Why your training resources should be focused on creating everyday "champions"
By Conni Billé
A typical company-wide service training initiative begins with a rollout to inspire the organization en route to a new focus on behavior. After the corporate trainers (perhaps supplemented by distance learning tools) circulate throughout the company, reinforcing the gospel of the new frontline behavior, service behavior may change for a while.
What happens, however, when the blast of inspiration or the evangelical zeal of the trainer goes away? Too often behavior reverts to "the way it was."
The problem with this dynamic is that it ignores the influencers who have the most direct and lasting effect on the frontline—their direct managers. If instead, you choose a "Train the Leader" approach, equipping the supervisor/manager with the skills and tools to train, coach, and model the desired behaviors on an everyday (and every interaction) basis with their direct reports, you will create a dynamic for more sustainable change. Identifying the managers and supervisors best equipped to become advocates or "champions" and focusing training resources on those individuals is the straightest path to ingraining the program in the culture beyond the "rollout" period.
There are sound reasons based on educational theory as to why leaders are best positioned to impact behavioral change in those who report to them. Models of "affective learning" became popular 30 years ago to explain why children could not learn if they had the wrong "attitude" toward school. Educators spent considerable time studying the dynamics of how beliefs and attitude are formed and how they can be changed. Not surprisingly, the research revealed that people imitate the behavior of those who have power over them—parents, teachers, and supervisors, for example. Behavioral change occurs when the subject goes through the process of a) being exposed to that behavior, b) verbalizing the behavior, c) noting the behavior and criticizing others for non-compliance, d) advocating the behavior, and finally e) manifesting the behavior themselves. That process describes affective change, which is just a fancy term for "adopting new attitudes."
In many cases, people newly assigned to a unit initially resist the authority of their new leader, but gradually they change by adopting the way the leader models the expected behavior. The most powerful teaching comes from imitating the leader's behavior. Since customer service behavior is the adoption of attitudes and values, rather than skills or knowledge, the leader's role is crucial.
Designing training so it is delivered by a respected leader instead of some "expert" sends a message that the behaviors being taught and modeled are everyday expectations. A powerful side benefit: The message is sent not only to the frontline but to the leaders themselves. By delivering the training, the leader thereby is committed to supporting that behavior—recognizing and rewarding the behavior when it is observed, and coaching for improvement when it is absent. It "bakes in" the leader as teacher and as coach.
This doesn't even take into account the impact on the rank and file of seeing their leader in a role that may not be entirely comfortable for him or her—standing in front of the group and presenting a training program. Typically, this does not go unnoticed: If my leader is willing to try out new, unfamiliar behavior, then I can get with the program and try something that may feel a little uncomfortable at first.
Trainers and OD practitioners constantly seek out change agents within an organization, and quite often, they are right in front of our faces. These leaders are perfectly positioned to become our organization's most powerful champions of change.
How Do You Find Champions?
Of course, not every supervisor and manager has the same amount of influence. Because of their classroom experience, training and development professionals have a unique opportunity to identify champions who will be effective advocates for new programs. How? In a classroom or group discussion, use your observation skills to identify the "champions of change" to recruit for a training program design team or beta class. You will need two types: "inspirer's" and "doers."
Inspires are brave. They are willing to speak up and give an opinion without looking around to see what the group thinks. They have energy, passion, and a sense of humor. People like to be around them. Watch the body language of others in regard to these people; you will see empathy and relationship, and the emotion of the speaker reflected in the listener's expression.
Doers may not be the first aboard, but when they sign on, they will see the program through. How do you spot them? They are not the first to speak, but when they do offer their opinion, it is well thought out, clearly stated, and the people around the room subtly nod and concur. You recognize that this person has integrity and influence. They attribute part of their effectiveness to keeping a low profile; grandstanding, strident crusading, and self-promotion are viewed as sure ways to undermine their credibility and acceptance as change leaders.
Beware the person who claims to be a champion of change but is secretly ambivalent. Such people may present themselves as advocates because it is politically expedient to do so. Again, use your facilitator’s observation to pick up "dissonance" in the person's behavior and body language. When the change program encounters the expected resistance, the ambivalent advocate will be the first to jump ship.
The champion is the enthusiastic manager who "buys in" and signs up his staff, follows up with them to see how they apply what they learn, and notes and rewards the new skills in performance reviews.
How do you get champions on board? Show them the vision of the organization you want to create. Appeal to their values—if their values are aligned with the program. Let them contribute. Finally, further engage these champions by making them privy to the overall business and organizational strategy that will make everyone a winner—personally and professionally.
There are champions in every organization. It is up to YOU as a designer of an organizational initiative to identify them, cultivate them, and provide them with the skills and tools to let their natural predisposition to lead carry the day.
managesmarter.com
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Business at the Big Top: Four Rings for Creativity and Innovation
Arupa Tesolin, author of Ting!, interviews Cirque du Solei's executive producer and senior advisor Lyn Howard on creativity, employee motivation and innovation
By Arupa Tesolin
When I first experienced Cirque du Soleil as a spectator, I became lost in a charismatic landscape—an interplay of myth and reality. One moment I observed a form that looked human, then a bird, an animal and even an insect. Although it was 20 years ago, I still remember it most vividly. This unique entertainment experience blurred the lines between dance and contortion, acrobatics and theatre, the obvious and the unexpected. In these moments of transfixed observation I re-experienced the wonder of childhood in the elation of an entertainment that aroused my heart and captured the soul of my imagination.
So, when the opportunity came to interview Lyn Heward, executive producer & senior advisor of Cirque du Soleil, also the author of a recent book The Spark: Igniting the Creative Fire that Lives within Us All (Random House), I knew it was going to be exciting.
Lyn recently spoke at the annual Human Resources Professional Conference in Ontario. Since The Cirque's humble beginning in June of 1984 near Quebec City in Canada by Guy Laliberté and a group of young street performers, Cirque is now home to over 3500 artists, artisans, designers, technicians and employees, and has given birth to 20 unique shows, over 5,000 performances per year—plus a myriad of special events including performing at the 2002 Academy Awards, permanent sites in Las Vegas and Orlando, as well as a creation studio and international headquarters in Montreal.
What captivated me first in Lyn's animated presentation was the Cirque's well articulated strategic vision—developed by Lyn in 1997 under circumstances that one might think were less than creative. "Guy Laliberte felt it was time to revisit the mission statements, which were really guidelines. It was before the Christmas holidays and he asked us about whether the existing mission and values still fit. So I started thinking about it but right after Christmas the ice storm hit. We had no power for 6 days and one day I tripped into an ice bank to avoid a taxi that was swerving on the road. I broke my wrist in 5 places and was on painkillers, but that's when I came up with it—To live and contribute creatively to artistic works which invoke the imagination, provoke the senses and evoke the emotions of our spectators around the world."
One of the first things Lyn told me is that "Everyone, when they come to Cirque as an employee—even an accountant—comes there because it's a creative and admired company, and they want to be able to contribute something creatively."
She describes how her own secretary—who came from magazine publishing—became enthusiastic about wanting to make a unique creative gesture in one of their projects. A paper hobbyist, she proceeded to illustrate the project storyboard on hand-made paper and water
colours. "It fit, because the story was about water. She felt creatively fulfilled because she was able to make this contribution."
I asked Lyn how the Cirque is able to maintain their creative culture with employees who are not show performers. She explained, "You have to share the culture and after this you can’t then tell them to go work in their cubicle. So the working space also has to reflect the values/vision to each employee."
"In addition to the accountant we have an employee who is a character called 'Madame Zazou.' She'll animate a meeting or run a contest, where the employee can do a performance and she really keeps the energy going. Recently, I was attending an annual meeting, and wanted to sit in the back. I came in a few minutes late. Madame Zazou, having no idea who I was, because I'd been away traveling and had not met her personally, pulled me in to sit next to the president Mr. Daniel Lamarre, thinking she was probably helping to create a new experience for one of the employees."
As we got deeper into the conversation, I asked Lyn what she thought was the most important learning for her over the years.
"When my children were little, I'd get up at 6:00 am every day to get ready for work. Back then in Montreal, there was an ad that ran from Dofasco, a steel manufacturer that really struck me. It went like this: 'Our product is steel. Our strength is people.' I think that no matter what your product is, whether it's computers, cars or anything else, your results lie in having a passionate strong team of people. People are the driving force. I think because the Cirque's product is the sum total of people, it's a little more evident."
I wondered aloud at this point because many companies seem to think of creativity as such a soft skill that, if they can just get the dysfunctional politics and poor performance practices out of the way, it's just going to happen. But the truth, Lyn agrees is quite different.
Lyn reinforces that creativity takes enduring work, energy and commitment. She says "Our most natural resource is the people we work with who are the people we build our product with. Unless there’s a strong commitment to teambuilding and passionate leadership, creativity, even at the Cirque, it would not happen."
Cirque founder "Guy Laliberte is still connected with the company, but brings a lot of
parrinage, a French word for 'godfathering' of the creative and intuitive spirit—soul stewarding. But it's work that we take seriously. Guy meets monthly with his key players to talk about the product, the processes and the people, and how to keep people involved in the creative spirit and the intuitive spirit."
"For us training is 'creative transformation' and recruiting is 'treasure-hunting.' Even at Cirque, we have to work hard at it. We too could lose our soul, if we didn't have the commitment. We have a 'Creative Synergy' department, whose preoccupation is in doing this."
"Creative Transformation is the most important doorway for us. We're trying to find the "pearl" the hidden talent in that individual. What is the unique thing that person brings? I think you need to dig deeper as we call it 'treasure-hunting.' What makes that person tick and how does it contribute to the work that you’re doing?"
Cirque scours the world for ideas and inspirations which become the driving force for their creative process. Like a lot of companies they look for specific skill-sets and attributes and experience for each position. But beyond that and importantly they look for the unique potential of each person, to bring out something extraordinary which pushes his or her limits and makes that individual to true contributor to the Cirque's creative process.
Teamwork is also major. Not one individual makes the Cirque. "Creativity is fostered in work groups where people first get to know each other and then learn to trust one another. And, in this playground we recognize that a good idea can emerge from anywhere in the organization or from within a team. We make our shows from this collective creativity."
The Human Resources and Performance Review Processes at Cirque are self-created. Five main things are evaluated. "I am creative, committed, responsible, team player, passionate."
Once a year they bring in new talent; 60 or 70 candidates are gathered from around the world and pushed to their extended limits for up to 16 weeks. "We have them try and do things which they may never have done before and we evaluate their core human values applicable to the job at hand—their ability to work in a team in order to solve problems; the courage to take risks, both physical and artistic; their generosity both to the public and in sharing their ideas with other team members; their willingness to manage their own artistic growth and to learn quickly. Then we hire them—not for who they are now, but for what they might become."
In a particularly poignant moment of her presentation she described what happens after they've found talent, through a process called "creative transformation." One of the analogies they use is this one by artist Michelangelo, the creator of the masterpiece statue David. Responding to a question about how he created this work, Michaelangelo replied that David was already inside of the stone; to find him he just needed to chip away all the pieces that weren't David.
In a similar way, Cirque's long-time stage director, Franco Dragone demands of new artists: Who are you? "This way he removes the stereotypical behaviours that often plague young artists, gymnasts and other athletes in general. By sticking his hand down their throats, he pulled them out of themselves and brought forth real raw beings from whom he would sculpt his characters. It is interesting to note that when asked who they are most people will define themselves through their families, jobs, their likes and dislikes, but very rarely through their inner most thoughts and emotions. It's very much like peeling an onion to get to the sweet, intense core."
"In our shows, we don't tell a story—we use an 'open architecture.' Our directors write the shows and there are always a series of images and inspirations that weave their way through the show which are interpreted by the individuals in the audience. People will give you entirely different readings of the acts. This leaves room for the imagination of the spectator to read or interpret it in light of the experience of their own life. People are looking to see themselves."
At Cirque the ideal 'working space' is a fantastical playground and, although it may have many rules, is a place where a designer, an artisan or an employee can see the world through the eyes of a child—with curiosity, eagerness, excitement and playfulness.
It has an open and inviting atmosphere which stimulates creative thought and action and which takes into consideration that:
• All team members have the product as their ultimate goal and feel responsible for its success or failure
• Creative synergy is encouraged, recognized and rewarded. It's also understood that, "We are each but a quarter note in a grand symphony" and it's also a place where a sense of humility and sharing of "creative ownership" is instilled
• In this fantastical playground, employees are offered the protection and support that they need to take risks on the company's behalf
• An interdependent structure allows for greater risk-taking and potentially greater results. And some errors are permitted where risk-taking is encouraged
• Finally, the physical structure and decoration of this playground are both stimulating and inspirational, something the employees can be proud of
"It is common knowledge that Cirque designers don't like budgets, deadlines and limited resources. Privately, however, even they will admit that these 'constraints' force us to become more resourceful and more creative! They require us to come up with solutions we’d never thought of before…and, they actually become motivators for getting the job done. In fact, some of our most inspired ideas arise from moderately spartan situations."
"In fact, incredible freedom is a problem for most people because it requires us to think differently and imposes the highest form of risking-taking and exposes them to criticism and failure. So, in the long run, defining some limits and giving some guidelines or specifications become a creative catalyst by establishing the playing field."
Cirque is also influenced by what is happening outside of our organization. "We have to listen to and be in touch with the world. It provides our motivation and inspiration. When the world needs hope, we must provide it. When the world is troubled by terrorism, water pollution or violence in youth…we must set an example, lead the way and incite change. In this way your social mission, too, can become a creative catalyst."
"We also have to understand how cultural differences affect our creative products. We have learned to take inspiration from the well over 60 different cultures which co-exist within our organization. Each person brings at least part of his own culture to the creative table and these elements become our cultural assets: Brazilian percussion and capoeira, Australian didgeridoo, Ukrainian and Africa dancing, Wushu, Peking Opera and Kung Fu have all found their way into our multidisciplinary shows. All of these cultural imports contribute to and enhance our products."
"And finally, we need to take into consideration the needs and expectations of our consumers. Our spectators want to be amused, surprised, if not astounded, and to escape from their daily lives if only for a short while, or to be moved or touches or somehow changed by the experience."
"Creativity is first and foremost all about courage—a willingness to take risks, to try new things and share the experience with others. In fact, as an individual or as a company, complacency is the biggest risk you will ever take, and most often the least productive. Risk-taking can be defined as the balance of power between success and fear of failure. So the moral of this story is that we all need to practice risk taking! Our fears hold us back, make us cautious…instead we need to forge ahead and make a few mistakes…and hopefully learn from them. Here, we call this research and development!"
Individuals, creative leaders & managers can learn a lot from applying some of the learned creativity processes of the Cirque du Soleil. Here are some ideas on creative transformation that may be helpful to your organization.
Ideas on Creative Transformation from Cirque du Soleil
1. Work outside of your comfort zone
2. Take risks. Try something different.
3. Use inventiveness and creativity to everyday tasks and problems, as well as to the big exciting projects.
4. Build a nurturing environment which is conducive to productivity, creativity and personal growth.
5. Practice teamwork. True creativity requires stimulation and collaboration. It's difficult to be creative in isolation.
6. Keep creativity fresh with hard-working bosses who constantly encourage and receive employees' ideas and feedback and accept that there are often different ways of getting to the same end result.
7. Commit to looking critically at your work or your product from an outside perspective, from the point of view of the consumer. In Cirque's case, we sit in the house, watch and listen to comments the spectators make during and after the show. We are constantly asking ourselves what we can do better and most often we try it!
