# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As business professionals, we take some important business concepts for granted. Today, we'll explore the difference between Productivity and Efficiency, which are often confused with each other and see if I can offer a perspective that I hope will add some clarity or, at the very least, add some value to the conversation and debate. What you don't want are metrics just for metrics sake - or, even worse, dog poop for metrics. Even more, don't succumb to analysis paralysis.

Not unlike the Weighted Moving Average calculation and how it can help us understand trends in a time series, productivity and efficiency can help us understand our operation.

Consider the following:

Worker Productivity

Part of managing processes is to measure their performance.

This article will discuss 2 basic process measures: Productivity and Efficiency.

For instance,

Simply, productivity is measured like this:

Productivity = Outputs / Inputs

What is the labor productivity in Hours for each car type?

Car X: (4,000 cars / 20,000 Hours) = 0.2 Cars / Hour
Car Y: (6,000 cars / 30,000 Hours) = 0.2 Cars / Hour

How about in labor Productivity in Dollars?

Car X: [(4,000 * $8,000) / (20,000 * $12)] = $133.33 / Car
Car Y: [(6,000 * $9,500) / (30,000 * $14)] = $135.71 / Car

So, based on the data set above, it appears that Productivity by Hours, both Car X and Car Y are the same; but, Productivity by Dollars, Car X is cheaper to make given the labor hours and hourly rate.

How is this practical? Below is a direct citation from the Harbour Report, 1998:

Labor hours needed for stamping, power train, and assembly operations:

If GM could operate at Nissan's level of productivity, they'd save themselves about $4.4 Billion Per Year. Measured another way, GM has about 55,000 more workers than it needs.

Worker Efficiency

Efficiency is measured with the following equation:

Efficiency = [100% * (actual output / standard output)]

Standard Output in the equation above is a number that is arrived at by looking at historical data for the job and by experience. One would hope that that number is not an arbitrary one, but a number that is derived by looking at a historical time series.

Here's an example:

Shmula's Bodywork does automotive collision work. An insurance agency, using actuarial data, has determined that the standard time to replace a fender is 2.5 hours (ie, "standard output" = 0.4 fenders per hour), and is willing to pay Shmula $50 per hour for labor (parts and supplies are billed separately). Shmula pays its workers $35 per hour.

Suppose Shmula's workers take 4 hours to replace a fender. What is Shmula's labor hour efficiency? Given Shmula's labor costs, will Shmula make money on the job?

Using the equation and the data above, we get:

(1 fender / 4 hours) / (1 fender / 2.5 hours) = .625 * 100% = 62.5% efficiency

2.5 hours * $50 = $125 paid by insurance
4 hours * $35 = $140 costs

Shmula will lose $15 per fender.

Economic Profits are important to Shmula; Given the answer above, how efficient does Shmula need to be to break even?

[($125) / ($35/hour)] = 3.57 hours to Break Even

We know that, Efficiency = 100% * (actual output / standard output). So,

(1 fender / 3.57 hours) / (1 fender / 2.5 hours) = .7003 * 100% = 70.03% efficiency. Shmula will need to improve efficiency to 70% or better to make money.

Often times, I hear people use the phrases "productivity" and "efficiency" carelessly, not completely understanding what they mean. These terms have technical definitions and are very practical for business. Still, given the explanation above, one must excercise good judgement in detemining which processes ought to be measured by Productivity and Efficiency and balance these measures with other items that might be important to the individual, firm, and industry. Some measures might make sense for some activities, but not others.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Productivity and Efficiency Calculations - The Difference

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As business professionals, we take some important business concepts for granted. Today, we'll explore the difference between Productivity and Efficiency, which are often confused with each other and see if I can offer a perspective that I hope will add some clarity or, at the very least, add some value to the conversation and debate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is a fundamental need to search for and express your personal freedom and power in life. It is through experiencing our unrestricted freedom that happiness comes. You are here to gain from struggle your higher standards for the living and loving you dream to experience. Empower yourself to stay motivated in overcoming the fears which keep you stuck in accepting the smaller parcels of life's joy.

To exponentially elevate the quality of your life commit to removing your fearful thoughts, acts of timidity, and the need to be the same as everyone else to feel a sense of belonging. Have the courage to live by higher standards and never apologize for them. Trust that the people who want to be in your life will rise to meet you at your highest expectations.

It is your standards of happiness, love, values, personal development and responsibility that set your course in life. Have the courage to think as big as you can, expect nothing less than the best, and most importantly, be kind.

1. Healthy relationship choices: At is core, a happy and fulfilling life is centered in your relationships. When your relationships are frustrating, all other aspects of your life become frustrating. Choose wisely who you involve yourself with, and understand that family isn't always blood.

Make sure those you love are in sync with the creation and direction of your dreams. In these relationships set standards for the type of life and love you wish to experience and commit to reaching these new levels of happiness in these relationships. Expect to be loved and respected and to give it in return.

You can only go so far in life alone. You need others for your happiness, empowerment and completeness. In life, choose love wisely. You must work on yourself so you are capable of creating the high quality loving relationships you desire. When you choose love wisely it not only enhances your own personal fulfillment but it enhances the lives of all those you touch.

2. Never neglect yourself: Personal power and complacency cannot co-exist in the making of a high quality life. Dedicate time and energy wherever necessary to ensure that no important areas of your life are neglected.

Complete life's tasks, big and small. Work hard to overcome obstacles by focusing on what can be gained, learned, and improved upon to make life and love flow more effortlessly. Make lists of things which need to be done with expectations of your performance and dates for completion. Put focused effort on what is most important for your bigger picture, not on what is urgent. Urgency creates an irrational mind, so allow those elements settle while you focus on what you can control.

In personal power you are your most important product. If you neglect yourself personally, you will limit the quality life you dream of. Make sure you are setting high standards in all areas of life so these areas are nurtured and working together to provide you the feeling of completeness.

3. Focus on possibilities not problems: With personal power you possess the deep belief there are available solutions for all your problems. When you approach challenges from a solution-focused perspective it engages the creative process of examining and architecting alternate routes in lei of staying stuck in false beliefs of why things cannot be done, or why there are certain things you cannot have.

If you cannot find a solution, open your thoughts to others, seek their guidance and suggestions. Solution-focused minds reward and inspire each other. When solutions are the focus of your life you learn to fail and adapt and move away from the fix and fail approach.

Personal power and the high quality life you desire is always in the possibility, not the problem.

4. Self-development: To grow in personal power consistently monitor, evaluate and adjust your own life, your relationships, your self-care, your attitude and personal beliefs to stay clear of complacency so you may continue meeting your higher standards.

One of the best ways to keep yourself motivated in reaching your higher standards is to write things down and define your direction. Describe what superior performance would be in light of your chosen desires, and then describe what complacent performance would be. Commit to staying away from lower level habits that rip you from the abundance you deserve.

5. Manage time wisely: To uphold your personal power examine where you spend most of your time. Do you get the most important tasks out of the way first or do you typically get through the small, tedious things which seem more urgent? Getting caught in small, urgent tasks pull you from the more important goals requiring your attention. Focus on what is most important and work from there.

When it comes to relationships, be on time or early to all events, personal and professional, as this gives your commitments the feeling of importance. When you can make another person feel significant, this is power. How you are with time says everything about your commitment and character as a person.

When you respect your time and that of others, you and everyone around you, will rise to much higher standards.

6. Take responsibility: Whatever happens in your life and relationships the best path to the development of your personal power is to accept responsibility for the outcomes, both positive and negative, which are the result of your efforts. If you make a mistake, see it as a self-created learning experience. Figure out what needs to shift for you to be more loving and effective. Always be flexible to changing your approach.

Power is understanding that mistakes gift you with more than they take. It is from mistakes all new directions arise.

Personal power is not about ego. It is about humility and a willingness to learn. Inspire in others the willingness to accept personal responsibility for the outcomes of their lives as well. To inspire this in those you love you must first demonstrate these behaviors publically, powerfully and consistently yourself.

Elevating another to live at a higher level of life is the gift your personal power inspires.

7. Be kind: There is no greater a value to offer as a human being than the simple power of kindness. Kindness does not mean you are a "yes" person or push over. Kindness which is love based is the kindness that can deliver good and bad news with grace. Kindness that is geared toward higher standards is the kindness which gives feedback to others rather than criticism. Kindness that inspires hard work is the kindness that sees possibilities not problems.

Be kind. Be good to yourself and the people you love. Create the emotional environment around you to be infectious, contagious and advantageous to all who are blessed to be a part of it.

Kindness will take you further in life than any other human attribute.

To create and experience personal power means you embrace your inalienable right to think for yourself, to speak your mind, and to pursue happiness, success and financial gain. It allows you to seek self-awareness and a sense of peace, and to do so without having to conform to anyone else's smaller standards including your own.
Sherapy Advice: Empower yourself by loving yourself. Take advantage of what it means to have the unrestricted opportunity to love your life, to be kind, and to strive for that beautiful and attainable sense of personal freedom. In your freedom lies your personal power.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is a fundamental need to search for and express your personal freedom and power in life. It is through experiencing our unrestricted freedom that happiness comes. You are here to gain from struggle your higher standards for the living and loving you dream to experience.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The question isn't 'Are you a leader?' It's 'What kind of leader are you?'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Roles en Lean Six Sigma" Gran infografía de un Blog de Referencia en la Materia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Six Sigma Online Training Certification Information

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Human Resource Department or HRD and Six Sigma are two similar areas of project management within businesses. Both have the sole purpose to help improve a company so that it can enjoy continued success well into the future. This is why human resource individuals are very important aspects of a business as they play a very vital role in a company.

Using Six Sigma certifications and processes, human resource individuals are even better equipped at handling certain issues within a company. HR experts are initially involved in processes and projects within a company. They are equipped with the skills needed to select employees who will be perfect for a particular job opening within the company as well as contribute with the company's internal benchmark. They are also equipped with the skills necessary to understand issues and resistance from employees in order to effect change and further undertake all projects that might arise.

The human resource department contributes greatly to the company's internal benchmark as aforementioned. The internal benchmark, in simpler terms, refers to the comparison of an operation with another similar to it within a business. This skill helps to benefit the critical-to-quality or CTQ aspects of Six Sigma. Human resource professionals are able to efficiently identify these critical factors in order to increase employee satisfaction. As a result, the HRD is able to contribute greatly to the company by defining and designing the metrics. Six Sigma is most successful within these relevant metrics. With effective training, human resource professionals are able to contribute to identifying and documenting these practices at its various levels.

Scorecards are already a tool in the bag of human resource professionals, but they are also a vital part of Six Sigma projects. They are used to successfully track a project's success. Some HR employees are not fully familiar with Six Sigma processes but may already have the tools needed to go about projects efficiently. It is best, in this case, to send them for training so that they can be 100% familiar with the theories behind the process itself. Scorecards enable projects to be balanced based on short or long-term goals. In addition, the non-financial or financial aspects needed in order to improve an organization are figured using scorecards.

Change management is one of the biggest responsibilities when it comes to the Six Sigma Process and its implementation in the human resources department. Employee resistance may very well be due to the lack of Six Sigma certification and knowledge in some organizations. However, change management or the process of keeping employees abreast and supportive of change within a company, is a very important aspect of implementing this quality improvement process into a company's mainframe. This is a large hurdle because of how change is usually negatively perceived by various groups within a company. For instance, some may see change management as a competition for power within the company; senior management may oppose change due to financial inadequacies while some may see change management as a threat to the company's current status in the business. Either way, it is very necessary to the success of both the Six Sigma Process and the company overall.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Six Sigma and its Use in the Human Resources Department (HRD)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Human Resource Department or HRD and Six Sigma are two similar areas of project management within businesses. Both have the sole purpose to help improve a company so that it can enjoy continued success well into the future. This is why human r...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Six Sigma - what does it mean?

