by Tara Powers

There is continuous talk in business about having a compelling mission and vision for your company but who really cares? Well, you should. Whether you are a large corporation or a small business owner, having a vision is essential to be able to communicate a picture of the future of your business that others can see, understand, and support. A vision helps motivate people into action. A vision engages, excites, and empowers people to move forward in a consistent direction together. A vision makes people more willing to make small sacrifices today for the hope of a better future. A vision helps people know what to do.

Convinced yet? I thought so. Then read on to develop an effective vision for your business with 7 key characteristics to include in your visioning strategy discussion.

7 Key Characteristics to Developing an Effective Vision

• Be sure your vision tells a story that people can imagine. Can they see it? Can they see themselves in the story? Read the rest of this article »

by K.J. McCorry

Efficiency expert K.J. McCorry, author of Organize Your Work Day In No Time, thinks that the world could be a better place if we’d all cut back on our consumption of paper. With the help of technology, that long-awaited goal might even be manageable.

Today’s employees are inundated with data, finding it more and more difficult to manage this overwhelming amount of data and yet be effective and efficient at their jobs. One of the keys to gaining efficiencies in data management and increasing productivity is to reduce the paper pileup.

Disadvantages of Paper

Although some workers still need, desire, and perhaps even love paper, it comes with some disadvantages: Read the rest of this article »

by Julie Miller

The blessing and the curse of the digital revolution! Between e-mail, instant and text messaging, cell phones, Blackberries and the Internet, we are drowning in data overload. Moreover, the constant interruptions are costing the U. S. economy an estimated $558 billion annually. This staggering number does not add in the cost of poorly written e-mails that land companies and employees in hot legal trouble, destroy long-term client relationships, and ruin reputations—just review Mike Brown’s e-mails (former FEMA chief) as Hurricane Katrina raged and you will understand. Add to this mix a lack of civility and common sense and you have an explosive brew.What to do? For starters, treat e-mail writing as writing not as casual conversation. Whether words are written in the sky, sent by carrier pigeon or via the Web, words must connect with the reader. Good writing allows this to happen; poor writing does not. Currently, writing online is still, as author Patricia O’Conner writes, in its Wild West stage a free-for-all with everybody shooting from the hip and no sheriff in sight.

Therefore, I would like to establish some law and order by recommending that all companies—from multi-nationals to sole proprietors—develop e-mail protocol. Simply stated it’s “the way we do business around here” in terms of communicating via e-mail with co-workers and customers. It is a code of behavior, a set of standards as to how you will frame your words, manage your inbox, even extend your brand. Read the rest of this article »

by Ashley Andrus

If Starbucks had a Most Valued Customer club I would have it made in the shade.  Those 600 locations they are closing?  Not my fault. Between my 6am get-‘er-done dose, various meetings, and insane afternoons that scream “get me a mocha STAT!” I estimate that I make an average of 2.3 daily visits to some Starbucks somewhere.

This has been my routine for the last 3.5 years. In that period I calculate I’ve consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,259 ounces* of coffee.

That’s 275 gallons of coffee.

1100 quarts.

Heck, if coffee came in beer kegs, I would have consumed almost 18 of them. By myself.

And I did it all one “tall” serving at a time. Read the rest of this article »

By Ashley Andrus and Linda Anderson

An April 2009 New York Times article confirmed that unemployed baby boomers are facing some steep odds in the current depressed job market. They noted, “workers ages 45 and over form a disproportionate share (pdf) of the hard-luck recession category, the long-term unemployed — those who have been out of work for six months or longer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” On the bright side, some seasoned workers have avoided layoffs as employers utilize a “last hired, first fired” practice to ensure they are avoiding age discrimination.

A May 2009 TIME article discusses age-based stereotyping and its impact on performance, and confirms that impact on older workers is real. Again on the flip side, the effect is offset when a positive stereotype or example is presented at the same time. Experience counts!