8. Stay connected with your end product to see if it still fits the demands of the market.
9 Expose your employees to your product: see the show, wear the clothes, drive the car! Encourage their sense of ownership, cultivate their pride and share your success with them.
managesmarter.com
By Arupa Tesolin
When I first experienced Cirque du Soleil as a spectator, I became lost in a charismatic landscape—an interplay of myth and reality. One moment I observed a form that looked human, then a bird, an animal and even an insect. Although it was 20 years ago, I still remember it most vividly. This unique entertainment experience blurred the lines between dance and contortion, acrobatics and theatre, the obvious and the unexpected. In these moments of transfixed observation I re-experienced the wonder of childhood in the elation of an entertainment that aroused my heart and captured the soul of my imagination.
So, when the opportunity came to interview Lyn Heward, executive producer & senior advisor of Cirque du Soleil, also the author of a recent book The Spark: Igniting the Creative Fire that Lives within Us All (Random House), I knew it was going to be exciting.
Lyn recently spoke at the annual Human Resources Professional Conference in Ontario. Since The Cirque's humble beginning in June of 1984 near Quebec City in Canada by Guy Laliberté and a group of young street performers, Cirque is now home to over 3500 artists, artisans, designers, technicians and employees, and has given birth to 20 unique shows, over 5,000 performances per year—plus a myriad of special events including performing at the 2002 Academy Awards, permanent sites in Las Vegas and Orlando, as well as a creation studio and international headquarters in Montreal.
What captivated me first in Lyn's animated presentation was the Cirque's well articulated strategic vision—developed by Lyn in 1997 under circumstances that one might think were less than creative. "Guy Laliberte felt it was time to revisit the mission statements, which were really guidelines. It was before the Christmas holidays and he asked us about whether the existing mission and values still fit. So I started thinking about it but right after Christmas the ice storm hit. We had no power for 6 days and one day I tripped into an ice bank to avoid a taxi that was swerving on the road. I broke my wrist in 5 places and was on painkillers, but that's when I came up with it—To live and contribute creatively to artistic works which invoke the imagination, provoke the senses and evoke the emotions of our spectators around the world."
One of the first things Lyn told me is that "Everyone, when they come to Cirque as an employee—even an accountant—comes there because it's a creative and admired company, and they want to be able to contribute something creatively."
She describes how her own secretary—who came from magazine publishing—became enthusiastic about wanting to make a unique creative gesture in one of their projects. A paper hobbyist, she proceeded to illustrate the project storyboard on hand-made paper and water
colours. "It fit, because the story was about water. She felt creatively fulfilled because she was able to make this contribution."
I asked Lyn how the Cirque is able to maintain their creative culture with employees who are not show performers. She explained, "You have to share the culture and after this you can’t then tell them to go work in their cubicle. So the working space also has to reflect the values/vision to each employee."
"In addition to the accountant we have an employee who is a character called 'Madame Zazou.' She'll animate a meeting or run a contest, where the employee can do a performance and she really keeps the energy going. Recently, I was attending an annual meeting, and wanted to sit in the back. I came in a few minutes late. Madame Zazou, having no idea who I was, because I'd been away traveling and had not met her personally, pulled me in to sit next to the president Mr. Daniel Lamarre, thinking she was probably helping to create a new experience for one of the employees."
As we got deeper into the conversation, I asked Lyn what she thought was the most important learning for her over the years.
"When my children were little, I'd get up at 6:00 am every day to get ready for work. Back then in Montreal, there was an ad that ran from Dofasco, a steel manufacturer that really struck me. It went like this: 'Our product is steel. Our strength is people.' I think that no matter what your product is, whether it's computers, cars or anything else, your results lie in having a passionate strong team of people. People are the driving force. I think because the Cirque's product is the sum total of people, it's a little more evident."
I wondered aloud at this point because many companies seem to think of creativity as such a soft skill that, if they can just get the dysfunctional politics and poor performance practices out of the way, it's just going to happen. But the truth, Lyn agrees is quite different.
Lyn reinforces that creativity takes enduring work, energy and commitment. She says "Our most natural resource is the people we work with who are the people we build our product with. Unless there’s a strong commitment to teambuilding and passionate leadership, creativity, even at the Cirque, it would not happen."
Cirque founder "Guy Laliberte is still connected with the company, but brings a lot of
parrinage, a French word for 'godfathering' of the creative and intuitive spirit—soul stewarding. But it's work that we take seriously. Guy meets monthly with his key players to talk about the product, the processes and the people, and how to keep people involved in the creative spirit and the intuitive spirit."
"For us training is 'creative transformation' and recruiting is 'treasure-hunting.' Even at Cirque, we have to work hard at it. We too could lose our soul, if we didn't have the commitment. We have a 'Creative Synergy' department, whose preoccupation is in doing this."
"Creative Transformation is the most important doorway for us. We're trying to find the "pearl" the hidden talent in that individual. What is the unique thing that person brings? I think you need to dig deeper as we call it 'treasure-hunting.' What makes that person tick and how does it contribute to the work that you’re doing?"
Cirque scours the world for ideas and inspirations which become the driving force for their creative process. Like a lot of companies they look for specific skill-sets and attributes and experience for each position. But beyond that and importantly they look for the unique potential of each person, to bring out something extraordinary which pushes his or her limits and makes that individual to true contributor to the Cirque's creative process.
Teamwork is also major. Not one individual makes the Cirque. "Creativity is fostered in work groups where people first get to know each other and then learn to trust one another. And, in this playground we recognize that a good idea can emerge from anywhere in the organization or from within a team. We make our shows from this collective creativity."
The Human Resources and Performance Review Processes at Cirque are self-created. Five main things are evaluated. "I am creative, committed, responsible, team player, passionate."
Once a year they bring in new talent; 60 or 70 candidates are gathered from around the world and pushed to their extended limits for up to 16 weeks. "We have them try and do things which they may never have done before and we evaluate their core human values applicable to the job at hand—their ability to work in a team in order to solve problems; the courage to take risks, both physical and artistic; their generosity both to the public and in sharing their ideas with other team members; their willingness to manage their own artistic growth and to learn quickly. Then we hire them—not for who they are now, but for what they might become."
In a particularly poignant moment of her presentation she described what happens after they've found talent, through a process called "creative transformation." One of the analogies they use is this one by artist Michelangelo, the creator of the masterpiece statue David. Responding to a question about how he created this work, Michaelangelo replied that David was already inside of the stone; to find him he just needed to chip away all the pieces that weren't David.
In a similar way, Cirque's long-time stage director, Franco Dragone demands of new artists: Who are you? "This way he removes the stereotypical behaviours that often plague young artists, gymnasts and other athletes in general. By sticking his hand down their throats, he pulled them out of themselves and brought forth real raw beings from whom he would sculpt his characters. It is interesting to note that when asked who they are most people will define themselves through their families, jobs, their likes and dislikes, but very rarely through their inner most thoughts and emotions. It's very much like peeling an onion to get to the sweet, intense core."
"In our shows, we don't tell a story—we use an 'open architecture.' Our directors write the shows and there are always a series of images and inspirations that weave their way through the show which are interpreted by the individuals in the audience. People will give you entirely different readings of the acts. This leaves room for the imagination of the spectator to read or interpret it in light of the experience of their own life. People are looking to see themselves."
At Cirque the ideal 'working space' is a fantastical playground and, although it may have many rules, is a place where a designer, an artisan or an employee can see the world through the eyes of a child—with curiosity, eagerness, excitement and playfulness.
It has an open and inviting atmosphere which stimulates creative thought and action and which takes into consideration that:
• All team members have the product as their ultimate goal and feel responsible for its success or failure
• Creative synergy is encouraged, recognized and rewarded. It's also understood that, "We are each but a quarter note in a grand symphony" and it's also a place where a sense of humility and sharing of "creative ownership" is instilled
• In this fantastical playground, employees are offered the protection and support that they need to take risks on the company's behalf
• An interdependent structure allows for greater risk-taking and potentially greater results. And some errors are permitted where risk-taking is encouraged
• Finally, the physical structure and decoration of this playground are both stimulating and inspirational, something the employees can be proud of
"It is common knowledge that Cirque designers don't like budgets, deadlines and limited resources. Privately, however, even they will admit that these 'constraints' force us to become more resourceful and more creative! They require us to come up with solutions we’d never thought of before…and, they actually become motivators for getting the job done. In fact, some of our most inspired ideas arise from moderately spartan situations."
"In fact, incredible freedom is a problem for most people because it requires us to think differently and imposes the highest form of risking-taking and exposes them to criticism and failure. So, in the long run, defining some limits and giving some guidelines or specifications become a creative catalyst by establishing the playing field."
Cirque is also influenced by what is happening outside of our organization. "We have to listen to and be in touch with the world. It provides our motivation and inspiration. When the world needs hope, we must provide it. When the world is troubled by terrorism, water pollution or violence in youth…we must set an example, lead the way and incite change. In this way your social mission, too, can become a creative catalyst."
"We also have to understand how cultural differences affect our creative products. We have learned to take inspiration from the well over 60 different cultures which co-exist within our organization. Each person brings at least part of his own culture to the creative table and these elements become our cultural assets: Brazilian percussion and capoeira, Australian didgeridoo, Ukrainian and Africa dancing, Wushu, Peking Opera and Kung Fu have all found their way into our multidisciplinary shows. All of these cultural imports contribute to and enhance our products."
"And finally, we need to take into consideration the needs and expectations of our consumers. Our spectators want to be amused, surprised, if not astounded, and to escape from their daily lives if only for a short while, or to be moved or touches or somehow changed by the experience."
"Creativity is first and foremost all about courage—a willingness to take risks, to try new things and share the experience with others. In fact, as an individual or as a company, complacency is the biggest risk you will ever take, and most often the least productive. Risk-taking can be defined as the balance of power between success and fear of failure. So the moral of this story is that we all need to practice risk taking! Our fears hold us back, make us cautious…instead we need to forge ahead and make a few mistakes…and hopefully learn from them. Here, we call this research and development!"
Individuals, creative leaders & managers can learn a lot from applying some of the learned creativity processes of the Cirque du Soleil. Here are some ideas on creative transformation that may be helpful to your organization.
Ideas on Creative Transformation from Cirque du Soleil
1. Work outside of your comfort zone
2. Take risks. Try something different.
3. Use inventiveness and creativity to everyday tasks and problems, as well as to the big exciting projects.
4. Build a nurturing environment which is conducive to productivity, creativity and personal growth.
5. Practice teamwork. True creativity requires stimulation and collaboration. It's difficult to be creative in isolation.
6. Keep creativity fresh with hard-working bosses who constantly encourage and receive employees' ideas and feedback and accept that there are often different ways of getting to the same end result.
7. Commit to looking critically at your work or your product from an outside perspective, from the point of view of the consumer. In Cirque's case, we sit in the house, watch and listen to comments the spectators make during and after the show. We are constantly asking ourselves what we can do better and most often we try it!
8. Stay connected with your end product to see if it still fits the demands of the market.
9 Expose your employees to your product: see the show, wear the clothes, drive the car! Encourage their sense of ownership, cultivate their pride and share your success with them.
managesmarter.com
Boomer Bust
By the year 2011, a large portion of the largest generation in U.S. history will be reaching retirement age. Are you prepared to recruit and retain your way through the
biggest demographic shift ever to hit the U.S. workforce?
By Holly Dolezalek
For years, experts have been warning American businesses that the coming retirement of the baby boomers would create havoc—shrinking the pool of qualified workers and creating a sudden loss of a large group of experienced employees.
Now, Companies are Finally Starting to Get Scared
In the 2006 Job Retention Poll issued by the Society for Human Resource Management in December, nearly three-quarters of the human resources executives surveyed said they were concerned about retaining employees, and half said their firms have created special retention programs to address this problem.
Estimates vary, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 78 million people in the post–World War II baby boom generation. They were born between 1946 and 1964, which means that a lot of baby boomers won't reach retirement age until 2029. The demographic shift won't occur overnight, and not every baby boomer is going to retire at age 65 and head for Arizona. "Consistently since 1998, when AARP began surveying its membership, between two-thirds and 80 percent of respondents have been saying that they plan to work full- or part-time into their retirement years," says AARP spokesman Joe Nathan.
Still, eventually everyone stops working, and a plan for slowing the impact when large numbers of employees do so is important for the health of any company. The first step in helping your company make a graceful transition is to find out what demographic patterns characterize your workforce.
Know Who Your Boomers Are
Some companies have more problems in this area than others. "Consider the hiring patterns of the last 20 years," says David DeLong, author of Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce. "At many companies, downsizing and other hiring choices means that they have plenty of older employees in their late 50s or early 60s, and plenty of younger employees who are just entering the workforce. But they don't have anyone in between, so there's a huge gap in their bench strength."
DeLong points out that three groups are aging out of the workforce. The first is older workers
who are low-skilled and are relatively easy to replace, such as retail salespeople or middle managers in government agencies. The second group is higher-skilled employees like engineers, research scientists or upper middle managers. These employees are adding value to the organization, but may feel trapped in jobs where they aren't getting the training and development opportunities they need to move on. Finally, the third group is highly skilled workers or managers whose unique expertise and training makes them extremely difficult to replace.
"The second and third groups are the ones you have to be concerned about," DeLong says. "The second group is likely to just give up and serve out their time, or leave, because organizations fail to motivate and develop them to ensure their late-career success. And leaders consistently underestimate the cost of departure for the third group, because they don't realize their value to the business or the difficulty of replacing them."
That means that the more you know about your workforce, such as which employees might leave before retirement and which ones are frustrated or feeling stalled in their career progression, the better positioned you'll be to keep them.
"Your training department should be working with HR to determine which divisions and units are at the most risk, given the changing workforce demographics," DeLong says.
Keep in mind that just because a boomer decides to keep working, it doesn't mean she'll want to keep working for you. She could just as easily decide to change jobs or careers for variety, or to start her own business. That's why part of your strategy should be to hang on to your boomers for as long as you can. But that means you're going to have to give them reasons to stick around.
Make Sure Your Boomers Feel Valued
Letting older employees know that the knowledge they have gathered in their decades of work is necessary to the company is an excellent way to encourage them to stick around, especially if you find ways to help them share it with younger employees through mentoring and coaching relationships.
But you may have to be cautious in your approach. Especially at organizations with a history of downsizing, trying to capture older employees' knowledge can backfire. "You can ask people to mentor and share their knowledge, but you have to make sure that you send clear signals that they are valued and not at risk of being asked to retire early or being downsized," DeLong says. "If you don't communicate that clearly…these employees may guard their knowledge instead of sharing it, because they know that their knowledge is their job security."
One way to communicate the sense that their experience has value is by offering training opportunities to this population. DeLong notes that this is a great way to both invest in those employees and to make it clear that their development and skills are necessary to the company, and that the company cares about them.
"Have the conversation directly," DeLong says. "Talk to those employees, and ask them what their plans are. Do they want to keep working for you? Are they thinking about retirement? What do they want to do in the time remaining, and how can the company help them do that? By confronting the question head-on, you establish trust and you establish their value. You also gather the information you need to appeal to that employee to stick around."
By encouraging managers to talk to employees, especially those who are approaching their retirement years, you can ensure that you have information about what boomers want to do with their remaining work years, and what kinds of incentives would tip the stay-or-leave decision in your company's favor, says Rodger Stotz, vice president and managing consultant at Maritz, in Fenton, Mo.
Keep in mind, though, that many boomers are actually being managed by employees who are younger than they are. Generation Xers might be managing workers who are 20 years older. If that's the case, those managers might need encouragement to change their perspective on those older employees. They need to be sensitive to and appreciative of the much longer years of experience that the boomer has. "Older workers want to be seen as an asset, not somebody who's over the hill," says Stotz.
