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Accountability Equals Meeting Success
Leslie was the new manager of the group. She was replacing Tom, a well respected manager who was retiring.

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Inspiring Loyalty and Contentment in Your Workforce
One of the first things I look at when I take over a new department or division is the attitudes of the managers and /or supervisors.I ask myself the following questions;Do they inspire loyalty in their staff?If not, why not?If they do, how do they do it?The workforce of any company is normally the lifeblood of the business, the oil that lubricates the machinery.

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Provisioning/User Management System Upgrades: Part II - Building Awareness And Building Approval
Somewhere in the world is a person who wants to see their provisioning/user management systems get a sorely needed upgrade. But they seem to be getting nowhere.

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Einstein - Definition of Insanity
Insanity in the Sign & Graphics IndustryEinstein's DefinitionAlbert Einstein once said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". Think about this quote for a second and ask yourself, does this quote apply to the way you run your company?Have you been doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results? If so, then you might want to keep on reading.

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How to Dodge Distribution Difficulties
It happened again. I ran into an old friend while registering for the World Masters Games last month and as we were catching up, she complemented me on a necklace I was wearing.

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Lets Make Training More Interesting!
Many HR managers believe that by sending their workers to participate in external training programs, they have fulfilled their responsibilities. This is not the best situation.

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Use QA As Your First Step To Outsourcing
Quality Assurance, or QA, is often given short shrift in a software development organization, especially when budgets are tight. When debating the software development budget at one of my software companies, the CEO finally asked, "Well, do you really want to hire a QA guy, or a programmer to add features to the software?"It was a tough choice.

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The Compliance Officers Killer Application
It used to be that only the largest multi-nationals needed a Compliance Officer. Today most practices, regardless of size, would be wise to charge someone within their organisation with the responsibility of keeping abreast and managing the compliance process.

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Knowledge Management - Leadership Behaviours Which Encourage Knowledge-Sharing
The concept of knowledge management or knowledge sharing makes intellectual sense to the leadership teams in most organisations. Why wouldn't we want to learn from our successes and failures, and translate that learning into value?However, there is often a gap between the conceptual understanding, and their own behaviours as leaders - and that can be a problem? How do you engage leaders both intellectually and emotionally, in a way which will make a difference to their day-to-day behaviours? It requires more than a set of competency frameworks!The examples below are taken from the bestselling fieldbook "Learning to Fly ? Practical knowledge management from leading and learning organisations", written by Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell.

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Learning To Let Go
If you have the entrepreneurial spirit (which clearly you have!), you probably have a tendency toward being a control freak. I know the feeling well -- "No one can do it as well as me, so I'll just do it all!" While this may seem to be more efficient than trying to bring someone else in to help out, it's actually more time-consuming in the long run.

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ISO 9001 and Total Quality Management
Total Quality ManagementTotal Quality Management, or TQM, has become one of the most frequently discussed topics in current business literature. Because of the competitive pressures created by Japanese companies, quality became a competitive weapon in the 1980s in most industries.

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Six Reasons to K.I.S.S.
Six Reasons to K.I.

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The 20/60/20 Rule Of Leadership. Dont Go Solving The Wrong Problems
Several decades ago, a passenger jet approached a Florida airport with the pilot and co-pilot struggling to fix what they thought was a malfunctioning landing gear. The landing-gear light was on, signaling that the gear was deployed; but both men did not hear it actually deploy.

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Christmas Carol Coaching - Help to Get Ahead at Holiday Time!
I've always been fascinated by situations where art imitates real life and right here is a perfect example, which links Christmas and business & personal development.If you want to read about a serious piece of dodgy people management (bordering on potential litigation); a man all adrift with the world and himself; shown how to do it by three visionary experiences (and with a brilliant example of supportive team-building thrown in); and then the ultimate Christmas 'shift'? These are all brilliantly described for your pleasure in a seasonal read of 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens.

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Innovation Management: Radical Innovation
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas.

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Check Your Communication Skills
Use this check list to assess your communication skills.Focus* Do you pay complete attention to others when they are speaking? (A wandering focus discourages open communication.

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Effective Email Communication
Email, when used properly, can generate additional direct sales and leads; can be used as a tool to communicate with your existing client base to let them know of upcoming events which may affect them; and as a means of ongoing promotion for your business.The following is a list of simple guidelines and tips that will help you become an effective email communicator.

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Forget The Sandwich Technique
Do you remember being told to use the "sandwich" technique when you needed to reprimand someone? Let me give you an example:"Fred, I'm really pleased with how you've been progressing since you joined us and you're doing a great job. However you're not getting your reports in on time and we're missing deadlines.

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Project Heroes
Project heroes. We've all heard of them.

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Creativity Management and Time Pressure
There is a pervasive belief that time pressure stimulates creativity. This is both true and false.

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