The Manager's Resource Handbook
Tools, Resources and Guides for Managers and Business Leaders. Real Advice from Real Bosses.
Tracked Vs. Unlimited Vacation – The Pros and Cons As the year comes to a close, I find myself running a department that has been operating at about 50% capacity for the past few months. Just like you, as a result of the global health crisis we’ve all ensured, every employee in my department cancelled plans for vacations and holidays
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What to Include in a Business Operating System A business operating system is a comprehensive, cross-functional framework that helps managers standardize and execute their organization’s mission. Further, a business operating system, or BOS, creates a unified way of doing things, from product development, to marketing activities, to how the organization interacts with its customers. An effective BOS will also define
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A Tutorial to Ensure You Meet Your Customer’s Needs and Don’t Forget the Details You’re about to wrap up a big project. You are proud of the work you’ve done, and you believe you covered everything the customer asked. Afterall, you spent a lot of time on it and you’re pretty sure the customer will be happy with it. But
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8 Ways to Improve Customer Service In Small Business As consumers, we each have a story about the time we were treated like royalty just for buying a cup of coffee. And, unfortunately, we all have a memory or two about that time when we weren’t pampered at all, even when making a large purchase. So, what is good customer
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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
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When Your Customer Makes You Cringe: Dealing With Unprofessional Clients During a recent meeting with a client, my patience grew to its thinnest level yet in our working relationship. They were unhappy with schedule, but they were the cause for the delays. They were dissatisfied with our solution to their problem, but it was driven by their written guidelines. They
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The Corner Office: Interviewing Candidates for a Management Position Interviewing and evaluating a job applicant’s fit for your organization is no simple task. Organizations consume a tremendous amount of resources in the recruitment, on-boarding and training of talented workers. Then, after that, we as managers are left with only the hope that the new hire grows and flourishes in the
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21 Expert Tips for Increasing Workplace Productivity If boosting your department’s throughput were as easy as flipping a switch, every boss’s job would be infinitely simpler. Unfortunately, that’s far from reality. Further, as an old colleague of mine used to say, “Asking people to work harder is not a solution.” In the proven strategies that follow, we will illustrate how
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67 Brilliant Principles That Will Make You a Better Manager Every now and then we stumble upon a series of words which hold such powerful meaning and contain such genius that they remain with us for the rest of our lives. Such profound ideas may have jumped out at us from the inner pages of a book, the title of
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I’m Glad I Got an MBA, But it Couldn’t Have Taught Me This For years I wanted to go back to school to pursue my MBA. It seemed like the next logical step in my career, but I put it off for one thing or another. Travel. Family. Cost. Time. Eventually, though, I did get my MBA and I’m very grateful for it.
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How to Negotiate and Manage Customer Requirements Seven years ago, my company was on the losing end of a $4 Million settlement. I could write a lengthy explanation as to how things got there, but it came down to one very simple thing: we gave our customer what we thought they wanted, not what they said they wanted. It was
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When to Outsource? 8 Questions To Ask Yourself if You Are Thinking About Outsourcing To many business leaders, outsourcing may seem like a great solution to just about any problem. Indeed, leveraging outside resources and expertise can certainly enable you to fix issues and to keep your business thriving. However, outsourcing and offshoring typically require a lot of up-front planning, coordination and analysis on your part to
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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
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6 Reasons to Sign a Contract Even if You Won’t Make Money With all the talk about powerhouse brands like Amazon, UBER and Apple, we often hear about companies experiencing rapid growth and making record profits. But these firms are clearly exceptions to the norms that countless small businesses experience. Without a doubt, every business owner wants to be profitable and hopes
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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
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16 Mistakes We Make When Interviewing a Job Candidate Ever feel like you are just asking random questions to a job candidate during an interview? Do you watch the clock just trying to fill the minutes with conversation? Interviewing job applicants to fill an open position on your team is no easy task, and conducting a meaningful interview is a skill
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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
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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
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10 Management Decisions That Drive Business Success Making financial decisions is not limited to just those managers who work in the Accounting department. For both small business and large corporations, whether we realize it or not, every manager and business leader makes decisions on a daily basis that affect their organization’s costs, finances and performance. We at MRH like to refer
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10 Easy Steps to Estimate the Cost of Risk Whether we are developing something new for a customer, or leading an initiative to improve the company, every project we undertake contains some level of uncertainty. Because of this, and particularly when the stakes are high, some level of risk analysis is always a good idea. However, managing risk means more than
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