• Knowledge and Information Knowledge and Information

If you are going to be successful in business or investing you have to acquire as much knowledge as you can. That doesn’t mean you have to spend six hours everyday watching the stock market or going to university to get a business degree, it simply means you should have a good general knowledge of the basics which will give you more intelligent options to choose from. As you learn to earn you will also learn to avoid making poor decisions that cost you money.

• Patience and Time Patience and Time

With time anyone can get rich and the earlier you start putting money aside the better. Most financial advisors rave about the magic of compounding interest because it is so effective. Compound Interest is where your earnings from investments are reinvested. So when you are first getting started your reinvested earnings will be quite small, but over time they begin to create a snowball effect. The secret is to get started and be patient!

• Persistence and Discipline Persistence and Discipline

Despite what many “get rich quick” peddlers would like you to believe, it’s generally not easy to get rich and it will not happen overnight, unless you’re extremely lucky and win the lottery. Getting rich is about taking many small disciplined steps over a long period of time.

• Goals and Flexibility Goals and Flexibility

Having a set of financial goals will give you strength and give you a clear target to head towards when things get tough. Get clear about where you are now and where you want to be in 12 months, 5 years, 10, and even 20 years. Keep reviewing your goals regularly and be prepared to be flexible and change things if circumstances change. A good financial advisor that has been recommended by a friend can help with some of the financial details of this step. other save buying you can use payday loan

It’s important to get the basic money making steps right in the beginning. Once you have a solid foundation built for creating wealth and are putting away a percentage of your income each week, set about learning a little more about finance and investing everyday. Keep up to date with the business news and learn about different investment products and services. But most importantly, keep moving a little bit closer towards your goal each week and do not ever give up!

Some human resource departments have maintained an old command and control mentality, where they see their jobs as making sure managers and employees are doing what they are supposed to. Is everyone on time? Why not? What about sick leave? Are all the rules being followed? It’s not that these departments are misguided, because some rules, (e.g.. hiring practices, safety, harassment, etc.) ARE important and need to be handled centrally by a company. Or, certain programs and procedures may best be handled by a central department because of the need to coordinate some actions across the entire company. Problems arise, however, when the HR departments forgets that it’s purpose is to serve the needs of the company, the managers and the employees, to help THEM get the work done.

After all, is your company’s human resources department a PROFIT CENTER? Of course not. The HR department doesn’t produce anything or sell anything but it can help the rest of the company make things or sell things by smoothing the path on some matters.

What sets apart good HR departments from bad is that the bad ones lose their service orientation, and forget that if they don’t help others get their jobs done; they won’t get cooperation from those they should be helping. The good ones recognize that while they are obligated to do some regulation of some processes, that they can play important leadership roles in the organization. And that does NOT mean dictating but balancing off the needs of the organization with the needs of the managers and employees.

What would this look like? Let’s take an example: performance appraisal. Poor HR departments go about performance appraisal this way. They devise a set of rules and forms on their own, then go forth (if they have executive support) and TELL managers and employees what they SHALL do. They tend not to consult, or if they consult just forget to listen to the people who have to use these sometimes monstrous procedures. What happens is that since HR tends to be somewhat distant from the users of the system, the process misses. Managers and employees see the process as another hoop to jump through, and stall, or avoid doing what they are supposed to. What happens is that HR then has to move into the police or enforcer role, to try to coerce managers to do what they are supposed to. That gets everyone frustrated and drives wedges between HR and the rest of the company.

The good HR department goes about it differently. While they recognize that performance appraisal needs to be, in some respects, a central organization process, they also recognize that if the process isn’t responsive to at least some needs of managers and employees, it will never succeed. So rather than dictating the procedures, forms and minutiae, the smart HR folks create (in consultation with both managers and employees), a skeleton outline of the process. This skeleton outlines the basic components, but leave the details to the managers. So rather than telling managers they much use the twelve page form provided, they simply say that managers must document the performance discussions, and forward them to HR at least annually. See the difference? The shift here is from dictating details to providing a framework and helping people work within that general framework. It’s a SUPPORTING function, and not a lead actor.

Everyone benefits (including the HR staff) by backing off and recognizing that one can both support and lead at the same time without dictating. The bottom line is that the more HR dictates and plays enforcer, the fewer managers and staffs feel they need to take responsibility for the functions HR is dictating. The more dictation the more resistance from the rest of the company.

So, HR folks. Look to providing frameworks, rather than details. Look to serve rather than to command.

