Category: Business Strategies and Planning

Everyone Hates Annual Performance Reviews – Stop Doing Them

Manager’s hate writing and delivering annual performance reviews.  Employees hate doing self-appraisals and the dreaded annual review meeting.  Why?  For one, this might be the only formal feedback an employee receives all year.  There’s a lot riding on it.  Raises are often tied to the overall rating which adds to the pressure.  Even for employees…
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Turning Two Negative Job Functions into One Positive Job Function

When I talk with business executives and managers two of the most negative job functions they are responsible for are: Annual employee performance reviews How to engage employees in the business’s goals and objectives. The key to solving these two negative job functions is to combine the two activities into a positive job function that…
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Think About How You Are Thinking

Often executives, managers and owners never stop to question how they are thinking about a business issue. Management at all levels have to think about how they are thinking about an issue and stop themselves from having a predetermined result for a project, as management often will miss warning signs related to how a project…
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Get Out of the Eddy and Start Moving Down River

An eddy can be defined as water moving in a circular pattern, counter to the main current of water, sometime causing a whirlpool.  River rafters try to avoid eddies as opposed to getting stuck in an unstable place in a river in order to keep moving down the river. A business eddy is where the…
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Elephant in the Room or Mice Under the Door

As a leader of a business you must determine what are the hard issues that need to be dealt with and what issues are the most pressing to resolve. Once an “Elephant in the Room” issue is verbalized, it’s easy to identify and discuss with staff about possible resolutions.  Examples of these types of issues…
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Chart of U.S. Gross Domestic Product From 1947 to Present

The Bureau of Economic Analysis defines Gross Domestic Product as: Gross domestic product (GDP) is the value of the goods and services produced by the nation’s economy less the value of the goods and services used up in production. GDP is also equal to the sum of personal consumption expenditures, gross private domestic investment, net…
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What’s Right, What’s Easy and What’s Wrong

Business leaders should think about making business decisions by considering what is the right decision, what is the easy decision and what is the wrong decision.  All business leaders get to choose between this decision matrix. What Is the Right Decision?  The right decisions are the toughest decisions that are made by a business leader. …
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Chart of Annual Unemployment Rate Since 1948

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics define unemployment as: The unemployment rate represents the number of unemployed as a percentage of the labor force. Labor force data are restricted to people 16 years of age and older, who currently reside in 1 of the 50 states or the District of Columbia, who do not reside in…
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Business Strategies Take Hard Work, Time and Commitment

Is it better to have a business strategy than no business strategy?  The question really is – does the CEO or Owner of the business have a business strategy they are actually going to implement or a business strategy they just like talking about.  Or to put this another way; talk is cheap, but it…
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Chart of Total Privately-Owned Housing Units Started

A housing start is defined as when excavation begins for the foundation of the building.  Home construction is important to the economy as it has wide spread effects on numerous related industries, to include:  banking, mortgage industry, construction materials and land prices. The housing market is being affected by slightly higher mortgage rates, higher price…
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