Business Management

Is Time Management an Issue?

Do you feel the need to be more organized and/or more productive? Do you spend your day in a frenzy of activity and then wonder why you haven't accomplished much?

Time management skills are especially important in small business where owners often handle many responsibilities.

Here are a few tips to increase productivity and to stay calm and cool throughout the day.

1. Manage
No matter how organized you are there are only 24 hours every day. Focus on managing yourself and what you do with that time.

2. Time wasters.
It is easy to be side tracked and waste time “surfing the net”, reading emails, interruptions. Track your personal time so you can see where the focus of efforts are and how to improve time usage.

3. Plan.
Develop a plan to focus on changing behavior not changing time. Start with eliminating personal time wasters like taking personal phone calls at work. This will help improve productivity and reduce stress.

4. Prioritize.
Start the day with prioritizing tasks and benchmarking performance. If you have a list of 20 items, how many must be done that day?

5. Delegate.
Every effort should be made to have others share the work load. A review of activity will help determine what can be delegated or outsourced and allow you to focus on priorities.

Remember, time is one of the resources business owners have that is scarce, cannot be replaced once spent, and it cannot be borrowed or purchased. Manage it judiciously.

Business Management

Do’s and Don’ts for Managers

It has often been said that employees rarely quit companies. Instead, employees quit their managers or supervisors by leaving the company. Increasing positive and reducing negative managerial behavior will go a long way towards improving employee engagement.
When your talented employees are engaged, they are able to perform better and improve your business. Here are some Do’s and Don’t’s to consider in order to get managers and supervisors started in focusing on ways to and improve manager’s performance.

1.  DO what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it.
There is no better way to communicate the message that you are accountable for your promises and that everyone in your company should be accountable as well.

2. DO be responsive (return phone calls, emails).
As a manager, your team can be considered to be your customer.
You want your sales team to punctually respond back to customer requests, so you should do the same.

3. DO admit your mistakes ...
...and take the blame for failures.

4. DO recognize your team.
"You can never underestimate the power of simple recognition for a job well done."

5. DO ask and listen.
"The manager of the future will know how to ask rather than how to tell." (Peter Drucker)

6. DO smile and laugh.
Have some fun. But, be genuine; programmed fun and faked laughter is worse than doing nothing.
When appropriate, laugh at yourself; it will humanize you.

At the same time………
1. DON'T get angry.
"Getting angry is easy. Anyone can do that. Anger does not belong in your managerial kit bag.

2. DON'T be cold, distant, rude or unfriendly.
Especially in difficult times, employees take cues from their immediate supervisors and need to hear from them. The team will judge managers by their action, moods, and behaviors, not by their intent.

3. DON'T send mixed messages to employees so that they never know where you stand.
Keep your message simple, focused and prioritized. Too many messages and initiatives just confuse and alienate people.

4. DON'T BS your team.
This includes saying things that you don't believe in. This includes hiding information and just plain lying. By the time each of us is in our early 20′s, we have all developed very well-tuned BS detectors
.
5. DON'T act more concerned about your own welfare than anything else.
Your success will come through the success of your team.
"Self-serving detectors" are also very well-tuned in most employees.

6. DON'T avoid taking responsibility for your actions.
You are the boss. As such, you are accountable and the buck stops with the boss. You are trying to develop accountability throughout your company. So, lead by example.

These are just a few ideas to help structure a positive working environment. I hope you share these with your team. Let me know what you think. gerry@polarisgroupmc.com