"Six Sigma is a quality program that, when all is said and done, improves your customer's experience, lowers your costs, and builds better leaders. - Jack Welch

Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving toward six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process - from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service.

The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process is performing. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma opportunity is then the total quantity of chances for a defect. Process sigma can easily be calculated using a Six Sigma calculator.

The fundamental objective of the Six Sigma methodology is the implementation of a measurement-based strategy that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction through the application of Six Sigma improvement projects. This is accomplished through the use of two Six Sigma sub-methodologies: DMAIC and DMADV. The Six Sigma DMAIC process (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) is an improvement system for existing processes falling below specification and looking for incremental improvement. The Six Sigma DMADV process (define, measure, analyze, design, verify) is an improvement system used to develop new processes or products at Six Sigma quality levels. It can also be employed if a current process requires more than just incremental improvement. Both Six Sigma processes are executed by Six Sigma Green Belts and Six Sigma Black Belts, and are overseen by Six Sigma Master Black Belts.

According to the Six Sigma Academy, Black Belts save companies approximately $230,000 per project and can complete four to six projects per year. (Given that the average Black Belt salary is $80,000 in the United States, that is a fantastic return on investment.) General Electric, one of the most successful companies implementing Six Sigma, has estimated benefits on the order of $10 billion during the first five years of implementation. GE first began Six Sigma in 1995 after Motorola and Allied Signal blazed the Six Sigma trail. Since then, thousands of companies around the world have discovered the far reaching benefits of Six Sigma.

Many frameworks exist for implementing the Six Sigma methodology. Six Sigma Consultants all over the world have developed proprietary methodologies for implementing Six Sigma quality, based on the similar change management philosophies and applications of tools.

New to Lean Six Sigma? "

Stop this in-your-face notice

Reserve your username

Follow people you like, learn from

Extend your profile

Gain reputation for your contributions

No annoying captchas across site

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Six Sigma - what does it mean? "Six Sigma is a quality program that, when all is said and done, improves your customer's experience, lowers your costs, and builds better leaders. - Jack Welch Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Motivating Today's Workforce | Visual.ly

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The way to drive the best work out of employees is through recognition and opportunities for growth, not money. A recent Employee Recognition study of over 1,200 workers learned this and other tips for fighting employee disengagement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Top 10 tips for motivating staff #employees #rewards #incentives

# data[].attributes.headline
Emotion Chart from the Disney movie Inside Out - EQ

# data[].attributes.subject
Emotion Chart from the Disney movie Inside Out - EQ

# data[].attributes.body
The Disney movie, Inside Out, shows children how to deal with their Emotional Intelligence. The different characters shows what happens when you let emotions get the best of you.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What's Cookin' Sister?: Emotions Chart for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brain Hacking 402: Emotional Intelligence

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Oskar Cymerman | @focus2achieve | BAm! Radio Network EdWords Blogger Unless you're a former lobotomy victim emotions affect everything you do and are present

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Chart showing the four domains of emotional intelligence.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel valued and involved in their everyday work. There's plenty of debate among human resources professionals and researchers about the particular dimensions that make up employee engagement. But at its core, it comes down to whether employees feel invested in their company's mission and its success.

Running an employee engagement survey doesn't just measure how happy employees are-it measures how dedicated they are to the mission and outcome of your company. Measuring employee engagement, then, is even more crucial: It's an important indicator of the health of your business and a good way to spot areas for improvement.

Try out our employee engagement survey template today:

Why measure engagement?

When employees are engaged with their work, they're more fulfilled and more motivated. That ultimately leads to higher productivity- as much as 22% in some cases.

That's why employee engagement is so important to the success of your organization. An engaged workforce results in a more productive - and profitable - organization. We're not talking about tiny increments here, either. Gallup found that companies with highly engaged workforces outperformed their peers by 147% in earnings per share.

Performance like this just goes to show: Businesses not only should measure employee engagement-they can't afford not to.

Employee engagement vs. employee satisfaction

What's the difference between employee engagement and employee satisfaction? While there's overlap between the two, there are far more dimensions that define employee engagement than employee satisfaction. In other words, an engaged employee is most likely satisfied, but not all satisfied employees are engaged.

There's a pretty robust debate among academics about what exact dimensions actually make up employee engagement. But based on an aggregate of findings from several recent studies on the matter, we can see that a good employee engagement survey will measure several factors, including:

Leadership behavior: Effective management can make or break your employee engagement. It's not just whether your senior management treats employees well or whether they act ethically (of course, that's important too!) It's crucial to have effective leadership at every level of the organization. That means managers who articulate company values, communicate well, and follow up with appropriate actions. A good employee engagement survey will gauge these habits, from managers to C-level: You can use our management performance template.

Nature of work: Most people don't actually want an easy job. They want to be challenged and tested in their day-to-day work. Challenging work can be immensely motivating for employees-as long as employees can see clearly how their work ties to the company's performance. Use your employee engagement survey to ask your employees how challenging (and motivating) their work is-and whether there's a clear line of sight between their performance and the company's.

Career development: Ambitious employees are a good thing. They can be the most self-motivated and productive members of your team-as long as it's clear to them how you can help them advance in their career. If it's not, you'll risk losing them. Clarity around career goals is important, but you've also got to offer a helping hand. Are your employees getting support from educational and mentoring opportunities? Running an employee engagement survey can help you find out if your employees can see a clear path forward and if they have the support they need to get where they want to go.

Company pride: When employees are proud of where they work, it shows. They're true believers in your mission and they want to see your company succeed. That attitude translates to their performance: When people take pride in their company, they'll take pride in their work. Fostering this feeling of pride isn't just about making employees feel good about themselves. It makes them show up to work focused, aligned with their peers, and ready to tackle problems with commitment.

Colleagues: It goes without saying that we spend a lot of time interacting with our coworkers. In companies of every size, it's important to think about the working relationships between employees: how they interact, how they view each other's abilities, and what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of the workforce. How employees view their colleagues can have huge impact on their morale and faith in meeting company goals. Employee survey questions aimed at these issues should be a huge part of any employee engagement strategies you implement.

Using surveys to develop engagement strategies

Simply measuring employee engagement isn't enough to foster an engaged workforce. You've got to read the results, uncover areas for improvement, and implement employee engagement strategies to meet them. That's where the real work begins.

Step 1: Decide what you want to study

Maybe you're interested in measuring and improving only a few of the factors of employee engagement. For example, you may only be interested in taking a closer look at how management performance is affecting employee engagement in your company. You may want to use the management performance survey template or extract only the portion of the employee engagement survey template that deals with management performance.

But if you're really focused on using surveys to develop employee engagement strategies, this probably isn't the best approach. When you home in on a specific topic from the beginning, you may miss out on other areas for improvement. What if career development opportunities-not management performance-are a bigger factor for employee engagement in your workforce?

If you're trying to develop an overarching employee engagement strategy, it's best to be comprehensive first and focus on specific parts second.
Get a pulse on every factor affecting your employee engagement: Our employee engagement survey template is specifically designed to provide a comprehensive look at the issue. Try it out
Step 2: Identify areas for action

Once you've run your survey and found what areas need improvement, you've got to start prioritizing. Your first reaction will probably be to try to address every single area that received a less-than-perfect score. Try to suppress that reaction. You'll only end up stretching your managers and resources too far, which will lead to mediocre results.

Instead, try to identify a few key drivers of your employee engagement and focus solely on those. Prioritizing only a few can be tough. To help narrow it down, ask yourself two questions:

1. "Where can I use my resources so that they're likely to have the largest impact on employee engagement?" Look for the places where your survey results are furthest from where you'd like them to be.

2. "Which actions will use my resources most efficiently?" Think about which areas will be easiest to address-perhaps by using existing resources or expertise.

Step 3: Create a plan

Whichever action you choose, it's important you communicate your plan to your employees and make sure they understand how and when you'll carry it out. Transparency is crucial to this process. We advocate for keeping your goals SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Step 4: Maintain your plan

How can you tell if your plan is having a positive effect? By sending an employee engagement survey, of course. The key to continue improving your employee engagement is to measure it consistently and measure it often.

3 quick tips to improve survey response rates

Here are some ideas to ensure that respondents will answer your surveys.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creating an Employee Engagement Survey | SurveyMonkey

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An employee engagement survey doesn't just measure how happy employees are. It measures how dedicated they are to the mission and outcome of your company. Employee engagement is an important indicator of the health of your business and a good way to spot areas for improvement. Try our employee engagement survey template today.

# data[].attributes.headline
Step by Step instructions for Survey Monkey

# data[].attributes.subject
Step by Step instructions for Survey Monkey

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Survey Customers Using SurveyMonkey

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Surveying your customers is a great way to get feedback about your products, customer service, or future product lineup. In fact, it is one of the easiest ways 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A leadership model to become a model leader - 100% Effective Ltd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The key to great #leadership is to be #adaptive. Here's a simple but effective leadership #model to follow.

# data[].attributes.body
If you can find the right person, with a Great attitude and a willingness to learn, then the sky is the limit! I am a firm believer that YOU can train ANYONE a skill!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World's Largest Professional Network | LinkedIn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hire Character. Train Skill. Wow, I've come to the same conclusion. Do both before you give them the crossbow..

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This is where Human Resource Management Systems come into play. It allows the HR department to evaluate the workforce files of the employees and evaluate the individual professionals using Software.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mindset Shifts For Organizational Transformation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Businesses are struggling to keep the pace with rapid rate of change and disruption around. To keep up with the change, businesses try to diversify into newer a

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Engage Employees by Fostering Positive Emotions | Dale Carnegie

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dale Carnegie Training's recent study shows how emotions can drive your employee engagement strategy. Read our infographic to learn how to engage employees.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How often have you heard somebody - a new CEO, a journalist, a management consultant, a leadership guru, a fellow employee - talk about the urgent need to change the culture? They want to make it world-class. To dispense with all the nonsense and negativity that annoys employees and stops good intentions from growing into progress. To bring about an entirely different approach, starting immediately.

These culture critiques are as common as complaints about the weather - and about as effective. How frequently have you seen high-minded aspirations to "change the culture" actually manage to modify the way that people behave and the way in which they work? And how often have you seen noticeable long-term improvements?

What Is Corporate Culture?

At its worst, culture can be a drag on productivity. At its best, it is an emotional energizer. Here's how companies can use it to gain a competitive advantage.

If the answer to these last two questions is "rarely," it wouldn't surprise us. We don't believe that swift, wholesale culture change is possible - or even desirable. After all, a company's culture is its basic personality, the essence of how its people interact and work. However, it is an elusively complex entity that survives and evolves mostly through gradual shifts in leadership, strategy, and other circumstances. We find the most useful definition is also the simplest: Culture is the self-sustaining pattern of behavior that determines how things are done.

Made of instinctive, repetitive habits and emotional responses, culture can't be copied or easily pinned down. Corporate cultures are constantly self-renewing and slowly evolving: What people feel, think, and believe is reflected and shaped by the way they go about their business. Formal efforts to change a culture (to replace it with something entirely new and different) seldom manage to get to the heart of what motivates people, what makes them tick. Strongly worded memos from on high are deleted within hours. You can plaster the walls with large banners proclaiming new values, but people will go about their days, right beneath those signs, continuing with the habits that are familiar and comfortable.

But this inherent complexity shouldn't deter leaders from trying to use culture as a lever. If you cannot simply replace the entire machine, work on realigning some of the more useful cogs. The name of the game is making use of what you cannot change by using some of the emotional forces within your current culture differently.

