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Job Design - Meaning, Steps and its Benefits

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Job design follows job analysis. Job design essentially involves integrating job responsibilities or content and certain qualifications that are required to perform the same.

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Location Strategy - levels, system, advantages, type, company, business, system

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Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd ed. Location Strategy: Int-Loc

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What is 'Ratio Analysis'

A ratio analysis is a quantitative analysis of information contained in a company's financial statements. Ratio analysis is based on line items in financial statements like the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement; the ratios of one item - or a combination of items - to another item or combination are then calculated. Ratio analysis is used to evaluate various aspects of a company's operating and financial performance such as its efficiency, liquidity, profitability and solvency. The trend of these ratios over time is studied to check whether they are improving or deteriorating. Ratios are also compared across different companies in the same sector to see how they stack up, and to get an idea of comparative valuations. Ratio analysis is a cornerstone of fundamental analysis.

BREAKING DOWN 'Ratio Analysis'

While there are numerous financial ratios, most investors are familiar with a few key ratios, particularly the ones that are relatively easy to calculate. Some of these ratios include the current ratio, return on equity, the debt-equity ratio, the dividend payout ratio and the price/earnings (P/E) ratio.

For a specific ratio, most companies have values that fall within a certain range. A company whose ratio falls outside the range may be regarded as grossly undervalued or overvalued, depending on the ratio.

For example, if the average P/E ratio of all companies in the S&P 500 index is 20, with the majority of companies having a P/E between 15 and 25, a stock with a single-digit P/E would be considered undervalued, while one with a P/E of 50 would be considered overvalued. Of course, this ratio would typically only be considered as a starting point, with further analysis required to identify if these stocks are really as undervalued or overvalued as the P/E ratios suggest.

As well, ratios are usually only comparable across companies in the same sector, since an acceptable ratio in one industry may be regarded as too high in another. For example, companies in sectors such as utilities typically have a high debt-equity ratio, but a similar ratio for a technology company may be regarded as unsustainably high.

Ratio analysis can provide an early warning of a potential improvement or deterioration in a company's financial situation or performance. Analysts engage in extensive number-crunching of the financial data in a company's quarterly financial reports for any such hints.

Successful companies generally have solid ratios in all areas, and any hints of weakness in one area may spark a significant sell-off in the stock. Certain ratios are closely scrutinized because of their relevance to a certain sector, as for instance inventory turnover for the retail sector and days sales outstanding (DSOs) for technology companies.

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A ratio analysis is a quantitative analysis of information contained in a company's financial statements. Ratio analysis is based on line items in financial statements like the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement; the ratios of one item - or a combination of items - to another item or combination are then calculated.

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PDF of slides

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Meaning:

Budgetary control is the process of determining various actual results with budgeted figures for the enterprise for the future period and standards set then comparing the budgeted figures with the actual performance for calculating variances, if any. First of all, budgets are prepared and then actual results are recorded.

The comparison of budgeted and actual figures will enable the management to find out discrepancies and take remedial measures at a proper time. The budgetary control is a continuous process which helps in planning and co-ordination. It provides a method of control too. A budget is a means and budgetary control is the end-result.

"According to Brown and Howard, "Budgetary control is a system of controlling costs which includes the preparation of budgets, coordinating the departments and establishing responsibilities, comparing actual performance with the budgeted and acting upon results to achieve maximum profitability." Weldon characterizes budgetary control as planning in advance of the various functions of a business so that the business as a whole is controlled.

J. Batty defines it as, "A system which uses budgets as a means of planning and controlling all aspects of producing and/or selling commodities and services. Welsch relates budgetary control with day-to-day control process." According to him, "Budgetary control involves the use of budget and budgetary reports, throughout the period to co-ordinate, evaluate and control day-to-day operations in accordance with the goals specified by the budget."
From the above given definitions it is clear that budgetary control involves the follows:
(a) The objects are set by preparing budgets.

(b) The business is divided into various responsibility centres for preparing various budgets.

(c) The actual figures are recorded.

(d) The budgeted and actual figures are compared for studying the performance of different cost centres.

(e) If actual performance is less than the budgeted norms, a remedial action is taken immediately.

Objectives of Budgetary Control:
The main objectives of budgetary control are the follows:
Budgetary control is essential for policy planning and control. It also acts an instrument of co-ordination.

1. To ensure planning for future by setting up various budgets, the requirements and expected performance of the enterprise are anticipated.

3. To operate various cost centres and departments with efficiency and economy.

4. Elimination of wastes and increase in profitability.

5. To anticipate capital expenditure for future.

6. To centralise the control system.

7. Correction of deviations from the established standards.

8. Fixation of responsibility of various individuals in the organization.

Essentials of Budgetary Control:

There are certain steps which are necessary for the successful implementation budgetary control system.

1. Organisation for Budgetary Control

2. Budget Centres

3. Budget Mammal

4. Budget Officer

5. Budget Committee

6. Budget Period

7. Determination of Key Factor.

1. Organization for Budgetary Control:

The proper organization is essential for the successful preparation, maintenance and administration of budgets. A Budgetary Committee is formed, which comprises the departmental heads of various departments. All the functional heads are entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring proper implementation of their respective departmental budgets.

The Chief Executive is the overall in-charge of budgetary system. He constitutes a budget committee for preparing realistic budgets A budget officer is the convener of the budget committee who co-ordinates the budgets of different departments. The managers of different departments are made responsible for their departmental budgets.

A budget centre is that part of the organization for which the budget is prepared. A budget centre may be a department, section of a department or any other part of the department. The establishment of budget centres is essential for covering all parts of the organization. The budget centres are also necessary for cost control purposes. The appraisal performance of different parts of the organization becomes easy when different centres are established.

A budget manual is a document which spells out the duties and also the responsibilities of various executives concerned with the budgets. It specifies the relations amongst various functionaries.

4. Budget Officer:

The Chief Executive, who is at the top of the organization, appoints some person as Budget Officer. The budget officer is empowered to scrutinize the budgets prepared by different functional heads and to make changes in them, if the situations so demand. The actual performance of different departments is communicated to the Budget Officer. He determines the deviations in the budgets and the actual performance and takes necessary steps to rectify the deficiencies, if any.

He works as a coordinator among different departments and monitors the relevant information. He also informs the top management about the performance of different departments. The budget officer will be able to carry out his work fully well only if he is conversant with the working of all the departments.

5. Budget Committee:

In small-scale concerns the accountant is made responsible for preparation and implementation of budgets. In large-scale concerns a committee known as Budget Committee is formed. The heads of all the important departments are made members of this committee. The Committee is responsible for preparation and execution of budgets. The members of this committee put up the case of their respective departments and help the committee to take collective decisions if necessary. The Budget Officer acts as convener of this committee.
The budget period depends upon the following considerations:
A budget period is the length of time for which a budget is prepared and employed. The budget period depends upon a number of factors. It may be different for different industries or even it may be different in the same industry or business.

(a) The type of budget i.e., sales budget, production budget, raw materials purchase budget, capital expenditure budget. A capital expenditure budget may be for a longer period i.e. 3 to 5 years purchase, sale budgets may be for one year.

(b) The nature of demand for the products.

(c) The timings for the availability of the finances.

(d) The economic situation of the country.

(e) The length of trade cycles.

All the above-mentioned factors are taken into account while fixing period of budgets

7. Determination of Key Factor:

The budgets are prepared for all functional areas. These budgets are interdependent and inter-related. A proper co-ordination among different budgets is necessary for making the budgetary control a success. The constraints on some budgets may have an effect on other budgets too. A factor which influences all other budgets is known as Key Factor or Principal Factor.

There may be a limitation on the quantity of goods a concern may sell. In this case, sales will be a key factor and all other budgets will be prepared by keeping in view the amount of goods the concern will be able to sell. The raw material supply may be limited, so production, sales and cash budgets will be decided according to raw materials budget. Similarly, plant capacity may be a key factor if the supply of other factors is easily available.

The key factor may not necessarily remain the same. The raw materials supply may be limited at one time but it may be easily available at another time. The sales may be increased by adding more sales staff, etc. Similarly, other factors may also improve at different times. The key factor also highlights the limitations of the enterprise. This will enable the management to improve the working of those departments where scope for improvement exists.
Some of the advantages of budgetary control are:
Advantages of Budgetary Control:

The budgetary control system help in fixing the goals for the organization as whole and concerted efforts are made for its achievements. It enables 'economies in the enterprise.

1. Maximization of Profits:

The budgetary control aims at the maximization of profits of the enterprise. To achieve this aim, a proper planning and co ordination of different functions is undertaken. There is a proper control over various capital and revenue expenditures. The resources are put to the best possible use.

The working of different departments and sectors is properly coordinated. The budgets of different departments have a bearing on one another. The co-ordination of various executives and subordinates is necessary for achieving budgeted targets.

The plans, policies and goals are decided by the top management. All efforts are put together to reach the common goal, of the organization. Every department is given a target to be achieved. The efforts are directed towards achieving some specific aims. If there is no definite aim then the efforts will be wasted in pursuing different aims.

4. Tool for Measuring Performance:

By providing targets to various departments, budgetary control provides a tool for measuring managerial performance. The budgeted targets are compared to actual results and deviations are determined. The performance of each department is reported to the top management. This system enables the introduction of management by exception.

The planning of expenditure will be systematic and there will be economy in spending. The finances will be put to optimum use. The benefits derived for the concern will ultimately extend to industry and then to national economy. The national resources will be used economically and wastage will be eliminated.

6. Determining Weaknesses:

The deviations in budgeted and actual performance will enable the determination of weak spots. Efforts are concentrated on those aspects where performance is less than the stipulated.

The management will be able to take corrective measures whenever there is a discrepancy in performance. The deviations will be regularly reported so that necessary action is taken at the earliest. In the absence of a budgetary control system the deviations can be determined only at the end of the financial period.

It creates budget consciousness among the employees. By fixing targets for the employees, they are made conscious of their responsibility. Everybody knows what he is expected to do and he continues with his work uninterrupted.

In the present day competitive world budgetary control has a significant role to play. Every businessman tries to reduce the cost of production for increasing sales. He tries to have those combinations of products where profitability is more.

10. Introduction of Incentive Schemes:
Some of the limitations are discussed as follows:
Budgetary control system also enables the introduction of incentive schemes of remuneration. The comparison of budgeted and actual performance will enable the use of such schemes.

Limitations of Budgetary Control:

Despite of many good points of budgetary control there are some limitations of this system.

The budgets are prepared for the future period. Despite best estimates made for the future, the predictions may not always come true. The future is always uncertain and the situation which is presumed to prevail in future may change. The change in future conditions upsets the budgets which have to be prepared on the basis of certain assumptions. The future uncertainties reduce the utility of budgetary control system.

2. Budgetary Revision Required:

Budgets arc prepared on the assumptions that certain conditions will prevail. Because of future uncertainties, assumed conditions may not prevail necessitating the revision of budgetary targets. The frequent revision of targets will reduce the value of budgets and revisions involve huge expenditures too.

3. Discourage Efficient Persons:

Under budgetary control system the targets are given to every person in the organization. The common tendency of people is to achieve the targets only. There may be some efficient persons who can exceed the targets but they will also feel contented by reaching the targets. So budgets may serve as constraints on managerial initiatives.

4. Problem of Co-ordination:

The success of budgetary control depends upon the co-ordination among different departments. The performance of one department affects the results of other departments. To overcome the problem of coordination a Budgetary Officer is needed. Every concern cannot afford to appoint a Budgetary Officer. The lack of co-ordination among different departments results in poor performance.

5. Conflict Among Different Departments:

Budgetary control may lead to conflicts among functional departments. Every departmental head worries for his department goals without thinking of business goal. Every department tries to get maximum allocation of funds and this raises a conflict among different departments.

6. Depends Upon Support of Top Management:

Budgetary control system depends upon the support of top management. The management should be enthusiastic for the success of this system and should give full support for it. If at any time there is a lack of support from top management then this system will collapse.

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Budgetary Control : Meaning, Objectives and Essentials

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Budgetary Control in Organization: Meaning, Definition, Objectives, Essentials and Other Details! Meaning: Budgetary control is the process of determining various actual results with budgeted figures for the enterprise for the future period and standards set then comparing the budgeted figures with the actual performance for calculating variances, if any.

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Empowering families to navigate the immigration system more confidently, rapidly, and affordably. We are a team of immigrants and experts who have struggled with our own journeys through the complex, high-stakes United States immigration system. Just like millions of other families, we've had to choose between paying thousands of dollars in legal fees or spending months trying to figure out how to do everything ourselves.

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Some HR thoughts on corrective action and steps

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Corrective Action | UCSB Human Resources

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Employees generally want to do well at work and will usually correct the problem after the initial meeting or a verbal warning. If the problem performance, attendance or behavior persists, you should meet again with the employee to discuss the concerns and follow-up with a letter of concern or expectation.

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Power means many different things to different people. For some, power is seen as corrupt. For others, the more power they have, the more successful they feel. For even others, power is of no interest at all. The five bases of power were identified by John French and Bertram Raven in the early 1960's through a study they had conducted on power in leadership roles. The study showed how different types of power affected one's leadership ability and success in a leadership role.

The five bases of power are divided in two categories:

Formal Power
Coercive
Coercive power is conveyed through fear of losing one's job, being demoted, receiving a poor performance review, having prime projects taken away, etc. This power is gotten through threatening others. For example, the VP of Sales who threatens sales folks to meet their goals or get replaced.
Reward
Reward power is conveyed through rewarding individuals for compliance with one's wishes. This may be done through giving bonuses, raises, a promotion, extra time off from work, etc. For example, the supervisor who provides employees comp time when they meet an objective she sets for a project.
Legitimate
Legitimate power comes from having a position of power in an organization, such as being the boss or a key member of a leadership team. This power comes when employees in the organization recognize the authority of the individual. For example, the CEO who determines the overall direction of the company and the resource needs of the company.

Personal Power
Expert
Expert power comes from one's experiences, skills or knowledge. As we gain experience in particular areas, and become thought leaders in those areas, we begin to gather expert power that can be utilized to get others to help us meet our goals. For example, the Project Manager who is an expert at solving particularly challenging problems to ensure a project stays on track.
Referent
Referent power comes from being trusted and respected. We can gain referent power when others trust what we do and respect us for how we handle situations. For example, the Human Resource Associate who is known for ensuring employees are treated fairly and coming to the rescue of those who are not.

[To learn how Intuit QuickBase can become your source of power, check out What is QuickBase on YouTube.]

As you can see, you don't have to be in a leadership or senior level role in an organization to have some form of power. In fact, the most respect is garnered on those who have personal sources of power. There is more respect for these individuals than for those who have power simply because they are the boss in the business. It has been shown that when employees in an organization associate the leadership's power with expert or referent power, they are more engaged, more devoted to the organization and their role within it. Employees are also more willing to go the extra mile to reach organizational goals.

What is your source of power? And are you using the "right source" or simply throwing your weight around? How effectively do you use your source of power to meet key goals and objectives? Please share your thoughts with others in the comments share bar to the left. Thank you!
This topic was revisited recently. Check it out here and be sure to leave your thoughts and opinions on the topic in the comment sections!

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Power means many different things to different people. For some, power is seen as corrupt. For others, the more power they have, the more successful they feel. For even others, power is of no interest at all.

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how it affects communication

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Marie Gervais, PhD. CEO, Shift Management

In the last post I spoke about how speech and silence are interpreted differently across cultures and then considered ways to use this knowledge to improve cross-cultural communication. Let's look deeper. When there are differences between how people communicate across cultures there is also hierarchy, or the level of formalized status in a society that you are expected to acknowledge and observe.
Why hierarchy affects communication
Hierarchical cultures have obvious attitudes about status difference, and specific expressions and behaviours that accompany their beliefs. In a hierarchical culture it is considered appropriate to treat people of lower status much differently than one would treat people from a higher status. Persons from lower statuses may be given direct orders, with either very little explanation or drawn out descriptions that carefully explain every detail to ensure things are done "right." Lower status individuals may be assigned blame, be spoken to rudely, and there may be the assumption that lower status people will do what they are told because that is their place in society.

When people from another culture do not observe these expected behaviours, people from hierarchical societies feel that disrespect has occurred. These same expected behaviours in hierarchical societies shock people from more egalitarian societies , where formal status structures tend to be more hidden and a respectful tone and language are considered necessary for all interactions, regardless of class or job title.

Let's compare further...People from high hierarchy cultures tend to see egalitarian cultures as lacking in respect for their managers, elders and other people of high status in society. People from egalitarian cultures tend to see high status cultures as unjust, arrogant, and lacking in common courtesy.

In high hierarchy cultures, people think that the egalitarians have no manners and are purposefully disrespectful to their elders and betters. In more egalitarian cultures, people assume that hierarchical cultures will automatically want to live in an egalitarian way as soon as they see how much better it is.

In most hierarchical cultures, education trumps experience so the person with the most education is of higher status. In most egalitarian cultures experience trumps education, so the person with the most experience (seniority not related to age) is generally more respected, although education certainly does matter.

Hierarchical societies tend to place a lot of emphasis on age, so the older you are, the more respect you deserve to receive. Hierarchy also often applies to gender - men automatically have more status than women no matter what their education or experience. Egalitarian societies purport to eschew these beliefs, instead keeping internal hierarchies less visible.

Inevitably, these differences affect workplace culture in significant ways. Consider how a workplace might look when based on hierarchical values. High status people would enjoy the best offices and be further away from the front line. High status workers would not do low status jobs and there would be distinct physical, social, and policy delineations between different job roles, both formal and informal.

In a more egalitarian culture, employees would still be expected to respect their boss and do what the manager directs, but management might enjoy the exam same style of office as employees. Both supervisors and employees could engage in more menial tasks like making coffee for clients, and both could have regular duties that were somewhat interchangeable between the two groups.

Lionel Laroche and Caroline Yang's most recent book, Danger and Opportunity: Bridging cultural diversity for competitive advantage, gives an example of what it looks like when hierarchical and egalitarian cultural expectations collide. A pharmacist from the Middle East had an intercultural "aha" moment after observing a Canadian colleague throwing crumpled papers into a full waste basket where they continued to bounce out. After missing the bin, the Canadian pharmacist got up twice and placed the paper in the waste basket.

The reason this was so significant for the Middle Eastern pharmacist was that in his country, he would never have gotten up to deal with the missed paper ball. He would have snapped his fingers to bring one of his lower status employees to ask him what he needed. At that point, he would have instructed his low status employee to empty the garbage bin. When the Middle Eastern pharmacist saw that in Canada this did not happen, he realized there were cultural differences between the two countries even though he did not yet know what they were or how to explain them.

(In my office culture, anyone who sees a full garbage can empties it: egalitarian. Everyone in the building follows this unwritten expectation except one of the building owners who is from a hierarchical culture. He remarked to me one day that there wasn't much garbage in our office because the bins were always empty. When I told him it was because we all empty the bins when they are half full he said, "Good. Keep it up.")

Possible solutions

Just noticing that a misunderstanding could be related to hierarchy can help both parties be more aware of their own reactions, pay attention to the reactions of others, and seek a clarifying question to solve the misunderstanding.

Some examples of clarifying questions are:

"Can you let me know what I did that seems to be bothering you and what I can do differently?"

Questions like this can diffuse anger and tension and help both communicating parties to focus on what they can do differently.

Basically, to begin improving workplace cross-cultural communications, we have to start paying attention to cultural clues and asking positive, open-ended questions to find out where the disconnect took place so we can fix it. Remember that questions that lead to clarification of assumptions are:

Finding out where people are "coming from" and where you can go next is much more productive than focusing on hurt feelings that assume bad intent. To promote understanding and workplace harmony in your diverse team, give the clarifying questions strategy a try and see what happens!

Want to stay in the loop with culture and work? Join our LinkedIn network group Canadian Workplace Culture.

Interested in learning more about our online Work and Culture program? Check out the website: http://workandculture.com

People who liked this post also liked:

Marie Gervais, PhD, CEO, Shift Management is a business-to-business entrepreneur who specializes in helping employers train their middle management to lead, get their workplace learning online and interactive, and conduct team assessments to figure out who to promote and how. She has a background in integrating internationally-trained individuals to the workplace and has supported many businesses in their efforts to hire, retain, support and promote immigrant and diverse employees.
Get in touch - she would love to hear from you: marie@shiftworkplace.com or 780-454-5661

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Just being aware that a misunderstanding in your diverse team could be related to hierarchy can help communicators be more aware of their own reactions, pay attention to the reactions of others and seek a clarifying question to solve the communication misunderstanding.

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The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) developed by Cameron and Quinn is a method to assess organizational culture.

Substantial research was involved in developing the OCAI. Professors Cameron and Quinn developed the model of the Competing Values Framework which consists of four Competing Values that correspond with four types of organizational culture.
Every organization has its own combination of these four types of organizational cultures.
This mix is found by the completion of a short survey. This assessment is a valid approach to looking at organizational culture and the wish for change. The OCAI is currently used by over 12,000 companies worldwide.

OCAI questionnaire

The test taker must split 100 points over a total of four descriptions that matches the four culture types, according to the present organization. This method determines the blend of the four culture types that dominate the current organizational or team culture.
By answering the questionnaire a second time, this time dividing 100 points according to what the respondent would like to see in the organization, the preferredorganizational culture and the desire for change can be calculated.

Test takers assess six key characteristics of their corporate culture:

dominant characteristics

organizational leadership

management of employees

organization glue

strategic emphases

criteria of success

By averaging all individual OCAI scores, you can work out a combined organization profile. In smaller teams, it's also possible to use all the distinct individual profiles and talk about them.

A culture profile illustrates the following:

1. The dominant culture

2. The strength of the dominant culture (the amount of points given)

3. Discrepancy between present and preferred culture

4. The congruency of the six features. Cultural incongruence frequently leads to a desire to change, because different values and goals can take a lot of time and debate

5. Evaluation of the culture profile with the average for the sector

6. Comparison with average tendencies; in what phase of development is the organization?

The outcome

From Quinn and Cameron's extensive study, it was found that most organizations have developed a leading culture style. An organization rarely has only one culture type. Time and again, there is a mix of the four organizational cultures.
The Competing Values Framework states that the values and the corresponding organizational cultures compete with each other. Organizations can spend their money, attention, and time only once, so they tend to emphasize particular values.
Quinn and Cameron found that flexible organizations are the most successful, which sometimes leads to conflicting behavior. The "best" organizations can address the competition within this framework well and use all four value sets when needed.
A culture type performs best in the activities domain that aligns with that specific culture type. In the healthcare sector, for example, we discovered a lot of clan culture. This type genuinely fits in with the profession of looking after people. There is no final "best" organizational culture. Only in a particular circumstance will one class of culture serve better than another.

The Competing Values Framework

From a list of thirty-nine indicators of effectiveness for organizations, two vital dimensions were discovered by statistical analysis.
Cameron and Quinn made four quadrants corresponding with the four organizational cultures that differ deeply on these two dimensions:

Internal focus and integration vs. External focus and differentiation

Stability and control vs. Flexibility and discretion

To the left in the graph, the organization is internally centered (what is important for us, and how do we want to work?), and to the right, the organization is externally focused (what is valuable for the outside world, the clients, and the market?).
At the top of the graph, the organization desires flexibility and discretion, while at the bottom the organization values the opposite: stability and control.

The Four Culture Types

Why do organizations and teams make use of the OCAI?
The online culture assessment will supply you with the following:

Insight into the dominant culture of your organization

Insight into how market focused, hierarchic, personal and/or innovative your organization performs

A measure of satisfaction by assessing the discrepancy between current and preferred culture

A quick and straightforward point of comparison before and after restructuring, change, or merger

A clear feeling of the preferred culture as a preliminary point for a strategy of change

An awareness of culture as an important factor in success

An objective and validated measure of how culture is recognized, which is a starting point for change

Research shows that organizational culture is "the difference that makes the difference"-it is the reason why 70 percent of all mergers and reorganizations fail. The powerful cultural factor is really not as "undefined" as prejudice would have it. Culture is ordinarily experienced as obvious: people are not noticing. That's why a description of it is not so straightforward while changing culture is even harder.
The power of the OCAI assessment is in the classification of your culture so that you can begin to see and explain it. It is the first step. OCAI offers you some grip to actually start changing; what course are we taking? With the OCAI Work Kit that OCAI Online offers you, you also have a step-by-step manual to fully make use of this system.

Use the OCAI method with its clear benefits for analyzing and changing the culture:

1. It is valid: not only do people recognize their outcomes, but the OCAI is also validated and has a verified basis.

2. It's quantitative: providing a measurement from the test, completed by qualitative information during the process of discussing and working with the results to determine the desired changes.

3. It's involving: either by including all personnel or those who give direction and conduct change.

4. It's focused: it measures the six key dimensions that make a difference in success.

5. It's timely: both assessing and developing a change strategy can be accomplished in a sensible period.

6. It's manageable: it can be undertaken and implemented by a (management) team; no outside experts or consultants are required.

If you want to learn how to work with culture and the OCAI culture assessment to help your organization change successfully, check out the eBook "How to guide Positive Change with Culture and Positive Leadership".

For more blog posts and applications of the OCAI, please check the official OCAI Blog.

By the way, I also have an OCAI video training for those who prefer watching above reading. You can enroll today 🙂

Copyright Marcella Bremer. All rights reserved.

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The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) developed by Cameron and Quinn is a method to assess organizational culture. Substantial research was involved in developing the OCAI. Professors Cameron and Quinn developed the model of the Competing Values Framework which consists of four Competing Values that correspond with four types of organizational culture.

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Affects on diversity are interesting

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The Disadvantages of Clan Culture in Business

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In their 1999 book, "Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture," Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn listed four basic types of business cultures: the Hierarchy, the Market, the Adhocracy, ...

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Interesting article about the importance of storytelling

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A while back, a colleague asked me why leadership storytelling is important. I came up with the following list:

Storytelling is a key leadership technique because it's quick, powerful, free, natural, refreshing, energizing, collaborative, persuasive, holistic, entertaining, moving, memorable and authentic. Stories help us make sense of organizations.

Storytelling is more than an essential set of tools to get things done: it's a way for leaders - wherever they may sit - to embody the change they seek. Rather than merely advocating and counter-advocating propositional arguments, which lead to more arguments, leaders establish credibility and authenticity through telling the stories that they are living. When they believe deeply in them, their stories resonate, generating creativity, interaction and transformation.

Storytelling is often the best way for leaders to communicate with people they are leading. Why? It is inherently well adapted to handling the most intractable leadership challenges of today - sparking change, communicating who you are, enhancing the brand, transmitting values, creating high-performance teams, sharing knowledge, taming the grapevine, leading people in to the future.

Storytelling translates dry and abstract numbers into compelling pictures of a leader's goals. Although good business cases are developed through the use of numbers, they are typically approved on the basis of a story-that is, a narrative that links a set of events in some kind of causal sequence.

Storytelling is a crucial tool for management and leadership, because often, nothing else works. Charts leave listeners bemused. Prose remains unread. Dialogue is just too laborious and slow. Time after time, when faced with the task of persuading a group of managers or front-line staff in a large organization to get enthusiastic about a major change, storytelling is the only thing that works.

Storytelling can inspire people to act in unfamiliar, and often unwelcome, ways. Mind-numbing cascades of numbers or daze-inducing PowerPoint slides won't achieve this goal. Even logical arguments for making the needed changes usually won't do the trick. But effective storytelling often does.

Storytelling works better than the "Just tell 'em" approach in most leadership situations. Management fads may come and go, but storytelling is a phenomenon that is fundamental to all nations, societies and cultures, and has been so since time immemorial.

Narrative is the instrument of continuing creativity, a power that inexorably propels us forward into the future, the unknown, building new worlds and structures.

Storytelling is part of the creative struggle to generate a new future, as opposed to conventional management approaches that search for virtual certainties anchored in the illusive security of yesterday.

