Change management plays an important role in any organisation since the task of managing change is not an easy one. When we say managing change we mean to say that making changes in a planned and systemic fashion. With reference to the IT projects we can say the change in the versions of a project and managing these versions properly. Changes in the organisation or a project can be initiated from within the organisation or externally. For example a product that is popular among the customers may undergo a change in design based on the triggering factor like a competitive product from some other manufacturer. This is an example of external factor that triggers a change within the organisation. How the organisation responds to these changes is what that is more concerned. Managing these changes come under change management. Reactive and proactive responses to these changes are possible from an organisation.

Change management is done by many independent consultants who claim to be experts in these areas. These consultants manage the changes for their clients. They manage changes or help the client make the changes or take up the task themselves to make the changes that must be made. An area of change that needs attention is selected and certain models, methods, techniques and tools are used for making these changes that are necessary for the organisation.

When there is a process in an organisation it is not an easy task to make changes to this process immediately. Sometimes a single organisation may have varied business entities and changes in an entity may be reflected in another entity. In such organisations changes are not so easy. There are different types of organisations which have many branches across the world with varied cultures. Implementing a change in such organisations is a task by itself.

The change process can be thought of a process which stops the current process, makes the necessary changes to the current process and the run the new process. It is easy said than implemented. Stopping a current process in some industry is fatal for that organisation. Hence it has to be done in steps which have the minimal effect in the process. These changes can not take place for a longer time in the organisation since that may also be a disaster for the organisation. The involvement of the staff concerned is also very important for the change process to be smooth.

The change process could also be considered as a problem solving situation. The change that is taking place could be the result of a problem that has occurred. You should know that a problem is a situation that requires some action to be taken positively to handle that situation. This positive action is known as problem solving. The change process could be problem solving for a particular situation. In this process there is a move from one to state to another so that the problem gets solved. The change process is leaving the current state and moving to the final state through some structured organised process.

Managing the changes in an organisation requires a broad set of skills like political skills, analytical skills, people skills, system skills, and business skills. Having good analytical skills will make you a good change agent. You should evaluate the financial and political impacts of the changes that can take place. You should know that following a particular process at that instant would fetch you immediate financial effects and start that process so that the change process is noted by the management. The workflow has to be changed in such a manner to reflect the financial changes that are taking place. Operations and systems in the organization should be reconfigured in such a manner that you get the desired financial impact.

Hence change management plays an important role in an organisation. This allows the organisation to give a reactive or a proactive response to the changes that happen internally or externally. Knowing the change management and its process would help an organization and it s processes to be stable.

To learn more about this process, check out our Change Management Course, which provides in depth change management training.  It further offers a detailed examination of the change process and how a leader overcomes resistance to change.

Ref: Managment-Hub.com

Employees need to develop their potential for leadership because it will be required in many of the contexts in which they find themselves – not only in business and the professions, where organisational change is fast and furious, but in the wider community and family contexts, where interpersonal relationships matter so much.

For decades, leadership was perceived as something that only those with certain backgrounds, qualities and capacities possessed, or could possess.  However, leadership is now seen as something that many can develop, given the opportunity and appropriate context or situation.  Much current literature on leadership argues, for example, that:  “Leadership qualities and skills can be learned and developed. Today’s leaders are made, not born.  Leadership effectiveness begins with self-awareness and self-understanding and grows to an understanding of others…Learning about leadership and developing as a leader is a lifelong process involving preparation, experience, trial-and-error, self-examination, and a willingness to  learn from mistakes and successes.”

Komives, S., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T.R. (1998).  Exploring Leadership:  For College Students Who Want to Make a Difference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p. 5 and p. 30.

For some people, however, ‘followership’ rather than leadership is more comfortable.  There can’t be leaders without followers, just as there can’t be followers without leaders.  The two are inseparable.  It is common for people to be leaders in one context and followers in others, as Lee and King (2001) argue:  “Leadership in family and community situations may allow you to try new skills, styles and levels of responsibility.  It often allows more flexibility in terms of the length of time you hold a leading role and how long you choose to do so.  For some individuals who love to lead, the best expression of their values may be to remain primarily individual contributors at work and leaders in a non-work setting.”

