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30 simple ways to make your employees happier

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Many small business owners become entrepreneurs in their pursuit of happiness. Being their own boss and proving their idea can work is a big source of satisfaction for many of them.

Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project, knows a lot about what makes business people happy. She spent a year test-driving conventional wisdom, current scientific studies, and lessons from pop cultures about how to be happier at work and at life.

In my interview with her, many of the themes that Gretchen uncovered makes achieving happiness critical to every company's success.

Happy employees are more productive. It results in less employee absenteeism, burnout and stress. When employees are happy, they are less preoccupied with themselves, more focused on their work and are willing to take on new challenges.

Happy employees are better leaders. They become more resilient, less risk adverse and can more easily bounce back from failures.

Happy employees are more creative. They are less worried about the day to day tasks and can dream of new possibilities.

Happy employees are better team players. They are more likely to help others and tackle the big issues confronting them at work.

So how do business owners encourage happiness in their employees? Here are Gretchen's seven secrets.

1. Recognize when employees are making progress. Pause and highlight milestones that people hit or challenges they have overcome. Ensure that people feel their contributions are rewarded by simply saying "thank you."

2. Make employees feel like they belong. To be happy at work, it's important to feel like "you have a friend." This gets challenging especially when the company gets busy. People need to feel like they know each other and so time like this yields positive results.

3. Take an interest in who employees actually are. One of the key questions that always gets asked in employee surveys is "Do you feel like your boss cares about you and is trying to give you the tools to succeed?" This will lead to employees that are much more engaged at work.

4. Make it fun. Organizations that feel "light" where people can joke around occasionally with each other have stronger cultures. When mistakes happen, people can see the funny side and are not just focusedsolely on the downside. These provide additional moments of connection as discussed in poitn No. 2.

5. Let your employees disengage sometimes. Many employees feel like they are always working because they have "a cubicle in their pocket" that they can never turn it off. This makes employees feel tremendously harassed and stressed. Encourage times when employees are completely disengaged so they can focus on their family and set their own personal priorities.

6. Encourage exercise and sleep. Enough of both of these does great things for employees' focus, attention, creativity, energy and mood. In the long run, consistently doing "all nighters" are counterproductive.

7. Stop calculating everything. As a business owner, stop keeping score every time an action is taken. Don't always be thinking, "If I did this for an employee, they should do that." Do what is right and don't calculate.
A version of this article was originally published on April 3, 2012. Photo credit: Juliana Coutinho

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7 Secrets to Keeping Your Employees Happy

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Many small business owners become entrepreneurs in their pursuit of happiness. Being their own boss and proving their idea can work is a big source of satisfaction for many of them. Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project , knows a lot about what makes business people happy.

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The purpose of Organizational Process Definition (OPD) (CMMI-DEV) is to establish and maintain a usable set of organizational process assets, work environment standards, and rules and guidelines for teams.

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This helps create the steps necessary to have a high performance business.

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What does "business culture" mean? How does it contribute to the success of your small business?

Business culture describes the workplace environment that you create for your employees (and yourself). It determines whether those employees are motivated or apathetic, productive or lazy, and committed or indifferent to outstanding customer service. It's directly related to the company's bottom line.

Here are some tips for creating a high-performance business culture.

1. Start with values. Regardless of the type of business you run, certain fundamental principles drive your behavior - and, by extension, your employees' behavior. Honesty and integrity are part of the values equation, but in today's marketplace, that's just the starting point. What else compels you to succeed? What other principles are so important that, without them, there's no reason to stay in business?

Your values should dictate the type of people you employ. Finding workers who embrace your guiding principles sets the foundation for high performance. It also helps to inspire employees and keep them grounded in times of crisis.

However, values only work if you: abide by them and lead by example; take every opportunity to communicate them to your team; and show how those values are linked to the decisions you make (who to hire, who to fire, who is worthy of recognition and reward, etc.).

2. Build trust. Trust is another essential element of a high-performance culture. When you trust your employees and they reciprocate, everyone works within a culture that accepts mistakes in pursuit of innovation and encourages independent thought. In other words, employees should be able to express their opinions without a fear of consequences.

Without mutual trust, morale suffers and people fear for their jobs. As if that isn't bad enough, a negative atmosphere can poison your customer relationships as well.

3. Envision the future. Do you remember why you started your small business? Do you have a strong sense of where to take it in the months and years to come?

The clearer your goals, the better you'll be able to share them with the employees who are charged with making it all happen. A strong, well-articulated vision lends a sense of meaning to the work people do. After all, it's part of their future, too.

4. Understand what makes your business special. Some call it a "mission statement"; others call it the "wow factor." Either way, it's whatever makes your enterprise unique and exciting. A thriving business culture fuels the excitement and helps set your company apart from its less imaginative competitors.

5. Communicate. Information empowers employees to become more confident and imaginative. Whenever possible, share your ideas and decisions with your team. Hold staff meetings in which employees feel free to ask questions and you provide straightforward answers.

6. Be part of the community. People crave inspiration and often want to do social good. Look for ways to foster a sense of purpose through involvement in charitable causes.

How can your business give back? Active participation in local fundraising campaigns, neighborhood cleanups, youth program sponsorships, etc., is good for your employees and your business. Customers will support a company that invests in their community.

7. Have fun! Employees understand it's important to excel at their jobs and do everything possible to help grow the business. But they also respond with enthusiasm when their boss adds a little fun to the mix.

The occasional recreational activity (a pizza party, a bowling tournament, a karaoke happy hour, etc.) helps people let off steam, keeps morale up, and lets people know the owner has a human side. Doing things together also encourages teamwork in the office.

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Creating a High-Performance Business Culture

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What does "business culture" mean? How does it contribute to the success of your small business? Business culture describes the workplace environment that you create for your employees (and yourself). It determines whether those employees are motivated or apathetic, productive or lazy, and committed or indifferent to outstanding customer service.

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the culture on how you make your business exceed. This was a very enlightening article.

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For years, as an employee of a variety of organizations ranging from small consulting firms to the US Army, I've been increasingly fascinated with the way in which groups functioned. How some could quickly align around a common set of practices that added tremendous value, while others could not. How some organizations were able to coordinate and integrate efforts across the globe by setting clear values, expectations and processes in place where others seemed to be operating behind the curve every step of the way.

A decade later, having spent the majority of my professional career in the organizational culture space, I continue to be driven to understand how leaders and organizations are able to achieve significant and lasting performance that catapults them ahead of the competition (or not). Why do these leaders and organizations succeed while others just seem to lag or cease to exist altogether?

While there are a lot of variables that come into play in each situation, one common root always seems played a key role - the culture.

If culture is defined as "the way things get done around here," the way of doing things that organizations develop through trial and error, over time, are the things that drive behavior and performance.

Organizations that are able to set very clear and aligned values and processes will consistently outperform those that cannot. Furthermore, leaders who understand when it's time to do things differently in order to stay relevant are those that are best able to adapt their organizations to changes in the business environment.

While it sounds simple in theory, its much more difficult to pull off in reality- ask any business leader out there.

So, how can leaders make this happen? How do you intentionally create a sustainable culture of high performance in your organization?

3 Qualities of High Performance

Now that "culture" has been recognized as Merriam-Webster's word of the year, the role of culture in a high performance organization seems to be coming of age in business. This new awareness has given me the opportunity to meet a variety of people who have shared their own ideas about how culture drives performance. One such person is Olli Laurén, who leads the Global Machinery and Engineering segment of Egon Zehnder 's Industrial Practice.

I had a chance to spend some time with Olli recently to talk about his recent research paper, " How Exceptional Companies Create a High Performance Culture. " Together, we discussed 3 core abilities that an organization must possess in order to reach high performance:

1. The ability to stop and take a hard look in the mirror. In today's rapid-fire business environment, taking a minute to press pause and think can seem like a death-sentence. Unfortunately, organizations that operate in this fashion may continue to spin their wheels with the same old ways of doing things to try to solve problems that have changed or evolved over time.

Olli calls this quality "a passion for renewal." Organizations that are able to stop from time-to-time to really understand why they are doing these things are better positioned to identify the need to change in order to keep pace with the market and continue to drive results.

2. The ability to include all stakeholders in the conversation. Culture is a collective concept- a phenomenon that forms and evolves through the norms of the group. While many people view culture as the responsibility of leadership alone, the most successful organizations I've observed and worked with over the years are those that understand and value the input of their stakeholders.

Olli recognizes the need for transparent and trusting relationships throughout an organization. By fostering trust and transparency at all levels, stakeholders are given a safe environment to provide input and take an active role in shaping the organization's culture.

3. The ability to let go of the existing behaviors and practices that are no longer serving the organization's success. Knowing you should lose ten pounds and actually changing your behavior to do it are two very different things. Getting people to understand that some ways of doing things are no longer effective and actually getting them to change is similar. In both cases, you must take the time to change behaviors that are no longer supporting your desired goals.

Humility is a key concept here, for leaders and employees alike. It takes a lot for people to be comfortable with giving up the way they've always done things. Some take it as a statement that what they've been doing all along was wrong. Others fear that they may not be able to succeed if asked to do things differently. Still others hear that there is a need to change but their leaders don't role model the new expectations, which makes it easy to stay in the same old habits.
Can You Create a High Performance Culture?
The challenge that leaders face in creating high performance cultures is overcoming the deeply rooted assumptions and behaviors that aren't doing their organization any favors.

Does that mean it's impossible? Absolutely not.

If my experience has taught me anything, it's that any organization, no matter what size or industry, has the ability to build and sustain a culture of high performance. To make that happen, you, as a leader, must be willing to take a hard look in the mirror with your colleagues, dig deep into what needs to change, and help your entire organization let go of the behaviors that are no longer serving its goals.

