Ensuring Success at Work
By Brian Tracy
The very best times you will ever have at any job or company are when you are getting along wonderfully well with your boss. On the other hand, the very worst times you will ever have at any job are when you are not getting along well with your boss. And the major reason why employees have problems with their bosses is because of a lack of clarity about what exactly is to be done, and to what standard, and in what order of priority.
It is important to your boss that you are making the appropriate decisions for the company and completing your job. In order to make decisions effectively, you must know the three types of decisions.
Three Types of Decisions
There are three types of decisions in any organization or family. When decisions involve other people, it is important that everyone is clear about what kind of a decision is under consideration.
Command Decisions
These decisions have to be made by the boss or the person in charge. These decisions are so important that one person is solely responsible for making up his mind about what is to be done.
Hiring a key staff member, firing a poor performer, making an important investment decision, or even negotiating a new loan with the bank are all command decisions. They must be made by the person in charge.
Consultative Decisions
This is a decision where you, or the boss, ask for advice and take input from other people. You combine the opinions, ideas, and inputs of others, together with your own, and make a decision. Even though it invites the advice and participation of others, a consultative decision is not made based on that advice.
You may be thinking of hiring a new person, assigning someone a particular task, spending a certain amount of money on a business activity, or embarking on a new sales or marketing campaign. If you are the boss, you can ask for advice from everyone before you finally close the door and make your final decision.
Consensus Decisions
The third type of decision is one that is made on the basis of consensus. This is a democratic decision where everyone gets involved, discusses the pros and cons, and then agrees on what is to be done.
Sometimes, everyone is in agreement, and sometimes the decision is made by a democratic vote, where the majority rules. Once the decision has been made, everyone commits to making the decision successful, however they may have voted during the discussion phase.
Action Exercise
Practice participative management with your staff, hold weekly staff meetings and invite everyone to participate and ask questions.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Point of View!!
Failure Is Never Final
"As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust."1
Yesterday—or any other day—may have been the final day of your divorce, the day you were rejected, or the day you lost or buried a loved one; but as difficult as it seems right now, and as extremely sad as it is, in time it can become a day of new beginnings. Be gentle with yourself but do begin the grieving process as soon as possible so you will be able to resolve your pain. To do this effectively, there are several valuable qualities that will help you to face the future as uncertain as it may seem right now.
1. Have the right attitude. Attitude is what makes the difference between a painful experience becoming a failure or a success. You can allow your experience to leave you timid and afraid to step out again for fear of being hurt, or you can determine that your loss will be your teacher.
True, we need mountaintop experiences from time to time to encourage us, but we don't grow through these. It's in the valley of disappointment that we are given the opportunity to take stock of our life and move toward a greater level of growth and maturity.
2. Know what your purpose in life is. The more clearly defined that purpose is—and the more deeply it is embedded in your conscious and unconscious mind—the less loss will set you back. A spacecraft en route to the moon is off course 90 percent of the time. It is pulled back by the earth's gravity and is continually drawn to one side or the other by additional forces. But it has a built-in computer that has a singleness of purpose that homes in on the moon. The computer is making continual corrections to keep the spacecraft on target with its purpose and goal.
Life is like that. If our eye is on our goal, if we have a singleness of purpose, nothing will stop us getting to where we plan to go.
3. If you failed in a relationship or in some other venture, remember that failure is an event, not a person. Because you failed doesn't mean that you are a failure as a person. Not at all. The only real failure is not to try again, or not to get up one more time than you've fallen down. The important thing is to learn from your past, to use it as an opportunity to grow, and to move ahead to a more fulfilling and richer life.
4. Give God a chance. If you feel like you have failed, or believe you've done wrong, ask God to forgive you—and be sure to forgive yourself. And then, with God's help, turn your failure into a stepping stone toward a better you.
Where a bone is broken and heals, it becomes the strongest part of the bone. The same is true of your broken places—where you have been hurt, have fallen and failed, or are afraid. When you bring these to God for his healing, his strength is made perfect through your weakness.2
1. Psalm 103:13-14 (NIV).
2. Adapted from the chapter: "Failure Is Never Final" in How to Mend a Broken Heart by Dick Innes. You can read more about this book and order it from http://www.actscom.com/store.
"As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust."1
Yesterday—or any other day—may have been the final day of your divorce, the day you were rejected, or the day you lost or buried a loved one; but as difficult as it seems right now, and as extremely sad as it is, in time it can become a day of new beginnings. Be gentle with yourself but do begin the grieving process as soon as possible so you will be able to resolve your pain. To do this effectively, there are several valuable qualities that will help you to face the future as uncertain as it may seem right now.
1. Have the right attitude. Attitude is what makes the difference between a painful experience becoming a failure or a success. You can allow your experience to leave you timid and afraid to step out again for fear of being hurt, or you can determine that your loss will be your teacher.
True, we need mountaintop experiences from time to time to encourage us, but we don't grow through these. It's in the valley of disappointment that we are given the opportunity to take stock of our life and move toward a greater level of growth and maturity.
2. Know what your purpose in life is. The more clearly defined that purpose is—and the more deeply it is embedded in your conscious and unconscious mind—the less loss will set you back. A spacecraft en route to the moon is off course 90 percent of the time. It is pulled back by the earth's gravity and is continually drawn to one side or the other by additional forces. But it has a built-in computer that has a singleness of purpose that homes in on the moon. The computer is making continual corrections to keep the spacecraft on target with its purpose and goal.
Life is like that. If our eye is on our goal, if we have a singleness of purpose, nothing will stop us getting to where we plan to go.
3. If you failed in a relationship or in some other venture, remember that failure is an event, not a person. Because you failed doesn't mean that you are a failure as a person. Not at all. The only real failure is not to try again, or not to get up one more time than you've fallen down. The important thing is to learn from your past, to use it as an opportunity to grow, and to move ahead to a more fulfilling and richer life.
4. Give God a chance. If you feel like you have failed, or believe you've done wrong, ask God to forgive you—and be sure to forgive yourself. And then, with God's help, turn your failure into a stepping stone toward a better you.
Where a bone is broken and heals, it becomes the strongest part of the bone. The same is true of your broken places—where you have been hurt, have fallen and failed, or are afraid. When you bring these to God for his healing, his strength is made perfect through your weakness.2
1. Psalm 103:13-14 (NIV).
2. Adapted from the chapter: "Failure Is Never Final" in How to Mend a Broken Heart by Dick Innes. You can read more about this book and order it from http://www.actscom.com/store.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)