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There is a lot that goes into conducting a business. Management is the most important backbone for an organization. Form organizing to planning, businesses must do what they can in order to become successful in the market. I've also learned there is a lot of planning that goes into expanding into different markets. Businesses must be prepared financially to be considered international worthy. Lastly, maintaining information systems allows for a business to become flexible. Assisting with production and disbursements of employees paychecks, businesses relies on information systems to conduct internal operation.  All these concepts are used in everyday successful businesses.

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Information technology is an important aspect to conducting a business. Alongside control, managers must also take any corrective action to keep up with performance. First managers must recognize the problem associated with the system through determining the symptoms. These steps will ensure all information systems are running properly. Today information systems is an important role in conducting business operations. From manufacturing to determining payrolls mostly all business relies on computers today in the digital age.

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You can find computers and the information systems that run on them in every type of business. An information system can help you manage your company and improve performance, but you have to know what functions you need to get the full benefits. Make sure the system you want can fulfill the three fundamental roles that an information system can play in your business.

Requirements

To fulfill its possible roles adequately, an information system has to be networked and secure and have adequate speed and storage capacity. In addition to being interconnected, "networked" means that employees can access the applications they need from their work stations. "Secure" means that only authorized personnel have access to data and functions and the system keeps track of authorized activities. For adequate speed, you have to buy components that are powerful enough to handle the operations you want to carry out. The system must have a central storage capacity that is large enough to store all your data and can be backed up. This storage will be on a main server, attached to the network or in the Cloud -- a Web-based application.

Operations

A business information system carries out specific functions in support of operations, including payroll, employee record storage, preparing and storing company documents and credit card processing. If your company operates a manufacturing line, the information system can schedule tasks and processes while keeping quality records. Some companies, such as graphic designers or advertising companies, use the information system to produce their products and services. In supporting operations, the information system can increase efficiency and improve employee productivity.

Controls

Monitoring and controlling the activities of employees is a core function of information systems. This is especially true of financial transactions in which management has a duty to prevent fraud and theft. In this role, the security of the information system is critical, as managers rely on it to track payments received from customers and invoices from suppliers. The system imposes its control functions by allowing only authorized employees to log in and access the relevant functions. For example, only a few employees may be authorized to generate a company check. In addition to limiting who can perform such functions, the system keeps track of who logged in and carried out the task.

Decisions

A third fundamental role for information systems is management support in making decisions. Managers can get all the information they need about company activities from the system. Complete, accurate information means management decisions are more effective. More sophisticated systems can go beyond supplying data to running scenarios: Managers present hypothetical decisions and the system shows what the results might be. This function of information systems helps managers make decisions that have relatively predictable results.

About the Author

Bert Markgraf is a freelance writer with a strong science and engineering background. He started writing technical papers while working as an engineer in the 1980s. More recently, after starting his own business in IT, he helped organize an online community for which he wrote and edited articles as managing editor, business and economics. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from McGill University.

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The Three Fundamental Roles of Information Systems in Business

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You can find computers and the information systems that run on them in every type of business. An information system can help you manage your company and improve performance, but you have to know what functions you need to get the full benefits.

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Companies can define their products in multitudes of ways. Producing quality products is what make companies unique in its own way. Apple is a perfect example of this concept, Steve Jobs wanted a company build on both innovation and customer satisfaction. Steve Jobs was the man who wanted a perfect quality product. After his death, Apple continues to manufacture quality products.

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If there is one defining characteristic of Steve Jobs that has run like a thread through his entire career, it is a genuine obsession with the way that things are crafted. Not merely content to set specifications and see that they were met, Jobs frequently went above and beyond to ensure that the products he had a hand in were made in the best way possible.

In the biography of Jobs released today, Walter Isaacson reveals the likely source of this focus on craftsmanship, Jobs adoptive father, Paul Jobs.

Paul Jobs was a mechanic, good with his hands and intelligent with his work, which largely focused on cars and then constructing metal parts for laser assemblies in Silicon Valley.

"I thought my dad's sense of design was pretty good," Jobs told Isaacson, "because he knew how to build anything. If we needed a cabinet, he would build it. When he built our fence, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him."

Fifty years after the fence was constructed, Jobs showed it to Isaacson, still standing and recalled a lesson about making things of quality that he learned from his father. Touching the boards of inside of the fence, he said that "He loved doing things right. He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn't see."

He said that his father refused to use poor wood for the back of cabinets, or to build a fence that wasn't constructed as well on the back side as it was the front. Jobs likened it to using a piece of plywood on the back of a beautiful chest of drawers. "For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through."

This philosophy led jobs to at least attempt to manufacture Apple products with the same care, even in the details that would be invisible to the user. When the first Apple II casings were delivered, Jobs noticed a thin plastic seaming that was often the result of the injection molding process, he had Apple employees sand and polish them to be displayed at a computer expo.

Jobs even rejected the designs of the original logic boards inside of the Apple II as the 'lines were not straight enough'.

Not that this stance was without fault, however. It did get Jobs into trouble at NeXT, where the precise cube shape of the NeXT casings caused huge additional production costs and heat issues because the internal boards had to be broken down and stacked, one on top of another.

Although my Dad didn't raise a billionaire, he is a craftsman and a painter and he instilled in me the same love of details, even those some might think inconsequential. He taught me to wash the undersides of a car's rocker panels and the engine compartment, things I still do today. I fully believe that the impression my father made on me about the importance of the details has been one of the major components of whatever success I've had as a writer and photographer.

Jobs would recall the lessons taught by his father about the attention worth paying, even to the things unseen, throughout his career and life. And while sacrifices were often made of money, time and frustration, users of Apple products often reaped the rewards.

Read next: Obama 2012 campaign launches official Tumblr: Obama for America

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Steve Jobs' obsession with the quality of the things unseen

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If there is one defining characteristic of Steve Jobs that has run like a thread through his entire career, it is a genuine obsession with the way that things are crafted. Not merely content to set specifications and see that they were met, Jobs frequently went above and beyond to ensure that the products he ...

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Quality control is important in the manufacturing process. in order to maintain a healthy customer base business must have products that are up to quality standards. With strategic methods of production and inventory control, business are looking for more effective ways to improve both quality and distribution of products. In the link provided, it shows how important quality control in the manufacturing process is to both businesses and consumers.

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The failure to use a quality control system are well documented, as seen in product recalls from Toyota, Firestone and other large manufacturers.

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The role that Technology has in business

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The role that Technology has in business

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In the world of Information systems technology, security is an important factor in keeping a business network alive. Today, large companies are taking precautions to keep their information protected.After reading the chapter, i wanted to expand my knowledge on how businesses protect their networks.

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Cyberattacks are a serious threat to businesses and consumers, with large-scale attacks having nationwide effects, thus making national security a serious concern.

Kaspersky Lab's investigation reports that more than 100 banks across the world suffered up to $1 billion losses from a cyber attack back in 2013, including financial institutions from Russia, the United States, China, Germany and Ukraine. Carbanak, the malware used in these attacks, infiltrated and extracted data and exploited weaknesses in Microsoft Office files sent through emails.

The 2017 Ponemon Cost of Data Breach study revealed that the global average cost of a data breach is $3.62 million, making breaches some of the most expensive threats organizations can face.

Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that by 2021, cybercrime damages will cost up to $6 trillion annually.

Forms and Impacts

Different forms of malware have existed throughout the years, and the most recent variants are much stronger and more aggressive than before. Here are some recent examples:

Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware that locks the victim's system, extracts data and encrypts it. The hacker will then threaten to publish the data or keep it in a perpetual lockdown unless the victim pays a ransom.

Recent examples are WannaCry and Petya. WannaCry shocked the world when it infected more than 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries. Within the initial hours of the attack, 48 National Health Service organizations in the UK had to turn patients away or delay medical procedures. In the U.S., FedEx delivery services were delayed. Spain's major telecoms and gas companies also suffered, as well as France's Renault. Even the Russian Interior Ministry and Megafon, a telecom company, were impacted. The hackers reportedly ransomed more than $1 billion, not including damages.

Petya was first discovered in 2016 and resurfaced in 2017, using designs from WannaCry to effectively target systems. While giant businesses such as Merck, Maersk and Rosnoft were affected the attack specifically targeted Ukraine. An infrastructure breach in the country resulted in disruption of power, airports, public transit and even its central bank; the breach caused unprecedented effects in both economy, civic welfare and national security.

Banking Trojans

Banking trojans are highly specific forms of trojans written for the purpose of stealing confidential banking information; they wait in a victim's system and steal login credentials.

Zeus is one of the most pervasive and damaging banking trojans to date. A 2010 white paper by Unisys reported that Zeus is responsible for 44 percent of banking attacks and infected 3.6 million computers in the United States alone. A total of 960 banks and almost 90% of Fortune 500 companies fell victim. The financial damages were estimated to be about $100 million. However, its real impact is still undetermined due to its scope.

Since the "retirement" of its creator in 2011 and the successive leak of its source code, Zeus has spawned many imitators and variants.

Point Of Sale (POS) Trojan

A POS trojan targets both businesses and consumers; it steals customer data from electronic payment systems such as debit and credit cards. POS machines in stores are also vulnerable.

Kaptoxa is a famous trojan that exposed the payment data of more than 70 million Target customers. The trojan escaped most security detection at the time and managed to remain in POS machines for days.

Tips to Protect Your Business

Be Aware

As a business owner, you should be the first one to know the types of cybersecurity threats your company might face. A false sense of security is often the source of weak systems. Knowing what is out there and how to protect your business is a necessity.

Secure Your Network

Firewalls are your first line of defense against cyberattacks. Your business connects to the internet via different applications such as email, VoIP and media streaming. Your firewall should monitor threats coming from different connections. Also, consider setting up a private network to have more control over your security.

Invest in Security

A simple installation of antivirus is not enough. Your business' assets should be protected by multiple layers of security. Antivirus, anti-malware, and anti-ransomware suites are some of the tools your business should have. These applications can also evaluate the weakness of your security system.

Keep Everything Up to Date

Once the security system is in place, make sure that you have regularly scheduled updates. Malware rapidly evolves and your security applications need patches and updates to detect any attacks from new forms of threats. Similarly, run a regular update of your system drivers, operating systems and applications.

Encrypt Your Data

In case hackers breach your security, your next level of protection is encryption. Encryption encodes your data, making it useless to third-party attacks. Most software companies offer encryption applications suitable for your needs.

Protect Your Hardware

While the internet poses immense threats, your hardware is not safe either. Stolen hard drives, laptops and even thumb drives with company information may just be the vulnerability the bad guys are waiting for. Strong security in your business premises is a necessity, protecting not only physical assets but your data as well.

Develop a Security Policy

More often than not, it's people who are the greatest security threats. An employee who accidentally clicks the wrong link may cost you your business. Integrate security policies in your company operations. Educate your employees about the threats and how to prevent them. Workshops are available to help you strengthen the knowledge of your colleagues and employees against cybersecurity attacks.

Enforce Strong Passwords

Password security should be a strictly enforced. Anything accessed in the company, from emails to bank accounts, should be protected by a strong password. Typically, a strong password should be a sentence that is at least 12 characters long. Focus on sentences that are easy to remember and/or pleasant to think about - on many sites, you can even use spaces!

Have an Emergency Response Plan

Even with all your protection, the worst can still happen. Set up company guidelines on how to detect possible attacks, what to do during attacks and how to proceed afterward. The sooner you stop the attack and contact the authorities, the less damage an attack will cause.

