Exceeding Expectations
30 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in Exceeding Expectations Tags: better, Competition, constant, Customer, efficient, exceed, expect, expectation, faster, look, monitor, observe, provide, strive, talk, trend, understand, want
To do so, strive to understand what the customer wants and expects. Observe customers, monitor trends, and talk to them. Constantly look for ways to go beyond the expected or what the competition provides. Provide it faster, better, and more efficiently than others, and exceed customer expectations.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Writing the First Draft
29 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in Writing the First Draft Tags: audience, common, complete, correct, creativity, draft, elegant, expression, final, fine-tune, flash, flow, focus, gap, hour, information, insist, introduction, logic, material, middle, mind, mistake, object, opening, order, Outline, paper, paragraph, perfect, point, profession, purpose, quick, ready, shut, stay, Structure, thought, try, version, weakness, word, work, write, writer
When your outline is complete and you are ready to write your first draft, many writers make a common mistake at this point. They try to “get it right” the first time. They may work on a paragraph for hours, fine-tuning the words until they are perfect. Writers thus shut off their creativity by insisting on profession.
Remember, the first draft is a working draft. It should be written quickly without too much thought to elegant expressions or final order and paragraphing. Your object is to get the material on paper to flash out the structure of your outline. Let the words flow. Start wherever you can—in the middle, even near the end. The opening or introduction can be completed later. Any weaknesses in logic or gaps in information, any points that are out of place can be corrected in the final version.
As you write the first draft, keep your audience in mind. Doing so will help you stay focused on the purpose of your work. Keep writing until you have completed the first draft.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
What Strategic Planning is not?
26 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in What Strategic Planning is not? Tags: act, acting, action, adherence, appropriate, attempt, attention, bound, build, caring, champion, coalition, combination, commit, concept, concern, control, create, decision, design, develop, Discipline, drive, education, effective, embody, emerge, emphasize, enforce, enhance, excessive, fail, Figure, focus, follow, formal, further, goal, harkens, implement, incredible, information, insight, instance, instruction, intend, intention, interpretation, key, Latin, leader, leadership, learning, manager, mandate, Mission, necessary, numerous, opportunity, order, Organization, organizational, panacea, particular, People, Performance, plan, planned, planner, precise, Prepare, procedure, process, produce, production, promote, punishment, realize, result, reverence, rigid, root, sanction, satisfy, sequence, skillful, sort, source, stakeholder, statement, step, strategic, Strategic Planning, strategy, subsidiary, substitute, suppose, synonymous, think, thinking, thought, thoughtless, tool, Training, ultimate, unexpected, unforeseen, unplanned, willing, wise
Clearly, strategic planning is no panacea. Strategic planning is simply a set of concepts, procedures, and tools designed to help leaders, managers, and planners think and act strategically. Used in wise and skillful ways by a “coalition of the willing,” strategic planning can help organizations focus on producing effective decisions and actions that further the organization’s mission, meet in mandates, and satisfy key stakeholders. But strategic planning is not a substitute for strategic thinking and acting. Only caring and committed people can do that. And when used thoughtlessly, strategic planning can actually drive out precisely the kind of strategic thought and action it is supposed to promote.
Furthermore, strategic planning is not a substitute for leadership. There is simply no substitute for leadership when it comes to using strategic planning to enhance organizational performance. At least some key decision makers and process champions must be committed to the strategic planning process, or any attempts to use it are bound to fail.
In addition, strategic planning is not synonymous with creating an organizational strategy. Organizational strategies have numerous sources, both planned and unplanned. Strategic planning is likely to result in statement of organizational intentions, but what is realized in practice will be some combination of what is intended and what emerges along the way. Strategic planning can help organizations develop and implement effective strategies, but they should also remain open to unforeseen opportunities. Too much attention to strategic planning and excessive reverence for strategic plans can build organizations to other unplanned and unexpected—yet incredibly useful—sources of information, insight, and action.
The discipline necessary for strategic planning can be of two sorts. The first harkens back to Latin root of the word “discipline,” emphasizing instruction, training, education, and learning. The second embodies later interpretations of the word, emphasizing order, control, and punishment. Emphasis should be placed on education and learning, although there clearly are occasions when imposing order, taking control, and enforcing appropriate sanctions are appropriate. Certainly, key leaders, managers, and planners can best use strategic planning as an educational and learning tool, to help them figure out what is really important and what should be done about it. Sometimes this means following a particular sequence of steps and preparing formal strategic plans, but not necessarily. The ultimate goal of strategic planning should not be a rigid adherence to a particular process or an instance on the production of plans. Instead, strategic planning should promote wise strategic thought and action on behalf of an organization and its key stakeholders. What steps to follow, in what sequence, and whether or not to prepare formal plans are subsidiary concerns.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Premium for Speed
25 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in Premium for Speed Tags: ability, accept, advantage, answer, automation, cash flow, certain, competitive, compress, crucial, Customer, cycle, department, determine, difference, drive, emphasis, evaporate, extent, extremely, factor, find, important, increase, information, inventory, measurable, narrow, necessary, opportunity, order, place, premium, pressure, process, promise, question, quickly, reduce, respond, Sales, salespeople, selling, significant, situation, speed, strategic, success, time, tolerance, trend
A factor that is driving the trend towards automating the sales department is the extent to which speed has become a strategic advantage in the selling process. Once, it was acceptable for salespeople to promise to get back to customers with answers to questions. Increasingly, those salespeople are finding that by the time they get back to their customers with the necessary information, the sales opportunity has evaporated. The ability to respond to customers quickly is crucial to success, and the tolerances are narrower than ever before.
