5 Business Process Challenges For Project Managers

Management and ownership are different. But are these truly incompatible? Successful business owners and entrepreneurs have simply struggled for a continuous period of time, juggling with anything and everything from legal and accounting through sales and marketing, IT, operations, recruitment, branding, management, negotiations, to name A FEW. This isn't necessarily a great thing if the vast majority of your time goes into dreadful stuff. I always cringe when I need to handle accounting or legal cases for over an hour! Experienced managers, however, are paramount to the future (and the growth cycles) of an organization. Yet, these are rare to… Continue Reading

11 Traits Of A Great Manager And Top Tips To Develop Them

There are good managers. And then, there are great ones. According to The Predictive Index, nearly 30% of employees believe their managers fail at team-building skills, and a portion of them suck at handling feedback, delegation, and time management. Managers who are successful in their respective fields leading large teams need to bounce between daily activities with various team members and then to the global responsibilities of the organization. Having consulted over 400 companies as a business advisor, I've worked with any combination of management and leadership teams - veteran and new ones, external and trained bottom up, brought in… Continue Reading

20 Actionable Ways to Retain Top Talent

How do you retain top talent? Employee retention rates are going down for most companies around the globe, especially with COVID-19 negatively affecting the workforce and with remote work opportunities.  It has now become more challenging to retain top talent.  The Information Technology (IT) industry itself and the digital world is making it look more competitive because people can work remotely and take advantage of great compensation packages. Most great hires out there are already employed for an obvious reason. Now, companies are the ones chasing after top talent and the sooner you adapt to the new hiring paradigms, the… Continue Reading

Leadership Development: How to Promote and Grow Your Management Team

According to several independent studies, 80% of leadership positions have no formal training at all. If you run a mid-sized business and promote your management team internally (as the majority of the organizations out there), you likely fall into the majority of the businesses that grow organically. Management, along with leadership, is often taught “on the job”—without an MBA degree or background in economics to help you move forward. Leadership team development can help people. Your staff will go through an established and proven process evaluating strengths and weaknesses in an objective and non-harmful manner. Communication skills—along with other critical… Continue Reading

Defining Employee Feedback Plans and Pinpointing Areas for Improvement: The Tactical Guide

Why are feedback sessions so important?  For one, companies that carry out regular employee feedback have turnover rates that are 14.9% lower than those employees who receive no feedback at all. Now, here are additional helpful insights from the stats on employee feedback and performance reviews:  Managers who received regular feedback on their strengths showed 8.9% greater profitability. (Source)  About 43% of those highly engaged employees receive feedback on a weekly basis. (Source)  92% of respondents agreed that when negative feedback is delivered appropriately, they can be highly effective at improving one’s performance.” (Source) 63% of Gen Z employees want to… Continue Reading

8 Key Tips for Creating a Positive Work Culture

Creating a positive work culture is a critical element in the success of any company.  In fact, 94% of business executives and 88% of employees surveyed believe that a distinct corporate culture is critical to the success of a business.  Your culture at work can have a huge impact on the performance of your employees and the overall goals of the company in terms of: productivity creativity potential revenue value of the firm rate of growth Basically, your work culture plays an important role in attracting, retaining, and motivating employees. Creating a positive work culture: turns your office experience into… Continue Reading

How to Build Trust and Loyalty as a Leader

Remember the old saying, "People don't quit jobs, they quit managers."?  It's similar when the people in charge are at fault.  Highly motivated and enthusiastic people, or people who want to make a change, give up because they don't feel their leadership sees the future in the best possible manner. That leadership does not take care of their interests or that leadership is not aligned with whatever the company promises.  About 79% of people would quit and seek new jobs because of bad leadership. In order to solve this problem, you want to make sure you're representing the best leadership… Continue Reading

7 Ways to Teach Your Staff ROI: The Pivot to Billable Activities

Building a successful organization requires a comprehensive business strategy across each of your departments. It is also closely related to your business model, the industry you belong to, the status of your finances, the available opportunities, and—of course—your team. While your senior management team may be aligned with the company goals and vision, you want to build a culture of self-managed rockstars. Otherwise, you'll fall into the trap of micromanagement. My guiding light is ROI.  Often, your resources are only limited. You do not have all the time to spend and disperse across hundreds of initiatives. There is always a… Continue Reading

8 Crucial Business Skills to Weather the Recession Storm

The current decade has been turbulent at best, challenging business paradigms, industrial practices, and biological presumptions across the planet. It begs the question: What is the successful route to developing resilient business skills for the years to come? From a global pandemic ranking near the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 to worldwide lockdowns suffocating the travel and hospitality industries, through an overnight transition to remote work, a massive bump of cryptocurrencies, a housing market growing like crazy from Hong Kong to San Francisco to a global crash in 2022, businesses definitely had to endure a lot. Back to The Global Recession… Continue Reading

Creating an Employee Performance Review and Feedback Workflow

Resilience is my number 1 hiring trait.  As a manager, you will have ups and downs with your employees, and your feedback should reflect this. It's not about harshness or power play, mind you. Receiving critical feedback may be absolutely devastating for juniors and many introverts.  However, your options are very limited and you don’t want to do any of the following that might only jeopardize the entire company: Stick to praising (missing out on improvements) Prolong tough times until it becomes unbearable Sugar-coat problems Look for a replacement because a civilized conversation is unlikely Deliver feedback and receive a… Continue Reading