Back Up Your Files

Backups, which should have their own security system, can save you the pain of starting from scratch. In case an attack happens, your next priority is to get your business back to normal operations as soon as possible. Regularly updated backups can help you get things running again with minor losses.

Conclusion

Small and medium-sized businesses are common targets of attacks, as they can be used as gateways to gain access to bigger companies. With today's heavily connected world, an attack on another business can put yours at risk. Stay updated on the current cybersecurity threats and how to prevent them. Make sure your company is always ready for a cybersecurity attack.

About the Author

Shawn Abraham is a cybersecurity enthusiast working as content manager at MalwareFox. He spends most of his time obsessing over computer software and hardware and loves talking about himself in third person.

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Key Ways to Protect Your Business From Malware - Stay Safe Online

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Cyberattacks are a serious threat to businesses and consumers, with large-scale attacks having nationwide effects, thus making national security a serious concern. Kaspersky Lab's investigation reports that more than 100 banks across the world suffered up to $1 billion losses from a cyber attack back in 2013, including financial institutions from Russia, the United States, China, Germany and Ukraine.

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In order to be a leader, an individual has to have the right behavior. one such behavior is the relationship between the leader and the people being motivated. I believe that all managers must have the proper behavioral skill to show effective leadership.

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Kasey Hickey Head of Content at BetterUp

You've heard it before: people don't leave companies. They leave bad managers. According to a 2015 Gallup poll , one in two employees has fled from a bad manager. If that's not a concerning statistic to you, it should be.

Mediocre leaders can make or break your business. Click To Tweet
But what's the difference between a manager and a leader? A leader and a great leader? In his groundbreaking book, Conscious Business, Fred Kofman writes, "Asking whether someone is a manager or a leader is like asking whether someone is a soccer player or a ball-kicker." By this token, leadership is the way that good managers earn the trust of their team.
has shown that there are a number of key leadership behaviors that managers can learn and develop. These behaviors are grounded in managing our social-emotional reactions to our surroundings. And by cultivating them, leaders can build a team around them that is accountable, trusting, resilient, proactive, and passionate about their work and company mission.
If you want to be this type of leader (and cultivate this type of leadership in your organization), here are the 5 leadership behaviors our research has shown can have the biggest impact on your team's productivity and engagement, and ways to practice them on a daily basis.

Learn compassionate management

While many leadership experts will tell you that empathy is critical to great leadership , it's actually compassion - an " objective form of empathy " - that's key to being more in touch with your team. Practicing compassion comes down to training yourself to see situations through another person's perspective. Compassionate management involves taking the time to consider and understand people's stresses so you can be better equipped to take action. Unlike empathy, compassion creates emotional distance, giving leaders the ability to proactively assist another person. Being a compassionate leader can decrease team members' stress levels and in turn, increase their productivity and effectiveness.

Compassionate management involves taking the time to consider and understand people's stresses so you can be better equipped to take action.

Compassionate leadership means showing genuine interest in team members' success and well-being and a commitment to understanding, but not necessarily agreeing. As you practice this skill, you'll find that you'll be able to develop more loyalty and trust with team members. While raises and promotions are valuable, research has shown that it's the positive relationships we develop at work that have a greater impact on retention.
Practice this:

Start meetings with your team by checking in with their emotional well-being: Are they stressed? Feeling overworked? Distracted by something going on at home?

Take a step back and check in with yourself: Are you feeling frustrated? Angry? Reflecting on your own mental state can help improve your self-awareness and emotional control.

Foster transparency and be honest with people when things aren't working out .

Learn to forgive. Forgiveness has been shown to benefit health and psychological well-being .

Leaders adapt to change

Great leaders are able to quickly change course themselves and also help their team evolve with the organization's needs.

Anne Dwane, CEO of Zinch, told First Round Review , "Adaptable people aim to do the right thing at the right time for what they want to accomplish." Adaptable people also tend to surround themselves with people of a similar mindset, establishing a culture of learning and risk-taking.
These types of leaders ( much like elite athletes ) tend to operate at their peak performance because they enjoy the process, continually push themselves and their teams forward, and aren't afraid of occasionally losing. They recognize that leadership is a lifelong learning process and mistakes are optimal opportunities to better ourselves and our decision-making skills.

Mistakes are optimal opportunities to better ourselves and our decision-making skills. Click To Tweet
Practice this:

Establish a weekly brainstorming meeting with yourself - push yourself toward less traditional ways of thinking .

Find a challenging pursuit that feels meaningful but not important enough that failure cannot be tolerated.

Seek new solutions to problems as opposed to leaning on the ones you typically turn to.

Embracing a coaching mindset

Studies have shown that employee development results are best achieved when a manager is actively involved in the process .
Managers who are able to take a coaching approach to leadership develop a partnership with their teammates and establish a shared vision for what needs to be done and how these goals will be accomplished. This sort of relationship will give you a more personal and active role in each individual's development, create a relationship of trust, and foster an environment of continual growth.
Carol Dweck , a professor of psychology at Stanford found that the most successful individuals tend to fall into the "improving" or "growth mindset" category. Consequently, leaders who focus on developing people can influence teammates to adopt a similar mindset of constant self-improvement.
Great leaders are able to tie people's individual development to organizational objectives ultimately increasing accountability, improving retention, and developing stronger leaders within their teams.
Practice this:

Instead of praising a team member's intelligence or talent, focus on reinforcing the processes they used.

When a team member makes a mistake, give feedback that enables them to grow and fix the problem.

Delegate in a way that develops people.

Take time to thoughtfully construct a developmental plan for each person on your team and review it often.

Offer recognition for effort.

Get to know team members as individuals in the context of work and beyond so you can coach from a Whole Person perspective.

Leaders practice effective listening

Effective communication skills are key to building trust with your teammates and getting them to buy into your vision.

Great leaders know that listening can be more empowering than speaking. Effective communication skills are key to building trust with your teammates and getting them to buy into your vision. Effective listening is a combination of both verbal and nonverbal communication skills that can be learned and practiced over time.
In a study of over 8,000 individuals employed in a variety of industries, most respondents said that they believed that their communication skills were effective and in some cases, even more effective than those of their coworkers. Yet, research has shown that "the average person listens at only about 25% efficiency." There's a huge correlation between effective leadership and effective listening; effective listening "fosters cohesive bonds, commitment, and trust."
Practice this:

Catch the speaker's key points and make sure you let her know you heard them.

Strive to be more curious and remain open-minded.

Practice allowing yourself to be fully present when speaking with teammates.

Cultivating an inspiring vision

One of the joys of being a leader is the opportunity to motivate and inspire people to do their best work and pursue projects and goals that enable them to grow. While being inspiring might sound like a soft pursuit, motivation theory has actually shown that there are proven ways leaders can motivate and inspire their teams. Effective leaders prioritize the creation of an inspiring work environment that propels their teams to see beyond their perceived limitations and step up to new challenges. What's their secret? Motivational leaders have a keen understanding of how to create a strong sense of community and belonging within their organizations, regularly celebrate and reward achievements, and set standards for performance by modeling drive, initiative taking, and energy. As a result, their teams tend to see lower turnover, increased productivity, and increased motivation.
What are some common behaviors of leaders that teammates would call "inspiring"? They inspire others to act by creating a strong shared sense of organizational purpose, hold their teams accountable for their own destiny, prioritize growth and problem-solving skills, and tend to be humble, compassionate, and transparent - not to mention, great communicators. Leadership development experts Dr. Jack Zenger and Dr. Joseph Folkman identified 10 "companion behaviors that define an inspiring leader":

Zenger and Folkman found that leaders don't have to perfectly exemplify every leadership behavior associated with being inspiring, but if they could strengthen just 2-3 behaviors, they could become more inspiring.
Practice this:

Live and breathe your company mission and regularly communicate your values to your team.

Give teammates ownership over challenging projects and set stretch goals.

Identify the problems you want to solve , then figure out the plan for solving them.

Some leaders are born with innate talents and a set of behaviors that make them particularly suited for greatness. But many leadership behaviors can be learned, developed, practiced over time, and used to nurture a new generation of leaders that are yet to rise to the challenge.

Original art by Theo Payne.

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5 Leadership Behaviors You Must Have | BetterUp

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Here are the 5 leadership behaviors our research has shown can have the biggest impact on your team's productivity and engagement and how to practice them. Become a great leader and learn how to improve your leadership behaviors with these key steps and practices.

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Although both these chapters has different out looks on an organization, they both can be viewed in similar situations.  A leader for example can be a motivating force for his or her employees. They can do this by rewarding employees if task is done correctly. Motivating employees will benefit both the consumers and your workforce.

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Motivation is what keeps the wheels of civilization turning. When we're properly motivated, there's almost nothing we can't do. When we need to visit distant celestial bodies to learn more about our place in the cosmos, for example, we motivate ourselves to build new technologies to reach them.

But every day, on company campuses, in home offices and in warehouses, motivation happens on a smaller scale when we identify opportunities for personal growth or for doing something in an exciting new way. Indeed, it's any great leader's responsibility to foster this kind of thinking. Here's why.
Why Is Motivation Important?
Why is motivation important in the workplace?

Why isn't it?

Think about the purpose of "doing business" in general. It's all about exercising creativity and thoughtfulness to solve customers' problems. It's about providing products and services that make customers happy and turn a profit for your company while they're doing it. This itself is a key source of motivation for your team: if they have a real-world understanding of how they're touching and improving other people's lives, they'll work even harder and smarter, seeking out new solutions and generally improving your company's efficiency and bottom line.

Knowing how to motivate your workforce will help ensure they're enthusiastically bringing their best efforts each day and helping the company meets its sales and performance goals, whatever they might be.

But let's talk about motivation in practical terms. What does it actually look like? There are many ways modern leaders can motivate their employees to deliver their best every day - here are just a few of them.
What Effective Motivation Looks Like
Yes, motivating the members of your team is important. But how do you do it? Here are three key areas to focus on:

Demonstrate A Commitment to Employee Happiness: Happy employees are productive employees, simple as that. Controlled experiments reveal productivity gains of anywhere from 12% to 20% when measures are taken to ensure employees have a physically welcoming atmosphere in which to perform their duties, flexible scheduling, opportunities to unwind and reasonable employee benefits packages that meet their daily needs, like a generous sick leave policy, matching retirement account contributions and paid parental leave.

As leaders, it's important that we're constantly taking stock of what life is like for employees on every rung of the ladder and making sure they have what they need to live well while they're doing their jobs.

Provide Chances to Speak Up: Another significant factor in employee motivation is knowing they can make their voices heard when they identify problems that need solving or opportunities to work in a different way.

Leaders must demonstrate, in meetings and especially in everyday interactions, that they're not merely "open to" feedback and process improvements but that they actively welcome them. If you're a leader yourself, communicate to your employees in a way that suggests humility - that you're able and willing to listen to alternatives or new ways of doing familiar tasks.

If you focus on this collaborative aspect of doing business, you'll be amazed at how much more motivated your team will be - and how much happier and productive they are as a consequence.

Set an Example Worth Following: Why do people follow Elon Musk and Bill Gates so enthusiastically? How do politicians like Barack Obama and Tulsi Gabbard command respect and admiration even from people on the "other side" of the political aisle? They all have one key thing in common: they command respect by providing an example worth following. They operate with thoughtfulness, integrity and no small amount of concern for the people around them.

As leaders, we need to stay mindful of the examples we're setting. Just physically being there, and being approachable, is a great start - but it extends to nearly every way you express yourself and your esteem for your employees, give directives, communicate in emails and other written dispatches, and even how you carry yourself and dress for work.