Three dimensions of corporate culture affect its alignment: symbolic reminders (artifacts that are entirely visible), keystone behaviors (recurring acts that trigger other behaviors and that are both visible and invisible), and mind-sets (attitudes and beliefs that are widely shared but exclusively invisible). Of these, behaviors are the most powerful determinant of real change. What people actually do matters more than what they say or believe. And so to obtain more positive influences from your cultural situation, you should start working on changing the most critical behaviors - the mind-sets will follow. Over time, altered behavior patterns and habits can produce better results.

You may be asking: If it is so hard to change culture, why should we even bother to try? Because an organization's current culture contains several reservoirs of emotional energy and influence. Executives who work with them can greatly accelerate strategic and operating imperatives. When positive culture forces and strategic priorities are in sync, companies can draw energy from the way people feel. This accelerates a company's movement to gain competitive advantage, or regain advantages that have been lost.

Research shows that companies that use a few specific cultural catalysts - that is to say, those that use informal emotional approaches to influencing behavior - are significantly more likely to experience change that lasts. Of the companies that reported consciously using elements of their culture in Strategy&'s 2013 Global Culture & Change Management Survey, 70 percent said their firms achieved sustainable improvement in organizational pride and emotional commitment. That compares with 35 percent for firms that didn't use culture as a lever. Although there is no magic formula, no brilliant algorithm, no numerical equation that will guarantee results, we have gleaned some valuable insights through decades of research and observation at dozens of enterprises, including some of the most successful companies in the world. By adopting the following principles, your organization can learn to deploy and improve its culture in a manner that will increase the odds of financial and operational success.

1. Work with and within your current cultural situations. Deeply embedded cultures cannot be replaced with simple upgrades, or even with major overhaul efforts. Nor can your culture be swapped out for a new one as though it were an operating system or a CPU. To a degree, your current cultural situation just is what it is - and it contains components that provide natural advantages to companies as well as components that may act as brakes. We've never seen a culture that is all bad, or one that is all good. To work with your culture effectively, therefore, you must understand it, recognize which traits are preeminent and consistent, and discern under what types of conditions these traits are likely to be a help or a hindrance. Put another way, there's both a yin and a yang to cultural traits.

For example, a European pharmaceutical company with a solid product development pipeline had a tendency to be inward-looking. It had great execution capabilities and an excellent record of compliance with regulators around the world. However, when new products were ready to be launched, the company had a hard time marketing them to physicians and healthcare providers. Rather than bemoaning the company's ingrained insularity - for example, its collective tendency to value the opinions of internal colleagues more than those of outside experts - the leaders decided to use this feature of its culture to its advantage. They set up a program through which employees were acknowledged and rewarded by colleagues for "going the extra mile" to support customers. By recognizing a new kind of internal authoritativeness, the company tapped a powerful emotional trigger already in place, and engendered a new (and strategically important) behavior in its sales force.

2. Change behaviors, and mind-sets will follow. It is a commonly held view that behavioral change follows mental shifts, as surely as night follows day. This is why organizations often try to change mind-sets (and ultimately behavior) by communicating values and putting them in glossy brochures. This technique didn't work well for Enron, where accounting fraud and scandal were part of everyday practice, even as the company's espoused values of excellence, respect, integrity, and communication were carved into the marble floor of the atrium of its global headquarters in Houston. In reality, culture is much more a matter of doing than of saying. Trying to change a culture purely through top-down messaging, training and development programs, and identifiable cues seldom changes people's beliefs or behaviors. In fact, neuroscience research suggests that people act their way into believing rather than thinking their way into acting. Changes to key behaviors - changes that are tangible, actionable, repeatable, observable, and measurable - are thus a good place to start. Some good examples of behavior change, which we've observed at a number of companies, relate to empowerment (reducing the number of approvals needed for decisions), collaboration (setting up easy ways to convene joint projects), and interpersonal relations (devising mutually respectful practices for raising contentious issues or grievances).

Neuroscience research suggests that people act their way into believing rather than thinking their way into acting.

A telecommunications company was seeking to improve its customer service. Rather than trying to influence mind-sets by, for example, posting signs urging employees to be polite to disgruntled customers, or having employees undergo empathy training, the company focused on what psychologists call a "precursor behavior" - a seemingly innocuous behavior that reliably precedes the occurrence of problem behavior. Leaders had noticed that poor teaming led to poor customer service, so the company rolled out a plan to encourage better and more effective teaming within call centers. To accomplish this, they set up regular design sessions for improving practices. When employees felt they were part of a happy team, and sensed a greater level of support from colleagues, they began treating their customers better.

In another example, a resources company in the Middle East was seeking to make its workplace safer. Rather than erect placards threatening workers with consequences, the company focused on a relatively basic precursor behavior: housekeeping. It organized a litter drive. Picking up trash as a team helped employees take greater pride in the workplace, which engendered a greater sense of care for fellow employees and made them more likely to speak up when they noticed an unsafe situation. Changed behavior, changed mind-set.

3. Focus on a critical few behaviors. Conventional wisdom advocates a comprehensive approach - everybody should change everything that's not perfect! But companies must be rigorously selective when it comes to picking behaviors. The key is to focus on what we call "the critical few," a small number of important behaviors that would have great impact if put into practice by a significant number of people. Discern a few things people do throughout the company that positively affect business performance - for example, ways of starting meetings or talking with customers. Make sure those are aligned with the company's overall strategy. Also check that people feel good about doing these things, so that you tap into emotional commitment. Then codify them: Translate those critical behaviors into simple, practical steps that people can take every day. Next, select groups of employees who are primed for these few behaviors, those who will respond strongly to the new behaviors and who are likely to implement and spread them.

At an Asian banking company, rapid inorganic growth had led to diverse ways of working across different units and geographies. To focus on improving teaming, customer outcomes, and the ability to realize synergies, the CEO and leadership embarked on a culture-led evolution program. They targeted just three critical behaviors: taking extra steps to delight customers, valuing performance over seniority, and backing up and supporting one another. They then converted these three general behaviors into specifics for each part of the company. Delighting customers, for instance, was translated into frontline staff collaborating with other colleagues to solve client problems and prioritizing the implementation of process improvements that affected customer outcomes. For all three behaviors, leadership recognized and celebrated examples in which people made an extraordinary effort. Senior leaders acted as role models, explicitly modeling these three new behaviors. The company also identified influential frontline, client-facing employees who could demonstrate these new behaviors in action.

4. Deploy your authentic informal leaders. Authority, which is conferred by a formal position, should not be confused with leadership. Leadership is a natural attribute, exercised and displayed informally without regard to title or position in the organizational chart. Because authentic informal leaders, who are found in every organization, are often not recognized as such, they are frequently overlooked and underused when it comes to driving culture. It is possible to identify such leaders through interviews, surveys, and tools such as organizational network analysis, which allow companies to construct maps of complex internal social relations by analyzing email statistics and meeting records. Once identified, these leaders can become powerful allies who can influence behavior through "showing by doing." In fact, when companies map out their organizations, they can identify leaders who exhibit different core leadership strengths (see "Four Types of Authentic Informal Leaders").

Four Types of Authentic Informal Leaders

Every organization has people who influence and energize others without relying on their title or formal position in the hierarchy to do so. We call them "authentic informal leaders." They are a powerful resource in spreading a critical few behaviors from the bottom up. Among the many types of informal leaders present in organizations, the following are seen most frequently.

Pride builders are master motivators of other people, and catalysts for improvement around them. Often found in the role of line manager, they understand the motivations of those with whom they work. They know how to foster a sense of excellence among others. They can be found at every level of a hierarchy; some of the most effective pride builders are close to the front line, where they can interact directly with customers as well as employees. Pride builders often have powerful insights about the culture and about what behaviors are likely to lead to improvement.

Exemplars are role models. They bring vital behaviors or skills to life, and others pay attention to them. They are well respected and are effective peer influencers in the middle and senior management cohorts.

Networkers are hubs of personal communication within the organization. They know many people, and communicate freely and openly with them. They serve as links among people who might not otherwise share information or ideas. If you want to see an idea travel virally through an enterprise, enlist your networkers.

Early adopters enthusiastically latch onto and experiment with new technologies, processes, and ways of working. Involve them in your performance pilots, or whenever you are trying to demonstrate impact quickly.

At one major oil company, an informal leader named Osama became known as the "turbo-collaborator." His role gave him very little formal influence. But when he began working at the refinery, he walked the plant with the engineers, maintenance technicians, and operators, and took copious notes. As a result, he knew everyone and developed relationships across disciplines. Whenever somebody wanted to know how the place really worked, they would speak to Osama - who would either have the answer in his notebook or know precisely the right person to ask. When the company formed a buddy program between operations and maintenance aimed at using greater collaboration to improve plant reliability, it knew it needed Osama at the heart of it. He connected people, defined templates to encourage collaboration, and captured success stories. Identifying, engaging, and nurturing such informal leaders allows companies to harness their talents and further the company's transformation efforts.

5. Don't let your formal leaders off the hook. Most organizations tend to shunt culture into the silo of human resources professionals. But leaders in all parts of the company are critical in safeguarding and championing desired behaviors, energizing personal feelings, and reinforcing cultural alignment. The signaling of emotional commitment sets the tone for others to follow. If staff members see a disconnect between the culture an organization promulgates and the one its formal leadership follows, they'll disengage quickly from the advertised culture and simply mimic their seniors' behavior. The people at the top have to demonstrate the change they want to see. Here, too, the critical few come into play. A handful of the right kind of leaders have to be on board to start the process.

When Jim Rogers was CEO of GE Motors in Fort Wayne, Ind., he became frustrated because his senior leadership group of more than 15 leaders seldom functioned together as a "real team." As described by Jon Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith in The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization (Harvard Business School Press, 1993), a real team is one with a high level of emotional commitment; the leadership role shifts easily among the members depending on their skills and experience and the challenges of the moment, rather than on any hierarchical positions. Team members hold one another accountable for the quality of their collective work. Interestingly, at GE Motors the senior leadership group members often demonstrated real team capabilities in running their individual business units and functions. So Rogers decided to find ways to break them into subteams of three or four members to address specific cross-organizational issues facing the larger group. Over time, he mixed the subgroupings to match emerging issues. By working in different subgroup settings, the executives developed camaraderie, which in turn improved the effectiveness of the group as a whole.

6. Link behaviors to business objectives. When people talk about feelings, motivations, and values - all of which are vital elements of strong cultures - the conversation can often veer into abstractions. It may then range far afield of what it takes to succeed in the market. Too many employees walk away from culture-focused town halls or values discussions wondering how the advice on how to be a better person actually translates into the work they do. To avoid this disconnect, offer tangible, well-defined examples of how cultural interventions lead to improved performance and financial outcomes. Select behaviors that are aimed specifically at improving business performance and can be measured over time.

Related Stories

by Jon Katzenbach , DeAnne Aguirre

by Jon Katzenbach , Gretchen Anderson , Art Kleiner

An oil company's drive to reduce maintenance costs at an industrial installation highlights the importance of such an approach. The critical few behaviors included empowerment and good decision making. One of the company's exemplars (employees who lead by example) decided it would be a smart move to make costs visible to workers. So he placed price tags on various pieces of machinery. These cues inspired behavioral changes related to decisions about whether to repair or replace equipment. Workers and managers began to recommend fixing expensive equipment rather than replacing it. The company celebrated and publicized cost savings identified by employees. The behaviors led to a change in focus and mind-set. When an employee noticed that fans were cooling the machinery during the winter, he felt empowered to call it out, and ask whether it was necessary to do so. It turned out that it wasn't - and the company saved US$750,000 annually in power costs as a result.