Lee, R.J., & King, S.N. (2001).  Discovering the Leader in You:  A Guide to Realizing Your Personal Leadership Potential. San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass & Center for Creative Leadership, p. 9.

The terms ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ are often used interchangeably, but they are two different things. It is important that students recognise the difference between the two:  “Leadership is different from management, but not for the reasons most people think.  Leadership isn’t mystical and mysterious.  It has nothing to do with ‘charisma’ or other exotic personality traits.  It is not the province of a chosen few.  Nor is leadership necessarily better than management or a replacement for it.  Rather, leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action.  Each has its own functions and characteristic activities.  Both are necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile business environment.  Management is about coping with complexity…Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change…”

Kotter, J.B.  (1990). What leaders really do.  Harvard Business Review, 68(3), pp. 103-104.

Further, leadership and management are distinct, but complementary.  For example: “The manager asks what and when; the leader asks what and why.”

Bennis, W. (1989). Quoted in Sheldon, B.  Leadership in the Workplace.  Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 30 October 2006: http://www.txla.org/pubs/tlj75_4/work.html

“The function of leadership is to create change while the function of management is to create stability.”

Barker, R.A.  (1997). How can we train leaders if we do not know what leadership is?  Human Relations, 50 (4), p. 349.

It is crucial, then, that trainers and employees are very clear about what it is that is being learned – whether it is management, leadership or followership.

If you are interested in learning more about leadership and up-skilling check out our Leadership and Motivation Course

Ref: The Griffith Graduate Site .

Good problem-solving skills empower employees in their educational, professional, and personal lives. Nationally and internationally, there is growing recognition that if education is to produce skilled thinkers and innovators in a fast-changing global economy, then problem-solving skills are more important than ever. The ability to solve problems in a range of learning contexts is essential for the development of knowledge, understanding and performance. Requiring students to engage with complex, authentic problem solving encourages them to use content knowledge in innovative and creative ways and promotes deep understanding.

Employers in small, medium and large enterprises identified the following aspects of problem solving as crucial to success in their organisations:

• developing creative, innovative solutions;
• developing practical solutions;
• showing independence and initiative in identifying problems and solving them;
• solving problems in teams;
• applying a range of strategies to problem solving;
• using mathematics including budgeting and financial management to solve problems;
• applying problem solving strategies across a range of areas;
• testing assumptions taking data and circumstances into account; and
• resolving customer concerns in relation to complex project issues.

Solving problems effectively requires students to identify, define and solve problems using logic, as well as lateral and creative thinking. In the process, students arrive at a deep understanding of the topic area and construct new knowledge and understanding on which they are able to make decisions.

There is an important distinction between solving ‘exercises’ and solving ‘problems.’ The former usually have predetermined solutions, with “a well-defined route to the solution and students must simply follow the formula” (Woods, 1985, p. 20). The latter, however, are often fuzzy, open-ended, unstructured and ‘one-offs,’ with no predictable outcomes:
“While these exercises make an important first step in helping students bridge the gap between theory and application, they do not provide the depth and complexity necessary to master problem solving skills… Students who train mostly in exercise solving tend to develop a serious handicap. They rely heavily on solutions they have seen before, rather than working from first principles. Thus a problem with brand new context presents a formidable challenge to them.”

To learn more about problem-solving skills and up-skill, check out our Creative Problem Solving Course.

We need to write effectively to communicate with their peers, lecturers, professional colleagues and employers.  Good communication skills are at the top of the list of what potential employers look for in new entrants. The vast majority of business transactions involve written communication of some kind. Employers often express concern that employees have inadequate basic written communication skills. It is generally expected that university graduates have good literacy skills that can transfer into various work contexts, but research shows that this is not always the case.