These kinds of conversations will yield information that might allow you to retain employees in the oddest of ways. For an example, see the sidebar below.
Ease Up on the Corporate Reins
Corporations aren't known for their flexibility. They have a tendency to set rules that everyone has to follow and they have an allergy to exceptions.
In order to deal with a shortage of talented employees, corporations might just have to get over that, and relax rules about benefit plans or work schedules or incentives and rewards.
If it's an option for your company, many boomers who are near retirement will love the idea of transitioning to part-time hours, or taking some time off (maybe a few months) and returning on a consulting basis, where they work two days a week or do a lot of their work from home. In fact, this kind of schedule might keep some boomers from retiring for years on end, if it meets their needs.
Not all organizations can offer these kinds of schedules. A manufacturing plant can't have a particular machine sitting idle for half the day because the operator is working part-time. But for those that can, it's a way to encourage employees to stay around—and it's also an opportunity to capture their knowledge before they go. "If you're offering flexible work hours to employees, particularly if they're knowledgeable and experienced, when they take you up on it, it's important to build in a training or mentoring commitment on their part," says DeLong. "Organizations often offer flexibility without thinking about the knowledge they're failing to retain."
Of course, no one has more flexibility than someone who is his own boss. "Many people are becoming contractors so that they can make more per hour, get paid overtime, choose their own projects and avoid the bureaucracy that's so frustrating at some companies," says Tom Darrow, founder and president of Atlanta-based recruiting and search consulting firm Talent Connections. "Some older workers are starting their own businesses, and they're even using part of their retirement nest egg to do it. That shows you that a lot of people really want to get out of Corporate America and its inflexibilities, and you're going to have to offer them some good, flexible benefits to get them to work for you."
Tailor Benefits to Boomers
Workers who are approaching retirement age have unique needs. Smart companies offer them benefits and incentives that fit specifically with the challenges they face at their time of life. Retention is the intended result.
"If you want to get rid of someone, don't train them," says Bill Byham, CEO of Minneapolis-based performance management company DDI. Since many companies fail to keep training employees as they get older, and focus on younger workers whose training needs are obvious, it's easy to suddenly find that your boomers are moving on because they aren't learning anything.
Look for problems in all areas of training and development. For example, are you eliminating older workers from your training plan because you don't think they'll respond to e-learning and other types of more innovative learning? Are you encouraging them to take advantage of the company's tuition reimbursement program? (An advanced degree might be just the incentive to keep them around for a few more years.)
Many companies require employees to work 40 hours a week to be eligible for health benefits, but especially for those boomers you hope to retain, it might be worth it to relax those rules and allow them to get those benefits even if they're working only 30 hours a week, or part- time, or even six months on and six months off each year.
Some employers are starting to offer on-site medical clinics to all of their employees. Rather than having to take an afternoon off and drive across town, employees can see a doctor on their break or lunch hour, or stop by after work. Many of these clinics offer shortened waiting (or even a call from the clinic when there isn't any waiting), letting employees remain productive.
The management of chronic conditions is much easier with an arrangement like this. At Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in Reno, Nev., Vice President of Human Resources Sterling Lundgren says that the clinic is a big incentive that makes the company an employer of choice. "The convenience is unmatchable—the clinic is right next to the employee entrance, and they've treated heart attacks, appendicitis, you name it," he says.
Another benefit that specifically targets those valuable older employees is help with elder care. Many boomers are caring for elderly parents or other relatives, and the strain of giving that care often shows up in absenteeism and lower productivity. Any employee who is close to retirement might choose to retire early so as to reduce that stress.
"It's not an expensive investment for us to make, and the cost is reasonable, based on the productivity we get back," says Pete Stoddart, director of PR for Minneapolis-based human resources company Ceridian. "We're helping a valuable long-term employee to get back to their career, and you can't put a dollar value on that."
Recruit Older Workers
Your company might not have to replace its most experienced workers if retention measures work. But the other side of the coin is finding people to replace those boomers who do retire, and your first line of possible candidates might be other boomers. After all, many boomers won't even be at retirement age for another 15 to 20 years, and employees who want to keep working but try a new environment or even a whole new career will be ripe for the picking if you can offer them better incentives than other employers do.
In fact, by being older-worker-friendly, you might find an untapped source of labor. "I go to networking sessions, and a lot of times nearly everyone there is over fifty," says Talent Connections' Darrow. "They're usually good people with great skills to offer an employer, but they're all a little discouraged because they can't even get a return phone call from a recruiter. Age discrimination is hard to prove, but I think companies routinely discriminate against older workers. That's an opporunity for a company who needs workers and understands that people over fifty are just as good em-ployees as people under fifty."
Darrow argues that in many ways, older employees will make a better stopgap than younger ones when companies need to recruit fresh talent. Older workers are more likely to have already sent their kids to school and even to have paid the mortgage off, he says, which means that they don't need the big-buck salaries that might be expected based on their levels of experience.
"Plenty of older workers take jobs where they're making half of what they used to, and it's because they want and need different things from their work than they used to," Darrow says. "They don't want the top salaries because they don't want the long hours, required travel and pressure that come with them. They're off the fast track and they just want a decent job that's meaningful and pays them a fair salary with the benefits they need, but Corporate America has a hard time getting its arms around that concept."
Sidebar: Incentives Stay Put
Who are the boomers and what rewards will motivate them to remain in your company's employ?
Although the baby boomers are often discussed as though they were a homogeneous group, it's actually not easy to generalize about them because they are both a broad and deep segment of the population. "There are boomers who are empty nesters and boomers who have young children; some have children in college, and some have both; some are single and some are remarried with essentially two families," says Rodger Stotz, vice president and managing consultant at Maritz, in Fenton, Mo.
Because different boomers will have different needs, it's impossible to say that reward cards or incentive travel or any specific incentive will keep them around or encourage them to consider your company an employer of choice. That's why managers are the front line of your company's ability to find out what will motivate folks to stay around.
What if a boomer you want to retain has always wanted to go to cooking school or start getting back into golf? That may not sound like the company's problem, but if you'd like that worker to stay with you for five more years (or join your company, rather than start her own business), you might think about how an imaginative incentive reward like a chance to pursue this dream might translate to the retention you need for the hard labor times ahead. Flexibility and imagination are the keys to retention.
managesmarter.com
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Higher Education and Private Universities in Bangladesh.
Mahbub Hussain Khan
Given the premise that the need for higher education is one of the emergent issues in our developing society, how then can we find the material and human resources necessary to build up and expand the structure? In the economically developed West there has been a long tradition of universities financed from both public and private resources. The private universities there in most cases are the best of their kind in the world in their educational competence. Even nearby India, contiguous to us physically, though somewhat ahead in economic advancement, has some really excellent private universities.
Private universities and colleges for higher learning have a short history in our country. This is both because of the non-availability of private funds for investment as well as the lack of interest in the educated elite to sponsor and administer such organizations. However the increasingly larger requirements for places in the universities and professional colleges, as well as the administrative disorders of session jam and decline in educational quality in the state-run places of higher learning provided the impetus for diverting funds to universities in addition to the nursery, primary, and secondary schools being set up in our country, albeit primarily in the urban centers. Interestingly enough three of these universities have been set up, organized and administered by former senior civil servants who also have academic competence. This is in part because of the necessity of management resources towards the making of a success of an educational place of higher learning.
How have these universities matured in their objectives, over the years, apart of course from the factor of trying to recover a reasonable return of the investment? We have come to know about the present status of these universities, if not the ratings we may make on specific criteria in relation to the state run academies, in the reports and columns in the print and electronic media and also from the seminars and workshops held on topics related to the educational and administrative management of private universities Apart from the obvious need of offering higher education to those not getting a place in public universities and graduate colleges, the private universities fulfill other needs also, one of the foremost is the assurance of finishing course and getting a degree in the scheduled time. This is being achieved by shielding students from political and social turmoil, making up for lost time due to hartals and strikes, and ensuring that teachers meet the qualitative and quantitative standards that have been setup by the curriculum. This has not been easy, but to date it has worked to the advantage of students. Newspaper and other surveys indicate a satisfied clientele in this regard. Another important factor from the viewpoint of both students and guardians in the association of many of these universities with universities of developed countries though not all of these are first rateand also the tapping of teaching talents from abroad. In these days of the 'information highway' these universities are trying to take optimum advantage of borrowing knowledge from all sources. This technique is still lacking in the state-run counterparts. Besides, there are also special programmes available for those not able to attend the universities in formal enrolment. For example the University of Asia Pacific has Distance Education, Foreign Academic and Technical Collaboration, Special programmes, Extension programmes and co curricular Activities. These include short professional courses, language courses, debates, cultural activities and programmes which are innovative and creative, built into the curriculum. Other universities also have similar programmes on their academic calendar.
And now come the key questions of the lacuna and the affordability at the private universities. The obvious lacuna is that none of these universities can match the sprawling campuses and physical facilities of the public universities. Not yet anyway. This is because of resource constraints and the absence of available space within urban centres which Dhaka being the almost total compass of these universities are in scarce supply. Possibly the near future may see that these universities have invested more in their physical facilities and shifted their campus to accessible but spacious places. Residential private colleges and universities may also be in vogue, in the future.
The question of affordability is very much on the top of the agenda. Again a semester in a private university can cost up to Tk 140,000 which means an overall annual cost of over three lakhs to cover tuition, books, and other supplementary expenses. Whatever be the calculations of per-capita income, only the really affluent can afford this. This means that the not-quite top class student who is poor has to still look for places in the public universities and colleges.
Prescriptions are only indicative but some of the emergent steps that need be taken are in the different fields of investments to redress the lacuna. Higher education both in the public and private sectors must attract and celebrate the best of teaching talent. At present some of the best talents from say, Dhaka University, is hired on part time basis. Efforts and expenses for their fulltime utilization have to be made. Capital, the basic requirement for material investment, moves readily from one country to another. Teachers, the essential instruments of education, are less mobile.
An international teacher corps is one of the major needs of higher educational development. In this connection foreign investments so eagerly sought in industrial and trade sectors have also to be solicited for education and higher education. Private schools, colleges and universities have to be encouraged, both from necessity and as an expression of an essential freedom in the free society. They must not be a design for not according a better education and superior educational opportunity for those who are able to pay. A system for student grants, loans, has to be devised and patronized by the government to overcome its own lacuna to provide places for all aspirants to higher education. We look forward to more investments for promoting quality higher education in the private sector and also the opportunity for some of the poor but meritorious to study at these universities with grants and loans.
Given the premise that the need for higher education is one of the emergent issues in our developing society, how then can we find the material and human resources necessary to build up and expand the structure? In the economically developed West there has been a long tradition of universities financed from both public and private resources. The private universities there in most cases are the best of their kind in the world in their educational competence. Even nearby India, contiguous to us physically, though somewhat ahead in economic advancement, has some really excellent private universities.
Private universities and colleges for higher learning have a short history in our country. This is both because of the non-availability of private funds for investment as well as the lack of interest in the educated elite to sponsor and administer such organizations. However the increasingly larger requirements for places in the universities and professional colleges, as well as the administrative disorders of session jam and decline in educational quality in the state-run places of higher learning provided the impetus for diverting funds to universities in addition to the nursery, primary, and secondary schools being set up in our country, albeit primarily in the urban centers. Interestingly enough three of these universities have been set up, organized and administered by former senior civil servants who also have academic competence. This is in part because of the necessity of management resources towards the making of a success of an educational place of higher learning.
How have these universities matured in their objectives, over the years, apart of course from the factor of trying to recover a reasonable return of the investment? We have come to know about the present status of these universities, if not the ratings we may make on specific criteria in relation to the state run academies, in the reports and columns in the print and electronic media and also from the seminars and workshops held on topics related to the educational and administrative management of private universities Apart from the obvious need of offering higher education to those not getting a place in public universities and graduate colleges, the private universities fulfill other needs also, one of the foremost is the assurance of finishing course and getting a degree in the scheduled time. This is being achieved by shielding students from political and social turmoil, making up for lost time due to hartals and strikes, and ensuring that teachers meet the qualitative and quantitative standards that have been setup by the curriculum. This has not been easy, but to date it has worked to the advantage of students. Newspaper and other surveys indicate a satisfied clientele in this regard. Another important factor from the viewpoint of both students and guardians in the association of many of these universities with universities of developed countries though not all of these are first rateand also the tapping of teaching talents from abroad. In these days of the 'information highway' these universities are trying to take optimum advantage of borrowing knowledge from all sources. This technique is still lacking in the state-run counterparts. Besides, there are also special programmes available for those not able to attend the universities in formal enrolment. For example the University of Asia Pacific has Distance Education, Foreign Academic and Technical Collaboration, Special programmes, Extension programmes and co curricular Activities. These include short professional courses, language courses, debates, cultural activities and programmes which are innovative and creative, built into the curriculum. Other universities also have similar programmes on their academic calendar.
And now come the key questions of the lacuna and the affordability at the private universities. The obvious lacuna is that none of these universities can match the sprawling campuses and physical facilities of the public universities. Not yet anyway. This is because of resource constraints and the absence of available space within urban centres which Dhaka being the almost total compass of these universities are in scarce supply. Possibly the near future may see that these universities have invested more in their physical facilities and shifted their campus to accessible but spacious places. Residential private colleges and universities may also be in vogue, in the future.
The question of affordability is very much on the top of the agenda. Again a semester in a private university can cost up to Tk 140,000 which means an overall annual cost of over three lakhs to cover tuition, books, and other supplementary expenses. Whatever be the calculations of per-capita income, only the really affluent can afford this. This means that the not-quite top class student who is poor has to still look for places in the public universities and colleges.
Prescriptions are only indicative but some of the emergent steps that need be taken are in the different fields of investments to redress the lacuna. Higher education both in the public and private sectors must attract and celebrate the best of teaching talent. At present some of the best talents from say, Dhaka University, is hired on part time basis. Efforts and expenses for their fulltime utilization have to be made. Capital, the basic requirement for material investment, moves readily from one country to another. Teachers, the essential instruments of education, are less mobile.
An international teacher corps is one of the major needs of higher educational development. In this connection foreign investments so eagerly sought in industrial and trade sectors have also to be solicited for education and higher education. Private schools, colleges and universities have to be encouraged, both from necessity and as an expression of an essential freedom in the free society. They must not be a design for not according a better education and superior educational opportunity for those who are able to pay. A system for student grants, loans, has to be devised and patronized by the government to overcome its own lacuna to provide places for all aspirants to higher education. We look forward to more investments for promoting quality higher education in the private sector and also the opportunity for some of the poor but meritorious to study at these universities with grants and loans.
Learning Professional Business Strategies.
Everyone agrees that we are in an era of rapid and constant change. To compete with the fast-changing and dynamic elements of business, business professionals have learned the importance of networking and of keeping files on subjects that are important to them. These are two secrets to success that students should begin practicing now. One thing that links students in all colleges is the need to retain what they learn. You need a strategy to help you meet this need. It's also extremely important to keep the names of contact people at various organizations. In addition, you may want to keep facts and figures of all kinds about the economy and business-related subjects. These are all reasons why you should develop resource files.
An effective way to become an expert on almost any business subject is to set up your own information system. Eventually you may want to store data on computer disks for retrieval on your personal computer and to access professional databases as businesspeople do. Meanwhile, it's effective to establish a comprehensive filing system on paper.
