The Case For Upsizing
You’ve heard of downsizing and rightsizing, but have you ever thought about upsizing? Many different terms have been used over the years to describe what amounts to the same thing: Changing the size of a business by making people redundant. The parts of organisations were rearranged by goals or means - production and sales or committees, departments, or divisions. Back and forth, and then back again. But no matter which one was emphasised, invariably people lost their jobs as a result. And...
Read moreThe Price You Pay When You Lose Your Way
Why are you in business? What’s your purpose? A typical answer is that you are in business to make money. If that’s the first thing that popped into your mind, then you’ve already lost your way. You’ve already forgotten why you’re in business. If you said that it’s because you spotted a gap in the market that you could fill, then you’re a little bit closer to the right answer, but still closer than you think to losing your way. Surprised? Here’s the right answer...
Read moreIs Employee Engagement Still Relevant?
In a recent, and very brief article, it was suggested that measures of work output should replace employee engagement metrics. The writer argued that in the past couple of decades, engagement increased by less than a half percent each year, and for that reason it ought to be scrapped. No doubt you see the flaw in such reasoning. The fact that improvements are comparatively minor year-on-year doesn’t make the thing being measured any less valuable. It may simply mean that new methods need to...
Read moreChallenges Managers Face
After a rollercoaster period of only working in the office, only working from home, working here, there, and everywhere: the dust is beginning to settle. As of this writing, all virus-related restrictions have been removed, including the so-called “guidelines” for working from home. It means that the decision about where employees do their work lies with the employer. The government can no longer be blamed. That said, many employers now recognise that people don’t need to be in the off...
Read moreConversations Managers Hate To Have
If you do a search online for the topic, ‘conversations managers hate to have,’ then you’ll find that the topic hasn’t been discussed much for quite a while. That’s a testament to just how adverse people are to these things. Sticking your head in the HR sand, however, won’t obviate the need for them. You still have to have them. And as unpleasant as they are, you can (and should) prepare for them so that they are the least disagreeable. There’s no sense in making conservations y...
Read moreWhat Do The Best CEOs Do?
In this article, you’ll learn what it is that the best CEOs do, and you won’t be surprised to learn that relationships lie at the root of its strength. That’s because without the willing cooperation of those in your organisation, your job will be much harder. We’ll consider a number of things that the best CEOs so in light of their ultimate leadership and authority. The first thing that needs to be said is that the best CEOs decide what it means to win. Of course, you could ar...
Read moreCEOs: The Ultimate Authority
In the first article in our series on CEOs, you learned that people in this role are characterized by two things that separate them from everyone else in the organisation. The first is that they carry ultimate responsibility. No matter what happens, at the end of the day, they are the ones left “carrying the can.” The second thing is that they have ultimate authority. Whatever power anyone else has in the organisation, it has been delegated by the CEO, and no one in that enterprise has mo...
Read moreCEOs As Leaders
Fundamentally, two things can be said about Chief Executive Officers, better known as CEOs. The first is that they carry the responsibility to provide direction for their organisations, whether those entities are private or public. Direction is generally thought of in terms of vision and leadership. Vision is the unreachable horizon - the pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow, and leadership is the demonstrable expression - the proof - of what each one needs to do to reach it.
Read moreWhy Do We Have Managers?
Have you ever wondered why organizations have managers? Maybe you assumed that because there was always something to manage that the position had existed formally or informally since forever. They’ve always been there, in your lifetime anyway, and you probably can’t think of a period in history long before you when they didn’t exist. You may not be aware, however, there was a time when managers as we know them today didn’t exist. That’s right. There were no managers of ...
Read moreHow To Be The Manager Everyone Wants To Work For
Wouldn’t it be great if people applied to work for your organization because they wanted you to be their boss? Wouldn’t it be a testament to your skill as a manager if people asked to be put on a waiting list for vacancies where you work so that they could have you as their supervisor? This may sound like a pie-in-the-sky; even cloud-cuckoo land, but the truth is that there is much that you can do to become the person that people want to work for. And the tragedy is that so m...
Read more