Written communication is the ability to use the conventions of disciplinary discourse to communicate effectively in writing with a range of audiences, in a variety of modes (e.g., persuasion, argument, exposition), as context requires, using a number of different means (e.g., graphical, statistical, audio-visual and technological).

The six ‘C’s of effective writing

“Effective business correspondence yields results because it achieves two basic objectives.

First, it conveys a clear and unambiguous message to the reader and second, it produces goodwill in that reader. To achieve these two objectives, the writer must write:

• clearly:
• coherently;
• concisely;
• correctly; with
• courtesy; and
• confidence.

These characteristics are the result of careful planning, writing in plain English, and critical editing.”  Dwyer, J. (1993). The Business Communication Handbook , (3 rd ed.). New York: Prentice Hall, p.186.

For those of you that would like to learn more about written communication simply click on the courses below from Griffith University.  You can also expand your knowledge of communication skills by trying our Business Communication Course.

Griffith online writing skills course:

This online course was developed by Dr Marilyn Ford to improve students’ writing skills. The course is broken into three self-paced components, which cover basic grammar and writing skills.

Ref: The Griffith Graduate Site

Many people are intimidated by writing. Even so, there are times when writing is the best way to communicate, and oftentimes the only way to get your message across.

When writing, be mindful of the fact that once something is in written form, it cannot be taken back. Communicating in this way is more concrete than verbal communications, with less room for error and even less room for mistakes. This presents written communicators with new challenges, including spelling, grammar, punctuation, even writing style and actual wording.

Thankfully, today’s technology makes memo, letter and proposal writing much easier by providing reliable tools that check and even correct misspelled words and incorrect grammar use. Unfortunately, these tools are not fail proof and will require your support, making your knowledge in this area important.

Some of the most basic tips to remember when writing include:

• Avoid the use of slang words
• Try not to use abbreviations (unless appropriately defined)
• Steer away from the use of symbols (such as ampersands [&])
• Clichés should be avoided, or at the very least, used with caution
• Brackets are used to play down words or phrases
• Dashes are generally used for emphasis
• Great care should ALWAYS be taken to spell the names of people and companies correctly
• Numbers should be expressed as words when the number is less than 10 or is used to start a sentence (example: Ten years ago, my brother and I…). The number 10, or anything greater than 10, should be expressed as a figure (example: My brother has 13 Matchbox cars.)
• Quotation marks should be placed around any directly quoted speech or text and around titles of publications.
• Keep sentences short

While the above tips cover the most common mistakes made when writing letters, memos and reports, they in no way cover everything you need to know to ensure your written communications are accurate and understood.

When writing letters, it is best to address the letter to an individual. And, when beginning the letter with a personal name, be sure to end it with an appropriate closing, such as ‘Sincerely yours’. If you cannot obtain an individual’s name, consider ending it with a more generic (less personal) closing, such as ‘With kindest regards’.

For normal business letters, your letter should start with an overall summary, showing in the first paragraph why the letter is relevant to the reader. It’s not a good practice to make the reader go past the first paragraph to find out why the letter was sent to them.

The body of the letter needs to explain the reason for the correspondence, including any relevant background and current information. Make sure the information flows logically, ensuring you are making your points effectively.

The closing of the letter is the final impression you leave with the reader. End with an action point, such as ‘I will call you later this week to discuss this further’.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember when writing a letter is to check it thoroughly when it is completed. Even when you think it is exactly what you want, read it one more time. This “unwritten” rule holds true for everything you write – memos, letters, proposals, and so on.

Use both the grammar and spell check on your computer, paying very, very close attention to every word highlighted. Do not place total faith on your computer here. Instead, you should have both a printed dictionary and thesaurus nearby to double-check everything your computers editing tools highlight, as these tools are certainly not always reliable, for a variety of reasons.

When checking your written communications, make sure the document is clear and concise. Is there anything in the written communication that could be misinterpreted? Does it raise unanswered questions or fail to make the point you need to get across?

Can you cut down on the number of words used? For instance, don’t use 20 words when you can use 10. While you do not want to be curt or abrupt, you do not want to waste the reader’s time with unnecessary words or phrases.

Is your written communication well organized? Does each idea proceed logically to the next? Make sure your written communications are easy to read and contain the necessary information, using facts where needed and avoiding information that is not relevant. Again, outline the course of action you expect, such as a return call or visit.

Close appropriately, making sure to include your contact information. While this may seem obvious, it is sometimes overlooked and can make your written communications look amateurish. This can diminish your chances of meeting your written communication’s goals.

To learn more about written communication check out our Business Communication Course.

Ref: MindTools

When we’re in school or at work, we’re taught to improve our words. We learn to improve our language and words to impress. We learn to construct clever chains of words to gain an upper hand and to communicate more clearly. But when we grow up we learn very little beyond improving our words.

1. …words are only 7 percent of your communication.
The rest is your voice tonality (38 percent) and your body language at 55 percent. That’s according to research done by Albert Mehrabian, currently Professor Emeritus in psychology at UCLA. These numbers may vary depending upon the situation and what is communicated (for instance, talking over the phone is obviously different from talking face to face) but body language is a very important part of communication.

2. Increase your attractiveness
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. A better posture, a more open body language, a more controlled and focused body language will make everyone more attractive. And not just in a sexual way but when talking to new friends or in job interviews and business meetings.

3. Emotions are linked to your body language
Emotions work backwards too. If you feel good you’ll smile. If you force yourself to smile you’ll feel good too. If you feel tired or down you might sit slumped down. If you sit slumped down you’ll feel more tired and negative. Just try to sit straight up for 5 minutes and feel the difference in energy from half-lying in your chair.

4. Reduce mixed messages
If you’re in a job interview and you talk with a steady voice and say all the confident things you should but your body language tells your maybe-employers that you are very nervous or guarded then you are incongruent (and perhaps without that job). What you want is be congruent, that is for your words, your voice and your body language to say the same thing.

5. Improve your communication skills
If you improve your body language you can get your thoughts across in a more effective way. You can create a connection to another person more easily. When using more powerful and appropriately balanced body language your communication skills become more focused and better.

6. Better first impressions
Everyone stereotypes everyone on first impression, even if we are reluctant to do it. We all get a first impression of a new person that creates a mental image of his or her personality in our minds. That image of you often lasts. Having a better body language will consistently give people a more positive mental snapshot of you.

You can also enhance your knowledge and understanding of body language by registering for our Business Communications course where we look at the whole area of body language and communication.  This course covers:

• Body Language
• Written Communication
• Oral Communication
• Communication Targets

Ref: Article by Henrik Edberg “6 reasons to improve your body language”, the Postitivity Blog.

The role of leader can be very stressful! Management studies have suggested that these roles include a very wide mix of activities, most of which cannot always be controlled or even predicted.

New managers and supervisors – especially supervisors – are almost overwhelmed with the demands of the job. They were probably promoted to be in charge of people, mostly because of their success in a previous role that was focused on developing a particular product or service. Suddenly, they’re faced with being in charge of people, which is much less predictable and has much less control than the supervisor had before. Consequently, the ability to manage time and stress is absolutely critical to the success of the roles of manager and leader.

The two topics of time management and stress management are often addressed together because they are so closely interrelated.

Myths About Stress and Time Management

1. All stress is bad. No, there’s good and bad stress. Good stress is excitement, thrills, etc. The goal is to recognize personal signs of bad stress and deal with them.
2. Planning my time just takes more time. Actually, research shows the opposite.
3. I get more done in more time when I wisely use caffeine, sugar, alcohol or nicotine. Wrong! Research shows that the body always has to “come down” and when it does, you can’t always be very effective then after the boost.
4. A time management problem means that there’s not enough time to get done what needs to get done. No, a time management problem is not using your time to your fullest advantage, to get done what you want done.
5. The busier I am, the better I’m using my time. Look out! You may only be doing what’s urgent, and not what’s important.
6. I feel very harried, busy, so I must have a time management problem. Not necessarily. You should verify that you have a time management problem. This requires knowing what you really want to get done and if it is getting done or not.
7. I feel OK, so I must not be stressed. In reality, many adults don’t even know when they’re really stressed out until their bodies tell them so. They miss the early warning signs from their body, for example, headaches, still backs, twitches, etc.

