Business Coaching Corner (BCC)

LinkedIn Training from Integrated Alliances

2008-05-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

Hello,

It's been a while since I wrote a blog for you because I started a new job in January after recovering from major surgery in December as the Chief Operating Officer (COO. They have been keeping me pretty busy. We put on on Social Networking events off-line face-to-face and also teach workshops and on-line webinars on how to best use Social Networks like LinkedIn for business.

Training for LinkedIn®?
That's right.
Savvy business people are flocking to LinkedIn® in droves.
Over 21 million people worldwide.

You may even have an account.

But are you really using it?

Are you getting everything out of LinkedIn® that you could?

Our students fully leverage what LinkedIn® has to offer and turn their relationships into revenues.

Here's what we cover:

Linkedin® 101 Workshop or Webinar
Create a super-effective profile to “be found”
Build your network systematically
Searching and other business applications
LinkedIn’s rules, culture and etiquette

Linkedin® 201 Workshop or Webinar
Build your network wide and deep ethically
Positioning Yourself in Your Markets & Networks
Effective Recommendation techniques and strategies
LinkedIn Answers usage and strategies
LinkedIn Groups and Yahoo Groups
Using the Advance Features of LinkedIn – Toolbars to Manage your Relationships

Linkedin® 301 Webinar
Using LinkedIn® for Business and Market Development
You could spend months of your own valuable time researching and trying to figureout all the amazing things you can do with a well-built LinkedIn® network. But yourun the risk of making a few fatal errors than can get your account shut down and spend even more time trying to get it cleared up with customer service.
Spend just a few hours with us and you will know more than 99% of the20 million LinkedIn® users and be able to fully leverage the opportunitiesin your network.

Let me know what you think?

If you're on LinkedIn please send me an invitation at: davewestfall@dewpointe.com

All the best,

Dave Westfall
Small Business Coach
http://www.dewpointe.com/

Supervision, Management and Leadership

2007-11-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

One of my Business Coaching Corner blog readers wrote: “I would like to know more about supervision so I know how to both use and provide it.” … “I have been told that supervision is meant as a space for the employee to use to identify their needs, goals and desires for their future and the delivery of the service they provide. I have not been able to find a definitive description and so far unable to find our organisation’s policy on this subject. Therefore, I would find supervision a useful topic for your blog.”

Okay, since you could and others have written books on this subject, let’s devote this brief blog to understanding what Supervision is: A posting on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, defines it as: “Supervision means the act of watching over the work or tasks of another who may lack full knowledge of the concept at hand. Supervision does not mean control of another but guidance in a work, professional or personal context.” So, it looks like my reader has a good working definition of Supervision.

From my career experiences, “Supervison”, “Management” and “Leadership” are inter-related and hierachical. So, let’s first expand the definition of Supervision to include Management: Wikipedia, defines it as: “Management comprises directing and controlling a group of one or more people or entities for the purpose of coordinating and harmonizing that group towards accomplishing a goal. Management often encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources. Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management.”

Let’s add Leadership to the equation: Wallis Kinnng Associates provided this Wikipedia posting on Leadership: ““House defines "leadership" organizationally and narrowly as "the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members." Organizationally, leadership directly impacts the effectiveness of costs, revenue generation, service, satisfaction, earnings, market value, share price, social capital, motivation, engagement, and sustainability. Leadership is the ability of an individual to set rules for others and lead from the front. It is an attitude that influences the environment around us.

In would-be controlling groups such as the military, political parties, ruling élites, and other belief-based enterprises like religions or businesses, the idea of leadership can become a Holy Grail and people can come to expect transformational change stemming from the leader; such entities may encourage their followers and believers to worship leadership, to respect it, and to strive (whether realistically or not) to become effective in it. Ideally, one cannot buy or sell leadership in the military; instead, leaders must ratify their position of command in the hearts and minds of their soldiers in order to obtain the best from them. Followers in such a situation may become uncritically obedient. Personal strategies that one can use to guard against the unrealistic expectations associated with belief in leaders include:
.-maintaining a questioning attitude
-bolstering confidence in one's own decision-making abilities
- seeking independent verification through appropriate measurement and reporting infrastructures“

Now we know the text book definitions of Supervision, Management and Leadership. Let’s discuss the real world. I found that there isn’t much difference between Supervision and Management, just more people and or things to “Supervise”. I also learned that you can “manage things” but you have to “lead people”. And I have especially enjoyed the responsibility for helping to turn “Managers’ into “Leaders”. One of my favorite thoughts from General Norman Schwarzkopf’s book It Doesn’t take a Hero and his speeches is, and let me paraphrase here: “When given command; take charge and do what’s right!”

I’ve found that delegation is the toughest task for a Supervisor or Manager to learn. As discussed in my “Value Added Management” blog, an important lesson to learn is how to get out of the way of your subordinates and let them go, do and be. But that takes “patience”; a quality that a lot of managers and work environments lack. Another important lesson learned early on in my management career was that you can delegate “accountablility” but not “responsibility” for completing a task. Interestingly that leads us to our next related blog topic “Power”. How does a Supervisor, Manager or Leader get “power” over their subordinates? And since I also know that my “Supervision” reader shares an interest, maybe we’ll even have a chance to discuss the four control dramas in that blog from the book The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield and how that insight might influence your supervision or management approach.