Narrative can help transform even gargantuan organizations through the unanticipated power of the imagination. It has the capacity to change tangible, hard realities through no more than airy nothings, mere gauzy thoughts.

Narrative champions freedom, interaction, and organic growth. It operates beyond the scope of simple, linear logic. It is as interested in the unknown as in the known.

Narrative is a key tool for leadership, because it helps us deal with organizations as living organisms that need to be tended, nurtured and encouraged to grow. It thrives on inspiration rather than administration, fostering change rather than stasis.

Storytelling liberates innovation, by generating the energy needed to change.

Narrative helps us make sense of a world that is rapidly mutating, as compared to conventional management, which is more suited to a activities that are stable, linear and predictable.

Narrative is interested in the next generation of change, not just an extrapolation of the present. It copes with swirling, new, emergent phenomena and phase changes that by definition escape the predictable frame of yesterday's conceptions.

Narrative helps us cope with a future that is evolving unpredictably. Conventional management techniques miss the fact that we cannot measure tomorrow when we don't know what it will involve.

Narrative is the natural instrument of change, because it draws on the active, living participation of individuals. It dwells in the experience of the people who act, think, talk, discuss, chat, joke, complain, dream, agonize and exult together, and collectively make up the organization. By contrast, conventional management focuses on lifeless elements - mission statements, formal strategies, programs, procedures, processes, systems, budgets, assets - the dead artifacts of the organization.

Narrative is a tool that gives privileged access to the living part of an organization, and so can be used to elicit decisions to create organizational artifacts and generate support for them.

Narrative is a tool for the instigators of change, who aim at continuing transformation and the creation of a fruitful tomorrow. Those whose goal is merely that of control will find that storytelling is not a very useful or important tool. For them, the important thing is accommodation to the preoccupations of a well-behaved yesterday.

Storytelling is more than just a tool. It is beyond any implement-almost a requirement of being alive. Insofar as it has anything to offer, it generates fresh depth and breadth of perception. It enables us to surmount a humdrum world where everything makes sense and is logical, and get to that realm where deeper meaning is revealed.

When we hear a story that touches us profoundly, our lives are suffused with meaning. As listeners, we have transmitted to us that which matters. Once we make this connection, once a sense of wonder has come upon us, it does not last long, and we inevitably fall back into our daze of everyday living, but with the difference that a radical shift in understanding may have taken place.

A story is something that comes from outside. But the meaning is something that emerges from within. When a story reaches our hearts with deep meaning, it takes hold of us. Once it does so, we can let it go, and yet it remains with us. We do not weary of this experience.

Once we have had one story, we are already hungry for another. We want more, in case it too can transmit the magic of connectedness between the self and the universe.

Through narrative, we can let go the urge to control, and the fear that goes with it, learning that the world has the capacity to organize itself, recognizing that managing includes catalyzing this capacity, as well as sparking, creating, energizing, unifying, generating emergent truths, celebrating the complexity, the fuzziness and the messiness of living.

To learn more about leadership storytelling, read the second edition of my book, The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art & Discipline of Business Narrative , which was published in March 2011.

______________________

Steve Denning's most recent book is a companion guide to management: The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace For the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2010).

Follow Steve Denning on Twitter @stevedenning

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Why Leadership Storytelling Is Important

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A while back, a colleague asked me why leadership storytelling is important. I came up with the following list: Storytelling is a key leadership technique because it's quick, powerful, free, natural, refreshing, energizing, collaborative, persuasive, holistic, entertaining, moving, memorable and authentic. Stories help us make sense of organizations.

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카지노사이트 TOP12 리뷰 - 온라인 카지노 이용하기 2024

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온라인으로 즐기는 카지노 게임을 즐길 수 있는 사이트 12곳의 목록과 리뷰를 확인해 보세요! 시간과 장소 제약 없이 접속해 언제든 흥미로운 온라인 카지노 게임을 즐길 수 있습니다!

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talks about the functionality of cross functional team

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When I was in the midst of researching what caused cross-functional teams to succeed - and finding that many of them failed - I discovered a deeply dysfunctional development project in a huge multinational IT company. The company had invested $100 million in the project, which involved three divisions. Most of the team, and even some executives, knew the project was a dead-end two years before the company finally pulled the plug. As one middle manager told me, "No one was willing to go to management and say, 'Let's redeploy everyone, including myself, and do something else because this project isn't working.'"

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75% of Cross-Functional Teams Are Dysfunctional

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Research shows that fixing them requires strong governance.

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Interesting article about self managed teams and being the future

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A recent Harvard Business Journal article was titled, "Are We Ready for Self-Management?" as if this is a new, experimental thing. The fact is that many large, highly successful companies like W. L. Gore, Semco, Barry Wehmiller and countless others have been structured this way for up to fifty years.

Command and control freaks still talk as if this is some kind of fringe thing. But self-managed teams are time-tested, proven and here to stay, and a tidal wave of companies are moving in that direction, because the data on why you should do it is irrefutable.
It's Not The Team, It's Ownership
The magic isn't in the concept, but in the principle behind it--ownership stemming from the power to make decisions. When people are encouraged to bring the whole, creative, messy person to work, and make important decisions, they take ownership in ways they never would before. That's important, because ownership is the most powerful motivator in business. A business that motivates everyone to take ownership has found the holy grail.
Responsibility, Not Tasks
The archaic Industrial Age system employed by most companies today would have you believe that a single manager is better at making decisions than the ten people who work under them. But in the emerging work world of the Participation Age, a company believes that the ten people most affected by the decision will be better at making it.

The result of both mindsets are revealing. The Industrial Age manager takes the responsibility to make the decisions, and then doles out tasks for the team to complete. But the Participation Age company delegates responsibility to the team, for them to make those decisions. When you assign tasks ("put this nut on that bolt"), people feel used, but when you delegate decision-making responsibility ("make a great washing machine"), people take ownership.

Of course this only works if you believe that one manager is not smarter than ten people who are closer to the problem. As Janice Klein of MIT found, a few companies attempted a form of this in the 1980s, but didn't dismantle the management structure that would have reduced their command and control. It's not a management tactic as they discovered, but a culture shift. If you're not totally convinced, don't attempt self-managed teams. You'll just get hives and make a mess of the whole thing.
More of Everything
Many companies have benefited for decades from giving people back their brains. These companies grow faster, are more productive and more profitable, have lower turnover, and have increased longevity. As more and more owners and investors see the numbers, they will demand that their companies move in this direction.
It's Simple, Just Not Easy
Are you motivated to enter the Participation Age with self-managed teams? It won't happen overnight. A century of "bosses" have taught people they are not quite as smart and motivated as managers. You have to reverse that notion, and it will take time for people to trust you really are doing it. Here's how:

1) Form a team around an objective (i.e. 4-12 people)

2) have them FIRST clearly define the desired result,

3) then the process(es) needed to get that result.

4) Then THEY set metrics for steps in the process and

5) for pay based on the result desired (quality, quantity, speed, etc.,)

6) finally THEY decide what happens if the metrics aren't met and how to move team members along if they are not contributing appropriately.

7) Leadership approves.

8) Run it.
Safeguarding Your Future
In the Participation Age, people don't want jobs that just pay the bills, they want work that allows them to be fully human, make decisions and own their stuff. As more companies leave the Industrial Age management structures behind and invite people to decide, they are more likely to retain the great people they have. Giving people their brains back is becoming a necessity for keeping them. Self-managed teams is one great way to do that.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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Why Self-Managed Teams Are the Future of Business

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A recent Harvard Business Journal article was titled, "Are We Ready for Self-Management?" as if this is a new, experimental thing. The fact is that many large, highly successful companies like W. L. Gore, Semco, Barry Wehmiller and countless others have been structured this way for up to fifty years.

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How to use in a classroom setting

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"A learning environment will happen, whether intentional or not...so why not go about building a positive environment, intentionally." - Rod Locero
Why Sociograms Are Valuable in Education

Research on social emotional learning suggests that students' ability to learn is inextricably linked to the classroom environment. In order to feel comfortable trying new things and mastering new skills, kids must first feel safe and supported. A healthy classroom environment isn't a neat bonus for kids. It's essential for learning to occur.

So how can teachers nurture a healthy classroom environment?

In addition to observation and practical knowledge, formal data collection on classroom relationships can be instrumental in helping teachers create this positive classroom culture. Sociograms are one tool that can help teachers get valuable data about the class's social relationships.

How to Create a Sociogram in a Classroom

To construct a class sociogram, ask each pupil to confidentially list two students to work with on an activity. The topic does not matter. In most cases, the social relationships will be relatively constant regardless of the activity. Make sure they put their own name on the top of the paper.

Write up this data as a chart. Different-sized circles, as in the diagram, give visual impact to these relationships and make it easy to discern the various degrees of popularity. This can be done either on a computer, or by hand tracing. Arrows indicate who is choosing whom.

How to Use a Sociogram to Improve Learning

Here are three patterns to look for when breaking down a class sociogram:

Isolates - One of the alerts a teacher gets from this is that there are both boys and girls - the isolates - who no one has chosen or who have only been chosen by another isolate. While it is wise to have a certain degree of philosophical skepticism in making initial assumptions about isolates, they are a cause for concern. You want to make sure they feel connected and supported in the classroom.

Gender - Another alert is the clear division between the boys and the girls. This may or may not be a cause for concern, but regardless, it's valuable data.

Groups - There are several quite tight groups which may well merit some degree of skepticism. Are these groups "cliques" that exclude others?

If nothing else, the sociogram can be used as a guide for further, more focused, observation.

Beyond the Sociogram- Creating a Positive Environment

The social side of the classroom is perhaps equally important as, and inseparable from, the academic side. The school is the sea. The students are the fish. Only when the sea is healthy and at the right temperature can the fish thrive. Sociograms won't necessarily give the teacher the answers to classroom social problems, but they can serve as a guide and a useful tool. They can help focus our awareness on students who may not feel connected and need extra attention. It's simply another useful tool for teachers to use as they try to set up a supportive learning environment for every student.

Six Seconds is home to a treasure trove of resources for educators interested in social emotional learning. Check out the following links for education articles, social emotional learning lessons, and more.
Sample social emotional learning lessons
Six Seconds' EQ Tools for Education course

Or simply become part of the network of EQ change makers

Join the network today!

Alan Cooper BEd. BA. Dip Tchg. ANZIM, is a former teacher and principal, now education consultant specializing in Thinking Skills, Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences, Habits of Mind, Emotional Learning, Professional Development Portfolios, Organisational Culture. He is based in New Zealand.

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Sociograms - Mapping the Emotional Dynamics of a Classroom * Six Seconds

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"A learning environment will happen, whether intentional or not...so why not go about building a positive environment, intentionally." - Rod Locero Research on social emotional learning suggests that students' ability to learn is inextricably linked to the classroom environment. In order to feel comfortable trying new things and mastering new skills, kids must first feel safe and supported.

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Always looking for ideas or thoughts regarding rewarding

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Before I delve into today's topic, let me share an exciting announcement.

Last week Lithium launched the first feature of our Premium Gamification products. The Badging feature is just the first of many more that we plan to add to our already robust gamification engine. I'm excited to see more of my gamification theory and work being productized in the near future! Don't' forget to let me know your comments on the new badging features.

OK back to lifting the fog! Last time I discussed motivation and the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Now we can go one step further to talk about rewards and the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Although motivation and rewards are both very critical to the design and implementation of gamification strategies, few gamification practitioners can articulate the subtle differences between intrinsic motivations vs. intrinsic rewards. Some even treat these distinctive concepts synonymously, which is ridiculously wrong.

Since this post builds on the concepts introduced in my last post, if you haven't read it yet, please take a few minutes to do so. It is critical to understand the fundamental concepts around motivation before jumping into today's discussion. Review it here: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation.
Rewards vs. Motivation
As you may recall, motivation is the reason that drives someone to do something (i.e. a behavior or an activity). Reward is a completely different animal. It is what you get for doing something rather than the reason for doing it in the first place. A simplistic way to look at the difference between motivation and reward is that motivations generally come before the behavior, but rewards come after the behavior.

So what is the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards?
Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Rewards
An intrinsic reward is an intangible award of recognition, a sense of achievement, or a conscious satisfaction. For example, it is the knowledge that you did something right, or you helped someone and made their day better. Because intrinsic rewards are intangible, they usually arise from within the person who is doing the activity or behavior. So "intrinsic" in this case means the reward is intrinsic to the person doing the activity or behavior.

An extrinsic reward is an award that is tangible or physically given to you for accomplishing something. It is a tangible recognition of ones endeavor. For example, it's a certificate of accomplishment, a trophy or medal for winning the race, a badge or points for doing something right, or even a monetary reward for doing your job. Because extrinsic rewards are tangible, they are usually given to the person doing the activity; as such, they are typically not from within the person. Therefore, extrinsic rewards means the reward is extrinsic to the performer of the activity or behavior.

Here is an important distinction that I like to emphasize. When talking about rewards, intrinsic rewards are those that originate from within the person, and extrinsic rewards are those that originate from something beyond the person.

However-as you might recall the previous post-when talking about motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic has nothing to do with whether the motivation originates from within the person or outside the person. Instead, it means whether the motivation is intrinsic to the activity or not.
Why People are Confused about Reward vs Motivation
Here is the tricky part, so stay with me. Some people may be driven by rewards. So rewards can sometimes be the reason that drives people to do things. Thus the rewards we get, can sometimes be the motivation. However, people do thing for many reasons beyond the rewards, so there are many motivations that are not rewards.

Since rewards can sometimes be a motivation, is it an intrinsic motivation or extrinsic? This is an important question and one that has confused many in the gamification industry. You see, I said it was tricky!

It's not difficult to see that doing something for the rewards is just the opposite-at least in spirit-of doing something simply for the love of doing it (i.e. intrinsic motivation). So when an activity or behavior is motivated by rewards, it is always extrinsically motivated. In other words, when rewards become the reason that drives someone to do some activity or behavior, they won't be doing it purely for its own sake anymore. Therefore all rewards-both intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards-are by definition extrinsic motivations (i.e. extrinsic to the activity or behavior).
Conclusion
Just because we happen to use the same set of words (i.e. "intrinsic" and "extrinsic") to describe two different concepts (i.e. rewards and motivation), it doesn't mean those words mean the same thing. This is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that human language is simply not precise enough compared to mathematics and computer science. This is compounded by the fact that academic research tends to be very narrowly focused, and disparate disciplines often do not have enough communication with each other.

When speaking about motivation, the terms " intrinsic" or " extrinsic " means intrinsic/extrinsic with respect to the behavior-whether or not the reason for doing something is simply the love of doing that very thing. But when speaking about rewards, these same terms mean intrinsic/extrinsic with respect to the person-whether or not the reward originates from within the person doing the activity.

Next time you talk to a person or company claiming to be experts in gamification, ask them about the difference between intrinsic/extrinsic rewards vs. intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. I guarantee you will be able to spot the fakes from the professionals.

I hope the last two posts have removed some of the confusion/fog on this topic. Please let me know your comments or any other clarifications you would like.
Related Blogs
Michael Wu, Ph.D. is Lithium's Chief Scientist. His research includes: deriving insights from big data, understanding the behavioral economics of gamification, engaging + finding true social media influencers, developing predictive + actionable social analytics algorithms, social CRM, and using cyber anthropology + social network analysis to unravel the collective dynamics of communities + social networks.

Michael was voted a 2010 Influential Leader by CRM Magazine for his work on predictive social analytics + its application to Social CRM. He's a blogger on Lithosphere, and you can follow him @mich8elwu or Google+.

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Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Rewards (and Their Differences from Motivations)

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Before I delve into today's topic, let me share an exciting announcement. ﻿Last week Lithium launched the first feature of our Premium Gamification products. The Badging feature is just the first of many more that we plan to add to our already robust gamification engine. I'm excited to see more of...

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more details about the theory

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ERG motivation theory Alderfer | Employee motivation theories | YourCoach Gent

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Clayton P. Alderfer's ERG theory from 1969 condenses Maslow's five human needs into three categories: Existence, Relatedness and Growth. Even though the priority of these needs differ from person to person, Alberger's ERG theory prioritises in terms of the categories' concreteness.

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Diagram

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Porter and Lawler Model, Relevance, Expectancy Theory, Motivation

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Interview techniques

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Expectancy theory can be observed in virtually all aspects of the employment relationship. Expectancy theory describes an employee's tendency to perform his job tasks at a level that's equal to the ...

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Video

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Good Pros and cons

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Technical Details

Name(s): Fiedler's contingency theory
Author: Fred Fiedler
Classification: Contingency Theories
Year: 1958 in his work Leader Attitudes and Group Effectiveness

Pro's

The theory is extremely well researched, given the stated parameters.

For a "thumb-in-the-wind" approach to identifying leaders, Fiedler's contingency theory can assist enormously:

Leaders with good personal relations are matched to a poorly structured task environment.

For leaders who are impersonal, they are placed in well task structured environment.

Because this is a contingency theory, it is inherently more flexible than a "one takes all" theory.

Con's

LPC scale is subjective, and characteristics are relative in contexts.

Even according to Fiedler, the LPC score is valid only for groups that are closely supervised and does not apply to "open ones" such as teams.

It is questionable whether Fiedler's contingency theory is valid in all situations, such as when neither the task is well defined and no choice of leaders is to be had, except ones with bad personalities.

Overview

Fiedler's contingency theory is one of the contingency theories that states that effective leadership depends not only on the style of leading but on the control over a situation. There needs to be good leader-member relations, task with clear goals and procedures, and the ability for the leader to mete out rewards and punishments. Lacking these three in the right combination and context will result in leadership failure. Fiedler created the least preferred co-worker (LPC) scale, where a leader is asked what traits can be ascribed to the co-worker that the leader likes the least. As an example [1]:

Discussion

Fiedler's contingency theory is a qualification or type of contingency theory. Contingency theories in general state that the effectiveness of leadership depends upon the situation, and there are numerous factors, such as the nature of the task, leader's personality, and make-up of the group being led. For a more comprehensive discussion of contingency theories in general, see Contingency Theories.

To provide meaning to Fiedler's contingency theory it is necessary to focus on at least one aspect of the leader-led situation, although such a focus only highlights an issue, rather than giving a complete description of the situation.

Fiedler's contingency theory emphasized the leader's personality, or psychological disposition, is a main variable in her/his ability to lead, and said that how the group receives the leader, the task involved, and whether the leader can actually exert control over the group are the three principle factors that determine how successful the leader-led arrangement will be. Thus, the values from the least preferred co-worker (LPC) are added and then averaged to produce the score. A high LPC score, as can be seen from the example, exhibits a positive orientation towards human relations. S/he gets along with people. The nature of the task is less important and issues in doing it may be compensated for with good human relations. When the environment is such that each group member is independent, such as in a scientific setting, tasks may not be all that well defined, and a leader must rely more on her or his personality to accomplish goals.

On the contrary side, the low LPC score, the respondent relies on the nature of the task to drive leadership. The task has to be well defined or manageable, or the leader will be in trouble. In natural disasters or survival situations, tasks are not always well defined or prioritized well. Human relations are vital. A classic scenario is depicted in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, where kids are stranded on a deserted tropical island and ultimately fall into fighting with each other. While they are youth, they exhibit many basic human qualities that emerge under duress. Situations, where tasks are structured such as in most blue collar environments or the military, a personable leader isn't as much of a required. Orders come to "do it, or else", and while cultivating a following based on personality never hurts, it is not a requisite, except when authority becomes overbearing, such as in tyrannical situations.

Leaders who have a low LPC scoring (task-oriented) are effective, regardless of whether the factors are highly favorable or not. Also, they will act in a more assertive manner. With high LPC scores (relations-oriented) are more effective when the three factors are middle-of-the-road. Fiedler claimed that the LPC scores could be used to identify the appropriate leader for a situation. If a leader is able to control the tasks to be done, leader-led situations, and have power, the leader can create a favorable leadership environment.

Critique

The vagueness of the parameters in the LPC scale makes them open to interpretation and they are context-free. For example, "supportive" could mean anything. Giving criticism can be supportive, but in whose eyes? A leader who is egotistical may not see any criticism as supportive. As with any surveys, one must ask how dynamic are they? Personalities and judgments of them change over time and with circumstances. Survey research is notoriously inaccurate, as Gabriel Almond found four decades ago [2], and modern survey techniques are very sophisticated, albeit fraught with problems. The proof of a theory is its ability to predict, but if the terms are vague enough, just about any prediction will do. As somewhat of a sidebar, controversies about "prophets" such as Nostradamus abound, but the fact is that his predictions were so general that many could be deemed accurate. Horoscopes are beset with the same difficulties, as the traits are so general that just about anyone would qualify as having those about any day and in the right circumstances - which also are usually described in vague terms.

Future of theory

The LPC model appears very much like a Bayesian weighting scheme that might be integrated into a social networking model to test organizational integrity. However, the parameters would need to be quantified, and a research instrument tested. The ways in which such models can emerge is suggested by the diagrams of those giving their renditions of Fiedler's contingency theory and applications.

As with any theory, research awaits concerning how this theory might be compared or integrated with others, such as the Leader-Member Exchange, where a leader maintains leadership through working with her or his supporters. This involves more of an analysis of the particulars of group dynamics. There can be a refinement of the LPC with the Leadership Participation Inventory which identifies characteristics of a leader that followers admire and would cause them to follow.

This discussion would not be complete without a reference to a validation of the personality traits by cognitive neuroscience. We said earlier that refinement of these terms should be done, but their validation via brain scans, while sounding quite futuristic, is not out of the question, given developments in the field. The Trait Theory and Philosophy of Leadership articles entertain this ideas.

Want to expand on the discussion?

We encourage you to expand on the discussion, add to the critique or even share your vision with regards to the future applications of the theory.

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Fiedler's contingency theory is one of the contingency theories that states that effective leadership depends not only on the style of leading but on the control over a situation. There needs to be good leader-member relations, task with clear goals and procedures, and the ability for the leader to mete out rewards and punishments.

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Shows good pros and cons

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Technical Details

Name(s): Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision-making Model of Leadership
Author: Victor Vroom and Philip Yetton, and later, Arthur Jago
Classification: Contingency Theories
Year: Victor Vroom and Philip Yetton in 1973; Arthur Jago added to theory in 1988

Pro's

The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision-making Model of Leadership is highly flexible with respect to the choices a leader can make in effecting decisions. The range is from highly dictatorial to democratic.

The method has a mechanical procedure to arrive at a decision making process.

The idea of a procedure like this can be seen as "objective", that the results were not arrived at by a non-specific method.

Con's

It is questionable whether this model can be used in large groups.

The decision procedure may be too mechanical and note take into account subtleties in decision making, such as changing emotions and, for that matter change, in general.

The questions may not be precise enough and sufficiently contextual, as in "Is the quality of the decision important?" "Important to whom or what and in what time frame" are the questions.

Overview

The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision-making Model of Leadership focuses upon decision making as how successful leadership emerges and progresses. The parameters shaping a decision are quality, commitment of group or organization members, and time restrictions. There are a number of leadership styles ranging from authoritarian to highly participatory. In 1988, Vroom and Jago created a mathematical expert system as a decision-making device in their work Leadership and Decision Making. This addition of Jago renamed the original theory to the theory, with its variants being Vroom-Yetton, Vroom-Jago, and Vroom-Yetton-Jago.

Discussion

The central focus of the Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision-making Model of Leadership is to assess how the nature of the group, leader, and situation determine the degree to which the group is to be included in the decision-making process. This is accomplished by a flowchart-style decision making procedure that arrives at a style of decision-making. These styles are autocratic, consultative, and group. The autocratic essentially is a dictator, taking her or his cue from Transactional Leadership methods, which, in essence say that the leader tells the group, "obey". The consultative approach has the leader going to the group for suggestions on how to carry out tasks. The "group" method of decision making is the most democratic, where the group ultimately makes the decision.

The theory states that there can be many styles of leadership and no one type fits all situations, thus making this a Contingency Theory. A leader sizes up a situation, assesses the situation facing the group, determines how much support the group will give to the effort, and then effect a style of leading. There is a mechanical process to do this involving seven questions and decision points. An interactive version of the model is provided below. I would however caution anyone who uses it to use good judgment with regards to the recommended style to use.

THE VROOM-JETTON-JAGO-DECISION MODEL

From this emerges a decision making style or leadership style, as indicated by the following. A leader asks what decision was made and how it was made, backtracking through the steps in making it and then to the original problem and how to solve it. The following is a standard chart displaying the range of decision-making modes.

Leadership Style

Description

Autocratic (A1)

Using an autocratic style of leadership, the leader will make the decision by himself or herself, using the information readily available.

Autocratic (A2)

Using a less stringent autocratic leadership style, the leader will consult the group members to gain more informations, then will make the decision himself or herself. The final decision may or may not be shared with the group.

Consultative (C1)

Using a consultative leadershi style, the leader will consult individuals to seek their opinion. The leader will make the decision himself or herself.

Consultative (C2)

Using a consultative leadership style, the leader will consult the group to seek individual opinions and suggestions. The leader will make the decision himself or herself.

Collaborative (G2)

Using a collaborative leadership style, the group will make the decision. The leader will play a supportive role to ensure that everyone agrees on the decision.

Critique

The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision-making Model of Leadership is quite mechanical, so mechanical that it may overlook subtleties, such as the psychological make-up of the leader, complexity of tasks, emotions of the group, vagueness of the terms (such as "importance" and "quality"), and dynamics. There is an issue with the validity of the model; it hasn't been tested adequately [1]. The force of decision maker is leader-oriented and there is inadequate attention paid to leader-led interactions. While there is a provision for decision-making ultimately for democratic participation, the emphasis is on decision-making and emanating initially from the leader.

Where is the provision that the group, itself, may want to initiate decision-making? Group dynamics can be quite complicated, and it is not always clear on how decisions should be made or whether one is required. Perhaps only a group interaction is needed.

While the model gives a specified decision-making procedure, there are situations in which there may not be enough time to apply the model, such as in emergencies or where there are other situations that constrain time. Further, not every leader is predisposed or wanting to have a decision-making method thrust upon them. It is true that a well-defined procedure can help and be presented as an objective method, but it may be deemed too mechanical and a "one size fits all" straightjacket.

Future of theory

The latter renditions of the Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision-making Model of Leadership look more towards expert systems methods for applying it. Even newer techniques in artificial intelligence may be considered such as neural networks and fuzzy set theory. It is not inconceivable that there can be a complete automation of the theory. As with other theories validation becomes a concern, and the human behavior components of the theory may be validated by cognitive neuroscience techniques, among the major ones being brain scans.

Want to expand on the discussion?

We encourage you to expand on the discussion, add to the critique or even share your vision with regards to the future applications of the theory.

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The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision-making Model of Leadership focuses upon decision making as how successful leadership emerges and progresses. The parameters shaping a decision are quality, commitment of group or organization members, and time restrictions. There are a number of leadership styles ranging from authoritarian to highly participatory.

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Great video

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The Vroom Yetton Model - A 3-Minute Crash Course

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The Vroom Yetton Model - Master the Basics in 3 Minutes. Join us at http://www.wilymanager.com/vroom-yetton-model/ to watch the full-length video about contingent decision making with the Vroom Yetton Model. Get Instant Access to 200+ management Videos and Cheat Sheets... perfect for busy managers like you!

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Communication skills

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How well a message is communicated is as important as the message itself. When it comes to internal communications, this certainly holds true. Company culture can give your organization a major strategic advantage in these changing times. What your culture consists of - goals, values, and practices - must be effectively transmitted for employees to understand and act upon it. Therefore, it's essential to focus not just on what you're communicating but also how you're communicating it.

Use 2017 to implement new tactics that can improve your internal communications strategy and get your team connected, engaged and motivated. The 17 internal communications best practices below will help you do just that.

1. Envision, strategize & plan first

"Good ideas need good strategy to realize their potential."

