Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Earn a Profit
Most people treat meetings as a free resource that can be used to deal with any
issue. As a result, huge amounts of time and money are wasted on trivia. A meeting is a business activity (not a social event) and should be designed to earn
a profit. Here's how. 1) Calculate the cost of the meeting by multiplying the number of participants (N),
their labor rate (R), and the length of the meeting (t). Then add all other expenses
(E), which should include travel, materials, refreshments, room rental, and other
expenses. Cost = N * R * t + E 2) Estimate the value of the results expected from the meeting. For some issues this step will be easy. Resolving a manufacturing inefficiency, for
example, could save thousands of dollars. Or developing an effective strategic plan
could earn millions. This step becomes difficult for less tangible results, such as exchanging information
in staff meetings or making some policy decisions. In those cases, you will have to
guess the value. 3) Determine the return on your investment (ROI) by comparing value versus cost. ROI = Value - Cost If this analysis predicts a loss, either revise the meeting's scope or cancel it. After
all, a meeting, like any project, must earn a profit. In addition, a profitable meeting will be an effective meeting. - - - - - IAF Certified Professional Facilitator and author Steve Kaye works with leaders who
want to hold effective meeting. His innovative workshops have informed and
inspired people nationwide. His facilitation produces results that people will
support. Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.stevekaye.com. Call 714
-528-1300 or visit his web site for over 100 pages of valuable ideas.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
3 Steps You Can Use Developing Leaders In Your Industry
With the economy bordering on a recession, every company is looking for ways to increase revenues while decreasing costs. Some companies believe one of the easiest ways to do this is to cut their employee training budget. However, businesses interested in long-term viability recognize that to be successful they must continually develop their people, especially their leaders.
Selecting A Collection Agency
If you run a business, you are sure to have some customers who require a lot of follow-up before they pay you. Often you spend too much time and energy to collect money that is rightfully due to you. Giving this task to a collection agency will help you:
The High, High Price of Distrust
A paper manufacturer with over 300 employees once announced that it was planning to move to more spacious and attractive premises thirty miles down the road.
Compensation and Six Sigma Black Belts
One of the more ambiguous elements of a Six Sigma project is the level and type of compensation the organization should give to its Six Sigma leaders and team members. On the one hand, setting compensation is not an integral part of any stage of a Six Sigma project; on the other hand, compensation is an important instrument to build loyalty and a sense of accomplishment that is a crucial element to the organization's Six Sigma success. While there are no hard and fast rules for compensation for Six Sigma leaders and team members, there are some good ways to think about how to productively provide compensation to your people.
Black Belts are the key change agents for the Six Sigma process. They have an important role and should be compensated accordingly. If your organization is large enough to have people dedicated full-time to leading Six Sigma projects, their base pay should be in the top of your organization's range for their level of management. If your organization is asking a manager to also devote part of his or her time to leading a Six Sigma project, you need to find some way to compensate them for their extra efforts. In addition to base pay, you can find creative ways for recognition for completed projects. Black Belts should receive some special and public recognition for their efforts, whether it is dinners, award ceremonies, plaques, etc. Whatever fits best with your organizational culture. Such recognitions should not be strictly limited to Black Belts either, as acknowledging the achievements of all who participated in and benefit from the Six Sigma project should receive some sort of recognition to boost morale.
Monetary bonuses are another way to compensate people for successful Six Sigma projects. Since Six Sigma projects are about helping the organization make more money it makes sense to share some of the cost savings from Six Sigma projects with the Six Sigma team. Develop a structured, team-based process improvement bonus system that will appropriately benefit each worker in the organization. As measurable and lasting improvements are made to processes, it is appropriate to share a part of the financial gains with employees. Just be sure there is a formal performance appraisal system that will identify what is to be accomplished, what success looks and feels like, and how an employee will be compensated, and that this is fully communicated to everyone. Such an organizational goal-sharing program will effectively support Six Sigma efforts. Being able to link compensation to Six Sigma implementation is much easier in a small company compared to a larger company.
Bonuses can also be paid to Black Belts, but with differences due to their unique status. Instead of paying bonuses to Black Belts as a share of actual process improvement, pay them bonuses related to specific project goals. There is a danger in directly tying their bonus with a share of the actual improvements as they may be motivated to inflate or misconstrue actual gains. That still leaves you with many concrete project milestones that can be the basis for their compensation.
What Every Manager Should Know About How to Become An Effective Executive
In his book, The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker pointed out that the effective executive is the person who focuses on making a contribution.
