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Meeting Success Tip for the Week"

You can use confrontation. Turn it around. Approach it without apologies, avoid emotional involvement and use facts. Then turn it into a joint problem solving exercise.

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meetings

organisations

How Organizations Create Social Value

by Manda Salls

A recent study on the factors that contribute to successful high-performance social enterprises finds a connection between enterprises that link economic value with social value.

This was the focus of a study presented at the colloquium, "The Social Enterprise Knowledge Network: Seeking Success in Social Enterprise," ending August 1. This two-year study was the second carried out by SEKN since it was founded in 2001 as a research partnership between HBS and leading business schools in Latin America and Spain. SEKN's research centered on smart practices by social and business organizations in Latin America and Spain.

This research will be published in Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies book series through Harvard University Press.
The goal of the colloquium is to help leaders in businesses and society create social value for their communities, while in parallel strengthening their organizations.

The study centered on forty organizations—twenty NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and twenty corporations—deemed to be high performers in social enterprise (SE). Through interviews, field research, and comparative analysis, HBS professor James Austin, HBS senior researcher Ezequiel A. Reficco, UNIANDES professor Roberto Gutiérrez, and INCAE professor Enrique Ogliastri presented what the SEKN researchers found to be smart practices for organizations wanting to create social value.

The researchers stressed the importance of synergies between Economic Value (EV) and Social Value (SV), calling them "two sides of the same coin." By aligning EV and SV, both nonprofits and corporations can: ...

Read on ...

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organisations
management

Web pages for kids

Whizz kids pages include games and puzzles, books and reading, homework help and an ezine.

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kids
organisations

Meeting success Tip

When you are using speech to convince at a meeting, use hard-hitting words like think rather than terms such as feel or hope.

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meetings
organisations
communication

Leadership self-assessment

This questionnaire is based on the 4E's Leadership Framework, and was designed by Mick Yates. It helps you self-assess how well you are doing in using the 4E's Leadership activities, and provides directional pointers on how you can improve.

Please answer each question on a scale of 1-5 (1 being the lowest score and 5 being the highest).
Consider the context in which you are answering the questions - are you answering to help yourself lead better, with a view to helping your work team, or with the aim of comparing notes with others taking the self assessment? Keep this context in mind as you answer each series of questions.

Check it out …


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leadership
organisations
management

Effective reporting part 3 - the presentation of the report

Welcome to Part 3 of this series on Writing reports.

We have looked at Preparing the Report, and at Construction and Style. In this post, let's look at the Presentation of the Report

The report needs to go to the right person at the right time. "Right" may be determined by a set schedule. You may have a schedule of reporting to a certain person at particular times. Or someone may have commissioned the report and asked it to be presented by a particular date.

Obviously you need to deliver the report on time. Other operations of the organisation may depend for their success on that timing. But whether the report is on time or delivered late will also impact on your image within the organisation. Do you want to be seen as reliable and efficient? Then report on time.

If the report is presented verbally, then all of the techniques of public speaking come into play. Speaking clearly and loudly enough to be heard are obvious, but make sure you can be heard, and understood, or your content will be lost. You will need to convince, again, of your image - sincerity and professionalism are important. Use eye contact to convince of your sincerity and commitment. Use it, too, to emphasise points you are making. Employ variation in pitch and pace, and use pause to emphasis points, too. But they will also keep our audience's attention, even if it is an audience of one.

Only read what is written. Keep extraneous comments, explanations or last minute thoughts for the time before or after the presentation.

Remember that no matter how hard you worked at your job, however efficient you may have been, however good your idea, if you cannot communicate effectively, it will have been lost. This report is your communication link, use it well.

The fourth and final part in this series on reporting will finish with a list of the main Taboos and Dos of Reporting.


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communication
organisations
reports

Communication skill - consider personal space

Consider personal space when you are involved in communication. Look for signals from the other person or group that indicate that you may have violated personal space or made yourself too distant. Both have the power to detract from your communication success.

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communication
organisations

Building expert power - lead from the front

By James Manktelow

There are many types of power that leaders can use.