- Reid Hoffman, Founder, LinkedIn

What do you want internal communications to do for your team and your company? How will you get there? Where does it stand right now, and what needs improvement? How soon would you like to reach your goals?

Before anything else, use your answers to these types of questions to create an internal communications strategy and/or plan. How you lay it out is up to you - make it as simple or elaborate, general or specific as you'd like. A well-formulated strategy should keep you on track and make you more efficient in reaching internal communications success. At the very least, it will give you an idea of where to start.

2. Use the right tools

"I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other."

- Bill Gates

Your team is busy, so the last thing they need is an internal communications system that's bothersome and full of friction. Fortunately, with the rising focus on internal communications best practices has come numerous software programs that make it simple and painless. Keep it that way to ensure your employees participate and actually enjoy it.

Tools that foster internal communications best practices include:

Implementing company chat software like Slack, Yammer or HipChat

Using cloud technology such as Google Drive whenever possible

Using one platform for all your email, calendars, documents, etc. (e.g. Google, Apple, Microsoft)

Avoiding email overload with visual communications through digital signage

3. Be visual

"Visuals express ideas in a snackable manner."

- Kim Garst, CEO, Boom Social

A commonly cited statistic says 65% of the population are visual learners, so chances are there are many of them in your workplace. When done right, visuals convey information in an easy-to-digest manner and have a more lasting impression than text. Instead of printing posters, we recommend going digital: Mount TVs in your offices and use them to display a rotating selection of visual messaging.

Consider using purpose-built digital signage software - like Enplug - to display various visuals in your office. It can serve a range of purposes, such as:

Informing your team of company announcements, job openings, sales and marketing metrics, etc. or non-company specific information like breaking news and the weather

Inspiring your team by displaying goals, accomplishments or motivational quotes

Entertaining your team with social media feeds, live hashtag walls or team photos

4. Make it entertaining

"Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business, and it has been key to everything I've done from the outset."

- Richard Branson

Gone is the notion that it's called "work" for a reason and it's not supposed to be fun. In fact, a 2013 survey by PGi found that 88% of millennials want to work in a "fun and social work environment." Work can be fun but also productive, and that includes internal communications.

For instance, Enplug has a channel in Slack titled "random" where team members can share wacky news stories, funny YouTube videos and anything else they find amusing. It's a fun way for workers to blow off steam while building a sense of camaraderie.

5. Include metrics whenever possible

"Anything that is measured and watched, improves."

- Bob Parsons, Founder, GoDaddy

Being able to quantify and see how the company is performing can do wonders for your team's work ethic. Metrics should inform employees of the company's current and past performance, trends in performance, goals to reach, and progress made toward those goals. You can use digital signage to display metrics throughout your office. Motivate your team on different levels by showing metrics for the company, different departments or even individuals.

6. Don't lose sight of the big picture

"Appealing to a higher purpose helps everyone coalesce and work better together."

- Fran Maier, Founder, Match.com

Communicating specific, targeted information is fantastic, but it can come at the expense of circulating your company's overarching goals, mission, and other culture components. Be sure to communicate these things in addition to day-to-day matters so employees are always reminded of them. Include them in emails, digital displays or internal newsletters to remind your team of the bigger picture and that they are part of something larger than themselves.

7. Provide channels for feedback and ideas

"Our secret weapon for building the best culture is open & honest feedback. Every team member contributes to our life at HelloSign, every day, so it's crucial for us to know what's working and more importantly, what's not working so we can constantly improve."

- Gina Lau, Team Operations, HelloSign

Did you know that "feedback" is the shortest word in the English language containing the letters a-b-c-d-e-f? Aside from this interesting fact, feedback is vital to any company's survival and success. This includes feedback from customers, of course, but also employee feedback.

What's the value of a thought or idea if it's never expressed? Be sure to provide channels for your team to give feedback and share ideas, whether it's regarding the workplace, the current product, potential future products or the company as a whole. It could be a company forum, a designated channel within your company chat software, a whiteboard in the office or a cloud-based service. Without these channels, brilliant ideas and helpful criticisms can be missed, which no company should afford to lose.

8. Encourage cross-departmental communication and collaboration

"Effective communication is an essential component of professional success whether it is at the interpersonal, inter-group, intra-group, organizational, or external level."

- Mike Myatt, Founder and Chairman, N2Growth

If one of your goals of internal communications is getting your employees to learn from one another, cross-departmental communication is key. Hold a Q&A session or a special meeting between different departments to get them communicating, collaborating and sharing insight. Enplug, for example, holds regular departmental Q&A sessions in which employees can ask questions to a team other than their own. In addition to what is learned, it keeps departments from feeling isolated from one another.

9. Avoid communication overload

"Effective internal communication not only connects people with one another, but also with the right information at the right time."

- Marijn Deurloo, CEO, imgZine

The age of the internet has given us access to more information and instant correspondence than ever before, which can be both a blessing and a curse. With internal communications, think less is more. Keep things simple, brief and to the point. Consider sending out your internal newsletter less frequently or showing fewer metrics. Focus on sending the right information to the right people at the right time. Your team will thank you.

10. Don't just inform - inspire action

"Companies who want to remain competitive and successful need to ensure they involve, motivate and inspire colleagues."

- Viktoria Tegard, Head of Internal Communications, Virgin Atlantic Airways

It's necessary to inform your team first and foremost, but your internal communications practices should ultimately lead to action. As Viktoria Tegard of Virgin Atlantic alludes to in the quote above, internal communications should involve, motivate and inspire your team to go above and beyond.

You can do so by:

Including calls-to-action in messages

Sharing motivational quotes, your company's mission and goals, etc.

Offering to reward individuals or teams for certain accomplishments

11. Open the lines of communication

"Communication can't always follow the top-down model. With the fluidity of information in business today, leaders need to be masterful listeners; they need to be able to receive as well as send."

- Joseph Badaracco, Professor of Business Ethics, Harvard Business School

Having an "open door policy" is not limited to the physical space. It should be easy for anyone to contact anyone in the company, including upper management, through your internal communications system. By opening the lines of communication in this way, team members will feel welcome to talk with each other rather than intimidated. Whether you're a large corporation or a startup, this internal communications practice bridges gaps and helps build receptive, honest relationships between employees.

12. Maintain transparency

"Transparency starts as a mindset change."

- Kevan Lee, Content Crafter, Buffer

Like Kevan Lee at Buffer states above, transparency is more than just a policy, it's a mindset. Transparency is crucial to your internal communications because it breeds trust, accountability, and open dialogue. If your team feels as though they're being left in the dark on certain matters, they may be afraid to ask questions and share their thoughts on those matters. Not all information can be made available to everyone, of course, but maintaining at least some transparency can have tremendous effects on the harmony and rapport within your company.

13. Encourage company-related use of social media

"Not using social media in the workplace, in fact, is starting to make about as much sense as not using the phone or email."

- Ryan Holmes, Founder and CEO, Hootsuite

We know what you may be thinking: "Social media has no place in the workplace." However, what if we told you it should actually be encouraged in some ways? Have your team share photos of themselves working and having fun in the office on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., and tag the official company page. Not only is it great for employee engagement and morale, but also for company exposure and putting a face on who you are and what you do.

14. Share industry news, trends, and insights

"If you don't give people information, they'll make up something to fill the void."

- Carla O'Dell, CEO, American Productivity and Quality Center

Your team is not just part of a company, they're part of an industry. All team members should stay updated on the latest industry scoop, from your CEO to your web designer. Encourage them to share news, market trends, opinion pieces and other industry-related blurbs with one another. Similar to #6, you want your team to feel as though they're contributing to something bigger than themselves and that they're agents of change, which are powerful motivators.

15. Use internal communications to recognize and praise success

"Recognition is not a scarce resource. You can't use it up or run out of it."

- Susan M. Heathfield, HR Expert, About.com

The slightest amount of praise can go a long way, especially in an age when employees want to feel valued and appreciated. A 2012 survey by the American Psychological Association found that employees who feel valued report "higher levels of engagement, satisfaction, and motivation," so it's definitely something worth investing in. It can be as simple as announcing individual or departmental successes through your chat software, internal newsletter or other channels. This best practice is beneficial not just for employee morale but also for your company's productivity and growth.

16. Create a customer-centric team with personas

"The best way to help team members focus on customers? Bring customers to life."

- Alison Davis, CEO & Founder, Davis & Company

Alison suggests using internal communications to align your employees with customers. Create "profiles of typical customers, complete with photos, demographics, likes, and dislikes-including what TV shows they watch (Walking Dead or Downton Abbey?) and snacks they prefer (edamame or beef jerky?). That way, customers become vivid, tangible and top of mind." Share these personas frequently with your team - in conversations, newsletters, or even using digital signage in your offices.

17. Promote employee resources and training

"Employees want to know their company is as invested in their personal and professional development as they are. Communicate which resources your company provides so employees don't miss out on fantastic opportunities."

-Belén Alemán, Learning & Development Program Manager, Meltwater San Francisco

Your internal communications should consistently relay which benefits and resources are available to employees. This could involve everything from basic health insurance and 401K plans to company-sponsored seminars, off-site training opportunities, and career-building workshops. Use a combination of email, chat, digital signage, internal blogs, or in-person team meetings to get the word out. By encouraging employees to invest in their own personal and professional development through your company, everyone benefits in the long run.

Enplug's modern, simple digital signage software turns any screen in your offices into an interactive communications tool with announcements and employee recognition, social media and news feeds, dashboards, conference room calendars, motivational posters, and more. Request a demo to get started!

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17 Internal Communications Best Practices for 2017

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How well a message is communicated is as important as the message itself. When it comes to internal communications, this certainly holds true. Company culture can give your organization a major strategic advantage in these changing times. What your culture consists of - goals, values, and practices - must be effectively transmitted for employees to understand and act upon it.

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Body language

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A Fun Guide to Nonverbal Communication and Body Language

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Always helpful

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5 Ways to Improve Your Nonverbal Communication/Body Language Skills | Bruno Santilli | Hustle FWD

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Good slide show on how to know the characteristics

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We probably all know people, either at work or in our personal lives, who are really good listeners. No matter what kind of situation we're in, they always seem to know just what to say - and how to say it - so that we're not offended or upset. They're caring and considerate, and even if we don't find a solution to our problem, we usually leave feeling more hopeful and optimistic.

Read on to learn more about Emotional Intelligence.

See the transcript of this video below.
Video Transcript
When you think about an effective leader, what characteristics come to mind? Chances are, you picture someone who listens to their team. They stay cool under pressure, know when to trust their intuition, and they never let their emotions get the best of them. People like this have a high degree of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence - or EI - is the ability to recognize your emotions, understand them, and see how they affect those around you. Having high emotional intelligence also means you understand other people's emotions. This allows you to manage your relationships better, and avoid potential conflicts. There are five elements that define emotional intelligence.

The first is self-awareness. When you're self-aware, you know how you're feeling all of the time, and you understand how those feelings are affecting the people around you.

The second characteristic is self-regulation. This is the ability to control your emotions and actions. You can develop self-regulation by living your values, and by holding yourself accountable when you make a mistake.

The next element of emotional intelligence is motivation. Highly motivated people put off short-term rewards for long-term success.

The fourth element is empathy. This is when you have the ability to identify with other people, and understand their wants, needs and viewpoints.

Finally, having good social skills is also critically important. This helps you work positively with other people, and manage conflict effectively.

Having high emotional intelligence is crucial in today's workplace. If you can build and maintain strong relationships, then you can work happily and productively with the people around you. It's also one of the key attributes of being an effective leader.

We probably also know people who are masters at managing their emotions. They don't get angry in stressful situations. Instead, they have the ability to look at a problem and calmly find a solution. They're excellent decision makers, and they know when to trust their intuition. Regardless of their strengths, however, they're usually willing to look at themselves honestly. They take criticism well, and they know when to use it to improve their performance.

People like this have a high degree of emotional intelligence. They know themselves very well, and they're also able to sense the emotional needs of others.

Would you like to be more like this?

As more and more people accept that emotional intelligence is just as important to professional success as technical ability, organizations are increasingly using it when they hire and promote.

For example, one large cosmetics company recently revised their hiring process for salespeople to choose candidates based on their emotional intelligence. The result? People hired with the new system have sold, on average, $91,000 more than salespeople selected under the old system. There has also been significantly lower staff turnover among the group chosen for their emotional intelligence.

So, what exactly is emotional intelligence, and what can you do to improve yours?

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

We all have different personalities, different wants and needs, and different ways of showing our emotions. Navigating through this all takes tact and cleverness - especially if we hope to succeed in life. This is where emotional intelligence becomes important.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize your emotions, understand what they're telling you, and realize how your emotions affect people around you. It also involves your perception of others: when you understand how they feel, this allows you to manage relationships more effectively.

People with high emotional intelligence are usually successful in most things they do. Why? Because they're the ones that others want on their team. When people with high emotional intelligence send an email, it gets answered. When they need help, they get it. Because they make others feel good, they go through life much more easily than people who are easily angered or upset.

Characteristics of Emotional Intelligence

In his book titled "Emotional Intelligence - Why It Can Matter More Than IQ" 1995, Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist, developed a framework of five elements that define emotional intelligence:

1. Self-Awareness - People with high emotional intelligence are usually very self-aware. They understand their emotions, and because of this, they don't let their feelings rule them. They're confident - because they trust their intuition and don't let their emotions get out of control.

They're also willing to take an honest look at themselves. They know their strengths and weaknesses, and they work on these areas so they can perform better. Many people believe that this self-awareness is the most important part of emotional intelligence.

2. Self-Regulation - This is the ability to control emotions and impulses. People who self-regulate typically don't allow themselves to become too angry or jealous, and they don't make impulsive, careless decisions. They think before they act. Characteristics of self-regulation are thoughtfulness, comfort with change, integrity, and the ability to say no.

3. Motivation - People with a high degree of emotional intelligence are usually motivated. They're willing to defer immediate results for long-term success. They're highly productive, love a challenge, and are very effective in whatever they do.

4. Empathy - This is perhaps the second-most important element of emotional intelligence. Empathy is the ability to identify with and understand the wants, needs, and viewpoints of those around you. People with empathy are good at recognizing the feelings of others, even when those feelings may not be obvious. As a result, empathetic people are usually excellent at managing relationships, listening, and relating to others. They avoid stereotyping and judging too quickly, and they live their lives in a very open, honest way.

5. Social Skills - It's usually easy to talk to and like people with good social skills, another sign of high emotional intelligence. Those with strong social skills are typically team players. Rather than focus on their own success first, they help others develop and shine. They can manage disputes, are excellent communicators, and are masters at building and maintaining relationships.

As you've probably determined, emotional intelligence can be a key to success in your life - especially in your career. The ability to manage people and relationships is very important in all leaders, so developing and using your emotional intelligence can be a good way to show others the leader inside of you.

How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

The good news is that emotional intelligence can be learned and developed. As well as working on your skills in the five areas above, use these strategies:

Observe how you react to people. Do you rush to judgment before you know all of the facts? Do you stereotype? Look honestly at how you think and interact with other people. Try to put yourself in their place, and be more open and accepting of their perspectives and needs.

Look at your work environment. Do you seek attention for your accomplishments? Humility can be a wonderful quality, and it doesn't mean that you're shy or lack self-confidence. When you practice humility, you say that you know what you did, and you can be quietly confident about it. Give others a chance to shine - put the focus on them, and don't worry too much about getting praise for yourself.

Do a self-evaluation. Try out our emotional intelligence quiz. What are your weaknesses? Are you willing to accept that you're not perfect and that you could work on some areas to make yourself a better person? Have the courage to look at yourself honestly - it can change your life.

Examine how you react to stressful situations. Do you become upset every time there's a delay or something doesn't happen the way you want? Do you blame others or become angry at them, even when it's not their fault? The ability to stay calm and in control in difficult situations is highly valued - in the business world and outside it. Keep your emotions under control when things go wrong.

Take responsibility for your actions. If you hurt someone's feelings, apologize directly - don't ignore what you did or avoid the person. People are usually more willing to forgive and forget if you make an honest attempt to make things right.

Examine how your actions will affect others - before you take those actions. If your decision will impact others, put yourself in their place. How will they feel if you do this? Would you want that experience? If you must take the action, how can you help others deal with the effects?

See our article on Emotional Intelligence in Leadership for specific tips related to a leadership role.

Key Points

Although "regular" intelligence is important to success in life, emotional intelligence is key to relating well to others and achieving your goals. Many people believe that it is at least as important as regular intelligence, and many companies now use emotional intelligence testing to hire new staff.

Emotional intelligence is an awareness of your actions and feelings - and how they affect those around you. It also means that you value others, listen to their wants and needs, and are able to empathize or identify with them on many different levels.

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Emotional Intelligence: Developing Strong "People Skills"

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We probably all know people, either at work or in our personal lives, who are really good listeners. No matter what kind of situation we're in, they always seem to know just what to say - and how to say it - so that we're not offended or upset.

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never heard of this but after reading this and the book. It seems it has happened to me.

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Workplace Bullying is repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators. It is abusive conduct that is :

This definition was used in the 2014 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey. Its national prevalence was assessed. Read the Survey results.

Workplace Bullying...

Is driven by perpetrators' need to control the targeted individual(s).

Is initiated by bullies who choose their targets, timing, location, and methods.

Is a set of acts of commission (doing things to others) or omission (withholding resources from others)

Requires consequences for the targeted individual

Escalates to involve others who side with the bully, either voluntarily or through coercion.

Undermines legitimate business interests when bullies' personal agendas take precedence over work itself.

Is akin to domestic violence at work, where the abuser is on the payroll.

Read more about Bullying in comparison to Schoolyard Bullying, Workplace Violence and Incivility.

Synonyms that reflect the seriousness of bullying: Psychological Violence, Psychological Harassment, Personal Harassment, 'Status-Blind' Harassment, Mobbing, Emotional Abuse at Work

Euphemisms intended to trivialize bullying and its impact on bullied people: Incivility, Disrespect, Difficult People, Personality Conflict, Negative Conduct, Ill Treatment

Not calling bullying "bullying," in order to avoid offending the sensibilities of those who made the bullying possible, is a disservice to bullied individuals whose jobs, careers, and health have been threatened as the result. Tom Engelhardt said it wisely when he said, "Words denied mean analyses not offered, things not grasped, surprise not registered, strangeness not taken in, all of which means that terrible mistakes are repeated, wounding ways of acting in the world never seriously reconsidered. The words' absence chains you to the present, to what's accepted and acceptable."

The Relation to Domestic Violence

Being bullied at work most closely resembles the experience of being a battered spouse. The abuser inflicts pain when and where she or he chooses, keeping the target (victim) off balance knowing that violence can happen on a whim, but dangling the hope that safety is possible during a period of peace of unknown duration. The target is kept close to the abuser by the nature of the relationship between them -- husband to wife or boss to subordinate or co-worker to co-worker.

Read more about domestic violence and bullying.

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Definition of Workplace Bullying | Workplace Bullying Institute

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Workplace Bullying is repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators. It is abusive conduct that is : This definition was used in the 2014 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey. Its national prevalence was assessed. Read the Survey results.

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Fun video

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Virtual Businesses are increasingly the rage, with the passage of time, we see how these industries make free financial-mind people provided it is carried out in the right way. We invite you to know us and if you want more information contact the person who shared this video.

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Interesting how the corporation is setup

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Virtual Organizations - strategy, levels, examples, advantages, definition, model, company, hierarchy

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Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd ed. Virtual Organizations: Tr-Z

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Talks about organizational development as a whole and the benefits

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This article describes how behavioral science concepts of team learning form a link between individual learning and total organization development. The link is important because it suggests some answers to a long-standing problem in industry: how to test and demonstrate the large-scale usefulness of human relations research and teaching.

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A good read but long with lots of information.

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Human Resource Forecasting of need for employees

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Human Resource Forecasting of need for employees

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Good slide show about trying to forecast your needs and an inventory of skillsets.

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Hr supply forecasting techniques, introduction to hr supply forecasting and methods,human resource planning

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Something of interest to me right now

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Overlapping responsibility and the responsibility gap

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Overlapping responsibility and the responsibility gap

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Good details about the two topics

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Responsibility is the obligation to perform assigned activities. It is the self assumed commitment to handle a job to the best of one's ability.

The source of responsibility lies within the individual.

A person who accepts a job agrees to carry out a series of duties or activities or to see that someone else carries them out.

The act of accepting the job means that the person is obligated to a superior (relationship management) to see that job activities are successfully completed.

THE JOB DESCRIPTION:

An individual's job activities within an organization are usually summarized in a formal statement called a job description - a list of specific activities that must be performed by whoever holds the position.

Unclear job descriptions Can confuse employees and may cause them to lose interest in their jobs. On the other hand, a clear job description can help employees to become successful by focusing their efforts on the issues that are important for their position.

When properly designed, job descriptions communicate job content to employees, establish performance levels that employees must maintain, and act as a guide that employees should follow to help the organization reach its objectives.

Job activities are delegated by management to enhance the accomplishment of management system objectives.

Management analyzes its objectives and assigns specific duties that will lead to reaching those objectives. A sound organizing strategy delineates specific job activities for every individual in the organization.

The following 3 areas are related to responsibility:

1. Dividing Job Activities

2. Clarifying Job activities of managers

3. Being Responsible

DIVIDING JOB ACTIVITIES:

One person cannot be responsible for performing all of the activities that take place within an organization. Since so many people work in a given management system, organizing necessarily involves dividing job activities among a no. of individuals.

Some method of distributing these job activities is essential.

THE FUNCTIONAL SIMILARITY METHO D:

The functional similarity method is the most basic method of dividing job activities.

Management should take 4 basic interrelated steps to divide job activities in the following sequence:

1. Examine management system objectives.

2. Designate Appropriate activities that must be performed to reach those objectives.

3. Design specific jobs by grouping similar activities.

4. Make specific individuals responsible for performing those jobs.

FUNCTIONAL SIMILARITY & RESPONSIBILITY:

3 additional guides can be used to supplement the functional similarity method.

1. Overlapping Responsibility should be avoided when making job activity divisions. Overlapping responsibility refer to a situation in which more than one individual is responsible for the same activity. Generally speaking, only one person should be responsible for completing one activity. When 2 or more employees are unclear about who should do a job because of overlapping responsibility, it usually leads to conflict and poor working relationships. Often the Job does not get done because each employee assumes the other will do it.

2. RESPONSIBILITY GAP: A responsibility gap exists when certain tasks are not included in the responsibility area of an individual organization member. This results in a situation in which nobody within the organization is obligated to perform certain necessary activities.

3. Management should avoid creating job activities for accomplishing tasks that do not enhance goal attainment. Organization members should be obligated to perform only those activities that lead to goal attainment.

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Responsibility is the obligation to perform assigned activities. It is the self assumed commitment to handle a job to the best of one's ability. The source of responsibility lies within the individual. A person who accepts a job agrees to carry out a series of duties or activities or to see that someone else carries them out.

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Good video on the gap and what to consider

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What is the Responsibility Gap? - Joshua Margolis

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Harvard Business School Professor Joshua Margolis talks about addressing what he describes as the Responsibility Gap.

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Good thoughts on the delegation process

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effective delegation skills, delegating techniques, process, tips for effective delegation and delegation training

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Delegation of authority and tasks - how to delegate, plus more free online business training for management, sales, marketing, project management, communications, leadership, time management, team building and motivation.

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New ideas

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1. Why delegate

Delegating tasks frees up your time for more important things and it gives you a happier and more competent staff.

The most powerful argument for delegation is that your company will not advance without it. If you make yourself indispensable, or if the whole organisation would crumble in the event of an accident to you, there is no point in trying to plan the company's future. Your managerial staff will also not further their careers unless they delegate well.

Delegation is not the same as assigning work to the people who report to you. Rather it's redistributing your own work and devolving part of the responsibility for that work onto the shoulders of a staff member. You don't do it to reward and you don't do it in order to ditch tedious tasks. You do it for two reasons only: to free up your own time and to develop the skills and competencies of your staff.

Think of it in terms of your own families and children. If you never give children responsibilities, they are never going to grow into adults and you will always be looking after them. It is the same with your staff. If you never give your staff responsibilities, challenges, development and growth, then you will always be needed to be there all the time. You will never be free.

2. Making the leap

There are always compelling reasons not to delegate. You think you would do it far quicker and better yourself, or perhaps you do not trust anyone else to do it right. These are short term views. If you take the time to teach someone how to do the task and provide sufficient support through the initial stages, the long‑term benefits will far outweigh the short‑term negatives. You will have a motivated, empowered staff and sufficient competence underneath you to facilitate your own mobility and freedom.

3. How and who to delegate to

Successful delegation involves matching the right person with the right job. Either pick someone whose skills provide the closest match to the task or pick the person who has the most to learn from taking it on. Make it clear at the start how much initiative the team member is getting. Is it necessary that the task be done in exactly the same way as you did it or is there space for innovation? Try to be results rather than process oriented, if it is appropriate. Also ensure that the delegate has all the information necessary to complete the task in the best way possible. Let him or her know where it fits into the overall business process so that they can see their increased responsibility in an overall context.

4. Control by proxy

The fear of losing control is another deterrent to delegation. But by taking the time to take staff through your methodology and the means by which you judge you own work you will be exercising control by proxy. While you should always let the entire task go, it is up to you to choose the appropriate level of authority that will be delegated. Too much may jeopardise business objectives, too little inhibits development potential. Formalise the process at the start. Set out how often you will meet team members to discuss their progress. You do not want them running to you with every minor question, nor do you want then blundering aimlessly through the job.

5. Responsibilities

Through your dialogue, try to confer the authority of decision making onto your staff shoulders. If they run into problems, get them to suggest solutions. If they are wrong, tell them why. If failure happens analyse the causes honestly but dispassionately. Remember that you have delegated your job and that you are ultimately responsible for the outcome.

There are, however, some things you can not delegate. HR tasks such as performance appraisal and salary review are inextricably bound up with management authority and do not devolve easily. Wherever you choose to draw the line, if you do not choose to delegate now, chances are you will be doing the same things for a long time.

Related Article : 10 Tips to Build a Good Management Team

Please call Noel Murphy today on 021-4310266 if you need further information on effective delegation or a free consultation.

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5 Ideas on Effective Delegation - Parfrey Murphy

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1. Why delegate Delegating tasks frees up your time for more important things and it gives you a happier and more competent staff. The most powerful argument for delegation is that your company will not advance without it.

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good Video

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The Importance of Unity of Command

The principle of unity of command is applied throughout the world today in organizations ranging from the military, government bureaucracies and companies, from a small business all the way up to multinational corporations. Learning about unity of command will help you understand how a great many of private and public organizations operate and may make you a better employee or manager.

Definition and Principles of Unity of Command

Unity of command provides that an employee is responsible to only one supervisor, who in turn is responsible to only one supervisor, and so on up the organizational hierarchy. This is true even if the top of the organization is led by a group of people. For example, imagine you are the CEO of a technology firm in Silicon Valley. While the board of directors of your company governs the policy making and strategic planning, under the concept of unity of command, you do not answer to all members of the board, but only the chairman of the board.

Let's take a minute and climb a corporate ladder to demonstrate how unity of command works from the bottom up. Imagine that you are a new systems analyst for the technology company in Silicon Valley. For better or worse, you are at the bottom rung and you supervise no one. However, you do answer to your unit supervisor, who answers to her department manager. The department manager answers to the vice president of operations, who answers to the CEO. The CEO answers to the chairman of the board of directors.

Authority and Position in Unity of Command

Another principle of unity of command is the idea that authority is based upon the position held. Related to this principle is the idea that as an employee advances through the hierarchy, his knowledge increases. Let's look at another example.

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unity of command in management: principle & definition - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Unity Of Command in Management: Principle & Definition - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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The principle of unity of command is applied throughout the world today in organizations ranging from the military, government bureaucracies and companies, from a small business all the way up to multinational corporations. Learning about unity of command will help you understand how a great many of private and public organizations operate and may make you a better employee or manager.