Change doesn't have to be an attack on the past. It's simply a stepping stone on the path to your organization's long-term success.
Chris Cancialosi, Ph.D., is managing partner and founder at gothamCulture.

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How Exceptional Companies Create High Performance Cultures

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For years, as an employee of a variety of organizations ranging from small consulting firms to the US Army, I've been increasingly fascinated with the way in which groups functioned. How some could quickly align around a common set of practices that added tremendous value, while others could not.

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While it's great to give back to others it's also a great way to get your company name out there for future business.

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Image credit: Holt Brothers Foundation

3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
This column is part of a series formed from a partnership between Entrepreneur and NFL Players Inc. to see the other columns.
Philanthropy is part of who I am, and giving back to the community is a way of life for me and my brother, Terrence Holt. Through the Holt Brothers Foundation, we support children who have a parent with cancer. Our mission has a true purpose because we lost our mom to cancer.
Related: The Power of Giving Back: How Community Involvement Can Boost Your Bottom Line
There's no greater feeling, no greater satisfaction, than knowing you're making a difference. But giving back to your community is also good for business. Think about it. Philanthropy helps build relationships with clients and potential clients. It helps build and support your brand. It promotes employee engagement. And let's face it: good corporate citizens want to do business with others who share their values.

Building relationships.
Related: Why Doing Good for Others Does Good for Your Business
Let me give a great example. Our foundation hosts the Holt Brothers Playoff Party during the AFC and NFC Championship Games to raise money for our grant programs. It's pretty informal - jeans, game jerseys, football, beer and great food. A lot of our sponsors are companies we work with in the construction industry. Through this event, we have gotten to know them and they've gotten to know us in a totally different way. We've had clients tell us they want to do business with us because of our passion. It's an unintended consequence, but philanthropy is helping us build customer loyalty.

Building your brand.

Philanthropy also builds and supports a brand. Think of the NFL and United Way. The league has done a great job associating itself and the guys with a successful organization that does good work for communities throughout the country. You feel good when you see a player sitting at a desk, coloring with a bunch of kids and joking with them.

I once read a quote that really stuck with me, "A well-developed philanthropic program will resonate with clients on a deep, emotional level that goes beyond any creative ad campaign." In other words, the act of giving back evokes emotion and fosters an authentic connection. That's exactly what's at work with the NFL-United Way partnership.

Building employee engagement.
Related: Has Your Company's Charitable Giving Become an Empty Ritual?
We've also found that philanthropy as a core value promotes employee engagement. It infuses passion in those around you. It gives employees more energy and drive. After all, who doesn't want to be a part of something bigger?

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3 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. This column is part of a series formed from a partnership between Entrepreneur and NFL Players Inc. to see the other columns. Philanthropy is part of who I am, and giving back to the community is a way of life for me and my brother, Terrence Holt.

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I wanted to include this article because I believe this is the definition of motivation and leadership.

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With the opening of LeBron James' I Promise School, basketball's biggest star showed how big an impact he wants his career to have off the court.

The school will open with 240 at-risk children, each of them receiving free uniforms, meals, and guaranteed tuition to the University of Akron, as well as a bicycle and a helmet.

James explained to The Wall Street Journal why providing every student with a bicycle was an important part of his mission, citing the freedom his bicycle allowed him as a child.

With the opening of the LeBron James Family Foundation I Promise School, basketball's biggest superstar went a long way to cement his legacy beyond the sport.

The school will begin with a third and fourth grade class this year that includes 240 at-risk children, and plans to expand to educate close to 1,000 students in grades first through eighth by 2022. In addition to their grade school education, students will also receive free uniforms, free meals, a bicycle and a helmet, as well as guaranteed tuition to the University of Akron.

Speaking with Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal, James explained why he felt it was important that bicycles were also included for every student at his new school, noting the freedom that his bike allowed him as a child.

"Everything I do comes from my childhood, from my growing up, and what I feel was part of my success," James said.

He continued, as Gay writes:

"A bicycle, for me, was the only way to get around the city. If I wanted to meet some of my friends, travel across the city, go to school, play basketball-anything-the bicycle was the way I got around."

But that was just part of it. A bicycle also represented freedom, James said.

"Me and my friends, when we got on our bikes, we would just ride," he recalled. "Sometimes we would even get lost, because we'd be gone for so long. But there was a sense of joy and comfort. There was nothing that really could stop us. We felt like we were on top of the world."

James had already gone above and beyond for his community in building the school and ensuring kids had a place to learn, but by giving them each a bicycle as well, it's clear he wants his impact to go further than simply the class curriculum.

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LeBron James explains why giving every student at his I Promise school a bicycle was an important, personal part of his mission

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With the opening of LeBron James' I Promise School, basketball's biggest star showed how big an impact he wants his career to have off the court. The school will open with 240 at-risk children, each of them receiving free uniforms, meals, and guaranteed tuition to the University of Akron, as well as a bicycle and a helmet.

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Created using PowToon -- Free sign up at http://www.powtoon.com/youtube/ -- Create animated videos and animated presentations for free. PowToon is a free tool that allows you to develop cool animated clips and animated presentations for your website, office meeting, sales pitch, nonprofit fundraiser, product launch, video resume, or anything else you could use an animated explainer video.

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Defining Human Resource.

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hu·man re·sourc·es
noun
the personnel of a business or organization, especially when regarded as a significant asset.
the department of a business or organization that deals with the hiring, administration, and training of personnel.
"director of human resources at the company"

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Five Ways to Develop Effective Business Communication Skills

If you are an entrepreneur, you will always wish your business to run as smoothly as possible. Many a times, your key areas of focus would be skillsets like time-management and leadership. These skills are surely important but there is one skill that is underrated and is always overlooked and that skill is the skill of communication.

Now, why is good communication necessary at a workplace? Simply because the perils of miscommunications are huge and sometimes unaffordable. Miscommunication at home can lead to feelings being hurt and damaged relationships. At a workplace, it can decrease productivity, hurt feelings, and makes the work environment quite toxic. When the communication is clear, effective, and two-way, it helps in clearing the mind which leads to decrease in stress and conflict. When there is decrease in conflict and the minds are clear on what to do, the productivity automatically increases.

So, as an entrepreneur, it is very necessary that you master the skill of business communication.

1. Be Emotionally Intelligent
The one who conquers the mind, conquers the world.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise and control one's own emotions while facing varied situations in life, be it positive or negative, and also understanding the emotions of people around you in those situations. If you are a leader at your workplace, your emotional intelligence has far reaching influence on your team and the whole workplace.

When leaders are emotionally intelligent, the workplace environment feels more secure and motivating. When the workplace has the freedom for employees to voice their opinions, the employees feel motivated to give their best. Moreover, emotional intelligence has a heavy impact on your professional success. TalentSmart conducted a test on emotional intelligence along with 33 other skills on the impact they have on the professional journey of a person. The test revealed emotional intelligence is the strongest indicator of performance explaining a whopping 58% of success in all types of jobs.

2. Learn the Science of Body Language
Your body language shapes who you are.
Body language matters a lot to your business more than you think. In business, the way you carry yourself is a major factor in building a perception about you in the eyes of your colleagues, your clients, and your customers. When you showcase the best version of yourself, you are bound to close more deals, build a better network, and develop highly convertible leads.

In business, it is more about the way you present yourself before others that sends a bigger message to your audience. When you practice the science of body language, you feel positive within and there is an optimistic aura around you.

3. Learn to Write Succinctly
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. Gustave Flaubert
The digital era has put in a lot of importance on the art of good communication skills. The global workforce today has to stress a lot on how to convey their ideas and themselves in the most effective manner. There are three main modes of communication- Verbal, non-verbal, and written.

With the rising influence of social media in our personal and professional lives, the written mode of communication takes the pie of being the most important mode of communication today. Whether it is business correspondence or showcasing your skills through your resume, having a knack in writing always gives you an edge over your counter-parts. When you write something that has minimal grammar errors, typos and translates its message effectively, you come as more trustworthy and credible. When you learn to write succinctly, you tend to become more influential and persuasive with your ideas and whole approach making you an asset for everyone involved with you.

4. Be Confident and Charming
Self confidence is the best outfit, rock it and own it.
Samuel Johnson

Being confident and charming is one of the basic necessities of effective communication. When you are confident, you not only deliver your message with precision but also make the people around you feel relaxed. Be it any work, any project, any assignment, one needs to be confident about the work and oneself to complete it with success.

As a professional, practice confidence by training your brain to focus more on your positive attributes and strengths. Doing this will keep you aware of what you are capable of and how to achieve success through it.

5. Convey your Brand Everytime
You are your brand, so let it show.
In the digital age, you are constantly communicating to your audience. Interactions happen every now and then on social media. And your social media image has a huge effect on your brand image, so everytime you communicate ya speak on your social media handles, make sure to communicate your brand everytime. Be it through your status updates on Facebook and LinkedIn, tweets on Twitter, or image quotes and GIFs on Instagram. You have to make sure you put in the basic elements of your brand into it, so that your customers could identify you from others.

Good business communication skills matter at work because whatever we do are not solo-acts, it involves people and that is why communication becomes a necessary aspect to run a good business. With effective business communication skills, you can conquer the world in this digital age because you could influence your people and drive them to work for a common goal.

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Five Ways to Develop Effective Business Communication Skills

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If you are an entrepreneur, you will always wish your business to run as smoothly as possible. Many a times, your key areas of focus would be skillsets like time-management and leadership. These skills are surely important but there is one skill that is underrated and is always overlooked and that skill is the skill of communication.

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The 3 Types of Business Communication | ezTalks

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In the post, we will debate what business communication is, present the most useful forms of business communication and explain why it is so valuable for the corporate environment.

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This is a great example of taking control of your company.

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If you have $10,000 and want to be your own boss, Amazon has a deal for you.

