De-Stress Without Distress

Stress is a significant problem in the workplace and many people are searching for effective antidotes. Unfortunately, most look in the wrong places. The answer is not to follow the crowds who take sedatives or tranquilizers, but to take control. It is for this reason that options to control your symptoms are critical to learn. They include:

1. Relaxation Response
2. Biofeedback
3. Music
4. Art
5. Fashion
6. Acupuncture
7. Positive Imagery
8. Placebos (Latin word = I shall please)
9. Hobbies
10. Humor

All these options are easy to master and free from side effects. They will improve your health today, and may even save your life tomorrow.

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.

Customer Service Business Plan

Answer the following questions:

1. What is your mission statement? A mission statement should be a summary of the following points as well.
2. What product do you produce? What are the components of the integrated products-services, distribution, support, relationship, etc?
3. Who are your customers? What are the major sub groupings of customers, or market segments?
4. Where are your customers? Geographically? On terms of level in their organization? How many steps are there between them and you? How do they get your products?
5. What do your customers buy? How close is it to what they need? How do you know?
6. What is your relationship with your customers? How do you know they are getting what they need? How do they learn how to use your products?
7. What do they do with what they buy?
8. Who are your known competitors? Who else provides products or services that could be substituted for you in the customers’ eye? Who will your competitors be tomorrow?
9. What is that your customers most value about your organization (not just your products)? About your competitors?

10.  What trends are there in your customers’ businesses or lifestyles that are likely to change what they will need from you?

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.

Inflation

Inflation is a rise in the general level of prices. The most commonly reported measure of inflation is the annual percentage change in the consumer price index (CPI). The consumer price index tracks changes in the prices of a group of goods and services that most consumers buy. Prices are increasing when the CPI is positive and decreasing when it is negative. One major cause of inflation is the relationship between wages and productivity. Productivity is the output per worker hour. When wages increase faster than productivity, the result is inflation. The amount we can consume of any product depends upon the amount we produce. When wages go up but output does not, we have more money income but not more purchasing power. This occurs because the total supply of goods available for purchase has not increased as rapidly as the amount of money in circulation. The combination of rising wages and constant or sagging output exerts an upward push on prices.

Wage increases in one industry often put pressure on other industries to increase wages. Another cause of inflation is the expectation that inflation will continue in the future. Labor unions demand wage increases in anticipation of expected increases in the cost of living. Manufacturers raise the prices of their products in anticipation of future labor and raw material; cost increases. Consumers borrow money to finance today’s purchases in the belief that prices will be higher tomorrow. Some economists argue that inflation subsides only when people believe that it will subside.

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.

The Drive for Speed

The ‘time culture’ can impose unrealistic deadlines upon those who are charged with the responsibility for delivering improvements. When a supply chain is improved, the single company may be no more able to achieve a tangible impact upon the external environment than it can deliver all the value that is sought by a final customer. When others are involved, there is likely to be bargaining and negotiation.

Environmental initiatives should not result in the pressure for speed or ‘response’ driving out the long-term thinking that is required. Assuming ‘results’ are required, these might best be achieved as a result of flexibility within the framework of a longer term relationship.

Today’s craze can be tomorrow’s memory. Too many managers assume that trends will continue longer than subsequently turns out to be the case. With many environmental and social policies taking many years to have a significant impact, companies face a dilemma similar to that encountered by those seeking to change attitudes and behavior. By the time the outcomes initially sought have been achieved, the requirement may have changed. Will there be a backlash when people count the costs? Will they become bored?

Attempts to deal with ‘isms’ can open a Pandora’s box of dashed hopes and unfulfilled expectations, especially when initiatives are not thought through. Enough noise may be raised to alarm some, while not enough is done to appease or deliver to others. Companies should beware of cosmetic programs.

Winners assemble a comprehensive, complementary and coordinated set of initiatives, embracing all the parties involved, that are likely to have a significant impact upon an environmental or social issue. They achieve significant changes of attitude or behavior, because all the various change elements that are necessary have been put in place.

