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Decision making models

Whether your business is a tiny retail operation or a multi-store conglomerate, change is unavoidable. In order to adjust to the many variables you encounter on a daily basis, you and your staff will inevitably need to make decisions. Exactly how you choose to go about doing so has been the subject of study and…

How to improve business communication

Learning how to improve business communication isn’t as daunting as it may sound. If you’re like most people these days, you spend over a third of your life engaging in work activities. With that in mind, doesn’t it make sense to make that 33 percent-plus time block flow as smoothly as possible? PUT COMMUNICATION IN…

Organisational Development – Active Leadership

Organisational development is about people. Have you ever noticed people from the same organisation often use the same language, phrases, clothing style or references when they talk? Some groups of people can have a high level of energy and see many solutions while others express negativity or see things in black and white terms. …

Barriers to Effective Listening: 4 Issues That You Can Eradicate Today

Barriers to effective listening can cause many types of communication issues. The truth is, much training and attention is given to making people better at speaking and getting their point across. The thing that’s often overlooked is the supply side of the communication loop. And that’s listening. And nearly all areas of your life can…

How To Improve Employee Engagement – The Fundamentals

If you’re looking at how to improve employee engagement, here are the fundamentals of what it is and what to focus on to improve it. The fact is, engagement remains the ultimate prize for employers. Let’s face it, economic pressures and glottalization means that nearly all companies are trying to get more out with less…

How Important is Employee Engagement? Here Are The Stats

I was recently asked by a business owner, “how important is employee engagement, anyway?” And so I thought I would share some reasoning behind Employee engagement and its importance. Employee Engagement Defined But first, what’s employee engagement? Employee engagement is about getting the right conditions in place to enable employees to give their best…

6 principles of good interview questions

16 Good Interview Questions (Including 11 Great Ones) to Help You separate the Wheat From the Chaff

When it comes to running interviews, having good interview questions can separate you from employing the next high flier to that resource sapping problem child. Let’s face it, there are three things you need to get right (and answer comprehensively): Can they do the job? How do they react under pressure? How well do they…

3 Critical Business Process Improvement Tools to Reduce Defects and Improve Productivity

When it comes to business process improvement tools, there’s no silver bullet. That’s the bad news… But, there are 3 critical business process improvement tools, which are close to it. And that’s the good news. I’m not going to describe the standard DMAIC, lean six sigma tools. Or Quality Management Tools. I’m going to describe…

DMAIC Methodology: 5 Steps to Eliminate Root Causes

DMAIC methodology is another problem-solving framework that’s designed to hunt out and eliminate problems. Very similar to its cousin, the PDCA cycle, it has its origins from TQM movement. It’s used extensively when applying Six Sigma to process improvement, but the DMAIC methodology is used by many also as a way of following improvements in a…

Plan Do Check Act: A Simple 4 Step Problem Solving Methodology

Plan Do Check Act is a framework that was created by quality guru, Edward Deming as a way of structuring problem solving and continuous improvement. It’s simple in its approach but very powerful in its delivery. The generic steps of PDCA are: Plan – Identify the problem, where you want to be and gather the…

13 Quality Management Tools to Drive Process Improvements

There are some essential and popular quality management tools that’ve been around since the dawn of time (or at least it seems that way). Why are they used? To understand problems better. And to make informed decisions, based on data. When used correctly, they can help identify issues, trends and root causes, quickly. And provide…

Why Problem Solving in Business Usually Fails

Problem solving in business sounds simple, but it’s hard to do correctly. There’s normally lots of variables that demand attention of resources across any business: Customer complaints Quality problems On time delivery issues Staff issues Cashflow problems Profitability issues Things not going to plan Sales not hitting objectives Equipment failures Overheads to pay Not enough…

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