Starting today, you can apply to start your very own small business, delivering Amazon Prime packages in Amazon ( AMZN) branded vans and uniforms.

The company wants to help launch small businesses in the United States dedicated to taking its packages on the last step of their journey: from local Amazon sorting centers to the customers who ordered them.

It announced the new program on Wednesday at a press event in Seattle.

It's the latest attempt by Amazon to gain greater control of the delivery network at the core of its Prime business, which ships 5 billion packages a year globally.

The announcement follows public criticism of Amazon by President Donald Trump over the company's arrangement with the US Postal Service. Amazon uses the USPS for an estimated 40% of its last-mile deliveries, paying bulk pricing. Trump has said he thinks it is a bad deal for the government.

Amazon's new "Delivery Service Partners" and their staff members won't be employed by the tech company. The initial $10,000 costs will go to helping them start an independent business that has to begin with at least five delivery vans and ramp up to 20 vans over an undisclosed period of time.

Amazon has negotiated discounts for approved entrepreneurs, including lower rates on insurance, fuel and leases for Amazon branded vans that have been customized inside for package delivery. It's also setting aside $1 million to specifically recruit and help military veterans become partners.

The partner companies can only deliver Amazon packages from the branded vans, but they're allowed to add their own non-Prime vehicles and pick up work for other companies.

The business owners will be able to make as much as $300,000 a year in profit running a full-sized fleet of 40 vans and managing 100 employees, according to Amazon. They'll be plugged into Amazon's software, which will determine where the drivers go.

Drivers will be full-time workers instead of contractors, and Amazon will require business owners to give them paid time off and other benefits. Amazon would not say if it was requesting a set minimum wage for the drivers.

"You choose the pace at which you want to grow, and you get an opportunity to be a business leader in your community," Dave Clark, the senior vice president of Amazon's worldwide operations, told CNNMoney. "Having that kind of control and that kind of income opportunity for your family is something that many people are going to love and want to be a part of."

The company has been building up its own fleet of 7,000 of trucks and 40 airplanes to cover the "middle mile" of delivery. They haul goods between shipping centers and bear Amazon logos, but don't show up at customers' doorsteps.

At the moment, that step is mostly handled by one of the many third-parties the company works with, such as FedEx ( FDX), United Parcel Service ( UPS), the USPS and individual on-demand workers who use their personal cars as part of the "Flex" program.

Clark said that the new program will supplement Amazon's existing shipping setups, and that all its usual relationships with partners, including the USPS, will remain intact.

"This is a huge market segment, [with] the size of the transportation space and the growth in the parcel industry. I think there's more than enough for everybody," he said.

Amazon plans to bring on board hundreds of these new small businesses over the next year, according to Clark.

"This program signals that Amazon would like to ramp up its last-mile logistics operation more quickly," said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Baird.

While they're probably safe in the short term, other delivery companies could be affected in the longer term as Amazon builds out its own comprehensive logistics operation, according to Sebastian.

Using workers who are closely connected to Amazon and can represent it but who are not actual Amazon employees hits a sweet spot for the company.

By not relying entirely on partners like FedEx and USPS, Amazon gets more control over the customer experience, better customer service and greater capacity to make more next-day and same-day deliveries, Sebastian said.

At the same time, it's able to avoid the less desirable parts of owning and running its own delivery fleets, like the burden of acquiring and operating vehicles and managing employees.

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Amazon wants you to start a business to deliver its packages

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Starting today, you can apply to start your very own small business, delivering Amazon Prime packages in Amazon ( AMZN) branded vans and uniforms. The company wants to help launch small businesses in the United States dedicated to taking its packages on the last step of their journey: from local Amazon sorting centers to the customers who ordered them.

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Amazon has great strategies when it comes to getting its name out to the public.

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Landmark Theatres operates 53 theaters in 27 cities, specializing in the kind of art-house fare that crosses over to mainstream audiences.

Currently showing at the Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner company's New York outlet, for instance, is a mix of hit documentaries, gentle British dramas, Sundance winners and one studio title ("Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again") - not mass-market but hardly experimental, either.

In other words, Landmark is the movie theater version of Whole Foods, the grocery giant bought by Amazon.com last year.

Now, according to Bloomberg News, Amazon is exploring a purchase of Landmark Theatres, too. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on the report. (Amazon's chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Washington Post.)

The acquisition would appear to offer tantalizing benefits to the company.

"I absolutely expect this to be used as a gateway to Prime," said Stephen Beck, the founder of management consultancy Cg42, referring to the company's $119-per-year loyalty program. "Movies and TV shows are some of the biggest reasons people sign up, and once they do their spending habits totally change."

Amazon could bundle movie admissions with subscriptions for Prime, similar to the way it packages the latter with Whole Foods purchases - offering discounts on salmon, peaches and more. That could help drive Amazon customers to theaters - and drive moviegoers to Prime.

Meanwhile, as tech companies such as Netflix and Hulu compete for prestige content (and the awards with which they come) for their streaming platforms, owning a theater could help give Amazon an edge with voters, who favor physical theaters.

But while having another physical way to reach customers might seem attractive a la Whole Foods, it's far from clear that a Landmark buy would offer the same benefits the grocery chain does. That's for a simple reason: Amazon doesn't need a physical presence in entertainment, a sector that is existentially (and increasingly) digital, the way it does in the supermarket business.

Whole Foods allows Amazon to warehouse and ship groceries, making the company more nimble at the mail-order food-delivery game. But Amazon doesn't need to do that for movies and TV shows - the firm already is as nimble as one can get, zipping a movie or TV show to you and your device in two seconds flat, no warehousing required.

Amazon doesn't really need theaters for awards, either, for another simple reason: It can simply do that in chains it doesn't own. The company had no problem doing just that with "Manchester by the Sea," its multiple-Oscar winner from a couple of years back. If you have an awards-worthy movie, theaters will program it.

The larger idea that it would stock the theater with its own movie titles doesn't completely add up, either. The company is likely to exit the art-house-theater business for which a small upscale chain such as Landmark is built, informing Hollywood's creative community in recent months that its "Manchester"-esque ambitions under Amazon Studios executives Bob Berney and Ted Hope are likely to shift to a more broad-based commercial business under new overall content chief Jennifer Salke. Essentially, Amazon is moving out of the Landmark business and into the AMC and large-chain business.

As for whether Amazon needs movie theaters for Prime, well, it certainly couldn't hurt. But the company has many ways of building its membership - it didn't exceed 100 million subscribers with movie theaters, and it's not clear a few dozen theaters will significantly move the needle.

The best way a Landmark buy could pay off for Amazon might be if the company took these physical spaces and remade them, not as places to watch the movies that Amazon can already get you with no overhead but as a venue for other sorts. Esports and other forms of live-gaming, Ark and VR location-based experiences - communal entertainment in the 21st century is evolving past just sitting in a darkened theater quietly watching the same two-hour film as the strangers next to you. A company such as Amazon could take these spaces and outfit them for that purpose.

"This all may be opportunistic, a real estate play to do many other things," Beck said.

Of course, that wouldn't really be about buying movie theaters. It would be like buying Whole Foods - and then turning around and selling something that wasn't food.

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Analysis | Amazon is reportedly thinking about buying the Whole Foods of movie theaters. Is that a good idea?

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Landmark Theatres operates 53 theaters in 27 cities, specializing in the kind of art-house fare that crosses over to mainstream audiences. Currently showing at the Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner company's New York outlet, for instance, is a mix of hit documentaries, gentle British dramas, Sundance winners and one studio title ("Mamma Mia!

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Employee culture is super important. I liked the assignment we had on Zappos and wanted to include it here.

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Best practices, tips and fundraising ideas for nonprofits

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For the last seven years Zappos has made Fortune's list of " 100 Best Companies to Work For," ranking 86 in 2015. Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh (pronounced 'Shay'), has been instrumental in sustaining this level of success. One of his secrets? A focus on employee happiness.

And for good reason- studies indicate that happy people are actually 12 percent more productive. Hsieh focuses so much on the happiness of his team and customers, he literally wrote a book on how to "make happiness your business model."

Like Zappos, your organization can take steps to ensure your team stays motivated to achieve your mission. To help you infuse similar practices into your organization's management, here are five of our favorite lessons your nonprofit can learn from Zappos.

Culture Rules Everything Around Me

Zappos' focus on company culture is one of the reasons they're so successful. Hsieh has spent years testing, refining, and reiterating their culture, which centers around Zappos' core values:

Deliver "WOW" through service

Embrace and drive change

Create fun and a little weirdness

Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded

Pursue growth and learning

Build open and honest relationships with communication

Build a positive team and family spirit

Do more with less

Be passionate and determined

Be humble

In addition to ensuring they put their core values into practice, Hsieh has also built collision into Zappos' culture, or what some call the serendipity of casual contact. He wants his employees constantly interacting-colliding-with one another as much as possible throughout their day.

For example, the sky bridge from the parking structure to the office is decommissioned. Employees instead have to walk through Zappos' central courtyard, often colliding with others, before heading up to work.

Hsieh institutes practices like this because he believes good ideas, conversations, and connections stem from collision. The culture of collision grows Zappos into a company where new ideas flourish.

How to Apply this to Your Organization

Company culture is one of the strongest tools at your nonprofit's disposal. That's because it has the power to influence the behavior of your employees.

We're talking about your ability to manage the human energy in your shop as capably as you manage operational, financial, and marketing issues.

The first step to optimize your company culture is to define your nonprofit's mission, values, ethics, expectations, and goals. Establishing these definitions is crucial, as they play a central role in attracting and retaining talent.

"Culture is critical to talent retention. When asked which elements of workplace commitment most benefit daily operations, companies ranked culture at 80 percent," says the Harvard Business Review.