Basically, everything you say and do - and even the degree to which your physical appearance and bearing says, "I care about what I do" - can be considered part of the example you're setting. And a great example means empowered and motivated employees.
One More Thing
But there's one more step. You can't merely ooze charisma and competence - you have to really care about making your employees their own CEOs and leaders. If they feel they don't have the freedom to pursue their goals and meet your expectations their own way, within reason, they may feel you're not offering them enough challenges and may take their talent elsewhere. Proper motivation is hugely important for employee retention.

Bottom line? Treating your employees with the kind of respect that fosters thoughtfulness and strong motivation means allowing them some amount of autonomy. You already know the example you strive to set each day, but you need to exhibit respect for your team by letting them choose for themselves whether or not to follow it. And when things don't go as well as you'd like, or they bring you negative feedback, talk candidly with them about why things didn't work out and what you all might do differently next time. Working with others means growing and learning together.

As with so many other things in life and business, providing ample motivation for your team is a matter of communication - in all its forms. It's how you speak, how you communicate your own passion for your line of work, and the degree to which you empower your team to constantly learn new things and try novel solutions. Communication is how we build common cause and ultimately change the world - even if all we're changing is our private little corner of it.

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Motivating Employees Should Be One of a Leader's Top Priorities

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Motivation is what keeps the wheels of civilization turning. When we're properly motivated, there's almost nothing we can't do. When we need to visit distant celestial bodies to learn more about our place in the cosmos, for example, we motivate ourselves to build new technologies to reach them.

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Every person has a motivating factor within their selves. many employees are motivated to come to work everyday. For me motivation is a huge part of my education. The future for example is what drives me to keep persuading an education.

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Many individuals approach leadership in different ways. One of my favorite approaches of leadership is the situational approach. Many managers fill that their are different situations in which leadership becomes effective.  In the picture below, this shows the level of le

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In successful businesses working among team members are important. From formal groups to informal groups, team work can provide a better work environment along with solving organizational problems. Even in the classroom many teachers are implementing teamwork into the curriculum because of its effectiveness. One way students can benefit from team work is developing time management skills that will allow them to complete projects in the future.

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Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

"More hands make for lighter work." "Two heads are better than one." "The more the merrier."

These adages speak to the potential groups have to be more productive, creative, and motivated than individuals on their own.

Benefits for students

Group projects can help students develop a host of skills that are increasingly important in the professional world (Caruso & Woolley, 2008; Mannix & Neale, 2005). Positive group experiences, moreover, have been shown to contribute to student learning, retention and overall college success (Astin, 1997; Tinto, 1998; National Survey of Student Engagement, 2006).

Properly structured, group projects can reinforce skills that are relevant to both group and individual work, including the ability to:

Break complex tasks into parts and steps

Plan and manage time

Refine understanding through discussion and explanation

Give and receive feedback on performance

Challenge assumptions

Develop stronger communication skills.

Group projects can also help students develop skills specific to collaborative efforts, allowing students to...

Tackle more complex problems than they could on their own.

Delegate roles and responsibilities.

Share diverse perspectives.

Pool knowledge and skills.

Hold one another (and be held) accountable.

Receive social support and encouragement to take risks.

Develop new approaches to resolving differences.

Establish a shared identity with other group members.

Find effective peers to emulate.

Develop their own voice and perspectives in relation to peers.

While the potential learning benefits of group work are significant, simply assigning group work is no guarantee that these goals will be achieved. In fact, group projects can - and often do - backfire badly when they are not designed, supervised, and assessed in a way that promotes meaningful teamwork and deep collaboration.

Benefits for instructors

Faculty can often assign more complex, authentic problems to groups of students than they could to individuals. Group work also introduces more unpredictability in teaching, since groups may approach tasks and solve problems in novel, interesting ways. This can be refreshing for instructors. Additionally, group assignments can be useful when there are a limited number of viable project topics to distribute among students. And they can reduce the number of final products instructors have to grade.

Whatever the benefits in terms of teaching, instructors should take care only to assign as group work tasks that truly fulfill the learning objectives of the course and lend themselves to collaboration. Instructors should also be aware that group projects can add work for faculty at different points in the semester and introduce its own grading complexities.

References

Astin, A. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Caruso, H.M., & Wooley, A.W. (2008). Harnessing the power of emergent interdependence to promote diverse team collaboration. Diversity and Groups. 11, 245-266.

Mannix, E., & Neale, M.A. (2005). What differences make a difference? The promise and reality of diverse teams in organizations. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 6(2), 31-55.

National Survey of Student Engagement Report. (2006). http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report/docs/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report.pdf.

Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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What are the benefits of group work? - Eberly Center - Carnegie Mellon University

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Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation "More hands make for lighter work." "Two heads are better than one." "The more the merrier." These adages speak to the potential groups have to be more productive, creative, and motivated than individuals on their own.

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Communication is important in the business world. Effective communication leads to a successful workplace environment. Communication works through channels and when appropriated effectively directions among both managers and employees can be correctly executed. This articles discusses the different lines of communication used in the business world.

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Effective communication in the workplace is imperative in a leadership role. An age-old aphorism goes, "It's not what you say, but how you say it." Good communication is what separates a poor leader from an exceptional one. Having effective communication skills is the key to good leadership.

When you communicate well with your team, it helps eliminate misunderstandings and can encourage a healthy and peaceful work environment. Efficient and open communication with your team will also let you get work done quickly and professionally.

The moment you get the lines of communication open with your team, the process of carrying out tasks and projects will most likely go by smoothly. Plus you will be surprised how meeting targets will become a whole lot easier.

Ways to Create Effective Communication in the Workplace

1. Open Meeting

It is easier to communicate your passion and how you feel to your team via open meetings. In this kind of forum, they will not only hear what you are saying, they will also see and feel it. This approach still remains one of the best approaches to communicate effectively with a team.

2. Emails

In official settings, communication via email remains potent. It will enable you to pass messages to members of your team without pulling them out of their workstations.

3. One on One

Experts have been able to prove that some people understand better when you take them aside and talk to them on a one-on-one basis. Ensure that you maintain eye contact with them to enable the message to sink in.

4. Create a Receptive Atmosphere

To effectively communicate with your team, you must create a receptive atmosphere. Avoid a tense environment at all costs because when you communicate in an overly intense manner, the message you are trying to share might not be well understood or retained.

5. Communication via Training

Your training should be tailored towards communicating certain information to your team members. Most employees take training serious, especially when it's part of their appraisal.

6. Display Confidence and Seriousness

Ensure that you display confidence and seriousness to ensure that you will not be taken for granted. When your team members notice any uncertainty and lack of seriousness when you're communicating with them, they are likely to treat the information with disdain or disregard.

7. Use Simple Words

The truth is that everybody cannot be on same page when it comes to vocabulary. Therefore, to be effective in your communications with your team members, use words that can be easily understood. When ambiguous words are used, you can be misunderstood and/or waste precious time having to explain yourself.

8. Use Visuals

Place visuals at strategic positionsaround the workstations of your team. They should not just hear the message, they should also see it. This gives room for better comprehension.

9. Listen to Your Team Members

Communication is intended to be a two way street. Don't just talk because you are the leader without listening to anyone else. Encourage them to open up so you can be well guided when communicating in the future with them. You have two ears and one mouth -so you must listen more than you speak.

10. Use Body Language

Your body language will pass your message faster and better. Master the art of using body language when communicating with your team. Stand/sit up straight, use smiles, handshakes and eye contact.

11. Act Out Your Message

Someone once said, "Tell me what you want me to do and I might forget it, but do it in front of me and I will never forget it." Acting out your message is a very potent way of communicating with your team. Let them see you do what you want them to do, and watch their excuses disappear.

12. Use The Appropriate Tone of Voice

One word can mean a different thing when said in a different tone of voice. Make sure you use the appropriate tone of voice to communicate your message to your team so that you won't be misunderstood and discourage or demotivate members or cause them to shut down completely out of fear.

13. Avoid Unnecessary Repetition

If you want your team members to take you serious, never sound like a broken record and don't beat a dead horse. Tell your team members what you want them to know or do and ask them if they are clear about it. If they are not, only then do you repeat what you have said.

14. Use Presentations

Some people grasp messages easily when pictures and sounds are involved. Using presentations like Microsoft PowerPoint to communicate with your team will give them the opportunity to refer back to it if they aren't clear about certain things.

15. Be Humorous

Using friendly jokes when communicating with your team members will help pass your message along in a more relaxed way. This method of communication has been proven to be a highly effective way of dousing tension. When the atmosphere is unfriendly and intense, being humorous does the trick. If you must use jokes, please don't overdo it. Remember, you are not a stand-up comedian.

16. Be Articulate

Communication is indeed a skill that must be learned by all, especially if you want to lead any group of people. Being articulate when you communicate to your team members makes it easier for them to understand your message.

17. Avoid Mumbling

Your team members should be able to hear you clearly. When communicating with them, try as much as possible to speak clearly and not mumble words. When you mumble words or speak too quickly, you may assume that they are clear on the subject. But the truth is, they might not be. It also shows a lack of confidence on your part.

18. Encourage Feedback

Don't just talk and walk away. Give room for feedback so that you can measure the effectiveness of your style of communication. It will also afford you the privilege of knowing if your message was well understood.

19. Gesticulate

Use your hands to demonstrate your message. Make hand motions and signals to establish the seriousness of your subject matter when communicating with your team members. This shows that you understand what you are trying to relay to them. Just don't let your body movement become too exaggerated and intense.

20. Be Appreciative

After every communication session, via whatever means you have decided, always remember to thank your listeners for their time. It will cost you nothing and it's a simple courtesy.

Remember that the point of working as a team is to share ideas and boost productivity. When effective communication in the workplace is hampered, it can sidetrack the entire effort.

You must work hard at these communication tactics and create ground rules to keep everyone up to date, which helps avoid confusion and ensure the completion of the project with ease.
Presentation Photo via Shutterstock
Open Meeting Photo via Shutterstock

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Effective communication in the workplace is imperative in a leadership role. An age-old aphorism goes, "It's not what you say, but how you say it." Good communication is what separates a poor leader from an exceptional one. Having effective communication skills is the key to good leadership.

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Businesses teach new hires by running effective training programs. One the most important training methods used by businesses is lectures. This method teaches new employees in a classroom environment. It also will allow them hands on training. While new employees consider lecture based training boring, employers are looking for ways to make these classes more engaging.

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The Trainers' Survival Guide: 25 Activities to Make Lecture-Based Programs Active

The average adult can sit and just listen for about twenty minutes. After that, any lecture tends to lose its punch. What's an instructor to do? Talk faster? Simply hit the highlights? No, of course not. By building active learning techniques into the structure of the class, any instructor can improve his or her class.

Following are 25 ways to engage participants in a lecture-based program or lecture module in a training seminar.

Question for Another Group

In this activity, participants are divided into groups of 4 to 7 people. Together, they develop between 1 and 3 questions for another group to answer based on the presented material. Once all of the questions are written, they are switched among groups and then answered.

How to Use this at Work

In groups of 2 to 7 people, have participants list ways that they will use the presented material back at work. If the group cannot come up with any application, you can throw their problem out to the whole group. If nothing develops, move on. Be aware of the anomaly, however. If this happens repeatedly, it may indicate the course is not appropriate for the audience.

Case Studies

Divide the class into groups of 2 to 7 people. Have them answer between 1 and 3 case studies prepared by you, based on the material covered. This often works best if you tell them where in the workbook/book they can start looking to find/confirm the answers.

