Allison's appreciation for mentoring dates to the early days of the 4-year-old company. Back then, however, the firm didn't have enough resources to establish a formal mentoring program; there weren't enough senior people to supply mentors to everyone who was interested. Allison decided to allow for informal mentoring, where employees got to choose their own mentors. That method, he figured, made the most of the mentoring resources he had. The approach worked well enough that today, even though Allison has enough senior employees to designate mentors, he still uses the voluntary program.
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TELESEMINAR
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Are you paralysed by fear when you have to speak in public?
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Recent posts
.July 2005
Leadership
What do you think of when you hear
the word commitment?
Perhaps you picture a loving
husband caring for his invalid wife. Maybe you envision a business owner who
puts her resources and reputation on the line to lead her company through a
crisis. Perhaps you see a dedicated teacher who spends hours of his own time
tutoring underprivileged children. Or maybe the scene that comes to mind is one
of a group of soldiers who willingly enters harm's way to protect their
countrymen.
These are all wonderful examples of
commitment. But have you considered the fact that individuals who act in less
admirable ways also are committed? People who watch the clock at work are
committed to making it through the day so they can go home. People who spend
most of their free time in front of the television are committed to taking life
easy. People who cheat on their income taxes are committed to beating the
system.
Click here to read the complete article.
A Positive Response: 7 Ways to Make Conflict Productive
Dealing with conflict is a task many managers struggle with or even avoid. But you can transform disagreement and discord into positive outcomes by learning seven constructive ways to respond to conflict.
Click here to read the article
Stress
Control: Tough Leadership vs. Easy Does It
By Dale Collie.
Tough leaders are usually seen as ogres.
Their exacting demands and high expectations add to stress levels. And their
obsessive-compulsive behaviour can have a negative effect on results if they
don't understand how to control stress to get positive results without serious
negative reactions.
The same kind of leadership challenge can be found in the Army. Management at all levels are faced with the decision of "tough leadership" or "easy does it" in preparing troops for combat and on the battlefield.
Look out Below
On April 14, 1912, a luxury ocean liner on
its maiden voyage struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank within hours,
sending some 1,500 people to cold, watery graves.
The Titanic tragedy has been memorialised and analysed in movies, books and historical exhibits. As anyone who saw James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster movie about this event can attest, the story is full of great human drama. From a leadership perspective, however, what really interests me is the iceberg.
Organisation
Implement a Mentoring Program in Your Biz
Pick-your-own mentor programs
help new employees move ahead.
By Mark Henricks
Scott Allison, 41, knows the value of
mentors for recruiting, retaining, developing and motivating his 44 employees.
"Every time we've done an employee survey, mentorship has popped up as an
interest and a need," says the president and CEO of San Francisco-based
national independent communications firm Allison & Partners.
Time
for a mid-year review.
When
people are leading a community organisation and running at full pace, it can be
incredibly difficult to actually slow down long enough to review what you have
been doing and what you have achieved. But as difficult as it can be, it’s
vitally important to stop, take a deep breath and review your organisation's
performance over the first six months of the year. It’s like regularly
servicing your car. The car might appear to be running well but there is always
something that can be tweaked or realigned to improve performance.
And performance is the reason for any review. You want to make sure your group is achieving its goals. A mid-year review allows you to re-focus and ensure you are on track before the year literally disappears on you. A review also needs to look at finances and fundraising – again so that if revenues are below expectation, there is still time to remedy the situation (groups putting together 2004/05 financial year budgets will have already gone through this exercise). Reviews don’t need to be restricted to mid-year but now is as good a time as any to put your group on the blocks and check its performance. Here are some tips to help with the process.
Click here to read the complete article
The role of Community Treasurer
Have you taken on the role of Treasurer of your Community organisation? Or are you a committee or Board member and want to be across some of the issues that you should be keeping your eye on when it comes to the group’s finances?
For many people it’s a question of where do we start?
Well we now have the answer with a new free resource designed specifically to assist Community Group Treasurers in helping them to better balance the books. Westpac Bank, with the assistance of Our Community, has produced an excellent production,
Communication
Wikis, Weblogs and RSS: What Does the New Internet Mean for Business?
The Internet may be entering a new phase that will decentralize control inside companies, enable employees to collaborate more easily, and drive efficiency. But corporations that want to use the web strategically to build corporate value will not just need to make radical cultural changes, they may also need to master a new vocabulary with terms such as Wikis (software that allows anyone to update and edit web pages instantly and democratically); Weblogs (online journals more commonly known as blogs); and RSS (really simple syndication) feeds, which distribute content from the Internet.
Arcane as these terms may sound to anyone but the initiated, the technology behind them is hardly fancy. Wikis, blogs and RSS feeds are relatively simple tools that will have a huge impact on the way people -- and companies -- communicate and do business. So how is the Internet changing? How can companies seek to understand the technological effects of these changes? And what cultural adaptations should companies make to capture value from these new tools?
Questions
for Success
"You can tell a man is clever by his answers. You can tell a man is
wise by his questions." -- Naguib Mahfouz (1911- ) Egyptian novelist, Nobel
Prize Laureate
Consider
this:
Solutions to tough challenges start with powerful questions. Powerful questions have the ability to shake people out of stale ways of thinking and critically reflect on faulty assumptions. Wise leaders know this. And as a result, they don't give people answers. Rather, they challenge them to reflect on evocative questions so that they can find the best answers on their own.
TIPS FOR MASTERING E-MAIL OVERLOAD
Shudder. I'm buried in e-mail and chances
are, you're not far behind. For whatever reason, everyone feels compelled to
keep you "in the loop."
Fortunately, being buried alive under electronic missives forced me to develop coping strategies. Let me share some of the nonobvious ones with you. Together, maybe we can start a revolution.
Meetings
Don't allow phones in a meeting room
From the Desk of Time & Productivity Specialist Robyn Pearce
A very large
international IT company asked for a course on 'How to run effective meetings'.
It was the weirdest session I've ever run; a brilliant example of how not
to run meetings. The trouble was, the CEO had a different work ethic to the rest
of the company. She'd been sent to Australia from the States to do the job, and
had no family in the country. Her work was her life and she expected her
managers to behave in the same way.
The session was a bun
fight! People came and went like yoyos, phones rang constantly, and although
everyone had chosen to come, the activities of a number of the group were so
(unintentionally) disruptive that it minimised the learning of the rest.
Fundraising
Steve Hitchcock discusses the role of the newsletter in your organization's fundraising:
"Publishing a newsletter at least four times a year is essential if your organization is serious about raising money through the mail. Even with web pages and on-line newsletters, almost all of those who send contributions to nonprofit groups prefer -- desire -- to receive a paper newsletter in the mail. Your newsletter doesn't have to be fancy. In fact, your donors will appreciate a simple, easy-to-read publication. The advantage of a four-page newsletter (or eight-pages with lots of photos) is that your donors will read it right away. Anything more substantial and they'll set it aside to read later. And you know what happens then."
ANALYTICALS
DON'T RULE
(But They Do Ask Questions)
ANALYTICALS:
GOOD TO THE LAST OBJECTION
Two
questions.
Question
#1: When was the last time you sat down and listed all the things that people
suspect or misunderstand about your organization?
Question
#2: Do you depend on statistics to make your case? Maybe you're keen to send out
an annual appeal letter lavishly buttered with service stats? "Our
dedicated staff of eight plus our 27 volunteers delivered 1,892 evening meals to
1,230 addresses in six counties, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year." The
McDonald's approach: 22 trillion served.