7. Demonstrate impact quickly. We live in an age of notoriously short attention spans. That applies as much to organizational culture as it does to people's media consumption habits. When people hear about new high-profile initiatives and efforts, and then don't see any activity related to them for several months, they'll disengage and grow cynical. That's why it is extremely important to showcase the impact of cultural efforts on business results as quickly as possible. One effective method of doing so is to stage performance pilots - that is, high-profile demonstration projects. Pilots are relatively low-risk efforts that introduce specific behaviors that can then be evaluated and assessed. They often rely on a dashboard that defines desired impacts, the tactics used, and the specific metrics to be employed.

When Bell Canada first explored using new behaviors at the front line to improve its customer service and profitability, there were many more skeptics than believers within the leadership ranks. There simply wasn't any numerical proof that the tactics would work. So CEO Michael Sabia decided to set up a pilot test in a sales unit near Toronto. The sponsors of the test blocked out a tight time frame of eight months, and developed realistic ways of measuring behavior change, customer reactions, and actual sales and margin performance. Armed with positive results in these areas - a 29 percent increase in customer satisfaction in retail stores, a 31 percent increase in revenue per call at call centers - the company went on to accelerate the expansion of these efforts across the front line in different geographies, functions, and businesses.

8. Use cross-organizational methods to go viral. Ideas can spread virally across organizational departments and functions, as well as from the top down and from the bottom up. One powerful way to spread ideas is through social media: blogs, Facebook or LinkedIn posts, and tweets - not from senior management, but from some of the authentic informal leaders mentioned in Principle 4.

By now it is well established that social media can be more effective at spreading information, news, and music than traditional modes of distribution. The same holds with critical behaviors. People are often more receptive to changes in "the way we do things around here" when those changes are recommended or shared by friends, colleagues, and other associates. This kind of credible social proof is more compelling than similar testimonials from someone whose job it is to sell something.

Just as there is an art to making content go viral, there's a craft to making behavior go viral. For example, in a model that we have tested successfully in several situations, a company starts with a few carefully chosen groups of 12 to 15 informal leaders in three or four different parts of the business. After several weeks, an additional 10 to 15 groups of informal leaders are set up in every business unit. After about three months, the existing groups are encouraged to expand and bring in new people. After another three to six months have passed, the groups become more autonomous, allowed to control their own expansion. Meanwhile, the company facilitates connections among groups to share learning and insights. As behavior spreads, company leaders see increased performance as well as peer and leadership recognition.

9. Align programmatic efforts with behaviors. We've emphasized the role that informal leaders can play in helping ideas go viral. But it's also important to match the new cultural direction with existing ways of doing business. Informal mechanisms and cultural interventions must complement and integrate with the more common formal organization components, not work at cross-purposes. By providing the structure in which people work - through disciplines such as organization design, analytics, human resources, and lean process improvement - the formal organization provides a rational motivation for employee actions, while the informal organization enables the emotional commitment that characterizes peak performance.

The U.S. Marine Corps provides a classic example of integrating formal and informal leadership efforts. The "rule of three" dictates how the Marines design their organizations and projects and how they execute in a hierarchy. (Three squads form into one of three divisions, which form one of three battalions.) The formal leaders of those units are expected to know the intent of the officer two levels above them - and to call out any order or situation they perceive to be incoherent or in conflict with that intent. But there are also informal leaders: Each of the four members of a frontline rifle team is prepared (and expected) to take the lead whenever the formal leader is disabled or loses the high-ground position. This means that the informal leaders also need to know the intent of that officer two levels above. Integrating informal norms with the formal structures helps enable the timely battlefield adjustments that have served the Marine Corps well for more than 200 years.

10. Actively manage your cultural situation over time. Companies that have had great success working with culture - we call them "culture superstars" - actively monitor, manage, care for, and update their cultural forces. Why? As we noted at the outset, when aligned with strategic and operating priorities, culture can provide hidden sources of energy and motivation that can accelerate changes faster than formal processes and programs. Even if you have a highly effective culture today, it may not be good enough for tomorrow.

Southwest Airlines stands as an example of a battle-tested company in which culture has been managed over time. Famous for its long-term success in an industry where even the largest players routinely fail, Southwest for 40 years has been energized by a deep sense of pride among all employees. Southwest has found that constructing an environment that puts its employees first - above customers and owners - fosters a sense of emotional commitment and pride that delivers excellent customer service. But at Southwest, the work on culture is never completed. Just as the airline's strategy, tactics, and technologies have evolved to cope with a changing external environment, specific HR practices, including informal behaviors, have shifted over time.

Living in Your Culture

Although challenging, multidimensional, and often difficult to deal with, a company's cultural situation constitutes a powerful set of emotional resources. As is the case with other resources - human, technological, financial - it is incumbent upon leaders to strive to get the most value out of it.

To a degree, culture can be compared to natural forces such as winds and tides. These elements are there in the background, sometimes unnoticed, sometimes obvious. Endowed with immense power, they can waylay plans and inhibit progress. They can't really be tamed or fundamentally altered. But if you respect them and understand how to make the most of them, if you work with them and tap into their hidden power, they can become a source of energy and provide powerful assistance.

The best way to start is to ask yourself a series of questions. What are the most important emotional forces that determine what your people do? What few behavior changes would matter most in meeting strategic and operational imperatives? Who are the authentic informal leaders you can enlist? And what can you and your fellow senior leaders do differently to signal and reinforce those critical behaviors?

Of course, you shouldn't plan for dramatic results overnight. Expect an evolution, not a revolution. One of the challenges of working with culture is that, as we've noted, it changes gradually - often too slowly for leaders facing fast-moving competitors. That's the bad news. The good news? If you approach culture with respect and intelligence, as a milieu in which you and your enterprise live, you can use it to accelerate your competitive momentum. There's no better time than the present to start.

Reprint No. 16105

Author Profiles:

Jon Katzenbach is an acclaimed advisor to executives for Strategy&, PwC's strategy consulting group. He is a managing director with PwC US, based in New York, and founder of the Katzenbach Center, Strategy&'s global institute on organizational culture and leadership. He is a best-selling author on organizational culture, leadership, and teaming; his books include The Wisdom of Teams (with Douglas K. Smith; Harvard Business School Press, 1993) and Leading Outside the Lines (with Zia Khan; Jossey-Bass, 2010).

Carolin Oelschlegel is a director of the Katzenbach Center for Strategy&. She leads the global operations of the center and advises clients around the world on culture and leadership topics. Based in San Francisco, she is a director with PwC US.

James Thomas is a thought leader in organizational culture with Strategy&. He is the Middle East lead of the Katzenbach Center and an expert in culture and organizational topics. Based in Dubai, he is a partner with PwC Middle East.

Also contributing to this article were Strategy& specialists Varya Davidson (partner with PwC Australia), Kenji Mitsui (partner with PwC Japan), Henning Hagen and Rutger von Post (principals with PwC US), and Shona Especkerman (senior manager with PwC Malaysia).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Jon Katzenbach, Carolin Oelschlegel, and James Thomas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How often have you heard somebody - a new CEO, a journalist, a management consultant, a leadership guru, a fellow employee - talk about the urgent need to change the culture? They want to make it world-class. To dispense with all the nonsense and negativity that annoys employees and stops good intentions from growing into progress.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Delegation Do’s And Don’ts - The Multiplier Mindset: Insights & Tips for Entrepreneurs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Strategic Coach® tips on how to successfully delegate to your team members.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For a few, delegating comes easily, maybe too easy. For others who are perfectionists, letting go of even the most trivial task is almost impossible. If you are in this second category, you probably don't like the references behind your back that you are a "control freak" or a "micro-manager."

London business school professor John Hunt notes that only 30 percent of managers think they can delegate well, and of those, only one in three is considered a good delegator by his or her subordinates. This means only about one manager in ten really knows how to empower others.

The challenge is delegating the right things, and not delegating the wrong things. If you don't get it right, you are busy, but working on the wrong things. Almost every entrepreneur needs to improve their skills in this area, so I did some research on the basics. Jan Yager, in her book " Work Less, Do More," has outlined several key steps to effective delegation which I endorse:

Choose what tasks you are willing to delegate. You should be using your time on the most critical tasks for the business, and the tasks that only you can do. Delegate what you can't do, and what doesn't interest you. For example, non-computer types should consider delegating their social media, website, and SEO activities.

Pick the best person to delegate to. Listen and observe. Learn the traits, values, and characteristics of those who will perform well when you delegate to them. That means give the work to people who deliver, not the people who are the least busy. This requires hiring people with the right skills, not the least expensive or friends and family.

Trust those to whom you delegate. It always starts with trust. Along with trust, you also have to give the people to whom you delegate the chance to do a job their way. Of course the work must be done well, but your way or the highway is not the right way.

Give clear assignments and instructions. The key is striking the right balance between explaining so much detail that the listener is insulted, and not explaining enough for someone to grasp what is expected. Think back to when you were learning, when you were a neophyte.

Set a definite task completion date and a follow-up system. Establish a specific deadline at the beginning, with milestones. In this way you can check up on progress before the final deadline, without fuzzy questions like "How are you doing?"

Give public and written credit. This is the simplest step, but one of the hardest for many people to learn. It will inspire loyalty, provide real satisfaction for work done, and become the basis for mentoring and performance reviews.

Delegate responsibility and authority, not just the task. Managers who fail to delegate responsibility in addition to specific tasks eventually find themselves reporting to their subordinates and doing some of the work, rather than vice versa.

Avoid reverse delegation. Some team members try to give a task back to the manager, if they don't feel comfortable, or are attempting to dodge responsibility. Don't accept it except in extreme cases. In the long run, every team member needs to learn or leave.

Almost everyone who has grown their startup from a one-person entity to a going concern with many employees has struggled with letting go of any task. On the other hand, executives who come from a large company to a startup tend to delegate too much, resulting in high costs and lack of control.

Finally, every entrepreneur needs to set aside their fear of delegating. If you do it right, as outlined above, every task will likely be done better than you could do it. The only thing you can't delegate is "the buck stops here" role. That can only be done by the person in charge, and it better always be you.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How To Delegate More Effectively In Your Business

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
English: London Business School facade (Photo credit: Wikipedia) For a few, delegating comes easily, maybe too easy. For others who are perfectionists, letting go of even the most trivial task is almost impossible. If you are in this second category, you probably don't like the references behind your back that you [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Shankar Achintya Lahiri

Follow Following Unfollow Shankar Achintya Lahiri

Sign in to follow this author

Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd - Truly Proud to be 3rd Generation LAHIRI to serve L&T !!

Authority, Responsibility and Accountability In Management

It is necessary to have brief understanding of three terms intimately connected with the concept and process of delegation.

Authority Responsibility Accountability

These terms are: 1) Responsibility, 2) Authority, and 3) Accountability.

Responsibility

Responsibility indicates the duty assigned to a position. The person holding the position has to perform the duty assigned. It is his responsibility. The term responsibility is often referred to as an obligation to perform a particular task assigned to a subordinate. In an organisation, responsibility is the duty as per the guidelines issued.

Responsibility

Definitions of Responsibility

According to Davis, "Responsibility is an obligation of individual to perform assigned duties to the best of his ability under the direction of his executive leader." In the words of Theo Haimann, "Responsibility is the obligation of a subordinate to perform the duty as required by his superior".

McFarland defines responsibility as "the duties and activities assigned to a position or an executive".

Characteristics of Responsibility

The essence of responsibility is the obligation of a subordinate to perform the duty assigned.

It always originates from the superior-subordinate relationship.

Normally, responsibility moves upwards, whereas authority flows downwards.

