Risking New Ideas

If we want people in the organization to start taking some risks, we need to replace no with yes and replace limits with encouragement. The key to the development of a risk-taking organizational climate lies in the ability of management to convey the attitude that new ideas are always a hot commodity. New ideas do not have to be perfect at birth. As the saying goes: “It doesn’t have to be right the first time. It just needs to be real.”

The best risk-takers are those who act without concentrating on all the jeopardies and instead work around the fears that hang up other people. That doesn’t mean that they don’t think before they act; it does mean that in this environment, they take some well-planned chances. I’ve watched associates get better month by month at learning how to make the right risks pay off for them, personally and professionally.

When we communicate that we expect mistakes to occur when people are putting out and working hard, we create an atmosphere of encouragement.  A lot of people in corporate life have made careers out of surviving rather than succeeding; they’ve had to cope with atmospheres laced with fear, suspicion, and blame. Get rid of the blame and start celebrating the efforts and new ideas. Plan to make mistakes and still make it through.

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.

Job-Related Attitudes

Attitudes are an important consideration for managers. Employee attitudes may be related to behaviors critical to the organization: dissatisfied employees. Negative attitudes towards the organization can also spur employees to consider forming or joining a labor union. Theory and research on attitudes can help managers understand employee attitudes toward the workplace. In general, employees develop consistent and identifiable sets of attitudes toward job attributes, such as pay, working conditions, and the job’s tasks.

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.

Components of a Business Plan

Business plan tells a very special story. It is the story of a unique business enterprise, the one you, the entrepreneur, will create. Telling this story will reveal how knowledgeable and competent you are, how certain the outcome is, and how desirable it is to proceed with the project.

There are similarities among all good business plans, but no two are exactly alike, because no two businesses are exactly alike, even if they make and sell same thing to the same market, two businesses will have different personalities. The behavior and attitudes of the managers will be reflected in the businesses. Even the décor will be different, just as the homes of the managers will reflect their individual taste and style. Each business plan is unique.

Several topics that deserve consideration in the plan: what, how, where, and when. You would expect to see topic headings like the following:

1. The Product. What product or service is being offered? How is it made ready for sale?
2. Target market. Who will part with their money? How many of them are there? Where are they?
3. Competition. Where do the customers obtain the product or service now? How does that product or service differ from yours? How strong is the competition?
4. Marketing. How will the customers learn about your product? Where can they buy it? How does it get to where they buy it?
5. Management. Who will coordinate the activities of production, administration, and marketing? Who will decide what is to be done and when?
6. Financial Performance? How much profit will be made and when? How much capital is required? What will the business’s net worth be a year from now? Two years from now?

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.

Market-Driven Management

Market-driven management is a cross functional effort involving all levels of the organization. Properly followed, it ensures all activities are coordinated to meet the specific needs of target customer groups. All R&D projects are focused on developing solutions to identified customer problems, manufacturing is committed to meeting cost targets, quality standards, and delivery cycles, and sales focused on identifying and interpreting customer problems and then selling them solutions. If someone ask the individual managers within any of these functional areas how they operate, they would most likely say, “just as you described.” It is unlikely, however, that their counterparts in other functional areas would agree, and even more unlikely that there would be a consensus among all managers at all levels. Achieving this market driven focus with fully agreed upon objectives and priorities in each functional area requires the complete support of everyone in the organization. Market-driven management is much easier said than done because it flies in the face of the attitudes and actions of most managers.

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 Difficult Subordinates

Ask the individual to manage a group of subordinates who are extraordinary. Such subordinates would include those who are especially bright, technically advanced, and extremely intelligent. Difficult subordinates may also include problem performers, those with high potential but low actual performance, and employees with attitude problems.

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.

Service Culture

Any policy, procedure, aspect, action, or inaction of an organization contributes to the service culture. This includes employee appearance, the way employees interact with customers, and their knowledge, skill and attitude levels. It also encompasses the physical appearance of the organization’s facility, equipment, and any other aspect of  the organization with which the customer comes into contact.