If you start now, you'll soon have at your fingertips information that will prove invaluable for use in term papers and throughout your career. Few college students do this filing, those who don't lose much of the information they read in college or thereafter. Developing this habit is one of the most effective ways of educating yourself and having the information available when you need it. The only space you'll need to start is a 12 - inch by 12-inch corner of your room to hold a portable file box. The box should hold handing folder in which you can place a number of table file folder. To start filling these files you might put your course notes in them, with the names of your professors and the books you used. You may need this information later for employment references. Also, be sure to keep all the notes you make when talking with people about careers, including salary information, courses needed, and contacts. Each time you read a story about a firm that intersests you, either cut it out of the publication or photocopy it and then place it in an appropriate file. You might begin with files labeled careers, small business, economics, Management, and Resource People. You might summarize the article on a Post. Stick this summary on the front for later reference.
Today, it is possible to find the latest data on almost any subject on the Internet. Good students know, or quickly learn, how to find such information efficiently. The best students know the importance efficiently. The best students know the importance of keeping such information in files so that it is readily accessible. Those files may be in their computers or on their desktops, ready for easy access.
You definitely want to have a personal data file titled 'Credentials for My Resume' or something similar. In that file, you'll place all reference letters and other information about jobs you may have held. Soon you'll have a tremendous amount of information available to you. You can add to these initial files until you have your own comprehensive information system.
Business people are constantly seeking ways to increase their knowledge of the business world and to increase their investment returns. One way they do so is by watching television shows. Watching such programs is like getting a free graduate education in business. Try viewing some of these shows or listening to similar shows on the radio, and see which ones you like best. Take notes and put them in your files. Another way, one of the best, to increase your business knowledge is to read your local newspaper, keep up with the business news in your local area so you know what jobs are available and where. You may also want to join local business groups to begin networking with people and learning the secrets of the local business scene. Many business groups and professional societies accept student members.
Lecturer
Department of Accounting
University of Comilla
dailystar campus.
An effective way to become an expert on almost any business subject is to set up your own information system. Eventually you may want to store data on computer disks for retrieval on your personal computer and to access professional databases as businesspeople do. Meanwhile, it's effective to establish a comprehensive filing system on paper.
If you start now, you'll soon have at your fingertips information that will prove invaluable for use in term papers and throughout your career. Few college students do this filing, those who don't lose much of the information they read in college or thereafter. Developing this habit is one of the most effective ways of educating yourself and having the information available when you need it. The only space you'll need to start is a 12 - inch by 12-inch corner of your room to hold a portable file box. The box should hold handing folder in which you can place a number of table file folder. To start filling these files you might put your course notes in them, with the names of your professors and the books you used. You may need this information later for employment references. Also, be sure to keep all the notes you make when talking with people about careers, including salary information, courses needed, and contacts. Each time you read a story about a firm that intersests you, either cut it out of the publication or photocopy it and then place it in an appropriate file. You might begin with files labeled careers, small business, economics, Management, and Resource People. You might summarize the article on a Post. Stick this summary on the front for later reference.
Today, it is possible to find the latest data on almost any subject on the Internet. Good students know, or quickly learn, how to find such information efficiently. The best students know the importance efficiently. The best students know the importance of keeping such information in files so that it is readily accessible. Those files may be in their computers or on their desktops, ready for easy access.
You definitely want to have a personal data file titled 'Credentials for My Resume' or something similar. In that file, you'll place all reference letters and other information about jobs you may have held. Soon you'll have a tremendous amount of information available to you. You can add to these initial files until you have your own comprehensive information system.
Business people are constantly seeking ways to increase their knowledge of the business world and to increase their investment returns. One way they do so is by watching television shows. Watching such programs is like getting a free graduate education in business. Try viewing some of these shows or listening to similar shows on the radio, and see which ones you like best. Take notes and put them in your files. Another way, one of the best, to increase your business knowledge is to read your local newspaper, keep up with the business news in your local area so you know what jobs are available and where. You may also want to join local business groups to begin networking with people and learning the secrets of the local business scene. Many business groups and professional societies accept student members.
Lecturer
Department of Accounting
University of Comilla
dailystar campus.
Economics And Moral Philosophy
Is there anything ethical in economics? Is there any relation between contemporary economics and moral philosophy? Does any such thing as 'welfare economics' exist? Many such questions bugged my mind for a long time. Economics was not my field of study. But economics as we all know affect everyone in his or her personal life more so in the national life of a country. These questions grew more and became expanded as I read Amartya Sen's book called 'Ethics and Economics'. He has asserted with examples how the mainstream of economics could be affected by self-interested behaviour and its misbehaviour. The book is truly human and calls for acclamation as a social and philosophical insight into economics.
One who enters the domain of economics bears in mind, according to Dante, 'Abandon all friendliness, you who enter!' This economic model, however, provides room for human motivations in its narrowest terms. Good intensions and moral sentiments are kept out of doors. I agree with Sen when he says that economics is supposed to be concerned with real people who live. Considerations for human behaviour and their achievements come into question. Economics without ethics should therefore undoubtedly fail. It has, at least, done so far. Consider the famines and deaths from starvation that have occured in various developing countries of the world. Contemporary economics in the present day suffers because of the distance, and a serious one for that matter, that has developed between economics and ethics. It is, therefore, wise to remember that economics will thrive and be useful to mankind if it is ethical in character.
The character of modern economics is uncommendably and largely 'un-ethical'. This is in contrast with the fact that modern economics has evolved as a branch or off-shoot of ethics. In the early 30's of the last century economists found it 'logically impossible' to relate economics with ethics. Almost a century after it has now become a fashion to logically disassociate ethics from economics.
Human society exists on interdependence in various patterns. Social interdependence forms a major aspect in economics. Any imbalance caused therein results in crisis and disaster. Hunger and famine in the modern world are mainly due to some loopholes in interdependence and the absence of moral philosophy in economics. It is surprising to note that famines can occur even when the availability of food is high and it turns out that such famines have very little to do with food supply.
There has been much debate as to the productivity of economics with logic-based origin and ethic-based origin. It has been argued that logic based economics prove very productive. This is true and acceptable. The point to remember, here, again reverting to the former question as to for whom is economics, is that economics can be made more productive by taking into consideration the ethical and moral values which mainly characterize human behaviour.
The role of 'profit motive' in economics has long been a subject of study. The issue has been related to famine and starvation. Profit motive among traders is held responsible for causing famines. The idea of profit incurs directly or indirectly a lack of moral values or ethics. It is, however, argued that though traders have been accused of causing famines, in fact, famines follow a scarcity. Very often, again, this scarcity is from unethical process and not from a real scarcity as a result of decrease in production or non-availability.
In the modern world, modern economics is essential for survival. Economics should now adhere to moral values that must prevail and shape economics towards welfare economics. Like all branches of knowledge economics, too, ought to be anointed with ethical sentiments and moral philosophy. Only then, hopefully, we can expect poverty, famine and mortality to decrease from the world.
Professor Mustafa Kamaluddin
Professor & Chairman
Department of English
Bangladesh University
dailystar campus.
One who enters the domain of economics bears in mind, according to Dante, 'Abandon all friendliness, you who enter!' This economic model, however, provides room for human motivations in its narrowest terms. Good intensions and moral sentiments are kept out of doors. I agree with Sen when he says that economics is supposed to be concerned with real people who live. Considerations for human behaviour and their achievements come into question. Economics without ethics should therefore undoubtedly fail. It has, at least, done so far. Consider the famines and deaths from starvation that have occured in various developing countries of the world. Contemporary economics in the present day suffers because of the distance, and a serious one for that matter, that has developed between economics and ethics. It is, therefore, wise to remember that economics will thrive and be useful to mankind if it is ethical in character.
The character of modern economics is uncommendably and largely 'un-ethical'. This is in contrast with the fact that modern economics has evolved as a branch or off-shoot of ethics. In the early 30's of the last century economists found it 'logically impossible' to relate economics with ethics. Almost a century after it has now become a fashion to logically disassociate ethics from economics.
Human society exists on interdependence in various patterns. Social interdependence forms a major aspect in economics. Any imbalance caused therein results in crisis and disaster. Hunger and famine in the modern world are mainly due to some loopholes in interdependence and the absence of moral philosophy in economics. It is surprising to note that famines can occur even when the availability of food is high and it turns out that such famines have very little to do with food supply.
There has been much debate as to the productivity of economics with logic-based origin and ethic-based origin. It has been argued that logic based economics prove very productive. This is true and acceptable. The point to remember, here, again reverting to the former question as to for whom is economics, is that economics can be made more productive by taking into consideration the ethical and moral values which mainly characterize human behaviour.
The role of 'profit motive' in economics has long been a subject of study. The issue has been related to famine and starvation. Profit motive among traders is held responsible for causing famines. The idea of profit incurs directly or indirectly a lack of moral values or ethics. It is, however, argued that though traders have been accused of causing famines, in fact, famines follow a scarcity. Very often, again, this scarcity is from unethical process and not from a real scarcity as a result of decrease in production or non-availability.
In the modern world, modern economics is essential for survival. Economics should now adhere to moral values that must prevail and shape economics towards welfare economics. Like all branches of knowledge economics, too, ought to be anointed with ethical sentiments and moral philosophy. Only then, hopefully, we can expect poverty, famine and mortality to decrease from the world.
Professor Mustafa Kamaluddin
Professor & Chairman
Department of English
Bangladesh University
dailystar campus.
Job Fair & Career Development Seminar At Marketing Department,DU.
Kazi Ahmed Farhan
These Days, getting a suitable job is indeed a very crucial task. After completing their studies students struggle to find suitable jobs irrespective of whatever discipline they are from. Job Fairs, a new trend in our country, can be a suitable solution in this regard.
The 9th batch students of the Department of Marketing, Dhaka University organised a Job Fair in the Faculty premises on July 07-09. When I entered the fair venue, I found the premises to be full to the brim by the youth from all around. The entire area wore a festive look. This was the second initiative taken by the students of Department of Marketing to arrange such a big event. The students of BBA 8th batch of the department did the first one and it was a flamboyant success. The outcome of the previous Job Fair & Career Development is that 26 students got lucrative jobs in esteemed companies including Maersk Bangladesh Limited, British American Tobacco (BAT) and Unilever Bangladesh Limited even before completing their BBA degrees.
The Job Fair not only helped the students to get their jobs but it also was a huge source of getting internship for a lot of students of different departments of DU. At present there are several universities who provide graduates to the job market regularly. With the number of qualified graduates increasing every year the importance of a Job Fair cannot be denied. The ultimate goal of a student is to get a quality job. It is the motivation that helps the students to work hard during student life.
Only academic excellence is not enough to ensure a quality job. There are certainly other qualities that one needs to master to impress the employer. In a job fair, a job seeker gets to know about various key factors like: how to face an interview; how to prepare a convincing CV; how to plan for career in a proper way; what are the requirements of a leading corporate house etc. In a developing country, corporate houses are on the look of talented individuals and job seekers tend to look for high salary jobs. So a Job Fair bridges the gap and strengthens the communication between the two.
An event called 'Maersk Corporate Bridge' was also held the slogan of which was “Beyond the Boundary.” The colourful event featured the participation of eleven corporate houses including: ACI Ltd, Citycell, Commercial Bank of Ceylon, Elit Cosmetica, Holcim Cement, Incepta Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Maersk Bangladesh Limited, Mirpur Ceramic Works Limited, Nestlé Bangladesh Limited, Roxy Paints and Unilever Bangladesh Limited. Participation by these corporate houses attracted an overwhelming crowd of business graduates, job seekers and students of all disciplines of DU.
For the two days the stalls remained intensely crowded and thousands of CVs were dropped. Not only the graduates, but would be graduates of several disciplines also dropped their CVs. This was the opportunity for them to try their luck in the job sector.
For example, Adnan, an MBA student of DU came to the fair and submitted his CV to all the 11 corporate houses. He commented, "I want to develop my career in the corporate house. Several organisations came here to collect CVs of the students. Many students were submitting their CVs in the boxes and I have also dropped my CV in all the boxes". Simi is a BBA graduate and she said, "I actually came to the fair to know about the job facilities given by the corporate houses and I think I have succeeded in doing that. I think this job fair will certainly play a significant role in building my career." She looked very happy indeed! "The fair offers me a rare chance of getting valuable information on several things which will help a fresh graduate to architect his/her own career," said another student named Anwar. "Through the fair one comes to know about certain important aspects which are very important for the students who will become potential executives", he added. "The most important thing about this fair is that it gives us a rare chance to attend discussion sessions held on CV drafting, skill development, preparation for viva voce etc. These are really helpful for the students," said Farzana Islam a DU MBA student. Similar opinions were offered by many other students. Now let us see what happened these three days.
On Day 1, The inauguration session was attended by Professor Dr. SMA Faiz, Vice Chancellor of DU, Mr. Mir Nasir Hossain, FBCCI President, Professor Dr. Md. Serajul Islam, Dean, Faculty of Business studies, Professor Dr. Haripada Bhattacharjee, Chairman & Placement Director, Department of Marketing, Dr. Samir Kumar Sheel, Associate Professor & Student Advisor, Department of Marketing, Professor Dr. Kazi Shariful Alam and Mr. Razib Alam, Mr. Md. Rafiuddin Ahmed Lecturer Department of Marketing.
After the inauguration ceremony there was a seminar addressed by Mr. Kamran Rezwanul Hakim, MISE Trainee 2006, Maersk Bangladesh Limited. He talked about Maersk and it's recruitment process. Then Mr. Ravi Chandra Bekal, Human Resource Director, Nestlé Bangladesh Limited presented a paper on “How to prepare a striking cover letter and resume”.
On Day 2, Mr. QM Shahed, HR Head of British American Tobacco talked on “Leadership; standout oneself as a leader among a crowd”. Then Mr. Sanzid Alvi Ahmed, HR Manager Talent & Resourcing of British American Tobacco had also talked on that occasion. Then Unilever's Mr. Tasfin Islam, HR Business Partner highlighted on the criteria behind choosing an employee. Next, Mr. Riajul Haque Chowdhury, Customer Management Director of Unilever Bangladesh Limited spoke on the occasion and answered several questions asked by the audiences. It was followed by a presentation on Managing Career: On the track and off the track by Mr. Mustafa Anwar Sohel, Head of HR Commercial Bank of Ceylon. Next, Mrs. Seema Abed Rahman, Director Corporate Affairs of ACI spoke on “Team Orientation vs. Individualism in an organization”.
On Day 3, the students of BBA 9th batch Department of Marketing had celebrated their BBA Completion Ceremony. It was followed by a rocking DJ Party.
Students sang and danced and later shared their beautiful moments with everyone. There was an arrangement of a Gala Dinner after that. Executives of several leading corporate houses, faculty members of Department of Marketing, Dean of Faculty of Business Studies and several other high officials of DU were present on that occasion.
Professor Dr. Md. Serajul Islam, Dean of the Faculty of Business Studies commented on the program “The course curriculum that Faculty of Business Studies always follows is in accordance with the market trends. Our market oriented nature helps the corporate houses to recruit many students from our department. This kind of job fair will add a special flavour on that note. We highly appreciate the encouragement of the students to step forward to arrange such programme in a large scale. We have appreciated the enthusiasm which the corporate houses showed to us. They have come here and interacted with our students. It was a channel to exchange ideas and views to know each other and also know the requirements of the corporate houses.”
Professor Dr. Haripada Bhattacharjee, Chairman and Placement Director, Department of Marketing: “I am very happy that the programme was a successful one. I do believe the programme will strengthen the relationship between the students of the department and the corporate houses. We want to make an association in this regard. I hope that the corporate houses will always extend their helping hand whenever we need their assistance.”