Responsibility is in the form of a continuing obligation.

Responsibility cannot be delegated.

The person accepting responsibility is accountable for the performance of assigned duties.

It is hard to conceive responsibility without authority.

Authority

Authority is the right or power assigned to an executive or a manager in order to achieve certain organizational objectives.

A manager will not be able to function efficiently without proper authority. Authority is the genesis of organizational framework. It is an essential accompaniment of the job of management. Without authority, a manager ceases to be a manager, because he cannot get his policies carried out through others. Authority is one of the founding stones of formal and informal organisations. An Organisation cannot survive without authority. It indicates the right and power of making decisions, giving orders and instructions to subordinates. Authority is delegated from above but must be accepted from below i.e. by the subordinates. In other words, authority flows downwards.

Authority

Definitions of Authority

According to Henri Fayol, "Authority is the right to give orders and the power to exact obedience."

According to Mooney and Reily, "Authority is the principle at the root of Organisation and so important that it is impossible to conceive of an Organisation at all unless some person or persons are in a position to require action of others."

Accountability

Every employee/manager is accountable for the job assigned to him. He is supposed to complete the job as per the expectations and inform his superior accordingly. Accountability is the liability created for the use of authority. It is the answerability for performance of the assigned duties.

Accountability

Definition of Accountability

According, to McFarland, "accountability is the obligation of an individual to report formally to his superior about the work he has done to discharge the responsibility."

When authority is delegated to a subordinate, the person is accountable to the superior for performance in relation to assigned duties. If the subordinate does a poor job, the superior cannot evade the responsibility by stating that poor performance is the fault of the subordinate. A superior is normally responsible for all actions of groups under his supervision even if there are several layers down in the hierarchy. Simply stated, accountability means that the subordinate should explain the factors responsible for non-performance or lack of performance.

Authority, Responsibility and Accountability are Inter-related

They need proper consideration while introducing delegation of authority within an Organisation. In the process of delegation, the superior transfers his duties/responsibilities to his subordinate and also give necessary authority for performing the responsibilities assigned. At the same time, the superior is accountable for the performance of his subordinate.

Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd - Truly Proud to be 3rd Generation LAHIRI to serve L&T !!

Looking for more of the latest headlines on LinkedIn?
Discover more stories

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Authority, Responsibility and Accountability In Management

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is necessary to have brief understanding of three terms intimately connected with the concept and process of delegation. Authority Responsibility Accountability These terms are: 1) Responsibility, 2) Authority, and 3) Accountability. Responsibility indicates the duty assigned to a position. The person holding the position has to perform the duty assigned.

# data[].attributes.headline
re·spon·si·bil·i·tyrəˌspänsəˈbilədē/nounthe state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone."women bear children and take responsibility for child care"synonyms:	authority, control, power, leadership"a job with greater responsibility"the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something."the group has claimed responsibility for a string of murders"synonyms:	blame, fault, guilt, culpability, liability"they denied responsibility for the bomb attack"the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization."we would expect individuals lower down the organization to take on more responsibility"

# data[].attributes.subject
re·spon·si·bil·i·tyrəˌspänsəˈbilədē/nounthe state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone."women bear children and take responsibility for child care"synonyms:	authority, control, power, leadership"a job with greater responsibility"the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something."the group has claimed responsibility for a string of murders"synonyms:	blame, fault, guilt, culpability, liability"they denied responsibility for the bomb attack"the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization."we would expect individuals lower down the organization to take on more responsibility"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Management Process

In order to be an effective manager, one must be able to get the job done. When we talk about the management process, we are actually discussing the process a manager uses to manage a function, and what steps he or she has to take to make sure the job gets done. There are four parts to the management process: planning, organizing, leading/ directing, and controlling.

In the planning stage, a manager determines how best to accomplish a set goal. During the organizing stage, he determines how best to allocate resources to achieve the goal. The directing/leading stage involves the manager motivating and directing employees to work toward the goal, while the controlling stage requires the manager to evaluate and monitor their progress.

During this stage, he is also ensuring that things are being done as planned and is making changes when necessary. While these functions work together, and often overlap, this lesson focuses on the organizing stage.

Determining your Goal

Let's take a look at how this stage works and fits into the whole process by imagining that you are the owner of a small bakery. You have a good customer base, but when you sat down with your accountant you determined that you have to cut costs by at least $5,000 per month in order to stay in business. This is your goal: $5,000 saved.

Before you start the management process you must have a clear goal in mind. During the planning stage, you determined that the best way to do this was by changing schedules and changing products. Now you begin the work of the organizing stage: allocating your resources so that you can follow this plan and keep baking!

The Organizing Process

The term organizing process refers to the work of determining how to best arrange and utilize your resources in order to achieve the desired results. Let's break down those terms a bit further--what do we mean when we use the terms arrange and utilize? This could be as simple as arranging your pens neatly next to your notepads on your desk, and on a larger scale it means almost the same thing: putting things where they need to be in order to be used effectively. You can't use your pen if it's not on your desk, and you can't deliver cakes to a customer's business if your only driver is in the kitchen mixing the batter.

The term resources refers to the people, activities, plans, knowledge, finances, space, time and anything else you have at your disposal to accomplish your desired results. During the organization stage, you'll need to make sure your resources are where they need to be in order to be used effectively.

Which brings us to the term desired results, which is the outcome we hope to achieve by going through this process. It can be just about anything: more money, happy customers, growing business, successful new product implementation, or, for you as the owner of our imaginary bakery, saving $5,000 per month.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
overview - video & lesson transcript | study.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Organizing Process in Management: Steps, Overview - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In order to be an effective manager, one must be able to get the job done. When we talk about the management process, we are actually discussing the process a manager uses to manage a function, and what steps he or she has to take to make sure the job gets done.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
First described by Michael Porter in his classic 1979 Harvard Business Review article, Porter's insights started a revolution in the strategy field and continue to shape business practice and academic thinking today. A Five Forces analysis can help companies assess industry attractiveness, how trends will affect industry competition, which industries a company should compete in-and how companies can position themselves for success.

Threat of New Entrants

The threat of new entrants into an industry can force current players to keep prices down and spend more to retain customers. Actually, entry brings new capacity and pressure on prices and costs. The threat of entry, therefore, puts a cap on the profit potential of an industry. This threat depends on the size of a series of barriers to entry, including economies of scale, to the cost of building brand awareness, to accessing distribution channels, to government restrictions.

The threat of entry also depends on the capabilities of the likely potential entrants. If there are well established companies in the industry operating in other geographic regions, for example, the threat of entry rises.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Companies in every industry purchase various inputs from suppliers, which account for differing proportions of cost. Powerful suppliers can use their negotiating leverage to charge higher prices or demand more favorable terms from industry competitors, which lowers industry profitability. If there are only one or two suppliers of an essential input product, for example, or if switching suppliers is expensive or time consuming, a supplier group wields more power.

Bargaining Power of Buyers

Powerful customers can use their clout to force prices down or demand more service at existing prices, thus capturing more value for themselves. Buyer power is highest when buyers are large relative to the competitors serving them, products are undifferentiated and represent a significant cost for the buyer, and there are few switching costs to shifting business from one competitor to another. They can play rivals against each other-especially if an industry's products are undifferentiated, it's inexpensive to switch loyalties, and price trumps quality.

There may be multiple buyer segments in a given industry with different levels of power.

Threat of Substitute Products
or Services

A substitute is another product or service that meets the same underlying need that the industry's product meets in a different way. Videoconferencing is a substitute for travel. Email is a substitute for express mail.

The threat of a substitute is high if it offers an attractive price-performance trade-off versus the industry's product, especially if the buyer's cost of switching to the substitute is low.

Rivalry Among Existing Competitors

If rivalry is intense, it drives down prices or dissipates profits by raising the cost of competing. Companies compete away the value they create. Rivalry tends to be especially fierce if:

Competitors are numerous or are roughly equal in size and market position

Industry growth is slow

There are high fixed costs, which create incentives for price cutting

Exit barriers are high

Rivals are highly committed to the business

Firms have differing goals, diverse approaches to competing, or lack familiarity with one another

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
First described by Michael Porter in his classic 1979 Harvard Business Review article, Porter's insights started a revolution in the strategy field and continue to shape business practice and academic thinking today. A Five Forces analysis can help companies assess industry attractiveness, how trends will affect industry competition, which industries a company should compete in-and how companies can position themselves for success.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Definition of Organizational Management

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Organizational management is a common management style for modern small businesses. The organizational method allows managers to break down the entire operation of a department into several phases. ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Company Background

Name

Amazon.com, Inc.

Logo

Industries served

Internet (Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Video)
Retail (Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Prime)
Consumer Electronics (Amazon Kindle, Fire HD, Fire TV, Amazon Echo)

Geographic areas served

Worldwide (Amazon Marketplace in 13 countries)

Headquarters

Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Current CEO

Jeff Bezos

Revenue (US$)

135.987 billion (2016) 27.1% increase over 107.006 billion (2015)

Profit (US$)

2.317 billion (2016) 389% increase over 0.596 billion (2015)

Employees

341,400 (2017)

Main Competitors

Alibaba Group, Apple Inc., eBay, Inc., Facebook Inc., Alphabet (Google Inc.) Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Netflix Inc., Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and many other Internet and retail companies.

Amazon.com business overview from the company's financial report:

"Amazon.com opened its virtual doors on the World Wide Web in July 1995. We seek to be Earth's most customer-centric company. We are guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. In each of our two geographic segments, we serve our primary customer sets, consisting of consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators. In addition, we provide services, such as advertising services and co-branded credit card agreements.

We serve consumers through our retail websites and focus on selection, price, and convenience. We design our websites to enable millions of unique products to be sold by us and by third parties across dozens of product categories. Customers access our websites directly and through our mobile websites and apps.

We also manufacture and sell electronic devices, including Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, and Echo, and we develop and produce media content. We strive to offer our customers the lowest prices possible through low everyday product pricing and shipping offers, and to improve our operating efficiencies so that we can continue to lower prices for our customers.

We also provide easy-to-use functionality, fast and reliable fulfillment, and timely customer service. In addition, we offer Amazon Prime, an annual membership program that includes unlimited free shipping on tens of millions of items, access to unlimited instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV episodes, and other benefits.

Our current and potential competitors include: (1) online, offline, and multichannel retailers, publishers, vendors, distributors, manufacturers, and producers of the products we offer and sell to consumers and businesses; (2) publishers, producers, and distributors of physical, digital, and interactive media of all types and all distribution channels; (3) web search engines, comparison shopping websites, social networks, web portals, and other online and app-based means of discovering, using, or acquiring goods and services, either directly or in collaboration with other retailers; (4) companies that provide e-commerce services, including website development, advertising, fulfillment, customer service, and payment processing; (5) companies that provide fulfillment and logistics services for themselves or for third parties, whether online or offline; (6) companies that provide information technology services or products, including onpremises or cloud-based infrastructure and other services; and (7) companies that design, manufacture, market, or sell consumer electronics, telecommunication, and electronic devices.

We believe that the principal competitive factors in our retail businesses include selection, price, and convenience, including fast and reliable fulfillment. Additional competitive factors for our seller and enterprise services include the quality, speed, and reliability of our services and tools, as well as customers' ability and willingness to change business practices."[1]

Amazon.com SWOT Factors

Strengths
1. Low cost structure, the largest merchandise selection and a huge number of third party sellers
Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world. In 2016, the company earned more than US$90 billion purely from online sales, more than any other retailer in the world.[1] At the current growth rate Amazon will become the 2nd largest retailer (as measured by revenue) in the world, behind Wal-Mart by 2018.

