Casual Articles - Business

Multicultural Management
The values structure is represented through the motivational domains. Further, while we anticipate universality in the values structure, i.e. the set of values reflecting a particular motivational domain will remain constant, the relative importance of different domains to specific cultural groups is expected to vary. Cultural variation is reflected through these differences. The central question then concerns the appropriate cultural grouping or layer to reflect these motivational domain differences as they relate to business practices and outcomes.Cultural differences present themselves in the very basics of everyday lives. Cultural opacity takes place when a cultural concept is unique to a culture. This may occur when some culturally defined concepts are transposed from one cultural setting to another. For instance, the American concept of "privacy" sounds more like an alien notion than an individual right to many Chinese, whose culture lacks a similar social norm. And "program," a popular term in the U.S., may not translate into an exact Chinese equivalent because the English word has different meanings in different contexts, some of which do not exist in China. Regarding business ma

tools already present and accounted for to help you with the actual meeting: from flip charts to electronic white boards, from video-conferencing to the latest collaboration software allowing a group of people edit a document from locations around the world, companies have kept up-to-date with a variety of e-meeting solutions.

One tool new to this market sector is ehuddle. Ehuddle is an internet-based tool used by companies pre-meeting and post-meeting to increase the effectiveness of meetings. Initiated by a simple email to meeting participants, ehuddle let’s everyone who is invited to the meeting see the questions that are going to be asked, brainstorm possible answers, and evaluate a list of possible solutions. All of this activity happens in the days leading up to the meeting ensuring that participants are prepared for the meeting – having already thought about the important issues and evaluated each other’s possible solutions.

Ehuddle utilizes a proprietary online format that is anonymous and democratic. This not only allows members of your committee who could not make the meeting to give input, it also creates an environment where no one is afraid to suggest ideas. Ownership is built into the process because everyone has had a hand in evaluating each solution.

Smart meeting managers are even using tools like ehuddle to set a portion of the agenda. By letting rank and file members of any group to brainstorm and rank issues that are important to them, the agenda automatically reflects the needs of the organization.

The return on investment for tools like ehuddle is quickly realized. Managers recognize the money lost in non-optimized meetings, low levels of participation, and distracted activity. Couple this with the increased productivity, quicker issue identification and resolution, and faster time-to-market the tool bring

How to Survive a Job Loss
Fired, canned, laid off, let go. Whatever you want to call it, it could happen. Sometimes, people see it coming. Other times, they're caught completely off guard. Either way, the process of surviving the loss of a job is the same, and it takes hard work and resolve to do so.Let goFor most people, their initial reaction to a job loss is shock, followed by anger and feelings of victimization. While these reactions are completely normal, dwelling on them is a mistake. As the old adage goes, you need to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and move forward. Feel sad, get mad…and move on! The worst thing you can do is bring a toxic attitude with you wherever you go, or wallow in self-pity.Examine the evidenceIf you've been fired, you need to assess why. In some cases, it has nothing to do with you, but if it does, you owe it to yourself to examine the reasons. If your behavior, attitude, performance, or abilities were to blame, ask yourself how you can learn from the experience so you don't repeat the same mistakes. Being fired can sometimes provide a big wake-up call that spurs people to positive change and a brighter future.Don't blame the messengerA layoff

Whether your company holds one meeting a week or dozens of meetings a day it is essential that this time is used efficiently and effectively. Most meetings are less effective than they could be not because they are poorly managed, but because meeting managers spend all of their time focusing on the one or two hours when people will be gathered around the conference table or video screen. Smart meeting managers know that it is the actions you take during the three days immediately before the meeting which are much more important than the meeting itself.

When Your Meeting Starts
The key to making your meeting successful begins long before the scheduled start-time of your meeting. Just as any athlete knows the importance of stretching before exercising, top-level meeting managers know that how you spend your time the week prior to a meeting is as important as or more important than the meeting time itself.

Common signs that a manager has spent too much time focusing on the meeting itself and not enough time focusing on the activity leading up to the meeting include people coming to your meetings unprepared, a few people suggesting many of the ideas, and a consistent pattern of rushing through the items at the bottom of your agenda.

Roger Burns, a 30-year veteran of high-level meetings describes it like this, “Often times the first 20 or 30 minutes of our meetings would be spent with people flipping through the documents I had sent them over a week ago. They had not prepared and had no idea what questions I was going to ask in the next few minutes."

If you are like many, these symptoms show up more often than not. So what is a meeting manager to do? How can you avoid these common pitfalls? The answer is simple, but it begins a full week before the meeting is scheduled to start.

The Three P’s of Successful Meetings: Preparation, Participation, Prioritization
Although a successful meeting requires a skilled facilitator, that is only part of the puzzle. Equally important is the activity that has occurred prior to the meeting.

The First P: Preparation
Effective use of your meeting time relies on all parties being prepared to participate. This means that each person in attendance has already read the meeting materials prior to the meeting taking place. In addition to this, the meeting participants should be given the questions that are going to be discussed prior to the meeting.

