Monthly Archives: June 2015

Posted on

9 Keys to Successfully Managing Contractors in Your Organization

How many contractors do you have in your organization? What is your ratio of contractors to employees? Are your contractors deployed strategically and adding value to your organization or are they inefficient and poorly managed?

The use of contractors in the workplace has been a hotly debated topic for literally hundreds of years. The earliest article I was able to find was chapter 12 from Machiavelli’s “The Prince” which he wrote in 1513.

Machiavelli had some pretty harsh words for contractors and those who hired them and there is some truth and relevance in today’s world to what he wrote. However, contrary to his thoughts, contractors can, and do, add a lot of value to an organization when they are deployed and managed correctly.

Posted on

What is a SMaC Recipe and Why Does Your Business Need One?

Does your business have a well-defined operating code for turning your strategic concepts into reality? Does it have a set of practices more enduring than mere tactics that create a replicable and consistent formula for successful outcomes? Do your enduring practices force order amid chaos and impose consistency when slammed by disruption?

This is how Jim Collins defines a SMaC Recipe in his book Great by Choice (SMaC stands for Specific, Methodical and Consistent).

A few weeks ago, I posted about Ray Dalio’s model for business. In this model the “Machine” was responsible for turning vision and goals into outcomes. The Machine consists of people, processes and tools. A SMaC Recipe is the unique combination of people, processes and tools that turn the organization’s vision and goals into outcomes. It is the nerve center of the Machine and it controls how the Machine functions.

Posted on

Six Steps to Business Dominance

J.P. Morgan was an American financier and banker who was a dominant force during his time in the business world 1892 to 1913. He had a deep understanding of business structures and management and he specialized in reorganizing businesses in order to return them to profitability.

He was so good at saving troubled businesses that he got his own noun. Around 1905, the process of turning a firm around financially came to be known as Morganization according to the May, 2009 version of Conde Nast Portfolio magazine.

Over the years, Morgan was involved with the purchase, reorganizing and restructuring of a number of companies including;

Posted on

The One Thing That Will Unleash The Full Potential Of Your Business

“The organizations that successfully show employees the link between the purpose of their work and the strategy for achieving their goals, unleash their maximum potential.” Rich Horwath

 

This is a great quote from Rich Horwath in his book Deep Dive. He makes it very clear that the “one thing” every business needs to be successful is to clearly show employees the link between their work and how it contributes to achieving the overall business strategy. In doing this, you engage the employee, at their level in the organization, to contribute to a cause that is greater than themselves. They can clearly see and buy into what the organization is doing and what it stands for.

Business leaders have spent a lot of time and money struggling to find a way to get their employees really engaged at work. I have seen and heard of things like;