Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Meeting Success Tip

Prepare a written agenda for your meeting. Make sure that everyone at the meeting is aware of it, and if necessary, have the meeting agree to it. Then you refer to the agenda to keep discussion focussed.

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Sunday, March 20, 2005

Target Marketing for your organisation

So who is your ideal member? What does the profile look like? Is he male, aged 28-35, living within 5 kilometres of the meeting venue, a lawyer by vocation and needing mediation skills? Or is it anyone aged 18-60, living in your town, undergoing changes in their life and needing assertiveness skills? Compile a list of these characteristics. Then this is the group you are targeting with your marketing. Theirs are the needs you are promising to meet. Theirs are the dreams you may be articulating for them and promising to turn into reality. Their needs will govern your venue type. They are the people for whom you will plan and market programmes and training, and they are the people you will target with your “Word of mouth.’

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Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Team-Building

Creating teams within your organistion can be a challenge. Creating a shared vision and the ability to motivate are an excellent start. Read our free article on Delegating which is really about building teams.

But I have also come across this useful set of tips for great team-building.


Building Strong Teams
1/ Have very few rules – If there’s too many no one reads them . Or conversely an organization can be so rule driven that nothing gets done. Don’t set up rules based on hypothetical situations that may never happen. As your team grows and you gain experience through making mistakes your new rules can be built around your mistakes.

2/ What is your Mission - Different from the goal( A goal measures whether your on purpose or if you fallen off purpose. If you want to go to Los Angeles that is a goal if you end up in Chicago you are off goal. Focus on Mission Be on purpose at all times . Continuity keeps you focused with measurable team goals… helps you to measure whether your on purpose

3/ Speak in a manner that supports others or don’t speak.. Demeaning language not acceptable. Drains people. Swearing creates a negative environment. Words are tools… the most powerful tool we have… can hurt someone or build them.

How often have you been hurt by people’s words. The old adage … if you can’t say something good about someone don’t say it.. Bad language changes the whole vibe of an organization

4/ Acknowledge the other persons point of view. Listen to their point of view. You may learn something you didn’t know before. You may gain valuable info.


Continue reading "Building Strong Teams"

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Sunday, March 13, 2005

DO YOU HAVE THE QUALITIES TO BE A GREAT LEADER?

Do you have the personal qualities to be a great leader?

Leaders have

1. Flexibility. Leaders must be able to adapt to change, and have their organisation able to do so too.

2. Judgement. To be able to make the right choice at the right time

3. Courage. Courage is based on belief in one’s decisions, the courage to make a choice and stand by it, or to adapt to changing situations, and new information

4. Knowledge. A leader needs to have the knowledge necessary to do the job – knowledge of the technical side of the organisation and of the people. That knowledge must be kept constantly up to date.

5. Will power. To stick with choices and decisions and to see them implemented. And to be able to stay flexible and responsive to all inputs.

6. Integrity. The foundation stone for all of these is integrity. We all respond to integrity

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Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Leadership Success Tip

Peter Garrett, an Australian politician commented on the leadership example of Nelson Mandela:

" ... he had the strength of will to endure a long period of hardship, the change of heart to see his opponents as human and the intelligence to see that offering light at the end of the tunnel is always preferable to blocking the way or trying to blow up obstacles."

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Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Writing to communicate effectively

With email and text messaging becoming so prevalent, there is a tendency to become slack in all writing and this is something that is impacting on businesses and organisations. This was highlighted in an article in the New York Times entitled What Corporate America cannot build: A sentence."

There are two aspects to communication. Getting your message read and understood, and creating an impression. If the writing is difficult to understand, then the message will not be read. We are all just too busy. If it is too awkwardly written it will not be understood, and in fact could be seriously misunderstood. Put these two together and you have a recipe for an impression that you will definitely not want to create for your organisation.

Ken O'Quinn is a writing coach who provides href="http://www.writingwithclarity.com/writingtip.htm">tips for writers who want to be able to write with clarity.

Take the time to ensure that your organisation and the people you train communicate with clarity and present an acceptable impression of your organistion.
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