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Archive for the 'Management & Leadership' Category

Questions to ask employees

Published by Corrina on 10 March, 2010 in Environment, HR & People Development, Management & Leadership and Strategy & Operations • 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Answer key questions on business strategy, innovation, efficiency, human resources and customer care.

Think business strategy, innovation, efficiency, human resources, customer care, and more. Asking good questions and acting on good answers can improve your business and its people. So let’s explore some key business areas where your employees could provide the answers. 

Human resources

In addition to telling you whether they feel satisfied and happy in their work, employees may be able to identify training and development needs which could make your business more successful. 

Key questions for employees: Do you feel happy, enthusiastic and satisfied in your work? How could we improve your job? What training or development could improve both your job and business performance? Do you have unused or underused skills that could help us improve? Do you receive recognition and feedback? What should managers start or stop doing? What could we do to improve communication?

Business strategy and innovation

Because of a closeness to customers, problems or challenges, employees might conjure up innovative ideas and solutions. Their detachment from decision-making could also inspire fresh strategic thinking.  

Key questions for employees: What do you like or dislike about this company? What would you like to see happen? How could we improve our company/product/services? What are your ideas? Can you identify specific problems and propose solutions? What would spur creativity and innovation in your team?

Business efficiency

In previous editions of business i we have found that, because of their closeness to the action, employees can drive efficiency improvements in areas from cost cutting to energy saving. 

Key questions for employees: Can you spot ways to cut business costs, or energy consumption, in your role or in the company as a whole? Are there any bottlenecks or issues that slow you or your team down? How could we reduce wasted time so that we can focus on more worthwhile tasks?

Customer feedback

Customer-facing employees possess invaluable frontline knowledge on how satisfied customers are when interacting with your business and using its products and services. 

Key questions for employees: What common issues or complaints do customers experience? Do you have any feedback or intelligence from customers which could help us improve? When listening to customers, can you spot any unmet or underserved needs? What makes people go elsewhere?

As important as the questions is the will to ask them and listen to the answers. It’s about appreciating the value of engaging with employees, deciding which questions are important, and creating ways to obtain the answers. You might question via formal means such as staff meetings, surveys or interviews. But it’s not all about formalities; sometimes those unplanned conversation-starters at the drinks machine are just as valuable. Ask questions, listen, and if you get good answers, act to make your business better. 

More information – Consulting your employees

More information – The art of good communication between employer and employees

What’s your plan for 2010?

Published by Business Link on 28 January, 2010 in Management & Leadership and Strategy & Operations • 0 Comments

Make plans to survive, grow, innovate and succeed in 2010.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the UK emerged from recession during the last quarter of 2009. And now it’s the New Year, a time to look forward and make plans for the future. So why not ask: What plans can you make today to turn 2010 into a more innovative and successful year?

Plan for different futures

In response to uncertain times some businesses are planning for several different futures.

Plan for the worst case scenario, accounting for factors such as slow sales and restrictive cash flow. Then ponder optimistic plans for growth; this year might offer opportunities to grow faster than anticipated. Also plan for the middle ground – for sustained, steady growth.

Thinking about and anticipating different futures helps to cope with downturns or seize upon opportunities for growth. In either scenario you might, for example, need to secure finance or adjust employee capacity. So planning ahead, even tentatively, could prove useful if or when a particular future arrives.

Review your business environment, from your market size and potential to your customer base and competitive position. Such factors could present opportunities for the year ahead. For example, there may be pent-up demand resulting from the recession, or one of your competitors could be struggling.

Working through different scenarios, and reviewing your business environment, could also help to answer important questions. How are your finances? What are your key strengths and weaknesses? For the year ahead, what are your key opportunities and threats, and ultimately, what are your objectives?

To get started try our ten-minute business plan to quickly plan for best, worst and mid-case scenarios.

Plan for an innovative year

With business plans fresh in mind, and a new year ahead, why not create an innovation plan for 2010?

There are numerous ways to innovate. Often innovation comes from a desire to solve a problem. On a strategic level this could mean working to remove threats identified in your business plan. Beyond this, look for problems faced by customers, or problems in the back-end of your business. The desire to simplify is another great motivator; could you simplify customer or back end processes to make things more effective and efficient? A further innovation opportunity linked with planning is differentiation; have your plans identified specific opportunities to stand above the competition? Innovation is also closely linked to customer need; can you identify customer needs which are ill-served or unmet, and change your products or services to fit them? Or perhaps create entirely new offerings?