Prioritize talent that aligns to your culture, and your team is much more likely to feel happy and fulfilled in their work at your organization. This alignment can lead to higher employee retention, and an overall better reputation. That can ultimately translate to more fundraising power, more donations, and more community engagement.

The Customer is Always Right

Before Hsieh was ever in the news for renovating Downtown Las Vegas or living with llamas in an airstream trailer, he built one of the best customer service policies around. He understood that, as an online retailer, customer service would likely be the only person-to-person contact customers have with Zappos.

Zappos' customer service wing has been called "insane and fanatical for the way it will do anything to please its customers," but in a good way. Hsieh encourages his employees to always go above and beyond, and it's clear they take the direction to heart. For example:

On average, a Zappos customer service rep answers 5,000 calls a month and 1,200 emails a week

There's no limit on call time: the longest recorded Zappos call is 10 hours and 29 minutes

A customer service rep physically went to a rival shoe store to get a pair of shoes for a woman staying in Las Vegas when Zappos ran out of stock

Zappos overnighted a free pair of shoes to a best man who arrived at a wedding shoeless

Zappos sent flowers to a woman who ordered six different pairs of shoes because her feet were damaged by medical treatments

How to Apply This to Your Organization

Every donor deserves to feel like the largest backer of your cause. If your customer service isn't up to par, they won't feel the love.

When your nonprofit goes above and beyond to delight your supporters, you'll develop a reputation for being genuine, thankful, and personable. These qualities help establish your rapport with community members and make them feel like part of your work.

As such, they'll go to greater lengths to help you raise awareness and funds for your cause. Remember, your customer service is often a reinforcement of your first impression with your support base. Use it as an opportunity to build an emotional connection between your mission and your supporters.

Stay Loosey Goosey

Hsieh has always been a strong proponent of flexible thinking, and he's bakes it into everything Zappos does. As a show of his flexibility, he recently decided to transition the management structure of Zappos from a traditional hierarchy to a holacracy.

This was a massive, company-wide undertaking that threw Zappos into upheaval. Everything Hsieh's employees knew about hierarchical management was tossed out the window. On top of that, they had to decide if they even wanted to keep working for Zappos.

Hsieh told employees that they could either embrace self-management [holacracy] or leave with a severance package. He'd begun implementing the system two years before, but a couple hundred employees had yet to switch over, and he felt that it was time to 'rip the Band-Aid off.' Ultimately, 260 people, or 18 percent of the company, decided to take the offer and quit.

This shift was the ultimate exercise in flexibility. Everything changed almost overnight, the news blasted it as a bad business move, and employees left Zappos. At the same time, it showed Hsieh who the committed diehard employees were.

If he hadn't been flexible in implementing a holacracy, it could have backfired with a mass exodus of employees and halted operations. However, giving employees the option to be flexible with all elements of their job led to faster-paced, more creative, and a happier Zappos.

How to Apply This to Your Organization

In the face of massive change, you have to remain flexible like Hsieh.

Life at your organization can change, quite radically, at the drop of a hat. Going through these changes with a rigid mindset could have a lasting, negative impact on your nonprofit. If you're flexible, you'll be able to face curveballs as they come and acquiesce to change relatively smoothly.

There are no set rules for how to be flexible, so optimize for it as you work. If you build this mindset into your culture across your teams, change won't throw your operations off track-it will serve as an opportunity to pivot and get creative.

When Hsieh was first asked to join Zappos, he was incredibly skeptical and almost flat out declined the offer. However, Nick Swinmurn hooked Hsieh when he told him that footwear in the US was a $40 billion market.

No doubt, Hsieh saw massive financial opportunity with Zappos. He also realized that Zappos could be more than a simple shoe retailer. Zappos could enrich the lives of people in the community by literally delivering happiness.

Here's a quick timeline of how Zappos grew in only 10 years:

1999: First year of operations, Zappos brings in minimal sales

2000: Zappos hits $1.6 million in revenue

2001: Zappos quadruples that amount

2004: Total sales reach $184 million

2007: Gross sales total $840 million

2008: $1 billion in sales

2009: Amazon acquires Zappos for a reported $1.2 billion

In the midst of Zappos' growth, Downtown Las Vegas (not to be confused with The Strip) was trending in the opposite direction. The area had been devastated by economic collapse, but Hsieh again saw an opportunity for success.

In 2013 he moved Zappos HQ into the Old Las Vegas City Hall in Downtown Vegas. Ever since he's been revitalizing the Downtown area with investments in tech startups, bars, restaurants, parks, and housing.

Zappos is no longer just an online retailer. Zappos now plays a dominant role in the development and revitalization of a major city.

How to Apply this to Your Organization

Nonprofits, by nature, go up against larger than life goals. In those moments when you're overwhelmed, look at the potential for success in an idea rather than its shortcomings.

Don't be afraid to dream big, but like Hsieh, you have to have a plan. Build an attainable roadmap for your nonprofit and take each step one at a time. Voice your dreams and then write them down as SMART goals.

"Impossible" is a word that shouldn't be in our vocabulary with the right amount of courage and planning. And remember: Rome wasn't built in a day.

Put the "FUN" in Fundamentals

Fun is a word that a lot of people don't associate with business, but making it a priority can yield incredibly positive results. In fact, fun has been a central pillar of Zappos since they first started. Internally, they foster employee happiness by encouraging creative and have fun work spaces:

Externally, Zappos constantly holds events to have fun and engage with the Downtown Vegas community. For example, during the 2014 holiday season they opened a Pop-Up Shop to provide customers with a creative shopping experience.

More recently, Zappos designed a new shoe box to inspire customers to " think outside the box." Their new designs include an array of activities and inspiration to repurpose the box in fun ways.

And did we mention there are usually llamas at all Zappos events?

How to Apply this to Your Organization

There are countless positive results that come from building fun into your nonprofit. Chief among them is employee happiness. The happiness of your organization as a whole follows closely behind.

A focus on fun is also a great way to engage with your community of supporters and show them you care about them. Consider hosting a public event like Zappos does for Downtown Vegas. Maybe your nonprofit can even adopt its own "spirit animal," like Hsieh's llama.

If you can make the journey fun for everybody, you'll drive more donations, fundraising, and commitment to your cause.

As you continue on your nonprofit journey, look to Zappos as a role model. Hsieh and his company didn't just build an identity, they built a community fueled by a strong culture, fun, and big dreams. Zappos focused on delight, both internally and externally and became a force to be reckoned with.

Your nonprofit can also achieve success when it focuses on employee happiness. Remember to have fun with it!

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5 Lessons From Zappos on Employee Happiness

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For the last seven years Zappos has made Fortune's list of " 100 Best Companies to Work For," ranking 86 in 2015. Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh (pronounced 'Shay'), has been instrumental in sustaining this level of success. One of his secrets? A focus on employee happiness.

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While reading this article it shows how making strategies for companies can make big profits or major losses.

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At the annual advertising festival on the French Riviera two summers ago, top New York Times Co. executive Meredith Kopit Levien sipped rosé with marketing executives from Samsung Electronics Co.

She brought a high-profile guest: Times columnist Maureen Dowd. At Samsung's virtual-reality installation, the group took turns trying on the latest goggles to immerse themselves in an interactive theater experience. A formal ad sales pitch soon followed from Ms. Levien's team.

...

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The Woman Behind the New York Times' High-Risk, High-Reward Business Strategy

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At the annual advertising festival on the French Riviera two summers ago, top New York Times Co. executive Meredith Kopit Levien sipped rosé with marketing executives from Samsung Electronics Co. She brought a high-profile guest: Times columnist Maureen Dowd. At Samsung's virtual-reality installation, the group took turns trying on the latest goggles to immerse themselves in an interactive theater experience.

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Ford has announced that it will pursuing a new strategy by focusing on SUV's and trucks.

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CLOSE

Ford's dramatic announcement that it will stop building sedans in the United States got most of the attention in the company's new strategy, but massive investments in versatile new vehicles and factories are the heart of the plan.

Ford's model line will go from one of the auto industry's oldest to newest in the next couple of years, company product development chief Hau Thai-Tang said Thursday.

The unanswered question is whether Ford will pick up the pace of vehicle development to keep it that way, or let its showroom age into uncompetitiveness, as the company has repeatedly done in the past. Former CEO Alan Mulally memorably also promised to transform an old model line into a fresh new one. After initial success, that policy went out the window during the Great Recession.

Before we learn the answer to that, we'll see the average age of Ford's vehicles shrink from 5.7 years today to 3.3 in 2020, Thai-Tang said.
Ford's top competitors' lineups will be 4 and 4.7 years old then, he said. Ford won't say who those competitors are, but you can safely assume General Motors is one, and the other is Toyota, Fiat Chrysler or Volkswagen.

Ford plans to increase the number of nameplates it offers around the world from 20 today to 23 by 2023. The total will include nine new nameplates, seven of them trucks or SUVs.

Ford says it will spend $740M to bring Detroit train station project to life

Ford to host showings of 'Bullitt' on Woodward during Dream Cruise

From Fiestas to Explorers

Ford used to spend about the same amount of money engineering cars, trucks and utility vehicles, Thai-Tang said. By 2020, the ratio will be 80 percent SUVs and trucks, on the way to 89 percent and just 11 percent cars by the end of the company's current five-year plan in 2023.

2018 Ford Explorer (Photo: Ford Motor Company)

The plan's success depends on Ford's ability to engineer extremely flexible vehicle architectures, and plants that can quickly switch production among a variety of vehicles.

An architecture is essentially a structure and sets of components that can be used to produce a variety of vehicles. Ford currently has nine architectures for vehicles it builds around the world. That's scheduled to fall to five by 2023, with a few exceptions for special cases.

The architectures are:

Front- or all-wheel-drive unibody - vehicles stretching from subcompacts like the Fiesta to the Explorer family SUV.

