Not So Lonely at the Top? An Exploratory Study of the Multiple Commitments of Aspiring Leaders

By Brian Welle, Todd Pittinsky

This article appeared in the 2006 issue of Working Papers

Leadership is often viewed as a lonely endeavor, as this quote exemplifies. Leaders are frequently perceived as standing “alone” at the top of the hierarchy. Drive and sustained commitment have been linked to the attainment of leadership positions (McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982), findings that are corroborated by the many public and private sector leaders who have described the years of intense work, perseverance, and sacrifice that led to their success. Traveling the path to career success and leadership positions can come at the expense of developing rewarding relationships with friends and family (e.g., Hewlett, 2002).

Read the remainer of this article in PDF format

leadership

Self-improvement

For information about leadership, management, nutrition, being organised, time management and much more visit the Pivotal Personal Best blog.

self improvement

An Examination of Trust in Contemporary American Society

By Howard Gardner, Jessica Sara Benjamin, Lindsay Pettingill

This article appeared in the 2006 issue of Working Papers

It is hard to imagine a society functioning in the absence of trust. From the smallest incident—crossing the street when the light is green—to the most consequential events—a government fulfilling its pledge to pay Social Security—individuals must be able to rely on individuals and institutions to behave in a reliable and trustworthy manner.

When trust is absent, chaos ensues. Of course, trust should not be given blindly; authentic trust needs to be earned and renewed.

Read the remainer of this article in PDF format »

leadership, trust

Informal Learning - the Untapped resource of Enterprise Training Departments

If you look around yourself, it seems that informal learning is completely ignored in most organizations and that no tools, facilities or appropriate working environments are made available to further support and facilitate independent and self-driven informal learning activities by high performers inside the organization.

This is why the best cure in this direction is to to encourage your organization to start questioning more the validity of providing learning opportunities and facilities that satisfy only a very small percentage of its workforce while greatly handicapping the high performance workers and self-directed learners within it.

Read the whole post

training

Strengthening Business Processes through Rapid User Adoption andWorkflow Learning

Workflow learning describes the process through which individual users of enterprise software learn how their roles, functions and use of enterprise technology contribute to the execution of larger business processes.

This white paper examines the importance of workflow learning and identifies the components of an effective enterprise software training platform to strengthen business processes and enable organizations to keep their competitive edge.

Traditional enterprise software training routinely fails to teach people how their individual activities – and their use ofthe new technology – support larger business processes and strategic corporate objectives.

Employees who fail to make that connection are less likely to understand the larger,more costly ramifications of mistakes and delays that occur in their area.For example,many accounts receivable (A/R) managers may not understand how an A/R entry error can cause a spike in day’s sales outstanding, which marks a crucial financial performance metric for most companies.

Workflow learning shows A/R managers and other users of enterprise software systems how their activities affect organizational performance.

Workflow learning also expedites software implementations by delivering more effective training to end users earlier in the process – and sustains that training and application support well after the go-live date has passed.

Knowledgeable users of enterprise software systems can leverage technology to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of an entire business process,not just of their individual contribution.

A process-savvy A/R manager,for example,is more likely to recognize and point out efficiency improvements that can improve the entire order-to-cash cycle.

For those types of improvements to occur, however,individual employees must know how their activities support larger business processes.

They must also know how to use their enterprise software systems.An effective workflow learning platform addresses both needs and ultimately enables an organization’s people to leverage large technology investments to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes that propel companies past theircompetitors.

Read the whole white paper

workflow,

Connecting the Corporate Dots: Social Networks Reveal How Employees and Companies Operate

What do Wharton faculty members and the workers who spy for the National Security Agency have in common? More than you might think. The Wharton scholars aren't analyzing links among billions of telephone calls to identify terrorists, a controversial NSA activity that caused a stir after it was disclosed recently in news reports. But they, too, are interested in mapping social networks.

Social networking is a hot topic. Ordinary Internet users take advantage of networks when they turn to well-known websites like MySpace and Friendster to link up with other people. But more serious interest in social networks can be found among academics, consultants and corporations seeking to deepen their knowledge of how companies operate; how employees and board members interact; how key employees can be identified; and how relationships can be better understood to improve productivity and the dissemination of ideas.

>> more

social networking, corporate networking

Easy Fundraisers

Everybody wants easy fundraisers. The problem is that you also want good results. So, how do you get the best resultsfrom an easy fundraiser?

Three things to consider in evaluating easy fundraisers:

Read on ...


fundraising

Mission Impossible - a report and reference collection of charity mission and visions

Remember doing exams at school where you just wanted to look other people's answers without the hard work of revising?

Well "Mission Impossible" lets you do just that - for other charities' vision statements.

It takes away all the hard work of trawling through their organisations' websites. Or as they say in the ads - we've done the hard work so you don't have to. "Mission Impossible" brings together over 80 vision statements from a range of organisations in the charity and not for profit sector. We don't claim it's exhaustive or representative, just useful.

Even so the full version is over 100 pages long. We added analysis to the beginning of the collection to give you our thoughts on examples of good practice.

(full report and reference)

mission statements, vision statements, charities

How to get the best out of your next meeting or event.

This industry guide for the professional management of conferences, meetings and events is a useful tool in bid documents for MEA members either via this downloadable version or via the glossy, colour printed hard copy version available from MEA.