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Individual specialization: Employees work separately and specialize in one task

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Better explanation

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Essays, Research Papers and Articles on Business Management

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After reading this article you will learn about:- 1. Meaning of Span of Management 2. Factors Affecting Span of Management 3. Graicunas Theory.
Meaning of Span of Management:

Depending upon the complexity of organisational activities and relationships amongst superiors and subordinates, it becomes important the superiors manage an optimum number of subordinates that result in optimum organisational output. All the subordinates cannot be managed by one superior. There has to be a limit on the number of subordinates who can be effectively managed by one superior.

The number of subordinates that a superior can effectively supervise is known as span of management or span of control. In the 19th and middle of 20th century, management writers determined 5 or 6 as the optimum number that a manager could effectively manage at the upper level.
Beyond this number, managers faced problems like:
1. Overburdened with work.

2. Difficulty in coordinating the activities of large number of people.

3. Difficulty in controlling.

Thus, optimum number of subordinates that a manager could supervise was determinable but today, it is not so. Exact number of employees that managers can effectively supervise cannot be defined. Span of management is situational in nature.
Depending on the number of employees that can be supervised or controlled by managers, there can be two kinds of structures in the organisation:
I. Tall structures, and

II. Flat structures.
I. Tall structures:
These structures are found in classical bureaucratic organisations. In this structure, a manager can supervise less number of subordinates. He can, therefore, exercise tight control over their activities. This creates large number of levels in the organisation. This is also known as narrow span of control. A tall structure or a narrow span of control appears like this.

Merits of a Tall Structure:

1. Managers can closely supervise activities of the subordinates.

2. There can be better communication amongst superiors and subordinates.

3. It promotes personal relationships amongst superiors and subordinates.
Limitations of a Tall Structure:
4. Control on subordinates can be tightened in a narrow span.

1. It creates many levels in the organisation structure which complicates co-ordination amongst levels.

2. More managers are needed to supervise the subordinates. This increases the overhead expenditure (salary etc.). It is, thus, a costly form of structure.

3. Increasing gap between top managers and workers slows the communication process.

4. Decision-making becomes difficult because of too many levels.

5. Superiors perform routine jobs of supervising the subordinates and have less time for strategic matters.

6. Employees work under strict control of superiors. Decision-making is primarily centralised. This restricts employees' creative and innovative abilities.

7. Strict control leads to low morale and job satisfaction. This can affect productivity in the long-run.

To overcome the limitations of a tall structure, many organisations reduce the number of levels in the hierarchy by downsizing the organisation. Downsizing is "the process of significantly reducing the layers of middle management, expanding spans of control and shrinking the size of the work force."
II. Flat Structures:
Many companies downsize their work force through the process of restructuring. Restructuring is "the process of making a major change in organisation structure that often involves reducing management levels and also possibly changing some major components of the organisations through divestiture and/or acquisition."

"The most common and most serious symptom of mal-organisation is multiplication of the number of management levels. A basic rule of organisation is to build the least possible number of management levels and forge the shortest possible chains of command." - Peter F. Drucker
The levels in case of organisation B(5) where span of control is 4 appears as follows:
These structures have a wide span of control. When superior supervises a larger number of subordinates, flat structure is created with lesser number of hierarchical levels. A departure was made from tall structures to flat structures by James C. Worthy who was a consultant in the L. Sears, Roebuck and company.

A structure where span of control for each managerial position is 4 appears as follows:

To illustrate, if organisations A and B, both have 256 workers and the span of control for each managerial position is 2 for company A and 4 for company B, there will be 9 levels in company A (requiring 128 supervisors at the lowest level, 64 at the next higher level and so on) and 5 levels in company B. A narrow span of control creates more levels in the organisational hierarchy than the wide span of control.

(The span of 4 prevails for each functional area at each level). For the sake of simplicity, the figure represents the span for only one functional area and one level.

Merits of a Flat Structure:

1. There is low cost as less number of managers can supervise organisational activities.

2. The decision-making process is effective as superiors delegate authority to subordinates. They are relieved of routine matters and concentrate on strategic matters. The decision-making is decentralised.
Limitations of a Flat Structure:
3. Subordinates perform the work efficiently since they are considered worthy of doing so by the superiors.

4. There is effective communication as the number of levels is less.

5. It promotes innovative abilities of the top management.

1. Superiors cannot closely supervise the activities of employees.

2. Managers may find it difficult to co-ordinate the activities of subordinates.

3. Subordinates have to be trained so that dilution of control does not affect organisational productivity.
The following factors help in determining the suitable span of management: 1. Competence of managers: 2. Nature of work:
Both tall and flat structures have positive and negative features and it is difficult to find the exact number of subordinates that a manager can effectively manage. Some management theorists like David D. Van Fleet and Arthur G. Bedeian assert that span of control and organisational efficiency are not related and many empirical studies have proved that span of control is situational and depends on a variety of factors.
3. Assistance to managers: 4. Competence of subordinates: 5. Plans and policies:
Some studies proved that flat structures produce better results as decentralised decision making has less control from the top, promotes initiative and satisfaction at work. Large number of members in a group can better solve the complex problems as group decision making is based on greater skill variety.
6. Organisational level: 7. Authority-responsibility structure: 8. System of control: 9. Financial factors:
Other studies proved that people working in tall structures produce better results as less number of members in a group can come to consensus of opinion and evaluate their decisions more thoroughly. Group cohesiveness is high and, thus, commitment to decisions is also high. Members feel satisfied with their decisions and conflicts are reduced.

Factors Affecting Span of Management:

If managers are competent in their jobs, they can have a wide span of management. Competence of managers is judged by their ability to make decisions related to motivational plans, leadership styles, communication channels and chains, techniques of control etc. Managers who rank high on these parameters can effectively supervise larger number of subordinates.
The kind of relationships and the formulae for arriving at the number of relationships is as follows: Graicunas identified three types of relationships:
If employees perform similar and repetitive work, managers can supervise large number of subordinates and, thus, have a wide span of control. Non-repetitive and challenging work requires narrow span of control. Changes in the nature of work also affects the span of management.

Frequent changes as a result of dynamic environment support a narrow span as superiors frequently have to direct the activities of subordinates. Stability in the nature of work supports a wide span of management as superiors' directions are not frequently required to carry out the work processes.

If managers have access to technical or secretarial assistance, a larger group of subordinates can be managed. Span of control can, therefore, be wide. Staff assistance can be useful for collecting and processing information related to various decisions and issuing orders to the subordinates. Managers save time in communicating with subordinates, direct the activities of larger number of subordinates and focus on other strategic organisational matters.
1. Direct single relationship:
If subordinates are competent to manage their jobs without much assistance from the superiors, span of control can be wide. Competent subordinates do not require frequent directions from the superiors with respect to various organisational activities. Superiors can thus, manage a larger group of subordinates.
2. Direct group relationships:
If plans clearly define the organisational/individual goals and policies, superiors can supervise a larger group of subordinates and have a wide span of control. Clearly defined plans include well-formulated policies procedures, methods etc. Particularly, if standing plans are well defined, subordinates know the broad guidelines within which they have to make decisions in similar and repetitive situations.
For one superior (X) and three subordinates (A, B, C), there will be 9 direct group relationships as follows:
They do not approach the superiors every time they face a similar problem-solving situations. Superiors can, thus, manage a larger group of subordinates. However, if most of the decisions are made by resorting to single use plans (programmes, budgets, projects etc.), managers have to be frequently approached and the span can, thus, be narrow.

The top executives look after important and specialised activities and, therefore, the span is narrow at the top level but at lower levels the span can be wide, since supervisors are mainly concerned with routine jobs. According to J.C. Worthy, a manager can supervise as many as 20 subordinates at the lower levels.

If authority-responsibility structure is well-defined and understood, superiors can supervise larger number of subordinates. People work within the confines of their responsibility and take directions from superiors only when required. Lack of clarity in authority-responsibility structure will create confusion in the organisation. Jobs and who will perform which job, who is accountable to whom will not be clear. In such a situation, managers cannot supervise a large group of subordinates. The span of management will, thus, be narrow.

Effective techniques of control can enable the manager to supervise larger number of subordinates. Effective system of control promotes decentralisation. Superiors do not actively involve in the decision-making processes as decisions are taken at the levels where they are required. There is extensive delegation, clarity of jobs, authority-responsibility relationships and freedom to take decisions. The span of control can, thus, be wide.

Both narrow and wide structures have financial constraints. A narrow span requires more managers and is, thus, a costly form of structure. Wide span, on the other hand, may result into organisational inefficiencies. Proper balance has to be maintained between the costs and benefits of the span that a manager can effectively supervise.

These factors are situational in nature and the span of management is also, thus, situational. Sometimes it can be narrow and sometimes wide. For the same organisation, it can be different for different functional areas and different levels. The span is usually narrow in the finance department and wide in the marketing department for the same level. It may be different in different organisations for the same functional areas and levels.

Graicunas Theory on Span of Management:

A French management consultant, V.A. Graicunas, introduced a theory on span of management which explains three kinds of relationships that a superior can have with subordinates. He formulated a theory and suggested the number of subordinates under one superior based on mathematical calculations. Superior-subordinate relationships are based on mathematical formulae.

1. Direct single relationships,
The number of relationship (9) is represented by the formula: 3. Cross relationships:
2. Direct group relationships, and
These are between:
3. Cross relationships.

This is the relationship between the superior and his immediate subordinates. It represents direct contact of the superior with his subordinates. If there are 3 subordinates (A, B and C) under one superior (X), there will be three direct single relationships, represented by the formula n. These are relationships between X and A, X and B, and X and C.

This is the relationship of superior with subordinates in the presence of other subordinates. All possible combinations of superior and subordinate relationship-exist in group relationships. It represents contact of the superior with one or more subordinates while others (one or more) assist the relationships.

1. X and A with B providing assistance

2. X and A with C providing assistance

3. X and B with C providing assistance

4. X and A with BC providing assistance

5. X and B with AC providing assistance

6. X and C with AB providing assistance

7. X and AB with C providing assistance

8. X and AC with B providing assistance

9. X and BC with A providing assistance

While the subordinates work under the same superior, they also interact amongst themselves. These are the relationships amongst subordinates. As interaction with B and B's interaction with A will be different as viewed by the managers and, therefore, this relationship will also be different. Based on the formula n (n -1), with 3 subordinates, 6 such relationships will be formed.

A and B

Band A

A and C

C and A

B and C

C and B

With every increase in the number of subordinates by one, increase in the number of relationships is by more than one. While, with 2 subordinates, the total number of relationships is 6, with 3 subordinates, it is 18.

The theory does not seem to have any practical application as it emphasises on the number of relationships and not on the importance of relationships. Based on Gaicunas' theory, many other management thinkers also suggested numerical limits on the span of management, ranging from 3 to 9 for top managerial positions and 8 to 30 for supervisory management. More than the number of subordinates that can affect the ability to manage the subordinates, managerial effectiveness is judged by the situational factors that can affect the span of management.

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Span of Management: Meaning, Factors and Theory

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After reading this article you will learn about:- 1. Meaning of Span of Management 2. Factors Affecting Span of Management 3. Graicunas Theory. Meaning of Span of Management: Depending upon the complexity of organisational activities and relationships amongst superiors and subordinates, it becomes important the superiors manage an optimum number of subordinates that result in ...

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After Departmentalization and Division of Labour, the third main consideration of any organizing effort is Span of Management - the no. of individuals a manger supervises.

The more individuals a manger supervises, the greater the span of management.

Span of management is also called the span of control, span of authority, span of supervision and span of responsibility.

The central concern of span of management is to determine how many individuals a manager can supervise effectively.

To use the company's human resources most productively, managers should supervise as many individuals as they can best guide towards meeting the organization's targets. Too few - wasting their capacity. Too many - losing effectiveness.
DESIGNING SPAN OF MANAGEMENT : A CONTINGENCY VIEWPOINT
As reported by Harold Koontz, several important situational factors influence the appropriateness of the size of an individual's span of management:

SIMILARITY OF FUNCTIONS: The degree to which activities performed by supervised individuals are similar or dissimilar. As the similarity of the subordinates activity increases, the span of management increases and vice versa.

GEOGRAPHIC CONTINUITY: The degree to which subordinates are physically separated. In general, the closer subordinates are physically, the more of them managers can supervise effectively.

COMPLEXITY OF FUNCTIONS: The degree to which worker's activities are difficult and involved. The more difficult and involved the activities are, the more difficult it is to manage a large no. of individuals effectively.

COORDINATION : The amount of time managers must spend synchronizing the activities of their subordinates with the activities of other workers. The greater the amount of time must be spent on such coordination, the smaller the span of management can be.

PLANNING:

The amount of time managers must spend developing management system objectives and plans and integrating them with the activities of their subordinates. The more time managers must spend on the planning activities, the fewer individuals they can manage effectively.

GRAICUNAS and SPAN OF MANAGEMENT:

V.A.Graicunas developed a formula for determining the no. of possible relationships between a manager and subordinates when the no. of subordinates is known.

Graicunas's Formula is as follows:

C = n a (2^n)/2 + n - 1 b

C is the total no. of possible relationships between manager and subordinates, and n is the known no. of subordinates.

As the no. of subordinates increases, arithmetically, the no. of possible relationships between the manager and those subordinates increases geometrically.

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After Departmentalization and Division of Labour, the third main consideration of any organizing effort is Span of Management - the no. of individuals a manger supervises. The more individuals a manger supervises, the greater the span of management. Span of management is also called the span of control, span of authority, span of supervision and span of responsibility.

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How to Do a SWOT Analysis

Avoid relying on your own, partial understanding of your organization. Your assumptions could be wrong. Instead, gather a team of people from a range of functions and levels to build a broad and insightful list of observations.

Then, every time you identify a Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, or Threat, write it down in the relevant part of the SWOT analysis grid for all to see.

Let's look at each area in more detail and consider what fits where, and what questions you could ask as part of your data gathering.

Strengths

Strengths are things that your organization does particularly well, or in a way that distinguishes you from your competitors. Think about the advantages your organization has over other organizations. These might be the motivation of your staff, access to certain materials, or a strong set of manufacturing processes.

Then turn your perspective around and ask yourself what your competitors might see as your strengths. What factors mean that you get the sale ahead of them?

Remember, any aspect of your organization is only a strength if it brings you a clear advantage. For example, if all of your competitors provide high-quality products, then a high-quality production process is not a strength in your market: it's a necessity.

Weaknesses

Weaknesses, like strengths, are inherent features of your organization, so focus on your people, resources, systems, and procedures. Think about what you could improve, and the sorts of practices you should avoid.

Once again, imagine (or find out) how other people in your market see you. Do they notice weaknesses that you tend to be blind to? Take time to examine how and why your competitors are doing better than you. What are you lacking?

Be honest! A SWOT analysis will only be valuable if you gather all the information you need. So, it's best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.

Opportunities

Opportunities are openings or chances for something positive to happen, but you'll need to claim them for yourself!

They usually arise from situations outside your organization, and require an eye to what might happen in the future. They might arise as developments in the market you serve, or in the technology you use. Being able to spot and exploit opportunities can make a huge difference to your organization's ability to compete and take the lead in your market.

Think about good opportunities that you can exploit immediately. These don't need to be game-changers: even small advantages can increase your organization's competitiveness. What interesting market trends are you aware of, large or small, which could have an impact?

You should also watch out for changes in government policy related to your field. And changes in social patterns, population profiles, and lifestyles can all throw up interesting opportunities.

Threats

Threats include anything that can negatively affect your business from the outside, such as supply-chain problems, shifts in market requirements, or a shortage of recruits. It's vital to anticipate threats and to take action against them before you become a victim of them and your growth stalls.

Think about the obstacles you face in getting your product to market and selling. You may notice that quality standards or specifications for your products are changing, and that you'll need to change those products if you're to stay in the lead. Evolving technology is an ever-present threat, as well as an opportunity!

Always consider what your competitors are doing, and whether you should be changing your organization's emphasis to meet the challenge. But remember that what they're doing might not be the right thing for you to do. So, avoid copying them without knowing how it will improve your position.

Be sure to explore whether your organization is especially exposed to external challenges. Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems, for example, that could make you vulnerable to even small changes in your market? This is the kind of threat that can seriously damage your business, so be alert.

A SWOT Analysis Example

Imagine this scenario: a small start-up consultancy wants a clear picture of its current situation, to decide on a future strategy for growth. The team gathers, and draws up the SWOT Analysis shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. A Completed SWOT Analysis.

Strengths What do you do well? What unique resources can you draw on? What do others see as your strengths?

Weaknesses What could you improve? Where do you have fewer resources than others? What are others likely to see as weaknesses?

We are able to respond very quickly as we have no red tape, and no need for higher management approval.

We are able to give really good customer care, as the current small amount of work means we have plenty of time to devote to customers.

Our lead consultant has a strong reputation in the market.

We can change direction quickly if we find that our marketing is not working.

We have low overheads, so we can offer good value to customers.

Our company has little market presence or reputation.

We have a small staff, with a shallow skills base in many areas.

We are vulnerable to vital staff being sick or leaving.

Our cash flow will be unreliable in the early stages.

Opportunities What opportunities are open to you? What trends could you take advantage of? How can you turn your strengths into opportunities?

Threats What threats could harm you? What is your competition doing? What threats do your weaknesses expose to you?

Our business sector is expanding, with many future opportunities for success.

Local government wants to encourage local businesses.

Our competitors may be slow to adopt new technologies.

Developments in technology may change this market beyond our ability to adapt.

A small change in the focus of a large competitor might wipe out any market position we achieve.

As a result of the team's analysis, it's clear that the consultancy's main strengths lie in its agility, technical expertise, and low overheads. These allow it to offer excellent customer service to a relatively small client base.

The company's weaknesses are also to do with its size. It will need to invest in training, to improve the skills base of the small staff. It'll also need to focus on retention, so it doesn't lose key team members.

There are opportunities in offering rapid-response, good-value services to local businesses and to local government organizations. The company can likely be first to market with new products and services, given that its competitors are slow adopters.

The threats require the consultancy to keep up-to-date with changes in technology. It also needs to keep a close eye on its largest competitors, given its vulnerability to large-scale changes in its market. To counteract this, the business needs to focus its marketing on selected industry websites, to get the greatest possible market presence on a small advertising budget.

Frequently Asked Questions About SWOT Analysis

1. Who Invented SWOT Analysis?

2. What Does SWOT Analysis Stand For?

SWOT Analysis stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

3. What Can a SWOT Analysis Be Used For?

SWOT analysis is a useful tool to help you determine your organization's position in the market. You can then use this information to create an informed strategy suited to your needs and capabilities.

4. How Do I Write a SWOT Analysis?

5. How Do SWOT Analysis and the TOWS Matrix compare?

6. What Are the Biggest SWOT Analysis Mistakes?

Making your lists too long. Ask yourself if your ideas are feasible as you go along.

Being vague. Be specific to provide more focus for later discussions.

Not seeing weaknesses. Be sure to ask customers and colleagues what they experience in real life.

Not thinking ahead. It's easy to come up with nice ideas without taking them through to their logical conclusion. Always consider their practical impact.

Being unrealistic. Don't plan in detail for opportunities that don't exist yet. For example, that export market you've been eyeing may be available at some point, but the trade negotiations to open it up could take years.

Relying on SWOT Analysis alone. SWOT Analysis is valuable. But when you use it alongside other planning tools (SOAR, TOWS or PEST), the results will be more vigorous.

How to Use a SWOT Analysis

Use a SWOT Analysis to assess your organization's current position before you decide on any new strategy. Find out what's working well, and what's not so good. Ask yourself where you want to go, how you might get there - and what might get in your way.

Once you've examined all four aspects of SWOT, you'll want to build on your strengths, boost your weaker areas, head off any threats, and exploit every opportunity. In fact, you'll likely be faced with a long list of potential actions.

But before you go ahead, be sure to develop your ideas further. Look for potential connections between the quadrants of your matrix. For example, could you use some of your strengths to open up further opportunities? And, would even more opportunities become available by eliminating some of your weaknesses?

Finally, it's time to ruthlessly prune and prioritize your ideas, so that you can focus time and money on the most significant and impactful ones. Refine each point to make your comparisons clearer. For example, only accept precise, verifiable statements such as, "Cost advantage of $30/ton in sourcing raw material x," rather than, "Better value for money."

SWOT Analysis Tips

Here are four tips for getting more out of a SWOT analysis:

1. Be specific. The more focused and accurate you are about the points you write down, the more useful your SWOT analysis will be.

2. Work backwards. Experiment with filling in the four sections of your SWOT analysis in a different order, to stimulate new ways of thinking. Working backwards, in particular, from threats to strengths, may cast new light on the situation.

3. Get together. Highlight the most useful people to contribute to your SWOT analysis, then gather information and ideas from them all.

4. SWOT your competition! To stay ahead of your competitors, carry out a regular SWOT analysis on them. Use everything you know about them to evaluate their situation, and use SWOT analysis to plan your competitive strategies accordingly.

SWOT Analysis Infographic

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SWOT Analysis With SWOT Templates and Examples !

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SWOT Analysis is a simple but powerful framework for analyzing your organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Includes template. Access on-demand resources, expert videos by becoming a Mind Tools member now!!

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The four components of SWOT in a 2 × 2 matrix

SWOT analysis (or SWOT matrix) is a strategic planning and strategic management technique used to help a person or organization identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to business competition or project planning. It is sometimes called situational assessment or situational analysis. Additional acronyms using the same components include TOWS and WOTS-UP.

This technique is designed for use in the preliminary stages of decision-making processes and can be used as a tool for evaluation of the strategic position of organizations of many kinds (for-profit enterprises, local and national governments, NGOs, etc.). It is intended to identify the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving the objectives of the venture or project. Users of a SWOT analysis often ask and answer questions to generate meaningful information for each category to make the tool useful and identify their competitive advantage. SWOT has been described as a tried-and-true tool of strategic analysis, but has also been criticized for its limitations, and alternatives have been developed.

The name is an acronym for the four components the technique examines:

Strengths: characteristics of the business or project that give it an advantage over others

Weaknesses: characteristics that place the business or project at a disadvantage relative to others

Opportunities: elements in the environment that the business or project could exploit to its advantage

Threats: elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project

Results of the assessment are often presented in the form of a matrix, or simply as paragraphs.

Strengths and weaknesses are usually considered internal, while opportunities and threats are usually considered external. The degree to which the internal strengths of the firm matches with the external opportunities is expressed by the concept of strategic fit.

Internal factors are viewed as strengths or weaknesses depending upon their effect on the organization's objectives. What may represent strengths with respect to one objective may be weaknesses (distractions, competition) for another objective. The factors may include personnel, finance, manufacturing capabilities, and all of the marketing mix's 4Ps.

External factors include macroeconomics, technological change, legislation, and sociocultural changes, as well as changes in the marketplace.

A number of authors advocate assessing external factors before internal factors.

SWOT analysis has been used at different levels of analysis in many arenas, not just in profit-seeking organizations. Examples include non-profit organizations, governmental units, and individuals. SWOT analysis may also be used in pre-crisis planning and preventive crisis management. SWOT analysis may also be used in creating a recommendation during a viability study/survey.

SWOT analysis can be used to build organizational or personal strategy. Steps necessary to execute strategy-oriented analysis involve identification of internal and external factors (often using the popular 2 × 2 matrix), selection and evaluation of the most important factors, and identification of relations existing between internal and external features.

For instance, strong relations between strengths and opportunities can suggest good conditions in the company and allow using an aggressive strategy. On the other hand, strong interactions between weaknesses and threats could be analyzed as a potential warning and advice for using a defensive strategy.

One form of TOWS matrix combines each of the four components with another to examine four distinct strategies:

WT strategy (mini-mini): Faced with external threats and internal weaknesses, how to minimize both weaknesses and threats?

WO strategy (mini-maxi): Faced with external opportunities and internal weaknesses, how to minimize weaknesses and maximize opportunities?

ST strategy (maxi-mini): Faced with internal strengths and external threats, how to maximize strengths and minimize threats?

SO strategy (maxi-maxi): Faced with external opportunities and internal strengths, how to maximize both opportunities and strengths?

Matching and converting

One way of using SWOT is matching and converting. Matching is used to find competitive advantage by matching the strengths to opportunities. Another tactic is to convert weaknesses or threats into strengths or opportunities. An example of a conversion strategy is to find new markets. If the threats or weaknesses cannot be converted, a company should try to minimize or avoid them.

As part of the development of strategies and plans to enable an organization to achieve its objectives, that organization will use a systematic/rigorous process known as corporate planning. SWOT alongside PEST/ PESTLE can be used as a basis for the analysis of internal and environmental factors.

Corporate planning includes steps such as:

Setting objectives-defining what the organization is going to do

Environmental scanning

Internal appraisals of the organization-an assessment of the present situation as well as a portfolio of products/services and an analysis of the product/service lifecycle

Analysis of existing strategies-this should determine relevance from the results of an internal/external appraisal, and may include gap analysis of environmental factors

Defining strategic issues-key factors in the development of a corporate plan that the organization must address

Developing new/revised strategies-revised analysis of strategic issues may mean the objectives need to change

Establishing critical success factors-the achievement of objectives and strategy implementation

Preparation of operational, resource, and projects plans for strategy implementation

Monitoring all results-mapping against plans, taking corrective action, which may mean amending objectives/strategies

In competitor analysis, marketers build detailed profiles of each competitor in the market, focusing especially on their relative competitive strengths and weaknesses using SWOT analysis. Marketing managers will examine each competitor's cost structure, sources of profits, resources and competencies, competitive positioning and product differentiation, degree of vertical integration, historical responses to industry developments, and other factors.

Marketing management often finds it necessary to invest in research to collect the data required to perform accurate marketing analysis. Accordingly, management often conducts market research (alternately marketing research) to obtain this information. Marketers employ a variety of techniques to conduct market research, but some of the more common include:

Qualitative marketing research such as focus groups

Quantitative marketing research such as statistical surveys

Experimental techniques such as test markets

Observational techniques such as ethnographic (on-site) observation

Marketing managers may also design and oversee various environmental scanning and competitive intelligence processes to help identify trends and inform the company's marketing analysis.

Below is an example SWOT analysis of a market position of a small management consultancy with a specialism in human resource management (HRM).

Reputation in marketplace

Shortage of consultants at operating level rather than partner level

Well established position with a well-defined market niche

Large consultancies operating at a minor level

Expertise at partner level in HRM consultancy

Unable to deal with multidisciplinary assignments because of size or lack of ability

Identified market for consultancy in areas other than HRM

Other small consultancies looking to invade the marketplace

An example of a SWOT template that includes cells for strategies, not only assessments

A simple SWOT template

The SWOT analysis has been used in community work as a tool to identify positive and negative factors within organizations, communities, and the broader society that promote or inhibit successful implementation of social services and social change efforts. It is used as a preliminary resource, assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in a community served by a nonprofit or community organization.

Strengths and weaknesses (internal factors within an organization):

Human resources-staff, volunteers, board members, target population

Physical resources-the organization's location, building, equipment

Financial-grants, funding agencies, other sources of income

Activities and processes-programs delivered, systems employed

Past experiences-building blocks for learning and success, the organization's reputation in the community

Opportunities and threats (external factors stemming from community or societal forces):

Future trends in the organization's field or the society

The economy-local, national, or international

Funding sources-foundations, donors, legislatures

Demographics-changes in the age, race, gender, culture of those in the organization's service area

Physical environment-Is the building in a growing part of town? Is the bus company cutting routes?

Legislation-Do new government requirements make the work harder or easier?

Local, national, or international events

Although the SWOT analysis was originally designed as an organizational method for business and industries, it has been replicated in community work as a tool for identifying external and internal support to combat the internal and external opposition. Understanding the particular community can be helped via public forums, listening campaigns, and informational interviews and other data collection. The SWOT analysis provides direction to the next stages of the change process. It has been used by community organizers and community members to further social justice in the context of social work practice.

