Articles

As a manager, you'll often have to persuade people to believe in your views and to accept your ideas. If you're good at selling your ideas to employees and colleagues, then you'll go further, faster, in your career. Unfortunately, good ideas must first be sold to staff and, if you can't get your proposals across the way you envisaged, then they may well go the way of many other good ideas—into oblivion. So, here are some simple rules that will help you sell your ideas more effectively in the future…

As a manager, you are in a position to influence others. Take change, for example. The way you personally relate to change and cope with it will have a lasting impact on your employees. But before you can help others, you must be able to help yourself. When they see how effectively you cope with change, your staff, too, will see change for what it really is—an opportunity to lead a much fuller and productive life. Here’s what you must do to survive in an age of ongoing change…

It has been said that service management is a total organisational approach that makes quality of service, as perceived by the customer, the number one driving force for the operation of any business. But so often managers pay only lip-service to customer service— they're too tied down with the day-to-day concerns of production, union negotiations, meetings, paperwork, budget, and personnel matters. What can you do to improve your organisation's service? Why not start with these basic ideas…

Setting priorities is a decision-making process in which you rank in order of importance the tasks you or your staff members must do. By completing the tasks on your list in order, you will achieve your goals. It sounds easy—but it's not. In fact, priority setting and sticking to the agreement you make with yourself will be one of your major challenges as a manager. Here are ten important suggestions to help you draw up a priority list—and make it work.

Goal setting has been described as 'the inner technology of success' and is one of your organisation's most important activities. Unless taken seriously, this vital planning task will be a futile exercise, an activity that can produce several high-sounding intentions which, for various reasons, are soon forgotten. So, if you want challenging goals that are, importantly, achievable, then you should consider these basic principles…