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: The Uses of Power

Power can be used in many ways. Three outcomes potentially result when a leader tries to exert power—Commitment, Compliance, and Resistance. These outcomes depend on the leader’s base of power, how that base is operationalized, and the subordinate’s individual characteristics.

Commitment probably will result from the attempt to exercise power if the subordinate accepts and identifies with the leader. Such an employee will be highly motivated by requests that seem important to the leader. A committed subordinate will work just as hard as the leader to complete the project, even if that means working overtime.

Compliance means the subordinate is willing to carry out the leader’s wishes as long as doing so will not require extra effort and energy. Thus, the subordinate may work at a reasonable pace but refuse to work overtime, insisting that the job will still be there tomorrow. Many ordinary requests from a boss and the subsequent responses of subordinates fit this description.

Resistance occurs when the subordinate fights the leader’s wishes. A resistant subordinate may even deliberately neglect the project to ensure that it is not done as the leader wants.

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.

Investing in Success

To get profit without risk, experience without danger, and reward without work is as impossible as it is to live without being born. Succinctly, there is no success without sacrifice. But is sacrifice bad? Like many words, the word “sacrifice” is misunderstood. To most people, sacrifice means giving up time or money, or enduring hardships, or doing something unpleasant. Now, it is true that sacrifice may mean those things. But that is only half the definition. The other part of the definition, the one that is almost always overlooked, is to gain something even more valuable.

The complete definition of sacrifice is give up something of value – money, time, or energy – to gain something of even more value – more money, a higher standard of living, better education for the kids, or other valuable considerations. Sacrifice means give up a little now to receive more later.

Sacrificing then means investing. We give up something today so we will have more of something tomorrow. Anyone who wants to achieve maximum success must be willing to sacrifice or invest now for reward later. To validate this point, consider the following:

• A majority of people reaching age 65 have little savings, investments, or other valuables – this after spending 45 adult years in the richest society ever known. Had these people in poverty and near-poverty invested only ten percent of what they had earned in one of hundreds of “sure” investments, they would be very well off financially, and the social security system could be phased out completely.
• Many young people feel that 35 0r 40 hours a week is all they should work. Being asked to work more than that is such a “big” sacrifice, many try to find another job.
• Millions of people performing tasks that are rapidly being taken over by robots and computers think it’s too much of a sacrifice to learn new skills that are increasingly in demand.
• Rather than invest part of what they earn, millions and millions of people give way to temptation and buy things on a certain plan.
• And millions of students, rather than sacrifice and really learn a subject, use every conceivable technique to pass a course except to learn the material.

On the positive side, there are some people of all ages to be commended for their willingness – and good sense – to sacrifice. Sacrifice is an investment that means more than just money. Sacrifice means deep satisfaction in helping others to find joy in this world.

Happiness, achievement, money, promotion, reward, love, and anything else of value are gained only through sacrifice. Make sacrifices. They eventually lead to 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.

Organization’s Specific Capabilities

Successful projects are associated with quality performance (proficiency) by one or more key players in the new products operation. A firm’s key players will vary some, depending on strategy, but we usually see the same bunch. First on most lists is technology. But technology does not mean just in research labs. A technology is a system or set of people and things that permit work. A soft drink bottling system is a technology.

In a virtual tie with technology is a bundle of skills in marketing. The needs and desires of the marketplace are an essential input to product innovation. And the end product must be presented to the end user in a way that stimulates trial and adoption. Just as some marketing firms have lacked technical skills, some technical firms have lacked marketing skills.

A new member of the triad is operations/manufacturing—maybe a factory, a laboratory, a set of carpet cleaning franchisees, an actuarial department in an insurance company, or even the legislature in a government. It is where the good or service is prepared or offered. It could be the classroom where this subject is discussed tomorrow. No matter how well designed or marketed, if the organization cannot deliver on the promised product, success cannot be assured. In the best firms today, manufacturing capability begins its development at the very start of the project, and may even be decided in the strategy if that is where the technology strength is located.

