The Manager's Resource Handbook
Tools, Resources and Guides for Managers and Business Leaders. Real Advice from Real Bosses.
9 Tips for Supervising Frustrated Employees in Tough Times Managing a team is tough business. Meeting deadlines, tracking budgets, developing your staff and managing employee performance are just some of the things we are responsible for. Outside factors and difficult customers add to the stress, but the role becomes infinitely more difficult when the team you’re managing is noticeably unhappy.
» Read more
How to Make Sure Customer Requests Don’t Eat Up Your Profits When you bid on a new project, you make assumptions, estimate your costs, factor in some potential risks and contingency funds, and add profit. But inevitably, your customer asks for more and the scope, schedule and requirements begin to drift, increasing your costs and resource demands. If you try
» Read more
At one point or another, virtually every business must adapt to changing times. In some instances, your product offering becomes stagnant. Perhaps your competitor has unveiled something new and is taking market share away from you. And, from time to time, technology advancements will make your current products and services obsolete. In all cases, we as business leaders must respond in such
» Read more
Is Managing Change The Ultimate Program Management Challenge? For 18 months now, my team has been negotiating scope changes with a given client to offset our increases in cost. Per our contract, we have the right to seek commercial coverage and have the ability to charge the customer for change. We went into this particular business deal expecting delays before all was said and
» Read more
10 Essential Project Management Resources If you think about the best project manager you know, chances are he or she shares some common traits. For starters, successful project leaders are typically very well organized. Additionally, they are often great communicators, and they can remain calm under pressure. Despite these great talents, though, even the best project managers need help to bring about
» Read more
How to Retain Good Employees There are two things that unite every manager and business leader, in every industry, and in every country. First, they want the best talent working in their organization. And second, they want their talented workers to stay. But this is no longer the working environment of the past generations when people remained with the same
» Read more
How To Create and Implement Organizational Vision Last week, my friend Charlie was telling me about his job. He described how he felt directionless and was not sure how he fit into the big picture. High up in his organization, Charlie has been a tremendous asset to his organization over the years. I found it strange: how can someone with
» Read more
How Great Businesses Fail and What We Can Learn From Them We all know that there is one constant in the business world: things are always changing. Every day, there are new technologies, legislative decisions and geopolitical events that shape the world around us. The pace of such change continues to accelerate, and throughout it all we see businesses come and go. How, in such
» Read more
Isn’t the Customer Always Right? Actually, no, they aren’t! In the B2B space, we often find ourselves working with clients and customers to develop and sell our products and services. And yet, sometimes, things do not always go as planned. I recently paid a visit to one customer who has started to change the rules as they go. Despite the contractual commitments
» Read more
15 Ways I Manage My Time As a Boss It’s just about that time of year when things are at their busiest. With the end of the year closing in, the pressure is on to meet our numbers. We’re busy planning our projects and budgets for next year. People are starting to use up their vacation, making their availability limited.
» Read more
The 7 Rules of Process Development and Implementation Your growing business has a great product, friendly customer service, happy clients and cash. What’s missing? An often forgotten ingredient to a well-run business is the development and implementation of the processes that serve as the backbone for a company. Developing effective business processes makes your internal activities repeatable and consistent. And the more stable your
» Read more
Humility. It’s the emotion you’ll feel the first time one of your employees resigns. You’ll likely ask yourself a few pointed questions: Did I do something wrong? Can I persuade them to change their mind? Are they just using this as leverage to get something they want? All good questions. When an employee gives their notice that they will be leaving,
» Read more
Making Organizational Changes in Support of Your Future Success A college professor of mine once told me “There is no book on that. Sometimes you just need to get in and figure your way out.” Knowing when to restructure a business is one of those things. Though there are books on organizational theory and team dynamics, there is no textbook out there telling us exactly
» Read more
What Is Structured Problem Solving and Why Use It? I was asked to attend a meeting by the manufacturing manager. “We have a problem” he said. He had been alerted to a defect with hardware being processed through the production floor. Initial information suggested that during some of the molding processes, some parts were noted to have cracked while the molten
» Read more
Why Consider a Horizontal Integration Strategy? Just about every firm continuously tweaks and looks for new ways to optimize their operation in the pursuit of growth and profits. In the early 2000s, made even more possible by a rapidly expanding internet, just about every industry seemed to jump on the outsourcing bandwagon. The thought was simple: why expend internal resources on
» Read more
How to Manage Change in Business Everyday, our industry and market changes. Our staff will change. And leaders of our organizations move on, and new ones take their place. All of this forces us as business leaders to constantly keep tabs on our organization to make sure things run smoothly. Unfortunately, with such dynamics many businesses
» Read more How Operating Procedures Can Reduce Competitive Advantage Every business wants financial growth that is stable, predictable and comes with minimal risk. This desire, though, goes against the age-old adage that says the higher one’s risk, the greater the potential reward. Ultimately, every business must strike balance on a sliding scale between the profit reward it seeks and the risk it is will willing
» Read more
How to Change the Culture of a Team Two years ago, I took the management role for an organization of about 40 people. My predecessor had been asked to leave the business as the team’s performance had gradually been on the decline. My task was to turn the team organization around – no small feat as an outsider to the organization
» Read more
How to Restructure an Organization If you’ve ever been part of restructuring of an organization, you know that the very mention of it can induce a sense of worry. Restructuring a company is tough and takes a great deal of careful planning. Moreover, business renewal is never easy nor is it fun because big decisions need to be made that affect
» Read more