Business Leadership Skills 01 (Jul 09 - Feb 13)

[winston]

Total Quality Management by William Edwards Deming

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and stay in business, and to provide jobs.

2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

3. Cease reliance on mass inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

5. Improve constantly and forever ,the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

6. Institute training on the job.

7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.

8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.

11.
(a.) Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
(b.) Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.

12.
(a.) Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from mere numbers to quality.
(b.) Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective.

13.Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

Source: Life Trek Provisions

[iam802]

Filing it here.. PR (or Communication skills) is a very important part of business skills.

In fact, one of my friends specialised in 'Crisis Management'. That probably gives an idea the size of mistakes that companies faced.


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Halloween Horrors fiasco: Why 'sorry' isn't quite enough

http://www.todayonline.com/Commentary/E ... ite-enough

Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) CEO Isabella Loh announced the decision to cancel the Night Safari's award-winning Halloween Horrors event on Sept 14, just two weeks before the event was due for launch. Amid the public fallout and vocal calls for a proper explanation and reinstatement of the event, however, lie important lessons in stakeholder communication that interest me as a student of the discipline.

COMMUNICATON ERROR#1: INSUFFICIENT CLARITY

Ms Loh has said that she would personally discuss the cancellation of Halloween Horrors with students of the Singapore Polytechnic (SP) who have been working on the event for the past seven months as part of their final-year project. This suggests that the students, a stakeholder group intimately involved with the event for the better part of the year, did not first hear about the cancellation directly from Ms Loh or anyone from the WRS management.

It appears from media reports that the students learnt about the cancellation from a third party, either from their lecturer, principal, hearsay, or worse, from the media. If true, this is akin to not an organisation not telling their staff that a retrenchment exercise is underway, only for the staff to find out for themselves through a news report.

If true, it is also not difficult to understand why WRS has been perceived to be high-handed and insensitive to the concerns of the students. But if WRS is not guilty of of this cardinal sin of stakeholder communication, then it would be wise for it to make clear the steps it took to communicate its decision to all stakeholders, and dispel the negative image it now has. Right now, there just isn't enough information available to the public.

COMMUNICATION ERROR#2: HOW TO SAY 'SORRY'

It was reported that a public apology was issued at least four times on WRS' Facebook page on Saturday. Apologising as a method of regaining public goodwill, however, is not a mere matter of saying sorry. Sincere apologies demonstrate an understanding of the concerns faced by various stakeholders.

The SP students, for example, might have developed a strong emotional attachment to the event, having worked on it over many months, and are upset that something they have committed so much energy to could be brushed aside so easily. Members of the public could have bought tickets to the event, intending to have a good time with their friends and family, and must now make alternative arrangements. Tourists, especially those coming to Singapore with the explicit aim of attending Halloween Horrors, might feel that their travel arrangements have come to naught, and might be bewildered that an award-winning event could be cancelled so casually.

WRS' apology makes no acknowledgement of these legitimate concerns, and instead relies on generic statements apologising for the upset the cancellation has caused. To be fair, in a statement published on the Halloween Horrors website, a one-liner from Ms Loh acknowledges and thanks the students for their hard work in planning for the event - but that is surely cold comfort for the latter.

COMMUNICATION ERROR #3: INCONSISTENCY

There has been some incongruence in WRS' public statements. In a statement on the Halloween Horrors website, Ms Loh said the event was cancelled due to negative feedback from corporations, Friends of the Zoo, the public and the media. In a subsequent interview with The Sunday Times, however, Ms Loh also claimed to be upset after visiting the Haunted House set-up, saying that the idea was too scary, thus giving the impression that her personal emotions factored into what was initially positioned as a corporate decision made on professional grounds.

Ms Loh's original statement also suggests the decision was made collectively by WRS management, but a media report on Monday indicates otherwise. Such inconsistent and unsure corporate messaging serves only to undermine the public's battered trust in WRS, and might create the unfortunate impression that WRS has something to hide. WRS might have done better if it had stated clearly, from the outset, all the reasons that had factored into its decision to cancel Halloween Horrors - instead of making addendums to qualify its position in an effort to mollify the public.

One might argue that it is easy to identify these communication boo-boos with the benefit of hindsight. But perhaps a more productive method for organisations to identify better ways of communicating with stakeholders would be for them to come down from the position of unequal power they inherently have over most stakeholders, and then heed Aristotle's Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Tim Mou Hui is an undergraduate at in Political Science & Corporate Communication, at the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University.

[winston]

Six Steps to Effective Delegation By Brian Tracy

Step 1: Match the Person to the Job

Step 2: Agree on what is to be done

Step 3: Explain how the Job Should Be Done

Step 4: Have Your Employee Repeat Back Instructions

Step 5: Set a Deadline

Step 6: Manage by Exception


Action Exercise

Sit down with your staff members and explain to them exactly why they are on the payroll and what their highest value tasks are.