Rear- or all-wheel-drive unibody - The Mustang is the only example in Ford's current lineup, but this kind of architecture is preferred by luxury brands like BMW, Cadillac, Lexus and Mercedes. It can underpin sporty coupes and convertibles like the Mustang, luxury sedans and SUVs like the Range Rover and BMW X3.

Commercial vans - These are a big, profitable and underappreciated part of Ford's business. They include everything from the UPS-van style Transit to the compact Transit Connect, but future versions of the little Connect may be based - like today's model - on the FWD unibody architecture.

Rear- or four-wheel-drive body-on-frame SUVs - pickups like the F-150 and Ranger and SUVs like the Expedition and Lincoln Navigator use this architecture. It's not clear if next year's Lincoln Aviator will be this type of vehicle, or based on the RWD unibody architecture.

Electric vehicles - Ford is developing an architecture specifically for a range of battery-only electric cars. That's not unlike what Tesla did.

There will also be hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions of vehicles based on all the other architectures.

Reworked factories around the world

No automaker has successfully been able to build that wide a model line on just five architectures. Developing architectures that can stretch from a Fiesta subcompact car to the big Explorer, or from a $26,000 Mustang to an $80,000-plus luxury sedan, is a huge challenge.

If the strategy produces first-rate vehicles in all those market segments, Ford will have significant advantages in cost and efficiency.

But if Ford stretches the architectures past the breaking point, the result will be devastating, saddling the company with uncompetitive vehicles for years.

Equally versatile assembly plants are also vital to the plan. The goal is to be able to build vehicles with different wheelbases, tracks, ride heights, roofs and silhouettes in each plant, as long as the vehicles are based on the same architecture. Every new factory will be upgraded for that as new models go into production.

In today's terms, the equivalent would be easily adding production of Escapes to the plant that builds Focuses when car sales fall and SUVs surge.

Ford also aims to develop systems that can be used not just in all the vehicles based on a single architecture, but across multiple architectures. Modules developed for climate control, suspensions and all-wheel-drive could be shared across one architecture or between two or more.

The strategy will allow Ford to convert production back to sedans if tastes change, but all the indications are that the shift to SUVs is a long-term phenomenon, Thai-Tang said.
Contact Mark Phelan: mmphelan@freepress.com or 313-222-6731. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan.
Read or Share this story: https://on.freep.com/2OExYrF

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How Ford's high-risk, high-return strategy could work

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CLOSE Ford's dramatic announcement that it will stop building sedans in the United States got most of the attention in the company's new strategy, but massive investments in versatile new vehicles and factories are the heart of the plan.

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The decision making process is one of the most important aspects of building and maintaining a company

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business decision making methods - Google Search

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This article gave me a little more insight into chapter 18.

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Essays, Research Papers and Articles on Business Management

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This article throws light upon the top ten techniques of decision-making. The techniques are: 1. Marginal Analysis 2. Financial Analysis 3. Break-Even Analysis 4. Ratio Analysis 5. Operations Research Techniques 6. Linear Programming 7. Waiting-line Method 8. Game Theory 9. Simulation 10. Decision Tree.
Decision-Making: Technique # 1. Marginal Analysis:

This technique is used in decision-making to figure out how much extra output will result if one more variable (e.g. raw material, machine, and worker) is added. In his book, 'Economics', Paul Samuelson defines marginal analysis as the extra output that will result by adding one extra unit of any input variable, other factors being held constant.

Marginal analysis is particularly useful for evaluating alternatives in the decision-making process.

This decision-making tool is used to estimate the profitability of an investment, to calculate the payback period (the period taken for the cash benefits to account for the original cost of an investment), and to analyze cash inflows and cash outflows.

Investment alternatives can be evaluated by discounting the cash inflows and cash outflows (discounting is the process of determining the present value of a future amount, assuming that the decision-maker has an opportunity to earn a certain return on his money).

This tool enables a decision-maker to evaluate the available alternatives based on price, fixed cost and variable cost per unit. Break-even analysis is a measure by which the level of sales necessary to cover all fixed costs can be determined.

Using this technique, the decision-maker can determine the break-even point for the company as a whole, or for any of its products. At the break-even point, total revenue equals total cost and the profit is nil.

It is an accounting tool for interpreting accounting information. Ratios define the relationship between two variables. The basic financial ratios compare costs and revenue for a particular period. The purpose of conducting a ratio analysis is to interpret financial statements to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a firm, as well as its historical performance and current financial condition.

One of the most significant sets of tools available for decision-makers is operations research. An operation research (OR) involves the practical application of quantitative methods in the process of decision-making. When using these techniques, the decision-maker makes use of scientific, logical or mathematical means to achieve realistic solutions to problems. Several OR techniques have been developed over the years.

Linear programming is a quantitative technique used in decision-making. It involves making an optimum allocation of scarce or limited resources of an organization to achieve a particular objective. The word 'linear' implies that the relationship among different variables is proportionate.

The term 'programming' implies developing a specific mathematical model to optimize outputs when the resources are scarce. In order to apply this technique, the situation must involve two or more activities competing for limited resources and all relationships in the situation must be linear.
Some of the areas of managerial decision-making where linear programming technique can be applied are:
i. Product mix decisions

ii. Determining the optimal scale of operations

iii. Inventory management problems

iv. Allocation of scarce resources under conditions of uncertain demand

v. Scheduling production facilities and maintenance.

This is an operations research method that uses a mathematical technique for balancing services provided and waiting lines. Waiting lines (or queuing) occur whenever the demand for the service exceeds the service facilities.

Since a perfect balance between demand and supply cannot be achieved, either customers will have to wait for the service (excess demand) or there may be no customers for the organization to serve (excess supply).

When the queue is long and the customers have to wait for a long duration, they may get frustrated. This may cost the firm its customers. On the other hand, it may not be feasible for the firm to maintain facilities to provide quick service all the time since the cost of idle service facilities have to be borne by the company.

The firm, therefore, has to strike a balance between the two. The queuing technique helps to optimize customer service on the basis of quantitative criteria. However, it only provides vital information for decision-making and does not by itself solve the problem. Developing queuing models often requires advanced mathematical and statistical knowledge.

This is a systematic and sophisticated technique that enables competitors to select rational strategies for attainment of goals. Game theory provides many useful insights into situations involving competition. This decision-making technique involves selecting the best strategy, taking into consideration one's own actions and those of one's competitors.

The primary aim of game theory is to develop rational criteria for selecting a strategy. It is based on the assumption that every player (a competitor) in the game (decision situation) is perfectly rational and seeks to win the game.

In other words, the theory assumes that the opponent will carefully consider what the decision-maker may do before he selects his own strategy. Minimizing the maximum loss (minimax) and maximizing the minimum gain (maximin) are the two concepts used in game theory.

This technique involves building a model that represents a real or an existing system. Simulation is useful for solving complex problems that cannot be readily solved by other techniques. In recent years, computers have been used extensively for simulation. The different variables and their interrelationships are put into the model.

When the model is programmed through the computer, a set of outputs is obtained. Simulation techniques are useful in evaluating various alternatives and selecting the best one. Simulation can be used to develop price strategies, distribution strategies, determining resource allocation, logistics, etc.

This is an interesting technique used for analysis of a decision. A decision tree is a sophisticated mathematical tool that enables a decision-maker to consider various alternative courses of action and select the best alternative. A decision tree is a graphical representation of alternative courses of action and the possible outcomes and risks associated with each action.

In this technique, the decision-maker traces the optimum path through the tree diagram. In the tree diagram the base, known as the 'decision point,' is represented by a square. Two or more chance events follow from the decision point. A chance event is represented by a circle and constitutes a branch of the decision tree. Every chance event produces two or more possible outcomes leading to subsequent decision points.
The decision tree can be illustrated with an example. If a firm expects an increase in the demand for its products, it can consider two alternative courses of action to meet the increased demand:
(a) Installing new machines,

(b) Introducing a double shift.

There are two possibilities for each alternative, i.e. output may increase (positive state) or fall (negative state). The probabilities associated with each state are taken as 0.6 and 0.4 respectively. This information can be presented in a tabular form, known as a pay-off matrix (see Table 13.2).

Additional machines

= (Rs. 3,00,000 × 0.6) + (Rs. 2,00,000 × 0.4)

= Rs. 2,60,000

Double shift

= (Rs. 2,80,000 × 0.6) + (Rs. 2,40,000 × 0.4)

= Rs. 2,64,000

Since the pay-off from introducing a double shift is higher, it may be selected. Though, the decision tree does not provide a solution to the decision-maker, it helps in decision-making by showing the alternatives available and their probabilities.

The decision tree allows the decision-maker to see the application of most of the steps in the decision-making process in one single diagram. The effectiveness of this decision-making technique depends on the assumptions and the probability estimates made by the decision-maker.

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This article throws light upon the top ten techniques of decision-making. The techniques are: 1. Marginal Analysis 2. Financial Analysis 3. Break-Even Analysis 4. Ratio Analysis 5. Operations Research Techniques 6. Linear Programming 7. Waiting-line Method 8. Game Theory 9. Simulation 10. Decision Tree. Decision-Making: Technique # 1.

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This is a quick video explaining management objectives.

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How  to get to your long term goals with the help of your short term goals.

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How  to get to your long term goals with the help of your short term goals.

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I liked the video and that it was interesting.

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Learning Outcomes

Differentiate between the uses of long-term plans, short-term plans, and operational plans.

Differentiate between standing plans and single-use plans.

Explain how policies, procedures, and regulations impact operational plans.

Explain the role of budgets in the planning process.

Differentiate between forecasting, scenario planning, and contingency planning.

Explain the use of "management by objectives" (MBO), SMART goals, and benchmarking in planning.

Watch the short animated video for a brief overview of the importance of long-term and short-term planning.