Historically, most meetings begin with the chairperson asking a question to those in attendance. As an example if you were holding a strategic planning meeting, a good question might be, “What do you think are the strengths of our organization?” At this point the discussion moves around the table with each person having two minutes to process the questions, come up with a smart-sounding solution, and express the solution coherently to the group.

The problem with this method is that most good ideas do not come in those two minutes. Good ideas come as you are driving to work, as you are falling asleep, as you are in the shower – the very times you are probably not with your co-workers in a meeting. (Unless you are routinely holding your meetings in the company locker room!) Giving the questions you are going to ask to each meeting participant prior to the meeting is essential to getting the best ideas out of your participants. It also gives them a reason to read the materials you have distributed prior to the meeting.

The best time to distribute the materials and questions is three to seven days prior to your meeting. This gives participants a chance to think about the issues and questions, but not long enough to forget their good ideas and why they liked them. The payback here is fast and obvious. You will get more accomplished in less time – saving your organization money and allowing you to get your ideas implemented faster.

The Second P: Participation
Getting the best ideas from your best people is essential for your meeting to be successful. The other half of this equation is to get a broad base of participation so there is ownership in the solution rather than resentment.

If these two elements are so important to successful meetings, why is it so rare that they happen simultaneously? The first reason it rarely happens is because your best idea people are often your busiest people. More times than not these high-value people who are like popcorn machines full of ideas are already scheduled for other meetings when you choose your meeting times. Although it is sometimes possible to reschedule your meeting to meet their availability, it is impossible to adjust every time and for every need.

The second reason you rarely get your best idea people to participate and have a wide base of ownership at the same time has to do with the dynamic within meetings. Each person within your organization is wired differently and for every person who is comfortable expressing and advocating for ideas in a meeting there are others who do not have this gift. For those who are good at verbal maneuvering, gaining support at a meeting is like a sport. For those who feel less comfortable in this environment advocating a position can feel like torture. Clearly a venue is needed to allow everyone a chance to participate in the solution in a way that is non-threatening, democratic and builds ownership directly into the process.

Do not underestimate the value of this increased participation. Ideas, initiatives and even directives that are viewed as having a broad base of support are implemented faster and with a higher level of quality. In addition to this, you do get better ideas when more people participate – especially when the people participating are those closest to the action not those incubated in their executive offices. All of this helps you innovated faster than the competition, get to market quicker with your ideas, and win the battle of consistent quality.

The Third P: Prioritization
In a perfect world we would have unlimited time in each day to get everything done. Unfortunately we live on the clock each and every day. Too often our meetings are crammed full of agenda items placed there in the order they showed up on our desk or the order we jotted them down on a yellow sticky note while on the phone, with no level of importance or urgency.

The best meeting managers understand that all items on an agenda do not deserve equal weight, and they prioritize the issues starting with the most urgent. This allows your best minutes to be dedicated to your most important items.

Unfortunately the priorities of the leader are not always the priorities of the team. There are many times when the rank and file have a burning issue that has completely slipped past the management. Effective meeting leaders have a system in place to identify and address just such issues.

The benefit of having such a system in place is increased productivity in your most vital areas. By focusing everyone’s attention on the issues which are most important to your success you will quickly see a decrease in non-value added activity and increased profitability for your efforts.

A New Set of Tools
Now that we have switched our focus from the one hour meeting around to the full week leading up to a meeting – a whole new set of tools needs to be added to your toolbox.

There are a multitude of tools already present and accounted for to help you with the actual meeting: from flip charts to electronic white boards, from video-conferencing to the latest collaboration software allowing a group of people edit a document from locations around the world, companies have kept up-to-date with a variety of e-meeting solutions.

To Blitz or Not to Blitz
'Kaizen Blitz'was brought to the West by Yoshiki Iwata, an ex-Toyota employee, who taught the Toyota Production SystemKaizen Blitz'. Mr Iwata would routinely refer to kaizen when talking about improvement, but I suspect the Kaizen Blitz name may have come about when Mr Iwata subsequently presented the same programme for Mr Imai's Kaizen Institute, Mr Imai being the interpreter and translator who wrote the original book called Kaizen, and used it for the name of his consulting company. The process was also taken up by the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) who I believe registered the term as a trademark.Many lean manufacturing Kaizen Blitz learning experience, either with Mr Iwata's group or at some remove from them. The original machining cell example used by Mr Iwata to teach standard work combination sheets can be found in many a one piece flow cell design manual, including our own (as initial translators we have some claim to the copyright).But what does the Kaizen Blitz teach us about improvement? One lesson is 'just do it'. One characterisation of TPS by a Japanese authority defines its strength as Routinised Methods, Routinised Problem Solving and Experimentatio

gs: Preparation, Participation, Prioritization
Although a successful meeting requires a skilled facilitator, that is only part of the puzzle. Equally important is the activity that has occurred prior to the meeting.