SWOT analysis is intended as a starting point for discussion and cannot, in itself, show managers how to achieve a competitive advantage, particularly in a rapidly changing environment.

In a highly cited 1997 critique, "SWOT Analysis: It's Time for a Product Recall", Terry Hill and Roy Westbrook observed that one among many problems of SWOT analysis as it is often practiced is that "no-one subsequently used the outputs [of SWOT analysis] within the later stages of the strategy". Hill and Westbrook, among others, also criticized hastily designed SWOT lists. Other examples of potential pitfalls in practice are: preoccupation with a single strength, such as cost control, leading to a neglect of weaknesses, such as product quality; and domination by one or two team members doing the SWOT analysis and devaluing possibly important contributions of other team members. Many other limitations have been identified.

Michael Porter developed the five forces framework as a reaction to SWOT, which he found lacking in rigor and too .

Business professors have suggested various ways to remedy the common problems and limitations of SWOT analysis while retaining the SWOT framework.

SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results) is an alternative technique inspired by appreciative inquiry. SOAR has been criticized as having similar limitations as SWOT, such as "the inability to identify the necessary data".

In project management, the alternative to SWOT known by the acronym SVOR (Strengths, Vulnerabilities, Opportunities, and Risks) compares the project elements along two axes: internal and external, and positive and negative. It takes into account the mathematical link that exists between these various elements, considering also the role of infrastructures. The SVOR table provides an intricate understanding of the elements hypothesized to be at play in a given project:

Total Forces

Total Forces given constraints = Infrastructures / Opportunities

Opportunities

Mathematical link
Vulnerabilities given constraints = 1 / Total Forces

constant k

Opportunities given constraints = 1 / Risks

Vulnerabilities

Risks given constraints = k / Vulnerabilities

Risks

Constraints consist of: calendar of tasks and activities, costs, and norms of quality. The " k" constant varies with each project (for example, it may be valued at 1.3).

In 1965, three colleagues at the Long Range Planning Service of Stanford Research Institute-Robert F. Stewart, Otis J. Benepe, and Arnold Mitchell-wrote a technical report titled Formal Planning: The Staff Planner's Role at Start-Up. The report described how a person in the role of a company's staff planner would gather information from managers assessing operational issues grouped into four components represented by the acronym SOFT: the "satisfactory" in present operations, "opportunities" in future operations, "faults" in present operations, and "threats" to future operations. Stewart et al. focused on internal operational assessment and divided the four components into present (satisfactory and fault) and future (opportunity and threat), and not, as would later become common in SWOT analysis, into internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external (opportunities and threats).

Also in 1965, four colleagues at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration-Edmund P. Learned, C. Roland Christensen, Kenneth R. Andrews, and William D. Guth-published the first of many editions of the textbook Business Policy: Text and Cases. ( Business policy was a term then current for what has come to be called strategic management.) The first chapter of the textbook stated, without using the acronym, the four components of SWOT and their division into internal and external appraisal:

Deciding what strategy should be is, at least ideally, a rational undertaking. Its principal subactivities include identifying opportunities and threats in the company's environment and attaching some estimate of risk to the discernible alternatives. Before a choice can be made, the company's strengths and weaknesses must be appraised.

Looking back from three decades later, in the book Strategy Safari (1998), management scholar Henry Mintzberg and colleagues said that Business Policy: Text and Cases "quickly became the most popular classroom book in the field", widely diffusing its authors' ideas, which Mintzberg et al. called the "design school" model (in contrast to nine other schools that they identified) of strategic management, "with its famous notion of SWOT" emphasizing assessment of a company's internal and external situations. However, the textbook contains neither a 2 × 2 SWOT matrix nor any detailed procedure for doing a SWOT assessment. Strategy Safari and other books identified Kenneth R. Andrews as the co-author of Business Policy: Text and Cases who was responsible for writing the theoretical part of the book containing the SWOT components. More generally, Mintzberg et al. attributed some conceptual influences on what they called the "design school" (of which they were strongly critical) to earlier books by Philip Selznick ( Leadership in Administration, 1957) and Alfred D. Chandler Jr. ( Strategy and Structure, 1962), with other possible influences going back to the McKinsey consulting firm in the 1930s.

By the end of the 1960s, the four components of SWOT (without using the acronym) had appeared in other publications on strategic planning by various authors, and by 1972 the acronym had appeared in the title of a journal article by Norman Stait, a management consultant at the British firm Urwick, Orr and Partners. By 1973, the acronym was well-known enough that accountant William W. Fea, in a published lecture, mentioned "the mnemonic, familiar to students, of S.W.O.T., namely strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats". An early example of a 2 × 2 SWOT matrix is found in a 1980 article by management professor Igor Ansoff (but Ansoff used the acronym T/O/S/W instead of SWOT).

Television: In the 2015 Silicon Valley episode "Homicide" (Season 2, Episode 6), Jared Dunn (Zach Woods) introduces the Pied Piper team to SWOT analysis. Later in that episode Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) employ the method when deciding whether or not to inform a stunt driver that the calculations for his upcoming jump were performed incorrectly.

1. For example: ^ Weihrich 1982, p. 54: "For convenience, the matrix that will be introduced is called TOWS, or situational analysis"; Sevier 2001, p. 46

2. ^ Nutt, Paul C.; Backoff, Robert W. (Summer 1993). "Transforming public organizations with strategic management and strategic leadership". Journal of Management. 19 (2): 299-347 (316). doi:10.1016/0149-2063(93)90056-S. The SWOTs perspective is often used to pose questions for strategic management (e.g., Ansoff, 1980). Steiner's (1979) 'WOTS' approach, Rowe, Mason and Dickel's (1982) WOTS-UP, and Delbecq's (1989) 'TOWS' framework identify three of many derivations.

3. Examples of the "tried-and-true" trope: ^

Sevier, Robert A. (2001). "Not SWOT, but OTSW". Thinking outside the box: some (fairly) radical thoughts on how colleges and universities should think, act, and communicate in a very busy marketplace. Hiawatha, Iowa: Strategy Pub. p. 46. ISBN 0971059705. OCLC 48165005. Few people realize that there is an inherent danger in conducting a situational analysis using the old tried and true SWOT. The danger is this: When you look inside the organization first, you create a set of glasses through which you will look at the world. In doing so, you are highly likely to overlook significant opportunities and threats. See also Minsky & Aron 2021.

Staples, Lee (2004). Roots to power: a manual for grassroots organizing (2nd ed.). Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishing. p. 136. ISBN 0275969975. OCLC 56085984. The tried and true SWOT Assessment examines positive and negative factors as does a Force Field Analysis, but a SWOT has a particular focus on the upsides and downsides for the action group itself.

Lambert, Ron; Parker, Tom (2006). Is that your hand in my pocket?: the sales professional's guide to negotiating. Nashville: Nelson Business. p. 132. ISBN 0785218777. OCLC 63125604. Before you as a salesperson can develop a strategy, you have to assess the situation. We recommend the tried-and-true SWOT analysis. You start by taking a look at your Strengths and Weaknesses, your Opportunities and any Threats. Then you do exactly the same thing from the perspective of each of your competitors.

4. Ansoff, H. Igor (April 1980). "Strategic issue management". Strategic Management Journal. 1 (2): 131-148. doi:10.1002/smj.4250010204. JSTOR 2486096. S2CID 167511003.

5. Minsky, Laurence; Aron, David (23 February 2021). "Are you doing the SWOT analysis backwards?". Harvard Business Review. The results of a SWOT analysis can be (and almost always are) presented simply as a 2 × 2 grid, with one dimension representing the internal versus external factors, and the other depicting positive versus negative valence. ... To improve the inventory collection, you should start with the external factors, then turn your attention to the firm's internal ones. See also Sevier 2001.

6. ^ Learned, Edmund Philip; Christensen, C. Roland; Andrews, Kenneth R.; Guth, William D. (1965). Business policy: text and cases (1st ed.). Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc. p. 20. OCLC 680327. (See also Andrews 1971, p. 37.) Many publications cite this textbook as an early statement of the ideas behind SWOT, although it contains neither a 2 × 2 matrix nor any detailed procedure for doing a SWOT assessment; for example, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton called this textbook "one of the early SWOT references", in: Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P. (2008). The execution premium: linking strategy to operations for competitive advantage. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. p. 67. ISBN 9781422121160. OCLC 227277585.

7. ^ Mintzberg, Henry; Ahlstrand, Bruce W.; Lampel, Joseph (1998). "The design school: strategy formation as a process of conception". Strategy safari: a guided tour through the wilds of strategic management. New York: Free Press. pp. 24-25. ISBN 0684847434. OCLC 38354698.

8. ^ Watkins, Michael D. (27 March 2007). "From SWOT to TOWS: answering a reader's strategy question". Harvard Business Review.

9. ^ Osita, Christian; Onyebuchi, Idoko; Justina, Nzekwe (31 January 2014). "Organization's stability and productivity: the role of SWOT analysis" (PDF). International Journal of Innovative and Applied Research. 2 (9): 23-32.

10. Armstrong, Michael (1990). Management processes and functions. Management studies series. London: Institute of Personnel Management. ISBN 0-85292-438-0. OCLC 21301791.

11. ^ "Community Toolbox: Section 14. SWOT analysis". Community Tool Box. Center for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas.

12. ^ Westhues, Anne; Lafrance, Jean; Schmidt, Glen (February 2001). "A SWOT analysis of social work education in Canada". Social Work Education: The International Journal. 20 (1): 35-56. doi:10.1080/02615470020028364. S2CID 143892190.

13. Birkenmaier, Julie; Berg-Weger, Marla (2017). "Organizational engagement, assessment, and planning". The practice of generalist social work (4th ed.). New York: Routledge. pp. 552-577. ISBN 9781138057852. OCLC 971892636.

14. Dess, Gregory G.; Lumpkin, G. Thomas; Eisner, Alan B.; McNamara, Gerry (2012). "The limitations of SWOT analysis". Strategic management: text and cases (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. pp. 82. ISBN 9780078029318. OCLC 740281685.

15. Hill, Terry; Westbrook, Roy (February 1997). "SWOT analysis: it's time for a product recall". Long Range Planning. 30 (1): 46-52. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.469.2246. doi:10.1016/S0024-6301(96)00095-7.

16. ^ Koch, Adam (2000). "SWOT does not need to be recalled: It needs to be enhanced". B>Quest. Richards College of Business, State University of West Georgia. ISSN 1084-3981.

17. ^ Chermack, Thomas J.; Kasshanna, Bernadette K. (December 2007). "The use of and misuse of SWOT analysis and implications for HRD professionals". Human Resource Development International. 10 (4): 383-399. doi:10.1080/13678860701718760. S2CID 145098663.

18. ^ Porter, Michael; Argyres, Nicholas; McGahan, Anita M. (2002). "An interview with Michael Porter". The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005). 16 (2): 43-52. JSTOR 4165839.

19. ^ Stavros, Jacqueline M.; Cooperrider, David; Kelley, D. Lynn (2007). "SOAR: a new approach to strategic planning". In Holman, Peggy; Devane, Tom; Cady, Steven (eds.). The change handbook: the definitive resource on today's best methods for engaging whole systems (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. pp. 375-380. ISBN 9781576753798. OCLC 66527256.

20. ^ Stavros, Jacqueline M.; Hinrichs, Gina (2009). The thin book of SOAR: building strengths-based strategy. Bend, OR: Thin Book Pub. Co. ISBN 9780982206805. OCLC 662578328.

21. Browne, Michael; Banerjee, Bobby; Fulop, Liz; Linstead, Stephen (1999). "Managing strategically". In Fulop, Liz; Linstead, Stephen (eds.). Management: a critical text. South Yarra, Vic.: Macmillan Education. pp. 364-413 (373-379). doi:10.1007/978-1-349-15064-9_11. ISBN 0732937191. OCLC 39837267.

22. An analysis of the "design school" model was also in Mintzberg's earlier publications such as: Mintzberg, Henry (March 1990). "The design school: reconsidering the basic premises of strategic management". Strategic Management Journal. 11 (3): 171-195. doi:10.1002/smj.4250110302. JSTOR 2486485.

23. ^ Kiechel, Walter (2010). The lords of strategy: the secret intellectual history of the new corporate world. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. p. 121. ISBN 9781591397823. OCLC 259247279. What Andrews and his colleagues in the Business Policy course resolutely refused to do-and the main reason his ideas largely disappear from the subsequent history of strategy-was to agree that there were standard frameworks or constructs that could be applied to analyzing a business and its competitive situation. Oh, they might allow one, perhaps because they had helped develop it: so-called SWOT analysis, which called for looking at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats besetting an enterprise.

24. ^ Hill & Westbrook 1997, p. 47: "The work of Kenneth Andrews has been especially influential in popularizing the idea that good strategy means ensuring a fit between the external situation a firm faces (threats and opportunities) and its own internal qualities or characteristics (strengths and weaknesses)."

25. ^ McKinsey, James Oscar (1932). Adjusting policies to meet changing conditions. General management series. Vol. G.M. 116. New York: American Management Association. OCLC 10865820. Presented at the AMA General Management Conference held in New York, May 3, 1932.

26. Examples of publications in the late 1960s that mention the four components of SWOT without using the acronym include: ^

Quinn, James Brian (Autumn 1968). "Technological strategies for industrial companies". Management Decision. 2 (3): 182-188. doi:10.1108/eb000858.

Steiner, George A. (1969). Top management planning. Studies of the modern corporation. New York: Macmillan. OCLC 220043.

27. ^ Fea, William W. (1973). "The sixtieth Thomas Hawksley lecture: The accountant-overhead burden or service?". Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. 187 (1): 687-697 (689). doi:10.1243/PIME_PROC_1973_187_155_02.

SWOT analysis is described in very many publications. A few examples of books that describe SWOT analysis and are widely held by WorldCat member libraries and available in the Internet Archive are:

Bensoussan, Babette E.; Fleisher, Craig S. (2008). "SWOT analysis". Analysis without paralysis: 10 tools to make better strategic decisions. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press. pp. 183-197. ISBN 978-0132361804. OCLC 199464839.

Coulter, Mary K. (2008). "Assessing opportunities and threats: doing an external analysis; Assessing strengths and weaknesses: doing an internal analysis". Strategic management in action (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. pp. 67-138. ISBN 9780132277471. OCLC 147987777.

Friend, Graham; Zehle, Stefan (2009). "SWOT analysis". Guide to business planning. The Economist books (2nd ed.). New York: Bloomberg Press. pp. 85-88. ISBN 9781576603284. OCLC 263978200.

Gilad, Benjamin (2004). "The curse of the SWOT". Early warning: using competitive intelligence to anticipate market shifts, control risk, and create powerful strategies. New York: AMACOM. pp. 95-97. ISBN 0814407862. OCLC 51898746.

Higgins, James M. (1983). "Internal and environmental information: SWOT; Appendix 1: The situation audit-a SWOT approach". Organizational policy and strategic management: text and cases. Dryden Press series in management (2nd ed.). Chicago: Dryden Press. pp. 31-37, 789-796. ISBN 0030619610. OCLC 9372705.

Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P. (2008). "Identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT)". The execution premium: linking strategy to operations for competitive advantage. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. p. 49-53. ISBN 9781422121160. OCLC 227277585.

"SWOT analysis I: looking outside for opportunities and threats; SWOT analysis II: looking inside for strengths and weaknesses". The essentials of strategy. Harvard business literacy for HR professionals. Boston, MA; Alexandria, VA: Harvard Business School Press and the Society for Human Resource Management. 2006. pp. 21-64. ISBN 1591398223. OCLC 76260664.

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SWOT analysis (or SWOT matrix) is a strategic planning and strategic management technique used to help a person or organization identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to business competition or project planning. It is sometimes called situational assessment or situational analysis. Additional acronyms using the same components include TOWS and WOTS-UP.

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Found out there is an acronym for this called PESTLE.

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A PESTLE analysis helps you understand your external environment.

Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Getty Images

Preparing a marketing environmental analysis is an essential step in understanding the external local, national or international forces that might affect your small business. These factors are largely outside your direct control, but you can adapt your business and marketing strategy to take advantage of the opportunities they present while minimizing the potential threats. A PESTLE analysis is the most common way of undertaking such a review; PESTLE stands for the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors you need to consider.

Political

Political factors refer to governmental actions or policies that have an impact on your business and its ability to trade. For example, restrictions on the import or export of certain goods might limit your market or hamper your ability to obtain raw materials. At a local level, restrictions on the types of businesses permitted in certain districts or the kinds of services available might impact your ability to run your business in these areas.

Economic

Economic factors include all the various taxes and duties you are obliged to pay, as well as wider fiscal decisions on things like central bank interest rates and international exchange rate volatility. A thorough analysis of each of the economic factors that impact on your business will help you plan the financial strategy for your business.

Social

The way society changes and adapts over time, and the differences in communities across the country and the world, are all important considerations when planning your business. Aspects to consider and explore include religion, lifestyle expectations, housing standards and population demographics such as age, gender and ethnic origin.

Technological

Technological change has wiped out old businesses and created new businesses over the years. Understanding the impact of the next technological advances could give you a market advantage over your competitors if you are better placed to exploit the opportunities they present. Look at how communications are changing, and try to find a way in which you can take advantage of any emerging channels to reach new or more customers. Don't forget to explore how your business could be more efficient and productive by using new technologies in production or distribution, for example.

Legal

Every business operates within a strictly controlled legal environment. Identify, and be aware of the impact of, all legislation relating to your business. These might include regulatory obligations, environmental restrictions, import/export limitations and basic health and safety laws.

Environmental

Economies across the world are increasingly aware of the environmental factors of their operations. Even as a small business owner, you should consider the environmental aspects relating to your activities, such as its impact on the local and wider environment. Be aware that attitudes to themes such as ecology and renewable energy can affect consumer behavior. Some believe global warming is changing weather patterns, affecting tourism and farming. Showing that you are a "green" business might attract new customers.

Opportunities and Threats

Your PESTLE analysis should provide you with a useful tool to establish the major opportunities and threats facing your business as you plan for its future growth. When taken together with an internal review of your business' strengths and weaknesses, you should be in a strong position to develop a robust strategy and business plan based on well-balanced research.

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How to Prepare a Marketing Environmental Analysis

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Preparing a marketing environmental analysis is an essential step in understanding the external local, national or international forces that might affect your small business. These factors are largely outside your direct control, but you can adapt your business and marketing strategy to take advantage of the opportunities they present while minimizing the potential threats.

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Has a step by step description of the process

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Definition: Strategic Management Process

Strategic Management Process is defined as the way an organization defines its strategy. It is a continuous process in which the organization decides to implement a selected few strategies, details the implementation plan and keeps on appraising the progress & success of implementation through regular assessment.

The strategic management is a five stage process as shown in the figure below.

The vision and goals of the organization are clearly stated. The short-term and long-term goals are defined, processes to achieve the objectives are identified and current staff is evaluated to choose capable people to work on the processes.

Data relevant to achieve the goals of the organization is gathered, potential internal and external factors that can affect the sustainable growth of the organization are examined and SWOT analysis is also performed.

Once the analysis is done, the organization moves to the Strategy Formulation stage where the plan to acquire the required resources is designed, prioritization of the issues facing the business is done and finally the strategy is formulated accordingly

After formulation of the strategy, the employees of the organization are clearly made aware of their roles and responsibilities. It is ensured that funds would be available all the time. Then the implementation begins.

In this process, the strategies being implemented are evaluated regularly to check whether they are on track and are providing the desired results. In case of deviations, the corrective actions are taken.

As shown in the figure, the five stages are not stand-alone and constantly interact with each other in order to ensure better management of the business.

Search & Explore : Management Dictionary

Browse the definition and meaning of more terms similar to Strategic Management Process. The Management Dictionary covers over 7000 business concepts from 6 categories.

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Strategic Management Process Definition | Marketing Dictionary | MBA Skool-Study.Learn.Share.

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Strategic Management Process is defined as the way an organization defines its strategy. It is a continuous process in which the organization decides to implement a selected few strategies, details the implementation plan and keeps on appraising the progress & success of implementation through regular assessment.

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This website has several journal articles in one website.

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Featured

RAND developed the Delphi method in the 1950s, originally to forecast the impact of technology on warfare. The method entails a group of experts who anonymously reply to questionnaires and subsequently receive feedback in the form of a statistical representation of the "group response," after which the process repeats itself. The goal is to reduce the range of responses and arrive at something closer to expert consensus. The Delphi Method has been widely adopted and is still in use today.

Report

The Delphi method solicits the opinions of experts through a series of carefully designed questionnaires interspersed with information and opinion feedback in order to establish a convergence of opinion.

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RAND developed the Delphi method in the 1950s, originally to forecast the impact of technology on warfare. The method entails a group of experts who anonymously reply to questionnaires and subsequently receive feedback in the form of a statistical representation of the 'group response,' after which the process repeats itself.

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I am all about the visual and these are great.

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Drawn from left to right, a decision tree has only burst nodes (splitting paths) but no sink nodes (converging paths). Therefore, used manually, they can grow very big and are then often hard to draw fully by hand. Traditionally, decision trees have been created manually - as the aside example shows - although increasingly, specialized software is employed.

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Good diagram of the steps in the process.

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Using such an approach can help to ensure discipline and consistency is built into your decision making process. As the word rational suggests, this approach brings logic and order to decision making.

Learn how to make better decisions with our e-guide bundle - 6 guides, 178 pages, 30 tools, for half price!

Our rational decision making model consists of a series of steps, beginning with problem/opportunity identification, and ending with actions to be taken on decisions made.

First though why not take a look at our comprehensive decision making e-guides with a great half price offer. You'll find they contain our rational decision making model complete with tools, along with a comprehensive range of other guides to improve your decision making.

It's a great half price offer. We talk through the benefits and features of our complete decision making resources in finding the right decision making model. Why not take look, you'll see we've developed new models, tips and tools that you won't find elsewhere.

There seems to be a problem with decision making. According to Ohio State University management professor, Paul C. Nutt, we only get about 50% of our decisions in the workplace right! Half the time they are wrong, so there is clearly plenty of scope to improve on our decision making processes. Based on his research into over 300 decisions, made in a range of organizations, he discovered that

"Some tactics with a good track record are commonly known, but uncommonly practiced."

Why? Well one reason that emerged from his research is that:

"Too often, managers make bad tactical selections ..... because they believe that following recommended decision-making practices would take too much time and demand excessive cash outlays."

Nutt argues that using good decision making practices actually costs very little. Our rational decision making model is our free tool to help you improve the way you make decisions.

This article is part of our series on decision making. Our first article, types of decision making outlines a range of decision making approaches. Rational decision making forms part of what we have termed types of decision, categorized by process. In this category we have put two contrasting approaches, that of rational decision making and that of judgement or intuitive decision making.

A General Rational Decision Making Model

Rational decision making processes consist of a sequence of steps designed to rationally develop a desired solution. Typically these steps involve:
Identifying a problem or opportunity
The first step is to recognise a problem or to see opportunities that may be worthwhile. A rational decision making model is best employed where relatively complex decisions have to be made.

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Professor Dennis J. Garritan, Adjunct Professor, Harvard University

The first decision making lesson should be to ask yourself if you really have a problem to solve or a decision to make. Then read this article for more specific advice: Problem Solving Skill: Finding the Right Problem to Solve.
Gathering information
What is relevant and what is not relevant to the decision? What do you need to know before you can make a decision, or that will help you make the right one?
Analyzing the situation
What alternative courses of action may be available to you? What different interpretations of the data may be possible? Our Problem Solving Activity uses a set of structured questions to encourage both broad and deep analysis of your situation or problem.
Developing options
Generate several possible options. Be creative and positive. Read The Power of Positive Thinking for our five questions that create possibilities.
Evaluating alternatives
What criteria should you use to evaluate? Evaluate for feasibility, acceptability and desirability. Which alternative will best achieve your objectives?
Selecting a preferred alternative
Explore the provisional preferred alternative for future possible adverse consequences. What problems might it create? What are the risks of making this decision?
Acting on the decision
Put a plan in place to implement the decision. Have you allocated resources to implement? Is the decision accepted and supported by colleagues? Are they commited to to making the decision work?

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Rational Decision Making Model

The main strength of a rational decision making model is that it provides structure and discipline to the decision making process.

Free infographic:

Click on the image to download our free infographic of the rational decision making process

It helps ensure we consider the full range of factors relating to a decision, in a logical and comprehensive manner. These are a key feature of our comprehensive guide: Making Better Decisions.

However, we should always remember that whilst the model indicates what needs to be done, it's often how things are done that characterises effective decision making.

Paul C. Nutt's research illustrates that bad decisions were usually bad because two things were missing:

1. adequate participation of stakeholders in the decision making process;

2. sufficient time spent generating a range of possible solutions.

Too often those who should have been involved weren't, and solutions were proposed and acted upon too quickly. Often with disastrous effects!

A second weakness arises if we attempt to use the model in isolation. This is particularly important where complex or important decisions are involved.

The principle assumption of the rational decision making process is that human beings make rational decisions. However, there are numerous factors which determine our decisions, many of which are not rational. In many situations decisions have to be made with incomplete and insufficient information.

Judgement, intuition, experience and knowledge all come together when making decisions. This critical aspect is further explored in our article: Intuition and Decision Making.

Putting the Rational Decision Making Model to work

Regardless of any perceived weaknesses these models are essential tools. You'll find more on these and other practical techniques in our related e-guides (below) or in Making Better Decisions.

Use the tools in this guide to help your decision making:

Tool 1: Do you need to make a decision?

Tool 2: The POCA decision making model

Tool 3: Decision levels

Tool 4: 7 step decision making process

Tool 5: Team decision making

Tool 6: Evaluating alternatives

See for yourself that a rational decision making model can help us to make better decisions - and thus help us to be better managers.

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Using such an approach can help to ensure discipline and consistency is built into your decision making process. As the word rational suggests, this approach brings logic and order to decision making. Our rational decision making model consists of a series of steps, beginning with problem/opportunity identification, and ending with actions to be taken on decisions made.

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Paul Solman: In 2003, our NewsHour economics crew traipsed to the western outskirts of Philadelphia to rendezvous with Swarthmore psychology professor Barry Schwartz and hear him make the case, at the something-for-everyone King of Prussia Mall, for the thesis around which he'd just written a book, "The Paradox of Choice."
Watch the segment below.

A decade, a and a Freakonomics seal of approval later, the choice thesis has become something of a commonplace. Today, then, the news story would not be that the proliferation of consumer choice is paralyzing us, as Schwartz argued, but that he's wrong.

And indeed, that's been the counterattack lately, which came to my attention the other day when economist Justin Wolfers tweeted this:

Is more choice a good thing? Apparently the famous jam experiment doesn't replicate: http://t.co/iH7xt2XFAW by @TimHarford

- Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) January 23, 2014

(The link is to a Financial Times article that sits behind a pay-to-read firewall.) But, when I asked him, Barry Schwartz was gracious enough to respond to the pro-choice literature that's been coming out recently, and in the process, to summarize it. We're much obliged.

Barry Schwartz: It seems a simple matter of logic that if people have more options in a choice domain (cereals in the grocery, shirts in the department store, mutual funds in the financial market, health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act), they're better off. People who don't care about added options can ignore them, and people who do care may be able to find the perfect thing. Adding options is what economists call a "Pareto improvement," making some people better off while making nobody worse off.

Because of the "obvious" truth of the proposition that more choice makes us better off, it was big news when Sheena Iyengar published a series of studies more than a decade ago showing the opposite. Iyengar found that there are circumstances in which adding options reduces the likelihood that people will select any, whether the decision in question is trivial (gourmet jam) or very significant (401k participation).

This counterintuitive result attracted a great deal of attention, and I wrote a whole book about it, "The Paradox of Choice," which attracted even more. (Indeed Paul Solman did a lovely piece with me about the book for The News Hour.)