Innovation is about more than planning, but research shows that companies which set out an innovation plan tend to innovate more effectively than those that don’t. You can learn about this research and find tips on generating and pursuing innovative ideas by reading our business i innovation series.

You can also get inspired by our 100 South West Business Challengers campaign, which highlights small businesses that are doing something different to be successful. The campaign started this month and lasts for 100 working days, featuring 100 South West businesses that are outthinking and outperforming their competitors in new and exciting ways.

More information – use innovation to grow your business

Organising your days

Published by Business Link on 20 October, 2009 in HR & People Development, Management & Leadership and News & Opportunities • 3 Comments

Can a daily routine help to increase your personal productivity, satisfaction and success? 

Winston Churchill woke early but worked from bed until late morning. He then rose for a brisk walk and a weak whisky and soda. By early evening he was ready for his siesta, a habit he claimed allowed him to fit one and a half days worth of work into every 24 hours. Charles Darwin, another early riser, worked for most of the morning in his study, but invariably considered 12 noon to be the end of his working day. 

For some individuals there seems to be a link between routine and success. So, can a ritualistic approach to managing time help to get the most from your days?

You may think not. Some people are immediately sceptical about the regimented nature of routine, preferring a more flexible approach. But routines can be rigid or flexible, and making even the smallest changes to your days can help to increase productivity, satisfaction and success.

“It’s quite a personal matter”, says writer Simone de Beauvoir. There are no rules; one person’s routine could be entirely incompatible with the next person. For this reason it’s important to undertake some honest self-analysis.

When are you most productive, attentive or creative: mornings, afternoons or evenings? When do you best work alone, and when do you prefer the company of others? Do you attend to detail best with a fresh morning head, or in the evening when there’s fewer distractions? Asking such questions enables you to match specific tasks with specific time slots that suit your behaviours best. For example, if you’re most productive but most antisocial in the mornings, make your routine simple: mornings – personal tasks; afternoons – meetings and team working.

If you begin your days wondering how you’re going to get everything done, you need to think strategically about managing your time. This means prioritising key tasks and putting aside unimportant ones. So why not begin your daily routine by spending five minutes creating a plan for the day ahead? Ask what you can realistically achieve, and importantly, what you must do to make today feel productive and successful. Once you know what important tasks must be done, you can match them with the most suitable times slots, as discussed above.

Having an appreciation of when it’s best to do something allows you to better order the things you need to do, day by day. Beyond this simple framework your routine can be as rigid or flexible as you like. Some people choose to work to hour-long chunks that end on the beep of an alarm and are followed by minute-long ‘review and refocus’ sessions. For the less regimented, simply find a balance between chaos and order.

You may also want to think about how routine can help to manage both work and life. Could you integrate personal tasks into your routine? For instance, if you tend to work late why not break up the days with a walk to do some personal errands; exercise can reduce stress and improve productivity, and getting the chores done is a nice bonus.

However detailed your daily routine becomes is your choice; indeed you may waver towards the more flexible approach. But don’t let such freedom distract you from the point that, often, certain times of the day are better suited to certain tasks. If you can crack this code you can get the right things done at the best times, and as a result become more productive, satisfied and successful – and less stressed.

Entrepreneurship

Published by Business Link on 20 October, 2009 in Creative, Management & Leadership and Strategy & Operations • 0 Comments

What it means. Why it’s important. How to do it better.

What it means

Global Entrepreneurship Week defines enterprise and entrepreneurship as follows: 
“Being enterprising is the ability to respond to change, take risks, to innovate and to generate and implement new ideas and new ways of doing things… The package of skills we use to describe enterprise are: the ability to assess and manage risk, creativity, resourcefulness, business understanding and planning, communication skills, teamwork skills, leadership skills, self-efficacy, and self-reliance.” Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Anyone who starts, leads or develops a business is an entrepreneur – to some degree. But while some entrepreneurs may excel at all of the above traits, others may need to focus on developing their entrepreneurial skills.