Similarly, the ability to compress the sales order cycle is becoming an extremely significant factor in a competitive situation. Your customers, who are under the same competitive pressures as you, are placing more and more emphasis on increased cash flow and reduced inventories. Reducing your sales order cycle from four days to two can make an important and measurable difference, certainly enough of a difference to determine whether or not you get the order.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Business Visionaries
24 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in Business Visionaries Tags: accord, achieve, afford, altruism, approach, awaken, belief, believe, business, change, cling, community, company, continue, deep, demand, doubtful, effective, establish, executive, feel, find, forward, fundamental, future, global, Human, insist, leader, leverage, manage, modern, need, operate, Organization, outmoded, past, personal, public, recognize, responsibility, responsibly, Role, sensitive, share, sideline, society, spirit, stand, sustainable, thinking, tradition, traditional, transformation, Value, visionary, world
The days of doing business as we have been doing in the past are gone. We can no longer afford to continue using traditional approaches in managing our companies. Executives or organizations that insist on clinging to outmoded ways of thinking will find themselves standing on the sidelines as new traditions are being established by forward thinking business visionaries. The business leaders of the future are awakening, sensitive to the personal responsibility the public now demands from the business community.
All of us share certain values and beliefs. We value the human spirit and believe that modern society must change in a deep and fundamental way the way it thinks, if we are to have a sustainable future. We also believe that the most effective leverage in achieving such a global transformation is through the business community.
It is doubtful that the business community would take this leadership role out of altruism. However, we believe that if business leaders recognize a need to operate responsibly, and feel that their personal values are in accord with organizational values, they will begin doing business in a new way—establishing new traditions in business communities around the world.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Seeking Specialized Knowledge
23 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in Seeking Specialized Knowledge Tags: accident, acquire, advantage, attendee, attract, avoid, basis, business, change, complete, conference, conventional, degree, direct, eager, education, enjoy, expert, generation, hit-or-miss, information, instructor, irrelevant, know, knowledge, latest, learn, learning, manage, matter, meeting, money, need, People, profession, qualification, relate, seek, sell, seminar, sharp, short course, source, specialized, subject, success, taught, technique, useful, workshop
For generations, most people never sought specialized knowledge after completing school. What they learned about business, managing, selling, or their profession was acquired on an accidental hit-or-miss basis.
Now that’s changed. Today there are seminars, workshops, short courses, and conferences where you can learn the latest techniques and knowledge about anything you need to know. These sources of specialized knowledge have three advantages over conventional education. They are taught by experts, not be people whose only qualification is a degree. Second, the subject matter relates directly to your needs. Irrelevant information is avoided. And third, you’ll acquire as much useful information from other attendees as you do from the instructors. Specialized learning meetings attract only sharp people eager to make more money and enjoy greater success.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Anticipating Events
22 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in Anticipating Events Tags: act, action, Antedate, apparent, behave, build, change, circumstance, company, corporate, crumble, develop, director, effective, ensure, erode, event, expectation, external, frightening, healthy, implication, internal, monitor, need, Organization, pace, People, perception, protect, rapid, react, reputation, situation, think
Events can develop at a frightening pace. Directors need to ensure they and their companies can monitor and react effectively to rapidly changing circumstances. Apparently healthy situations can quickly crumble. Hence directors need to think through the implications of their actions. Corporate reputations can also erode rapidly. Directors must ensure that people throughout the organization act and behave to protect and build internal and external expectations and perceptions.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
Shedding Light on Quality Awareness
21 Nov 2009 1 Comment
in Shedding Light on Quality Awareness Tags: achieve, action, appropriate, aside, attitude, automation, awareness, benefit, build, capacity, compete, Competition, conformance, constancy, corporation, corrective, cost, culture, Customer, design, desirable, direct, Domestic, emerge, emphasis, enhancement, equal, equipment, exclusive, experience, fact, importance, improve, improvement, increase, inherent, investment, involve, lead, learn, light, limited, long-term, lose, low, management, mandate, manufacture, market, mutual, necessity, objective, occur, Organization, overhead, overnight, Planning, poor, practical, prevail, prevention, price, problem, process, Product, productivity, profit, project, purpose, Quality, quick, realize, recent, recognize, remedy, render, repeat, result, ridiculous, sale, secure, service, share, shed, short-term, specification, survive, system, technique, TQM, transformation, Value, workforce, world, world-wide
An organization will not begin the transformation until it is aware that the quality of the product or service must be improved. Awareness comes about when an organization loses market share or realizes that quality and productivity go hand in hand. It also occurs if TQM is mandated by the customer or if management realizes that TQM is a better way to run business and compete in domestic and world markets.
Automation or other productivity enhancements might not help a corporation if it is unable to market its product or service because the quality is poor. The Japanese learned this fact from practical experience. They could sell their products only at ridiculously low prices, and even then it was difficult to secure repeat sales. Until recently, corporations have not recognized the importance of quality. However, a new attitude has emerged—quality first among the equals of cost and service—the customer wants value.
Quality and productivity are not mutually exclusive. Improvements in quality can lead directly to increased productivity and other benefits. The improved quality results in improvement in productivity, capacity, and profit. Many quality improvement projects are achieved with the same workforce, same overhead, and no investment in new equipment.
More and more corporations are recognizing the importance and necessity of quality improvement if they are to survive domestic and world-wide competition. Quality improvement is not limited to the conformance of the product or service to specifications; it also involves the inherent quality in the design of the system. The prevention of the product, service, and process problems is a more desirable objective than taking corrective action after the product is manufactured or a service rendered.
TQM does not occur overnight; there are no quick remedies. It takes a long time to build the appropriate emphasis and techniques into the culture. Over-emphasis on short term results and profits must be set aside so long-term planning and constancy of purpose will prevail.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.