A New Set of Tools
Now that we have switched our focus from the one hour meeting around to the full week leading up to a meeting – a whole new set of tools needs to be added to your toolbox.

Making a Great First Impression
You have what it takes to succeed. Now all you need to do is communicate that in writing so that an employer sees just how amazing you truly are. How do you make that great first impression, especially when you have to do it on paper rather than in person?Start with following a few basic guidelines. No matter how wonderful you are, unless you are able to get the attention of the person scanning the cover letters and resumes, you have very limited opportunities to get the interview you want. Some of the basic concepts mentioned here seem like common sense. That’s because they are. The job-search process is not complicated. It is time consuming and involved at times, but it is fairly easy. Follow these guidelines and you will be that much closer to getting an interview. Why? Employers are looking for people who follow the basic tenets in place, not those who like to rock the boat.Guidelines exist for a reason. They help everyone conform to certain standards so that the whole process (whatever it is) goes smoother. Follow them and you will do well. Don’t follow them and you limit yourself. You see, most everyone else is following the guidelines, too.<

they liked them. The payback here is fast and obvious. You will get more accomplished in less time – saving your organization money and allowing you to get your ideas implemented faster.

A New Set of Tools
Now that we have switched our focus from the one hour meeting around to the full week leading up to a meeting – a whole new set of tools needs to be added to your toolbox.

Tracking Employee Turnover - An Insufficient Metric - and Some Alternatives
In our current climate of low unemployment, boomers leaving the job scene and the shift from labor-intensive to knowledge-intensive jobs, talent retention and hiring success based on job-fit practices has moved up on the corporate priorities list. How can we measure the effects of our current hiring and retention practices?In hiring a new employee, most of the direct costs are front-loaded, occurring before or in the first few days of employment. Most of the indirect costs are post-hire, adding up over time of training, acclimation and acculturation. At some point, usually long after the date of hire, the employee reaches the break-even point and begins to contribute to the company's profitability.Accurately measuring those costs is a difficult and time-consuming exercise but one that should become a priority for any enterprise interested in a strategic approach to HR. For the limited focus of this article, we will simply assume that hiring a new or replacement employee is extremely costly, and measurement of our level of success in the process is critical to our mission. What to measure then? Given the front-loaded costs of the process and the observed fact that most companies'

t are implemented faster and with a higher level of quality. In addition to this, you do get better ideas when more people participate – especially when the people participating are those closest to the action not those incubated in their executive offices. All of this helps you innovated faster than the competition, get to market quicker with your ideas, and win the battle of consistent quality.

A New Set of Tools
Now that we have switched our focus from the one hour meeting around to the full week leading up to a meeting – a whole new set of tools needs to be added to your toolbox.

What is 6 Sigma?
You may have noticed the increase of discussion and publication about a topic called 6 Sigma. However, what isn’t as obvious is what 6 Sigma actually is. First created by Motorola, 6 Sigma is an intensive, highly focused, and greatly effective quality control strategy. Its primary goal is to maintain the performance of an organization virtually error-free.When measuring the performance of a company, its Sigma level is given. Traditionally operated businesses will usually be found running at a 3 or 4 Sigma performance level, even though their rate of problems per opportunity usually falls between 6,200 and 67,000 per one million.On the other hand, an organization running at 6 Sigma will instead see an average of only 3.4 problems per million opportunities. This tremendous difference can make the difference between success and failure in a market where the expectations of customers rise as quickly as the complexity of today’s products and processes.Surprisingly enough, however, 6 Sigma – though considered an entirely new and innovative strategy – does not involve any new technologies, theories, or techniques. Instead, its foundation is methods that have existed for a lo

Utilizing this full set of tools prior to a meeting allows the leader to walk into the conference room or video-conference confident that the groundwork has been laid for a successful meeting.

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Now a need is felt for fibre finishing technologies, which are indispensable to manufacture as well to grow rapidly. An upsurge in textile production has given fibre finish suppliers a reason to continuously seek new and enhanced technologies that provide value and cost efficiency to their customers. Fibre finishes have two uses in the industry: to process Fibre (e.g. spin finishes) and to give advantageous end properties to an accomplished article (e.g. effect finishes), such as wicking for a diaper cover stock.

All Yellow Pages salespeople work for a commission. Their job is to produce revenue for the Yellow Pages publisher, thus producing revenue for themselves. The biggest fool is the Yellow Pages advertiser that believes the Yellow Pages sales rep is their friend and works for them. Remember they call on all of your competitors. As an independent consultant for Yellow Pages advertisers I have witnessed numerous horror stories of wasted ad dollars by people believing their sales rep.

Punch Clocks are small manual timekeeping devices that have been in use with most companies for decades. The concept behind a punch clock is pretty simple. Employees have punch cards which they enter to log in their time, registering it into the punch clock as they report for work and punching out when they leave.

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