Actual for You - Business

Empathy - Not Business Plans - Key to Your Home Based Business Success - Do You Have Empathy?
EMPATHY is a Natural Talent, you were born with it and you will never loose it. It can be a blessing or a curse in a home based business. If you develop it, it can make you a Millionaire. Mary Kay, of Mary Kay cosmetics, did just that. If you have it, it is your most important key to a successful home based business. Business plans, cash flow projections, marketing analysis, etc. are skills that are needed in a home based business, but they can be learned from a workshops, courses or books. Your Natural Talent is what gives you the competitive edge.This a the second in a series of articles describing the 34 Natural Talents that can give a home based business owner the “edge” in the market place. The purpose of this article is to help the home based business owner identify which Natural Talents they posses. The rest of the article will discuss what to do with the Natural Talent, once identified.First, examine do you have EMPATHY as we define it. EMPATHY is: “A person that loves to relate. They can sense the emotions of those around them. They feel what others are feeling as though they were their own feelings. Intuitively, they are able t

the 'end'
- measures that are actually data, not information
- measures that are complex indices
- measures that encourage the wrong behaviour
- measures that are overly aggregated
MEASURES THAT ARE EVENTS OR MILESTONES OR VERY INFREQUENTLY CALCULATED

Measures like the following are ugly, principally because they offer little, if any, regular feedback through time:

"Annual customer satisfaction rating."
"Win Banksia Award for envir

Leading Change - Big Titles Don't Mean Big Honesty
"Doesn’t listening to this give you that "Big Mac' feeling? You crave it, taste it, smell it and just can’t wait til' you can bite into it. A little while later, after you eat it and get it down, you start feeling tired, bloated and real sick to your stomach. That's kinda' how I feel here ... a little sick and not right."One of my project managers leaned over and said that to me in a change meeting when the Senior VP of Human Resources had just hijacked our change plane. It was unbelievable but true. After all this time, with the old leader sitting nearby, this guy is delivering the goods on our work. Where has he been all this time?We were all called in for a project update when up steps our Senior VP of HR. The only thing missing from this charade was Gomer, from Mayberry saying, "Surprise, surprise." This guy had no involvement in this project for the two long years of its life. Now, today, he walks in and pronounces he's in charge. He’s not only in charge; he’s announcing everything is beautiful. I was waiting for Ray Stevens to come in and sing his song by the same name.The project in question was a PeopleSoft implementation that was a ful

We sure do put up some poor excuses for performance measures - here's what to do with the ugliest of them.

INTRODUCTION

Winning awards, completing projects and initiatives on time, meeting budget, counting widgets, annual surveys, and whatever we can find at the back of the 'performance measure pantry' that was left over from last year - they are all ugly measures! If you're stuck with this sort of thing, here are some ideas for what to do about it.

WHAT MAKES A MEASURE UGLY?

In a nutshell, measures are ugly when they fail to inform your decisions about whether or not you're getting the results you wanted, and how well your actions are doing in making those results happen. Measures are ugly when they fail to give you the feedback you need to have more control or influence over the results you most passionately want, or need, to create.

Too often, people treat measurement as a bureaucratic jumping-through-the-hoops-of-the-planning-process activity. They come up with anything that can be written down in the KPI column of the business or project plan that can escape challenge from superiors or peers. The end product is a pool of measures that are usually the easiest, cheapest, most rudimentary information to produce. But they pay a price: such measures don't give the right kind of feedback to inform the proper management of that which they monitor.

DO YOU HAVE ANY UGLY MEASURES?

Quite specifically, there are a few criteria that any measure must meet if it's going to have any chance at becoming valuable feedback for decision-making. And of course, ugly measures violate these criteria. The rest of this article discusses six of the most common conditions of measure ugliness, and offers ideas for how to overcome them:

- measures that are events or milestones or very infrequently calculated
- measures that monitor the 'means', not the 'end'
- measures that are actually data, not information
- measures that are complex indices
- measures that encourage the wrong behaviour
- measures that are overly aggregated
MEASURES THAT ARE EVENTS OR MILESTONES OR VERY INFREQUENTLY CALCULATED

Measures like the following are ugly, principally because they offer little, if any, regular feedback through time:

"Annual customer satisfaction rating."
"Win Banksia Award for enviro

6 Fundraising Options for Any Organization
One of the challenges for any group or organization is finding new ways to raise funds. It seems that everyone sells candy bars or puts on a car wash. Below are some fundraising ideas that might be a nice change and help your group raise funds using something unique that isn't being done by every other group out there.1. Silent AuctionHave various members of your group donate items and then hold a silent auction. It is easy to do this. Just set aside a table or shelf. Give each item a piece of paper that people can write their bids on. The highest bidder wins the auction.2. Direct Sales CompaniesSeveral of the direct sales and party plan companies also have fundraising programs. Some of these programs are quite good. What is nice about some of these plans is that your group does not have to buy any stock in advance. Everything is done using catalogs. People place their orders and the consultant orders all the items. The majority of the time the consultant will pack all the orders and separate them by seller. Usually the consultant will give some type of incentive for the highest seller to encourage more fundraiser sales. Examples of dire

MAKES A MEASURE UGLY?

DO YOU HAVE ANY UGLY MEASURES?