There are some other capabilities needed today, though the list is industry dependent. Two skills are moving up the list—human resource management (HRM) and technology (IT). They both relate to how new product projects are being managed today. HRM people are apparently critical in building the inventory of potential team leaders, and in training those selected for this most difficult task. IT people hold the answer to collocation, the physical grouping of teams that contribute so much to a new product project. Their answer: digital collocation, or the virtual collocated team. On a slightly broader plain, IT also permits effective networking, something we will see actually makes the “company within a company: that new products projects become.

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.

The Planning Process

There is nothing mysterious about the planning process, since planning is something we all do everyday, often without even knowing it. The planning process parallels the decision-making process; this makes sense, since developing plans involves deciding today what you’ll do tomorrow. Both involve establishing objectives on criteria, developing and analyzing alternatives based on information you obtain, evaluating the alternatives, and then making a choice.

The planning process is basically the same when managers plan for their companies, but there are two added complications. First, there’s usually a hierarchical aspect to management planning. Top manager approves a long-term plan first; then each department creates its own budgets and other plans to show how it will contribute to the company’s long-term plan.

Second—and especially in big companies—the planning process may be quite formal and involve much interaction and give-and-take between departments and a group we might call “corporate central.” In other words, in many firms plans are bounced back and forth between the departments and a centralized planning staff, whose main purpose is to review and help define the plans of each department.

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, Line of Sight

Transformation into an Enterprise Colony

Modern corporations need to transform themselves into enterprise colonies that can tap, build and realize the entrepreneurial potential within their people. Companies should provide venture teams with development capital, marketing assistance and central services in return for an appropriate equity stake in new initiatives.

Empowerment and delegation are being championed in many companies. But empowerment to do what, and delegation for what purpose? General drives need to be matched with specific steps to promote enterprise and build entrepreneurial qualities.

Confident companies encourage people to better understand their inner selves, and take advantage of their unique qualities and distinctive strengths:

• They invite suggestions for new ways of exploiting corporate capabilities, and building and delivering value to customers.
• They stimulate diversity, establish working environments that are conducive of reflection, and introduce ways of working and learning that raise spirits and fire the imagination.
• They encourage the creation, packaging, sharing, application and exploitation of new knowledge and understanding.
• They are also prepared to share rewards with those primarily responsible for successful entrepreneurship.

Personal and corporate transformation must go hand in hand. Increasingly, people need to think for themselves and make choices. Many intending entrepreneurs require new skills and knowledge, and specialist support. Many traditional management tools and techniques are simply not appropriate for those who seek both business success and personal fulfillment.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and new corporate ventures are the primary source of tomorrow’s work opportunities. In recent years governments and corporate leaders around the world have put a higher priority upon enterprise and entrepreneurship. The aspiration is clear. However, many people lack the competence and experience either to become entrepreneurs, or to manage corporate relationships with them.

Enterprise needs its own entrepreneurs. Slimmed-down organizations require the services of counsellors with the experience, sensitivity and intuition to help others to become successful entrepreneurs, while the resulting ventures will need learning and enterprise support services at various points in the enterprise life cycle.

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, Line of Sight

Same-day Delivery

Same-day delivery, or same-day service, is an excellent promotional scheme for increasing sales at very little additional cost. As the economy becomes increasingly attuned to a “buy it now, have it now” attitude, we become more and more frustrated with waiting days (or often weeks) for purchased products to arrive or for service to be performed. Companies willing to guarantee same-day delivery have found this to be an extraordinarily effective sales tactic that practically ensures a competing edge.

 

Despite the fact that most people regard time as a valuable commodity, few businesses pay any attention to rapid service. Manufacturing, retailers, and service forms want their bills paid on time, but all too often, they do not reciprocate.

 

Although sales tactics that promise and then fulfill same-day delivery within a specific area must always bring in new customers, for some businesses, same-day delivery is impossible.

 

Doing what you say you are going to do when you promise you will do it will inevitably increase service sales as effectively as rapid delivery does in product businesses. It is simply good public relations. Turning it around, when a plumber, electrician, or furnace repairperson promises to take care of your service problems tomorrow and actually does so, the chances are very good that you will call that person again when the service 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 contact www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight