I was once trapped in a room listening to a speaker talk about goal setting. You know the feeling, it’s a topic you’ve heard many times before and you are confident that there is nothing new you can learn. The best you can do is hope for an interesting presenter and sit in the back so you can check your email. Therefore, I was surprised when I experienced a big Aha! moment in the middle of the presentation.
READ MOREDuring a follow up call with Marie, a Strategic Plan-tingWorkshop attendee, she mentioned that she was still working on her strategic priority for the quarter: updating her website. She was excited that she was making progress, but mentioned it wasn’t going as fast as she had indicated it should when she created her action plan for the task.
I smiled in response to her remarks for two reasons.
READ MOREOne of my favorite things to do when I go into the city is to visit Di Bruno Bros. I can’t count the number of times that I walked past their door without going in. Something would draw me to their door, I would peek through the window and I would see what I thought was a tiny center city Philadelphia grocery store. And then I would keep walking. After all, I took the train in and didn’t have a cooler. How was I going to take fresh foods home with me?
READ MOREKaren,
Would you please provide me with some tips for writing a written warning? I’ve found samples on-line but they don’t always fit my needs.
Jordan, PA
Dear Jordan,
As I mentioned last month, there are two elements to writing a good written warning: layout and content. This month I will concentrate on including effective content in your memo.
READ MOREOg Mandino says that one of the biggest determinants of success is persistence. Persistence is characterized by a willingness to keep putting in the time and keep trying. When you fail you get up and go again. Some days, this is harder than others.
I clearly remember one of those days. One of my clients was in the middle of a crisis that seriously endangered their ability to continue in business in the long run. I had nothing to do with how they arrived at this point; and I did not have the power to ensure that they could go on. It’s crushing and humbling, especially since I had invested myself in their business on an emotional level.
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I remember the day clearly. It was February 2011 and I had just finished adding a Google campaign that had 2 sub-campaigns and 4 different Google ads. Why do I remember it so clearly? Because it took only 35 minutes which is nothing short of a miracle. The last time I had set up a Google campaign it took me more than 3 hours to place just 2 ads.
Karen,
Would you please provide me with some tips for writing a written warning? I’ve found samples on-line but they don’t always fit my needs.
Jordan, PA
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If you don’t care whether your ethics training is resulting in any behavioral changes, please go ahead and lecture. If, however, you want your employees to be actively engaged in ethics training you might want to try something different.
READ MOREAre you one of the many small business owners that resist creating policies and procedures? It’s understandable since almost everyone has either experienced or knows someone who has experienced the horrors of bureaucracy. In fact, a large percentage of small business owners vow that they will do it differently in their company.
READ MORE“Strategy is not planning – it is the making of an integrated set of choices that collectively position the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage relative to competition and deliver superior financial returns.” Roger Martin, Dean of Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto
Whew – what a mouth full. If you get this, I mean really get it down to your soul, then feel free to move on to another of our blog posts or click on the link and read Roger Martin’s full blog on the Harvard Business Review blogsite. If you have no idea what this means or are not sure, then keep reading because this is an important statement for small business owners to both understand and embody.
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