Job search advice runs the gamut from the obvious (”spell-check your resume”) to the creative (”think like a gourmet chef“). If your efforts have yet to produce the results you want, why not try something different? We’ve found several resources on the web to make your job search quicker and easier, with the following tips: Read the rest of this article »

by Ashley Andrus

“Tell me and I may forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.”—Confucius

You can learn sitting in a classroom. You can learn listening to somebody talk to you. You can learn watching a webinar or listening to a teleconference or sitting around a conference room table or reading a manual. But it’s not the only way you can learn.

Why not invite some “fun and games” into your meetings and workshops and daily office routine? Incorporating some get-up-and-walk activities with your sit-and-talk sessions can be an effective catalyst in taking the team and the discussion to the next level.

You don’t have to take your team to a ropes course, white-water rafting, skydiving, or high-speed driving to benefit from experiential activities. Those experiences are exciting and can be very effective, but if your budget or timeframe doesn’t allow for that possibility, consider some alternatives that can be done closer to home.

INSTRUCTOR-LED OPTIONS include program like: Read the rest of this article »

by Lisa Niederman

Time is such an elusive topic and even more difficult to capture, to conform to your bidding. You know the familiar recant: here today and gone tomorrow. This can also be said about your favorite time management strategies, tools, and books conveniently hidden in corners of your office, again having fallen victim to here today and gone tomorrow. In fact, when people are polled about their favorite time management tools and practices, we received a surprising response — many have returned to using the traditional paper and pencil list. Why? The reason: the current time management tools are complex, confusing, and consume too much time to learn! Too much time to learn, but isn’t the science of time management supposed to save us time?

Could it be that we have incorrectly defined the problem all these years and time is not the issue? This is akin to placing a ladder on a wall to climb and finding out after reaching the top of the ladder that we are in the wrong place. Our current time practices attempt to squeeze more things to do into smaller compartments of time with the hope we might feel some satisfaction at reducing our master task list at the end of the day. And, this task list is a monster, gobbling more of our time to manage, prioritize, and control, leaving us feeling out of control and uttering miserably, “I am so far behind.” Out of breath yet? Read the rest of this article »

by Ashley Andrus and Linda Anderson

Think again…you can’t afford NOT to invest in your leaders during this turbulent time.

The very real pressures of an economic downturn and the tightening of learning budgets doesn’t mean professional development needs to go away. Not surprisingly, there is an increased need for leadership development as organizations face uncertain conditions and find they need the essential skills that are vital during reorganization and periods of adjustment.

Because many organizations are facing unavoidable restructuring due to reduced resources, according to a survey recently completed by the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) and the Institute for Corporate Productivity (results overview here), 54% of organizational leaders expect a greater emphasis on leadership development and 37% anticipate an increase in soft skills development. The survey also noted that during prior slow economic periods, over a quarter of organizations—the forward-thinking ones—resisted the urge to reduce their training budgets. Read the rest of this article »

by Todd Hudson

Whenever I’m in Portland, Oregon, my favorite place to shop is a natural foods chain called New Seasons Market. The produce is fresh. The selection is great. But what really sets them apart from every other grocery store is their top-notch customer service.

At New Seasons, there’s always an employee nearby to cheerfully answer a question or help me find an item, whether they’re behind the counter, in the aisle or at the cash register.

And it’s not just at one store. It’s at all nine of them. New Seasons employs 1,700 people. Having run operations for decades myself, I know you don’t get such consistent high performance by accident. What’s their secret? I wondered. Could it have anything to do with training? Read the rest of this article »

by Don Cooper

Whether you’re planning a monthly meeting, a public seminar, or an international convention, you want to have as many attendees as possible. The more people you have at your meeting, the more exposure your sponsors receive, the more value your attendees derive from networking, and the more likely you are to fill your room block. Not to mention the more revenue you generate from registrations!

So how can you increase attendance at your next event? (Without spending a fortune on marketing?) Just follow these guidelines.

Select the Right Speakers

Most meeting planners select speakers they’ve seen before or have been referred to them by another meeting planner. Which makes sense. You want to know your speakers will perform well on stage. Read the rest of this article »