These include problematic ones such as the power of position, the power to give rewards, the power to punish and the power to control information. While these types of power do have some strength, they put the person being lead in an unhealthy position of weakness, and can leave leaders using these power bases looking autocratic and out of touch.
More than this, society has changed hugely over the last 50 years. Citizens are individually more powerful, and employees are more able to shift jobs. Few of us enjoy having power exerted over us, and some will do what they can to undermine people who use these sorts of power.

However there are three types of positive power that truly effective leaders use:
Charismatic power, expert power and referent power.

This article teaches the technique of building expert power.

Read on


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leadership
management

Organisation Success Tip - hypermanics

Begin the Hunt for Hypomanics!

From Tom Peters

Reread: "These men were outrageous—arrogant, provocative, unconventional, and unpredictable. They were not 'well adjusted' by normal standards but instead forced the world to adjust to them. ... Without their irrational confidence, ambitious vision, and unstoppable zeal, these outrageous captains would never have sailed into unknown waters, never discovered new worlds, never changed the course of our history." To survive competitively in the turbulent decades ahead we need to find & cherish such people. What—exactly—is your "Hypomanic Recruitment Plan?" (No kidding. It may be the most serious question you ever try to answer.)

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Management

Organisation Success Tip - Do unto others

Do Unto Others ...

The goal of every action, every meeting, every project:MAKE OTHERS SUCCESSFUL!

Can you honestly say that the questions you asked at the very last meeting you attended were ... directly & unequivocally ... about making others successful?

Read on ...and click on Success Tips

Management

The Qualities Of Skillful Leadership

By Jim Rohn
If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself.

Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent.

I call leadership the great challenge of life.

What's important in leadership is refining your skills.

All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective.

Here are some specifics:

Read on ...

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leadership
management

Build your communication skills

Are you interested in developing your communication skills?

Do you love to write?

Are you interested in reading?

Visit my Pivotal Communication pages.

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communication

Leadership Success Tip

Your planning and delegation will be so much more effective if you can estimate accurately the amount of work, time and effort needed to accomplish a task. Start by consciously evaluating your skills in this area.

Marketing Strategies

Marketing Strategies Revealed - ADMA Forum 2006
The Australian Direct Marketing Association's ADMA Forum 2006 offers marketing strategies from some of the world’s leading brands and a learning experience for the Not for Profit sector with a flexible conference program as well as free seminars and exhibitions.

The three-day conference program and exhibition is being held at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour from Wednesday 24th to Friday 26th of May.

Effective organisational reports - construction and style

This is the second part of a series of posts on Writing and Presenting Reports that are effective.

Part One looked at preparing for the report.

Part Two will give you tips on construction and style.

To get your report read and used, be sure to include the date and reason for the report.


Formatting can vary between organisations, and between reports, depending on protocol, precedence and the reason for the report. But in general the sequence should be:

The title must indicate who is reporting and the subject. Follow this, if necessary, with an address, if the report is addressed to the specific person or group.

The opening of the report gives the reason for the report - the terms of reference. It includes the problem to be investigated, who authorised the report, and the names of the person/people responsible for the report.

The body covers details of the investigation, including timing; and the points discussed, a summary of the information obtained, opinions formed and the action taken or decisions made.

Finally, the conclusion covers recommendations for action or results of action taken.

Style

Reports should be in the third person.

Use a logical structure to present the information so it can be understood and have the required impact.

Avoid long and complicated verbiage.

Be as brief as you can while keeping accuracy and covering the necessary points.

And be explicit, so that there is no opportunity for misunderstanding.

Truth leaders need truth tellers

When former Enron VP Sherron Watkins testified in court about her role in warning higher-ups that the house of cards was sure to fall, you realize the important role that truth tellers can play for leaders when they listen! Read on ...

Public speaking resources

Learn to make speeches with confidence, how to write a speech and how to create an impact with your audience. Pivotal Public Speaking has resources, tips, articles and courses to help you overcome your fear of public speaking and polish your presentations.

Leadership success tip

We must always be alert to the problems team members may cause, and their weaknesses. But the strength of the team and its leader will be based on the ability to also see the best value in each other. We must not waste that value. And as individuals, we will always rise to the best value people see in us.

Are you management material?

Many people end up in managerial roles by default, not necessarily because they had all the attributes that a great manager really needs. You have to have certain skills and abilities to manage others successfully.

Discover if you have what it takes to be a highly effective manager.

Take our Free Assessment today click here