The following students played the key role in making the programme a success though they did not have any prior experience in undertaking such a big programme: Md. Nazrul Islam, Md. Awlad Hossain, Mirza Ishtiaque Alom Beg, Chinmoy Das, Sharif Al Shajib, Ritesh Ranjon Barua, Md. Shawkat Islam, Sabbir Ahmed, Subod Deb Nath, Md. Moniruzzaman Sarker, Md. Abu Ibrahim, Shawn Barua, Md. Readul Islam, Md. Arifuzzaman, Iban Jamal Ahmed and Morshed Nizam.
It may be mentioned that Maersk Bangladesh Limited was the title sponsor, Commercial Bank Of Ceylon the co-sponsor and Mojo was the official drinks partner of the programme. The Daily Star, Radio Today and Bangla Vision were the media partners.
BBA 8th batch,Departmentof Marketing,DU.
dailystar campus.
These Days, getting a suitable job is indeed a very crucial task. After completing their studies students struggle to find suitable jobs irrespective of whatever discipline they are from. Job Fairs, a new trend in our country, can be a suitable solution in this regard.
The 9th batch students of the Department of Marketing, Dhaka University organised a Job Fair in the Faculty premises on July 07-09. When I entered the fair venue, I found the premises to be full to the brim by the youth from all around. The entire area wore a festive look. This was the second initiative taken by the students of Department of Marketing to arrange such a big event. The students of BBA 8th batch of the department did the first one and it was a flamboyant success. The outcome of the previous Job Fair & Career Development is that 26 students got lucrative jobs in esteemed companies including Maersk Bangladesh Limited, British American Tobacco (BAT) and Unilever Bangladesh Limited even before completing their BBA degrees.
The Job Fair not only helped the students to get their jobs but it also was a huge source of getting internship for a lot of students of different departments of DU. At present there are several universities who provide graduates to the job market regularly. With the number of qualified graduates increasing every year the importance of a Job Fair cannot be denied. The ultimate goal of a student is to get a quality job. It is the motivation that helps the students to work hard during student life.
Only academic excellence is not enough to ensure a quality job. There are certainly other qualities that one needs to master to impress the employer. In a job fair, a job seeker gets to know about various key factors like: how to face an interview; how to prepare a convincing CV; how to plan for career in a proper way; what are the requirements of a leading corporate house etc. In a developing country, corporate houses are on the look of talented individuals and job seekers tend to look for high salary jobs. So a Job Fair bridges the gap and strengthens the communication between the two.
An event called 'Maersk Corporate Bridge' was also held the slogan of which was “Beyond the Boundary.” The colourful event featured the participation of eleven corporate houses including: ACI Ltd, Citycell, Commercial Bank of Ceylon, Elit Cosmetica, Holcim Cement, Incepta Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Maersk Bangladesh Limited, Mirpur Ceramic Works Limited, Nestlé Bangladesh Limited, Roxy Paints and Unilever Bangladesh Limited. Participation by these corporate houses attracted an overwhelming crowd of business graduates, job seekers and students of all disciplines of DU.
For the two days the stalls remained intensely crowded and thousands of CVs were dropped. Not only the graduates, but would be graduates of several disciplines also dropped their CVs. This was the opportunity for them to try their luck in the job sector.
For example, Adnan, an MBA student of DU came to the fair and submitted his CV to all the 11 corporate houses. He commented, "I want to develop my career in the corporate house. Several organisations came here to collect CVs of the students. Many students were submitting their CVs in the boxes and I have also dropped my CV in all the boxes". Simi is a BBA graduate and she said, "I actually came to the fair to know about the job facilities given by the corporate houses and I think I have succeeded in doing that. I think this job fair will certainly play a significant role in building my career." She looked very happy indeed! "The fair offers me a rare chance of getting valuable information on several things which will help a fresh graduate to architect his/her own career," said another student named Anwar. "Through the fair one comes to know about certain important aspects which are very important for the students who will become potential executives", he added. "The most important thing about this fair is that it gives us a rare chance to attend discussion sessions held on CV drafting, skill development, preparation for viva voce etc. These are really helpful for the students," said Farzana Islam a DU MBA student. Similar opinions were offered by many other students. Now let us see what happened these three days.
On Day 1, The inauguration session was attended by Professor Dr. SMA Faiz, Vice Chancellor of DU, Mr. Mir Nasir Hossain, FBCCI President, Professor Dr. Md. Serajul Islam, Dean, Faculty of Business studies, Professor Dr. Haripada Bhattacharjee, Chairman & Placement Director, Department of Marketing, Dr. Samir Kumar Sheel, Associate Professor & Student Advisor, Department of Marketing, Professor Dr. Kazi Shariful Alam and Mr. Razib Alam, Mr. Md. Rafiuddin Ahmed Lecturer Department of Marketing.
After the inauguration ceremony there was a seminar addressed by Mr. Kamran Rezwanul Hakim, MISE Trainee 2006, Maersk Bangladesh Limited. He talked about Maersk and it's recruitment process. Then Mr. Ravi Chandra Bekal, Human Resource Director, Nestlé Bangladesh Limited presented a paper on “How to prepare a striking cover letter and resume”.
On Day 2, Mr. QM Shahed, HR Head of British American Tobacco talked on “Leadership; standout oneself as a leader among a crowd”. Then Mr. Sanzid Alvi Ahmed, HR Manager Talent & Resourcing of British American Tobacco had also talked on that occasion. Then Unilever's Mr. Tasfin Islam, HR Business Partner highlighted on the criteria behind choosing an employee. Next, Mr. Riajul Haque Chowdhury, Customer Management Director of Unilever Bangladesh Limited spoke on the occasion and answered several questions asked by the audiences. It was followed by a presentation on Managing Career: On the track and off the track by Mr. Mustafa Anwar Sohel, Head of HR Commercial Bank of Ceylon. Next, Mrs. Seema Abed Rahman, Director Corporate Affairs of ACI spoke on “Team Orientation vs. Individualism in an organization”.
On Day 3, the students of BBA 9th batch Department of Marketing had celebrated their BBA Completion Ceremony. It was followed by a rocking DJ Party.
Students sang and danced and later shared their beautiful moments with everyone. There was an arrangement of a Gala Dinner after that. Executives of several leading corporate houses, faculty members of Department of Marketing, Dean of Faculty of Business Studies and several other high officials of DU were present on that occasion.
Professor Dr. Md. Serajul Islam, Dean of the Faculty of Business Studies commented on the program “The course curriculum that Faculty of Business Studies always follows is in accordance with the market trends. Our market oriented nature helps the corporate houses to recruit many students from our department. This kind of job fair will add a special flavour on that note. We highly appreciate the encouragement of the students to step forward to arrange such programme in a large scale. We have appreciated the enthusiasm which the corporate houses showed to us. They have come here and interacted with our students. It was a channel to exchange ideas and views to know each other and also know the requirements of the corporate houses.”
Professor Dr. Haripada Bhattacharjee, Chairman and Placement Director, Department of Marketing: “I am very happy that the programme was a successful one. I do believe the programme will strengthen the relationship between the students of the department and the corporate houses. We want to make an association in this regard. I hope that the corporate houses will always extend their helping hand whenever we need their assistance.”
The following students played the key role in making the programme a success though they did not have any prior experience in undertaking such a big programme: Md. Nazrul Islam, Md. Awlad Hossain, Mirza Ishtiaque Alom Beg, Chinmoy Das, Sharif Al Shajib, Ritesh Ranjon Barua, Md. Shawkat Islam, Sabbir Ahmed, Subod Deb Nath, Md. Moniruzzaman Sarker, Md. Abu Ibrahim, Shawn Barua, Md. Readul Islam, Md. Arifuzzaman, Iban Jamal Ahmed and Morshed Nizam.
It may be mentioned that Maersk Bangladesh Limited was the title sponsor, Commercial Bank Of Ceylon the co-sponsor and Mojo was the official drinks partner of the programme. The Daily Star, Radio Today and Bangla Vision were the media partners.
BBA 8th batch,Departmentof Marketing,DU.
dailystar campus.
Career fairs are not just applying for jobs.
Tanvir A. Mishuk
As part of its career development program, the Department of Career & Professional Services (CPDS) of North South University (NSU) organized the National Career Fair 2007 on 20th July, 2007. AMDISA certified firm Splash Communication was the event organizer of the career fair. Grameenphone was the title sponsor, Prothom-alojobs and Radio today were the communication partners of this event. This daylong program was organized to facilitate both job seekers and employers looking for better opportunities to amplify their values and career. About hundred (100) reputable companies from different sector participated in the event. In today's competitive world, organizations are more concerned about value than ever before. When any company hires a new employee, they want to be sure that they are getting the most for your money. Events like this will open a gateway to the participating companies to interact with the potential job seekers not only from NSU but also from all over the country.
Job seekers go to Career Fairs to meet with several employers in an informal setting. Employers come to provide information about their organizations and to discuss job and internship opportunities with qualified students. At the fairs you can "shop around" and meet employers at organizations where you might like to work. Career fairs are not just for applying for jobs, but for learning more about what's out there. From my experience there are some tips to get the most out of Career Fairs.
Bring many copies of your resume to submit to employers. Come prepared--do your homework. Before the fair, you can review the online directory of employers and their job opportunities. If you spend a little time getting some background on an organization, then you can ask very focused and specific questions. This impresses representatives because it shows a genuine interest in them. Dress appropriately. First impressions are important. While campus attire is acceptable for fairs, you will probably be most comfortable if you at least dress in "business casual." Allow yourself adequate time. Come as early as possible. Typically, fairs are less crowded in early hours and are busiest during the lunch hour and at the end. Get your bearings. When you arrive, take a few minutes to review the map and directory for the fair. You may feel more comfortable if you quickly locate and walk by the employers in whom you're most interested. This will confirm their location and alert you to any crowds or lines of other jobseekers are waiting. You can also take help from Splash communication's volunteers
In addition, prioritize the employers you're most interested in. If your schedule allows, you may find it easiest to start with the employers in which you're the least interested. This will allow you to hone your approach and to be most confident when you approach the employers you're especially excited about. Be sure to balance this tip with the reality that you may have little time and that many other students may be interested in the same employers. Assume that you will need to wait to speak with some employers. Take notes when you inquire about next steps and the possibility of talking with additional managers. The representative at the fair may not be able to answer all of your questions or know specifics about your job interests. Write down the names, telephone numbers, etc. of other staff in the organization whom you can contact later. Note contact address, applying procedures and or any other specific criteria that will affect you. You will not be able to take advantage of this information if you don't record it.
Do not forget to ask the representative for his/her card. Having the business card of the representative you have just spoken with serves many purposes. Specially, you have a direct contact with the organization, including the proper spelling of the representative's name, direct telephone line, etc. Respect employers' materials/sample items. Some employers bring large quantities of print materials, sample products, etc. as displays at their tables. Always check with employers before taking materials from their tables and don't take materials still packed in boxes.
Be courteous! In addition to representing yourself, you also represent your department and the University. So do not do anything that show negative impact on you or your university.
dailystar campus.
As part of its career development program, the Department of Career & Professional Services (CPDS) of North South University (NSU) organized the National Career Fair 2007 on 20th July, 2007. AMDISA certified firm Splash Communication was the event organizer of the career fair. Grameenphone was the title sponsor, Prothom-alojobs and Radio today were the communication partners of this event. This daylong program was organized to facilitate both job seekers and employers looking for better opportunities to amplify their values and career. About hundred (100) reputable companies from different sector participated in the event. In today's competitive world, organizations are more concerned about value than ever before. When any company hires a new employee, they want to be sure that they are getting the most for your money. Events like this will open a gateway to the participating companies to interact with the potential job seekers not only from NSU but also from all over the country.
Job seekers go to Career Fairs to meet with several employers in an informal setting. Employers come to provide information about their organizations and to discuss job and internship opportunities with qualified students. At the fairs you can "shop around" and meet employers at organizations where you might like to work. Career fairs are not just for applying for jobs, but for learning more about what's out there. From my experience there are some tips to get the most out of Career Fairs.
Bring many copies of your resume to submit to employers. Come prepared--do your homework. Before the fair, you can review the online directory of employers and their job opportunities. If you spend a little time getting some background on an organization, then you can ask very focused and specific questions. This impresses representatives because it shows a genuine interest in them. Dress appropriately. First impressions are important. While campus attire is acceptable for fairs, you will probably be most comfortable if you at least dress in "business casual." Allow yourself adequate time. Come as early as possible. Typically, fairs are less crowded in early hours and are busiest during the lunch hour and at the end. Get your bearings. When you arrive, take a few minutes to review the map and directory for the fair. You may feel more comfortable if you quickly locate and walk by the employers in whom you're most interested. This will confirm their location and alert you to any crowds or lines of other jobseekers are waiting. You can also take help from Splash communication's volunteers
In addition, prioritize the employers you're most interested in. If your schedule allows, you may find it easiest to start with the employers in which you're the least interested. This will allow you to hone your approach and to be most confident when you approach the employers you're especially excited about. Be sure to balance this tip with the reality that you may have little time and that many other students may be interested in the same employers. Assume that you will need to wait to speak with some employers. Take notes when you inquire about next steps and the possibility of talking with additional managers. The representative at the fair may not be able to answer all of your questions or know specifics about your job interests. Write down the names, telephone numbers, etc. of other staff in the organization whom you can contact later. Note contact address, applying procedures and or any other specific criteria that will affect you. You will not be able to take advantage of this information if you don't record it.
Do not forget to ask the representative for his/her card. Having the business card of the representative you have just spoken with serves many purposes. Specially, you have a direct contact with the organization, including the proper spelling of the representative's name, direct telephone line, etc. Respect employers' materials/sample items. Some employers bring large quantities of print materials, sample products, etc. as displays at their tables. Always check with employers before taking materials from their tables and don't take materials still packed in boxes.
Be courteous! In addition to representing yourself, you also represent your department and the University. So do not do anything that show negative impact on you or your university.
dailystar campus.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
PowerPoint: Boon or Bane?
By Shayna Jacobs
If you want to shut up a consultant, just uninstall PowerPoint from his or her laptop! The same is true for most professionals—including executives, speakers, presenters, and sales and marketing people—for whom PowerPoint has become darn near life's necessity.
Results from a recent study show an increased rate of companies with family-oriented programs in place (sometimes called employee assistance programs) from five years ago, based on the collected data from 150 human resource professionals collected by Purchase, NY-based Sirota Survey Intelligence.
The survey asked the professionals about how their company uses resources to handle mental, emotional, health and childcare issues, with respect to their place in a family unit. According to the findings, 79 percent of respondents feel that "more employers should be" engaging in family promotion efforts. Results also show that 81 percent "said more employers have programs to assist employees in dealing with their personal problems than five years ago," says a Sirota press release. Respondents consisted of visitors to Sirota's Website, and e-mail contacts, some of which were the company's clients.
Sixty-one percent say that employers have stress-relief accommodations, and 74 percent agree that stress reducers are not adequate. "Understanding and knowing the best way to deal with a problem in the family helps the entire family," says president of Sirota, Douglas Klein. "EAPs take a lot of the burden off of employees in finding services for their families. This ranges from medical to behavioral to emotional treatment to elder care and child care facilities."
managesmarter.com
If you want to shut up a consultant, just uninstall PowerPoint from his or her laptop! The same is true for most professionals—including executives, speakers, presenters, and sales and marketing people—for whom PowerPoint has become darn near life's necessity.
Results from a recent study show an increased rate of companies with family-oriented programs in place (sometimes called employee assistance programs) from five years ago, based on the collected data from 150 human resource professionals collected by Purchase, NY-based Sirota Survey Intelligence.