The guide outlines the role of a meetings manager in the wider industry mix; lists the range of areas a Meetings Manager may cover; how to choose and brief a meetings manager; contract and commission information; benefits of using accredited meetings managers and associate-fellows; the MEA code of ethics; and more.

A pdf, downloadable version of this brochure is available (right click on the link then "save target as")

events, meetings

Cause for Complaint?How charities manage complaints about their services

The Charity Commission is the independent regulator for charitable activity. This is one of a series of reports that present our case-working experience, supplemented by additional research. Their purpose is to help increase understanding of an issue. They are part of our mission to help charities maximise their impact, comply with their legal obligations, encourage innovation and enhance effectiveness.

This report presents the findings of our research into charities’ working practices and contains ideas you may wish to consider adopting, taking into account your charity’s own unique situation.

Read the report

charity, charitable organisations, complaints,

Resources for Families

This blog is devoted to helping you manage your organisation.

But are you also managing a family?

Then you may be interested in my Resources for Families blog.

Posts cover news and trends in families, tips and information about parenting, family nutrition, homework help, marriage and much more.

Bronwyn's Resources for Families

families

e-fundraising

From a blog called "fundraising - interesting but essential ...

'This will be the future of fundraising. Email is free to use as a means of marketing your fundraiser and has the ability to stay in touch with people interested in supporting your organization no matter where they are. Thankfully an email account usually follows your fundraising friends around. '

Read the whole post

fundraising

Social bookmarking on a corporate intranet

"We describe a technology exploration of social bookmarking within a closed, corporate environment. We hypothesize that such a tool would be valuable for information sharing, information management, and social networking in our organization."

Laurie Damianos, John Griffith, Donna Cuomo, The MITRE Corporation

Read the whole report

social bookmarking, intranet

Free downloads for non-profit organisations

If you're like most busy nonprofit professionals, the last thing you want to do with your time is spend it searching for free software.

While free software abounds on the Internet, actually identifying programs that will meet your needs is a difficult process. That’s where TechSoup’s new Free Downloads section can help. In this section you won’t find a comprehensive list of every free program in existence. What you will find is a short list of excellent applications (for both newbies and geeks) that will meet most nonprofits’ needs for software -- no 30-day downloads, no guilt-trip messages, no crippled features.

The downlaods can be found at Tech soup

non profits

Web Update

I have just updated the Organisation Management web pages - added the folowing articles:

Hiring for Executive Intelligence

Leadership:Leadership: Leading Your Business

Fundraising:Foundations Funding – If The Slipper Fits

leadership, management, fundraising

Learning Styles

The Learning Styles Profiler Software (LSP) is the computerised version of the well known Learning Styles Profiler designed by a leading internationally renowned expert in learning and personality development, Assoc Prof. Chris Jackson.

Twelve years of academic and applied organizational research have gone into the development of this instrument. See definitions of scales and understand item scoring here.

Key Features

Based on a well-developed theoretical model of the neuropsychology of learning

Diagnoses functional learners, dysfunctional learners as well as various other types of learning

Goes beyond the weaknesses of the learning cycle.

The model of learning measures real psychological processes.

Sophisticated questionnaire design

Produces a tailored, useful and well-constructed self-development report

Designed for use within organizations, education, training, community and clinical use

Known reliability and validity: All the stats are clearly reported in the free manual!

360 degree appraisals of learning available to account holders

Management options provide full flexibility of delivery

You can try before you buy!

The LSP is designed to measure how people learn and provides a written report on their learning style and how it can be developed. The LSP is used in business across the world to promote learning and a learning environment.

See the LSP Manual for full information (email us for your free copy) and try a free demonstration report today.The most important thing about the LSP is that it is based on the most up to date and validated biological theory of learning. There is simply no other learning styles questionnaire for business and education with such a good theoretical and design pedigree. Read the detailed and fully referenced section on the development of the LSP based on the neuropsychology of the brain and be reasssured by the sophisticated psychometric properties of the LSP which are also fully reported..Visit the LSP website

learning styles, Organisation management

Getting Your Message Across - an online guide

by Russ Grayson

Guide to producing and publishing information for community, small business and non-government organisations.

A useful online guide for small organisations wanting to get information before the public.

Getting Your Message Across includes:
The Big Picture
Reporting
Online media
News gathering
Strategy

For more information

organisation Management, non profits, NFP,

Voluntary Treasurers' Handbook

A resource from the Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia to help small organisations who rely largely on volunteers.

This publication is intended to help small non-profit organisations.

While the financial resources and skills of personnel will vary enormously, some principles are fundamental to all. Many small organisations have few, if any, paid staff and rely on the work of volunteers.

This handbook has been written to help small organisations and particularly the person carrying the financial responsibility. It attempts to cover, in broad terms, matters that honorary treasurers need to know about in order to keep their organisations on an even financial keel and out of trouble.

Topics covered in Voluntary Treasurer's Handbook:
Finance – A team effort
Legal responsibilities
Record keeping
Classifying Information
Reporting Management
Planning
Cash Management
Shoe-box Accounting
Taxation Issues
The Australian Business Number
Goods & Services Tax
Fringe Benefits Tax
Pay as You Go System
Deductible Gift Recipients
Superannuation Guarantee
Other Taxes
Checklists for Treasurers
Shoe-box Accounting
Find the link here

non-profits, treasurers