Team building has proven to be extremely useful in the business world where executives have different thought processes. They have different perspectives of looking towards a scenario. Due to this, personal ego and attitude can cause clashes among the employees and executives. This results in unhealthy relations which in turn affects employee performance. Due to such barriers between team members, the team won’t be able to achieve what they are expected to. In such a situation, team building comes to the rescue.

Team Building Concepts
Team building is a kind of bonding of all team members who come from different backgrounds and have different ways of thinking. It enables a mutual understanding and a common goal to be created in the minds of all team members. It helps them in increasing their performance levels and quality, better decision making, problem solving, innovative thinking, and resolving conflicts.

Good Communication in Team Building
Communication is certainly a crucial factor in team building. Team building techniques and activities which don’t involve effective communication are unproductive. It is very important for team members to communicate with each other to pass on their views and ideas. With effective communication, every team member comes to know how the other person thinks, what work does he expect, and what he is capable of. This helps in working efficiently and dividing the work accordingly among the team members, which promotes proper coordination.

Motivation in Team Building
Employee motivation is also a significant aspect of getting the best from the employee. Team building is an effective tool for the management to motivate and encourage employees to move forward towards the set goals. Motivation enables an employee to think that his contribution is truly important for the company. It includes building a person’s confidence regarding his work, his team members, and the company goals.

Team Building Projects
A good leader or manager would surely be aware of all the team building strategies. There are many ways of promoting team building, be it at the workplace or on an outing. Team building strategies are put into practice when either the team has performed well and is expected to continue doing so, or the team is not giving its best for any specific reason. There are several processes in a company, and there may arise a need of two or more processes to work for a single project. In such cases, the leaders arrange some activities which would help the teams communicate and coordinate with teams from other processes for getting ready for the collective work.

Every employee has different strengths and capabilities, and so roles and responsibilities should be assigned on that basis. Employees come from various backgrounds, so the company should take advantage of the diverse mentality in their working processes. Typical team building techniques normally consist of an outdoor trip with all the members of a team. In such activities, they play creative and informative games that includes communication. There are also some informal corporate team building activities just to make the employees feel that it is solely not a formal event.

There are many other team building techniques that can be used by experienced managers to bond a team together for a common purpose. After all, ‘team building for success’ is the most important motto in an organization.

Last week’s article covered the likely responses of three “Janes,” Jane Dough, Accidental Jane, and Tenacity Jane. This week, we explore the reactions of Go Jane Go and Merry Jane.

Go Jane Go is a successful female entrepreneur who has grown her business to the point that she may struggle to get time away from work. She’s confident and organized, and is likely to have put systems in place to get her work done in an efficient manner—which may have something to do with why she’s four times as likely as the average female business owner to hit the million-dollar. Accounting for 14% of all women entrepreneurs, Go Jane Go types are the least common of the five Jane types.

Because Go Jane Go has grown her business to the point where her she has plenty of work coming in—and the right systems in place to accommodate that work—the loss of a single client (or even two or three) does not pose a serious threat to her business.

However, because Go Jane Go tends cares so much about her clients, the loss of one or more of them may set off some serious alarm bells anyway. If the customer had been a good one with whom she had a relationship, she may feel guilt about whether she failed to provide the right level of service and almost obsessed about what she might have done wrong or what she might have done to prevent the loss. This “looking backward” approach can take up considerable energy from Go Jane Go and keep her from being able to see all of the good she has done.

It is also possible, again depending on the relationship, that Go Jane Go might actually feel relieved. In these cases, it is likely that the relationship wasn’t working for Go Jane Go but because she is committed to good service and doesn’t generally like to engage in what she may see as confrontation, she may have been quietly suffering the relationship. When this client goes, she may actually feel liberated.

In either case, Go Jane Go has an opportunity to remind herself to depersonalize things somewhat and focus on re-investing her energy. In the case of the “bad” customer, she is now free to spend her time focusing on stronger and better relationships. In the case of the lost “good” customer, she should:

1. acknowledge that sometimes things happen that are out of our control,
2. give herself credit for all the things she did that were right
3. acknowledge any lessons learned and commit to improving next time
4. and finally, release any guilt feelings and reinvest her energy in a happier way.

Our last entrepreneur, Merry Jane, is very committed to running her business in a way that helps her be master of her own time. She realizes she may not be making as much money as she might, but she’s happily running her company in a way that works for her lifestyle. Roughly 19% of women business owners are Merry Janes.

Merry Jane cares about her customers and wants to keep them, but at the same time she knows that she only has so much time to invest in any given customer. Therefore, when a customer leaves, she is likely to see it fairly pragmatically, knowing that sometimes these things happen in business. She’ll quickly turn her attention to identifying the next new customer to replace the loss.