Category Archives: Healthcare

Micro-Management

Six Danger Signs You May Be Headed to Micro-Management

1) Do you monitor and manage tasks or do you identify and train to essential competencies?

Do you want to know the big difference between due diligence and a core competency? Here’s a classic example: Collecting 50 business cards per day is an act of data procurement, while training to a 60% conversation to appointment ratio is focusing on an essential component to ensure your sales team’s success.

Don’t focus on accountability to tasks but enlighten to identification. It’s much more important to teach your people the ‘business’ of the business they’re in. If you currently have your sales team accountable to tasks, then you’re merely ‘managing’ tasks. In order to become more effective, you should be training on measurement of competencies so your people can ‘run their own business.’… Read the rest

Learn to Build a Great Organization

A Successful Organization Starts With You

organizationSo often we hear from the owner of a business or the manager of an organization lament about the performance of employees or associates. They speak of it as though they were having an out-of- body experience in which they were completely separated from the activities of the group. When I hear these types of comments, I am reminded of an old Greek phase, translated to the fish rots from the head down.

Leaders often feel helpless in changing the performance of a group. There are many practices and personal work habits that they can adapt which will make a difference. Let us look at three areas and look at behaviors and how each affects others in the group.… Read the rest

The Listening Side of Communications

Really Good Listening Habits Are Hard to Find

Listen

When is the last time you had a conversation with someone where you really felt like the person you were talking with was engaged in the conversation and was really interested in what you were communicating?

Their body language, eye contact, and tone of voice were focused and inviting and surrounding distractions seemed irrelevant. Every one of us can remember a meaningful conversation and what it felt like to “be heard.” Being heard is an important component to how we measure our self-worth and self-confidence.… Read the rest

Development of Human Capital

Human Capital is a Top Priority in Today’s Organizations.

Human CapitalIn fact many organizations are faced with the reality that they need to get more results through smaller and perhaps more fragmented teams. As your employees have added and shifted roles, positions, and responsibilities, how do you know you have the right people in the right positions in order to maximize your organization’s efforts and outcomes?… Read the rest

Measuring Business Success

If You Measure It, You Can Improve It

   Measurement is the First Step in Building Business Success

In sports, measure successthat scoreboard will report the runs, hits, and errors. In business, the scoreboard maybe a financial statement or a sales report. In a non-profit, it may be the number of people served or the number of programs run. These scoreboards reflect the end result of the business’ activities, but these types of measurements are difficult to use in defining a specific problem or developing programs to make improvements.Most businesses or organizations could not exist without a scorecard. … Read the rest

Review the Strategic Plan

Is It Time to Audit Your Strategic Plan?

Last year our board and executive committee met for two hours, once a week, for five straight weeks with a consultant and developed this new strategic plan. Everyone seems to love it and auditwas very excited by the outcome. Now a year later, nothing has seemed to change. We seem to have the same issues and problems that existed a year ago and spend our time at board meetings in the details of finding solutions. Sound familiar? This month’s issue of the Quill contains an article, The Strategic Plan That Never Happened which begins to discuss this very situation. Maybe it is time for an audit.

… Read the rest

Performance Management

A Performance Management Approach to Retaining Key People

employeeSimplistically, most people will feel motivated and will want to stay in their job if their manager:

  • pays attention to their work
  • provides them with a job to match their skills, knowledge and experience gives them opportunities to grow and develop
  • judges their performance objectively

Most Performance Management processes contain critical opportunities for recognition.

… Read the rest

Employee Motivation

Does the KITA Method of Employee Motivation Work?

 The most difficult dilemma business and organizational leaders face is that of motivating motivationemployees and staff. Sure there are marketing issues and financial issues that are difficult, but motivation seems to be the most difficult one to address. In a January 2003 Harvard Business Review article, One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?  , Frederick Herzberg presents conclusions on this subject. So what is the KITA method of motivation? Does it work? What does work?

 KITA Method of Motivation

 KITA is short for Kick in the A__. This method may be employed either in a negative manner or a positive manner. It can be employed either physically or psychologically. A negative physical KITA can result in retaliation, physical or otherwise, and in today’s society, be looked upon harshly.… Read the rest

Employee Performance

Managing Employee Performance

 

team

Many managers fail to realize how their actions, attitudes, and communications affect the performance of a team or group of employees. They place the responsibility for performance on others and not themselves. Management success only comes when they learn to practice some basic principles of leadership and become someone who the employees wish to follow. Here are seven of these principles.… Read the rest

Thoughts on Hiring

Some Thoughts on Hiring from Richard Branson

In exploring the subject of hiring a new employee, we discovered a recent article by Richard Branson. You may know Branson as an extremely successful entrepreneur, the head of the Virgin Group which includes companies such as Virgin Airlines and Virgin Records.

He starts by emphasizing the importance of the having the right people in a company. “There is nothing more important for a business than hiring the right team. If you get the perfect mix of people working for your company, you have a far greater chance of success.” He also stresses the importance of finding someone whose personality fits with the company culture. Judging a personality during an interview can be difficult and he observes, “Personality is the key.… Read the rest

Some Tips on Interviewing Potential Employees

Business Success Comes From Finding the Right People 

Hiring, Business Success

Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, explains that one of the first priorities in transforming an organization to greatness is, “first get the right people on the bus and then get the wrong people off the bus.” The bus, of course, is a company or organization wanting transition from being good to being great. Who to hire and who no longer belongs are difficult decisions subject to much uncertainty. They are made by business owners and managers, especially during the hiring process, based on extremely subjective criteria.  It always seems to be a gamble, so let’s see if we can consider some ways to improve the odds.

… Read the rest

Everyone’s Role in Overall Team Performance

Everyone in an Organization Plays an Important Role in its Overall Performance

It’s no longer enough to be good, you must be exceptional. It is no longer enough to have satisfied customers, you must seek to develop a loyal and delighted customer base. It’s no longer enough toperformance maintain. You must be aggressive, responsive, and quick. Your challenge is getting everyone on your team or in your department committed and focused on achieving organizational success. As an effective team leader, your role is to build the best, strongest, most productive team possible. Your team or department’s results, or lack thereof, will be in direct proportion to the cohesiveness of your team.… Read the rest

Developing Loyal Customers

Some Points on Developing Customer Loyalty

The August issue of the Quill has several articles on the need and reason for developing customer loyalty. Now let’s begin to look at some of the concepts involved in the customer loyalty development process.

A point of connection is every time a customer or potential comes in contact with you, your employees or your firm. It may be personal, as is the case with employees; or it may be physical, like the appearance of your building. To develop loyal customers, every point of connection must provide a positive emotional experience.  Let’s look at two examples of these emotional experiences… Read the rest

Strategic Plans That Never Happen

The Strategic Plan That Never Happened

failureMaybe you are a business or a non-profit that completed writing a strategic plan within the last one to two years. You spent many hours with your board of directors or management team carefully crafting the wording within each step of the process. Maybe you used a consultant or let a team member lead the discussion. Everyone felt good about the completion of the document, but a year later the status quo continues. What happened?

… Read the rest

Building Loyal Customers

Customer Loyalty

A Key to Business Success

success Business owners and managers must be focused on building a successful organization. Let’s define success as a business which is profitable and sustainable. All businesses must be profitable in order to cover their costs and provide the owner with an appropriate income. Sustainability refers to the ability for a business to survive tomorrow, next week, next month and far into the future. Having loyal customers is key to both profitability and sustainability. The questions are, therefore, why are loyal customers important to success and how do you create loyal customers?

Why are loyal customers important to business success?

Loyal customers are those who appreciate doing business with you and return over and over again.

… Read the rest