Measures like the following are ugly, principally because they offer little, if any, regular feedback through time:

"Annual customer satisfaction rating."
"Win Banksia Award for envir

Managing Media Replication Projects
The goals of every media replication and packaging project are:Deliver your product to the end-user on time.Use the most cost effective options possible to achieve the project's business goals.Deliver a pristine, high quality final product to the end-user. The first step to achieving these goals is to establish a budget and timeline that meets all project requirements. The best way to ensure that timing and budgetary restraints are met is to involve all the pertinent players from the start. On many projects, the replication and packaging people are brought in too late to optimize the campaign's effectiveness. Too often decisions are made without the input of key participants in the process, resulting in a truncated replication and packaging timeline and less- than- optimal product costing more than it should.The participation of replication and packaging experts throughout the process more effectively organizes your project. They can be particularly helpful in identifying opportunities for improving efficiency. In many cases, for example, key media packaging elements and the final media con

ops-of-the-planning-process activity. They come up with anything that can be written down in the KPI column of the business or project plan that can escape challenge from superiors or peers. The end product is a pool of measures that are usually the easiest, cheapest, most rudimentary information to produce. But they pay a price: such measures don't give the right kind of feedback to inform the proper management of that which they monitor.

DO YOU HAVE ANY UGLY MEASURES?

Measures like the following are ugly, principally because they offer little, if any, regular feedback through time:

"Annual customer satisfaction rating."
"Win Banksia Award for envir

Why Go for Flyer Printing?
Flyers are highly regarded as one of the most handed out promotional tools. This print material is effectively used to deliver persuasive informative messages about companies’ products and services. Its production can be done using different printing processes and application. The printing production works to develop and print striking and sophisticated flyer prints.Each developmental process involved makes an application of good graphic designs and informative text content that will make clients aware of the good products and excellent services provided. However going for a flyer printing jobs might be quite expensive if you purchase minimal pieces of flyer prints. Sequentially to lessen the printing cost and attain high quality prints you can go for a reliable flyer printing service.Flyer printing is an effective printing process that entails to provide compelling flyer prints ideal for your marketing campaign and promotions. Going for flyer printing jobs can give in numerous advantages that will help you economically lessen your printing budget and achieve total satisfaction.The following are among the reasons why there is a need for flyer p

ES?

Measures like the following are ugly, principally because they offer little, if any, regular feedback through time:

"Annual customer satisfaction rating."
"Win Banksia Award for envir

Thinking About Becoming a Truck Driver?
Sometimes portrayed as an easy and unappealing profession fit for simpletons, being a truck driver is quite the contrary. The truck driving industry has experienced a steady increase in job growth and career opportunities in the past few years, quickly making the profession one of the nation's top jobs in terms of career growth. Truck driving provides flexibility, allowing drivers to make their own schedule, travel around the country, and bring home a substantial paycheck. The following tips are offered for individuals looking into truck driving jobs.Talk with Seasoned Drivers The best way to get reliable and accurate information is to speak with people who are actually in the profession. Ask an experienced driver about the pros and cons of the job, how it affects their family, and if they would do anything different. The internet is another, convenient way to get in touch with truckers; blogs and chat rooms are an excellent source of information. Chances are truckers will be much more candid and honest when they are in a setting where they can remain anonymous.Ride with a Trucker Consider riding along

Measures like the following are ugly, principally because they offer little, if any, regular feedback through time:

"Annual customer satisfaction rating."
"Win Banksia Award for environmental achievement in 2006."
"On-time project completion."

Unless you design measures that give you regular feedback through time, you'll be faced with 'too little, too late". You won't get the information that will help you finetune your strategies (activities, initiatives, projects, etc…) to ensure they actually do produce the results they were supposed to.

The trap you can fall into here is assuming that your strategies will unquestionably work. Instead, work out what results you'd expect to see from these strategies, and explore how you could collect some evidence of this on a weekly or monthly basis. No, it won't always be feasible or possible for everything. But it will be for a lot of things.

MEASURES THAT MONITOR THE 'MEANS', NOT THE 'END'

Another common type of ugly measure is information about the means, not the end, not the performance result or outcome that the strategy was chosen for in the first place.

"Implement organisational restructure by June 2008." as a measure for a goal to improve customer loyalty
"Staff Productivity" as a measure for a goal to reduce organisational costs
"Billing Accuracy" as a measure for a goal to increase payment of invoices before the due date

Can you have an organisational restructure and not improve customer loyalty? Of course! Can you improve customer loyalty without an organisational restructure? Of course! So while implementing an organisational restructure might be one of the strategies you choose toward improving customer loyalty, it is not evidence of customer loyalty. The same logic also applies to the measure of staff productivity posing as evidence of organisational cost reduction.

Direct evidence of the result is essential to properly test our hypotheses about how to achieve that result. If you have measures that track the means and not the end, then you probably

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.actual4u.com/article/22941/actual4u-What-to-do-with-your-Ugly-Measures.html">What to do with your Ugly Measures!</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.actual4u.com/article/22941/actual4u-What-to-do-with-your-Ugly-Measures.html]What to do with your Ugly Measures![/url]

You have just minutes to make that all important impression at an interview. Creating the right impression is not rocket science, thorough preparation, listening carefully and answering the question asked make all the difference.

There are significant points to remember in filling out entry-level jobs. Employers look for employees who may have majored in Human Resource courses.

Tags

Links

Actual for You - What to do with your Ugly Measures!

Related Articles: