Posted by Editor on November 23, 2010 under Business Mentor | 
Putting together the “dream team” for your business can be as easy as taking an “action” rather than “information approach.”
With a plethora of training options open to employers it can often be puzzling when trying to find the strategies that are going to achieve results.
There is one basic rule to apply when considering your next team building exercise.
“Dream teams” are not built through information or training alone.
Seminars, competency training, reading books and watching videos are all helpful strategies but as the age old adage goes “action speaks louder than words.”
Being able to perform tasks during training is not the same as applying them on a day to day basis. Just as information does not automatically change behaviors.
For example, we read about the dangers of smoking but many people still engage in this behavior.
Environment is one of the key factors in influencing your team’s success. People base their behavior on their beliefs about themselves and their environment.
Can they have a positive impact on their environment?
Does this environment support positive behavior?
Team members should feel that they have the capability to contribute in their environment. This means giving them the right equipment and environment to be effective is essential. It also helps if they feel safe to contribute their opinion and feedback in a supportive environment.
But how do you find this out?
You simply have to ask.
Ask your team if they think there are factors in their environment which could be improved to help them be more efficient, productive or happy. Perhaps they may prefer music while they work, better light, or flexible hours. Many organizations have realized the importance of employee satisfaction on the bottom line.
Workplaces now can include facilities such as childcare or the benefits of ergonomically designed work stations.
Beliefs are the key motivators in peoples’ behaviour.
However, changing your team members beliefs is not an easy or swift task.
Recruiting the right people through personality instruments and team interviews can be one strategy but understanding their beliefs can be important in identifying other strategies.
Common beliefs limiting team performance include:
Feedback: “I have some constructive feedback but expressing it may cause a confrontation – best to keep it to myself.”
Delegation: “The only way to get the job done properly is to do it myself.”
Sales: “Real salespeople are dishonest, pushy and arrogant.”
Changing beliefs such as these can be a daunting challenge.
Team leaders need to facilitate change by designing flexible experiences for people in organizations to learn that “maybe there is a different way to look at this.”
Experiential learning such as climbing trees and playing games aren’t just used because they are fun and help build relationships but because they work. Multiple and varied experiences must be used to inspire new ways of seeing and thinking about things.
Reframing opens the mind to new beliefs and behavior.
Information and ideas are not enough they need to be engrained in day to day activity. You need to look at training options and ask what beliefs in this organisation may hamper or aid in achieving the desired outcome?
How can our work environment be changed to support flexibility and greater productivity or what experiences will help foster changes in belief and behaviours?
Team building is not an exact science but a cast of finding the best strategies available to bring out the potential in your team.
For more information on ActionCOACH, call or contact an ActionCOACH in your area today.
Posted by Editor on November 22, 2010 under Business Mentor |
Systems are your way of empowering your team to do large parts of your job just as if you were doing it personally.
They can reduce your hours and stress by getting average people to do a great job … sound fantastic?
Well, it is easy once you know a couple of tricks …
Four “Tricks of the Trade” for Creating Systems
1. Work until it becomes simple. If the system is complex, then keep working! When you really understand something, and present it well, it will become simple. For example, written procedures can often be clarified by presenting them as checklists or tables.
2. Only write systems that make money (or reduce a big risk). We are not the government and not in the business of creating manuals, so only create a system if it simplifies a task, improves quality, or speeds up a service. This will keep you focused. Forget your big company or corporate experience of many volumes that mainly gather dust. Rather, the trick is to start small and let it grow with time.
3. Make sure your precious systems are being used. As you create systems, build into them monitoring systems, so that at a glance you can see if they are being used. Changing the culture of your company takes time and there will be failures. Even when the culture has changed, it needs to be maintained; your monitoring systems will do of this for you.
4. Make sure your team members knows the positions they play. Unfortunately, it is normal for most team members to disagree on what needs to be done while at the same time believing everyone knows their job roles. Clear written and agreed upon roles will remove the need for 75% of systems. So start here.
