Hi. I have just uploaded a new presentation for anyone who wants to download:
Where: Under the "My Presentation Downloads" section on the right
Event: ABF Executive Secretaries and Personal Assistant Conference
Title: Essential Management Skills for ES and PA
File: Powerpoint, PPT
How: Download and save unto your hard disk. Open with "Powerpoint" program. (Somehow it keeps downloading as a .doc file)
Enjoy :)
-TURD-
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
This Blog Featured on EzineArticles.com and obtaining Expert Author status
Hi,
I have just received a personal good news: the writer of this blog has just been officially featured on EzineArticles.com as well as earning the status of 'Expert Author'.
This is a first for me and I hope to continue sharing more and better articles for everyone to enjoy.
-TURD-
I have just received a personal good news: the writer of this blog has just been officially featured on EzineArticles.com as well as earning the status of 'Expert Author'.
This is a first for me and I hope to continue sharing more and better articles for everyone to enjoy.
-TURD-
Thursday, May 24, 2007
New Feature: Get Your Latest Updates via Email!
Welcome to Totally Unrelated, Random, and Debatable's new feature: Email Updates!
Just sign up in the "Subcribe!" section on the right hand side with your email address. Click on 'Subcribe me!' and you are done.
It's easy to subcribe. Once done, you will now start to receive email updates from us. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Never Learn
I just received this great image from my sister:
This explains EXACTLY the problem most people have with admiting and learning from their own mistakes. This is turn causes most people to continue failing over and over again, and never being able to achieve their potential.
In fact, I find that 'Leaders' are the people most at fault in commiting the above.
Sad isn't it?
-TURD-
This explains EXACTLY the problem most people have with admiting and learning from their own mistakes. This is turn causes most people to continue failing over and over again, and never being able to achieve their potential.
In fact, I find that 'Leaders' are the people most at fault in commiting the above.
Sad isn't it?
-TURD-
Thursday, May 17, 2007
TIME to know
Before we can start to really 'manage time', we need to know a few things about it:
1. Time is irreversible
Every second is precious. Once a second passes, you can NEVER EVER claim it back. Do no waste it with activities that do not add any value to your life. Analyze all the time wasters in your day. Use the "Off" switch on your TV. Play with you kid.
2. Value = Time + Money
What a person really values in their life can be tracked from where they spend their discretionary Time and discretionary Money. A person can lie and boast about how much they value their spouse, but if they spend their time and money on stuff other than their spouse, I know they are lying.
3. Love is spelt as T.I.M.E. to your loved ones
This is obvious. The most precious gift I can ever give to my wife (according to her) is my time.
4. Interruptions will always happen
It always surprises me how so many people keep giving the excuse that they don’t have enough time to complete something or meet a deadline because they were “interrupted”. ‘Interruptions’ is a part of life – it will always happen and we should just accept it. In everything that we plan, always always always always build in the interruption factor.
5. Time investments compound
Two facts about compounding: the earlier the better and starting small will always compound to something big down the road. As such, the investment of time in anything (relationships, self development, planning, etc) must be done with these two facts in mind. In other words, “Start small, grow fast”.
6. “I don't have time” = lower priority
When somebody tells you that they ‘don’t have time’ for something you ask them to do, it means only one thing – your request is of lesser priority than whatever they hand in hand. Managing time means managing your priorities and making sacrifices (more on this in a later post)
7. Time required for something expands according to expectations
This is a tough one explain, but I will try. Let me ask you question which you have to honestly answer… “Do you get more or less work done on the day before a long holiday compared to your other work days?” More work done? Why? Simple. On normal days, we expand our time to complete tasks to fill up the time available. In other words, the excuse of “I don’t have enough time for…’ is not valid. It just means that you have not learned to optimize your time.
Time to do something.
-TURD-
1. Time is irreversible
Every second is precious. Once a second passes, you can NEVER EVER claim it back. Do no waste it with activities that do not add any value to your life. Analyze all the time wasters in your day. Use the "Off" switch on your TV. Play with you kid.
2. Value = Time + Money
What a person really values in their life can be tracked from where they spend their discretionary Time and discretionary Money. A person can lie and boast about how much they value their spouse, but if they spend their time and money on stuff other than their spouse, I know they are lying.
3. Love is spelt as T.I.M.E. to your loved ones
This is obvious. The most precious gift I can ever give to my wife (according to her) is my time.
4. Interruptions will always happen
It always surprises me how so many people keep giving the excuse that they don’t have enough time to complete something or meet a deadline because they were “interrupted”. ‘Interruptions’ is a part of life – it will always happen and we should just accept it. In everything that we plan, always always always always build in the interruption factor.
5. Time investments compound
Two facts about compounding: the earlier the better and starting small will always compound to something big down the road. As such, the investment of time in anything (relationships, self development, planning, etc) must be done with these two facts in mind. In other words, “Start small, grow fast”.