Long-term and Short-term Plans

When you decided to attend college, you had a long-term plan in mind. You would spend the next four or five years preparing to become a teacher, a businessperson, or perhaps an ecologist. Or, you may have committed two or three years to become a nurse, a medical technician, or an electrician. Your long-term goal was necessary to make sure that your daily activities would help you achieve your desired outcome. You could have just enrolled in a school and taken classes that looked interesting, but then where would you be in four years? You most likely would not have taken the courses required to qualify you for the job you want. An organization, especially a business, is not so different. It also needs a long-term plan to make sure that the daily activities of its employees are contributing to the mission and value statements of the organization.

A long-term plan is crucial to the ultimate success of the organization. A long-term plan for many businesses, such as construction, hospitality, or manufacturing, generally extends four to five years into the future. For other faster-changing industries, especially technology companies, a long-term plan may only look two or three years into the future. After that, it becomes too difficult to predict the future with any degree of certainty.

Top management is responsible for the development of the long-term plan. It is up to the CEO to make sure that changing conditions (both external and internal) are reflected in the organization's long-term plan. The larger and more complex the organization, the larger and more complex the long-term plan will be to include all of the individual departments and functions.

Short-term plans generally allocate resources for a year or less. They may also be referred to as operational plans because they are concerned with daily activities and standard business operations. Like long-term plans, short-term plans must be monitored and updated, and this is the role of middle- and first-level management. Different managerial levels have responsibility for implementing different types of short-term plans. For example, a department manager may be comfortable implementing an operational plan for the entire year for her department. A marketing manager may direct a three- to four-month plan that involves the introduction of a new product line. A team leader may only be comfortable planning and implementing very specific activities over the period of a month.

Operational Plans: Standing Plans and Single-Use Plans

An operational plan describes the specific goals and objectives and milestones set by an organization during a specific period. ( Objectives are specific tasks undertaken to meet broader goals. A goal may be to increase product sales by 3 percent; an objective may be to hire two additional sales agents.) It will allocate the tangible resources (labor, equipment, space) and authorize the financing necessary to meet the objectives of the plan. There are two types of operational plans: standing plans and single-use plans.

Standing plans are plans designed to be used again and again. Examples include policies, procedures, and regulations. The advantage of standing plans is that they foster unity and fairness within an organization and help to support stated organizational values. Managers don't have to make unique decisions already addressed by various organizational policies. Standing plans also save time because managers know in advance how to address common situations. Finally, standing plans aid in the delegation of work, because employees are already familiar with the procedures and regulations followed by the organization.

Single-use plans refer to plans that address a one-time project or event. The length of the plans varies, but the most common types are budgets and project schedules. The obvious advantage of a single-use plan is that it can be very specific in how it addresses the needs of a particular situation.

Policies, Procedures, and Regulations

As stated above, the most common examples of standing use plans are policies, procedures, and regulations. These plans are usually published and handed out to new hires or posted on the organization's employee website for easy reference.

Policies provide broad guidelines for the smooth operation of the organization. They cover things like hiring and firing, performance appraisals, promotions, and discipline. For example, a company may have a policy to encourage recycling in the workplace or a policy that prohibits personal cell phone use in manufacturing areas.

Procedures are steps to be followed in established and repeated operations. Procedures should reflect the policies of the company and support the organization's long-term goals. Procedures may also detail steps that should be followed to ensure employees are disciplined in a fair and unbiased manner. For example, if employees feel that other employees interacted with them in an inappropriate manner, then they should follow the procedure for bringing this to management's attention. Or, the organization may establish procedures for what to do in cases of emergencies, such as a fire or toxic spill.

Regulations refer to what is allowable and what is strictly prohibited in an organization. In other words, a regulation is a kind of rule that addresses general situations. In many hospitals and laboratories, for example, there are safety regulations against wearing open-toed shoes or shoes with slippery soles. State and federal governments frequently issue regulations for industries that impact public safety.

The Role of Budgets in the Planning Process

Refer to the "Organizational Plan Hierarchy" figure earlier and locate the box labeled "Budgets." Notice that budgets are examples of single-use, short-term plans. An organization's budget is a document that details the financial and physical resources allocated to a project or department. They are single-use plans because they are specific to a particular period or event. For example, departments may have a hiring budget that allocates a certain number of positions and a total salary value for a calendar year. Next year, that budget may be the same or it may change, depending upon conditions in the organization. But it cannot be assumed that the budget will stay the same. Zero-based budgets look at each budget as if it were brand new and require managers to justify each of the budgeted items. This process ensures that budgets are closely tied to the latest organizational goals.

Managers deal with a variety of budget types:

Financial budgets include balance sheets, income/expense statements, and statements of cash flow.

Operating budgets project revenue against expenditures.

Nonmonetary budgets allocate resources such as labor, workspace, and equipment use.

Fixed budgets are budgets that do not change with increased or decreased activities, such as sales revenue. They are also called static budgets.

Flexible budgets will vary with the level of activity (grow or be reduced according to changing conditions).

Budgets are a very important planning tool, and organizations take their budgeting process very seriously. Some managers spend most of their time making sure that the expenses and projects they control do not exceed authorized spending limits. To routinely "go over budget" is a sign of a poor planning-and planning is one of the basic management functions. In some cases, to routinely come in under budget is also viewed negatively, because with more accurate budgeting those committed resources could have been allocated to other projects. Often, projects compete for limited resources so the best budget is the one that most closely projects actual expenses and revenue.

Forecasting, Scenario Planning, and Contingency Planning

Forecasting is simply making a prediction about the future. Anyone can make a forecast-the trick is to be right or close enough so that important planning decisions can be based on the forecast. Some "botched" forecasts by business leaders follow:

"This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." - President of Western Union, 1876

"There is a world market for maybe five computers." - Chairman of IBM, 1943

"Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." - Darryl Zanuck, president of 20th Century Fox, 1946

"There is no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share." - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, 2012

Scientific forecasting is using mathematical models, historical data, and statistical analysis to make predictions about what will happen in the future. Businesses use short-term forecasting all the time when creating budgets and anticipating expenses. Mostly, these forecasts are based on what they sold and what they paid providers in the recent past. Long-range forecasting requires both quantitative numerical data and qualitative data based on expert opinions and insights. Often, organizations will create a number of long-range forecasts based on "best-case" and "worst-case" scenarios. They will then make plans on how they would respond to each situation and, as time goes on, they will update and adapt the long-term plan.

One other important type of planning is the contingency plan. A contingency plan describes what will happen in a possible-but not expected-situation. Usually, contingency plans are designed to handle emergency situations. For example, airports have contingency plans for plane crashes on takeoffs or landings, and popular tourist attractions have begun developing contingency plans in case of terrorist threats.

An example of the critical importance of contingency planning involves the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Eleven people lost their lives and seventeen were badly injured when an explosion on an oil rig released almost five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It was the worst marine oil spill in history, and its effects were even more devastating because BP Oil did not have contingency plans in place for that kind of disaster. The spill went on for months while BP and its partners tried to figure out how to shut off the oil's source. Even though BP spent $62 billion on the response and cleanup activities, there was extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats and fishing and tourism industries. Getting employees involved in planning may help prevent tragedies similar to this one.

Management By Objectives (MBO) and SMART Goals

Management by objectives, or MBO for short, is a tool that can be used to improve the performance of an organization by creating clearly defined objectives agreed upon by management and by the employees. Peter Drucker, a prolific author and a leader in management theory, coined the phrase "management by objectives" in 1954. The intent of MBO is to improve employee motivation and organizational communication by focusing on aligning individual goals to corporate objectives. In MBO, a manager and an employee do the following:

jointly set goals and objectives for a period.

together plan tasks that the employee performs with the support of management.

agree on the standards for evaluating performance of the task.

regularly meet to review progress.

MBO must be a top-down management tool, because organizational goals are cascaded down to create the various operational levels. Drucker showed that as long as employee goals support short-term and long-term organizational objectives, MBO will help move the company forward. Critics, however, charge that managers using the approach focus more on creating goals than on helping the employee achieve them.

SMART goals are a technique often paired with MBO. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. The SMART goal paired well with MBO theory by

1. Providing incentives to employees by rewarding them when they meet key goals.

2. Empowering employees by allowing them to set their own objectives for achieving their individual goal.

3. Communicating honestly about what went well and what did not, and focusing on developing the missing skills.

The chart that follows summarizes the most important characteristics of each part of a SMART goal.

SMART GOAL CRITERIA

SPECIFIC

Objectives must be specific enough to avoid confusion. They should identify what the objective is in terms of action to be done.

MEASURABLE

The objective should be numerical and quantifiable. Avoid term such as some, most, many, and enough.

ACHIEVABLE

An objective should be able to be met with reasonable effort. They should not be the source of undue physical or emotional stress.

RELEVANT

The objective should contribute in some way to the success of the organization as well as the development of the employee.

TIME-BOUND

Objectives should come with firm dates-not "soon" or "in a timely manner."

For example, let's say you set a goal to become a recognized department expert in a subject relevant to advancement within the organization. How could you turn this into a SMART goal?

Specific: I will learn about the liabilities of six major nonprofit organizations.

Measurable: I will make presentations to the advertising, grant writing, and donor/client committees.

Achievable: I will interview one nonprofit organization every week for six weeks.

Relevant: This expertise will fill a current knowledge gap in the new client department.

Time-bound: I will fulfill this goal before my next scheduled annual performance evaluation.

Benchmarking

The last planning tool we'll discuss in this section is benchmarking. You may think that your organization has an excellent long-term plan and effective short-term plans, but how do you really know? Even if your company is showing growth, is it growing as fast as your competitor? A benchmark is a standard used for comparison purposes. Benchmarking is looking at performance levels outside of your organization, or sometimes across departments or divisions inside your organization, to evaluate your own performance. You can benchmark using several different criteria:

Industry: Let's say you produce technology widgets. Benchmarking can answer questions about how your company is doing in comparison to other tech widget makers. This approach is a type of competitive benchmarking.