Major Causes of Workplace Stress

1. Not knowing what you want or if you’re getting it – poor planning.
2. The feeling that there’s too much to do. One can have this feeling even if there’s hardly anything to do at all.
3. Not enjoying your job. This can be caused by lots of things, for example, not knowing what you want, not eating well, etc. However, most people always blame their jobs.
4. Conflicting demands on the job.
5. Insufficient resources to do the job.
6. Not feeling appreciated.

Biggest Time Wasters

1. Interruptions. There will always be interruptions. It’s how they’re handled that wastes time.
2. Hopelessness. People “give in”, “numb out” and “march through the day”.
3. Poor delegation skills. This involves not sharing work with others.

Common Symptoms of Poor Stress and Time Management

1. Irritability. Fellow workers notice this first.
2. Fatigue. How many adults even notice this?
3. Difficulty concentrating. You often don’t need to just to get through the day!
4. Forgetfulness. You can’t remember what you did all day, what you ate yesterday.
5. Loss of sleep. This affects everything else!
6. Physical disorders, for example, headaches, rashes, tics, cramps, etc.
7. At worst, withdrawal and depression.

Wise Principles of Good Stress and Time Management

1. Learn your signs for being overstressed or having a time management problem. Ask your friends about you. Perhaps they can tell you what they see from you when you’re overstressed.
2. Most people feel that they are stressed and/or have a time management problem. Verify that you really have a problem. What do you see, hear or feel that leads you to conclude that you have a time or stress problem?
3. Don’t have the illusion that doing more will make you happier. Is it quantity of time that you want, or quality?
4. Stress and time management problems have many causes and usually require more than one technique to fix. You don’t need a lot of techniques, usually more than one, but not a lot.
5. One of the major benefits of doing time planning is feeling that you’re in control.
6. Focus on results, not on busyness.
7. It’s the trying that counts – at least as much as doing the perfect technique.

Simple Techniques to Manage Stress

There are lots of things people can do to cut down on stress. Most people probably even know what they could do. It’s not the lack of knowing what to do in order to cut down stress; it is doing what you know you have to do. The following techniques are geared to help you do what you know you have to do.
1. Talk to someone. You don’t have to fix the problem, just report it.
2. Notice if any of the muscles in your body are tense. Just noticing that will often relax the muscle.
3. Ask your boss if you’re doing OK. This simple question can make a lot of difference and verify wrong impressions.
4. Delegate.
5. If you take on a technique to manage stress, tell someone else. They can help you be accountable to them and yourself.
6. Cut down on caffeine and sweets. Take a walk instead. Tell someone that you’re going to do that.
7. Use basic techniques of planning, problem solving and decision making.
Concise guidelines are included in this guidebook. Tell someone that you’re going to use these techniques.
8. Monitor the number of hours that you work in a week. Tell your boss, family and/or friends how many hours that you are working.
9. Write weekly status reports. Include what you’ve accomplished last week and plan to do next week. Include any current issues or recommendations that you must report to your boss. Give the written status report to your boss on a weekly basis.
10. “Wash the dishes”. Do something you can feel good about.