6. “I don't have time” = lower priority
When somebody tells you that they ‘don’t have time’ for something you ask them to do, it means only one thing – your request is of lesser priority than whatever they hand in hand. Managing time means managing your priorities and making sacrifices (more on this in a later post)
7. Time required for something expands according to expectations
This is a tough one explain, but I will try. Let me ask you question which you have to honestly answer… “Do you get more or less work done on the day before a long holiday compared to your other work days?” More work done? Why? Simple. On normal days, we expand our time to complete tasks to fill up the time available. In other words, the excuse of “I don’t have enough time for…’ is not valid. It just means that you have not learned to optimize your time.
Time to do something.
-TURD-
Customer Loyalty and Retention
What is a loyal customer? To start off, ‘Loyalty’ is misleading…
• Heavy Consumption ≠ Loyalty
• A person who buys frequently from you may not be loyal.
• Loyalty ≠ Heavy Consumption
• A person who is loyal to your brand, may not buy frequently or in big quantities
Just a thought… are we in business for loyalty or for consumption?
Actually = BOTH are important and must be in balance. But today’s topic is on one side of the Equation (Loyalty) and we must be mindful of that.
OK…for today’s session, there are two definitions and therefore two types of Loyal Customers whom we have to treat differently:
Experience
Swing
What’s the difference?
‘Experience’ loyalty means that a customer is loyal to you because their Expectations are satisfied with their Expectations. What are their expectations?
Those customers who fall under the Experience category are what we will call true LOYAL customers. They will most likely stay with in the long run as long as their expectations are continually matched by their experience with you.
‘Swing’ Loyalty means that a customer is so called ‘loyal’ to you because you happen to be the “Best alternative at the current moment until I find another alternative” situation. Swing Customers are ‘loyal’ because:
• Specific individual Relationships
• Convenience (at that point in time)
• Tied-up
• Product Uniqueness
• Promotions
• No better alternative
• No known alternative
• Psychologically lazy
As a summary – Retention strategies for these two groups would have to be different. So, our job is to find out who we are targeting, and tailor the proper retention strategies for them.
By the way, this whole lesson goes the same for Employee Loyalty and its related retention strategies.
What will you do next?
-TURD-
• Heavy Consumption ≠ Loyalty
• A person who buys frequently from you may not be loyal.
• Loyalty ≠ Heavy Consumption
• A person who is loyal to your brand, may not buy frequently or in big quantities
Just a thought… are we in business for loyalty or for consumption?
Actually = BOTH are important and must be in balance. But today’s topic is on one side of the Equation (Loyalty) and we must be mindful of that.
OK…for today’s session, there are two definitions and therefore two types of Loyal Customers whom we have to treat differently:
Experience
Swing
What’s the difference?
‘Experience’ loyalty means that a customer is loyal to you because their Expectations are satisfied with their Expectations. What are their expectations?
- Customer Intimacy - "Exactly what I need", Customized products, Personalized communications, "They're very responsive", Preferential service and flexibility, Recommends what I need, "I'm very loyal to them", Helps us to be a success
- Product Leadership - "They are the most innovative", "Constantly renewing and creative", "Always on the leading edge"
- Operational Excellence - "A great deal!", Excellent/attractive price, Minimal acquisition cost and hassle, Lowest overall cost of ownership, "A no-hassles firm", Convenience and speed, Reliable product and service
Those customers who fall under the Experience category are what we will call true LOYAL customers. They will most likely stay with in the long run as long as their expectations are continually matched by their experience with you.
‘Swing’ Loyalty means that a customer is so called ‘loyal’ to you because you happen to be the “Best alternative at the current moment until I find another alternative” situation. Swing Customers are ‘loyal’ because:
• Specific individual Relationships
• Convenience (at that point in time)
• Tied-up
• Product Uniqueness
• Promotions
• No better alternative
• No known alternative
• Psychologically lazy
As a summary – Retention strategies for these two groups would have to be different. So, our job is to find out who we are targeting, and tailor the proper retention strategies for them.
By the way, this whole lesson goes the same for Employee Loyalty and its related retention strategies.
What will you do next?
-TURD-
Rights and Counter-rights of Leaders
This is one lesson I always share in the beginning of our Annual Leadership Programs.
As a Leader, you gain the rights to:
As a Leader, you gain the rights to:
- Receive a bit of glamour
- Be admired
- Be recognized as special
- Special Training
- Have special attention
- Access Top Mgmt
- Manage your career
- Influence others
- Draw the picture
- Choose the timing
- Choose the team
- Choose the standards
You lose the rights to:
- Complain to others
- Complain in public
- Complain downline
- Lose your temper
- Show-off
- Be alone
- Be Calculative
- Be like “normal” people
- Be off-time
- Have a bad attitude
- Eat first
- Do what you enjoy
- Think of yourself first
- Avoid problems
- Avoid responsibility
- Transfer problems
- Transfer responsibility
- Be irritating
- Backstab
- Talk nonsense
- Disobey orders
- Have you own time
- Remain the same
- Ignore feedback
- Be inconsistent
- Claim everything (e.g. travelling claims, handphone claims, toll claims)
- Work less than others
- Be undisciplined
- Break rules
- Avoid participation
- Avoid communication
- Rescue yourself first
- Blame others
So… do you still want Leadership?