Research on the phenomenon continued, extending its scope, but also identifying its limits (e.g., for people who know a domain well, more choice seems better than less, and if options are organized into categories, the too-much-choice effect is mitigated or eliminated.)

But then Benjamin Scheibehenne and two colleagues published a thorough analysis of all the existing studies and concluded that the original findings were not very robust. Indeed, averaged across all the studies they could find, the average effect of choice set size was close to zero.

Several writers have jumped on this result as evidence that the initial findings were just more "junk" social science that doesn't replicate, suggesting economists and the rest of us should rest easy with their assumption that more choice is always better than less. A few months ago, Derek Thompson published an article in The Atlantic titled "More Is More: Why the Paradox of Choice Might Be a Myth." Referring to what has become the classic piece of research on this topic, by Iyengar and Mark Lepper, Thompson wrote this:

It could be one of the most memorable economic studies of the last half century. Researchers presented an array of tasty jams and enticed shoppers to buy a jar. In one version, there were six varieties shown to shoppers. In another, there were 24 jams. The second, larger array attracted more traffic. But the smaller array led to ten times more purchases. Sometimes, they concluded, too many options repel us. The researchers called it 'the paradox of choice.' You might call it 'feeling overwhelmed by options.' But some economists are calling it something else: 'complete hogwash.'

Thompson then described the influential paper by Scheibehenne and colleagues and discussed a recent paper by Daniel Mochon that showed that people hate the absence of choice; they have a "single option aversion."

In November 2009, Tim Harford published a similar piece in the Financial Times. He did not call the original findings "hogwash." Instead, he said that "offering lots of extra choices seems to make no important difference either way." And he appealed to an argument that I often hear from economists: if the too-much-choice effect were true, we'd see marketers trying to take advantage of it by simplifying their offerings. Yet, a glance around the grocery store suggests choice proliferation seems to be continuing unabated. So it can't be true.

(This is an argument reminiscent of the old joke about the economist who says the piece of paper lying on the ground that looks exactly like a $10 bill can't be one, because if it were, someone would have already picked it up.) Harford further suggests that there is just no evidence in the real world that reducing options increases take-up.

So is the too-much-choice effect "complete hogwash" and pseudoscience?

Scheibehenne, the main source of doubt about the effect, doesn't think so. As his paper makes clear, though the average effect size is tiny, this average is made up of many studies that show large effects - in opposite directions. That is, sometimes, more choice is better, sometimes it's worse. And Scheibehenne's effort to figure out when you get which effect left him, and the rest of us, without a clear answer.

And there is evidence in the real world that reducing options increases sales. After my book was published, I gave lots of talks to various industry groups and heard two striking examples. First, a large retailer of office supplies reduced the number of options offered in its print catalog in many product categories. It did this not because of the research on too much choice, but to save money on production and postage. It assumed that the change would lead to reduced sales, but hoped that production and distribution savings would outpace sales losses. What the company found was that in virtually every category in which options had been reduced, sales increased.

Second, a very large home builder, with semi-autonomous branches in many different parts of the U.S., reduced the number of options available to home buyers after they had selected a model and went about customizing it. The way the company operated, home buyers would customize their homes, advised by a consultant, in a design center. Home buyers faced 24 backsplashes for kitchen counters, 34 tile floors, 17 ovens, 21 refrigerators, 9 master bath tub packages, 13 master bath counters, 159 carpets, 37 hardwood floors, 41 vinyl sidings, 150 kitchen cabinet styles, 65 countertops, 21 kitchen faucets, 43 bathroom faucets and 26 fireplace options, among other choices.

On average, consultants spent 20 hours with each home buyer, outfitting the home. The company dramatically reduced options in many of these categories, again as a cost-cutting measure. The results were striking: reduced paralysis (four hours with a consultant rather than 20), more upgrades, less regret and more customer satisfaction. The streamlining also enabled the home builder to build homes more efficiently and economically because the construction crews could work faster with fewer errors when there were fewer variants available. These cost savings were passed on to customers in the form of no-cost upgrades; that is, the "standard" models contained features that would have been priced upgrades before.

In both of these examples, choice reduction was undertaken to save money, not to increase sales. But increase sales they did, and in the case of the home builder, they increased customer satisfaction as well.

And Iyengar, the author of the original jam study, has published evidence of a similar result when it comes to employee participation in retirement plans. When there are lots of mutual fund options available, fewer people participate than when there are only a few, even though by failing to participate, employees pass up matching money from their employers.

Similar results have also been found by Tim Rice and Yaniv Hanoch in studies of sign-ups for the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan. I can tell you that based on this research, if I were designing the Affordable Care Act and hoping for large enrollments, I would certainly have offered people fewer options than are available in most states.

So too-much-choice happens. It just doesn't happen all the time. And we don't yet know when it does and when it doesn't. What should we make of this unsettling uncertainty? Do mixed results like these discredit the science that produced them?

Let me return to Thompson's piece in The Atlantic. He says that "it's widely assumed that overwhelming people with options - whether in TVs or delicious jams - can make them less likely to make a decision." What is striking about this sentence? Well, prior to Iyengar's pathbreaking jam study, a mere 13 years ago, not only was this assumption about choice overload not "widely shared," it was non-existent.

If you asked any economist about the possibility, you'd hear something like, "Nonsense. Adding options has to make people better off. If you don't care about all the options, you'll just ignore them, so that for you, it's neutral. But for someone dissatisfied with the common options, adding more will be an improvement. So some people benefit and no one suffers. QED!"

Thus, it's not surprising to read Thompson's claim that economists call the effect "complete hogwash." From their point of view, choice overload is logically impossible. Forget the data. As a philosopher colleague of mine likes to say, with tongue firmly in cheek, "never let the facts get in the way of a good theory."

Iyengar's initial study and her many follow-ups made a real contribution to our understanding, such that a principle that was once invisible - indeed impossible - a decade ago has become "widely shared" by now. Does choice overload always occur? Of course not. Does it affect all people, in all domains of decision making? Of course not. Does it matter how options are organized and arrayed? By all means, yes. Does adding options improve decision making by making salient features of alternatives that might otherwise be ignored? Sometimes, yes. But sometimes it has a perverse effect, by making salient features of options that ought to be ignored.

In the studies of senior citizens making Medicare Part D prescription drug plan choices, it was shown that when there are a large number of plans from which to choose, decision-making quality suffers. Often people choose on the basis of essentially irrelevant features of plans, just because the relevant features are too complex to evaluate. Has anyone ever suggested that the sensible alternative to too many options is a single option? Absolutely and unequivocally not. Psychology has known about "single option aversion" for a half century. With too few options, there is the risk that none will be satisfactory, whereas with too many, there is the risk of paralysis, confusion and dissatisfaction.

The trick is to find the middle ground - the "sweet spot" - that enables people to benefit from variety and not be paralyzed by it. Choice is good, but there can be too much of a good thing. Adam Grant and I recently published a paper suggesting that this "too much of a good thing" phenomenon is pervasive in psychology.

The well-publicized failure to replicate the jam study reliably is certainly problematic. What makes it problematic is that we don't yet know what factors determine when choice overload will occur and when it won't. But this is in the nature of science. You could think of the history of scientific progress as just one damn mistake after another. Scientific claims are almost always wrong, principally because they are overly generalized and inadequately qualified. This is true in physics, it's true in medicine and of course, it's true in all the social sciences. Fallibility does not make science "pseudoscience"; it's the nature of the beast.

The pity is that the public is so badly educated about how science works that it takes every correction or revision as a condemnation of what has come before. Lord knows there is plenty of pseudoscience out there. But with very rare exceptions, it is not produced by scientists. Someone who has a child who matured into a wonderful adult writes a guide to successful parenting. Someone who lost 20 pounds writes a book about successful dieting. These are the books that fly off the shelves. The ones describing the progress of real science, moving slowly and imperfectly toward understanding, typically don't.

It is no doubt true that scientists sometimes seek popular audiences prematurely - before their claims have been adequately tested by peers. I, myself, may have been guilty of this when I wrote "The Paradox of Choice" a decade ago. I believe that in most cases, the reason for this is that the scientist believes she has found something out that, while hardly certain, will improve the lives of at least some people.

So, the final story on the "paradox of choice" has yet to be written. But to me, it is a beautiful example of how science works when it is doing what it should. An important idea goes from "unthinkable" to "commonly assumed." Then, further work reveals that there are limits to this idea. Over time, we develop generalizations that are appropriately qualified and contextualized. People understand something they didn't before, and spend their time and mental effort in ways that are more productive and satisfying than was the case before. This counts not as pseudoscience, but as scientific progress.

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Is the famous 'paradox of choice' a myth?

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The theory that less choice can be more -- what psychologist Barry Schwartz called "The Paradox of Choice" -- is under attack as scientific hogwash. But the very fact that its potential weaknesses are making news, Schwartz argues, proves how much the theory's veracity has resonated with the media, academics and everyday consumers.

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Examples of how to calculate the moving average.

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Statistics Definitions >

Contents:
What is a Moving Average? How to Calculate it by Hand.
Moving Average in Excel:
Data Analysis Add-In.
Using Functions (Non Data Analysis Option)

Watch the video or read the article below:

A moving average is a technique to get an overall idea of the trends in a data set; it is an average of any subset of numbers. The moving average is extremely useful for forecasting long-term trends. You can calculate it for any period of time. For example, if you have sales data for a twenty-year period, you can calculate a five-year moving average, a four-year moving average, a three-year moving average and so on. Stock market analysts will often use a 50 or 200 day moving average to help them see trends in the stock market and (hopefully) forecast where the stocks are headed.

An average represents the "middling" value of a set of numbers. The moving average is exactly the same, but the average is calculated several times for several subsets of data. For example, if you want a two-year moving average for a data set from 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 you would find averages for the subsets 2000/2001, 2001/2002 and 2002/2003. Moving averages are usually plotted and are best visualized.

Calculating a 5-Year Moving Average Example

Sample Problem: Calculate a five-year moving average from the following data set:

The mean (average) sales for the first five years (2003-2007) is calculated by finding the mean from the first five years (i.e. adding the five sales totals and dividing by 5). This gives you the moving average for 2005 (the center year) = 6.4M:

(4M + 6M + 5M + 8M + 9M) / 5 = 6.4M

The average sales for the second subset of five years (2004 - 2008), centered around 2006, is 6.6M:
(6M + 5M + 8M + 9M + 5M) / 5 = 6.6M

The average sales for the third subset of five years (2005 - 2009), centered around 2007, is 6.6M:
(5M + 8M + 9M + 5M + 4M) / 5 = 6.2M

Continue calculating each five-year average, until you reach the end of the set (2009-2013). This gives you a series of points (averages) that you can use to plot a chart of moving averages. The following Excel table shows you the moving averages calculated for 2003-2012 along with a scatter plot of the data:

Watch the video or read the steps below:

Excel has a powerful add-in, the Data Analysis Toolpak ( how to load the Data Analysis Toolpak) that gives you many extra options, including an automated moving average function. The function not only calculates the moving average for you, it also graphs the original data at the same time, saving you quite a lot of keystrokes.

Excel 2013: Steps

Step 1: Click the "Data" tab and then click "Data Analysis."

Step 2: Click "Moving average" and then click "OK."

Step 3: Click the "Input Range" box and then select your data. If you include column headers, make sure you check the Labels in first Row box.

Step 4: Type an interval into the box. An interval is how many prior points you want Excel to use to calculate the moving average. For example, "5" would use the previous 5 data points to calculate the average for each subsequent point. The lower the interval, the closer your moving average is to your original data set.

Step 5: Click in the "Output Range" box and select an area on the worksheet where you want the result to appear. Or, click the "New worksheet" radio button.

Step 6: Check the "Chart Output" box if you want to see a chart of your data set (if you forget to do this, you can always go back and add it or choose a chart from the "Insert" tab."

Step 7: Press "OK." Excel will return the results in the area you specified in Step 6.

Watch the video, or read the steps below:

Steps

Sample problem: Calculate the three-year moving average in Excel for the following sales data: 2003($33M), 2004($22M), 2005($36M), 2006($34M), 2007($43M), 2008($39M), 2009($41M), 2010($36M), 2011($45M), 2012($56M), 2013($64M).

Step 1: Type your data into two columns in Excel. The first column should have the year and the second column the quantitative data (in this example problem, the sales figures). Make sure there are no blank rows in your cell data.

Step 2: Calculate the first three-year average (2003-2005) for the data. For this sample problem, type "=(B2+B3+B4)/3" into cell D3.

Step 3: Drag the square in the bottom right corner down to move the formula to all cells in the column. This calculates averages for successive years (e.g. 2004-2006, 2005-2007).

Step 4: (Optional) Create a graph. Select all of the data in the worksheet. Click the "Insert" tab, then click "Scatter," then click "Scatter with smooth lines and markers." A graph of your moving average will appear on the worksheet.

Check out our YouTube channel for more stats help and tips!

Moving Average: What it is and How to Calculate it was last modified: by

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Moving Average: What it is and How to Calculate it

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Statistics Definitions > Contents: What is a Moving Average? How to Calculate it by Hand. Moving Average in Excel: Data Analysis Add-In. Using Functions (Non Data Analysis Option) Watch the video or read the article below: A moving average is a technique to get an overall idea of the trends in a data set; it is an average of any subset of numbers.

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I use powerpoint alot and found this interesting.

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Office Timeline: Gantt Chart Template Collection

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Free collection of stunning Gantt chart templates for PowerPoint.

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Great example who to create a Gantt chart

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By Diana Ramos | March 4, 2019 (updated April 12, 2023)

In this article, you'll find a comprehensive guide to creating the most effective Gantt chart for your projects across a variety of industries. We've included step-by-step instructions and videos on how to create your own customized Gantt chart in Microsoft Excel, versions 2000 and above.

What Is a Gantt Chart?

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that represents all the tasks in a project. It's a project management tool used to plan project schedules, improve resource allocation, and remain up to date with project progress.

A Gantt chart has two main axis options. The vertical axis shows the list of tasks, and the horizontal axis represents the project timeline.

The chart itself features horizontal bars. Each bar represents a task, with the length of the bar showing when the task should start and end. As a result, project managers can use the chart to accurately predict the entire project timeline.

The Gantt chart became popular in the early 20th century. Henry Gantt, a mechanical engineer, began using the model to record the progress of each task in the manufacturing process. As a result, supervisors could see if production schedules were on time. If they weren't, they could make changes to get things back on track.

Today, Gantt charts aren't limited to the manufacturing industry. From software development to construction, Gantt charts can help a variety of teams manage their project schedules.

For more information on what a Gantt chart is, who uses a Gantt chart, the features of a Gantt chart, and the benefits of leveraging a Gantt chart in your project, visit our guide to Gantt charts.

How to Make a Gantt Chart Online in Excel 2007 and Above

When it comes to creating a Gantt chart in Excel, you can either use a predesigned template or create your own from scratch.

To manually create a Gantt chart in Excel, follow these steps, which apply to both PCs and Macs.

1. Start by creating a data range in Excel that lists your project tasks, and their start and finish dates.

2. Select the data range that you want to make a Gantt chart for.

3. On the top navigation bar, select Insert on the menu ribbon.

4. In the Charts group, select the 2D Bar group, and click on the Stacked Bar option. The Stacked Bar is the closest option to a Gantt chart in Excel.

5. Format the stacked bar chart to appear more like a Gantt chart. To do so, click the first data series, or the Start Date part of the bar.

6. Click on the Format tab. Select Shape, then No Fill.

7. Reverse the task order so that the Gantt chart starts with the first task. Hold the Control key and select the Vertical Axis or the Task Axis.

8. Select Format Axis. Under the Axis Position part of the window, check the box for Categories in Reverse Order.

9. Add a chart title by double clicking on the text box titled Chart Title at the top of the chart.

10. Format the axis title and color by double clicking on either axis. A popup window will open on the right side of the screen for you to edit the colors and lines of the axis.

11. Further customize the chart by adding gridlines, labels, and bar colors with the formatting tools in Excel.

12. To add elements to your chart (like axis title, date labels, gridlines, and legends), click the chart area on the Chart Design tab at the top of the navigation bar. Select Add Chart Element, located on the far left side of the page.

13. To quickly change the layout of your Gantt chart, navigate back to the Chart Design tab and click on the Quick Layout button.

14. To change the colors within your chart, navigate back to the Chart Design tab, and click the Change Colors button.

At this point, you should have a Gantt chart that accurately depicts the start and end dates of your project tasks. As a result, you'll also have a visual representation of your project.

You can use these steps to create Gantt charts for projects of all types and sizes based on your business needs.

The Pros and Cons of Creating a Gantt Chart in Excel

If you're thinking about creating a Gantt chart in Excel but you're not sure if it's right for your project, we've outlined some of the pros and cons of creating a Gantt chart in Excel below.

Benefits of Using Excel

The benefits of creating a Gantt chart in Excel include the ability to store all project information on one screen and the ease of use. Let's look at these benefits in more detail:

Store all project information in one screen: With an Excel spreadsheet, all your project information is in one location. You can simply open the spreadsheet, and voilà - you'll see all your project tasks, deadlines, and milestones.

Excel is easy to use: When it comes to manually creating a Gantt chart, Excel is a fairly easy-to-use program. Simply add your date range to the spreadsheet, highlight the information, and choose the Chart Wizard button to add it all to a Gantt chart. Then, you can customize the chart to suit your project.

Downsides of Using Excel

Although Excel is a straightforward program for manually creating a Gantt chart, there are some drawbacks, namely that it is difficult to keep up to date, doesn't allow you to assign tasks, and is difficult to collaborate in.

It's tricky to keep it up to date: Excel isn't a cloud-based platform, which means that project information doesn't update in real time, across devices. To update your team, you'll have to manually send them the most up-to-date version of your static spreadsheet. This makes it harder for project teams to remain on the same page, and can present version control issues.

You're unable to assign tasks: In older versions of Excel, project teams can't assign tasks to other users. This makes it hard for team members to know what they need to do and what their team members are working on. With an online platform, however, you can assign tasks.

It's hard to collaborate with your project team: Excel can make it difficult for project teams to collaborate while the project is live. As mentioned, Excel Gantt charts aren't accessible online, meaning that project teams can't instantly access the project in real time.

Online Gantt Chart Software: An Alternative to Excel

If you want to improve collaboration and provide real-time access to project progress, using online Gantt chart software is a step in the right direction. Online Gantt chart software allows you to create, share, and manage your Gantt chart virtually.

Online solutions provide an accessible location for your entire project team to get real-time access to project progress. Depending on the platform you choose, you can assign tasks to team members, add comments to the chart, and send messages to other users to streamline collaboration.

For detailed insight on To find out what to look for when choosing the a Gantt chart software, visit take a look at our article on quick and easy Gantt chart software, tools, and apps. And, i If you're looking for additional Gantt chart Excel templates for a variety of use cases, download our free Gantt chart Excel templates.

Why Is Online Gantt Chart Software Helpful for Project Teams?

The benefits of using Gantt chart software include the abilities to easily make changes, access the most up-to-date version, identify the critical path, and track progress in real time.

Let's take a look at these benefits in greater detail:

Easily make changes in real time: With an online Gantt chart, it's easy to make changes to your project schedule in real time. For example, you can typically drag and drop tasks to make changes to the start and end dates - what's more, changing the dates of your project tasks will often also automatically update the rest of the project. For instance, if a task deadline moves forward by a week, the rest of the project (and any dependent tasks) will also be updated.

Always access the most up-to-date version: An online Gantt chart will instantly reflect any changes made to it. This means that anyone who views the chart knows that they're looking at the most current version, which cuts down on version control issues and reduces the likelihood of team members working from outdated information.

Identify the critical path: The critical path is the longest sequence of dependent tasks that must take place for the project to finish on time. With an online Gantt chart, it's easy to spot, highlight, and track your critical tasks. You can see how your critical path is performing in real time and prioritize critical tasks if things aren't going to plan.

Create Your Real-Time Gantt Chart in Smartsheet

Creating a Gantt chart in Smartsheet is an easy way to ensure that your real-time project status and schedule are easy to read and accessible to stakeholders from anywhere. We'll walk you through how to create an effective Gantt chart from a template in Smartsheet in the steps below.

1. Find a template that suits your needs in the Smartsheet Solution Center using the search bar at the top of the page. The Smartsheet Solution Center is home to more than 175 different templates, many of which include Gantt charts and other project management tools. In this walkthrough, we'll use the Project with Gantt & Dependencies template. This template comes preformatted with sample data to get you started, but it is easy to add your own.

2. Log into your Smartsheet account and add the template to your Sheets folder. Then, click on the name of the template to open it.

3. First, customize the tasks within the Task Name column by clicking within the cell and entering your project tasks and phases.

4. Then, choose start and end dates for each task, and assign each one to the team member responsible for it.

5. Next, add project dependencies by entering the row number of dependent tasks in the Predecessors column. This will create arrows between dependent tasks on your Gantt chart.

6. You can also flag at-risk tasks, and enter the % Complete of each task as the project progresses.

With this data filled in, Smartsheet will automatically create a Gantt chart on the right side of the template.

7. Smartsheet also allows you to adjust project information within the Gantt chart directly. To adjust the start or end date of a task, hover your mouse over the left or right side of the task bar until the two way arrow icon appears. Then, click and drag the edge of the task bar to the desired date.

To move a task to a different date but keep the original task duration intact, click within the center of the task bar and drag it from its existing range to the new date range.

Using either of these options will update the start and end date columns for each task on the left side of the template automatically.

You can also change the colors of individual tasks by right clicking the bar and choosing a new color in the Color Settings menu.

8. Once you've filled in your project task list and customized the Gantt chart colors, attach additional project documents as needed to the relevant rows, or add context and reminders in the Notes column. You can also upload a proof to review multimedia elements, or automate reminders for your team as deadlines appear or when new information is added.

Hover your mouse over a row to reveal four icons on the left-hand side. Use these icons to Attach a file to this row, Add a comment, Add a proof, or Set a reminder.

9. When your Gantt chart is complete, save it and share it with your team. Any changes you make over the course of the project will be automatically reflected to anyone with access to the sheet, ensuring that they always have the most up to date project information.

Improve Project Visibility with Real-Time Gantt Charts in Smartsheet

Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team - and adapt as those needs change.

The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed.

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there's no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time. Try Smartsheet for free, today.

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How to Create a Gantt Chart in Excel | Smartsheet

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By Diana Ramos | March 4, 2019 (updated April 12, 2023) In this article, you'll find a comprehensive guide to creating the most effective Gantt chart for your projects across a variety of industries. We've included step-by-step instructions and videos on how to create your own customized Gantt chart in Microsoft Excel, versions 2000 and above.

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A great diagram of the cycle

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The main stages of the product life cycle are:

Introduction - researching, developing and then launching the product

Growth - when sales are increasing at their fastest rate

Maturity - sales are near their highest, but the rate of growth is slowing down, e.g. new competitors in market or saturation

Decline - final stage of the cycle, when sales begin to fall

This can be illustrated by looking at the sales during the time period of the product. A branded good can enjoy continuous growth, such as Microsoft, because the product is being constantly improved and advertised, and maintains a strong brand loyalty.

Extension strategies extend the life of the product before it goes into decline. Again businesses use marketing techniques to improve sales. Examples of the techniques are:

Advertising - try to gain a new audience or remind the current audience

Price reduction - more attractive to customers

Adding value - add new features to the current product, e.g. video messaging on mobile phones

Explore new markets - try selling abroad

New packaging - brightening up old packaging, or subtle changes such as putting crisps in foil packets or Seventies music compilations

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Marketing: Product Life Cycle (GCSE) | tutor2u Business

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The product life cycle is an important concept in marketing. It describes the stages a product goes through from when it was first thought of until it finally is removed from the market. Not all products reach this final stage. Some continue to grow and others rise and fall.

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But I had grown ever bored of the weather, the competitive nature of the city, and the fast-paced lifestyle that was just not clicking with me. It would have been fair to say that in the 6 months prior to October 2010, London and I had a love/hate relationship.

Changing Homes

Fast forward three and half years to Friday, 4 April 2014, and I find myself writing this article about repatriation aboard a British Airways flight back to London with no return ticket. Although my repatriation will be temporary, as there is already another expat adventure lined up, the basic feelings are still the same. And those feelings are usually mixed. It's sad to leave a place you have made home, but it's exciting to return to the comfort and familiarity of your "real" home, especially the friends and family that you left behind. But I think many expats (myself included) struggle with the idea of leaving one home for another. Which begs the question: after three years of living in Cyprus, where is my "real" home?

To get one thing straight: I am not leaving Cyprus because it's a bad place to live. Quite the contrary, Cyprus is a wonderful place to live. I have spent three and half happy years on the little Mediterranean island soaking up the sun, sea, food, and culture. The problem is that Cyprus is not the place for us to be right now; I think the natural progression of life means sometimes you fit and sometimes you don't. And when I say us, I mean my partner and of course our four-legged friend that we picked up along the way. I won't go into the specific reasons for our departure from Cyprus because that's a whole different story, but the point is that I find myself in the state of repatriation and it is a funny place to be. As expats, most of us will be faced with the issue of repatriation at some point (unless we stay expats forever) and we will go through a whole range of emotions during the process, so let's talk about it shall we.

The Decision-Making Process

For many expats, the decision to repatriate may be a confusing one. It is not always clear cut. After living in a country for a few years it will no longer be foreign and the way of life will have become less strange with every day that passed. This familiarity can make the decisions to leave a lot more complicated. After three and half years living in Cyprus, it has become my home. I have a routine in my life, I know my way around, and I even understand the food labels in the supermarket.

Despite feeling like Cyprus was home, the decision to repatriate was quite an easy one. My partner's job had already seen him relocate to a new country, and while I had my own job and friends in Cyprus, losing such an integral part of the equation made living everyday life a little harder.

This is just one of many expat scenarios that make life a little challenging. International work assignments are often temporary by default, and you have to be flexible and adapt to changing situations quite quickly. While this ensures a continuing sense of adventure, actually making any decisions can be tricky when so many factors which are usually out of your control have to be considered. It is one thing taking a calculated risk and another making a decision with your eyes closed.

Miriam Finerty was an expat in Cyprus for the past four years, and is currently back in her native London preparing for her next expat adventure in Dubai.
If you are an InterNations member and would like to contribute an article, do not hesitate to contact us!

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Goodbye and Hello: The Ugly Truth about Repatriation

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But I had grown ever bored of the weather, the competitive nature of the city, and the fast-paced lifestyle that was just not clicking with me. It would have been fair to say that in the 6 months prior to October 2010, London and I had a love/hate relationship.

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Article has some interesting statistics on attrition for repatriates.

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Many leading organisations recognise the value of cross cultural training for their employees going on a foreign assignment, offering a range of support for the employee and often their accompanying family members.

These services, including raising cultural awareness, daily living practicalities, working effectively in a multicultural environment and executive coaching, all improve the chances of a successful expatriate relocation.

However, once it's time for the employee to return to their home country, most organisations ignore the value of additional cultural training and support for the repatriation process, if they give it any thought at all.
A difficult return home
In fact, expatriates who have made a success of their foreign assignment may find it surprisingly difficult to return to their home culture, creating a disappointing and often confusing experience, often unanticipated. If organisations are not careful, they may also lose a proven valuable employee if the repatriation is not successful.

Organisations may be operating under the belief that repatriation training is not necessary as their employees are simply returning home to what and where they have already known, perhaps for their entire life prior to their original expatriate assignment. However, these attitudes and assumptions are a big part of the problem.

Successful expatriates become different people whilst on assignment. They have almost certainly acquired new skills - many of which may be unfamiliar or even uncomfortable to people back home.

This may include new language skills as well as seeing the world through a new cultural lens. In addition, the employee, and perhaps their entire family, has settled well in their new country and don't especially want to return home, at least at the time the repatriation assignment is offered, causing personal, family and professional dilemmas.

They may appreciate things they consider 'better' back home but may also be vocally critical of things in their home country that they believe their adoptive country did better.

