Meeting Management: Writing Agenda or Memo
26 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Meeting Management: Writing Agenda or Memo Tags: accomplish, action, additional, agenda, chart, checking, clip, discuss, expect, focus, follow-up, graph, guide, include, information, involve, issue, management, material, mean, meeting, memo, necessary, objective, page, participant, preparation, Prepare, proper, recipient, reference, reminder, save, secure, separate, serve, short, spend, staple, state, time, write, written
A written memo or agenda is the best means of giving and securing information and if properly put together will focus you as well as the recipients on the objective of the meeting and the means to achieve it. During the meeting it can also be used as a guide and reference, and after the meeting it can serve as a reminder of what was to be accomplished and a means of checking on follow-up actions. Time spent preparing a written agenda will save time during any meeting. Keep it short. Write no agenda or memo longer than one page. Any additional materials, charts, or graphs necessary for the meeting should be included on separate pages, stapled or paper-clipped to your one-page memo or agenda.
The memo or agenda should state the objective of the meeting, the issues to be discussed, the time to meeting will begin and end, the place, the participants involved, and what is expected of them in the way of preparation before the meeting.
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.
Losers’ Description of Capabilities
23 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Losers’ Description of Capabilities Tags: access, accumulate, accumulation, activity, area, asset, availability, benefit, building, capability, capital, certain, comfortable, commercial, consider, constraint, control, corporate, count, depend, describe, description, difficult, economic, elsewhere, employ, evidence, exclude, financial, fixed, flow, focus, force, general, geographical, individual, item, large, less, live, loser, manage, market, measure, move, operate, outsider, overhead, own, participation, People, physical, place, prefer, pressure, prison, progress, property, provide, rather, recruit, relevance, Resource, seen, smelt, staff, succeed, tangible, term, touch, Value, view, vulnerable
Corporate losers describe their capabilities in terms of the physical and financial resources they own and control and the individuals whom they employ and can manage. Their markets are places. Their people are more comfortable with tangible assets that can be seen, smelt and touched, and easily counted, measured and valued.
Because their activities depend on the availability of physical resources some losers can operate only in certain geographical areas. It may be difficult for people living elsewhere to access them and work with them. Buildings become prisons and those excluded from participation become outsiders.
In general, losers prefer more rather than less. Some consider the accumulation of resources as an end in itself. Recruiting more staff and moving to a larger property is viewed as evidence of progress. Losers focus upon the individual items of capital rather than their relevance use, and the flow of benefits that they provide. The more losers succeed in accumulating fixed overheads, the more vulnerable they become to economic forces, commercial constraints and financial pressures.
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.
Deadlines
22 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Deadlines Tags: American, business, Concession, country, deadline, dealing, departure, emphasis, extra, Far East, finalize, finish, foreigner, haste, home, Japan, meeting, negotiation, plan, purpose, return, schedule, speed, stay, wring
Our emphasis on speed and deadlines is often used against us in business dealings. In Far Eastern countries such as Japan, the Americans may be asked how long he or she plans to stay at the first meeting. Then negotiations are purposely not finalized until a few hours before the American’s departure, when the Japanese know they can wring extra concessions from the foreigner because of his or her haste to finish and return home on schedule.
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.
Power to Act
21 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Power to Act Tags: ability, acrimony, act, bold, break, car, caught, change, cohesion, condition, confidence, contrast, Customer, despair, difference, direction, doubt, fear, half, headlight, hesitation, important, market, opportunity, Organization, paralyze, pick, power, prevarication, problem, rabbit, scourge, sense, thing, tune, waste, workforce
An organization in tune with its workforce and customers not only senses problems and opportunities before they break, but also often has the cohesion and confidence to turn direction. For these organizations the ability to let things go is as important as the ability to pick things up.
In contrast there are organizations caught like rabbits in car headlights, paralyzed by the fear of changing market conditions. In the end they would rather waste half a year on despair and acrimony than act boldly whilst they can still make a difference.
Prevarication and hesitation are without doubt the scourge of organizations.
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.
Advantages of Franchising
20 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Advantages of Franchising Tags: adopt, advantage, advertise, Advertising, Advice, aggressive, assist, automobile, available, build, business, careful, carry, charge, combine, Competition, competitive, conduct, considerable, control, degree, develop, Distribution, effective, effort, employment, encourage, equip, especially, expansion, experience, financial, financing, firm, food, franchise, franchisee, Franchising, franchisor, hamburger, high, impact, important, influence, interest, investment, large, lease, location, main, maintain, major, manage, Marketing, method, muffler, number, offer, operation, Organization, outlet, own, owner, place, possibility, Prepare, price, privilege, produce, Product, Quality, rapid, reduce, replace, resources, retail, right, secure, sell, service, similar, small, standardize, standpoint, test, trademark, Training, turnkey, usual
Franchising may combine the advantages of a small business managed by its owner and the resources, especially marketing impact, available only to large firms. The franchisee may be interested mainly in securing the privilege of selling a highly advertised product. Usually one of the most important advantages of a franchise to the franchisee is the right to use a trademark owned by the franchisor that is well known and/or highly advertised. In addition, many franchisors have developed a standardized and tested method of conducting the business, whether it is producing hamburgers, conducting an employment service, or replacing automobile mufflers, that will be adopted by the franchisee.
From the franchisee’s standpoint, especially if he or she has little or no experience in the business being franchised, the most important services of the franchisor are likely to be advertising , training in the business, and advice after the business is under way. Some franchisors also assist with financing. They may build and equip the place of business and lease it to the franchise—a so called turnkey operation.
One of the major advantages of franchising for the franchisor, however, is the possibility of rapid expansion by using the financial resources of the franchisees. Through franchising, the franchisor can gain considerable control over the distribution of its products or services without owning the retail outlets. By carefully controlling the number and location of outlets, the franchisor can reduce competition among them and perhaps encourage them not to carry competitive products. This may make the franchise organization’s competition against similar products (or services) more effective by encouraging bigger investments and more aggressive marketing by franchisees. Efforts may also be made to influence prices charged by the franchisee. Where the franchisee prepares a product, such as food, or offers a service, the franchisor usually maintains a high degree of control over operations to standardize quality.
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.
Managing Cash and Near Cash
19 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Managing Cash and Near Cash Tags: asset, bear, business, careful, cash, collection, conduct, conserve, convert, current, depend, due, emergency, employee, financial, firm, fluctuation, fund, hold, idle, interest, manage, manager, meeting, money, near, need, normal, operation, pay, place, Planning, range, speed
Cash and near cash (interest-bearing assets easily converted to cash) are needed to conduct day-to-day business operations like paying employees and meeting emergencies. How much of these assets managers need depends on how well they have done their financial planning, how many other current assets the firm holds, and the range of normal business fluctuations.
Cash itself pays no interest. So the financial manager must be careful to (1) speed up collection of monies due; (2) conserve funds; and (3) place idle cash in interest-bearing assets (near cash) until it is needed.
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.