Geography: Your state is showing a lot of economic growth. You can use benchmarking to determine if your company is sharing in that wealth or underperforming compared to the regional economy.

Organization: You are a small business owner. Benchmarking can help answer questions about whether the economic climate is friendlier to big business than it is to small business, or whether nonprofits are failing whereas for-profits are succeeding.

Processes: You can use benchmarking to determine what processes other firms are using that are helping or hurting them. Are there lessons to be learned from them? This is also called strategic benchmarking or process benchmarking.

Innovation: Benchmarking can help you discover what partners or techniques your competitors are using that are missing in your organization. Are there functions in your products or programs that should be eliminated and others that could be added? Functional benchmarking is key in technology-related organizations.

Internal benchmarking means comparing a department's performance with another department in your company or branch within the same larger organization. The important thing about benchmarking is that it gives you a standard against which to compare your progress.

Key Points

Planning tools are designed to help you determine goals, guide behaviors within the organization, and help you evaluate your performance against external benchmarks. Plans are essential, but good managers know to be flexible when conditions demand.

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Differentiate between the uses of long-term plans, short-term plans, and operational plans. Differentiate between standing plans and single-use plans. Explain how policies, procedures, and regulations impact operational plans. Explain the role of budgets in the planning process. Differentiate between forecasting, scenario planning, and contingency planning.

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After learning about SWOT I wanted to learn more about different planning techniques.

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There are a wide variety of techniques which can be used to help develop ideas and thinking in a programme or project management environment. Many of these tools have been around for a long time and originated in areas not directly related to PPM.

Tools and techniques

Some of the tools and techniques that can be used in programme and project management are outlined below.

SWOT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

A SWOT analysis can be used to draw out the threats and opportunities facing a programme or project. It has the advantage of being quick to implement and is readily understood. Analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats brings together the results of internal business analysis and external environmental analysis. Common and beneficial applications of SWOT are gaining a greater understanding and insight into competitors and market position.

A similar and related form of analysis is known as PEST - examining Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors.

RACI - Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed

A RACI diagram is used to describe the roles and responsibilities of the participants in a business or project activity in terms of producing predetermined deliverables. RACI is an acronym formed from the four participatory roles which are:

responsible - those who undertake the activity or the resources

accountable - those who take the credit for success or accountability for failure or the activity manager; and there must be at least one for each activity

consulted - those whose opinions are sought

informed - those who are kept advised of progress

An expanded version, RACI-VS, can also be used, adding the roles of:

verifies - the party who checks whether the product meets the quality criteria set out in the product description

signs off - the party who approves the verification decision and authorises the product handover

Stakeholder matrix

A stakeholder matrix is used to map stakeholders in terms of their importance and potential impact on programme or project activity. Stakeholders are the individuals or groups who will be affected by an activity, programme or project. They could include:

senior managers whose business areas are directly or indirectly involved

end-users including customers outside the organisation

suppliers and partners

Effective management of the stakeholders' interests includes the resolution of conflicting objectives and representation of end-users who may not be directly involved in the activity. Stakeholders' interests can be managed through stakeholder meetings and specific user panels providing input to a requirement specification. The key objective is to capture, align, record, sign off and deliver stakeholder objectives. One way of prioritising this activity is to use a stakeholder matrix.

Cause and effect diagram

Also known as fish-bone diagram, a cause and effect diagram can be used to represent event causes and potential impacts. It is a graphical representation of the causes of various events that lead to one or more impacts. Each diagram may possess several start points (A points) and one or more end points (B points).

Construction of the diagram may begin from an A point and work towards a B point or extrapolate backwards from a B point. This is largely a matter of preference.

Risk map

This is a simple representation of risk in terms of likelihood and impact. It requires that the probability of a risk occurring is classified as low, medium or high - with a similar classification for the impact if the risk materialises.

A combined risk classification of high probability and high impact if the risk occurs is clearly an important risk. The classification can be extended to include very low and very high.

Summary risk profile

A summary risk profile is a simple mechanism to increase the visibility of risks. It is a graphical representation of information normally found on an existing risk register. In some industry sectors it is referred to as a risk map.

The project manager or risk manager needs to update the risk register on a regular basis and then regenerate the graph, showing risks in terms of probability and impact with the effects of mitigating action taken into account. It is essential for the graph to reflect current information as documented in the risk register. The profile must be used with extreme care and should not mislead the reader. If an activity has over 200 risks it will be impractical to illustrate all of the risks - it will be more appropriate to illustrate the top 20 risks, for example, making it clear what is and is not illustrated.

A key feature is the risk tolerance line. It shows the overall level of risk that the organisation is prepared to tolerate in a given situation. If exposure to risk is above this line, managers can see that they must take prompt action. Setting the risk tolerance line is a task for experienced risk managers. It reflects the organisation's attitudes to risk in general and to a specific set of risks within a particular project. The parameters of the risk tolerance line should be agreed at the outset of an activity and regularly reviewed.

The use of RAGB (red, amber, green, blue) status can be useful for incorporating the status reporting from risk registers into risk profiles, and can provide a quick and effective means of monitoring.

Decision tree

A decision tree is a useful tool for enabling choice between several courses of action. It provides a highly effective structure within which options can be explored and possible outcomes can be investigated. It also helps to form a balanced picture of the risks and rewards associated with each possible course of action.

A decision tree is particularly useful when choosing between different strategies, projects or investment opportunities - particularly when resources are scarce.

Radar chart

Also known as a spider chart, a radar chart is a diagram that is used to show the number of risks that different projects are exposed to. Initially, the data is placed in a table that is subsequently converted into a chart. In a radar chart, a point close to the centre on any axis indicates a low value and a point near the edge is a high value.

Further information

For more information on any of these techniques please contact the Centre of Expertise for Programme and Project Management.

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Programme and project management tools and techniques

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There are a wide variety of techniques which can be used to help develop ideas and thinking in a programme or project management environment. Many of these tools have been around for a long time and originated in areas not directly related to PPM.

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I wanted to include this article because as head of a company you always have to think about your actions and how it can affect the company.

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Papa John's founder John Schnatter is punching back.

The pizza mogul who was accused of using a racial slur during an internal conference call in May is claiming the marketing firm that set up the call tried to extort $6 million from the chain to keep quiet about the slur.

"They wanted $6 million to make it go away," Schnatter told a Louisville, Ky., CBS affiliate about Laundry Service, the Los Angeles-based marketing firm since fired by Papa John's.

"'If I don't get my f-king money, I'm going to bury the founder,' said one of the executives," Schnatter told WLKY. "I'm not for sale," Schnatter continued. "We held firm and they ran to Forbes, which printed it."

Laundry Service declined to comment on the explosive charge, and Papa John's did not return calls or e-mails.

Schnatter claims that Laundry Service, which was hired to provide public relations training, leaked the details about the conference call to Forbes only after its alleged extortion attempt failed.

The marketing firm made its demand about two weeks after the conference call, Schnatter told WLKY.

Schnatter has maintained that Laundry Service "pushed" him to say the n-word during the call.

Following the incendiary TV interview on Friday, Papa John's issued a statement on Sunday, explaining that Schnatter, "is no longer a spokesperson for the company or the brand. The company has specifically requested that Mr. Schnatter cease all media appearances, and not make any further statements to the media regarding the company, its business or employees."

The company went a step further and also evicted Schnatter from his office at the Louisville headquarters, a special committee of the chain's board of directors said.

Schnatter will be forced to vacate the premises after the committee directed the company "to terminate a sublease agreement" that granted the 56-year-old executive the right to use certain space.

Schnatter has 90 days to move out of his memorabilia-rich tribute to his successful career. The office contains a horse statue covered in pizza ingredients, signed guitars, and his original 1971 Z28 Camaro - which he sold to fund the start-up of the chain in 1984, according to reports.

The outspoken executive has been in hot water since last week, when a transcript of an internal May conference call was leaked that revealed Schnatter had used the n-word.

Schnatter, no stranger to controversy, admitted he used the racial slur.

In January, the pizza mogul - who owns 30 percent of the $1.7 billion company's shares - blamed the national anthem protests by NFL players for Papa John's declining sales.

Papa John's was a long-term NFL sponsor. The league parted ways with the chain after Schnatter's comments. The executive also stepped down as CEO at that time.

The revelation of the n-word comments forced him to step down as chairman. Schnatter remains on the board.

Papa John's shares closed down 4 percent, to $51.41.

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Papa John's founder blames n-word scandal on 'extortion' attempt

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Pizza mogul John Schnatter who was accused of using racial slurs during an internal conference call with a marketing firm in May is now accusing that firm - Los Angeles-based Laundry Service - of trying to extort $6 million from the Louisville, Ky., chain to keep quiet about the call.

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I thought this was very interesting because I didn't know that google was banned in china.

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai has sought to reassure employees who are worried the company might compromise its values to get into China.

Pichai, at a town hall meeting on Thursday, said he's not rushing to launch a search product for China. The meeting was the first such event since media reports detailed Google's efforts to build a censored app for the country.

"We are not close to launching a search product in China," Pichai said, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation.

"And whether we would do so, or could do so is all very unclear," he said. "But the team has been in an exploration stage for quite a while now and I think they are exploring many options."

The discussion was part of a regular meeting that is open to all employees.

Reports surfaced earlier this month that Google was working on a search engine for China that would block sensitive websites and search terms to comply with Chinese government censorship.

The New York Times reported Thursday that around 1,400 employees have signed a letter questioning the plan and calling for more transparency.