Simple Techniques to Manage Time

There never seems to be enough time in the roles of management and supervision. Therefore, the goal of time management should not be to find more time. The goal is set a reasonable amount of time to spend on these roles and then use that time wisely.
1. Start with the simple techniques of stress management above.
2. Managing time takes practice. Practice asking yourself this question throughout the day: “Is this what I want or need to be doing right now?” If yes, then keep doing it.
3. Find some way to realistically and practically analyze your time. Logging your time for a week in 15-minute intervals is not that hard and does not take up that much time. Do it for a week and review your results.
4. Do a “todo” list for your day. Do it at the end of the previous day. Mark items as “A” and “B” in priority. Set aside two hours right away each day to do the important “A” items and then do the “B” items in the afternoon. Let your answering machine take your calls during your “A” time.
5. At the end of your day, spend five minutes cleaning up your space. Use this time, too, to organize your space, including your desktop. That’ll give you a clean start for the next day.
6. Learn the difference between “Where can I help?” and “Where am I really needed?” Experienced leaders learn that the last question is much more important than the former.
7. Learn the difference between “Do I need to do this now?” and “Do I need to do this at all?” Experienced leaders learn how to quickly answer this question when faced with a new task.
8. Delegate. Delegation shows up as a frequent suggestion in this guide because it is one of the most important skills for a leader to have. Effective delegation will free up a great deal of time for you.
9. If you are CEO in a corporation, then ask your Board for help. They are responsible to supervise you, as a CEO. Although the Board should not be micro-managing you, that is, involved in the day-to-day activities of the corporation, they still might have some ideas to help you with your time management. Remember, too, that good time management comes from good planning, and the Board is responsible to oversee development of major plans. Thus, the Board may be able to help you by doing a better themselves in their responsibilities as planners for the organization.
10. Use a “Do Not Disturb” sign! During the early part of the day, when you’re attending to your important items (your “A” list), hang this sign on the doorknob outside your door.
11. Sort your mail into categories including “read now”, “handle now” and “read later”. You’ll quickly get a knack for sorting through your mail. You’ll also notice that much of what you think you need to read later wasn’t really all that important anyway.
12. Read your mail at the same time each day.
That way, you’ll likely get to your mail on a regular basis and won’t become distracted into any certain piece of mail that ends up taking too much of your time.
13. Have a place for everything and put everything in its place.
That way, you’ll know where to find it when you need it. Another important outcome is that your people will see that you are somewhat organized, rather than out of control.
14. Best suggestion for saving time – schedule 10 minutes to do nothing.
That time can be used to just sit and clear your mind. You’ll end up thinking more clearly, resulting in more time in your day. The best outcome of this practice is that it reminds you that you’re not a slave to a clock – and that if you take 10 minutes out of your day, you and your organization won’t fall apart.
15. Learn good meeting management skills.

Written by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC.

Studies by Stanford Research Institute and the Carnegie Mellon Foundation among Fortune 500 CEOs found that 75% of long term job success depended on people skills and only 25% on technical skills.

This is true at other levels as well. For effective performance in the workplace, companies need their employees to have not only domain knowledge, technical and analytical skills, but also the skills to deal with the external world of clients, customers, vendors, the government and public; and to work in a collaborative manner with their colleagues.

The annual rankings of MBA colleges often place communication and interpersonal skills as the most critical skills needed for success in the corporate world.

Noted academic Prof. Henry Mintzberg while speaking on the importance of soft skills for MBAs, refers to the crucial “soft” skills – leadership, teamwork, communication, and the ability to think “outside the box” of a discipline – that separate the best from the rest in the management world.”

Companies are finding that they have to promote people faster than ever before to meet their growth needs.  At the same time, they are finding that the candidates do not have the necessary skills to make the transition from a technical or functional specialist to a team leader, supervisor or manager.  Companies in the IT, BPO, KPO, Biotech, and Pharmaceuticals industries have found that their people need soft skills to work effectively in cross-functional or project teams, local teams or global teams.

Learn Skills, the web-based skills and compliance training company,  can offer a tailored soft-skills program to benefit companies and address these issues and you can contact us for further information by clicking here.

“I bet I could have cut back on many of the seventy, eighty, and ninety-hour weeks that I’ve put in over the years,      if I’d been more systematic and rigorous in managing time!”