Stump the Trainer

Either in groups or individually, have the participants develop questions based on material presented for you to answer. They may either be basic or more complex. This activity will give you a good idea of how much detail and the level of difficulty they can handle.

Turn to Your Neighbor

When a portion of your lecture has ended, have participants turn to each other and discuss the two or three main points learned. This works best if you have them write down their answers. Most people will write when you tell them to. Writing the answers will keep them focused on the task of learning.

Quick Quiz

After a portion of your lecture has ended, pass out a short quiz of no more than 5 or 6 questions based on covered materials. Have participants answer the questions, and then go over them. For maximum interaction, you can then have them work in groups for a group answer before reviewing the answers yourself.

Fill in the Blank

This technique is a good one to use while you are lecturing. Simply leave blanks in your workbook or pass out worksheets with blanks for participants to fill in as you lecture. Most people don't like to have empty spaces on their pages, so they will fill in the blanks with the information you provide.

Crossword Quiz

After a lecture segment, hand out a crossword puzzle quiz to each participant. Wait an appropriate amount of time for participants to complete the puzzle. The amount of time allowed will vary depending on the group's education level and complexity of the puzzle. Consider giving a prize for the first correctly completed puzzle. To ensure participation or if you have a mixed group, you may want to have participants complete this activity in groups or pairs. You can find worksheet generators, fill in the blank, etc., at http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/work_sheets/ and http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com.

Find the Question | Find the Answer

In this activity, you give each participant either a question or its corresponding answer on an index card. Hand them out randomly. Next, instruct participants to stand up, move around, and find the person holding the matching question or answer.

You Read It. You Teach It

To add variety to your lecture modules, divide your participants into groups of 3 to 5 people. Pass out 2 to 3 pages of information to each. Allow between 12 to 20 minutes for groups to prepare their "mini lectures" on the material. Finally, let each group present the material. You can then add any needed information. This works well with non-technical topics.

Put It Together

When teaching a process, hand out index cards with a step of the process to each participant. Next, ask the participants to get themselves in order from beginning to end. Once they are in line, review each step of the process and make any adjustments that are needed. If the group is large, use a piece of cardstock with a keyword printed on the front and select a small number of people to complete the exercise in front of everyone else. The cardstock with the keyword will help those in the audience to stay involved in the process.

Four Questions

Post four flipcharts around the room, each with a different question. Divide your class into four groups. Instruct each group to stand next to one of the flipcharts. Next, give each a different colored marker and five minutes to answer their question. When the time is up, the groups rotate to the next question and add any additional information to the next chart with their colored marker. This activity will provide a physical pattern interruption and cut down on duplicate answers.

What I Find Most Difficult

This exercise is similar to Four Questions; however, instead of posting questions on the flipcharts, you list topics covered in your lecture. You then instruct participants to go stand next to the chart that lists the topic they find most difficult. Once at the appropriate chart, ask the participants to write down what is particularly difficult. When they are done, instruct them to sit down. Then go through each chart clarifying and reviewing areas of difficulty. This activity has the added benefit of telling you where your teaching is effective and where roadblocks are popping up.

Demonstrate and Graduate

A picture is worth a thousand words. A demonstration or a video is a worth a million. To illustrate your points, consider adding a demonstration or video segment where appropriate. Allow participants to take part in the demonstration. At the very least, have them answer questions about the demonstration or video seen.

Most | Least Useful

List six to seven uses for the information you have provided during your lecture on separate pieces of flipchart paper. Hang them around the room. Next, ask participants to stand next to the use they think is most applicable to them. Have them list why that is on the paper. Review the responses. Then, have them choose the use that is least applicable to them and repeat the exercise. During the second part, you can clarify misconceptions or gaps in learning regarding why a fact or application might be valuable.

Best Summary

Divide participants into groups of 4 to 7 people. Pass out an index card to each group. Have them summarize the information you shared during your lecture on the card. Review each of the summaries when all groups are done. Write out a composite on a whiteboard, flipchart sheet, or overhead projector transparency and have the class copy it down in their notes. When using a workbook, leave space for this information.

Pretest

Before the lecture begins, pass out a pretest to each participant. Have them answer the questions to the best of their ability. Next, begin your lecture highlighting the correct answer to each of the questions as you go.

Jeopardy

Most people like playing in this game show format. Divide your group into teams and have them create questions to the answers displayed on the wall/screen. To create the game, list the amounts on cardstock (e.g. $200, $400, $800, $1000) and the categories above those amounts. You will need 5 of each amount if you have 5 categories. Write the question (the answer) upside down on the reverse side of each card. Tape each card on the wall in the grid format. When a group provides a correct question, give them the card. At the end, total up all cards to determine the winner. If you have a projector on your computer, you can create the game with a PowerPoint template available from http://library.elearningtemplates.com.

What It Is | Why It's Good | What Could Go Wrong

Divide your group into three teams. Have the first prepare a list of the key points you presented. Have the second create a list of ways in which they could use what you have presented. Have the third list what could happen if they don't use what you have taught.

Best Answer

Divide your group into 3 to 5 teams. Give each group a paper bag and a stack of single-colored index cards. Each group should have its own color. Have each develop a question for the other teams to answer and write that question on the outside of the bag. When all questions are ready, rotate the questions so that each group has one that it did not write. Next, each group should answer the question held on a colored index card. When done, the card should be placed in the bag and sent to the next group. After everyone has seen every question, the bags should return to their original authors. At this point, the groups should open the bags and evaluate the answers to their question. A total of ten points should be divided between the answers, more points going toward the better answers. Next, review all questions and answers. To wrap up the activity, total the number of points given to each group (e.g. the green card group got 12, the pink card group got 6, etc.). The group with the most points wins.

BINGO

Use this activity during your lecture. List terms you are discussing on a BINGO card for each of the participants listening to your lecture. Once a participant gets a row, two rows, or whatever criterion you set, the game is over. For an online BINGO card creator, see http://www.bestteachersites.com/web_tools/materials/bingo/.

Practice Case (Role Play)

Just don't call them roleplays! Nobody seems to like role plays, but practice cases are okay. Role plays can work if they are done well. Often what works best is for a group to prepare for one of the parts and then to elect a representative to play that part in front of others. This reduces the risk and improves the participant's potential for success because many people were involved in preparing for the exercise. It also decreases the likelihood that someone ended up doing a "role play" when they really didn't want to.

Two Truths and a Lie

Divide your group into teams of 3 to 7 members. Have them develop and record on flipchart paper three statements about the material covered. Two should be true and the other false. Go around the room and have each group read its statements out loud. The other groups should identify on paper which statements are true and which are false. Review the answers when all statements have been presented.

Both Sides of the Issue

Post flipchart paper around the room with a large "T" covering most of the page. Leave room to write on the top of the "T." List a topic on the top of each "T" and a question about the topic on each side of the page, directly underneath the main topic. For instance, a "T" on a lecture about presentation skills might have the words "Presentation Skills" on top of the "T," "What makes a good presentation on the left side?" and "What makes a bad presentation on the right?" Divide your group into teams of 3 to 7 members. Have each team answer the chart questions and then report back to the group.

Crumpled Question Toss

This exercise works well if you are reviewing a lot of material. Give participants a piece of paper and have them each write a question about what has been discussed. Next, have them crumple the paper into a ball and throw in (gently) at another participant. Then have them open the question and record an answer. When all questions have been answered, re-crumple and throw. In this round have the participants add any needed information to the answer given. Crumple and throw one more time. When the pages are opened, give each person an opportunity to read the questions and answers and add any comments they might have. To keep control of the room and to stay on task, ask for additional responses to any duplicate questions after each question is read. You can vary this exercise by beginning with prewritten questions on each page.

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The average adult can sit and just listen for about twenty minutes. After that, any lecture tends to lose its punch. What's an instructor to do? Talk faster? Simply hit the highlights? No, of course not. By building active learning techniques into the structure of the class, any instructor can improve his or her class.

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In the business world, all employers wants know their employees. Though the process of recruiting, managers are able to locate the right candidates for the job. These potential employees must first know the job before taking the opportunity of hire. Benefiting both the employee and employer, the job specification and description are guidelines that describe the potential candidate and the potential job position. while conducting work within module 6 I learned that employers recruit individuals in multiple ways. Both inside and outside recruiting tactics ensures that potential employers are connected with potential employees.

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Jumpstart:HR | HR Outsourcing and Consulting for Small Businesses and Startups

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A hiring process can be a daunting time for businesses. For whatever reason an employee vacated their position, it now lays unclaimed, and while the company efforts to fill it, money is lost. There are two options for filling an open position: hiring from within, and hiring externally. There are many factors to take into consideration before committing to one option or the other. Many of the benefits associated with hiring from within a company are tied to employee morale.
Employee Morale
Hiring internally is quicker because the candidate is already an employee with the company, and are therefore already familiar with operations and business methods. The training process will be quicker, and the transition will generally be smoother than bringing on a new employee. Hiring from within sends a message to other employees that there are real career opportunities with the company. Often, this boosts company-wide productivity, as it creates added incentive for increased productivity.
Trust
Companies like to hire from within because the candidate for the position is a known commodity; someone whom the company is already familiar with. They know the person's strengths and weaknesses, and the candidate has already established relationships with employees in the company. The costs associated with hiring a new employee are also lower, meaning advertisements and time spent working with an unfilled position won't accumulate, because of the speed of a quick hire.
New Outlook
Conversely, hiring a candidate externally introduces a fresh perspective to the fold. Bringing experience from outside the company can be a breath of fresh air, particularly in a struggling business. Hiring an external candidate means access to a larger, more diverse talent pool. Often times, the company only has one or two qualified candidates for an open position, hamstringing them into choosing between two under qualified candidates. Hiring externally gives a company a chance for a fresh start

While hiring a known commodity may appeal to many, it comes with its potential disadvantages as well.
'Thinking Within the Box' Syndrome
Hiring an existing employee for a position with more responsibilities can lead to a narrowing of ideas; more of the same. A struggling business that hires from within is less likely to receive the proverbial "shot-in-the-arm" of innovative concepts and ideas that comes with hiring someone outside of the company.
Jealousy
Even though there will be less training and need for orientation for an internal candidate, they will have to adjust to new expectations and responsibilities, just like an external candidate would. Internal politics also play a hand, as some fellow employees may not agree with the promotion, creating tension in the office, and hurting overall output.
Relying on the Unknown
When hiring an external candidate, all a company has to judge them is a resume, the interview, and perhaps some examples of work, depending on the type of position. This puts the hiring company at a disadvantage, known commodity also applying for the position.

Organizing a search for external candidate means spending money on advertising for the position, and means that the position is open for a longer period of time, draining the company of additional funds, and diminishing productivity. A person hired from the outside will take time to not only train, but to become familiar with other employees, and their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Unhappy Workers
Announcing to a group of employees that the position has been filled externally can hurt morale just as much as the news of a hiring from within can help it. Knowing that all of their hard work will lead nowhere except a paycheck hurts effectiveness, costing the company money in the long-term, as right now.

Weighing the pros and the cons for hiring internally, or externally, comes down to what the company is looking for. Is it looking for a fresh perspective for the position, or is it looking for stability, and a smooth transition? It's an easy question to ask, but not nearly as easy to answer.

About the Guest Author:

Hilary L. Smith is a small business entrepreneur who enjoys topics involving mass communications, technology development and international relations.