"To make ethical choices, Googlers need to know what we're building. Right now we don't," reads a copy of the letter posted on the website of The Times.

Google declined to confirm the authenticity of the letter, or comment on the town hall meeting.

China has hundreds of millions of internet users and a thriving online shopping market, making it impossible for US tech companies to ignore. But jumping back into China presents ethical issues for Google, which has long advocated a free and open internet.

Related: Google might return to China. Here's why that's so controversial

Popular Google services including search, YouTube and Gmail have been banned in China for years.

Google stopped offering search in China in 2010 following a political dispute between Beijing and Washington over hacking.

Prior to 2010, the company had operated a Chinese language version of its search engine. It complied with China's censorship rules, but alerted users to the fact that some search results were missing.

-- Kristie Lu Stout contributed to this article.

CNNMoney (London) First published August 17, 2018: 7:54 AM ET

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Google CEO to employees: We're 'not close' to launching search in China

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Pichai, at a town hall meeting on Thursday, said he's not rushing to launch a search product for China. The meeting was the first such event since media reports detailed Google's efforts to build a censored app for the country.

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This article gives you a little more insight on how the employees handle diversity in the workplace

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Why Is Diversity in the Workplace Important to Employees?

As workforce demographics shift and global markets emerge, workplace diversity inches closer to becoming a business necessity instead of a banner that companies wave to show their commitment to embracing differences and change. Employees reap tangible and intangible benefits from workplace benefits, not the least of which include respect from co-workers and business gains.

Mutual Respect

Workplace diversity fosters mutual respect among employees. Whether employees work in groups or teams comprised of co-workers with varied work styles, or colleagues who represent different cultures or generations, a synergistic work environment become the norm. Although an idyllic atmosphere may be difficult to achieve, employees nevertheless recognize the many strengths and talents that diversity brings to the workplace and they gain respect for their colleagues' performance.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict inevitably occurs in the work environment. However, employees who acknowledge others' differences often also find similarities, particularly when there are common goals - production and quality. Respect for co-workers either reduces the likelihood of conflict or facilitates an easier road to conflict resolution. The ability to resolve workplace conflict minimizes potential liability for employee complaints that would otherwise escalate to formal matters, such as litigation. Workplace diversity preserves the quality of employees' relationships with their co-workers and their supervisors.

Business Reputation

Diversity in the workplace is important for employees because it manifests itself in building a great reputation for the company, leading to increased profitability and opportunities for workers. Workplace diversity is important within the organization as well as outside. Business reputations flourish when companies demonstrate their commitment to diversity through aggressive outreach and recruiting efforts. An organization known for its ethics, fair employment practices and appreciation for diverse talent is better able to attract a wider pool of qualified applicants. Other advantages include loyalty from customers who choose to do business only with companies whose business practices are socially responsible.

Job Promotion

The importance of workplace diversity cannot be overstated when it comes to an organization's ability to reach markets in foreign countries. The appeal of global markets creates two kinds of opportunities for employees: opportunities for promotion and employee development. A global marketplace opens doors for employees with diverse language skills and multicultural understanding to build global profit centers. Employees interested in learning multinational business strategy and who are available for possible expatriate assignments may also find new and challenging career opportunities.

Increased Exposure

A diverse workplace offers more than exposure to employees from different cultures and backgrounds. Employees learn from co-workers whose work styles vary and whose attitudes about work varies from their own. This is particularly true for employees within multigenerational work environments. Traditional-generation workers learn new technology and processes from workers who belong to the tech-savvy Millennial generation. Likewise, Generation X employees learn from exposure to the assertive, go-getter work ethic typical of many Baby Boomers.

About the Author

Ruth Mayhew has been writing since the mid-1980s, and she has been an HR subject matter expert since 1995. Her work appears in "The Multi-Generational Workforce in the Health Care Industry," and she has been cited in numerous publications, including journals and textbooks that focus on human resources management practices. She holds a Master of Arts in sociology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Ruth resides in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

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Why Is Diversity in the Workplace Important to Employees?

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As workforce demographics shift and global markets emerge, workplace diversity inches closer to becoming a business necessity instead of a banner that companies wave to show their commitment to embracing differences and change. Employees reap tangible and intangible benefits from workplace benefits, not the least of which include respect from co-workers and business gains.

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This picture says a lot and it really spoke to me. The other half did not show up but if you click the picture it shows what a true leader does, which is to help its employees and work together to get to a common goal. A boss just spits out orders without thinking about the bigger picture if you help your employees your employees will work hard for you.

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Here are some ways to develop conceptual skills:Observation: Closely observe leaders on how they analyse any situation and take actions. ...Identify problems within the organization and treat them as case studies. ...Attend seminars/ training on business management and network with people from within and outside industry.

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Here are some ways to develop conceptual skills:Observation: Closely observe leaders on how they analyse any situation and take actions. ...Identify problems within the organization and treat them as case studies. ...Attend seminars/ training on business management and network with people from within and outside industry.

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Conceptual skills: I choose this because I wanted to get a little more information about conceptual skills being that it was one of our discussion question about Steve Jobs.

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5 min read

A Note From The Editor

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
LinkedIn Influencer, Mark Graban, published this post originally on LinkedIn.
A key thing I've learned in my career and my own work experience:

"Bad managers tell employees what to do, good managers explain why they need to do it, but great managers involve people in decision making and improvement."

There might be more to management to that, but I think that's a pretty good start. " Lean management," or the Toyota management style, encourages leaders to live in that "good to great" range ( with apologies to Jim Collins).

Bad managers bark orders. They are directive and tell employees what to do, without any explanation or context. I saw that style of management quite often during my first two years at General Motors (read my previous post about that experience) and the workplace was incredibly dysfunctional as a result.

There are top-down, "command and control" managers in every type of workplace, unfortunately. Managers who are controlling and have all the answers want their employees to " check their brains at the door," and often say so quite explicitly - or they spread that message in more subtle ways.

At GM, front-line employees complained that they were "hired for their backs and their arms, not their brains." In hospitals, healthcare professionals (even those with master's degrees) have complained, "They just want us to do what we're told." This is not a recipe for quality, productivity, or good customer service.

A friend of mine lives in a high-rise condo building. One example of "telling" was the general manager telling employees that the doors to the resident gym must now be kept closed at all times. For years, previously, the doors had been left open unless a resident wanted privacy and chose to close them.

My friend asked one of the employees, "Why are the doors closed all of the time now?" The employee replied, "I don't know, [the manager] just told us to."
Related: Why Every Patient Deserves the Care & Caution that Surrounds the American Ebola Patients (LinkedIn)
It's disrespectful to just give directives without letting people understand the reason(s) why. There might have very well been a good reason why the doors were now to be kept closed. Had the manager taken just a few minutes to share a reason why, the employees would feel better about themselves and would more likely keep the doors closed. If employees are following directives out of a fear of being "written up," they aren't in a position to provide great service.

A good condo manager would explain why the doors now need to be closed. And, if there wasn't a good reason why, they wouldn't force the change on a whim.

A great condo manager would involve the employees in coming up with solutions to whatever problem is being solved by keeping the doors closed. The employees, when being posed with the problem, might come up with the idea of "close the doors" or they might come up with something better. Either way, they would feel a greater sense of ownership over the idea since they were involved in its creation.

During my time at GM, the better of the two plant managers I worked for taught us that Lean leaders (in the style of Toyota leaders) will always explain why something must be done, in those rare instances when they have to give a directive. The dynamic changes from "thou shalt wear safety gloves (because I'm the boss and I told you so)" to "you must wear safety gloves (because it's necessary for your safety and we don't want you to get hurt, even though you might think there is little risk)."

Bad managers tell. Good managers explain why.

Great managers go beyond this.

Great managers might engage the employees in figuring out how to reduce the safety risk that makes gloves necessary in the first place. Maybe an employee would suggest that a different, but equally effective, chemical be used. We don't know unless we engage our employees.

In 90% of workplace situations, I'd guess, the manager shouldn't be telling people what to do, even if they are making the effort to explain why. Great managers engage people in designing their work and they continue to engage them in ongoing improvement. As I learned from former Toyota employees and the books of Taiichi Ohno, work procedures " should not be forced down from above but rather set by the production workers themselves."
Related: The VA Scandal: Problems Caused by the System (Targets & Incentives), Not Bad Individuals (LinkedIn)
This mindset and approach requires that leaders set aside their egos and century-old habits. of top-down management. Managers won't have all of the answers. Instead of dictating how things get done (and expecting obedience and compliance), managers need to work together with employees to define how the work is done. Managers need to ask employees what ideas they have for improving the workplace, through the practice of " Kaizen."

Our employees are adults and they deserve our respect. They deserve great leaders who can work together to help everybody succeed and do what's best for their customers (or residents).

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What Bad Managers, Good Managers and Great Managers Do

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5 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. LinkedIn Influencer, Mark Graban, published this post originally on LinkedIn. A key thing I've learned in my career and my own work experience: "Bad managers tell employees what to do, good managers explain why they need to do it, but great managers involve people in decision making and improvement."

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Hello. My name is Brittney, I'm so excited to take this class. I  had to Bend and Stretch myself to prepare for this class. I have been pursuing to finish my Bachelor's degree for quite some time now. When it came time to sign up for my classes I Leaped with enthusiasm to do so. I took a break after the birth of my second child but now that the break is over it's Show Time. I have only taken one other class so far since I started back to school. It was business statics and I received a final grade of a B! I Twirled with happiness and it gave me the confidence I know I will need succeed in this class and the ones to come.

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What stood out in this article to me was the statement,  "Bad managers tell employees what to do, good managers explain why they need to do it, but great managers involve people in decision making and improvement.".
I believe this to me so true because the managers set the tone for the office and the work productivity. If you can be a great leader you will have a great employees that will take the company to its goal.