Figure 1. Amazon growth rate compared to e-commerce sales growth in U.S.

Source: Amazon financial reports[1] and Digital Commerce 360[2]

Note that Amazon has grown much faster than the entire U.S. e-commerce market, meaning that the company has actually increased its market share by taking it from competitors.

What is the key to such success? According to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, the company's success lies in its low-cost structure and wide variety of merchandise.

Figure 2. Jeff Bezos "napkin sketch" outlining Amazon's strategy

Source: Seeking Alpha[3]

A low-cost structure leads to lower prices, which combined with a huge range of products, results in a better customer experience. Satisfied customers invariably return to the Amazon websites, creating ever-growing traffic, which subsequently attracts 3rd party sellers to Amazon's marketplace. All of these factors lead to faster business growth for Amazon.

Amazon follows a cost leadership strategy, but so do many other online and offline retailers. Why then does Amazon outperform them?

Low cost structure. By mainly selling online, Amazon doesn't incur huge costs related to running physical retail outlets. Online marketplaces also potentially allow for selling more units without any increase in marginal costs. Amazon constantly invests in both additional fulfillment centers and to existing centers to enable a reduction in order fulfillment times and shipping costs. These time and cost savings result in lower prices that are passed on to consumers.

Selection. According to 360pi[4], Amazon sells around 353.7 million of various products in its Amazon.com Marketplace. In comparison, Walmart offers only 38 million SKU's[5] in its online shop, or just 10.7% of the number of products that Amazon offers. This vast difference in range is the reason why online customers are more likely to visit Amazon.com rather than Walmart's e-shop.

Third party sellers. Amazon's business model includes accommodating third party sellers who are able to offer their own merchandise on Amazon's sites and whose products therefore compete against Amazon's. Third party sellers are mainly attracted to because of the high volume of traffic on Amazon sites. They often offer products that are not available through Amazon's retail division. In 2016, Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service shipped over 2 billion third-party sellers' items.[6] This number does not included the items shipped by third-party sellers themselves. eBay is the only other online company that has as many third party sellers as Amazon.

Low prices, a huge product range and the vast number of third party sellers are all key factors in improving the Amazon customer experience and in driving more traffic to their sites. Few companies can compete with Amazon in any of these areas.
2. Synergies between Marketplace, Amazon Web Services and Prime.
Amazon is involved in 3 key businesses:

Amazon Marketplace

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Prime

All three Amazon offerings support each other and create benefits that would not be achieved if the businesses operated independently.

Figure 3. Amazon's synergies

Source: Strategic Management Insight

AWS was introduced in 2006 when Amazon realized it could sell its servers' excess capacity to other enterprises. For Amazon as an online retailer, the key place to sell its goods is its website. To run an e-commerce website with millions of visitors each day the company had to invest heavily in its server infrastructure. These investments and the resulting server capacity have helped AWS to grow. In return, AWS provides two important elements for its sites:

Speed. Amazon has calculated that a slowdown of just 100ms in page load could cost them 1% in sales each year.[7] In 2016, that would had equaled to at least US$10 billion loss. Therefore, page load speed is crucial for Amazon. AWS helps to speed up the website's load time, so that Amazon is able to serve each customer as quickly as possible.

Capacity. During the peak times of Cyber Monday (the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S), Black Friday (the Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday), and in the several weeks leading up to Christmas, Amazon receives an overwhelming number of visitors to its sites. AWS's huge capacity, which is not needed during the rest of the year, is employed during these peak times to help Amazon cope with the increased number of visitors.

In 2005, Amazon introduced the Amazon Prime subscription service, which offers access to Prime Instant Videos, Prime Music, free two-day delivery and many other benefits for a flat annual fee. There are currently more than 65 million Prime members worldwide who use Amazon as their primary non-grocery retail store.[8] Prime users buy more merchandise and spend more on each item than regular users.[1]

Marketplace helps to attract new visitors to Prime through its fulfilled-by-amazon program (FBA). The FBA program allows third party sellers to place their products in Amazon's warehouses, where Amazon takes responsibility for all logistics, customer service, order fulfillment and returns. This enables more products to become eligible for Amazon Prime, which is the key for the program to flourish. In addition, packaging and shipping costs are reduced when two or more items are shipped. As a result, Prime becomes more profitable and Amazon customer satisfaction increases.

Synergies between Amazon's Marketplace, AWS and Prime are rarely quantifiable, but CEO Jeff Bezos recognizes them as providing some of Amazon's strongest competitive advantages.[1]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Learning from Amazon's Advantage - 2017 SWOT Analysis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Name Amazon.com, Inc. Logo Industries served Internet (Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Video) Retail (Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Prime)Consumer Electronics (Amazon Kindle, Fire HD, Fire TV, Amazon Echo) Geographic areas served Worldwide (Amazon Marketplace in 13 countries) Headquarters Seattle, Washington, U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Coca cola is a brand which is present in households, shops, hotels, offices, etc. You name it, and the place would have heard of Coca cola. Coca cola has many products in its arsenal. Here is the SWOT analysis of Coca cola.

Strengths in the SWOT of coca cola

1. Brand Equity - Interbrand in 2011 awarded Coca cola with the highest brand equity award. Coca cola with its vast global presence and unique brand identity is definitely one of the costliest brands with the highest brand equity.

2. Company valuation - One of the most valuable companies in the world, Coca cola is valued around 79.2 billion dollars. This valuation includes the brand value, the numerous factories and assets spread out across the world and the complete operations cost and profit of Coca cola.

3. Vast global presence - Coca cola is present in 200 countries across the world. Chances are, any country that you go to, you will find coca cola present in that market. This vast global presence of coca cola has also contributed to the building of the mammoth brand name.

4. Largest market share - There are only 2 Big competitors in the beverage segment - Pepsi and Coca cola. Out of these 2, coca cola is the clear winner and hence has the largest market share. Amongst all beverages, Coke, Thums up, Sprite, Diet coke, Fanta, Limca and Maaza are the growth drivers for Coca Cola.

5. Fantastic marketing strategies - Coca cola unlike Pepsi always tries to win peoples heart. Where Pepsi's target is continuously changing, and is targeted towards youngsters, Coca cola targets people of all ages. The targeting is also done by celebrities who are well liked - for example - Amitabh Bacchan, Sachin tendulkar, Aishwarya Rai, Aamir Khan etc

6. Customer Loyalty - With such strong products, it is natural that Coca cola has a lot of customer loyalty. The products mentioned above like Coca cola and Fanta have a huge fan following. People will prefer these soft drinks over others. Because of the good taste of Coca cola, finding substitutes becomes difficult for the customer.

7. Distribution network - Coca cola has the largest distribution network because of the demand in the market for its products. On the other hand, due to this successful distribution network, Coca cola has been able to command such a high market presence.

Weaknesses in the SWOT of coca cola

1. Competition with Pepsi - Pepsi is a thorn in the flesh for Coca cola. Coca cola would have been the clear market leader had it not been for Pepsi. The competition in these two brands is immense and we don't think Pepsi will give up so easily.

2. Product Diversification is low - Where Pepsi has made a smart move and diversified into the snacks segment with products like Lays and Kurkure, Coca cola is missing from that segment. The segment is also a good revenue driver for Pepsi and had Coca cola been present in this segment, these products would have been an additional revenue driver for the company.

3. Absence in health beverages - If you watch the news, you would know that obesity is a major problem affecting people nowadays. The business environment is changing and people are taking measures to ensure that they are not obese. Carbonated beverages are one of the major reasons for fat intake and Coca cola is the largest manufacturer of Carbonated beverages. The inference is that the consumption of beverages in developed countries might go down as people will prefer a healthy alternative.

4. Water management - Coca cola has faced flak in the past due to its water management issues. Several groups have raised lawsuits in the name of Coca cola because of their vast consumption of water even in water scarce regions. At the same time, people have also blamed Coca cola for mixing pesticides in the water to clear contaminants. Thus water management needs to be better for Coca cola.

Opportunities in the SWOT of coca cola

1. Diversification - Diversification in the health and food business will improve the offerings of Coca cola to their customers. This will also ensure that they get better revenue from existing customers by cross selling their products. The supply chain which is distributing their beverages can also distribute these snacks thereby sharing the load of Supply chain costs.

2. Developing nations - Although developed nations have a high presence of Coca cola, these countries are slowly moving towards healthy beverages. However developing countries are still being introduced to the delight of carbonated drinks and soft drinks. Countries like India which are developing and have a hot summer, find the consumption of cold drinks almost doubled during summers. Thus the higher consumption in developing environment's can be a good opportunity to capitalize for Coca cola.

3. Packaged drinking water - With hygiene becoming a major factor in the consumption of water, Packaged drinking water has found its way into peoples mind. Coca cola has a presence in the packed drinking water segment though Kinley. Although Kinleys expansion is slow as of now, Kinley has a huge potential of expansion. Thus Coca cola as a company should focus on the expansion of Kinley as a brand and take it up to Bisleri 's level of trust.

4. Supply chain improvement - Supply chain can be a major cost sink hole with the transportation costs always rising. Coca cola's complete business is based on transportation and distribution. There will always be possible improvements in this area. Thus Coca cola should keep strict watch on its Supply chain and keep improving to bring the cost down.

5. Market the lesser selling products - In the product portfolio of Coca cola, there are several products which have not found acceptance in the market. Coca Cola needs to concentrate on the marketing of these products as well. It is understood that Coca cola has made several expenses to launch these products. Thus, the marketing and subsequent rise of sale of these products will help revenue of Coca cola.

Threats in the SWOT of coca cola

1. Raw material sourcing - Water is the only threat to Coca cola. The weakness of Coca cola was the suspected use of pesticides or vast consumption of water. However, the threat here is that water scarcity is on the rise. With the climate changing, and regions of various countries facing scarcity of water, sooner or later someone might raise fingers on beverage companies. Thus, Water sourcing is an axe which can fall anytime on the head of Coca cola. If water is limited or rationed, Coca cola can experience a major downfall in their revenue and capacity of distribution. The same can affect its arch rival Pepsi as well.

2. Indirect competitors - Coffee chains like Starbucks, Café coffee day, Costa coffee are on the rise. These chains offer a healthy competition to Coca colas carbonated drinks. They might not be a big competition for Coke, but they do give a dent to its beverage market. Similarly, health drinks like Real and Tropicana as well as energy drinks like Red bull and Gatorade are stealing away the market share indirectly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
SWOT of Coca Cola - SWOT analysis of Coca cola

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Coca cola is a brand which is present in households, shops, hotels, offices, etc. You name it, and the place would have heard of Coca cola. Coca cola has many products in its arsenal. Here is the SWOT analysis of Coca cola. Brand Equity - Interbrand in 2011 awarded Coca cola with the highest brand equity award.

# data[].attributes.body
How to write a SWOT analysis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is a 'SWOT Analysis'

SWOT analysis is a process that identifies an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Specifically, SWOT is a basic, analytical framework that assesses what an entity (usually a business, though it can be used for a place, industry or product) can and cannot do, for factors both internal (the strengths and weaknesses) as well as external (the potential opportunities and threats). Using environmental data to evaluate the position of a company, a SWOT analysis determines what assists the firm in accomplishing its objectives, and what obstacles must be overcome or minimized to achieve desired results: where the organization is today, and where it may be positioned in the future.

For example, back in 2015, a Value Line SWOT analysis of The Coca-Cola Company noted strengths like its well-known brand name and vast distribution network and opportunities like emerging markets, but also weaknesses and threats such as foreign currency fluctuations, a growing taste for "healthy" beverages (vs. soft drinks) and the subsequent competition from providers of such beverages. Coca-Cola took steps to address these concerns, ramping up its marketing, advertising, and promotional activities, and expanding into other beverage categories. As a result, within a year its dividend-per-share rose from $.33 to $.35 and its stock, which was hovering around $39 per share, climbed to $46; it's fallen down since, but remains up nearly 8% over the past three-year period.