-TURD-
Friday, May 11, 2007
To intervene or not to intervene… that is the question.
The following was a question that I got a couple of months back:
“I’ve got two Department Heads reporting to me that recently went into an email debate. Normally how you handle the situation? Or there's no need to intervene?”
My response to him was:
“Based on my personal style, I would prefer to monitor the situation without intervention at the moment due to the reason that we are paying quite high salary to them to solve these kinds of problems.
If we intervene too early, it will beat the purpose to have them as a Department Head in the first place. This is especially true for situations that any solution is not 100% exactly right.
However, I would still monitor the situation up to a point when I am very sure of the solution and I want to make a decision to stop the discussion.
That is when I will intervene and make a decision once and for all.
Also, if I make the intervention too early, the Department Heads will start to be less and less accountable and committed to the project.”
Makes sense?
-TURD-
“I’ve got two Department Heads reporting to me that recently went into an email debate. Normally how you handle the situation? Or there's no need to intervene?”
My response to him was:
“Based on my personal style, I would prefer to monitor the situation without intervention at the moment due to the reason that we are paying quite high salary to them to solve these kinds of problems.
If we intervene too early, it will beat the purpose to have them as a Department Head in the first place. This is especially true for situations that any solution is not 100% exactly right.
However, I would still monitor the situation up to a point when I am very sure of the solution and I want to make a decision to stop the discussion.
That is when I will intervene and make a decision once and for all.
Also, if I make the intervention too early, the Department Heads will start to be less and less accountable and committed to the project.”
Makes sense?
-TURD-
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Note: New Presentation Download
Hi. I have just uploaded a new presentation for anyone who wants to download:
Where: Under the "My Presentation Downloads" section on the right
Event: ABF Successful Finance Shared Services Conference
Title: Customizing the Service Model to Align with Organization Objectives
File: Powerpoint, PPT
How: Download and save unto your hard disk. Open with "Powerpoint" program. (Somehow it keeps downloading as a .doc file)
Enjoy :)
-TURD-
Where: Under the "My Presentation Downloads" section on the right
Event: ABF Successful Finance Shared Services Conference
Title: Customizing the Service Model to Align with Organization Objectives
File: Powerpoint, PPT
How: Download and save unto your hard disk. Open with "Powerpoint" program. (Somehow it keeps downloading as a .doc file)
Enjoy :)
-TURD-
Monday, May 7, 2007
Selecting Leaders
I get a lot of mails and enquiries regarding a few recurring but interesting questions:
“How do I get one of my teams to respect the team leader?”
“We have a team that is in conflict with the leader. How do we force the team to stop it?”
“One of our leaders is facing heavy resistance from his team. What can we do?”
“A department in our company works well together only when their manager is not around. What can we do?”
“Which teambuilding course should I send one of my teams together with their leader so that they can cooperate better?”
“What can I do to team members who talks disrespectfully about their leader?”
Before I go forward, let me get a few things straight:
The problem lies with the leader, not the team. Therefore, sending the entire team to a teambuilding course will worsen the situation.
Respect must be earned by the leader. Management cannot force the team to respect the leader.
The team has a choice to respect or not respect the leader. It is their right. However, as long as the leader is around, they have to listen to instructions from the leader, otherwise it is insubordination.
OK…with that out of the way, let’s start looking at the questions above. What strikes you as a common theme? You are right – Selecting the Wrong Leader. There is another related theme though – Selecting a Right Leader who is Not Yet Ready. These main theme – Selecting Leaders, appears to be the major root cause for a lot of organizational and team problems.
Selecting the wrong leader can cause the following (among other things) in the team:
Demotivation
Anger and Frustration
Conflict
Silent rebellion
Confusion
Constant gossiping and bickering
So… the RM1,294,856 question is… “How do I select leaders?”. To tell you the truth, if I had the answer, I would be filthy rich by now, in a yacht in the Carribean sea, enjoying my freshly squeezed orange juice, and not bothering to write anymore blogs.
But, I do have some clues. At the heart of selecting potential leaders, lies three basic criteria that MUST NEVER be compromised:
1) Track Record – has historically performed well consistently, managed to get things done regardless of the odds or lack of resources, and have been willing to roll up their sleeves for dirty work
2) Relationship Building – managed to influence peers without formal authority, able to gain respect based on character, can get people to like them
3) Emotional Control – I don’t need to clarify this one.
My advice is this – if a potential leader does not qualify ALL THREE of the above, it is better not to make that a person a leader yet. However, all three can be developed.
If you decide to do otherwise, I can guarantee all hell will break loose. You will keep the leader but lose your members (either physically or mentally).
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
-TURD-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