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The Pros and Cons of Promoting From Within vs External Hiring - Jumpstart:HR | HR Outsourcing and Consulting for Small Businesses and Startups

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A hiring process can be a daunting time for businesses. For whatever reason an employee vacated their position, it now lays unclaimed, and while the company efforts to fill it, money is lost. There are two options for filling an open position: hiring from within, and hiring externally.

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As discussed previously, managers create organizational cultures by utilizing many steps. I mostly discussed that both determining leaders and tracking performance are the most important steps. The reason for this is because effective leaderships in an organization can maintain healthy work cultures by encouraging employees to commit to certain work duties. Meanwhile Tracking allows a manager to determine the performance of an employee within a work culture.

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While many organizational cultures exists, organizations go above and beyond to establish effective job cultures. Starting with the building process, the needs for business culture building are employees and the work environment. Two important steps that managers take to help build organization culture are determining leaders and tracking performances. All these objectives such be maintained by managers.

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Image credit: Shutterstock

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
This article is included in Entrepreneur Voices on Company Culture Related: 5 Signs Your Corporate Culture is Doomed , a new book containing insights from more than 20 contributors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders.
Everyone is familiar with the culture that companies like Apple and Google have built in Silicon Valley. But the truth remains, not everyone can afford that "rock star" type of culture -- and some might not even want it. Every company is different and as a result, the culture will be different, too.

Culture, as defined by Webster's, is "the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations."

In your workplace, your culture is the everyday reality of organizational life. It is not the mission statement, your balance sheets or even the employee handbook alone. The culture is what we do, what we say, the way we behave, the way we treat each other, our products, customers, communities and ourselves.

As entrepreneurs, we left corporate America for a number of reasons, one of them being our dissatisfaction with the company's culture. We left to create something that fit our dreams, our persona and our vision -- our perfect corporate utopia.

So, how can we as business owners create a strong, and lasting, organizational structure that helps employees become our best ambassadors?

Here are six steps to help you get started:

1. Start with a purpose.

In the beginning, all that matters is building something great and lasting. When the head count is in the single digits, people discuss their soon-to-be culture around the table. Problems are still simple and communication is direct, but as the company starts growing, communication becomes more sporadic (or non-existent), and consensus becomes harder to reach.
Related: 10 Examples of Companies With Fantastic Cultures
To avoid that scenario, have a purpose when you establish your new company's culture. To create that purpose, understand the "why" of the operation. What (or whom) does your business serve? Whatever your answer is, it should be authentic, inspirational, and aspirational. Companies with a strong purpose are well liked because they feel different -- think Ikea or Apple.

Just don't think about copying these giants; no one likes a copycat. Instead, do what's right for your company. Think about what inspires you, then execute it.

2. Define a common language, values and standards.

In order for a culture to be successful, those at your company must speak the same language and be on the same page about what your values are. This common language needs to be understood by everyone in the company -- from the CEO down to the mail room worker. Write down those values. This is an essential element in making your culture withstand the test of time -- it makes them tangible.

You must also have a common set of values, which are your company's principles, and a common set of standards which will measure how your principles are being upheld.

Only when you have aligned your language, values and standards will you have a cohesive culture. Cohesiveness should be your end goal. It might seem tempting to employ a number of stop-gaps along the way, but that's only a short-term solution.

In order to create a long-lasting culture everyone understands, that culture will need adaptations as the company grows. Your core values are your constant staples, but the overall culture needs to be malleable enough to acclimate to different employees and changing times.

3. Lead by example.

A culture is shaped by how a company's leaders act. Every leader needs to internally and externally reflect the company's values and be its strongest advocates. He or she shouldn't recite the mission statement as a solution to everything, but should exemplify what the company stands for.

Think about the Virgin brand and how Richard Branson embodies everything the company wants people to see them as: fun, bold, brash and spirited. Leaders who exemplify incredible passion for what they do and have an exemplary work ethic are the main source of inspiration for other employees and those who want to join the company.

As a leader, you need to lead by example and also be radically transparent. It won't matter one iota if you think you have a great culture, but your employees don't trust you. Being transparent, even when that's difficult, will go a long way in preserving the culture you originally envisioned.

4. Identify your (cultural) ambassadors.

Every company has them: employees who live, eat and breathe your culture and help everyone else understand who you are as a company and what you stand for. These employees are your biggest advocates because they love the company almost as much as you do -- they are your cheerleaders.

This type of employee can be a very valuable asset. Once you identify who your cheerleaders are, ask them what they like about the current culture, what they don't like and why culture matters to them. That will help you gauge if you should stay the course or make a few changes to the current culture.

The role of these ambassadors doesn't diminish with time. On the contrary, their role increases as your company grows and in the end, gives you a competitive advantage. Why? Because customers will remember those who are positive, and knowledgeable about the company (or brand) they represent.

5. Be truthful and always communicate.

Integrity has been defined as "doing the right thing, even when nobody's watching." Whatever you do, you must always demand that everyone in your company adhere to being truthful and approach everything with the utmost integrity. Failure to comply is not an option.

Part of being truthful as a leader is being completely honest about your strengths, weaknesses and biases. It's pretty easy to boast about your talents, but don't think for a second you don't have any weaknesses, because you do. This doesn't apply only to leadership, but to everyone.

As a leader, you must always communicate your values explicitly and continuously, internally and externally. Every employee must understand the culture and why it's important to preserve it. Self-awareness and communication will be essential when your culture isn't going all that well. Culture doesn't have to be a neatly wrapped package, but your communication and truthfulness must never waver. If people can't trust you, you don't have a lot to stand on.

6. Treat people right.

It's been touted by some that corporations are "people," too. I disagree with that notion. People are people. And as a CEO or company leader, you need to treat your employees well, otherwise the culture you're trying to establish won't be of much use to you, if you have a high turnover rate.
Related: How to Protect Corporate Culture in a Telecommuting World
When you're thinking about hiring new employees, spend time screening for character rather than skill. Don't get me wrong: An impressive resume is something to be proud of, and important; but if your character is questionable, you're not a good fit for my company. Skills can be learned, but it's much harder to cultivate a good attitude and character.

Hiring someone with impressive skills and a bad attitude is a sure-fire way to sabotage your own culture, but once you've hired the right people, treat them right. Once you find someone with the right cultural fit, do everything in your power to develop him or her, and help that person scale.

Remember, there's no perfect recipe for success. Like any good cook, you might have to do a little trial and error before you find the right blend of ingredients that'll make your recipe great. Just keep trying.

What is your recipe for success?

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6 Steps to Building a Strong Company Culture

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. This article is included in Entrepreneur Voices on Company Culture Related: 5 Signs Your Corporate Culture is Doomed , a new book containing insights from more than 20 contributors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. Everyone is familiar with the culture that companies like Apple and Google have built in Silicon Valley.

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Working for a business means adapting to their culture. Work cultures are something that defines a business working abilities. Walmart's work culture for example may be a hierarchy culture while Goldman Sachs may have a market culture.

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Today, and its associates are guided by a relentless commitment to its customers that's centered on a fundamental purpose of "saving people money so they can live better".

This commitment can be traced back to the early days of the company and its founder, Sam Walton. Since the first discount store opened in 1962 in Rogers, Ark., Walmart has grown to a global brand serving 260 million customers each week across its 11,500 locations spanning 28 countries or on one of its e-commerce websites available in 11 countries. Despite six decades of growth and expansion, Walmart has remained true to Walton's "Every Day Low Prices" philosophy along with his belief that Walmart's associates are the ones responsible for making the difference for its customers and business performance.

The culture behind this success didn't evolve by chance - it was built through strong leadership and focus, and has been no simple task. According to Deloitte, "culture and engagement" was cited as a top challenge by 87 percent of HR leaders around the world. So how does one of the world's largest, most recognizable brands approach its corporate culture?

Creating an inclusive culture

It begins with a strong commitment to the 2.3 million associates that drive Walmart's stores, e-commerce business, logistics and other functions that are crucial to serving customers. Walmart's leaders believe all associates have an important voice and play a critical role in driving the business - Walton is often quoted for saying "listen to your associates, they're your best idea generators". Any associate might come up with the next big idea that separates Walmart from the competition.

As Walmart has gained recognition in recent years as a leader on environmental sustainability, some of the initiatives that have helped the company maximize energy efficiency or reduce waste began as ideas shared by associates. Working together, Walmart associates make corporate strategy a reality, and they alone do the consistent, important things that make a customer's experience special. It's not uncommon when talking with a Walmart associate to hear them say "that Walmart can change the world" - and mean it.

This approach to doing business is a direct result of the Walmart culture - which the company defines as "our values in action". At Walmart, every associate is expected to practice behaviors consistent with four core values - "Service to the Customer", "Respect for the Individual", "Strive for Excellence" and "Act with Integrity" which trace back to the start of Walmart and are consistent around the world.

While Walmart's values are universal , it's by design that you'll see them manifest a bit differently whether you're at the company's Home Office in Bentonville, Ark. or shopping a store in Sao Paulo or Beijing. Walmart's values remain the same, but the application adapts to align to local customs and norms - an example of a business philosophy Walmart's International division calls "freedom within a framework".

Pro Tip: Regularly communicate, promote and share the essence and values of your culture throughout the organization so employees can live it, every day. This will pay extra dividends, too. M ission-driven companies have 30 percent higher levels of innovation and 40 percent higher levels of retention and they tend to be first or second in their market segment ( Becoming Irresistible , Deloitte, February 2015).

Keeping the Walmart culture strong

Walmart began more than 50 years ago with a purpose of saving people money so they could live better, and its culture - brought to life by its associates - helps realize that purpose. But how does Walmart ensure its organizational culture is consistent and relevant across the organization as the needs and wants of customers change and as the company continues to expand globally and into e-commerce?

Here are five ways:

Walmart sees corporate culture as a key business strategy.

For culture to survive as organizations expand, everyone needs to be committed to it as a business strategy. In high performing organizations, efforts to build a positive culture do not compete with the means to achieve business results - culture is the means. Realizing this, Walmart has integrated culture development into its business planning processes. Moreover, senior leaders are heavily engaged in that planning, and also serve as culture role models as they communicate the company's strategy and values to others within the organization. After all, truly successful corporate culture rollouts start from the top.

Did you know that high-performing companies spend 1.5 to 2 times more on leadership than other companies, and reap results that are triple or quadruple the levels of their competitors ( Global Human Capital Trends 2015 , Deloitte, February 2015)?

Walmart engages frontline leaders to support its culture.

Successful corporate culture rollouts might start at the top, but their long-term viability depends upon buy-in from the grassroots. Don't simply wait for company culture to trickle down from senior leadership. Engage frontline leaders to support and live the company culture as well. This includes leaders in the formal "chain of command" as well as more informal leaders that live and influence at or near the front line.

Each Walmart associate is expected to be a keeper of the culture and practice behaviors consistent with company values - one of those behaviors being to lead by example. In that way Walmart has 2.3 million culture leaders, and that is one of the reasons why the company is so effective in developing its own talent - with 75 percent of its salaried U.S. field managers promoting from hourly positions.

Walmart maintains consistent global communication of its culture.

How culture is communicated is key to sustaining culture over the long-term. Ensure communication is consistent, both internally and externally. Arm teams in different locations or branches with the tools they need.

When it comes time to reinforce or refine its culture, Walmart engages leaders at the local level, giving them what they need to communicate with their teams.
View the Walmart 2016 Culture, Diversity & Inclusion Report
Ensuring all locations are on the same page can help companies scale more effectively and make sure culture doesn't suffer in the process.

