Category

The Origin of the Pareto Principle
When Joseph M. Juran, the Quality Management researcher who attributed the “80/20 Rule” to Vilfred Pareto, he dubbed it Pareto’s principle. As an economist, Pareto’s effort was concerned only with Italian wealth distribution in the early 1900s, but others from a variety of disciplines found evidence of the principle in their work also. In essence, it…

Read more »

If managerial skills came in a bottle, the directions on the back might read like this:

Set Goals
Organize Resources
Motivate Team Members
Remove Roadblocks
Measure Progress
Rinse and Repeat as Necessary

At each of those steps, a healthy dose of communication is required also. An effective manager communicates with the team and facilitates communication between team contributors.

Read more »

Regardless of your title, you manage something in your organization. As an individual contributor, you manage your day-to-day tasks and longer-term objectives. As a team manager, you guide the work of others, coordinate resources and share responsibility for the results. As the head of a department, you probably manage organizational direction more than people or process.
Adjusting Your Approac…

Read more »

…

Read more »

When Ram Charan talks, it’s a chance for managers to learn. The bestselling author and business consultant has spent 35 years helping executives make tough decisions and become better leaders.

In a recent interview with Harvard Business Review he shares his observations and insights how managers can get better in making tough decisions.
HBR: What has changed the most over the years about how…

Read more »

The Wall Street Journal summarizes nicely the famous management scientist Peter Drucker and his views on the five basic tasks of managers. According to him these tasks are:
1) Sets objectives. The manager sets goals for the group, and decides what work needs to be done to meet those goals.

2) Organizes. The manager divides the work into manageable activities, and selects people to…

Read more »

When the former head of Microsoft’s Windows Business unit shares his perspectives on productivity, it’s a good idea to listen closely. Even though Steven Sinofsky has had to leave Microsoft because his strategy of converging desktop and mobile operating systems did not play out, one key achievement was his turnaround of the Windows Vista debacle and the achievement of strict deadlines with t…

Read more »

Many ambitious managers ask themselves: What are the necessary requirements to build a extraordinary career? A lot of research has been made into this subject and countless principles have been defined that might influence a person’s career trajectory.

In reality all these principles and recommendations are futile, there is just one simple rule that one has to keep in mind to achieve an…

Read more »

Many factors influence the success in business but probably the single most important factor for success in any project or organization is the performance of teams in which employees and managers work together to achieve a common goal.

Therefore a lot of attention should be directed towards forming and leading teams to unlock the high performance necessary to make an impact. When teams ar…

Read more »

Delegation has many real benefits. Not just for you but also for your people and your organization. When you delegate you have a chance to reduce your workload by removing tasks that can be done by other people. This allows you to focus on the really important activities that only you and not your people can do.
It’s time to delegate when …
There are some indicators that will tell you that it…

Read more »