Nor has the home environment stayed static. Things change and while most expatriates stay in contact with friends and family back home, they may still not be aware of day-to-day changes that have happened in the wider communities of their home country. These can range from popular culture references to confusion over new slang to the unexpected impact of a new building in the community to a new way of doing something.

These issues can all cause friction, especially when reuniting with friends, family and colleagues who expect the repatriated employee to fit back into their old life as if they have never left their home country.

Even worse, many returning expatriates, who are looking forward to share their enthusiasm and experiences in their adoptive country, may be met with indifference, dismissal or even hostility by the very people who they thought would be interested in hearing about their foreign adventures.

The employee's world view has more than likely broadened from a business perspective as well, improving their ability to see and solve problems from a more sophisticated vantage point. This 'new' vision could be seen as problematic to the team the repatriated employee has joined, perhaps accusing the returning employee of not conforming to the team or branding them as an outsider and thus less trustworthy.

This problem is more likely to be experienced in entrenched, cautious business environments that may be reluctant to any change or who may consider change to be a threat to the status quo.

Business practices that may have been relatively transparent or invisible whilst abroad may become unavoidable once back home. If they are perceived to be outdated, cumbersome or insensitive to other cultures from the repatriated employee's perspective and they try to force their new experience on the old guard, then conflict may arise. Many employees can feel that their new skills and outlook are not recognised or appreciated upon repatriation, causing the employee to feel undervalued.
High rate of attrition of returning employees
According to a frequently referenced Global Relocation Trends Survey issued by GMAC Global Relocation Services and the National Foreign Trade Council, 23 per cent of repatriating employees leave their company in the first year.

After three years the total is at least 40 per cent, though some people place it closer to 50 per cent. As the average direct cost of a typical three year expatriate assignment is in excess of US$1 million (and with several more intangible costs), few organisations can afford failed repatriations.

Any of these challenges, which may be hidden to the employee's management or HR, if not acknowledged and addressed, can lead to the loss of a valuable employee. As the organisation has already invested substantial time and money into the assignee's career development, the cost of losing this employee to the organisation is extremely high.
Steps to reduce the loss of returning assignees
The following steps can assist organisations with the task of easing the repatriation process:

* Acknowledge the value of the returning employee both from a cost perspective as well as gained insight and experience while abroad that is harder to measure quantitatively

* Recognise that the employee and their family may need assistance in readjusting to their home culture

* Provide repatriation cultural training to raise awareness and provide tools for the adaptation process

* Provide assistance for not only the returning employee but also to any partners and children so their re-entry process is smoother

* Ensure that the employee feels they can continue to make a valuable contribution to the organisation. Avoid a situation where the employee feels undervalued or marginalised as an outsider.

* Provide coaching or other professional services so the employee can better integrate into their 'new-old' environment.

* Finally: Listen. Do not underestimate the frustration caused when few people show interest in the repatriated employee's experiences, knowledge and expertise gained abroad. It may be hard to quantify the value of sharing new experiences and new ways of looking at things, but the benefits gained by the organisation as a whole should not be lost. After all, this is part of the reason why the employee was on an expatriate assignment in the first place!

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Steps companies can take to ease the repatriation process

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Repatriation: Overlooked? Many leading organisations recognise the value of cross cultural training for their employees going on a foreign assignment, offering a range of support for the employee and often their accompanying family members. These services, including raising cultural awareness, daily living practicalities, working effectively in a multicultural environment and executive coaching, all improve the chances of a successful expatriate relocation.

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THis website has a good diagram of the differences.

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Trade refers to the exchange of goods and services for money, which can be undertaken locally or globally. The trade which takes place within the geographical boundaries of the country is called domestic business, whereas trade which occurs among countries internationally, is international business. Entities engaged in international business often face more difficulties than the entities which conduct domestic business. Although international business enjoys large customer base as they operate in multiple countries. Here is an article which compiles the important differences between domestic and international business.

Content: Domestic Business Vs International Business

Comparison Chart

Basis for Comparison

Domestic Business

International Business

Definition of Domestic Business

The business transaction that occurs within the geographical limits of the country is known as domestic business. It is a business entity whose commercial activities are performed within a nation. Alternately known as internal business or sometimes as home trade. The producer and customers of the firm both reside in the country.

There are many privileges which a domestic business enjoys like low transaction cost, less period between production and sale of goods, low transportation cost, encourages small-scale enterprises, etc.

Definition of International Business

International Business is one whose manufacturing and trade occur beyond the borders of the home country. All the economic activities indulged in cross-border transactions comes under international or external business. It includes all the commercial activities like sales, investment, logistics, etc., in which two or more countries are involved.

The company conducting international business is known as a multinational or transnational company. These companies enjoy a large customer base from different countries, and it does not have to depend on a single country for resources. Further, the international business expands the trade and investment amongst countries. However, there are several drawbacks which act as a barrier to entry in the international market like tariffs and quota, political, socio-cultural, economic and other factors that affect the international business.

Key Differences Between Domestic and International Business

The most important differences Between domestic and international business are classified as under:

1. Domestic Business is defined as the business whose economic transaction is conducted within the geographical limits of the country. International Business refers to a business which is not restricted to a single country, i.e. a business which is engaged in the economic transaction with several countries in the world.

2. The area of operation of the domestic business is limited, which is the home country. On the other hand, the area of operation of an international business is vast, i.e. it serves many countries at the same time.

3. The quality standards of products and services provided by a domestic business is relatively low. Conversely, the quality standards of international business are very high which are set according to global standards.

4. Domestic business deals in the currency of the country in which it operates. On the contrary, the international business deals in the multiple currencies.

5. Domestic Business requires comparatively less capital investment as compared to international business.

6. Domestic Business has few restrictions, as it is subject to rules, law taxation of a single country. As against this, international business is subject to rules, law taxation, tariff and quotas of many countries and therefore, it has to face many restrictions which are barriers in the international business.

7. The nature of customers of a domestic business is more or less same. Unlike, international business wherein the nature of customers of every country it serves is different.

8. Business Research can be conducted easily, in domestic business. As against this, in the case of international research, it is difficult to conduct business research as it is expensive and research reliability varies from country to country.

9. In domestic business, factors of production are mobile whereas, in international business, the mobility of factors of production are restricted.

Conclusion

Carrying out the activities of international business and its management is far more difficult than conducting a domestic business. Due to changes in political, economic, socio-cultural environment across the nations, most business entities find it difficult to expand their business globally. To become a successful player in the international market firms need to plan their business strategies as per the requirement of the foreign market.

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Difference Between Domestic and International Business (with Comparison Chart) - Key Differences

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Nine differences between domestic and international business are discussed in this article in detail. The trade which takes place within the geographical boundaries of the country is called domestic business, whereas trade which occurs among countries internationally, is international business.

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This website shows a list of multinational corporations which was interesting to see.

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List of multinational corporations - Wikipedia

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Quick way to remember ways to be a good manager.

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Good Video on becoming a manager

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New York Times Best-Selling Author, Dr. John C. Maxwell teaches the high points of The 5 Levels of Leadership at The Chick-Fil-A Leadercast. For info on attending The 5 Levels of Leadership One-Day Workshop in a city near you, please visit http://www.johnmaxwell.com/events/workshops/the-5-levels-of-leadership

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A good article to make you think about creating a job if one doesn't exist.

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What is a Career Plateau?

A career plateau is the point in your career where / when you do not feel any additional upward mobility because there are fewer positions which are either not open or there are more people vying for it. Other reasons could be absence of challenging and satisfying work, or de-motivation due to unfulfilled career expectations.

If you feel stuck at your present job, the time is now to begin the process to get unstuck. Here's how:

Elementary, Watson - It's the Process

The first step to carving out a niche path and to jump off the plateau is to plan a coordinated career planning process. You won't get there if you don't know where you want to go and how to get there. Spend some time to find out what you want and where you want to go before you jump off (or quit your present job). It is all part of the process - that helps make any transition easier.

Alice: Oh, no, no. I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.
Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.
Alice: Oh, it really doesn't matter.
Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn't matter which way you go.

The first step in this process is planning the path which gets you closer to your career success or goals. Take a few minutes or even hours to write down the answers to these important questions:

Why do I feel stuck in this job?

What are the ways I can possibly get unstuck?

Are there any alternatives which I have not thought of and someone else can help?

Do these clash with my current priorities?

How much risk can I or am I willing to take?

What if I just took off - what are the possibilities?

Once you answer these questions the mist clears and the path seems more defined than ever before.

What's in your wallet? What can or must you buy?

Your skills are your most valuable asset. Which skills are in your wallet? You can get/buy as much as you in there. Time for some careful skills assessment will help accelerate your getting unstuck. Will you need more schooling? Take, for example, a scenario in which you wanted to be a social worker because you love helping people. One simply just doesn't jump into social work. No, quite the contrary, they have to become certified and perhaps attend school to obtain a degree in social work or some other viable certification. Use your current interests, skills, accomplishments and goals to progress toward greater or new responsibilities.

Awareness of your present and required skill-set and the need to build additional expertise are the two essential steps at this stage. Don't underestimate either of these - it may be a time consuming exercise to honestly figure out what you have and what needs to be done but it's all worth the effort.

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. ~Henry Ford

Got Career Focus?

What's your career focus now? Has it changed or you just feel the need to move on to a role of better responsibility or 'moving up the ladder'?

Focus on what your current tasks are and how you feel a more challenging or competent job description would satisfy your career aspirations.

Write down your career focus and short-term and long-term career success projection.

Complete these four statements now to add more about yourself:

Be the Change you want to see in your org

Your opportunities for growth are not restricted to promotions; in a highly competitive world it is important to create new positions or opportunities within your organization. That's upward and outward movement. Don't rely only on the traditional career paths laid out by your organization, redefining success and creating new opportunities offers you the exciting capacity to new growth potential - something lacking in the day to day routine and the constant weight on your mind that you have reached a plateau! Don't plan an escape route, define new goals and benchmarks which maximize your contribution to your organization and enrich and best utilize your skills and talent.

Reach out the movers and shakers of your org and put forward any new plans or trends that can make your company more profitable or competitive in today's market - show them that this what your new role can offer. Examples say more than a 500 page report - get out there and be the change.

If you run you stand a chance of losing, but if you don't run you've already lost. ~ Barack Obama

ASK and you shall GET

Getting out of a plateau often needs some motivation or inspiration. This is the step where some mentoring might benefit you. Know any 'been-there-done-that's, your career idols or those you inspire you? Seek them out ask for advice - it's often the best way to KNOW how they did that and how their experience can inspire you to do better.

Career experts, coaches and counselors can be an excellent companion on your way to a career transition since they can offer some unbiased assistance that can accelerate your career progression.

If it's free, it's advice; if you pay for it, it's counseling; if you can use either one, it's a miracle. ~ Jack Adams

If you do not change, you can become extinct

Don't be on the plateau for too long, in this competitive world remaining stagnant is not an option, you either move on or you're shoved off. " Movement in new direction helps find new cheese." If you find no other way that you can feel satisfied - laterally or upwards - it is time to move on. Knowing when to move can be a smart move if you do not see your goals being fulfilled in the present organization. However give it a fair try before you do so. You might want to do your fair share of research in current and evolving industries in your area of expertise.

Hone your informational interviews skills, and reach out to those in your network who are there where you want to be. Your expectations of a particular position might not match with the reality - informational interviews offer this very insight before you make a decision. Tapping your network efficiently is essential to know how to get there.

"What would you do if you weren't' afraid?" ― Spencer Johnson in Who Moved My Cheese?

Note to the Employers:
What is needed that organizations must have an ongoing versatile career management program which offers assistance on various levels - career plateau is one of the most frustrating and de-motivating time in one's career and if you want to retain top talent to - get a genuine strategy in place which works for employees at various levels.

Question: Have you been on a career plateau or felt stuck in a job? What helped you overcome and get unstuck?

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5 Tips that help you Take Off from the Career Plateau

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Your opportunities for growth are not restricted to promotions; in a highly competitive world it is important to create new positions or opportunities within your organization. That's upward and outward movement.

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This is relevant to me right now and gave me some insist on ways to make some decisions and changing my thoughts about my career.

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We often expect that our careers will contain constant excitement and will always be an upwards climb. However, this simply is not true. There will be times when work is a little less than exciting and it is not just about climbing the career ladder. What can you do when you feel that your career progression has stalled?
How long must I wait before I move on?
Generally, you will spend time learning the job, mastering it and looking for your next position. The time for each of these phases is dependent on your competency, the dynamics of the position and your organisation. Often you will be able to get a feel for the 'residence time' of a position from looking around your organisation. You will see whether people generally spend two or three years or longer in a position. In more complex roles and industries, the residence time may be longer.

You can then objectively assess whether you are following that rate. It may be that there are outliers in the organisation who are promoted quicker than this general rate. However, expecting to be promoted quicker than this norm may only lead to disappointment.

You might also like to tap into your business school careers service. They may be able to guide you on the general rate of advancement and what positions you can expect after a number of years.
What can I do about a lack of progression?
If you think you are starting to have outstayed your residence time in a position, you need to start searching around for new opportunities. Talking to your manager about opportunities coming up is a good start. Try to also have a frank conversation about what the barriers are for you taking up new positions. This will help you develop a plan to overcome these deficiencies and will assist your manager in supporting your move.

A mentor is always invaluable in this space. Talking to people about how their careers have developed and what positions they have taken on will give you valuable data on which to base your expectations. You will also gain an ally for advancement if required.

Another option is to look for leadership opportunities outside work - rotary clubs, charity work, trustee or unpaid directorships. This will assist you in being able to demonstrate leadership and it can be invaluable on your CV.

You might also gain some opportunities from your business school. Faculty may be able put you in touch with others in your field, contacts for a mentor or external leadership opportunities.
What about a sideways move?
A career is not always upward. This is an absolute truth. If we only moved upward then we would not be able to understand all the different facets of complex industries. A chief executive who did not have a couple of sideways moves will have a shortlived leadership career.

If there is not an upwards move available, there may be an avenue that you can use to broaden your experience. This is important for general management positions as you will be able to gain a diverse knowledge of the organisation.

If you wish to work in other areas of a company, then explore options such as secondments, job shadowing and taking on new projects. Also, ask your manager if it is possible to undertake some training if you have gaps in your knowledge.
What will turn a plateau into a slide?
You are guaranteed to prolong your career plateau if you believe your own hype. We all know what this looks like: no longer putting in the effort and lacking a positive attitude. It can be hard to keep professional, but it is very important to do so. Even if you have mentally checked out, you need to be positive as your colleagues will remember negative behaviour.

If you are in a bit of a lull, look outside the workplace to recharge yourself - try a new skill or sport. Always have energy as you never know when you will need a favour from your colleagues.
What happens when you do not move on?
Sometimes there are simply no opportunities for advancement in your company. Your boss may be new to their role, which will mean a significant wait before any upwards move. Or your company may be downsizing.

Either way, it might be the time to move on to another organisation. If you have maintained your professionalism to the end, your colleagues and manager will respect your move to a role with more room to grow.
Angela Ogier is manager of land access and portfolio at Santos GLNG, an Australian oil and gas exploration and production company. Previously, Ms Ogier was a manager of supply planning and optimisation at the same company. She is also an MBA 2004 graduate from the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School in the UK.
You select the topic, we deliver the news.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017. All rights reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

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What can I do if I hit a career plateau?

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We often expect that our careers will contain constant excitement and will always be an upwards climb. However, this simply is not true. There will be times when work is a little less than exciting and it is not just about climbing the career ladder.

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Made me think about how big companies really are and how they can really influence society.

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What is 'Corporate Social Responsibility'

Corporate social responsibility, often abbreviated "CSR," is a corporation's initiatives to assess and take responsibility for the company's effects on environmental and social wellbeing. The term generally applies to efforts that go beyond what may be required by regulators or environmental protection groups.

CSR may also be referred to as "corporate citizenship" and can involve incurring short-term costs that do not provide an immediate financial benefit to the company, but instead promote positive social and environmental change.

BREAKING DOWN 'Corporate Social Responsibility'

Large companies are immensely powerful entities, to the point that they have frequently trumped the interests of sovereign nations. American businessmen deposed the queen of Hawai'i in 1893 because they were incensed with her tariff policies. The formerly independent country became an American territory a few years later. Corporate interests frequently harm local communities, as in 1928 when the Colombian army massacred an unknown number of striking United Fruit Company workers. The U.S. had threatened a military invasion of Colombia to protect the company's interests.

Corporations can have enormously detrimental effects on the environment. Oil spills are some of the most conspicuous examples, but industries as varied as chemical manufacturing, mining, agriculture and fishing can do permanent damage to local ecosystems. Climate change can also be attributed in large part to corporations. While their responsibility is hard to untangle from that of the consumers who demand electricity and transportation, it is difficult to deny that many corporations have profited from the deterioration of the global environment.

In many cases, harm to the environment and harm to vulnerable communities go hand-in-hand: indigenous groups in the Amazon rainforest, for example, have been decimated and even wiped out, both intentionally and unintentionally, in order to make room for logging, cattle ranching, gold mining, oil and gas drilling and hydroelectric power generation.

In light of this often dark legacy, some areas of corporate culture have begun to embrace a philosophy that balances the pursuit of profit with a commitment to ethical conduct. Google Inc's ( GOOG) slogan sums up the idea of corporate social responsibility nicely: "Don't be evil."

The same money and influence that enable large companies to inflict damage on people and the environment allows them to effect positive change. At its simplest, a corporation can give money to charity. Companies can also use their influence to pressure governments and other companies to treat people and resources more ethically. When Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Atlanta's business leaders initially refused to attend a dinner celebrating the Atlanta native's achievement. Coca Cola Co.'s ( KO) CEO, recognizing the damage such a display of segregationist attitudes could do to the firm's international brand, threatened to move Coke out of the city, causing an immediate change of heart in the local business elite.

Companies can invest in local communities in order to offset the negative impact their operations might have. A natural resources firm that begins to operate in a poor community might build a school, offer medical services or improve irrigation and sanitation equipment. Similarly, a company might invest in research and development in sustainable technologies, even though the project might not immediately lead to increased profitability.

In order to account for the importance of social and ecological considerations in doing business, some organizations advocate the concept of the " triple bottom line": social, environmental and economic - or "people, planet, profit."

In recent years, supply chains have emerged as a central focus of corporate social responsibility. Company X's management might make extraordinary efforts to hire, foster and empower a diverse workforce. They might offer generous paid maternity and paternity leave. They might sponsor after-school programs in crime-affected neighborhoods, fund the clean-up of local river systems and put pressure on elected officials to consider the needs of all citizens rather than simply seeking political expediency. None of that would change the fact that they source their raw materials, albeit indirectly, from outfits that use slave labor.

The diamond industry, for example, has come under fire for benefiting from injustices along its supply chain. "Blood diamonds" or "conflict diamonds" are diamonds which have been sourced from war zones, where rebel groups will often fund their campaigns through mining, frequently using forced-often child-labor. Such situations have arisen in Angola, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Congo-Brazzaville. International consumer and NGO pressure has caused diamond companies to scrutinize their supply chain, and has reduced the number of diamonds reaching the market from conflict zones.

Today, a shift has occurred in the way people conceptualize corporate social responsibility. For decades, corporate business models have been assumed to be necessarily harmful to certain communities and resources. The intention was therefore to mitigate or reverse the damage inherent in doing business. Now many entrepreneurs consider profit and social-environmental benefit to be inextricable. Few tech startups pitch their ideas without describing how they will change the world for the better. Social media platforms believe they will facilitate democracy and the free exchange of information; renewable energy companies believe they will make money by selling sustainable solutions; sharing economy apps believe they will cut down on the waste and inefficiency of a post-war economy myopically geared toward the individual consumer.

To be sure, some companies may engage in greenwashing, or feigning interest in corporate responsibility. Companies may tout window-dressing contributions to "the greater good" while engaging in morally questionable or inherently unsustainable conduct in the background. Google's "don't be evil" slogan can seem hypocritical when viewed in terms of the company's collaboration with repressive regimes, not to mention the questionable practice of compiling reams of personal data on every customer.

Some think corporate social responsibility is an oxymoron. Others see corporate social responsibility as a distraction of a different sort, that is, from the lawful pursuit of profits. To them, a corporation's sole responsibility is to generate returns for its shareholders, not to try to save the world or to fret over its own impact. Laws and regulations must be followed in all jurisdictions in which the company operates, but management should not go beyond that, as that could hurt its bottom line and violate its duties to the owners. Some counter that this concerned is misplaced, since responsible initiatives can increase brand loyalty and therefore profits. This may become increasingly true as ethical consumer culture gains wider acceptance.

A few cynical executives will inevitably try to portray themselves as responsible when they are decidedly not. And for some critics, nothing short of a massive overhaul of the world system will suffice. The truth is that many large corporations are devoting real time and money to environmental sustainability programs and various social welfare initiatives. These activities should be encouraged, but at the same time, continually questioned and reassessed.

In 2010, the International Organization for Standardization released ISO 26000, a set of voluntary standards meant to help companies implement corporate social responsibility.

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Corporate social responsibility, often abbreviated "CSR," is a corporation's initiatives to assess and take responsibility for the company's effects on environmental and social wellbeing. The term generally applies to efforts that go beyond what may be required by regulators or environmental protection groups.

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Article listing companies who are good corporate citizens.

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AT&T is the best corporate citizen in the U.S. right now, according to a new ranking by CR Magazine. That means it beat out everyone else in the Russell 1000 index of large-capitalization companies in terms of virtues like good corporate governance and environmental impact.

"A good corporate citizen is one that demonstrates its good faith and genuine value to all stakeholders by acting transparently," says Dirk Olin, Editor-in-Chief of CR Magazine. "There is always, and must be, a place for confidentiality and proprietary trade information. But a presumption of openness shows all those affected by corporate behavior, whether internally or externally, that the company in question has, in aggregate at least, nothing to hide."

Beth Shiroishi, vice president of sustainability and philanthropy at AT&T, says: "We're honored to be recognized for our progress and comprehensive approach to sustainability. We're continuously learning, but know that the full impact of sustainability comes when it is integrated across the company operations and benefits both the community and our shareholders. We've been serving communities for over 130 years, and we understand the interconnectedness of the success of our company and a strong society."

The Dallas-based communications giant ranked thirty-third last year, when Bristol-Myers Squibb took the top spot.

"All credit for our efforts to date goes to our employees and leadership," Shiroishi adds. "We know there's more work to be done and look forward to finding new and innovative ways to drive shared value for our company, our shareholders and our communities."

AT&T has devoted tens of millions of dollars to continue its It Can Wait campaign, which aims to raise awareness and put an end to texting while driving by encouraging people to take the pledge to never text and drive. To date, more than 1.3 million pledges have been taken.

In addition, AT&T recently joined forces with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to launch cooling tower efficiency pilots to identify best practices for saving millions of gallons of water a year; it launched a new program in California called Skip the Bag, which allowed customers to generate a donation to the Nature Conservancy by opting to skip a bag at retail stores; and AT&T teamed up with America's Promise Alliance (APA) during their Building a Grad Nation Summit to help share the encouraging news that the nation's high school graduation rate is-for the first time-on pace to reach 90% by 2020.

The company also announced in November that the Guinness Book of World Record certified that AT&T's customers broke the world record for number of cell phones recycled in a week.

"They have clearly succeeded in demonstrating transparency's value proposition to the C-suite at AT&T," Olin says. "I'm not in the business of icing corporate cakes, but this kind of performance just does not happen without the proverbial buy-in from leadership."

The 100 Best Corporate Citizens list, now in its 14th year, ranks companies based on publicly available information in seven categories: environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, governance, finance, and philanthropy. The list's creators assign a 19.5% weighting to environmental impact and employee relations, because they think they are what consumers, shareholders and employees care most about.

The list suggests that companies have ramped up their do-gooding ways, or are at least doing a better job of promoting them. In total, 32 companies rose in ranking in 2013 (up an average of 20 ranks). Twenty-six companies are newcomers this year; 11 made the list for a six consecutive times; and three, Intel, Starbucks, and Cisco, have made it all 14 years.
In Pictures: The 10 Best Corporate Citizens

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CR Magazine's Best Corporate Citizens list, now in its 14th year, ranks all companies in the Russell 1000 index based on publicly available information in seven categories: environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, governance, finance, and philanthropy. Here are the top 100.

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Interesting to read how they think prosecuting individuals will deter companies from committing fraud. That is crazy companies would use people as their out every time.

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The price to pay for treating ethics matters lightly

Saturday April 8 2017

In Summary

Unethical behaviour like bribery and high levels of mistrust among colleagues are key characteristics of today's workforce.

Seventy-seven per cent of respondents think that prosecuting individuals will help deter executives from committing fraud, bribery and corruption.

The quality of ethics and governance at all levels should be seen as the most important factor for the success of the political economy.

By JEFF ALUDO
More by this Author

The 2017 Ernst and Young Fraud survey report paints a gloomy picture that presents another daunting task in the quest to tackle corruption.

The results of the survey indicate that unethical behaviour like bribery and high levels of mistrust among colleagues are key characteristics of today's workforce, particularly among executives and also among younger generations.

As ethics and governance practices take centre-stage, there is greater expectation for the private sector to play a more leading role in the debate and implementation of corruption-free economic strategies.

Besides, trust is the cornerstone not only of government but business as well. Without trust, institutions flounder and the need to raise our ethical standards is crucial to rebuild trust.

According to the EY report, 63 per cent of respondents in Africa believe that regulation has a positive impact on ethical behaviour and 73 per cent of respondents would consider providing information to a third-party, such as a regulator or law enforcement agency.

Seventy-seven per cent of respondents think that prosecuting individuals will help deter executives from committing fraud, bribery and corruption.

Laudably, the Kenya Private Sector Alliance has championed the enhancement of the regulatory environment, with the recent enactment of an Anti-Bribery Act. The Act's key objective is to extend the fight against corruption to the private sector by equally criminalising bribery.

Other governing and professional associations are taking heed and signing their members to "Code of Ethics Standards" for doing good business. Additionally, announcing plans to adopt self-regulatory frameworks for their members.

While the power of institutions to make a difference cannot be overlooked, sustaining ethical practices depends first and largely on individual ethics.

Sadly, external factors like regulation give a false sense of security that can lull organisations and their stakeholders into complacency. And, like codes of conduct, they are too often ignored by business executives because of popular discontent with uncertain political and economic environments or plain old financial greed.

Thus, ethical governance cannot be left to written codes or an occasional subject of national debate; an on or off concept. In fact, ethics is a complex, multi-layered concept that demands thoughtful deliberation, continuous dialogue and stakeholder engagement.

For ethics to slowly evolve back into modern day standards of social morals it can't just be legislated into laws. Conversely, ethics must be instilled using both formal and informal constraints, incentives, values and norms.

The quality of ethics and governance at all levels should increasingly be seen as the most important factor for the success of the political economy.

To attain its potential economic value, the business community must uphold an obligation to the highest level of ethics and social responsibility. This commitment is not an option and must be driven by all and especially from leadership and the corporate boards of directors. For ethics to be upheld, it calls for an honest evaluation and key actions to advance or to redeem respect and confidence.

It starts with strategic leadership and direction. Businesses must set a clear mission and value statement that they do business ethically. However, these values must advance into daily conduct and professional standards for all.

Furthermore, it requires a culture of shared norms and beliefs that encourage all stakeholders to uphold these values. It begins with a greater degree of openness, transparency, and honesty, not only at financial audit and reporting but in the way its employees conduct everyday business. It is not possible for a single set of standards or machine logic to cover all and every situation.

Hence, a third good practice is putting in place systems for not only identifying and reporting fraud but reinforcing good ethical behaviours.

From hiring practices, training, compensation, evaluation and promotion, systems must reinforce and reward the company values.

As well as a structure that provides adequate governance and monitoring at all levels to ensure competent execution of strategy in a manner that upholds the company's values. This structure must engage and facilitate open communication with stakeholders and enable effective coordination, alignment of interests and meaningful mutual dialogue.