Get Aggressive About Managing Time!
Time and money are both very important in business. Yet, like me, many business people tend to give a lot more specific thought as to how to spend their money. Too often, how we spend our time is only thought of in terms of “What am I going to do today?” or “What should I do next?”

Just as a well-run business should carefully develop a strategy to determine how to spend its money, an effective businessperson should carefully develop a strategy to determine how to use his or her time.

Just as a well-run business follows a budget in spending money, an effective businessperson should also follow a budget (or schedule) in spending time.

Prioritize Your Time!
The first step in effective time management is not to develop a schedule, but instead to develop a time strategy. The time strategy should be based on a short list of time priorities.

You start by identifying the number one way you can most increase profits by use of your time; then the number two way; then the Number three way; etc. This short list of time priorities forms the foundation for your time planning for every week of the year.

These time priorities may be identical to key parts of your company strategy or they may be different. For example, if your company strategy is based upon excellent customer service, spending lots of your time in customer service may not be the best use of your time if you have a terrific customer-service manager.

Narrow Your Focus!
Focus is crucial for time management, and the fewer priorities you focus on at once, the more productive you will be.

After you have your major time priorities for the year established, you should allocate them by week or by month. Like it or not, a lot of our time each week is going to be eaten up by nonstrategic items that we have no control over; hence it is important to limit the number of strategic time goals we have for each week. So even if you have ten strategic time goals for the year, you may want to focus on no more than one or two of them in any given week.

For example, in a particular week you may plan on working on your number one time objective, let’s say planning improvements for the company’s major product line, and a secondary goal, let’s say re-evaluating the dealer marketing program, but no time on other secondary time goals that you plan on tackling during other weeks.

Set Aside Uninterrupted Time
Every week you should make up a detailed time plan, which you modify each day as needed. Except in times of crisis, try to make sure day-to-day issues don’t push your strategic time priorities off your schedule.

Generally your major strategic time priorities will involve such activities as planning, thinking, and developing ideas. More so than day-to-day issues, such activities require big blocks of uninterrupted time.

Constant interruption kills any hope of effective time management. One way to avoid interruption is to make it clear that when your door is closed you are not to be disturbed. Another is to have regular meetings, such as every week, with the people that you interact with the most and insist on saving nonpressing issues for these meetings.

Avoid My Time Traps!
These are some “time traps,” all of which have plagued me, that you should guard against:

• Spending a disproportionately high amount of time in the offices where the most congenial people are, as opposed to where the most important issues are.
• Wasting too much time getting daily updates on routine activities as opposed to waiting for a more meaningful weekly summary.
• Jumping too eagerly into the routine, more straightforward work and putting off the more complex and difficult work.
• Not starting the more important work first thing in the morning.
• Not bothering to make up a schedule for each day.
• Overscheduling–scheduling each day so tightly that it is impossible to stay on track and the schedule quickly becomes meaningless.

Source Streetwise Small Business Start-Up

UK – May 12th, 2008 – The skills survey report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reveals that in 45 per cent of public sector organizations there has been a cut in training budgets over the past 12 months. The indications are that the continued post-Gershon squeeze is encouraging employers to reduce the head count and to cut costs across personnel activities.

Voluntary sector organisations continue to spend more per employee per year on training, compared with both the private and public sectors.  With 77 per cent in the sector reporting that funding for training has remained stable or increased, compared with 75 per cent in the private sector and 54 per cent in the public sector.

The report also shows a disconnect between what government is offering employers and what they feel they need from young people coming out of school, college or university.  Literacy and numeracy are still concerns for employers, but also there is a need for the so-called soft-skills.  Two thirds of respondent organisations feel that new employees lack both communication and interpersonal skills and over half report a shortfall in management and leadership skills.

“Learn Skills can offer employers web-based skills and compliance training to address these key concerns, by giving them access to a comprehensive course catalog”, said Sean Griffin, Co-Founder of Learn Skills, “and the Learn Skills platform can deliver both cost savings and consistent quality instruction to all employees and management resulting in increased and enhanced performance.”