By now you truly understand the best systems look very unimpressive … the genius is getting them to look that way.
The ActionCOACH Official Cheat List of Popular Systems …
- Checklists
- Quick contact lists
- Job or quote pads
- Position contracts
- Standard letters
- Team “Code of Honor”
- Performance standards
- Meeting minutes
- Procedure manual using photographs
- Procedure manual using videos
- Weekly or job budgets
- Wall signs and instruction labels
- Test and measure sheets
Survey your competitors for ideas … When you can run your business working a three-day week and your team can create systems for you … then you really understand this topic.
For more information on ActionCOACH, contact an ActionCOACH Business Coach in your area today.
Posted by Editor on November 11, 2010 under Business Mentor |
If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you know (sometimes all too well) about business cycles.
The long economic winter most of us have had as a result of the GFC (global financial crisis) has turned into spring in some parts of the world.
However, in many individual small businesses, economic winter is still raging.
If you and your business are currently in economic winter, what can you do?
Run lean.
Cut as many expenses as you can without sacrificing the quality of your product or service.
Grow your way out.
Then, start to work on a plan that will help you grow your way into your own version of economic spring, and a sunny economic summer.
How?
Develop a system to sell more to current customers, get new customers to your door and develop a referral system to generate new business.
Finally, get help.
There are more resources now than ever for getting new business, running a better business, changing your mindset and developing marketing plans that work.
But if you need a personalized approach to keep you on track and hold you accountable to what you say you want to do … hiring a personal business mentor in the form of an ActionCOACH Business Coach may be the answer you are looking for (and the help you need).
Discover the value of a personal business mentor for your business today … and start to turn your own business winter into an economic spring.
Then, you’ll be prepared to prosper when economic spring turns finally to our next economic summer.
Posted by Editor on November 10, 2010 under Business Mentor |
Small business is the engine of any economy.
Even in long-controlled economies such as those in China and tightly regulated economies such as those in India are realizing the value of the owner and entrepreneur in society.
So … as an owner of a small business, you have a very important role to play in the growth not only of your business, but in the richness and vibrancy of your community and the lives of your customers.
If things are going great in your business … great!
How are you going to take it to the “next level”?
If things aren’t going so great in your business … now is the time to get them fixed, so you can take advantage of the next economic boom, which is never very far away.
Remember, business (just like the seasons) goes in cycles. Just as sure as spring follows winter, the seeds of the next economic spring are now beginning to blossom.
Are you ready for the next boom?
Do you have a systemized way of generating new customers for your business?
Do you add value instead of discount?
Do you know your numbers inside and out?
A personal business mentor in the form of an ActionCOACH Business Coach can help take a successful business to new height … and a struggling business to profitability (maybe for the first time ever).
So discover the value of ActionCOACH today … and contact a Business Coach near you for a complimentary coaching session.
Posted by Editor on November 9, 2010 under Business Mentor |
Getting help from a personal business mentor sounds simple and easy, but in reality (for most owners), simple isn’t always easy.
Why?
Because you are used to doing things a certain way … and what could an outside business mentor possibly know about you, your business or the industry in which you operate?
But what if your business mentor could show you a proven and personalized system to run a better business?
What if you realized (maybe for the first time) that all business are essentially the same, all driven by the same 5 factors that multiply profits?
What if your business mentor could guide you with proven principles that have worked for thousands before you?
What if you could be open and willing to hear the things that you know are wrong with your business … and your personal business mentor had the tools to turn things around for you, and you had the courage to make things right?
Now is a great time to re-tune or fine tune your business with the help of a personal business mentor in the form of an ActionCOACH Business Coach.
Discover the value good coaching can have for you and your business, and the incredible results great coaching can produce for your company.
Posted by Editor on November 4, 2010 under Business Mentor |
A good business mentor and Business Coach can help you make changes in your company and can guide you to improve your company culture, productivity and profitability.
An ActionCOACH Business Coach and business mentor will guide you through hundreds of proven strategies that have been tested and measured in companies worldwide.