I hope that this blog helps my reader’s understanding of “Supervision”. Now, I’d like to hear some of your comments. What do you think Supervision is? What do you think of my reader’s and Wikipedia’s definition of “Supervision”? What are your thoughts on Management and Leadership?

Please let me know your thoughts on this blog by posting a comment here, sending an email to: dewpointe318@cs.com or by filling out a contact form on my website at: www.dewpointe.com.

All the best,

Dave Westfall, MBA
Business Coach

Completed Staff Work

2007-11-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

While it has existed in public and private organizations and in various forms, to me Completed Staff Work is the analysis of a problem/opportunity and the solution in final written form ready for supervisor approval or disapproval.

BASIC CONCEPTS:
Problem/Opportunity – Should be clear, concise statement
Alternatives – present different methods, procedures with costs/revenue projections, percent of probability or accuracy.
Solutions – Best case, Worst case, Best guess
Four “Q’s” should be answered:
1. Where are we?
2. How did we get here?
3. Where do we want to go?
4. How are we going to get there?

Employee should work out details for themselves:
Help Supervisor make decisions
Provides answers, not questions
Time is valuable – helps better use that time
Results in a single document prepared for signature
Final Product submitted in Finished Form
Results in more work for staff member

Accomplishes two things:
1. Supervisor is protected from half-baked ides, voluminous memoranda, and impromptu oral presentations
2. Staff member is more readily able to find a market for their idea

DO
Consult with other staff members, seek diversity of opinion and objective criticism
Study, write and rewrite
Correct spelling, punctuation, continuity and logical thought patterns
Answer the 5 W’s and 1 H:
When?
Who?
Where?
Why?
What?
How?
Submit final copy only

DON’T
Ask Supervisor what to do when the problem is difficult
Worry Supervisor with long explanations and memoranda
Submit a rough draft to Supervisor expecting him/her to rewrite the correspondence

KEEP IN MIND
Writing correspondence does not constitute Completed Staff Work
Do not submit an incomplete product
“Rough drafts” or “brainstorming” ideas are usually not considered finished product

WHEN IS STAFF WORK COMPLETED?
It’s completed when you can answer “Yes” to this question:
If you were the supervisor, would you sign the paper and stake your professional reputation on it?

Have you used Completed Staff Work?

Please let me know your thoughts on the doctrine of Completed Staff Work by posting a comment here, sending an email to: dewpointe318@cs.com or by visiting my website at: www.dewpointe.com.

All the best,

Dave Westfall, MBA
Business Coach

©1993-2007 David E. Westfall All rights reserved.

Value Added Management

2007-10-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

Like me I've heard that many of you have worked in corporate situations where every layer of management wanted to change what you had produced. More often than not it was just for the sake of change or ego and not to add value to the document or work product.

I observed this trend and decided that when I was the boss reviewing the work of subordinates that things would be different. And that is when I adopted a "Value Added Management" approach.

Simply put, to me adopting a "Value Added Management" approach means:

“When reviewing the work of subordinates, don’t make changes for the sake of change. Only change something if it adds value to the process or the finished product.”

Value Added Management also allows subordinates to use their own vocabulary, presentation and writing styles to communicate their proposals. This approach assumes that the proposal is accurate, brief, adequately states the problem, presents alternatives and contains a recommended solution.

This participative and flexible management style is used in conjunction with the Doctrine of Completed Staff Work, in which, subordinates are expected to submit Completed Staff Work proposals to Senior Management for their approval.

Please let me know your thoughts on this Value Added Management approach by posting a comment here, sending an email to: dewpointe318@cs.com or by visiting my website at: www.dewpointe.com.

All the best,

Dave Westfall, MBA
Business Coach

©1993-2007 by David E. Westfall All Rights Reserved.

Business Coaching Corner

2007-10-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Business Coaching Corner (BCC) blog sponsored by DewPointe Ventures LLC http://www.dewpointe.com. I’m your blogger Dave Westfall. I have a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) and work as a Small Business Coach, Management Consultant and Trainer sharing my 30+ years of multi-functional executive and entrepreneurial experience working with traditional brick and mortar and internet based companies.

The objective of BCC is to provide small business owners with useful information and topical discussions to help them grow their companies and to also grow personally and professionally. So, we invite business owners, entrepreneurs, solepreneurs, executives, officers, directors, managers, employees, business coaches, consultants, advisors or anyone else who is interested in the topics being discussed on BCC to participate. BCC’s goal will be to provide some valuable insights, pass on a few “golden nuggets”, identify resources, and discuss “stuff that works” while also stimulating some critical thinking and interesting debates…

Some of the future topics that we plan to blog about here include: Starting a Business, Answering the 4 Q’s, Business Planning, Creating a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), Growing your Business, Leadership, Value Added Management, Completed Staff Work, Sales Strategies, Marketing Strategies, Internet Strategies, Financial Strategies, Funding Strategies, Profit Improvement Programs, Employee Incentive Plans, Succession Planning and Exit Strategies.

For more information about the blog author please visit my website at http://www.dewpointe.com or take a look at my LinkedIn profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/dwestfall

If you’d like to suggest a future BCC blog topic please send an email to: dewpointe318@cs.com.

All the best!