A Visual Overview

BREAKING DOWN 'SWOT Analysis'

A SWOT analysis is usually presented as a square with each of the four areas making up one quadrant. This visual arrangement of the information provides a quick overview of the company's position. Although all the points under a particular heading may not be of equal importance, there are some insights to be had in seeing how the number of opportunities measures up to the number of threats, and so forth.

Elements of a SWOT Analysis

When using SWOT analysis, an organization needs to be realistic about its good and bad points. Analysis needs to be kept specific by avoiding gray areas and analyzing in relation to real-life contexts. For example, how do the organization's products and services compare to those of competing firms? SWOT analysis should be short and simple, and should avoid complexity and over-analysis, as much of the information is subjective. Thus, companies should use it as a guide and not a prescription.

Strengths describe what an organization excels at and separates it from the competition: things like a strong brand, loyal customer base, strong balance sheet, unique technology and so on. For example, a hedge fund may have developed a proprietary trading strategy that returns market-beating results; it must then decide how to use those results to attract new investors.

Weaknesses stop an organization from performing at its optimum level. They are areas where the business needs to improve to remain competitive: things like higher-than-industry average turnover, high levels of debt, an inadequate supply chain or lack of capital.

Opportunities refer to favorable external factors that an organization can use to give it a competitive advantage. For example, a car manufacturer may be able to export its cars into a new market, increasing sales and market share, if tariffs in a country are substantially reduced - the "opportunity" in this case.

Threats refers to factors that have the potential to harm an organization. For example, a drought is a threat to a wheat-producing company, as it may destroy or reduce the yield of the crop. Other common threats include things like rising costs for inputs, increasing competition, tight labor supply and so on.

Advantages of SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a great way to guide business-strategy meetings. It can be very powerful to have everyone in the room to discuss the core strengths and weaknesses of the company and then move from there to defining the opportunities and threats, and finally to brainstorming ideas. Often the SWOT analysis that you envision before the session changes throughout to reflect factors you were unaware of and would never have captured if not for the group's input.

SWOT can be used for overall business strategy sessions, but it can also be used to for a specific segment like marketing, production, or sales. This way you can see how the overall strategy developed off the SWOT analysis will filter down to the segments below before committing to it. You can also work in reverse and do segment specific SWOT analysis that feeds into an overall SWOT analysis.

Executing a SWOT Analysis
Pre-SWOT Homework
Before you set out to do a SWOT analysis with your management team or other group, there is some preparation. The first step is to take a stab at creating a company profile. This is simply a description of what the business does and who the main customers are. If time allows or your company is sprawling and complex, you may need to profile each segment to capture what they add to the business. It also helps to outline strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that you've perceived so you can prompt the group if needed.
Leading the Process
When performing a SWOT analysis, it is best to start with a clean chart. Lay out the four quadrants and outline the content you are looking to populate it with as above, but let the group lead off. Again, in highly segmented business you will probably find that the leads in the separate areas have more specialized knowledge as to the strengths and weaknesses in their areas. In extreme cases, you may need to do a segment-by-segment SWOT and then feed it up into the larger one. For most companies, however, a single SWOT chart is sufficient to capture the current condition of the business.

At first, you want to capture everything you can from the group in a rush. When the pace of input trickles off, you can go over the chart and eliminate duplicate/overlapping entries and ensure each entry is in the right category. Walk the group through your reasoning if you are outright eliminating an entry or combining concepts. This is basic courtesy and it shows that their input is being valued. The group can also help in adding and removing entries within the SWOT chart to distil it down to a mutually agreed upon core.
Working with the Chart
At this point in the process, you will likely have an imbalance between internal and external factors. People are much more aware of the current state within the company and less likely to be thinking of the direction of the business sector as a whole. If needed, you can prompt more entries under opportunities by encouraging them to think about how a current strength can be leverage to create new opportunities or how fixing a weakness could lead to a larger opportunity in the future. Likewise, in what situations (threats) will your current strengths and weaknesses endanger the company?

Examples of SWOT Analysis

Let's take a practical look at SWOT analysis by applying it to two fictional companies.
Al's Ice Cream: The Case for Expansion
Al's Ice Cream is a wholly-owned ice cream shop that leverages founder Al's food science training to create hand crafted ice cream with local ingredients. Al's company is profitable with strong margins on its premium priced cones, but Al is wondering if the single store approach isn't limiting his growth. We'll take this first SWOT analysis in two steps so we can see how the exercise builds on itself.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors unique to the business in question. Some may be a result of external factors like a weak economy or tight labor market, but they are still company-specific. Here are the strengths and weaknesses for Al's Ice Cream:

Superior product with unique flavors that are difficult to duplicate

Loyal customer base supplying word of mouth marketing

Strong sales and a generous profit margin

Opportunities and threats are external to the company. They represent things that could happen in the right conditions. Of course, that is a awfully broad guideline, so we can use the strengths and weaknesses above to narrow in on opportunities and threats that follow naturally from them. Here are some opportunities and threats facing Al's Ice Cream:

Increase the number of stores to access more customers

Focus on production and sell into retail food service

Buy new equipment to lower production time and labor

Start an artisanal ice cream class to train and recruit employees

Partner up to access more capital, raise it from private investors, or apply for government grants

The purpose of a SWOT analysis is to present possible routes for a company. Potential strategies can be created by combining and recombining different factors. For example, Al's could apply for government grants to install new equipment, reducing labor needs, and then raise capital to open an additional concept store staffed with graduates of the artisanal ice cream class. This an ambitious plan - and it will likely change in implementation - but it provides Al's Ice Cream with a potential path forward.
Ed's Carpets: Sell More to Your Customers
Ed's Carpets is a mature business with a warehouse and a storefront. Carpets are a low margin business that depends on value. Ed's enjoys steady business due to his installation guarantee and high quality standards, but things aren't as good as they were 20 years ago.

Here is the SWOT analysis:

Established brand with loyal customers

Deep knowledge of carpets and flooring

Dedicated and efficient employees who take pride in their work

Basic web presence with no inventory images or online ordering

Main focus on carpets with a small amount of linoleum

A lot of capital is tied up in warehouse inventory

Again, we see natural combinations within the quadrants and even between quadrants. Ed's Carpets can benefit from exploring several of the opportunities and some of those will help to address weaknesses. For example, adopting a leaner inventory model will address some of the capital concerns and wholesaling existing inventory online without installation can potentially clear the backlog. Less carpet in the warehouse then frees Ed's up to look at different flooring products for the local market.

Using SWOT Analysis to Evaluate Investments

The Bottom Line

SWOT analysis provides a visual overview that prompts discussion around a company's situation. It is a bird's-eye view meant to flesh out the viability of a concept or strategy from the inside out - a more macro review than that of other analytic tools, such as Porter's 5 forces (see What's the difference between Porter's 5 forces and SWOT analysis?).

The speed at which you can do a SWOT analysis and the flexibility of the format to evaluate different ideas and strategies are key reasons why this tool remains popular in business circles, and can be useful to investors as well.

The most important factor in successfully using SWOT analysis is the quality of the data. If you don't accurately capture your company's core strengths and weaknesses, then SWOT analysis won't be much help. A SWOT analysis is only as good as the data coming in. If a company over-represents its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities or threats, SWOT analysis will potentially provide support in the wrong direction.

The SWOT analysis is never the end goal of the discussion. The next steps, for either a group or an individual investor, are to pull out action items from the analysis to work on further.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SWOT analysis is a process that identifies an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Specifically, SWOT is a basic, analytical framework that assesses what an entity (usually a business, though it can be used for a place, industry or product) can and cannot do, for factors both internal (the strengths and weaknesses) as well as external (the potential opportunities and threats).

# data[].attributes.headline
Global Organizations that help with Human Trafficking

# data[].attributes.subject
Global Organizations that help with Human Trafficking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you are looking for a way to help fight against human trafficking on a global scale, the following are organizations that work around the world.

# data[].attributes.body
Everything the WTO does is a result of a negotiation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A word of caution: the fine print

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the texts in these introductory pages, they cannot be taken as an official legal interpretation of the agreements.

In addition, some simplifications are used in order to keep the text simple and clear.

In particular, the words "country" and "nation" are frequently used to describe WTO members, whereas a few members are officially "customs territories", and not necessarily countries in the usual sense of the word (see list of members). The same applies when participants in trade negotiations are called "countries" or "nations".

Where there is little risk of misunderstanding, the word "member" is dropped from "member countries (nations, governments)", for example in the descriptions of the WTO agreements. Naturally, the agreements and commitments do not apply to non-members.

In some parts of the text, GATT is described as an "international organization". The phrase reflects GATT's de facto role before the WTO was created, and it is used simplistically here to help readers understand that role. As the text points out, this role was always ad hoc, without a proper legal foundation. International law did not recognize GATT as an organization.

For simplicity, the text uses the term "GATT members". Officially, since GATT was a treaty and not a legally-established organization, GATT signatories were "contracting parties".

And, for easier reading, article numbers in GATT and GATS have been translated from Roman numbers into European digits.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The first step is to talk. Essentially, the WTO is a place where member governments go, to try to sort out the trade problems they face with each other. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the worlds trading nations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Image credit: Geber86 | Getty Images

1 min read

New businesses are popping up every day. In fact, an estimated 550,000 open up each month just in the United States.

Of these businesses, approximately 60 percent are launched by men, but women aren't far behind, launching businesses at six times the national average. Of these female entrepreneurs, African American women are the fastest growing demographic.

Unfortunately though, launching a business doesn't equate to success. Three-fourths of new businesses only last a year. Your best bet is to open a business in finance, insurance or real estate, which have the highest survival rates in the country.
Related: Female Entrepreneurship Is on the Rise (Infographic)
Don't let that discourage you though. The world needs entrepreneurs and new businesses: They create jobs, offer new products and/or services, help the economy grow, boost communities and sometimes even spark social change.

To learn more about entrepreneurship in the U.S., check out Lance Surety Bonds's infographic below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Diversity of Entrepreneurs in the U.S. (Infographic)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
1 min read New businesses are popping up every day. In fact, an estimated 550,000 open up each month just in the United States. Of these businesses, approximately 60 percent are launched by men, but women aren't far behind, launching businesses at six times the national average.

# data[].attributes.body
24 Most Inspirational Mission Statements

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Infographic: The 24 Most Inspirational Company Mission Statements

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Whatever they're actually selling, many companies are pretty high-minded when it comes to crafting their official missions statements. Sure, they provide a prod

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I've had a 30-year love-hate relationship with mission statements. I've read thousands. I love it when a mission statement defines a business so well that it feels like strategy-which does happen-and I hate it when a mission statement is generic, stale, and completely useless. Which also happens, but not nearly as often.

What is a mission statement?

A good mission statement is useful tool for well-run business. It's the "why" of business strategy.

A mission statement define a company's goals in three important ways:

It defines what the company does for its customers

It defines what the company does for its employees

It defines what the company does for its owners

Some of the best mission statements also extend themselves to include fourth and fifth dimensions: what the company does for its community, and for the world.

Developing your company's first mission statement, or writing a new or revised one, is your opportunity to define the company's goals, ethics, culture, and norms for decision-making. The daily routine of business gets in the way sometimes, and a quick refresh with the mission statement helps a person take a step back and remember what's most important: the organization has a purpose.