A good business mentor knows that business isn’t simply limited to your business. Part of the work of a business mentor is to show you how you can find balance in all areas of your life.
The most important factor when looking for a business mentor is you.
If you aren’t ready to make changes, then you with a little searching on your end, your business mentor will appear.
Our hope is that after you search ActionCOACH, the business mentor you choose will be an ActionCOACH Business Coach.
Posted by Editor on November 3, 2010 under Business Mentor |
A good personal business mentor and the process of business coaching forces both team members and management to be accountable.
One of the most important tenants of a personal business mentor relationship and a business coaching program is to show owner how a a lack of accountability can be deadly in any business.
A poorly structured company lacking in accountability will produce a dysfunctional workplace.
Effective results can only flow from a system of accountability that applies to everyone, and that is something a business mentor or Business Coach can help implement.
A good business mentor can also show you how to develop outstanding employees to levels of competent leadership.
An effective business mentor or Business coaching program should emphasize Leadership Development.
This gives you and your team something to shoot for and allows them to become stronger, more self-sufficient employees.
Finally, a good business mentor and Business Coach will show you how to add value and show value to your team.
A good business mentor will show you how to develop systems where team can see the value in what they’ve accomplished see good work reinforced.
This not only leads to better attitudes and better performance, but validates the business mentor and business coaching program.
Posted by Editor on November 1, 2010 under Business Mentor |
Can a personal business mentor help you enhance your team’s talent and improve your bottom line?
Having an ActionCOACH Business Coach as your personal business mentor can show you how to focus on Performance Management … and its definitions, goals and situations.
For Performance Management to work as proscribed through a personal business mentor and ActionCOACH Business Coach, everybody needs to be invested in the concept. This is called Employee Engagement.
An ActionCOACH Business Coach and business mentor will show you that the more engaged a team member is, the more he or she has invested with his employer.
Once someone feels they are part of a team, they should feel accountable to their fellow team members.
Accountability is always important and a good business mentor or Business Coach will guide you to best implement these types of programs in your business.
So if you are ready to see the difference a good business mentor or Business Coach can make in your business, contact ActionCOACH today.
Posted by Editor on October 27, 2010 under Business Mentor |
If you need someone you can trust, a fresh perspective on your business and a sounding board, a business mentor can be essential.
At ActionCOACH we work with all types of businesses to give them the business mentoring they need to be successful.
How can a business mentor help you?
First ask yourself what are the biggest challenges facing your business?
Whatever your answer is a business mentor can help.
Your business mentor will be vital to your business’ success but just as importantly, a strong business mentor will also be a key to finding the balance in life that you’ve always wanted.
No matter what, from company culture to lack of productivity or just general issues with your bottom line, a business mentor is there to provide you with the tools to make changes for the better.
At ActionCOACH, we know how important the business mentor relationship is.
That is why we focus on only the best in the business mentor field and make them available for you.
If you’re looking for a personal business mentor who can give you real strategies to change the problems in your business, look no further than ActionCOACH.
Posted by Editor on October 26, 2010 under Business Mentor |
Having a personal business mentor can be very useful in today’s economic climate.
Because it is vitally important for a company to use every advantage available, a personal business mentor with proven business coaching experience provides education, motivation and, most importantly, a neutral party who can improve your team’s performance.
How can a business mentor help your bottom line?
• Performance Management. This is an employee appraisal that focuses on definitions, goals and, situations. A good business mentor will lead this process for constructive feedback as well as a coaching development and improvement plan.
• Employee Engagement. A business mentor and Business Coach will teach you that the more engaged an employee is, the more he has invested with his employer. Rather than being just an employee, a business mentor will help people feel part of the team.
• Accountability. This is important and a business mentor and Business Coach holds accountability in very high regard. A poorly structured company lacking in accountability will produce a dysfunctional workplace, which could lead to personality conflicts and possibly bigger problems.
So if you are looking for ways to add value to your company and your team, look to bring a personal business mentor or Business Coach on board.
It may be the best business decision you’ve ever made.