By aligning HR systems from recruitment to retirement, Walmart is able to recognize and reward its future associates and leaders. Understanding how culture plays a part in benefits will help any company sync its recruitment and retention strategies. Most important, leadership development and selection - the path to success at Walmart - is achieving great results through living the culture.

Walmart conducts its business with an emphasis on culture every day.

Culture has a starting point, but not an end. Walmart's culture is integrated into every aspect of its business. Company culture reflects the values and beliefs of any organization, so employees should strive to live them every day-as should the organization as a whole.

Defining a winning culture is fruitless if it does not radiate through the company. Hire and promote leaders at every level who get results and embody core values-they will build teams that do the same.
Walmart, Glassdoor and future plans
An Enhanced Profile on helps companies showcase what makes them a great place to work, culture included. One way Walmart communicates its culture externally is by tailoring its content on Glassdoor, including Awards and Accolades and its "Why Work For Us" section:

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How Walmart Builds Its Corporate Culture

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Today, and its associates are guided by a relentless commitment to its customers that's centered on a fundamental purpose of "saving people money so they can live better". This commitment can be traced back to the early days of the company and its founder, Sam Walton.

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The role of a manager is to make decisions such as financing and producing goods. Most of these managers need the employees to help utilize the proper resources needed to help the company become successful. managers use this by delegation. This is a process in which managers choice of assigning specific job activities to employees.

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Delegating is a great way to ensure that more tasks get done in less time, and it also builds team capacity. Unfortunately, a lot of managers don't pay enough attention to the delegation process, and thus fail to reap the benefits. Are you a successful delegator?

There are six steps to successfully delegating tasks. The problem is that most managers only do one or two of them, and then, when a task isn't completed to their satisfaction, complain that their employees aren't good enough to get the job done.

As a coach, I've seen scores of executives from myriad companies do this. Getting outstanding results from delegating demands following a formula. Only once this formula is mastered is it fair to evaluate whether you really have the right people for the job. The good news is that employees are rarely the problem. It's a lot easier and much less expensive for a manager to learn a new approach than to replace staff.

Here are the six steps you should work through when delegating:
1. Prepare
Employees can't deliver quality results if the task delegated to them isn't fully thought out, or if expectations keep changing. Take the time and develop the discipline to map out exactly what you're asking for. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
2. Assign
Once you've taken the time to map out exactly what you're looking for, you need to convey that information to your employees. Be sure to include clear information on timing, budget, and context, and set expectations for communication and updates, including frequency, content, and format.
3. Confirm understanding
One of the most common mistakes made in delegating is assuming that employees understand what you want, rather than making sure that they do. Confirming understanding only takes about 60 seconds, but is the most important determinant of success or failure.

The best way to confirm understanding is to ask your employees to paraphrase the request or assignment in their own words. If you're not comfortable doing that (many managers feel-often correctly-that it makes them sound like a kindergarten teacher), you should, at the very least, ask questions to make sure employees understand all aspects of what's required.
4. Confirm commitment
This is another part of the delegation process that most managers skip. They often just assume that employees have accepted the tasks they've been given. The most important part of a relay race is the handing of the baton to the next runner. Runners spend a huge amount of time learning this skill. It should be no different in the workplace. Commitment means making sure you've successfully handed over the baton.

Confirm that employees are committed to the expected results, and to the process that's been set out (including the schedule, budget, and tools), and that their overall goals for the task are aligned with yours. Make sure they're aware of any consequences (for the company and for themselves) that may result if they fail to deliver on the desired outcomes.
5. Avoid "reverse delegating"
Many managers are extremely overworked. Sometimes, this is because their employees are better at delegating than they are: Managers often end up completing tasks they had delegated to others, because those tasks somehow end up back on their plate. I call this "reverse delegating."

It's rarely, if ever, necessary for a manager to take back a task that he or she had delegated to someone else. (If this is necessary, it likely means that not enough time was spent on the preparation stage, and that time, resource, or other constraints have led to problems that you did not foresee.)

If an employee reaches an impasse, treat it as a learning opportunity. Coach the employee through it, making sure he or she has the resources and knowledge needed to complete the task. That way, you'll still be free to focus on other things, and the employee will be better equipped to carry out similar tasks in the future. The bottom line? Don't take tasks back.
6. Ensure Accountability
Two-way communication is a key part of delegating. Finding out at the completion date that a deliverable hasn't been completed or has been done unsatisfactorily is the nightmare scenario of delegating. That's why you need to make sure your employees are accountable for the task.

Accountability is key to the process of delegation: It means employees are regularly communicating with you about the status of the deliverable and the timing of delivery so that there are no surprises at the eleventh hour.
The delegation process becomes faster and more fluid the more you do it. Once you've mastered it, it will become a part of your managerial DNA, and you'll consistently reap outstanding results.
-Michelle Randall is an executive coach and management consultant. Throughout the past decade, her clients have included Fortune 500 executives and breakout entrepreneurs along with their teams. Author of several books, Michelle's newest: Life Worth Living: A Practical Guide to Extreme Executive Effectiveness comes out later this month. Follow her @enrichingleader or subscribe to her newsletter, Relentless Results.
[ Image: Flickr user Lou.Hadley]

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Delegating is a great way to ensure that more tasks get done in less time, and it also builds team capacity. Unfortunately, a lot of managers don't pay enough attention to the delegation process, and thus fail to reap the benefits. Are you a successful delegator? There are six steps to successfully delegating tasks.

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Each individual who holds a position faces the acceptance of authority. Steven for example is stock broker who works for a large investment firm, his colleagues view him as an individual who can communicate effectively, effective decision making, and great leadership skills among his employees.

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Responsibilities goes a long way within an organization. Anyone who agrees to do a specific job has the responsibility to achieve the giving work load. Thats why many workplaces lists a set of activities known as job descriptions to inform the potential employees of the duties that needs to be completed. while doing various work experience, I was obligated to fulfill all of my assigned work duties. No one should never sleep on the job.

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Jason works for marketing firm. His firm provides services for large companies looking to get their products to the audience. Jason's firm utilizes departments by products or services. This is because his firm uses a system primarily based on providing products and services to customers.

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The organizational Process and Labor Structure 

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The organizational Process and Labor Structure 

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To managers, organizing go through a series of processes in order to be fulfilled. Through repetition and following the organizational steps, managers are able to plan designated tasks for employees. organizational structure is another part of a corporation's organizing strategy. many companies separates their departments utilizing an organization chart. This chart allows for managers to organize their employees often based on duties.

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Organizing is an important factor to businesses management force. In the management system the value of organizing is held to businesses as a department with duties which gives them the responsibility to manage an organization. An organizational chart is an effective way in organizing a business.

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Many businesses set future plans that will allow them to continue operations. Most of these operational plans includes growth, stability, retrenchment, and divestiture. When managers make the decision to divestiture an SBU, this means that plans have been made to eliminate an under-performing item or service. A perfect example of this process is food lions ability to close all 113 stores in the Florida Market.

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Twenty Jacksonville-area Food Lions are among the 113 underperforming stores the grocery chain is closing throughout the markets it operates in.

Delhaize America, the grocer's parent company headquartered in North Carolina, announced that it was pulling out of the Florida market altogether. The 113 stores that will close within the next 30 days, which are in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, are in areas where the company has the least store density.
To see the full list of 113 store closings, click here.
Each Food Lion employs 35 to 40, and a total of 900 will be laid off in Florida, company spokeswoman Christy Phillips-Brown said.

A total of about 4,900 employees will be laid off. The company will provide severance to eligible employees. Employees are also encouraged to apply for open positions within the company, a company news release said.

"Today's actions will continue to solidify our U.S. operations and enable our company to focus on our successful brand strategy repositioning at Food Lion and the expansion of Bottom Dollar Food in new markets," Ron Hodge, CEO of Delhaize America, said. "While these were difficult decisions given the impact on our associates, customers and communities, we believe these actions will enable us to better serve our customers in our markets with high density, while positioning the company for future growth."

Among the Jacksonville-area stores closing are three in St. Augustine, two of which have been built within the past four years. One is a 36,000-square-foot store that was part of a newly constructed shopping center at 181 Blackford Way, off U.S. 1 at the entrance to St. Augustine Shores, that opened in 2009.

The other is a 35,000-square-foot store that was part of an $11 million newly built shopping center at the entrance to the upscale community of Palencia at 7462 U.S. 1 N.

Both of those stores were part of the company's new prototype store that opened in late 2008. The Palencia store included items not found in other Food Lions, such as a greater selection of international and specialty items, as well as organic products.
One of the Jacksonville stores, including 34,928 square feet of space at 6765 Dunn Ave., opened in late 2009.
Currently, Delhaize America operates more than 1,600 stores in 16 states in the eastern U.S. under the banners Bottom Dollar Food, Food Lion, Harveys, Hannaford Supermarkets, Reid's and Sweetbay. Delhaize America employs about 107,000 full-time and part-time employees.

Delhaize America is owned by Delhaize Group (NYSE: DEG), a Belgian international food retailer operating 3,408 stores in 11 countries on three continents.

In a news release issued 3 a.m. today, the Delhaize Group also announced it was closing 20 underperforming convenience stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets in Serbia, Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Southeastern Europe.

The closings will reduce the Delhaize Group's total store number by about 4.3 percent and drop group revenues by about 2.4 percent to $639 billion.

The company is also closing a distribution center in Clinton, Tenn., leaving 11 throughout its network.

In Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia the company is increasing its number of Food Lion stores by converting 64 Bloom and Bottom Dollar Food stores to Food Lions.

The company also said it will convert the Food Lion store in Lake City, about an hour west of Jacksonville, into a Harveys.
To see the full list of store conversions, click here.
Delhaize America will continue to operate its Sweetbay and Harveys banners in Florida. Sweetbay operates 105 stores in Florida, most of them in the Tampa Bay area. Harveys operates 71 stores in Georgia, Florida and South Carolina.

Delhaize America also announced the closings of 13 stores under the Bloom and Bottom Dollar Food banners. Neither of those banners operates in Florida.

After the closings, Food Lion will operate in 10 states and have 1,127 stores.

The news release announcing the U.S. closings was issued around 9 p.m. last night, after the announcement was made to employees, Phillips-Brown said in an emailed response.

Check back often as this story will be updated continuously throughout the day.

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Food Lion closing all Florida stores - Jacksonville Business Journal

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Twenty Jacksonville-area Food Lions are among the 113 underperforming stores the grocery chain is closing throughout the markets it operates in. Delhaize America, the grocer's parent company headquartered in North Carolina, announced that it was pulling out of the Florida market altogether.

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Known as strategic Management, this process ensures that an organization possess and benefits from the use of an appropriate organizational strategy (C. Certo Samuel, Certo Travis S.). This type of planning is conducted through a series of environmental and analytical steps such as environmental analysis and strategic control.

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Hosting a successful business is followed by planning, controlling, and influencing your options or employees. on the other hand strategic planning is the type of planning that focuses on the organization as a whole. An example of this is the plans of a soda company expansion internationally over the next five years.

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When making effective decisions, managers are met with problems that may arise within the organization. After Identifying a problem, managers look for ways to solve such problem. This maybe determining alternative factors such as human or technological factors and applying them to the specific problem. Managers must listen to the feedback giving to them by employees. In this video employers discusses the measures that needs to be taking to solve work related problems.

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Bob just received a large investment to start his coffee shop. With only a hand full of employees, bob is finding ways to distribute the funds throughout business operations. By utilizing nonprogrammed decision making, he makes effective decisions when appropriating investors funds for start up operations.