Don't waste your time with a bad mission statement

That a traditional business plan often includes a mission statement isn't a reason to do one. And make it useful or don't bother. The vast majority of the mission statements are just meaningless hype that could be used to describe any business in the category.

People write them because some checklist or expert said they had to. There are actually webapps that poke fun at how most mission statements use vague, high-sounding phrases to say nothing. The comic strip "Dilbert" has had a field day making fun of them:

Image: DILBERT © Scott Adams. Used by permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved.

And you should always subject a mission statement to this test, from Mission, Mantra, or Vision:

If you have a mission statement in your company, test it by asking yourself, honestly, whether your competitors could use exactly the same statement.

Does it distinguish you from all other businesses? If you gave an employee or customer a blind screening test, asking her to read your your mission statement and four others without identifying which is which, would she be able to tell which mission statement was yours?

How to write a great mission statement

So how do you make a useful mission statement? Over the decades I've spent reading, writing, and evaluating business plans, I've come up with a process for developing a useful mission statement, and it boils down to five steps.

1. Start with a market-defining story

You don't have to actually write the story -it's definitely not included in the mission statement-but do think it through:

Imagine a real person making the actual decision to buy what you sell. Use your imagination to see why she wants it, how she finds you, and what buying from you does for her. The more concrete the story, the better. And keep that in mind for the actual mission statement wording: "The more concrete, the better."

A really good market-defining story explains the need, or the want, or-if you like jargon-the so-called "why to buy." It defines the target customer, or "buyer persona." And it defines how your business is different from most others, or even unique. It simplifies thinking about what a business isn't, what it doesn't do.

This isn't literally part of the mission statement. Rather, it's an important thing to have in your head while you write the mission statement. It's in the background, between the words. If you're having trouble getting started, make a quick list of what your company does and doesn't do.

2. Define what your business does for its customers

Start your mission statement with the good you do. Use your market-defining story to suss out whatever it is that makes your business special for your target customer.

Don't undervalue your business: You don't have to cure cancer or stop global climate change to be doing good. Offering trustworthy auto repair, for example, narrowed down to your specialty in your neighborhood with your unique policies, is doing something good. So is offering excellent slow food in your neighborhood, with emphasis on organic and local, at a price premium.

This is a part of your mission statement, and a pretty crucial part at that-write it down.

If your business is good for the world, incorporate that here too. But claims about being good for the world need to be meaningful, and distinguishable from all the other businesses. Add the words "clean" or "green" if that's really true and you keep to it rigorously. Don't just say it, especially if it isn't important or always true.

For example, Apple Computer's 2017 mission statement is:

"Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad."

That one obviously passes the test of defining the company with flying colors. Nobody could mistake that mission with generic hype. And it's an interesting change from the early mission as defined by founder Steve Jobs:

"To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind."

Ikea, on the other hand, starts its mission statement with something that could be any company anywhere. "Our vision is to create a better everyday life for the [sic] many people." To its credit, it goes on to define a "rest of the mission" that could only be IKEA:

"We make this possible by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home-furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them."

And note, in this mission statement, how Sweetgreen incorporates a world vision into a product-oriented mission statement:

"Founded in 2007, Sweetgreen is a destination for delicious food that's both healthy for you and aligned with your values. We source local and organic ingredients from farmers we know and partners we trust, supporting our communities and creating meaningful relationships with those around us. We exist to create experiences where passion and purpose come together."

3. Define what your business does for its employees

Good businesses are good for their employees too or they don't last. Keeping employees is better for the bottom line than turnover. Company culture matters. Rewarding and motivating people matters. A mission statement can define what your business offers its employee.

My recommendation is that you don't simply assert how the business is good for employees-you define it here and then forever after make it true.

Qualities like fairness, diversity, respect for ideas and creativity, training, tools, empowerment, and the like, actually really matter. However, since every business in existence at least says that it prioritizes those things, strive for a differentiator and a way to make the general goals feel more concrete and specific.

With this part of the mission statement, there's a built-in dilemma. On the one hand, it's good for everybody involved to use the mission statement to establish what you want for employees in your business. On the other hand, it's hard to do that without falling into the trap of saying what every other business says.

Stating that you value fair compensation, room to grow, training, a healthy, creative work environment, and respect for diversity is probably a good idea, even if that part of your mission statement isn't unique. That's because the mission statement can serve as a reminder-for owners, supervisors, and workers-and as a lever for self-enforcement.

If you have a special view on your relationship with employees, write it into the mission statement. If your business is friendly to families, or to remote virtual workplaces, put that into your mission.

And this is rare in mission statements. The vast majority are focused on messaging for customers. My recommendation here is not the norm. I include it because it's good practice, even though not common.

While I consulted for Apple Computer, for example, that business differentiated its goals of training and empowering employees by making a point of bringing in very high-quality educators and presenters to help employees' business expertise grow. That was part of the culture and, to my mind, part of the mission; but it wasn't part of the mission statement. It could have been.

American Express, however, includes the team in its mission:

"We have a mission to be the world's most respected service brand. To do this, we have established a culture that supports our team members, so they can provide exceptional service to our customers."

4. Add what the business does for its owners

In business school they taught us that the mission of management is to enhance the value of the stock. And shares of stock are ownership. Some would say that it goes without saying that a business exists to enhance the financial position of its owners, and maybe it does. However, only a small subset of all businesses are about the business buzzwords of "share value" and "return on investment."

In the early years of my business I wanted peace of mind about cash flow more than I wanted growth, and I wanted growth more than I wanted profits. So I wrote that into my mission statement. And at one point I realized I was also building a business that was a place where I was happy to be working, with people I wanted to work with; so I wrote that into my mission statement, too.

However, this element too, as with the suggestion about including employees, is unusual. Few mission statements do it. That's understandable, since most mission statements are outward facing only, aimed at customers and nobody else.

Still, some of the best mission statements incorporate a much broader sense of mission that includes, or at least implies, the mission of ownership.

Warby Parker, an eyewear company, does a great job at voicing a higher mission that includes customers, employees, and owners.

"Warby Parker was founded with a rebellious spirit and a lofty objective: to offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially-conscious business."

5. Discuss, digest, cut, polish, review, revise

Whatever you wrote for points two through four above, go back and cut down the wordiness.

Good mission statements serve multiple functions, define objectives, and live for a long time. So, edit. This step is worth it.

Start by considering developing a full mission statement for internal use and using a customer-facing subset for general publication. That's common. Many companies have segmented mission statements, with sections set aside and categorized by type or goal. Use bullet points or sections if that works for you. Part of the reason people confuse mission with mantra and vision is that many businesses use them together, and many others also redefine them to fit their context. So what a company does for customers is often called vision, despite the formal definition.

Remember, form follows function, in mission statements, as in all business. Make it work for your business. Or don't do it at all. If you want to call it a vision, and that works for employees and customers, then do that.

As you edit, keep a sharp eye out for the buzzwords and hype that everybody claims. Cut as much as you can that doesn't apply specifically to your business, except for the occasional special elements that-unique or not-can serve as long-term rules and reminders. Unique itself, the word, means literally, the only one in the world. Use it sparingly. Phrases such as "being the best possible," "world-class," and "great customer service" mean little because everybody uses them. Having great customer service is way harder than writing that into a mission statement.

Read other companies' mission statements, but write a statement that is about you and not some other company. Make sure you actually believe in what you're writing-your customers and your employees will soon spot a lie.

Then, listen. Show drafts to others, ask their opinions, and really listen. Don't argue, don't convince them, just listen. And then edit again.

And, for the rest of your business's life, review and revise it as needed. As with everything in a business plan, your mission statement should never get written in stone, and, much less, stashed in a drawer. Use it or lose it. Review and revise as necessary, because change is constant.
*Should I apologize for putting the word "easy" into the title of this piece? Sometimes I confuse interesting, useful, and important with easy. I always underestimate tasks I like doing. Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans. Follow him on Twitter @TimBerry.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Write a Mission Statement in 5 Easy Steps - Bplans Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I've had a 30-year love-hate relationship with mission statements. I've read thousands. I love it when a mission statement defines a business so well that it feels like strategy-which does happen-and I hate it when a mission statement is generic, stale, and completely useless. Which also happens, but not nearly as often.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
From Scientific to Administrative

Back around 1860, Henri Fayol, a then-young engineer, began working at a coal mine in France. While working at the mines, he noticed that managing the miners was not an easy job. Managing was not as effective as it could be. Managers had few resources and tools to better manage people.

At the time, Frederick Winslow Taylor, founder of the school of scientific management, was making strides in maximizing productivity by focusing on the work and the worker relationship. In other words, Taylor believed that there was a science to work. If workers worked more like machines, there would be increased productivity.

Unlike Taylor's scientific management theory, Fayol believed that it was more than just work and workers. Managers needed specific roles in order to manage work and workers. This became known as the administrative school of management and was founded on the six functions, or roles, of management:

Principles 1-7

These roles, used as a process, focused on the entire organization rather than just the work. Once broken down into smaller parts, the six functions evolved into Fayol's 14 Principles of Management. In this lesson, we will focus on the first seven principles:

1. Division of Work

2. Authority

3. Discipline

4. Unity of Command

5. Unity of Direction

6. Subordination of Individual Interests to the General Interest

7. Remuneration

While Fayol's 14 Principles of Management are not as widely used as they once were, it is important to understand how the foundation of administrative management theory was developed to address the needs of the times. This macro approach was the first of its time. Let's not forget, Taylor did not focus on the human element.

His scientific approach to work focused on building a better, stronger, faster and more productive team through physical elements. Fayol didn't see it that way. Fayol saw workers as humans possessing elements that required a more general approach to getting the work done. He saw it as a whole organizational effort.

Principles Explained

Let's take each principle and use examples to better understand how these principles work together to create an administrative management mindset. Let's use Fayol and the Principles, a rock band, to help us better understand the first seven of the 14 Principles of Management.

1. Division of Work: When employees are specialized, output can increase because they become increasingly skilled and efficient.

Fayol and the Principles is made up of four members, including Fayol. Each band member specializes in a specific instrument or talent. Fayol is the lead singer, while the other members play instruments. The band is able to produce quality music because each performs the job in the band that he or she is most specialized in.

If we were to mix it up a bit and put Fayol on bass guitar and another member on singing - neither of whom possesses the skill to perform the job - the sound would be much different.

2. Authority: Managers must have the authority to give orders, but they must also keep in mind that with authority comes responsibility.

Fayol and the Principles understand that they should specialize in their specific areas; however, there needs to be a leader. Fayol assumes the role as leader and gives everyone orders. He says 'Play this. Do that.' But with that comes responsibility. He knows that, whatever task he delegates to the band, he must make sure that the task is completed, that the task is done in a productive way and that it yields results.

3. Discipline: Discipline must be upheld in organizations, but methods for doing so can vary.

From time to time, the band members do not perform to Fayol's standard. Even though Fayol looks at the organization as a whole organizational effort, he also knows that he must administer discipline for ineffectiveness. Two of Fayol's band members decided to take a break from practice to play a competitive game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. He must administer swift discipline in line with the offense. He also knows that there is no one discipline that can be levied against the band members. It must be done on a case-by-case basis. In this case, the two band members were penalized pay for the time spent playing a game when they should have been practicing for their show.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
henri fayol's management principles: managing departmental task organization - video & lesson transcript | study.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Henri Fayol's Management Principles: Managing Departmental Task Organization - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Back around 1860, Henri Fayol, a then-young engineer, began working at a coal mine in France. While working at the mines, he noticed that managing the miners was not an easy job. Managing was not as effective as it could be. Managers had few resources and tools to better manage people.

# data[].attributes.body
To be a great leader, you must be willing to do the work yourself and others will follow suit.