The survey asked the professionals about how their company uses resources to handle mental, emotional, health and childcare issues, with respect to their place in a family unit. According to the findings, 79 percent of respondents feel that "more employers should be" engaging in family promotion efforts. Results also show that 81 percent "said more employers have programs to assist employees in dealing with their personal problems than five years ago," says a Sirota press release. Respondents consisted of visitors to Sirota's Website, and e-mail contacts, some of which were the company's clients.
Sixty-one percent say that employers have stress-relief accommodations, and 74 percent agree that stress reducers are not adequate. "Understanding and knowing the best way to deal with a problem in the family helps the entire family," says president of Sirota, Douglas Klein. "EAPs take a lot of the burden off of employees in finding services for their families. This ranges from medical to behavioral to emotional treatment to elder care and child care facilities."
managesmarter.com
Monday, July 30, 2007
Measuring Training Effectiveness
By Dorn Williams
Training is a critical component in any organization's strategy, but organizations don't always evaluate the business impact of a training program. Given the large expenditures for training in many organizations, it is important to develop business intelligence tools that will help companies improve the measurement of training effectiveness. These tools need to provide a methodology to measure, evaluate, and continuously improve training, as well as the organizational and technical infrastructure (systems) to implement the methodology. Cross-functional and reporting and learning analytics provide important connections between the measures of learning effectiveness offered by a learning management system (LMS) and the larger enterprise metrics that indicate whether learning is transferred and positively affects business results.
Business Performance Impact
Unless a training program exists simply for the sake of training, results should be measured and measurements should include business performance data, not just training data. Including selected metrics—such as sales, customer satisfaction, workplace safety, productivity and others—into a reporting strategy can help demonstrate where training has increased revenue or decreased costs. Measurements that consider performance improvements can provide a benchmark for training effectiveness. After implementing a training initiative or changing an existing program, an organization can observe and record a change in performance. To evaluate retention rates, there should be a lag between the training and these behavior measurements.
Many organizations are unable to evaluate their programs beyond the first two Kirkpatrick levels because they lack the tools to collect the data to make higher level evaluations. In part, LMSs, the most common repository for training data and mechanism to deliver training, make lower level evaluations easy but don't provide any tool for higher level evaluation. Most LMSs automatically will track and report information required for Level One and Level Two analyses.
Likewise, training programs can inexpensively and easily administer pre- and post-tests that evaluate learning results (Level Two). When evaluating changes in student behavior and training influence on business results, however, data collection requirements extend beyond course delivery.
Much of the data needed to bridge the gap between training and performance exists in many organizations. Individual performance data exists in performance management systems. Organizational data exists in marketing, sales, and financial systems. Bridging this gap requires a technical infrastructure and reporting strategy that minimizes the administrative effort needed to collect and analyze the training and performance data together.
But why are organizations still unlikely to evaluate training at Kirkpatrick's Level Three? System integration, one common point of failure, is critical. Many LMS vendors with a history as product companies have limited expertise in system integration that extends beyond learning systems and databases. Successfully managing performance-based training evaluation, however, requires expertise in data management and warehousing, a variety of corporate systems and databases, analytics, and Web-based application development.
Cross-Functional Reporting
A reporting and data management strategy that focuses on the LMS as the foundation only compounds the system integration challenges that make performance-based training evaluation unmanageable. Instead, the organization should adopt a cross-functional corporate reporting and data management strategy. The features of a cross-functional reporting system that also can provide learning and training analytics include:
•Independence from LMS
• Integration with business systems across the enterprise
• Alignment with individual and organizational performance
LMS Independence
A cross-functional reporting system for training should not be locked into a single LMS platform. By utilizing a generic framework, common LMS data should map to variables in the learning intelligence system. Typically, an organization will feed performance, job code, certification, and other corporate data into the LMS reporting system. By adding a cross-functional system between the LMS and other corporate systems, the organization only needs to update one data connection if the LMS changes.
Business System Integration
As a broker for business intelligence throughout the organization, the reporting system needs to aggregate the data from multiple corporate systems. If assembling information is too cumbersome and time consuming and the data is outdated or not even correct, the system cannot enhance evaluations by combining training with other business data.
If the organization has a corporate data warehouse, the LMS can push the learning management data into this consolidated data source. Any corporate reporting system then can access this learning data, combine it with other business data, and make advanced ROI calculations. Although integrating multiple data sources can require significant system integration effort, the organization gains greater control over its learning and business data. Different data owners maintain data integrity in the consolidated data source, which provides a unified data access point.
Business system integration allows the organization to leverage training and business data together in a context-sensitive manner. The cross-functional system can push data to an enterprise or departmental portal or a reporting tool used by a particular decision maker. Portal applications and other reporting tools allow training professionals to make more informed decisions when designing and implementing a training program. Some examples of how data can be combined for different decision-makers and purposes include:
• A training scorecard that evaluates training programs on ROI and other performance metrics. The training scorecard becomes a much more powerful tool to manage interdependent activities and performance if it provides an easy-to-use "drill-down" capability that provides supporting data, so training professionals can identify how cost and performance results contribute to a training program's score.
• Sales, manufacturing, distribution, customer service, and other scorecards that provide metrics specific to that domain, including training and other relevant operational and performance metrics.
• Predictive analytical tools that allow organizations to perform what-if scenarios to make resource allocation decisions that maximize desirable organizational performance.
Performance Alignment
What differentiates a cross-functional reporting strategy from most LMS-based reporting approaches is the ability to align training with performance objectives for the entire extended enterprise, including individuals, the organization, and its business partners. The cross-functional approach can combine the course completion, certification, and assessment scores of the LMS with the evaluation and competency data in a performance management system. Achieving this alignment depends on statistically validated learning analytics that help an organization understand how training, individual behavior, and organizational performance are linked.
A Training Model from Learning Analytics
When an organization measures without an understanding of interdependent cause and effect relationships, it does not accurately evaluate training effectiveness. A company may achieve better sales numbers following a sales training initiative, even if the training itself was deficient. Tracking results does not necessarily evaluate how training modified sales staff behavior or ability.
Learning analytics based on a statistical analysis provides the necessary—and often missing—basis to quantify how different training and non-training activities affect performance. For example, the National Association of Secondary School Principals used statistical methods to investigate the correlation between school cultures and student achievement as measured by SAT scores. A task force collected data from 81 schools during the 2002-'03 school year using survey methodology. As a result of the statistical analysis, the task force could not only identify how a factor affected SAT scores but to what degree the factor affected performance. It also captured the interdependencies among factors. (An increase in administrative performance of x increases teacher climate by y, which increases scores by z, at the same time that a dress code reduces teacher climate by a, which reduces scores by b—see figure at end of article.
For an organization that wants to apply these techniques, historical data provides a good starting point to identify what aspects of different training programs had the greatest impact on individual and organizational performance. After developing this initial model, the organization can invest in training to achieve desired performance results.
Conclusion
A robust cross-functional reporting strategy and statistical methodologies can support continuous improvement of learning, just as they do in other activities, such as manufacturing. By selecting those measurements that can support valid inferences about the effectiveness of programs, learning and training professionals can know where to improve and how to allocate resources and effort—essentially improving every training program’s influence on business results.
A statistical analysis developed from structured equation models and secondary school data. Note how the map reveals relationships, where a factor such as dress code negatively impacts student achievement that may seem counterintuitive or contrary.
managesmarter.com
Training is a critical component in any organization's strategy, but organizations don't always evaluate the business impact of a training program. Given the large expenditures for training in many organizations, it is important to develop business intelligence tools that will help companies improve the measurement of training effectiveness. These tools need to provide a methodology to measure, evaluate, and continuously improve training, as well as the organizational and technical infrastructure (systems) to implement the methodology. Cross-functional and reporting and learning analytics provide important connections between the measures of learning effectiveness offered by a learning management system (LMS) and the larger enterprise metrics that indicate whether learning is transferred and positively affects business results.
Business Performance Impact
Unless a training program exists simply for the sake of training, results should be measured and measurements should include business performance data, not just training data. Including selected metrics—such as sales, customer satisfaction, workplace safety, productivity and others—into a reporting strategy can help demonstrate where training has increased revenue or decreased costs. Measurements that consider performance improvements can provide a benchmark for training effectiveness. After implementing a training initiative or changing an existing program, an organization can observe and record a change in performance. To evaluate retention rates, there should be a lag between the training and these behavior measurements.
Many organizations are unable to evaluate their programs beyond the first two Kirkpatrick levels because they lack the tools to collect the data to make higher level evaluations. In part, LMSs, the most common repository for training data and mechanism to deliver training, make lower level evaluations easy but don't provide any tool for higher level evaluation. Most LMSs automatically will track and report information required for Level One and Level Two analyses.
Likewise, training programs can inexpensively and easily administer pre- and post-tests that evaluate learning results (Level Two). When evaluating changes in student behavior and training influence on business results, however, data collection requirements extend beyond course delivery.
Much of the data needed to bridge the gap between training and performance exists in many organizations. Individual performance data exists in performance management systems. Organizational data exists in marketing, sales, and financial systems. Bridging this gap requires a technical infrastructure and reporting strategy that minimizes the administrative effort needed to collect and analyze the training and performance data together.
But why are organizations still unlikely to evaluate training at Kirkpatrick's Level Three? System integration, one common point of failure, is critical. Many LMS vendors with a history as product companies have limited expertise in system integration that extends beyond learning systems and databases. Successfully managing performance-based training evaluation, however, requires expertise in data management and warehousing, a variety of corporate systems and databases, analytics, and Web-based application development.
Cross-Functional Reporting
A reporting and data management strategy that focuses on the LMS as the foundation only compounds the system integration challenges that make performance-based training evaluation unmanageable. Instead, the organization should adopt a cross-functional corporate reporting and data management strategy. The features of a cross-functional reporting system that also can provide learning and training analytics include:
•Independence from LMS
• Integration with business systems across the enterprise
• Alignment with individual and organizational performance
LMS Independence
A cross-functional reporting system for training should not be locked into a single LMS platform. By utilizing a generic framework, common LMS data should map to variables in the learning intelligence system. Typically, an organization will feed performance, job code, certification, and other corporate data into the LMS reporting system. By adding a cross-functional system between the LMS and other corporate systems, the organization only needs to update one data connection if the LMS changes.
Business System Integration
As a broker for business intelligence throughout the organization, the reporting system needs to aggregate the data from multiple corporate systems. If assembling information is too cumbersome and time consuming and the data is outdated or not even correct, the system cannot enhance evaluations by combining training with other business data.
If the organization has a corporate data warehouse, the LMS can push the learning management data into this consolidated data source. Any corporate reporting system then can access this learning data, combine it with other business data, and make advanced ROI calculations. Although integrating multiple data sources can require significant system integration effort, the organization gains greater control over its learning and business data. Different data owners maintain data integrity in the consolidated data source, which provides a unified data access point.
Business system integration allows the organization to leverage training and business data together in a context-sensitive manner. The cross-functional system can push data to an enterprise or departmental portal or a reporting tool used by a particular decision maker. Portal applications and other reporting tools allow training professionals to make more informed decisions when designing and implementing a training program. Some examples of how data can be combined for different decision-makers and purposes include:
• A training scorecard that evaluates training programs on ROI and other performance metrics. The training scorecard becomes a much more powerful tool to manage interdependent activities and performance if it provides an easy-to-use "drill-down" capability that provides supporting data, so training professionals can identify how cost and performance results contribute to a training program's score.
• Sales, manufacturing, distribution, customer service, and other scorecards that provide metrics specific to that domain, including training and other relevant operational and performance metrics.
• Predictive analytical tools that allow organizations to perform what-if scenarios to make resource allocation decisions that maximize desirable organizational performance.
Performance Alignment
What differentiates a cross-functional reporting strategy from most LMS-based reporting approaches is the ability to align training with performance objectives for the entire extended enterprise, including individuals, the organization, and its business partners. The cross-functional approach can combine the course completion, certification, and assessment scores of the LMS with the evaluation and competency data in a performance management system. Achieving this alignment depends on statistically validated learning analytics that help an organization understand how training, individual behavior, and organizational performance are linked.
A Training Model from Learning Analytics
When an organization measures without an understanding of interdependent cause and effect relationships, it does not accurately evaluate training effectiveness. A company may achieve better sales numbers following a sales training initiative, even if the training itself was deficient. Tracking results does not necessarily evaluate how training modified sales staff behavior or ability.
Learning analytics based on a statistical analysis provides the necessary—and often missing—basis to quantify how different training and non-training activities affect performance. For example, the National Association of Secondary School Principals used statistical methods to investigate the correlation between school cultures and student achievement as measured by SAT scores. A task force collected data from 81 schools during the 2002-'03 school year using survey methodology. As a result of the statistical analysis, the task force could not only identify how a factor affected SAT scores but to what degree the factor affected performance. It also captured the interdependencies among factors. (An increase in administrative performance of x increases teacher climate by y, which increases scores by z, at the same time that a dress code reduces teacher climate by a, which reduces scores by b—see figure at end of article.
For an organization that wants to apply these techniques, historical data provides a good starting point to identify what aspects of different training programs had the greatest impact on individual and organizational performance. After developing this initial model, the organization can invest in training to achieve desired performance results.
Conclusion
A robust cross-functional reporting strategy and statistical methodologies can support continuous improvement of learning, just as they do in other activities, such as manufacturing. By selecting those measurements that can support valid inferences about the effectiveness of programs, learning and training professionals can know where to improve and how to allocate resources and effort—essentially improving every training program’s influence on business results.
A statistical analysis developed from structured equation models and secondary school data. Note how the map reveals relationships, where a factor such as dress code negatively impacts student achievement that may seem counterintuitive or contrary.
managesmarter.com
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Unrealistic Expectations Doom CRM Initiatives.
By Shelley Hall
CRM implementations fail every day, often due to unrealistic expectations. You will not make your problems go away by installing a CRM system. In fact, in many instances, a CRM installation will cause more problems up front than you had initially hoped they would solve.
There are six misconceptions that lie at the root of many (if not most) failures:
• "CRM will force the sales team to follow our processes and to document its client work"
• "CRM will improve the production of our underperforming sales reps"
• "CRM is software and so the project should be managed by IT"
• "CRM will insure that our marketing programs are effective"
• "CRM will force Sales and Marketing to work together seamlessly"
• "CRM systems are relatively simple and intuitive. Our staffers can easily learn the system on their own."
The First Step: Fix Your Sales Process
Leading CRM vendors will try to convince you that their solutions will instantly improve your performance. After all, these solutions will organize your sales chaos and give your managers instant dashboard reports, right? Wrong.
Remember the old adage: "garbage in-garbage out?" Because this is true, you must carefully examine all aspects of your existing sales and marketing processes, throwing out the worst elements of the process, fixing the broken parts and improving the rest before you even start the CRM vendor evaluation process. Although CRM systems start out generic, customizing your vendor's systems to your processes is a must to insure that CRM efforts are successful. It's critical that your processes be effective from the start.
CRM considerations should begin with a strong commitment to business process improvement techniques and tools. Build flow charts of your processes within and across departments to understand where the breakdowns occur, and then fix them. Use your process maps to evaluate CRM vendors. Give them your sales process maps and ask them to demonstrate how their systems will mirror and support your processes.
And don't forget your customers. Your CRM system must be as simple or as complex as your customers themselves. This is in fact a unique opportunity to involve key customers. Ask them to help you define your new CRM system—don't pass this opportunity up!