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Managers are faced with making decisions daily. Make reasonable decisions is the leading cause of a successful business. while in this module i learned there are different ways in approaching decision making.  one such example is a manager's decision on what to do with company founds. Known as nonprogrammed decision making, managers have to make a one time decision on who those founds are spent.

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Programmed decision and Non-Programmed decision are the two basic types of decisions that managers make. This depends on their authority, responsibility and position in organizational decision making structure.

Definition, similarities and differences of Programmed Decision and Non-Programmed Decision are explained below;

Programmed Decision

Programmed decisions are those that are traditionally made using standard operating procedures or other well-defined methods. These are routines that deal with frequently occurring situations, such as requests for leaves of absence by employees.

In routine situations, it is usually much more desirable for managers to use programmed decision than to make a new decision for each similar situation.

In programmed decisions managers make a real decision only once, when the program is created. Subsequently, the program itself specifies procedures to follow when similar circumstances arise.

The creation of these routines results in the formulation of rules, procedures, and policies.

Programmed decisions do not necessarily remain confined to simple issues, such as vacation policies or similar such things; they are also used to deal with very complex issues, such as the types of tests that a doctor needs to conduct before performing a major surgery on a patient with diabetes.

To summarize; programmed decisions features are;

Programmed decisions made using standard operating procedures.

Deals with frequently occurring situations. (Such as requests for leaves of absence by employees)

Much more appropriate for managers to use programmed decision for similar and frequent situations.

In programmed decisions managers make a real decision only once and program itself specifies procedures to follow when similar circumstances arise.

Leads to the formulation of rules, procedures, and policies.

Non-Programmed Decision

Non-programmed decisions are unique. They are often ill-structured, one-shot decisions. Traditionally they have been handled by techniques such as judgment, intuition, and creativity.

More recently decision makers have turned to heuristic problem-solving approaches in which logic; common sense and trial and error are used to deal with problems that are too large or too complex to be solved through quantitative or computerized approaches.

In fact, many management training programs on decision-making are designed to help managers think through problems using a logical, non-programmed approach. In this way they learn how to deal with extraordinary, unexpected, and unique problems.

Non-programmed decision features are;

Situations for Non-programmed decisions are unique, ill-structured.

Non-programmed decisions are one-shot decisions.

Handled by techniques such as judgment, intuition, and creativity.

A logical approach to deal with extraordinary, unexpected, and unique problems.

Managers take heuristic problem-solving approaches in which logic; common sense and trial and error are used.

Similarities of Programmed Decision & Non-Programmed Decision

Both are Required to run operations of Business efficiently.

Complements each other in setting goals and managing resources of the organization.

Differences of Programmed Decision & Non-Programmed Decision

Used for frequent situations of organization; both internal and external.

Used for unique and ill-structured situations of organization; both internal and external.

Mostly Lower level managers are making these decisions.

Mostly Upper-level managers are making these decisions.

Follows structured and non-creative patterns.

Takes an out side of the box unstructured, logical and creative approach.

Programmed decisions usually relate to structured problems while non-programmed decisions are taken to solve unstructured problems.

It is also to be noted that the programmed decisions are taken at the lowest level whereas the non-programmed decisions are taken at the highest level of organization hierarchy.

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Programmed Decision & Non-Programmed Decision Explained

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Programmed decision and Non-Programmed decision are the two basic types of decisions that managers make. This depends on their authority, responsibility and position in organizational decision making structure. Definition, similarities and differences of Programmed Decision and Non-Programmed Decision are explained below; Programmed decisions are those that are traditionally made using standard operating procedures or other well-defined methods.

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Known as a management by objective program, many managers organized objectives that must be fulfilled by employees. By setting their own specific standards in completing goals, an MBO process consists of five steps for both employees and managers.
1. Review organizational objectives
2. Set worker objectives
3. Monitor Progress
4. Evaluate performance
5. Give Research
One of the thing to organizing is planning. If you fail to plan, your dream will not turn out the way you want it.

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In the Management world, planning is essential in running a successful business model. While completing this module (Module 4) I learned that Planning takes both sides from employees to employer. One such example is a standing plan that includes policies procedures and rules. while this plan focuses on organizational problems that occurs rapidly, I believe it is designed to prevent some problems that occurs in the work environment.

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As a large scale business, it is important to handle operations through strategic planning. Almost all companies that utilizes planning tool for operation will lead to success. With a variety of goals, each business contains it's own planing.

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According to Modern Management "The European Union (EU) is an international market agreement that was created to facilitate trade among member nations." Like other international Agreements, The European Union allows for goods and services to move freely through members ports. With both the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) both businesses and countries involved can benefit. Without the possibility of tariffs, More businesses can expand operations to untouched regions increasing profitability for both business and the region's economy.

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From Walmart to Starbucks, there are lots of businesses looking to join the global Arena. There are many levels and risks associated with international involvement. International organizations are companies that reside in one country but holds international operations abroad. on the other-hand, multinational corporations are companies that holds operations in multiple countries. One of the most riskiest forms of business, the risks associated are high transportation coasts, losing profitably, and the change and marketing strategies.

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For an individual who serves as an Expatriate for a firm, has a chance to experience work culture in other domestic countries. This will allow them the opportunity to see first-hand the role management plays in determining a business work ethic. Some manager even utilize their knowledge to implement rules or regulations learn abroad into a domestic business.

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Today Diversity play a large role in the world of business. while doing this module, I learned that large corporations succeed more with a diverse workforce than others with set ethnic groups. On the other-hand, in the world of business management, a business with quality management often leads to successful manufacturing methods and an improvement in productivity. The quote by Maurice Faison shows that diverse groups who collaborate with one another can create a potentially strong company.

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Today, there are lots of laws in place to prevent company fraud. One such law is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This form of legislation is aimed towards the wrong doings of companies such as Enron and world-Com. This law is designed to protect whistle blowers from retaliatory actions within a firm.

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The story of Enron depicts a company that reached dramatic heights only to face a dizzying fall. The fated company's collapse affected thousands of employees and shook Wall Street to its core. At Enron's peak, its shares were worth $90.75. Just prior to declaring bankruptcy on Dec. 2, 2001, they were trading at $0.26.

To this day, many wonder how such a powerful business-at the time one of the largest companies in the United States-disintegrated almost overnight. Also difficult to fathom is how its leadership managed to fool regulators for so long with fake holdings and off-the-books accounting.

Enron's Energy Origins

Enron was formed in 1985 following a merger between Houston Natural Gas and Omaha, Neb.-based InterNorth. Following the merger, Houston Natural Gas' chief executive officer (CEO) Kenneth Lay became Enron's CEO and chair. Lay quickly rebranded Enron into an energy trader and supplier.

Deregulation of the energy markets allowed companies to place bets on future prices, and Enron was poised to take advantage. In 1990, Lay created Enron Finance and appointed Jeffrey Skilling, whose work as a McKinsey & Co. consultant, impressed Lay to head the new corporation. Skilling was then one of the youngest partners at McKinsey.

Skilling joined Enron at an auspicious time. The era's minimal regulatory environment allowed Enron to flourish. At the end of the 1990s, the dotcom bubble was in full swing, and the Nasdaq hit 5,000. Revolutionary internet stocks were being valued at preposterous levels and, consequently, most investors and regulators simply accepted spiking share prices as the new normal.

Mark-to-Market

One of Skilling's early contributions was to transition Enron's accounting from a traditional historical cost accounting method to a mark-to-market (MTM) accounting method, for which the company received official U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval in 1992.

MTM is a measure of the fair value of accounts that can change over time, such as assets and liabilities. MTM aims to provide a realistic appraisal of an institution's or company's current financial situation, and it is a legitimate and widely used practice. However, in some cases, the method can be manipulated, since MTM is not based on actual cost but on fair value, which is harder to pin down.

Some believe MTM was the beginning of the end for Enron, as it essentially permitted the organization to log estimated profits as actual profits.

Enron Hailed for Its Innovation

Enron created EnronOnline in October 1999. It was an electronic trading website that focused on commodities. Enron was the counterparty to every transaction on EOL; it was either the buyer or the seller.

To entice participants and trading partners, Enron offered its reputation, credit, and expertise in the energy sector. Enron was praised for its expansions and ambitious projects and was named America's Most Innovative Company by Fortune for six consecutive years between 1996 and 2001.

Blockbuster's Role

One of the many unwitting players in the Enron scandal was Blockbuster, the former video rental chain juggernaut. In July 2000, Enron Broadband Services and Blockbuster formed a partnership to enter the burgeoning video-on-demand market. The VOD market was a sensible pick, but Enron started logging expected earnings based on the expected growth of the VOD market, which vastly inflated the numbers.

By mid-2000, EOL was executing nearly $350 billion in trades. When the dotcom bubble began to burst, Enron decided to build high-speed broadband telecom networks. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on this project, but the company ended up realizing almost no return.

When the recession hit in 2000, Enron had significant exposure to the most volatile parts of the market. As a result, many trusting investors and creditors found themselves on the losing end of a vanishing market capitalization.

The Wall Street Darling Crumbles

By the fall of 2000, Enron was starting to crumble under its own weight. Skilling hid the financial losses of the trading business and other operations of the company using MTM accounting. This technique measures the value of a security based on its current market value instead of its book value. This can work well when trading securities but can be disastrous for actual businesses.

The company would build an asset, such as a power plant, and immediately claim the projected profit on its books, even though the asset didn't return a dime to the company. If the revenue from the power plant was less than the projected amount, the company would then transfer the asset to an off-the-books corporation instead of taking the loss. The loss would go unreported. This type of accounting enabled Enron to write off unprofitable activities without hurting its bottom line.

The MTM practice led to schemes designed to hide the losses and make the company appear more profitable than it really was. To cope with the mounting liabilities, Andrew Fastow, a rising star who was promoted to chief financial officer (CFO) in 1998, developed a deliberate plan to show that the company was in sound financial shape despite the fact that many of its subsidiaries were losing money.

How Did Enron Hide its Debt?

Fastow and others at Enron orchestrated a scheme to use off-balance-sheet special purpose vehicles (SPVs), also known as special purposes entities (SPEs), to hide Enron's mountains of debt and toxic assets from investors and creditors. The primary aim of these SPVs was to hide accounting realities rather than operating results.

The standard Enron-to-SPV transaction would be the following: Enron would transfer some of its rapidly rising stock to the SPV in exchange for cash or a note. The SPV would subsequently use the stock to hedge an asset listed on Enron's balance sheet. In turn, Enron would guarantee the SPV's value to reduce apparent counterparty risk.

Although their aim was to hide accounting realities, the SPVs were not illegal. But they were different from standard debt securitization in several significant-and potentially disastrous-ways. One major difference was that the SPVs were capitalized entirely with Enron stock. This directly compromised the ability of the SPVs to hedge if Enron's share prices fell.

Just as dangerous was the second significant difference: Enron's failure to disclose conflicts of interest. While Enron disclosed the SPVs' existence to the investing public-although it's quite likely that few people understood them-it failed to adequately disclose the non-arm's-length deals between the company and the SPVs.

Enron's management believed that its stock price would continue to appreciate-a belief similar to that embodied by Long-Term Capital Management, a large hedge fund, before its collapse in 1998. Eventually, Enron's stock declined. The values of the SPVs also fell, forcing Enron's guarantees to take effect.

Jim Chanos' Short Trade on Enron

Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates is a well-known short seller. At an SEC-led roundtable on hedge funds in May 2003, Chanos said that his interest in Enron and other energy trading companies was "piqued" in October 2000 after a Wall Street Journal article pointed out that many of these firms employed the "gain-on-sale" accounting method for their long-term energy trades.

