According to research conducted by management experts of all school of thoughts, 15% of the reason you get and keep a job is determined by your technical knowledge, skills and expertise.

What about the other 85% ?

85% of the reason you move ahead in your job is related to your people knowledge and people skills.

It goes without any shadow of doubt that, as a manager/supervisor, you must become aware of the critical need for a specialised knowledge on how you can manager yourself and your subordinates for peak performance. If you study professional supervisors / managers in various industries, you will notice a common problem in many (if not all) of the different situations men and women are facing ……. and the common denominator in all problems is always the same: PEOPLE.

Managing people starts with self-management, and it is one of your top-most priorities if you really want to be successful in your supervisory/managerial role. According to Tom Peter, author of the best-selling book ‘A Passion for Excellence’, the real challenge is retraining managers, not retraining workers. With this in mind, the sole objective of this article is to develop excellence in you, and to provide you with fundamentals and motivation to professionally develop and utilise your team mates.
The foundation for developing yourself and others is wrapped up in the very word M.A.N.A.G.E.R: Motivator, Activator, Negotiator, Achiever, Goal-setter, Educator or Evaluator, Risk Taker (that is, Courageous). (more…)

Coaching is one of the most critical skills to be mastered by supervisors and manager. Why is coaching so important ? because today’s environment has created more pressure to do more with less. The key to reducing pressure is to make the most of your most valuable resource: people.

The objective of this article is to help managers, supervisors, or co-workers coach employees to overcome barriers or hurdles and improve performance. If you have a sincere desire to develop and support your subordinates and the self-discipline to practice specific strategies, this module offers you creative coaching techniques to use in creating an inspiring working culture.

Coaching takes time, and it involves commitment, patience, persistence and a keen desire to actively participate in employees’ development. Throughout the coaching process, it is important to keep in mind that the main objective is to improve performance. Managers or supervisors should not jump to early conclusions when they identify a specific performance problem. As with any problem-solving process, the first and often the most difficult step is to identify clearly what exactly, precisely and concisely the problem is. (more…)

The secret of success is not in doing your own work, but in recognising the right person to do it.

One of the most crucial and challenging tasks for managers and supervisors is to apportion the work among the employees they manage and supervise. A lot of managers and supervisors frequently complain that they have too much to do and too little time in which to do it. Unchecked, this feeling leads to stress and ineffectiveness. In many cases, executives could greatly reduce their stress by practicing a critical management skill - delegation.

Delegation is the assignment of authority to another person to carry out the specific job-related activities. It allows a subordinate to make decisions; that is, it is a shift of decision-making authority from one organisational level to another lower one.

Delegation should not be confused with participation. In participative decision making, there is a sharing of authority; with delegation, subordinates make decisions on their own. Effective delegation pushes authority down vertically through the ranks of an organisation.

Mastering the art of delegation makes you a professional manager; it is an effective means of developing your employees, and a key to the organizational prosperity.

The inability to delegate has led to the downfall of many executives – from the top-notch managers to the first-line supervisors. Successful businesses, regardless of size, encourage not only their managers and supervisors but also others to master the art of delegation. Historically, delegation has been a vertical process, with managers delegating to subordinates in a clearly defined hierarchical structure. Today’s successful businesses are emphasizing both horizontal and vertical delegation. With the growing emphasis on teamwork, the ability to influence and delegate to others over whom you have no direct control is critical to the team’s success. (more…)

Business value is far more than dollars and cents. The government has one way of evaluating a business at tax time, but potential buyers, customers, and the competition are sizing up your business constantly – and they aren’t just interested in the bottom line.

Fair Market Value

Business valuation is made up of a fair amount of accounting and a lot of guess work. The fair market value of a business is what is used when a business is sold or for any number of other legal purposes. To determine the fair market value of a business, you must consider cash flow, tangible assets, appreciation and more.

The government calls a fair market value the dollar amount of a business where the seller and the buyer both agree. With such a loose definition, there are countless ways to estimate your business’s value. Depending on industry, your business value may be a product of a period’s cash flow multiplied by a certain number or something considerably more complex. There is no exact formula for determining the overall value of a company as values fluctuate within industries and over time.

Government Valuation

At tax time, your company is evaluated based on its debits and credits. Gross receivables and assets are offset by liabilities and expenses. At the end of the accounting process you have a company income that is tax worthy. This number is often far less than any true value of your company. Accounting and tax write offs help many companies find ways to make tax values far less than reported earnings. However, reported income through the government can help gauge your company’s progress and provide a starting point for evaluation. (more…)