Why it’s important

It’s difficult to look at the above collection of skills and traits and not agree that most are vital to business development and success. This fact alone makes entrepreneurship important. In addition to these tangible skills there’s also an entrepreneurial spirit within some people that inspires them to create businesses and push things forward through development, change and innovation. This spirit drives entrepreneurs.

The term entrepreneurship neatly defines this combination of skills, talents, traits and attitudes – all of which are valuable to business success. In practical terms this is what makes the term important. If nothing else it provides a checklist of ‘things to get better at’ for those who want to develop their businesses and become great entrepreneurs.

How to do it better

Develop yourself
As Bill Gates puts it, “lifelong learning is vital”. Entrepreneurship begins with business owners and leaders; if they learn to become better at their day jobs – and at entrepreneurship itself – they can build more successful businesses. Open up to developing yourself through new experiences, learning and training.

Engage with your people
Innovation, communication and teamwork are key traits of entrepreneurship. And innovation itself relies on the creativity and talents of people. So why not use your leadership, communication and team working skills to develop better ways to engage with your people and encourage them to become more innovative? In our innovation series we defined some key steps to innovation: setting an innovation agenda and communicating it with key people; engaging employees to come up with ideas; and enabling people to implement good ideas by removing barriers to innovation.

Rationalise risk
Most entrepreneurs are familiar with risk; it’s invariably part of starting a new business. But as time passes and your business becomes stable and successful it could become harder to pursue ideas which risk what you’ve achieved. Rationalising risk, and at the right times accepting it, are key traits of innovation and entrepreneurship. What if you or a colleague conjured up a brilliant but risky idea? How can you better manage risk in order to pursue great ideas?

For more information on Enterprise and Entrepreneurship visit Enterprise UK and Global Enterprise Week.

More info – Guide to successful entrepreneurship

More info – Guide your entrepreneurial personality

Leadership: Defining your vision

Published by Business Link on 20 July, 2009 in Management & Leadership • 0 Comments

Leaders must set a direction, then concentrate everyone’s attention on it.  

So far we have illustrated the impact of bad leadership, and underlined two keywords that business leaders should remember and respect: awareness and judgement. This month we explore the importance of setting a clear vision and inspiring your people to pursue it. 

Influential leadership author, Warren Bennis, asserts that it is crucial for business leaders to set a direction, and “concentrate the attention of everyone in the organisation on it”. This involves defining a vision for the future of your business that is clear and compelling enough for your people to follow.

Defining your vision

Establishing a clear company vision helps to ensure your business goes in the direction you want it to. It gives focus to management, employees, suppliers, collaborators, and even customers. In essence, it defines a roadmap for where your business and its people are heading. So how can you begin to define your vision?  

Strong awareness helps. It pays to know what is going on inside and outside of your organisation, and have access to strong information and intelligence. This means using management, employees and other sources to inform and guide your thinking. Such awareness allows you to make well-judged, forward-thinking decisions. But while others can inform and guide, they should not direct or dictate your vision. As a leader it is your job to look into the unknown and set a direction for the future as you see it.  

Upon sound intelligence you can build an educated view of the future. According to Bennis, a vision needs to provide people with a “bridge to the future”. In the first instance this means defining where you want to be one, three, five, or ten years from now. From these points, leaders must ‘reverse engineer’ to provide specific, practical and achievable plans which detail the key steps required to realise the vision. Sometimes referred to as ‘futurecasting’, the process of visualising and road-mapping the future is an important leadership role.  

Part story, part plan

Bennis stresses the importance of “giving meaning” to a vision “through communication”. BusinessWeek adds that there should be four components to a vision: “A compelling story, an image, it must be achievable, and it has to be forward-looking.” A vision could be described as part story, part plan. The story must be clear, compelling and easy to communicate, while the plan provides the specifics required to make it happen.

Communication might begin with impassioned speeches, but be sure to follow with practical steps which aim to turn vision into reality; such as building specific goals into management, employee or supplier responsibilities, or conducting regular management meetings and monitoring to ensure your vision is rigorously pursued. More generally, look for opportunities to constantly ‘give meaning’ to your vision through strong communication and management. Tell your story of the future, then inspire, compel and enable others to follow your lead.

More info – The importance of leading and motivating