According to Chanos, his experience with companies that had used this accounting method was that management had too great a temptation to be overly aggressive about making assumptions regarding the future, and "earnings" could effectively be created out of thin air if management was willing to push the envelope by using highly favorable assumptions.

Chanos also noted that Enron's cost of capital was closer to 9% and likely above the 7% return on capital-a widely used profitability metric-that it claimed to have, which meant that it was not really earning money despite reporting profits to its shareholders. Chanos said that this mismatch of Enron's cost of capital and its return on investment (ROI) became the cornerstone of his bearish view of Enron. His firm then began shorting Enron's common stock for its clients in November 2000. This short trade netted Chanos and his Kynikos firm hundreds of millions in gains when Enron went under.

Arthur Andersen and Enron

In addition to Fastow, a major player in the Enron scandal was Enron's accounting firm, Arthur Andersen LLP, and partner David B. Duncan. These men oversaw Enron's accounts. As one of the five largest accounting firms in the United States at the time, Andersen had a reputation for high standards and quality risk management.

However, despite Enron's poor accounting practices, Arthur Andersen offered its stamp of approval, signing off on the corporate reports for years. By April 2001, many analysts started to question Enron's earnings and transparency.

The Shock Felt Around Wall Street

By the summer of 2001, Enron was in freefall. Lay retired in February, turning over the CEO position to Skilling. In August 2001, Skilling resigned as CEO, citing personal reasons. Around the same time, analysts began to downgrade their rating for Enron's stock, and the stock descended to a 52-week low of $39.95. By October 16, the company reported its first quarterly loss and closed its Raptor I SPV. This action caught the attention of the SEC.

A few days later, Enron changed pension plan administrators, essentially forbidding employees from selling their shares for at least 30 days. Shortly after, the SEC announced it was investigating Enron and the SPVs created by Fastow. Fastow was fired from the company that day.

The company also restated earnings going back to 1997. Enron had losses of $591 million and $690 million in debt by the end of 2000. The final blow was dealt when Dynegy, a company that previously announced it would merge with Enron, backed out of the deal on November 28. By Dec. 2, 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy

Once Enron's Plan of Reorganization was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the new board of directors changed Enron's name to Enron Creditors Recovery. The company's new sole mission was "to reorganize and liquidate certain of the operations and assets of the pre-bankruptcy Enron for the benefit of creditors." The company paid its creditors more than $21.8 billion from 2004 to 2012. Its last payout was in May 2011.

Criminal Charges

Arthur Andersen was one of the first casualties of Enron's notorious demise. In June 2002, the firm was found guilty of obstructing justice for shredding Enron's financial documents to conceal them from the SEC. The conviction was overturned later on appeal but the firm was deeply disgraced by the scandal and dwindled into a holding company. A group of former partners bought the name in 2014, creating a firm named Andersen Global.

Several of Enron's executives were charged with conspiracy, insider trading, and securities fraud. Lay, Enron's founder, and former CEO was convicted on six counts of fraud and conspiracy and four counts of bank fraud. Prior to sentencing, he died of a heart attack in Colorado.

Fastow, Enron's former star CFO, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and securities fraud for facilitating Enron's corrupt business practices. He ultimately cut a deal for cooperating with federal authorities and served more than five years in prison. He was released from prison in 2011.

Former CEO Skilling received the harshest sentence of anyone involved in the scandal. In 2006, he was convicted of conspiracy, fraud, and insider trading. Skilling originally received a 17½-year sentence, but in 2013, it was reduced by 14 years. As a part of the new deal, Skilling was required to give $42 million to the victims of the Enron fraud and to cease challenging his conviction. Skilling was originally scheduled for release on Feb. 21, 2028, but was instead released early on Feb. 22, 2019.

New Regulations After Scandal

Enron's collapse and the financial havoc that it wreaked on its shareholders and employees led to new regulations and legislation to promote the accuracy of financial reporting for publicly held companies.

In July 2002, then-President George W. Bush signed into law the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The act heightened the consequences for destroying, altering, or fabricating financial statements and for trying to defraud shareholders.

The Enron scandal resulted in other new compliance measures. Additionally, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) substantially raised its levels of ethical conduct. Moreover, company boards of directors became more independent, monitoring the audit companies and quickly replacing poor managers. These new measures are important mechanisms to spot and close loopholes that companies have used to avoid accountability.

What Exactly Is the Enron Scandal?

Why Were Top Enron Executives Subsequently Derided as the 'Smartest Guys in the Room'?

Who Is Sherron Watkins?

Does Enron Still Exist?

What Was Enron's Role in the California Energy Crisis of 2000-2001?

The Bottom Line

At the time, Enron's collapse was the biggest corporate bankruptcy to ever hit the financial world (since then, it has been surpassed by the bankruptcies of other former giants, including Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, WorldCom, and General Motors). The Enron scandal drew attention to accounting and corporate fraud as its shareholders lost $74 billion in the four years leading up to its bankruptcy, and its employees lost billions in pension benefits.

Increased regulation and oversight have been enacted to help prevent corporate scandals of Enron's magnitude. However, some companies are still reeling from the damage caused by Enron. Most recently, in March 2017, a judge granted a Toronto-based investment firm the right to sue Skilling (the former Enron CEO), Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, and Bank of America's Merrill Lynch unit over losses incurred by purchasing Enron shares.

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Enron Scandal: The Fall of a Wall Street Darling

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Enron management hid substantial financial losses, leading to the collapse of one of America's largest corporations of the time.

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Today sustainability in large businesses is an important key to building a successful organization. A company minimizing wast in its production is an example of company sustainability. Along with sustainability, all organizations must follow their own social responsibilities in order to protect the welfare of society.

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While the vast majority of US companies are asleep at the wheel when it comes to facing up to multiple sustainability challenges, a select group is waking up to the need for urgent action.

In a new report, Ceres, a non-profit focused on sustainable business, lambasted the lack of progress across American corporations in general - but also highlighted some companies that deserve praise.

Critics would rightly say that there is not a single major corporation that is doing enough to adequately confront issues such as climate change and resource scarcity. But Ceres says a small but growing number of companies rank in the "top tiers" of performance across multiple disciplines, ranging from supply chain management to carbon emissions reductions.

Its latest research shows that "companies with strong accountability systems - board oversight, clear policies on human rights and environmental management, active stakeholder engagement and disclosure - in many cases also have strong results on greenhouse gas emissions, use of renewable energy, strong work with suppliers, as well as driving sustainability into product and services".

In order to encourage other businesses to take action, Ceres has shined the spotlight on the following companies:
Board leadership: Alcoa
A fifth of executive cash compensation is tied to safety, diversity and environmental stewardship, which includes greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reductions and energy efficiency.
Stakeholder engagement: PepsiCo
The food and beverage company presents its sustainability strategy and goals during its annual shareholder meeting and identifies and discloses climate change, water scarcity and public health issues as core sustainability challenges in its annual financial filings.
Employee engagement: General Electric
GE is using its human resource department to integrate sustainability into the company's culture, ranging from hiring practices and training to employee wellbeing programs.
Water stewardship: Coca-Cola
The drinks company has improved the efficiency of its water use by 20% and identified the need for a rigorous third-party evaluation of its water management approach.
Supply chain management: Ford Motor Company
The car company has established requirements for first-tier suppliers to drive its environmental and social expectations further down the supply chain and works with suppliers to establish GHG emission reduction and energy efficiency targets.
Innovation: Nike
The sports-gear multinational integrates sustainable design across its product portfolio and created the Making app in 2013, allowing the data in its materials sustainability index to be public. This lets designers from across the industry and beyond make more sustainable design decisions, and ultimately, lower-impact products.
Management accountability: Xylem
The global water technology provider has both a sustainability steering committee and an enterprise risk committee. It identifies senior executives who are held accountable for sustainability performance.
Executive compensation: Exelon
The energy producer has introduced an innovative long-term performance share scheme that rewards executives for meeting non-financial performance goals, including safety targets, GHG emissions reduction targets and goals engaging stakeholders to help shape the company's public policy positions.
Biodiversity: PG&E
The utility company's environmental policy explicitly references habitat and species protection, and the company publicly reports detailed findings on its efforts.
Investor dialogue: Starbuck's
At the coffee company's 2013 shareholder meeting, CEO Howard Schultz described the company's efforts to engage with suppliers and local communities where they operate, accelerate investments in sustainable farming and reach Starbucks' goal of ethically sourcing 100% of its coffee beans by 2015.
Disclosure: Brown-Forman
The major distributor of wine and spirits uses ingredients that are both climate sensitive and water intensive. In its 10-K filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it demonstrates that it sees sustainability as a way to build consumer relationships and enduring brands. It cites climate change, water scarcity and water quality as significant business risks.
Greenhouse gas emission reductions: Adobe
The software company aims to achieve a 75% reduction, from 2000 levels, in company emissions by 2015. It is using renewable energy technologies, including hydrogen fuel cells and solar arrays, and is also focused on reducing energy needs by improving the cooling efficiency of its data centers and "virtualising" many of its systems, platforms and devices.
Buildings and facilities: Bank of America
The finance house has committed to increasing its portfolio of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified buildings. At the end of 2012, 15% of its total square footage was certified, with plans to increase to a fifth by 2015.
Human rights: Johnson & Johnson
The pharmaceutical and consumer goods manufacturer has a detailed policy that incorporates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It applies these principles not just in its overseas operations and supply chain, but also to all its workplaces.
Sustainable agriculture: General Mills
The foods company recently released a set of sustainable sourcing commitments that begins with a robust risk assessment process undertaken in partnership with a third party. This approach led the company to prioritise ten commodities, including oats, wheat and corn, that they plan to source sustainably.

Transportation: Walmart

The retail giant is committed to doubling its truck fleet efficiency in the US by 2015. To achieve this goal, it is replacing nearly two-thirds of its fleet with more fuel-efficient trucks, including hybrids. The company is also collaborating with truck and component manufacturers to build energy-efficient prototype tractors.
Design: Dell
The computer company's integrates alternative, recycled and recyclable materials in its product and packaging design, improvements in energy efficiency, and design for end-of-life and recyclability. One of the company's commitments is to reduce the energy intensity of its product portfolio by 80% by 2020.
Investment in sustainable products and services: Procter and Gamble
The consumer goods multinational reports that it sold $52bn in "sustainable innovation products" between 2007 and 2012, accounting for approximately 11% of the company's total cumulative sales over that period. These are products that provide a greater than 10% reduction from previous or alternative versions in one or more of the following: energy use, water use, transportation, material used in packaging, and use of renewable energy or materials.

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Best practices in sustainability: Ford, Starbucks and more

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While the vast majority of US companies are asleep at the wheel when it comes to facing up to multiple sustainability challenges, a select group is waking up to the need for urgent action. In a new report, Ceres, a non-profit focused on sustainable business, lambasted the lack of progress across American corporations in general - but also highlighted some companies that deserve praise.

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Like Rodney Adkins, many executives today are considered leaders who contributes heavily to the organization. A perfect example is former Pepsi Co's Chief executive Officer Indra Nooyi. Growing up in Tamil Nadu, India, she helped Pepsi Co become one of the most successful soft drink companies to implement heather choices for consumers.

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PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi is stepping down

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She will remain as chairwoman of the board of directors until early 2019. Nooyi, 62, will be replaced by Pepsi's global operations chief Ramon Laguarta, 54. Nooyi, who was born in India, is one of a handful of people of color to lead a Fortune 500 company.