system. You’ll be glad you have an archive the next time your team is completing a project and needs to rehash some old information.

Finally, you will be responsible for setting up a process by which knowlege is captured and stored in that archive system. The nature of your organisation and its people will have a strong influence on the method you choose to use but no matter what you do it is important to ensure that the information is properly categorized so that it can be easily accessed later on.

Consider these four factors as you prepare the knowledge management plan for your team or organisation. The better organised your efforts the more valuable your collection of information will be as you work towards progressing your business goals.

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Courses

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

You may be ready and willing to start a coaching program with each of your employees. The trick to building a successful coaching relationship relies on three things: you ability to know what you need to encourage your employees to learn, your ability to recognize what new behaviours your employees should be picking up, and your ability to understand exactly what benefits coaching has.

These are all relatively simple, so we’ll start with the first. In order to encourage your employees to learn they need to have three things:

• Desire
• Opportunity
• Competence

They must want to learn, they must have the time and support needed to learn, and they must already have some degree of competency or ability to do their jobs. You can’t successfully coach anyone who doesn’t want to be coached.

The next thing you need to understand is the type of level of change a coaching relationship should cause. You’re mainly looking for three things. You should see your coaching having a positive impact on your employee’s customer relationship skills; the person you are coaching should be able to properly manage the things he’s learning in his coaching session; and you as the manager and coach should see a recognisable change.

Finally, you need to recognize how important coaching actually is to your employees and team members. They look forward to your coaching sessions because thy give them time away from having to make their own decisions, give them a sense of safety in a confidential setting, and make them feel as though they have companionship even though your relationships are detached.

You may think coaching is a waste of time but you should make a strong effort to have a coaching session with all of your employees at least once every month. After a bit of time you’ll begin to see a noticable difference in both their work skills and morale!

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

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

As much as we hate to deal with it, tragedy can and will strike our families and our employees and can do so at any given time. The loss of a parent, child, or other close family member can be devastating and the last thing your team member is thinking about is work.

Your job will be to help find ways in which your organisation can help your employees deal with their situations. It is incredibly important for you to recognize that a person who returns to work after only a few days, even weeks, is not fully recovered and will not be able to give you 100% of his attention. This is normal and is something you’ll have to learn to work with.

So what are some things you can do to help support a grieving employee?

• Learn about the stages of grief so that you can understand exactly what your employee is going through at any given time.
• Have your entire team sign a sympathy card to show their support.
• Personally communicate with your employee as often as possible to ensure he’s really ready to come back to work.
• Consider modifying your employee’s job duties, work hours, or method of communication (telecommuting instead of coming into the office) as necessary until he is ready to make a full reentry.
• Monitor him closely to make sure he stays on track as much as possible.
• Encourage the use of your organisation’s counseling services.

You can’t take back whatever tragedy your employee is suffering from but you can show a generous amount of compassion and support – and your employees will appreciate you for it and remember that support for a long time.

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership Training

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