Service culture has following elements:

• Service philosophy:  Direction or vision of the organization that gives you day-to-day interactions with the customer.
• Employee roles and expectations: Specific communications or measures that indicate what is expected of you in customer interactions and define how your performance will be evaluated.
• Policies and procedures: Guidelines that define how various situations or transactions will be handled. These can help or hinder service delivery depending on your flexibility in interpreting and applying them.
• Management support: Availability of management to answer questions and assist you in customer interactions, when necessary.
• Motivators and rewards: Monetary, material items or feedback that prompts you to continue to deliver service and perform at a high level.
• Training: Instruction or information provided through a variety of techniques that teach knowledge or skills, or attempt to influence your attitude toward excellent service delivery

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.

Top Management Attitudes

Whether employees behave ethically depends largely on the actions and attitudes of top management. For instance, if a code of ethics tells employees that bribing overseas clients is against company, but management looks  the other way when bribes are successful in winning large contracts, the code is likely to be taken seriously. Also, companies must not encourage unethical behavior by setting unrealistic goals that can be met only by cutting ethical corners, and they must not condone cheating to help the company.

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.

When Marketing doesn’t Work

Marketing has not measured up to expectations in many companies because management has concentrated on the trappings rather than the substance. When most executives talk about what their companies have done to become more marketing oriented, they usually point to such actions as:

• Declarations of support from top management in the form of speeches, annual reports, or talks to the investment community.
• Creation of a marketing organization, including appointment of a marketing head and product or market managers, transfer to marketing of the product development and service functions, establishment of a market research function, salespeople reassigned around markets, advertising function strengthened.
• Adoption of new administrative mechanisms, such as formal marketing planning approaches, more and better sales information, and revised information systems structured around markets rather than products.
• Increased marketing expenditures for staffing, training and development, advertising, marketing, research.

The point is not that these actions are useless, but that by themselves they are no guarantee of marketing success. Effective marketing requires a fundamental shift in attitude and values throughout the company so that everyone in every functional area places paramount importance on being responsive to market needs. The steps taken in most companies are not useful because they fail to accomplish this crucial shift in attitude. And without this shift in attitude, the most highly developed marketing operation cannot produce any real results.

Why have so few companies gone beyond the trappings to achieve the change in attitude that ensures substantive marketing? Frequently, one or more of these situations exist:

• In a surprising number of cases, management does not fully understand the marketing concept as it applies in its situation.
• In many other cases, management understands the implications of the marketing concept but has not committed itself to the actions and decisions needed to reinforce it.
• In almost every case, management has failed to install the administrative mechanisms necessary for effective implementation of the concept, especially into the non-marketing function.

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.

 

Forces in the Environments

Environment is the sum of all the forces surrounding and influencing the life and development of the firm. The forces themselves can be classified as external or internal. Management has no direct control over them, though it can exert influences. The external forces are commonly called uncontrollable forces and consist of the following:

1. Competitive: kinds and numbers of competitors, their locations, and their activities.
2. Distributive: national and international agencies available for distributing goods and services.
3. Economic: variables (such as GNP, unit labor cost, and personal consumption expenditure) that influence a firm’s ability to do business.
4. Socio-economic: characteristics and distribution of the human population.
5. Financial: variables such as interest rates, inflation rates, and taxation.
6. Legal: the many kinds of foreign and domestic laws by which international firms must operate.
7. Physical: elements of nature such as topography, climate, and natural resources.
8. Political: elements of nations’ political climates such as nationalism, forms of government, and international organizations.
9. Socio-cultural: elements of culture (such as attitudes, beliefs, and opinions) important to international businesspeople.
10. Labor: consumption, skills, and attitudes of labor.
11. Technological: the technical skills and equipment that affects how resources are converted to products.

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.

 

Leadership and Transformation

There is some consensus concerning what is important, and what needs to be done to bridge the gap between transformation expectations and transformation achievement that is found in many companies.

• A clear and compelling vision and strategy is essential for both differentiation and transformation. The vision should embrace both the transformation ‘end state’ and the transformation process.
• Top management commitment is of crucial importance in the management of change. It needs to be communicated and sustained. A practical and necessary demonstration of commitment is to ensure that all the pieces of the transformation jigsaw puzzle and the critical factors for competitive success are in place.
• People need to be empowered and equipped to manage change, and to handle the extra responsibilities that are being placed upon them. This requires a holistic perspective, new attitudes, fresh approaches and additional techniques. In particular, there is a need for the qualities associated with the ‘organic manager.’
• Within corporations there are hidden businesses. Management and business processes should focus energies and resources upon those people and activities that activities that make the greatest contribution to business development the greatest contribution to business development and competitive 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.