Source: Brian Tracy International

[winston]

Uniformity Matters by Bob Tschannen-Moran

Leaders are not captive to our environments; we are called to be their architects. To get a sense of how our stance is contributing to quality, in relation to the above environmental factors, we can, for example, ask ourselves the following questions:

1. In what ways am I assisting people to grow their core competencies?

2. How much do people trust me as a leader? How much do they trust each other?

3. What do I say about the purpose and ethics of our organization? What do others say?

4. In what spirit are data being collected and analyzed? What are we learning?

5. How and how often are people talking with each other about continuous improvement when I am around? When I am not around?

6. When do people watch each other work and what do those experiences generate? What kind of feedback do I receive on my work?

7. How much freedom and responsibility do I give people to do their work?

8. What is the balance between push, pull, and partnership when it comes to performance improvement?

9. How often do I schedule time for planning and staff development? How often do other things interfere with that time?

10. When and how do I secure the resources people need to do their jobs?

11. How do I recognize good work and effort? What are the visible signs?

If we want to achieve uniformity when it comes to the quality of our goods or services, then we would do well to avoid giving orders, telling people what to do, goading people with the carrot and the stick, pitting people against each other, playing power broker, or being on an ego trip.

Those postures do not make for long-term, continuous improvement, let alone for organizational transformation.

Instead, we would do well to make the gerunds in the above description a central part of our leadership practices.

Our stance should that of sharing, cultivating, being, using, talking, watching, learning, empowering, holding, scheduling, mustering, and celebrating.

We should be about the work of assisting people, building trust, clarifying focus, expanding awareness, welcoming feedback, extending freedom, increasing responsibility, partnering, making time, finding resources, and recognizing good work.

If that sounds like a daunting task, then welcome to leadership! No one ever said leadership was going to be easy. But it is also incredibly engaging and fulfilling when we get into flow with our work and with our people.

That is the sweet spot we are looking for as leaders, and that is the sweet spot that will lead to constancy of purpose and uniformity of quality.

Source: Life Trek Coaching

[winston]

"Focus your messages on the results you expect, not on the methods for doing the job."
-- Marty Brounstein, communications trainer

[winston]

Resonant Leadership by by Bob Tschannen-Moran

In their excellent work on resonant leadership, Anne McKee, Richard Boyatzis, and Fran Johnston identify three leadership myths that speak to this dynamic:


1. Myth 1: Smart Is Good Enough. Not so, the authors write. Intellect and technical knowledge are the baseline but they do not differentiate great leaders. Emotional and social intelligence make the difference.


2. Myth 2: Your Mood Does Not Matter. Wrong again. Bolstered by rich research from the field of cognitive behavioral neuroscience, the authors note that emotions are contagious and that a leader's mood can either create resonance or dissonance in people and organizations.


3. Myth 3: Great Leaders Thrive on Constant Pressure. The authors don't deny that leadership involves a lot of sacrifice and stress.

But great leaders know when to say when, adopting practices of recovery, release, and renewal.


Source: Life Trek International

[winston]

"The value decade is upon us.

If you can't sell a top-quality product at the world's lowest price, you're going to be out of the game."

Jack Welch

[winston]

Eight Steps to Problem Solving By: Brian Tracy

There is a simple eight step method for systematic problem solving. By solving problems in an orderly way, you can dramatically increase the power of your thinking.

Proceed With A Positive Attitude

First, approach the problem with the expectant attitude that there is a logical practical solution just waiting to be found. Be relaxed, calm, confident and clear in your mind.

Second, change your language from negative to positive. Instead of the word "problem," use the word "situation."

Problem is a negative word while situation is a neutral word.

"We have an interesting situation", is better than, "We have a problem."

[winston]

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Define the Situation Clearly

The third step in systematic problem-solving is to define the situation clearly, in writing.

"Exactly what is the situation?". Then ask, "What else is the situation?" Sometimes stating the problem in different words makes it much easier to solve.

Once, when I was working with the Chamber of Commerce, I came to the attention of a senior executive who hired me away from the company I was working for a year later at triple the salary.

Meeting people is very important. Network at every opportunity.

Fully 50% of situations can be resolved by accurate definition.

[winston]

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Identify Causes and Solutions

Step number four is to, ask "What are all the possible causes of this situation?"

Failure to identify the causes or reasons for the situation often causes you to have to solve it again and again.

Fully 25% or more of situations can be effectively dealt with by discovering the correct causes.

Step number five is to ask, "What are all the possible solutions?" Write out as many solutions or answers to the situation as possible before moving on.

The quantity of possible solutions usually determines the quality of the solution chosen.