Systems Don't Change Users—Users Work The System
Even the best CRM system will not solve your performance issues. Poor performing sales people will also be poor users of your CRM system. CRM may however make the job of identifying poor performers easier for management, and after time you will discover who has been manipulating the system. But relying on CRM to fix broken sales people is as bad as installing CRM to fix broken sales processes. It’s important to realize that, in many aspects, CRM systems measure past activities but are not so good at predicting future activities.
So don't count on a brand new CRM system to cure any conflict between Sales and Marketing. Department relationships are created, thwarted or sabotaged by people, and a CRM system can become a dangerous weapon in such a war. Building and sustaining cross functional support requires effective department managers, not CRM magic.
Sales and Marketing must OWN the CRM Initiative
You should look to IT for help in determining and evaluating systems against its technical standards but IT should not dictate your solution. This is a case where the "user buyer," i.e., Sales and Marketing Departments, must carry more weight then the "technical buyer." If your company culture gives IT complete authority over software purchases and installations, be prepared to battle for the right CRM system. This is not the time to be pennywise and pound foolish, opting for the least expensive system and/or one that will not complicate the lives of the IT Department. See yourself as IT’s customer, and its role is to ensure that you are happy and that your needs are met, not vice versa.
Doing your homework up front and improving your sales and marketing processes will give you the information you need to clearly define the right system. Thus clearly defined systems requirements will provide the leverage you need with IT. ROI calculations will also provide compelling leverage to secure the right solution. Sales and Marketing must own the systems from the beginning, continuing as time goes on to drive upgrades and additional customization that meet their needs and those of their customers.
Adoption and Execution are Change Management Issues
Ignore the human dynamics and dramatics in CRM initiatives at your peril. CRM is not "build it and they will come." People in general—but sales people in particular—will resist change, even when it is in their best interest. So start by demonstrating that this is in their best interest.
Involve the sales and marketing staff in setting the system specifications. Get the sales team to talk to customers in order to solicit their wants and needs. Resist the urge to focus on how it will generate revenue and activity reports for sales management. Instead, focus on how much easier it will be for the sales team to track a customer from needs identification to closure.
Discuss too how sales reps will be able to view at a glance who the true players are in complex sales. This will allow them to determine an appropriate strategy that will lead them to a sale. And train and train and train again! Training should be a journey not an event. Train on segments of the system in order to give people time to master that segment before moving on. Force feeding the new system in one sitting is a sure recipe for disaster. Never assume that any system is simple enough for the team to learn on its own.
Companies derive great benefit from carefully planned and executed CRM initiatives when their expectations are realistic and when they take the time to:
• Map and reengineer the sales process
• "Sell the benefits" of the system to critical users
• Assign ownership to Sales & Marketing
• Train, train, train
Follow these precepts and cautions and CRM will support your change initiatives…not doom them.
managesmarter.com
CRM implementations fail every day, often due to unrealistic expectations. You will not make your problems go away by installing a CRM system. In fact, in many instances, a CRM installation will cause more problems up front than you had initially hoped they would solve.
There are six misconceptions that lie at the root of many (if not most) failures:
• "CRM will force the sales team to follow our processes and to document its client work"
• "CRM will improve the production of our underperforming sales reps"
• "CRM is software and so the project should be managed by IT"
• "CRM will insure that our marketing programs are effective"
• "CRM will force Sales and Marketing to work together seamlessly"
• "CRM systems are relatively simple and intuitive. Our staffers can easily learn the system on their own."
The First Step: Fix Your Sales Process
Leading CRM vendors will try to convince you that their solutions will instantly improve your performance. After all, these solutions will organize your sales chaos and give your managers instant dashboard reports, right? Wrong.
Remember the old adage: "garbage in-garbage out?" Because this is true, you must carefully examine all aspects of your existing sales and marketing processes, throwing out the worst elements of the process, fixing the broken parts and improving the rest before you even start the CRM vendor evaluation process. Although CRM systems start out generic, customizing your vendor's systems to your processes is a must to insure that CRM efforts are successful. It's critical that your processes be effective from the start.
CRM considerations should begin with a strong commitment to business process improvement techniques and tools. Build flow charts of your processes within and across departments to understand where the breakdowns occur, and then fix them. Use your process maps to evaluate CRM vendors. Give them your sales process maps and ask them to demonstrate how their systems will mirror and support your processes.
And don't forget your customers. Your CRM system must be as simple or as complex as your customers themselves. This is in fact a unique opportunity to involve key customers. Ask them to help you define your new CRM system—don't pass this opportunity up!
Systems Don't Change Users—Users Work The System
Even the best CRM system will not solve your performance issues. Poor performing sales people will also be poor users of your CRM system. CRM may however make the job of identifying poor performers easier for management, and after time you will discover who has been manipulating the system. But relying on CRM to fix broken sales people is as bad as installing CRM to fix broken sales processes. It’s important to realize that, in many aspects, CRM systems measure past activities but are not so good at predicting future activities.
So don't count on a brand new CRM system to cure any conflict between Sales and Marketing. Department relationships are created, thwarted or sabotaged by people, and a CRM system can become a dangerous weapon in such a war. Building and sustaining cross functional support requires effective department managers, not CRM magic.
Sales and Marketing must OWN the CRM Initiative
You should look to IT for help in determining and evaluating systems against its technical standards but IT should not dictate your solution. This is a case where the "user buyer," i.e., Sales and Marketing Departments, must carry more weight then the "technical buyer." If your company culture gives IT complete authority over software purchases and installations, be prepared to battle for the right CRM system. This is not the time to be pennywise and pound foolish, opting for the least expensive system and/or one that will not complicate the lives of the IT Department. See yourself as IT’s customer, and its role is to ensure that you are happy and that your needs are met, not vice versa.
Doing your homework up front and improving your sales and marketing processes will give you the information you need to clearly define the right system. Thus clearly defined systems requirements will provide the leverage you need with IT. ROI calculations will also provide compelling leverage to secure the right solution. Sales and Marketing must own the systems from the beginning, continuing as time goes on to drive upgrades and additional customization that meet their needs and those of their customers.
Adoption and Execution are Change Management Issues
Ignore the human dynamics and dramatics in CRM initiatives at your peril. CRM is not "build it and they will come." People in general—but sales people in particular—will resist change, even when it is in their best interest. So start by demonstrating that this is in their best interest.
Involve the sales and marketing staff in setting the system specifications. Get the sales team to talk to customers in order to solicit their wants and needs. Resist the urge to focus on how it will generate revenue and activity reports for sales management. Instead, focus on how much easier it will be for the sales team to track a customer from needs identification to closure.
Discuss too how sales reps will be able to view at a glance who the true players are in complex sales. This will allow them to determine an appropriate strategy that will lead them to a sale. And train and train and train again! Training should be a journey not an event. Train on segments of the system in order to give people time to master that segment before moving on. Force feeding the new system in one sitting is a sure recipe for disaster. Never assume that any system is simple enough for the team to learn on its own.
Companies derive great benefit from carefully planned and executed CRM initiatives when their expectations are realistic and when they take the time to:
• Map and reengineer the sales process
• "Sell the benefits" of the system to critical users
• Assign ownership to Sales & Marketing
• Train, train, train
Follow these precepts and cautions and CRM will support your change initiatives…not doom them.
managesmarter.com
Challenging the Solution Selling stages
By Ed McLean
Double your chances - target senior management
If you attribute any kind of ratings to the probability of your opportunities closing successfully, depending on where they are in the sales cycle, for example, “Pain admitted by sponsor – 25%”, then you have probably wondered whether these ratings actually mean anything or whether they are there to allow your manager to do all sorts of fancy projections for board meetings (come on, you wouldn’t really be so cynical would you?).
I decided to look into this, specifically in relation to Solution Selling’s assertion that an opportunity where the primary contact is with a Power Sponsor (someone with the power to make the decision and sign-off on the purchase) is twice as likely to result in a successful conclusion than an opportunity where the primary contact is with a Sponsor (someone involved in the sales process but without significant influence and sign-off power). Solution Selling rates the former with a 50% chance of a successful close and the latter with a 25% chance of a successful close.
So, I started tinkering around in the CRM system. In the past year’s pipeline, opportunities where the main contact was with Sponsors resulted in a successful close rate of 29%, whereas with Power Sponsors the rate was 60%. After hearty self congratulation for beating the textbook probability rates, I realised that, in this case, Solution Selling was right – contact with Power Sponsors is worth twice that of contact with Sponsors.
In light of this I have been concentrating on finding ways to improve my success rates in getting a Power Sponsor from the start of an opportunity (this includes various sales tools, qualification methods, simply not calling anyone but the Power Sponsor and just plain old fashioned insistence that I only speak to decision-makers).
In cases where access to the Power Sponsor is refused, I now have a set of tools and processes that help me quickly and efficiently deal with these lower-likelihood opportunities, thereby freeing up time to focus on the high likelihood Power Sponsor deals.
And the results? It’s too early to put into reliable figures, but suffice to say it’s looking good. As soon as I have some thing good to tell you, I’ll let you know. In the meantime please comment with your views and experiences.
Double your chances - target senior management
If you attribute any kind of ratings to the probability of your opportunities closing successfully, depending on where they are in the sales cycle, for example, “Pain admitted by sponsor – 25%”, then you have probably wondered whether these ratings actually mean anything or whether they are there to allow your manager to do all sorts of fancy projections for board meetings (come on, you wouldn’t really be so cynical would you?).
I decided to look into this, specifically in relation to Solution Selling’s assertion that an opportunity where the primary contact is with a Power Sponsor (someone with the power to make the decision and sign-off on the purchase) is twice as likely to result in a successful conclusion than an opportunity where the primary contact is with a Sponsor (someone involved in the sales process but without significant influence and sign-off power). Solution Selling rates the former with a 50% chance of a successful close and the latter with a 25% chance of a successful close.
So, I started tinkering around in the CRM system. In the past year’s pipeline, opportunities where the main contact was with Sponsors resulted in a successful close rate of 29%, whereas with Power Sponsors the rate was 60%. After hearty self congratulation for beating the textbook probability rates, I realised that, in this case, Solution Selling was right – contact with Power Sponsors is worth twice that of contact with Sponsors.
In light of this I have been concentrating on finding ways to improve my success rates in getting a Power Sponsor from the start of an opportunity (this includes various sales tools, qualification methods, simply not calling anyone but the Power Sponsor and just plain old fashioned insistence that I only speak to decision-makers).
In cases where access to the Power Sponsor is refused, I now have a set of tools and processes that help me quickly and efficiently deal with these lower-likelihood opportunities, thereby freeing up time to focus on the high likelihood Power Sponsor deals.
And the results? It’s too early to put into reliable figures, but suffice to say it’s looking good. As soon as I have some thing good to tell you, I’ll let you know. In the meantime please comment with your views and experiences.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
How to Identify the Needs of International Audiences
By Rana Sinha
International audiences can be very intimidating. The less you have prior knowledge of them, the more nervous you might become about how to appear and present before them. But some preparation beforehand goes a long way towards acquiring necessary skills and gaining confidence to handle international audiences.
There are three basic steps to assuring that you get at least a part of your message across and affect your audience. The old advice of "know your listeners" works better if you split it into two parts, one about the listener's needs and the second one about the manner in which they process information. This method will help you get beyond cultural stereotypes with its many shortcomings.
1. Identify your listeners' needs
2. Identify the manner of information gathering your listeners are used to
3. Tailor your message to suit the needs and learning style of your audience
Identify your listeners' needs
This is very difficult, as your listeners are not going to tell you "this is my need." It is up to you to discover their needs in relation to your presentation. Unless they are in love or are consumed by morbid hatred, people usually act rationally. So there must be a rational reason for your audience to come to listen to you. What is the reason for their giving you their time and attention? You can start discovering that by enquiring before you meet them "What brings these people to listen to me?" Or "How are they connected to my topic?" The answer usually is somehow connected to the theme of the gathering or that it brings some added value to them.
It is a bit too simple to assume that an audience has a uniform kind of expectation. People in the audience can have as many kinds of expectations and motives for being there as the varieties of their food tastes. Someone is there with a burning desire to learn new ideas. Another person is there because he found this topic to be the least boring among other presentations in the seminar. Yet another person can be there because she wants to be noticed for asking an intelligent question in an international seminar.
You wouldn't speak to a board of directors in Barcelona in the same way as you would to young nurses back at home, would you? Different audiences have different needs. One audience might need to learn more details about a new product or service or specific details about a project. Another audience might be looking for reassurance from the head office that their branch is not being downgraded or eventually shut down, while the official topic of the presentation may be "Presentation of corporate annual report."
The time concepts of the people you are speaking with also play a vital role. A strict timetable may be realistic in a culture that's exact and oriented towards immediate action. It may be considered pushy in another culture that's more consensus-oriented and more relaxed, to stick to a timetable running strictly to the minute.
Identify the manner of information gathering your listeners are used to
People have different learning styles. There are three basic learning styles or different approaches to learning. They are:
1. Learning through seeing or visual learning
Visual learners may think in pictures and learn best from visual displays such as diagrams and pictures, illustrated textbooks, overhead transparencies, videos, flipcharts and handouts. These learners prefer sitting at the front of the room to avoid visual obstructions (e.g. other people's heads).
2.Learning through listening or auditory earning
Auditory learners learn best through verbal lectures, discussions, talking things through and listening to what others have to say. Auditory learners try to interpret the underlying meanings of speech through listening to tone of voice, pitch, speed and other nuances. For them, written information achieves meaning only when it is heard.
3. Learning by doing, moving around, touching or tactile/kinaesthetic Learning
Tactile/Kinaesthetic persons learn best through a hands-on approach, actively exploring the physical world around them by touching or trying things for themselves. They may find it hard to sit still for long periods and may become distracted by their need for activity and exploration.
Usually people feel comfortable doing things they are used to doing until the point is reached where they get bored and desire change. So if a person is used to gathering information by reading and underlining text with colour markers, she might not feel comfortable listening to a lecture with no handouts or possibilities for note taking. In some cultures like Finland or Japan interrupting a speaker is considered a breach of etiquette and all questions or comments usually are left till the end. In other cultures like Britain or USA presentations are usually interactive with lots of audience input in the form of short comments, jokes, questions or applause.
How interactive a presentation is, depends much on the culture. Typically English speaking cultures like presentations to be lively and interactive. Paradoxically there are similarities among Far Eastern, Slavic and protestant cultures like Germany and Finland. Presentations there are formal and with few interruptions. Questions are answered either when the presentation ends or quickly as they arise. In Japan it is common to show concentration and attentiveness in public by closing the eyes and nodding the head up and down slightly. You might feel you are putting your audience to sleep in Japan, but don't worry. Then again, don’t forget to check that you really are not boring them to sleep.
Many Europeans, particularly Scandinavians and Germans prefer to receive information in detail, with lots of supporting documentation. They want their presenters to be systematic and build to a clear point in their presentation. The Japanese business audiences, where senior managers are more likely to hold technical or management degrees are very similar. American and Canadian audiences, on the other hand, like a faster pace. The Latin and many Asian cultures prefer presentations with emotional appeal.
Tailor your message to suit audience needs and their method of information processing
This is where presentation skills matter the most. If your presentation, offering or message caters to the needs of the audience, they would feel energised, eager and responsive. In the best of cases they wouldn’t want to leave. If you know that your facts are shocking or revolutionary, you have to prepare your audience to digest these by guiding them to expect what you are about to give them. By giving examples and connecting your subject matter to their work or everyday life, you have to highlight the relevance for them.
Now how do you go about discovering the learning styles of your listeners? You just can't ask them or put them through tests. Well, who says you can't? Try asking your audienceýýýthey'll be flattered.
