Related Articles

Five Tips for Analyzing an Income Statement
In today's article, we'll be looking at the income statement, which is the most deceptively simple of the major financial statements. I say simple because it's just a list of all the revenue, minus all the expenses, to calculate what's left over in profit.

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The Business Shaman: Exploring the Mystery of Success!
Note: This article was written for a internet business site. It is a promo for my work with the business world.

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You Didnt Use Brainstorming to Select Your Measures, Did You?
IntroductionWhen Alex Osborn invented the creativity technique called brainstorming, I wonder if he had any idea just how extensively business would apply it. Almost every meeting employs some kind of brainstorming event, but there's one meeting that really should leave it off the agenda: the performance measure selection meeting.

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Performance Management - By Assuming Nothing
Unhappy as Jenny undoubtedly was, she held on very tightly to her job. After all, she had worked her way up over the years to the supervisory role she was in - and she wasn't going to let go.

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Are You Cascading Your Strategy, or Fragmenting It?
INTRODUCTIONThe typical approach executive teams use to cascade, or roll out, their strategic direction is to produce a clear set of goals, objectives, critical success factors or a scorecard and then get each departmental or functional manager to take this on board and customize it for their part of the organisation. The trouble then begins?A TYPICAL APPROACH: EACH DEPARTMENT ADOPTS OR ADAPTS A VERSION OF THE CORPORATE STRATEGYThe first phase of most organisational planning processes is that the organisation's executives design and express a strategic direction using a framework of some kind.

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Innovation Management: What Problem Is Being Solved?
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation.

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Do You Hear That?
I read a report in the Toronto Star stated that 70% of workplace errors happen because of communication breakdown and that many of them directly relate to a lack of listening skills.The challenge is most people filter out sounds, noises and people talking as much as they filter out most of the things their eyes see.

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Three Business Lessons From The US Postal Service
There was a buzz in the air recently about the US Postal Service. Seems as though they were running into a budget deficit in the billions.

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Its All In The Systems
Have you ever noticed french fries taste the same at every McDonald's? The same can be said for Subway and its Italian BMT. How do these fast food icons replicate themselves at nearly 40,000 locations when some eateries struggle to get it right in a single restaurant? The answer is simple: it's all in the systems.

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Can A Business Still Be Profitable When People Skills Are Absent?
In our current world of rapid and amazing technological advances, many entrepreneurs have managed to dramatically limit the need for staff in highly profitable operations of all kinds.It is therefore tempting and believable to imagine that with every passing day, the need for people skills is diminishing.

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How to Create Trust
People buy from you, offer help, and grant rewards based on trust. Here are ways to increase your success by creating trust.

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Tales From the Corporate Frontlines: An Unexpected Benefit
This article relates to the Compensation and Benefits competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It tells the story of a company that offered a new benefit to its employees, solved the problem of lagging productivity, and boosted morale at the same time.

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14 Ways to De-Stress Employee Vacations
Employees truly deserve paid vacations. Theystruggle through stressful jobs most of the year,and productivity goes down if they don't get abreak.

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Creativity and Innovation - Large Firms Versus Small Firms
There is a pervasive assumption that small firms are more creative and innovative than larger firms. That is, they identify problems and generate ideas (creativity) and idea select, develop and commercialise (innovate) those ideas to a greater degree than larger firms.

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Motivation - You Get What You Reward
There's a programme currently running on BBC Television in the UK called - "Little Angels." It's a series that offers help and advice to parents who're experiencing behaviour difficulties with their children.

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The Punitive Approach to Marginal Performers
MANAGING A MARGINAL PERFORMER: Often a marginal performer, even after therapeutic counseling, may not understand that his or her work is seen as substandard. The manager will have to ask the employee directly how the performance could be improved.

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Communication in Business
Effective communication in business is not about creating the perfect PowerPoint presentation. It's not about writing the perfectly-pitched report.

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Strategies for Planning and Conducting Effective Meetings
Did you know that business executives spend about half their time sitting in meetings? In fact, 40 to 50 percent of their working hours are consumed by meetings, according to a study by the Annenberg School of Communications at UCLA and the University of Minnesota's Training & Development Research Center.Meetings are inevitable - whether you're a business executive or member of a volunteer, social, or civic organization.

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Organizational Techniques - Tickler and Chron File
One of the biggest problems we encounter in our consulting with businesses, and our students is time management and organizational techniques. This article will concentrate on some good organizational strategies.

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Productivity Through Positive Reinforcement
Most people just want to be appreciated. If you're a manager, that's something to seriously think about as you set the tone for maximum productivity.

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