Weaknesses of Wishing
When you're starting a business, you might wish for a lot of things, like having more than enough customers or not having to do marketing. But wishing is weak willed, having no momentum behind it. When you wish for something, you're not coming from a place of having a strong vision. Instead, wishes tend to be dreamlike, wispy and not grounded. Wishes are future oriented.
Overcoming Perfectionism
Perfectionism can get in the way of building or marketing a successful business. It can prevent us from moving ahead quickly or from taking advantage of business opportunities. We set ourselves up with unrealistic expectations or goals, which can be damaging to us personally or professionally. Striving for perfection can damage our self-esteem because we never feel like we are good enough. Instead, consider adopting an attitude of striving for excellence. Look at failure as just another teacher. Let's explore how being less than perfect can move you ahead in your business!
Creativity and Innovation Management in Conservative, Staid Organisations
Conservative and staid organisations generally have a harder time implementing creativity and innovation into their day-to-day work processes and people. Leaders may want to capture the benefits of creativity and innovation, yet there may be relevant and almost contradictory issues that they have to deal with, including:
Better Management Performance - The Easy 3-Step Way
Managers make three mistakes when they try to run businesses. They do too much,
they don't trust their people and they don't have enough skills. Here we
explore an easy 3-step process to get your business back on track and get a life.
Internal Prisons: The Thief of Productivity and Quality in our Workforce
As a professional speaker, one of my biggest challenges is to grab the attention of my audience within the first few minutes of the presentation- grab them by the throat if you will. I do this by coming out in a suite and tie, following an introduction in which I have been described as a recent college graduate who earned both of his degrees with a 4.0 GPA and placement on the Deans and Presidents List. I am portrayed as someone who was once an honors roll student, star athlete, father and family man. Upon entering the stage I ask the audience to take a close look at my face.
What To Do When Your IT Project Is Late, Over Budget, and Looks Like It?s Never Going To Work
Here's a scary statistic. According to four prominent research firms, only around 20% of all IT projects are finished in a timely manner. By "timely" the researchers mean without loss of quality or being over budget. They go on to say the average project runs approximately 200 percent late, roughly 200 percent over budget, and contains only 2/3 of the original functionality.
Innovation Management ? Six Crucial Steps
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.
I Said Pareto Chart? Not Potato Chart!
Does this sound familiar? You were hired for the new management position. You were tasked to turn the numbers around. You take some time reviewing the current situation. Now it's time to take a look at the current processes and get your staff together to analyze the data. You tell them that you want to brainstorm; work on a few mind maps, whip out a couple Ishikawa's to get started and then have them bring Pareto charts relative to their respective functions.
Performance Evaluations Can Be Beneficial
THE PERFORMANCE REVIEW MEETING: It's a fact - most supervisors and employees have negative feelings toward performance appraisals and appraisal interviews. It's often necessary to shift people's thinking from the perception that the interview is a time of judgment to the perspective that supervisors can provide support and direction to employees who want to improve their productivity and be involved in the process. Most employees, after all, wish to work effectively. Few can tolerate the notion of working poorly and ineffectively. The appraisal is an important time when supervisors and employees can come together and talk about how to improve performance.
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. In this article, I will be emphasizing on how to increase the interest-level of your employees who attend the training program taking into consideration that there is increasing cultural diversity and computer literacy in the workplace.
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. When I told her I bought it in South Africa on my last trip there, she exclaimed, "You have to start importing these. You'd make a fortune!"
It?s Not All About Cheese: The Missing Component in Employee Development (Part 2)
In part one of this article I told you about how perceptions are changing in the workplace. In part two, I want to tell you more about the "Merge Point Method" and how it helps you create training programs that lead to stronger collaboration between individuals and teams.
Bosses Are Out ? Managers As Coaches Are In
There is a new trend taking hold in business today which translates into amazing productivity, results, and a happier workforce. It's easy, positive, and some say transformative; best of all, it's something you and every other individual charged with the responsibility for getting results through others can learn to do. It is?coaching people instead of managing them.
Preventative Maintenance of Company Delivery Vehicles
If you have company delivery vehicles at your small or medium sized business you should have a preventative maintenance schedule and procedures for employees who are drivers of these vehicles. When discussing preventative maintenance over the years with business owners the first thing which comes to mind is 'Oil change' and usually the business owner who is on the hook for the loans on these vehicles is more than aware of that fact. Yes, you should change the oil. Obviously you should. How about every 3,000 ?5000 miles. After all, that kind of driving is hard on a vehicle, not to mention:
Delegate Tasks to the Right Person
SELECTING THE RIGHT PERSON: To whom should tasks be delegated? Selecting the right subordinate to do the work is an evaluative process, and managers must be able to identify individuals both capable and willing to handle responsibility.
|