At the beginning of your presentation, take a few seconds to establish contact with your audience and watch them. See how they behave as you go on. Are they with you and paying attention? Are they taking notes? Are they gossiping with their neighbour? Are they looking at the diagram you are showing or listening to you first?
People who start taking notes right away can actually have three different learning styles and it's very difficult to know which is their strongest one. People who are gossiping with their neighbour can do for two reasons, either to discuss to topic or because they are not interested at all. So it's almost impossible that you'll have an audience with only one kind of learning style.
And we come to the conclusion that your presentation should cater to all three styles of information processing. Use graphics and diagrams along with oral presentations and if possible use methods like rhetorical questions or asking audience members guiding questions to place the topic in their midst. This way you try to appeal to different senses and different methods of gathering information and make the chances to getting the right message across and leaving a powerful impression higher. Good luck!
managesmarter.com
International audiences can be very intimidating. The less you have prior knowledge of them, the more nervous you might become about how to appear and present before them. But some preparation beforehand goes a long way towards acquiring necessary skills and gaining confidence to handle international audiences.
There are three basic steps to assuring that you get at least a part of your message across and affect your audience. The old advice of "know your listeners" works better if you split it into two parts, one about the listener's needs and the second one about the manner in which they process information. This method will help you get beyond cultural stereotypes with its many shortcomings.
1. Identify your listeners' needs
2. Identify the manner of information gathering your listeners are used to
3. Tailor your message to suit the needs and learning style of your audience
Identify your listeners' needs
This is very difficult, as your listeners are not going to tell you "this is my need." It is up to you to discover their needs in relation to your presentation. Unless they are in love or are consumed by morbid hatred, people usually act rationally. So there must be a rational reason for your audience to come to listen to you. What is the reason for their giving you their time and attention? You can start discovering that by enquiring before you meet them "What brings these people to listen to me?" Or "How are they connected to my topic?" The answer usually is somehow connected to the theme of the gathering or that it brings some added value to them.
It is a bit too simple to assume that an audience has a uniform kind of expectation. People in the audience can have as many kinds of expectations and motives for being there as the varieties of their food tastes. Someone is there with a burning desire to learn new ideas. Another person is there because he found this topic to be the least boring among other presentations in the seminar. Yet another person can be there because she wants to be noticed for asking an intelligent question in an international seminar.
You wouldn't speak to a board of directors in Barcelona in the same way as you would to young nurses back at home, would you? Different audiences have different needs. One audience might need to learn more details about a new product or service or specific details about a project. Another audience might be looking for reassurance from the head office that their branch is not being downgraded or eventually shut down, while the official topic of the presentation may be "Presentation of corporate annual report."
The time concepts of the people you are speaking with also play a vital role. A strict timetable may be realistic in a culture that's exact and oriented towards immediate action. It may be considered pushy in another culture that's more consensus-oriented and more relaxed, to stick to a timetable running strictly to the minute.
Identify the manner of information gathering your listeners are used to
People have different learning styles. There are three basic learning styles or different approaches to learning. They are:
1. Learning through seeing or visual learning
Visual learners may think in pictures and learn best from visual displays such as diagrams and pictures, illustrated textbooks, overhead transparencies, videos, flipcharts and handouts. These learners prefer sitting at the front of the room to avoid visual obstructions (e.g. other people's heads).
2.Learning through listening or auditory earning
Auditory learners learn best through verbal lectures, discussions, talking things through and listening to what others have to say. Auditory learners try to interpret the underlying meanings of speech through listening to tone of voice, pitch, speed and other nuances. For them, written information achieves meaning only when it is heard.
3. Learning by doing, moving around, touching or tactile/kinaesthetic Learning
Tactile/Kinaesthetic persons learn best through a hands-on approach, actively exploring the physical world around them by touching or trying things for themselves. They may find it hard to sit still for long periods and may become distracted by their need for activity and exploration.
Usually people feel comfortable doing things they are used to doing until the point is reached where they get bored and desire change. So if a person is used to gathering information by reading and underlining text with colour markers, she might not feel comfortable listening to a lecture with no handouts or possibilities for note taking. In some cultures like Finland or Japan interrupting a speaker is considered a breach of etiquette and all questions or comments usually are left till the end. In other cultures like Britain or USA presentations are usually interactive with lots of audience input in the form of short comments, jokes, questions or applause.
How interactive a presentation is, depends much on the culture. Typically English speaking cultures like presentations to be lively and interactive. Paradoxically there are similarities among Far Eastern, Slavic and protestant cultures like Germany and Finland. Presentations there are formal and with few interruptions. Questions are answered either when the presentation ends or quickly as they arise. In Japan it is common to show concentration and attentiveness in public by closing the eyes and nodding the head up and down slightly. You might feel you are putting your audience to sleep in Japan, but don't worry. Then again, don’t forget to check that you really are not boring them to sleep.
Many Europeans, particularly Scandinavians and Germans prefer to receive information in detail, with lots of supporting documentation. They want their presenters to be systematic and build to a clear point in their presentation. The Japanese business audiences, where senior managers are more likely to hold technical or management degrees are very similar. American and Canadian audiences, on the other hand, like a faster pace. The Latin and many Asian cultures prefer presentations with emotional appeal.
Tailor your message to suit audience needs and their method of information processing
This is where presentation skills matter the most. If your presentation, offering or message caters to the needs of the audience, they would feel energised, eager and responsive. In the best of cases they wouldn’t want to leave. If you know that your facts are shocking or revolutionary, you have to prepare your audience to digest these by guiding them to expect what you are about to give them. By giving examples and connecting your subject matter to their work or everyday life, you have to highlight the relevance for them.
Now how do you go about discovering the learning styles of your listeners? You just can't ask them or put them through tests. Well, who says you can't? Try asking your audienceýýýthey'll be flattered.
At the beginning of your presentation, take a few seconds to establish contact with your audience and watch them. See how they behave as you go on. Are they with you and paying attention? Are they taking notes? Are they gossiping with their neighbour? Are they looking at the diagram you are showing or listening to you first?
People who start taking notes right away can actually have three different learning styles and it's very difficult to know which is their strongest one. People who are gossiping with their neighbour can do for two reasons, either to discuss to topic or because they are not interested at all. So it's almost impossible that you'll have an audience with only one kind of learning style.
And we come to the conclusion that your presentation should cater to all three styles of information processing. Use graphics and diagrams along with oral presentations and if possible use methods like rhetorical questions or asking audience members guiding questions to place the topic in their midst. This way you try to appeal to different senses and different methods of gathering information and make the chances to getting the right message across and leaving a powerful impression higher. Good luck!
managesmarter.com
Is Your Marketing Smart?
Ad technology evolves with Yahoo!'s SmartAds platform that allows marketers to specifically target Web users by their searches and set preferences.
By Victor Van Valen
Advertisers not only need to cater to and directly pinpoint a precise targeted audience to be successful; they need to customize their advertisements as well. In print mediums, you have an idea of who will see your ad. For example, you know Cosmopolitan magazine would be great to target women in their 20s and 30s and promote your new beauty product line. But when it comes to online venues, how can you target the right audience when millions are browsing?
Earlier this month, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! launched its SmartAds product, an innovative new advertising platform that allows marketers to deliver tailored ads to highly targeted audiences. SmartAds combines Yahoo!'s consumer insights and media capabilities with new ad serving technology that automatically converts campaign creative and targeted offerings into highly-customized, relevant ad displays.
Here's how it works: Let's say a user is browsing for hybrid cars in Yahoo! Autos and has selected New York as their default location in Yahoo! Weather. Yahoo!'s SmartAds platform will assemble and deliver an ad display in real time that showcases a hybrid vehicle from a major partnering auto brand, local dealer information and current lease rates. This provides a not only a relevant experience to the user but allows the partnering marketer to reach users who are more likely to become customers.
"Yahoo!'s SmartAds gives marketers what they want from online advertising: the ability to deliver customized marketing messages to consumers, and still engage very large audiences with their brand," says Todd Teresi, Yahoo!'s senior vice president of display marketplaces.
Yahoo!'s SmartAds technology automatically generates hundreds of unique ad combinations based on an advertisers creative set and offer database. Advertisers and agencies can thereby take full advantage of all of Yahoo!'s audience targeting capabilities and still maintain control over how their brand is presented.
managesmarter.com
By Victor Van Valen
Advertisers not only need to cater to and directly pinpoint a precise targeted audience to be successful; they need to customize their advertisements as well. In print mediums, you have an idea of who will see your ad. For example, you know Cosmopolitan magazine would be great to target women in their 20s and 30s and promote your new beauty product line. But when it comes to online venues, how can you target the right audience when millions are browsing?
Earlier this month, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! launched its SmartAds product, an innovative new advertising platform that allows marketers to deliver tailored ads to highly targeted audiences. SmartAds combines Yahoo!'s consumer insights and media capabilities with new ad serving technology that automatically converts campaign creative and targeted offerings into highly-customized, relevant ad displays.
Here's how it works: Let's say a user is browsing for hybrid cars in Yahoo! Autos and has selected New York as their default location in Yahoo! Weather. Yahoo!'s SmartAds platform will assemble and deliver an ad display in real time that showcases a hybrid vehicle from a major partnering auto brand, local dealer information and current lease rates. This provides a not only a relevant experience to the user but allows the partnering marketer to reach users who are more likely to become customers.
"Yahoo!'s SmartAds gives marketers what they want from online advertising: the ability to deliver customized marketing messages to consumers, and still engage very large audiences with their brand," says Todd Teresi, Yahoo!'s senior vice president of display marketplaces.
Yahoo!'s SmartAds technology automatically generates hundreds of unique ad combinations based on an advertisers creative set and offer database. Advertisers and agencies can thereby take full advantage of all of Yahoo!'s audience targeting capabilities and still maintain control over how their brand is presented.
managesmarter.com
Fitness for Business Travelers
7 Secrets to Pump Up Your Workout While Traveling
By Jeanie Callen Barat
Do you let your constant business trips ruin your fitness progress? Traveling for business has its perks—such as earning points and miles for your vacation trip. But the stress that accompanies business travel and the extra hours in airline seats and rental cars can be hazardous to your health and fitness plan.
Just because you leave your hometown behind, doesn't mean you have to leave your exercise plan, too. Traveling can be the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the extra time to kick-start your workouts and enjoy the extra energy surge.
Keeping your exercise routine consistent while you're traveling can actually make your stressful time away more enjoyable. Here's how:
• Your body craves the good feeling exercise brings on. So instead of depriving it of those endorphins, keep them humming by walking, running or swimming. A strong workout can be just what you need to get your ready for your big meeting. And, it can help you de-stress after a long day.
• Sticking to your exercise plan keeps your energy levels high. Energy is definitely something we can all use more of when we're on the road, especially when traveling for business.
• You will feel great when you return home slimmer than when you left rather than having to lose a few pounds from the buffet breakfasts, cocktail hours and late night business dinners.
As you hit the road, follow these 7 winning ideas keeping your fitness plan on track while traveling for business.
1. Bring your gear.
Stop trying to save space. Pack your workout shoes, workout outfits and any equipment such as hand and ankle weights. Ask yourself what's worse: the extra pounds in your luggage or the extra pounds on you?
2. Test it out.
Test your travel workout before you go away on your business trip. This familiarity will encourage you to complete the workout on the road. If you aren't sure of the facilities at your destination, plan exercises that don't require equipment, such as push-ups and crunches.
3. Do your research.
Before you go, research the best place to do your favorite exercise. If you love running, seek out best running trails are. If aerobics classes turn you on, search for gyms in the areas and check out their class schedules.
4. Stick with your routine.
Sometimes you think getting away is the perfect time to try something new. Variety is great but if you are attempting an exercise you are not familiar with, chances are you will forget about it. Just pick what you love and enjoy the new setting. Although if you are personally inspired to try a new and exotic activity, such as snorkeling or waterskiing—go for it.
5. Commit to healthy eating.
Eating healthy while on the road can be a challenge—especially when traveling for business. But the good news is that restaurants do offer healthier choices. You just have to make them.
Make a commitment to enjoy the local fare or a favorite dish, while forgoing the extras you can live without. Don't be afraid to ask for sauces and dressings on the side. Order fruit for breakfast and double the vegetables during your late night business dinner.
6. Share the fun.
When you are on the road, invite others to join you. This will keep you accountable. Invite your co-worker or potential customer to join you for a run or trip to the local pool. Skip the happy hour and opt for a walk. Use this time to catch up or network with an important business contact.
7. Maximize your time.
If you are crunched for time, try the most efficient and effective workout for fat loss—interval training. By alternating bouts of high intensity with low intensity training, you will accelerate your metabolism. Plus you will trigger a surge of energy and adrenaline that will keep you going all day guaranteed.
managesmater.com
By Jeanie Callen Barat
Do you let your constant business trips ruin your fitness progress? Traveling for business has its perks—such as earning points and miles for your vacation trip. But the stress that accompanies business travel and the extra hours in airline seats and rental cars can be hazardous to your health and fitness plan.
Just because you leave your hometown behind, doesn't mean you have to leave your exercise plan, too. Traveling can be the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the extra time to kick-start your workouts and enjoy the extra energy surge.
Keeping your exercise routine consistent while you're traveling can actually make your stressful time away more enjoyable. Here's how:
• Your body craves the good feeling exercise brings on. So instead of depriving it of those endorphins, keep them humming by walking, running or swimming. A strong workout can be just what you need to get your ready for your big meeting. And, it can help you de-stress after a long day.
• Sticking to your exercise plan keeps your energy levels high. Energy is definitely something we can all use more of when we're on the road, especially when traveling for business.
• You will feel great when you return home slimmer than when you left rather than having to lose a few pounds from the buffet breakfasts, cocktail hours and late night business dinners.
As you hit the road, follow these 7 winning ideas keeping your fitness plan on track while traveling for business.
1. Bring your gear.
Stop trying to save space. Pack your workout shoes, workout outfits and any equipment such as hand and ankle weights. Ask yourself what's worse: the extra pounds in your luggage or the extra pounds on you?
2. Test it out.
Test your travel workout before you go away on your business trip. This familiarity will encourage you to complete the workout on the road. If you aren't sure of the facilities at your destination, plan exercises that don't require equipment, such as push-ups and crunches.
3. Do your research.
Before you go, research the best place to do your favorite exercise. If you love running, seek out best running trails are. If aerobics classes turn you on, search for gyms in the areas and check out their class schedules.
4. Stick with your routine.
Sometimes you think getting away is the perfect time to try something new. Variety is great but if you are attempting an exercise you are not familiar with, chances are you will forget about it. Just pick what you love and enjoy the new setting. Although if you are personally inspired to try a new and exotic activity, such as snorkeling or waterskiing—go for it.
5. Commit to healthy eating.
Eating healthy while on the road can be a challenge—especially when traveling for business. But the good news is that restaurants do offer healthier choices. You just have to make them.
Make a commitment to enjoy the local fare or a favorite dish, while forgoing the extras you can live without. Don't be afraid to ask for sauces and dressings on the side. Order fruit for breakfast and double the vegetables during your late night business dinner.
6. Share the fun.
When you are on the road, invite others to join you. This will keep you accountable. Invite your co-worker or potential customer to join you for a run or trip to the local pool. Skip the happy hour and opt for a walk. Use this time to catch up or network with an important business contact.
7. Maximize your time.
If you are crunched for time, try the most efficient and effective workout for fat loss—interval training. By alternating bouts of high intensity with low intensity training, you will accelerate your metabolism. Plus you will trigger a surge of energy and adrenaline that will keep you going all day guaranteed.
managesmater.com
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