The writer is the Managing Director Africapractice East Africa Twitter: @ jeffaludo

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Kahari says most tea farmers wallow in poverty and cannot afford to pay for the NHIF cover.

One cornerstones of Kamaru's illustrious musical career was his reworking of Kikuyu folk songs.

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The price to pay for treating ethics matters lightly

Saturday April 8 2017

In Summary

Unethical behaviour like bribery and high levels of mistrust among colleagues are key characteristics of today's workforce.

Seventy-seven per cent of respondents think that prosecuting individuals will help deter executives from committing fraud, bribery and corruption.

The quality of ethics and governance at all levels should be seen as the most important factor for the success of the political economy.

By JEFF ALUDO
More by this Author

The 2017 Ernst and Young Fraud survey report paints a gloomy picture that presents another daunting task in the quest to tackle corruption.

The results of the survey indicate that unethical behaviour like bribery and high levels of mistrust among colleagues are key characteristics of today's workforce, particularly among executives and also among younger generations.

As ethics and governance practices take centre-stage, there is greater expectation for the private sector to play a more leading role in the debate and implementation of corruption-free economic strategies.

Besides, trust is the cornerstone not only of government but business as well. Without trust, institutions flounder and the need to raise our ethical standards is crucial to rebuild trust.

According to the EY report, 63 per cent of respondents in Africa believe that regulation has a positive impact on ethical behaviour and 73 per cent of respondents would consider providing information to a third-party, such as a regulator or law enforcement agency.

Seventy-seven per cent of respondents think that prosecuting individuals will help deter executives from committing fraud, bribery and corruption.

Laudably, the Kenya Private Sector Alliance has championed the enhancement of the regulatory environment, with the recent enactment of an Anti-Bribery Act. The Act's key objective is to extend the fight against corruption to the private sector by equally criminalising bribery.

Other governing and professional associations are taking heed and signing their members to "Code of Ethics Standards" for doing good business. Additionally, announcing plans to adopt self-regulatory frameworks for their members.

While the power of institutions to make a difference cannot be overlooked, sustaining ethical practices depends first and largely on individual ethics.

Sadly, external factors like regulation give a false sense of security that can lull organisations and their stakeholders into complacency. And, like codes of conduct, they are too often ignored by business executives because of popular discontent with uncertain political and economic environments or plain old financial greed.

Thus, ethical governance cannot be left to written codes or an occasional subject of national debate; an on or off concept. In fact, ethics is a complex, multi-layered concept that demands thoughtful deliberation, continuous dialogue and stakeholder engagement.

For ethics to slowly evolve back into modern day standards of social morals it can't just be legislated into laws. Conversely, ethics must be instilled using both formal and informal constraints, incentives, values and norms.

The quality of ethics and governance at all levels should increasingly be seen as the most important factor for the success of the political economy.

To attain its potential economic value, the business community must uphold an obligation to the highest level of ethics and social responsibility. This commitment is not an option and must be driven by all and especially from leadership and the corporate boards of directors. For ethics to be upheld, it calls for an honest evaluation and key actions to advance or to redeem respect and confidence.

It starts with strategic leadership and direction. Businesses must set a clear mission and value statement that they do business ethically. However, these values must advance into daily conduct and professional standards for all.

Furthermore, it requires a culture of shared norms and beliefs that encourage all stakeholders to uphold these values. It begins with a greater degree of openness, transparency, and honesty, not only at financial audit and reporting but in the way its employees conduct everyday business. It is not possible for a single set of standards or machine logic to cover all and every situation.

Hence, a third good practice is putting in place systems for not only identifying and reporting fraud but reinforcing good ethical behaviours.

From hiring practices, training, compensation, evaluation and promotion, systems must reinforce and reward the company values.

As well as a structure that provides adequate governance and monitoring at all levels to ensure competent execution of strategy in a manner that upholds the company's values. This structure must engage and facilitate open communication with stakeholders and enable effective coordination, alignment of interests and meaningful mutual dialogue.

The writer is the Managing Director Africapractice East Africa Twitter: @ jeffaludo

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Kahari says most tea farmers wallow in poverty and cannot afford to pay for the NHIF cover.

One cornerstones of Kamaru's illustrious musical career was his reworking of Kikuyu folk songs.

In Summary

Unethical behaviour like bribery and high levels of mistrust among colleagues are key characteristics of today's workforce.

Seventy-seven per cent of respondents think that prosecuting individuals will help deter executives from committing fraud, bribery and corruption.

The quality of ethics and governance at all levels should be seen as the most important factor for the success of the political economy.

By JEFF ALUDO
More by this Author

The 2017 Ernst and Young Fraud survey report paints a gloomy picture that presents another daunting task in the quest to tackle corruption.

The results of the survey indicate that unethical behaviour like bribery and high levels of mistrust among colleagues are key characteristics of today's workforce, particularly among executives and also among younger generations.

As ethics and governance practices take centre-stage, there is greater expectation for the private sector to play a more leading role in the debate and implementation of corruption-free economic strategies.

Besides, trust is the cornerstone not only of government but business as well. Without trust, institutions flounder and the need to raise our ethical standards is crucial to rebuild trust.

According to the EY report, 63 per cent of respondents in Africa believe that regulation has a positive impact on ethical behaviour and 73 per cent of respondents would consider providing information to a third-party, such as a regulator or law enforcement agency.

Seventy-seven per cent of respondents think that prosecuting individuals will help deter executives from committing fraud, bribery and corruption.

Laudably, the Kenya Private Sector Alliance has championed the enhancement of the regulatory environment, with the recent enactment of an Anti-Bribery Act. The Act's key objective is to extend the fight against corruption to the private sector by equally criminalising bribery.

Other governing and professional associations are taking heed and signing their members to "Code of Ethics Standards" for doing good business. Additionally, announcing plans to adopt self-regulatory frameworks for their members.

While the power of institutions to make a difference cannot be overlooked, sustaining ethical practices depends first and largely on individual ethics.

Sadly, external factors like regulation give a false sense of security that can lull organisations and their stakeholders into complacency. And, like codes of conduct, they are too often ignored by business executives because of popular discontent with uncertain political and economic environments or plain old financial greed.

Thus, ethical governance cannot be left to written codes or an occasional subject of national debate; an on or off concept. In fact, ethics is a complex, multi-layered concept that demands thoughtful deliberation, continuous dialogue and stakeholder engagement.

For ethics to slowly evolve back into modern day standards of social morals it can't just be legislated into laws. Conversely, ethics must be instilled using both formal and informal constraints, incentives, values and norms.

The quality of ethics and governance at all levels should increasingly be seen as the most important factor for the success of the political economy.

To attain its potential economic value, the business community must uphold an obligation to the highest level of ethics and social responsibility. This commitment is not an option and must be driven by all and especially from leadership and the corporate boards of directors. For ethics to be upheld, it calls for an honest evaluation and key actions to advance or to redeem respect and confidence.

It starts with strategic leadership and direction. Businesses must set a clear mission and value statement that they do business ethically. However, these values must advance into daily conduct and professional standards for all.

Furthermore, it requires a culture of shared norms and beliefs that encourage all stakeholders to uphold these values. It begins with a greater degree of openness, transparency, and honesty, not only at financial audit and reporting but in the way its employees conduct everyday business. It is not possible for a single set of standards or machine logic to cover all and every situation.

Hence, a third good practice is putting in place systems for not only identifying and reporting fraud but reinforcing good ethical behaviours.

From hiring practices, training, compensation, evaluation and promotion, systems must reinforce and reward the company values.

As well as a structure that provides adequate governance and monitoring at all levels to ensure competent execution of strategy in a manner that upholds the company's values. This structure must engage and facilitate open communication with stakeholders and enable effective coordination, alignment of interests and meaningful mutual dialogue.

The writer is the Managing Director Africapractice East Africa Twitter: @ jeffaludo

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Kahari says most tea farmers wallow in poverty and cannot afford to pay for the NHIF cover.

One cornerstones of Kamaru's illustrious musical career was his reworking of Kikuyu folk songs.

Kahari says most tea farmers wallow in poverty and cannot afford to pay for the NHIF cover.

One cornerstones of Kamaru's illustrious musical career was his reworking of Kikuyu folk songs.

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ALUDO: The price to pay for treating ethics matters lightly

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Saturday April 8 2017 In Summary Unethical behaviour like bribery and high levels of mistrust among colleagues are key characteristics of today's workforce. Seventy-seven per cent of respondents think that prosecuting individuals will help deter executives from committing fraud, bribery and corruption.

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It was interesting to know that 9 in 10 consumers expect companies to not only make a profit, but also operate responsibly to address social and environmental issues - See more at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4679-corporate-social-responsibility.html#sthash.BKjipl7r.dpuf

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What Is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)?

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Corporate social responsibility is imperative for businesses that want to appeal to modern consumers. Learn what it is and how to maintain it.

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This article has great thoughts about the recruiting process internally.

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As with most small business management decisions, there are pros and cons associated with various employee recruitment methods. Before you decide on whether to recruit internal or externally, take into consideration your corporate culture, the scope of the job in question and your need for diversity and new ideas versus stability and continuity.

The Advantages of Internal Recruitment

When you hire from within, you have a good idea about the person you're hiring. You're already familiar with the candidate's work ethic and approach, and the existing employee is already familiar with the ins and outs of how your company runs. While there will be a learning curve, the on-boarding process is likely to be faster with an existing staffer than with an outside hire. Other benefits of hiring from within include:

Increased morale and retention. Other employees see there is room for advancement and reward for a job well done.

Continuity of operations. Chances are that an internal employee can transition into the new role with minimal downtime.

Less paperwork. While there will be some HR forms to change, you won't necessarily have to issue new passwords, keys, insurance and tax paperwork to get the staffer up and running.

In a small operation, keeping things all in the family can help create a sense of security for other employees, and even increase productivity.

The Disadvantages of Internal Recruitment

Sometimes, you just need new blood - a fresh perspective or outlook on how things are done. In some instances, it may simply be practical to hire from the outside, particularly if you're looking for a specific skill set or qualifications that just don't exist in your current talent pool. Here are a few other downsides to internal recruitment.

Potential animosity among the ranks. If you run a small operation and promote one person over another, it can create discord in the workplace that affects everyone.

Stagnation. If everyone operates on the policy of "That's the way we've always done things," you run the risk of maintaining a status quo that doesn't allow for new ideas or direction. This can put you at a competitive disadvantage.

Lack of diversity. It may be time to bring someone of a different background, gender, age or ethnicity into the workplace to bring new perspectives to your business.

Making the Decision

You don't have to have a hard-and-fast rule for how you hire. Consider opening positions to both internal and external recruits. Using this approach, existing staffers recognize it's an even playing field, while also understanding they need to "wow" you with something other than their same old routine. You'll also get a chance to see what the external talent pool looks like. You may find a wealth of qualified candidates with exciting new ideas, or you may find your next new shining star is right in your own backyard.

Integrating a Newcomer

If you ultimately decide to hire an outsider, take care to find someone who is a good fit in your existing corporate culture. If you have a small, tight-knit staff, bringing in new ideas to generate enthusiasm and spur new ideas is the goal - you don't want to intimidate or alienate your existing staffers. Show your employees a little extra love by expressing your appreciation for their contributions, and encourage them to welcome and integrate the new staff member. Explain that you want everyone to be willing to sharing new ideas and approaches with an open mind. Team-building activities can be good for bringing a new person into the fold.

Hiring from Within

If you opt to hire from within, do so in a calculated way. Lay out specific expectations for the new role just as you would for a new hire. Keep an eye on the dynamics of the rest of your staff, particularly if you're promoting one cohort to a supervisory role over former colleagues. There's a potential for jealousy or resentment, which can be couched by clarifying roles and expectations.

Capitalizing on Internal Hiring

Turnover can be tough for a small business, simply because you may have valued long-time staffers who go elsewhere for no other reason than they have no room for advancement. When you do promote from within, do it with an air of appreciation and an eye on helping your staff members professionally develop in a way that's mutually beneficial. This will help cultivate loyalty among your ranks.

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Advantages & Disadvantages of Internal Recruitment

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As with most small business management decisions, there are pros and cons associated with various employee recruitment methods. Before you decide on whether to recruit internal or externally, take into consideration your corporate culture, the scope of the job in question and your need for diversity and new ideas versus stability and continuity.

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I had never thought about the fact that CEO's are having to lead organizations with a age gap between 18 and 80 years old. That is crazy.

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We're now facing a workplace where in theory, many employers could have employees ranging from 18 to 80 in the workplace. This has huge implications for employers in terms of managing the needs and expectations of Millennials, Generation X and the Baby Boomers.

Picture the scene. You have fresh-faced graduate working alongside a 60-year-old work colleague on the same project. These two employees work for the same employer but have very different expectations and views of the workplace. Many workplaces are facing the challenge of employing a range of generations that encompass Veterans (1939-1947), Baby Boomers (1948-1963), Generation X (1964-1978) and Millennials(1979-1991). There is also a new generation which will soon enter the workforce, labelled as Generation Z, who are under 16 years old.

The CIPD's Tapping into Talent report found that different generations had different preferences towards training. Generation X and Millennials placed greater emphasis on development generally and preferred to learn independently often using computer-based training or the Internet. The report found that Baby Boomers and Veterans preferred more traditional classroom or paper-based training.

Much of the published generational research focuses on the differences between the Millennial generation and other generations. The Millennial generation of workers would choose workplace flexibility, work/life balance and the opportunity for overseas assignments over financial rewards, according to a NexGen survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

One of the biggest challenges facing leaders will be managing an employee age profile which in theory could range from 18 to 80, predicts Seb O'Connell, executive vice president and managing director for Europe at Cielo . "In a multi-generational workforce, there is potential for negative stereotyping. Older workers may perceive millennials as entitled, tech-obsessed or too eager to challenge norms while millennial employees could see previous generations as being 'stuck in their ways' and difficult to train. Organizations need to take steps to ensure managers overcome their unconscious bias," he says. O'Connell believes that generational differences can actually present a positive opportunity for development at both ends of the spectrum. "Younger workers' enthusiasm for trying new things could be used to encourage a culture of innovation, while older workers can leverage their experience and broad perspective to help millennials understand some of the costs and risks associated with their ideas."

The concerns and needs of an ageing employee are often much different than that of a millennial fresh out of college, remarks Rajeev Behera, chief executive of real-time performance management platform Reflektive. "Stereotypes of each generation aside, ultimately employees want the same thing -- to be engaged at work and to have a good manager who acts as a coach and helps them achieve their specific career goals."

The problem is that managers don't have the tools or systems needed to know what is going on with their employees, or to track progress towards these goals, says Behera. "Our systems of performance management, largely centered on the annual review, do not help us nurture our employees. By moving to a system of real-time feedback, like GE, Adobe, Accenture, IBM, and many others, managers are much more in tune with their employee's successes and needs for support. In order to effectively manage a multi-generational workforce, we must see each employee as an individual, and empower our managers to coach them on both personal and organizational objectives."

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The Challenges Of Managing A Multi-Generational Workforce

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We're now facing a workplace where in theory, many employers could have employees ranging from 18 to 80 in the workplace. This has huge implications for employers in terms of managing the needs and expectations of Millennials, Generation X and the Baby Boomers. Picture the scene. You have fresh-faced graduate working [...]

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This article is interesting in that it ties some of the change in women in the workforce to the industrial Revolution and other environmental/economical changes.

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Drastic shifts in sex roles seem to be sweeping through America. From 1890 to 1985 the participation in the work force of women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four soared from 15 to 71 percent, with the pace of change tripling after 1950. At the end of the Second World War only 10 percent of married women with children under the age of six held jobs or were seeking them. Since then mothers of preschool children have thronged the job market: by 1985 the census had classified more than half of these young mothers as participants in the work force.

Women seem to be crowding into sectors of the work force traditionally occupied by men. From 1972 to 1985 women's share of professional jobs increased from 44 to 49 percent and their share of "management" jobs nearly doubled growing from 20 to 36 percent. The sociologist Andrew Hacker reported in The New York Times Magazine in 1984 that from 1960 to 1983 the percentage of lawyers who are women had risen from 2 to 15 and the percentage of jobs in banking and financial management held by women had risen from 9 to 39.

According to Hacker, a similar shift had occurred in blue-collar work. He cited as examples the fact that from 1970 to 1984 the number of female butchers in packinghouses had risen by more than a third and that by 1984 nearly 80 percent of new bartending jobs were going to women. Moreover, Hacker pointed out, the number of male flight attendants rose by 10,000 during the 1970s. In a poll conducted in 1983 by The New York Times 21 percent of married men declared that they would prefer to stay home and care for the children if they could.

The future apparently promises yet more blurring of traditional sex roles in the work force. Half of all 1985 College graduates were women, and women are earning a steadily rising share of all advanced degrees, including close to one third of all degrees in law, business, accounting, and computer and information sciences.

Every year seems to bring new evidence of radical change in the masculine and feminine roles around which most Americans have oriented their lives and expectations. Yet this "revolution"-for all its numerical weight and anecdotal pervasiveness-is largely a statistical illusion.

Many of the statistics that have been cited in the stories of sexual revolution are reflections instead of the Industrial Revolution. The entrance of women into the work force has accompanied, at a slower pace, their departure from farms. As recently as eighty years ago 36 percent of American families were engaged in agriculture; today fewer than three percent are. This shift is truly a revolution, and it has transformed the official labor statistics for women. Although these statistics show women entering the work force in record numbers, the fact is that women have always worked. Their labor on farms, however-in an array of arduous jobs beyond the hearth and cribside-;was never monitored by statisticians.

Some 80 percent of single (that is, never married) women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four now work for pay, and this percentage has not changed significantly since 1950. (The rest presumably include welfare recipients and women of independent means.) Although work-force participation by married women in this age group has increased dramatically-from 26 percent in 1950 to some 67 percent in the mid-1980s-the vast majority of married women, like their grandmothers on the farm, seek part-time or seasonal work convenient to their homes.

As of 1984-the most recent year for which detailed figures are available-only 37 percent of all women between the ages of twenty and sixty-four and 41 percent of all women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four held fulltime year-round jobs (including teaching jobs). Also as of 1984 only 29 percent of married women held full-time year-round jobs. That same year married women contributed an average of only 18.6 percent of the total incomes of their families. From 1960 to 1980 the incomes of working wives actually fell in relation to the incomes of working husbands: from 40 percent to 38 percent.

Statistics such as these are generally interpreted as evidence of tenacious discrimination against women. Such discrimination unquestionably exists, but one can argue that it is only a small part of what the statistics reflect.

It is possible that the data also reflect choices that women themselves are making. A study conducted in the mid1970s by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, with the assistance of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, lends support to the hypothesis that the job priorities of married women are not the same as those of married men. The study uncovered a sharp difference between wives and husbands in the extent to which they exploit what the researchers termed their "earnings capacity," or potential, as defined by a complex formula that includes such variables as age, location, education, experience, training, and physical health. For women the researchers considered one other variable: discrimination. Because the researchers allowed for discrimination in their calculation of the extent to which women exploit their earnings capacity, discrimination alone cannot explain the differences they found.

The study showed that single men and single women are about equally successful in the extent to which they exploit their earnings capacity (68 percent for single men, 64 percent for single women). However, whereas married men of working age exploit 87 percent of their earnings capacity, married women exploit only 33 percent. Thus, according to the study, married men are more than twice as successful in realizing their financial potential as married women are.

More significant still is the difference that the institute found between the most highly educated married women and men. The women with the best credentials and qualifications-the top 10 percent in earnings capacity-exploited only one quarter as much of their financial potential as did similarly qualified men. In direct contrast with the pattern exhibited by married men, the more earnings capacity commanded by married women the less they used it-that is, the less likely they were to work fulltime all year at a demanding and highly remunerative job. The inadequacies of day care cannot account for this discrepancy; these women presumably have a potential income high enough to cover an array of options in child care.

The institute based its study on data from the early 1970s, but more recent data are compatible with its findings. The gap in earnings between married men and women still widens dramatically as age and schooling increase. As of 1983 married women with a graduate education earned 11 percent less than married men with a high school education. However, single women who work full-time year-round have long earned about as much as their single male peers. Therefore, the pattern of low earnings by highly qualified wives seems a reflection more of personal choice than of discrimination against women.

A Louis Harris poll conducted in 1980 revealed basic differences between the sexes in attitudes toward work. Unlike the working men surveyed, who overwhelmingly preferred full-time jobs, working women expressed a preference for part-time over full-time work by a 41 to 17 percent margin. The women with the highest earnings capacity-managerial, professional, and executive women--preferred part-time work by a 51 to 19 percent margin.

Large numbers of women are using entrepreneurial activity to satisfy their apparent preference for work in the home. From knitting mittens to selling real estate and writing software packages for personal computers, more and more women are working for themselves, launching small businesses in their homes. From 1972 to 1982 the percentage of self-employed workers in nonagricultural industries who are women rose from 26 to 32. For the past two years women have actually formed sole proprietorships at a faster rate than men.

The more education and the better credentials women have, the more freedom they have to choose the extent to which they will work outside their homes. Female physicians, for example, see 38 percent fewer patients per hour and work fewer hours than male physicians; female professors write fewer books and research papers than male professors.

A study in 1979 by the Brookings Institution showed that women in their prime earning years were eleven times more likely to leave the work force voluntarily-if often temporarily-than men were. Current data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that women work only 70 percent as long for a given employer as men do. According to a study of census data done for the Civil Rights Commission by Solomon Polachek in 1984, the differences in the number of years of continuous service in the work force-and resulting differences in training and experience-explain "close to 100 percent of the wage gap" between men and women in the job market.

Although polls show an increasing desire for jobs on the part of women, in a 1985 Roper survey only 10 percent of women declared that a husband should turn down a very good job in another city "so the wife can continue her job." This percentage has not increased since 1980 and offers a reason, beyond maternity, why women leave their jobs so often: They still rate their own employment as .less important than their husband's.

The most recent data on occupational trends, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1985, show little sign that sex roles in the work force are disappearing. The percentage of women in such blue-collar jobs as plumbing, electrical work, and carpentry has scarcely changed. Federal contractors and private firms, including Sears, Roebuck and Co., that have attempted to hire women for jobs traditionally held by men have consistently failed to meet their own goals, for lack of applicants.

Regardless of the evidence of polls and of labor-force-participation rates that include part-time workers, women do not seem to be behaving like men in the labor market. While the government is pressuring private firms to employ and promote more women, the government itself fails to show employment patterns much different from those in the private sector. Even in November of 1980-the final year of a Democratic Administration that made equal rights for women a prime goal-only seven percent of the employees in the top five CS ratings were women, while more than three quarters in the bottom grades were.

In fact, the pattern of employment in the federal government would suffice to justify an anti-discrimination suit if the government were a private institution. Yet the government may not be discriminating against women, and private companies may not be either. Let us at least consider the possibility that many women, deliberately rejecting the values of male careerists, are discriminating against the job "rat race" and in favor of their families.

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Gender disparity in the workplace might have less to do with discrimination than with women making the choice to stay at home

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Men need to realize that women are just as educated as them and can handle the responsibilities of leading a company and a family.

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This study talks about work/life balance and for women it is hard to put in the same hours as men because we make our family a priority.

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Women remain underrepresented across organizations--especially at senior levels of leadership--a new survey by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey finds.

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This article really shows how women are struggling in the workforce.  I am finding it hard in my current situation and need to learn how to negotiate better.

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Sheryl Sandberg: Women Are Leaning In-but They Face Pushback

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Companies can start to overcome that by setting goals and measuring progress, the Lean In founder writes-and by encouraging women to keep negotiating.

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I think this is another good article about learning how people brand you and you don't even know it. It is best to know your brand.

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Leonrw via flickr
Whether you like it or not, you have a personal brand. When you come in contact with people, they will "brand" or typecast you based on the image you project.

Why? Human brains are wired to do this as a "short cut" to make sense of the world. Without short cuts, life would be too confusing, complicated, and in some cases dangerous.

The brain simplifies as much as it can so that it can focus on those things that really matter. Your brain needs to decide if another person, animal, or thing is a friend or a foe that will help or harm you. It does this by categorizing everything according to symbols and patterns that are either hard-wired or learned from experience.
Brand Yourself Before Others Brand You
It is useful to think of branding as having two components - the lock and the key. The lock refers to the target audience that has a need, and the key is the image of the product you create to fill that need. In the case of your personal brand, you are the product.

You have more control if you create your own brand key (image). If you don't, others will create one for you. More often than not, the image they create will be unflattering or harmful because too many people have a negative agenda, lack branding expertise, or have a natural inclination to compete with you by highlighting your weaknesses.
Elements of A Successful Personal Brand
To be successful, you need to project the image that fills the needs of your target audience. This audience may be an organization you want to hire you, an audience you want to sell, or a group you want to join. Your key has to fit their lock better than your competitors. If it does, you will reap the rewards of being selected or recommended.
Steps to create your personal brand
To create a personal brand that works to your advantage, you should consider following the steps listed below.

1. Identify your target audience (your lock)? Determine the audience you want to target and what they want or need from you.

2. Determine the image you project now (your current key). Ask the people you trust to honestly tell you what image you project. You have to be open to listening to their answers even if they tell what you may not want to hear.

3. Is it the image you want? If their answers are consistent and represent the image you want, your personal brand is working. If not, you need to make changes related to your appearance, behavior, name, personal symbols, or other branding elements in a way that allows you to be true to yourself. Unless you are a fine actor, trying to be what you are not rarely, if ever, works.

4. Make adjustments to your key. Make the adjustments necessary to project the personal brand that enables you to realize your objectives and better fill the needs of your audience.

5. Create branding elements. You need to develop branding elements that help you to create and reinforce the image you want to project. People typically employ names, logos, slogans, hairstyles, or clothing items to help their personal brand. Name. Biz Stone is the co-founder of Twitter. His real first name is Isaac. Bernard Schwartz became Tony Curtis. Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch. Some people use initials or a middle name if their given name does not fit the image they want to project - F. Scott Fitzgerald, F. Murray Abraham, I.F. Stone. Logo. Prince created a symbol that he used as his logo. Signatures are often personal logos that enable personal brands to stand out from the crowd. Slogans. Steve Jobs was fond of saying, " this changes everything" or " one more thing." Paris Hilton trademarked " That's hot." Donald Trump has popularized "Your fired" along with the accompanying hand gesture. Charlie Sheen has many but the one that many are using to represent him is "Duh... Winning." Hair. The Beatles mop top hair styles, Justin Bieber broke into the entertainment business with something similar, Albert Einstein absent-minded genius, and Donald Trump What is it? Clothing. Charlie Chaplin, Pee Wee Herman, Steve Jobs, Hillary Clinton, Spike Lee (glasses), Lady Gaga.

6. Execute performance. Your product has to deliver on the promise of your personal brand. A bad performance or poor execution, unless your brand is deliberately based on this, will undermine your personal brand.

7. Measure results and take corrective action. Repeat steps 3 and 4 and the others if necessary.

Remember to create your brand or others will do it for you
Hopefully you will take the initiative to start building your personal brand. It is the only way you can control your image in the marketplace. If you don't, others will.

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Whether you like it or not, you have a personal brand. When you come in contact with people, they will "brand" or typecast you based on the image you project. Why? Human brains are wired to do this as a "short cut" to make sense of the world.

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I believe branding yourself is so valuable as part of your career how to be successful in always giving the same impression to everyone you meet.

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How to Brand Yourself or Your Business and Standout in Your Market | Dan Martell

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How do you create a brand that stands out in your market? Do you know your brand values and what it stands for? In this video, I share the 3 most important steps you need to take to nail your branding and stand out in the marketplace.

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The 4 Disciplines of Execution workshops

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The 4 Disciplines of Execution workshops

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The company that I work for right now is implementing this concept and I am finding it interesting to learn how to better organize my goals.