Management: Left Brain, Right Brain or Both?

"To open a shop is easy, to keep it open is an art."

Chinese Proverb

When you start a business you must first do all the things government demands so you will have infrastructure.

Things like registering your DBA so you can open a bank account, deciding on a business structure, getting required business licenses, etc.



(Click drawing to enlarge.)

When that's all done, the art part happens with emphasis on knowing when to make course corrections both subtle and extreme and doing this well demands as much creativity as it does managerial execution.

Left brain/right brain.

Are you enough of both?

Sales: Business Infantry

"The fact is everyone is in sales."

Jay Abraham
Consultant

Sales people are a much maligned group; made fun of as being superficial sometimes arrogant, vilified when sales don't meet expectations, ignored when they do. But Jay says everyone is in sales and I couldn't agree more.

Let's say you work in the warehouse and you believe you need flow rack equipment. If you're going to get it you must "sell" your request to management.

If you are an engineer applying for a new job, you must "sell" you to your perspective employer.

What do you sell?

Honesty: Walking the Line

"So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge."

Cicero
1st Century BC Roman Philosopher

Half truths; something so on the edge it could just as easily have been a lie as a truth.

It strikes me that so much in business is unknown and until events unfold we often have no way of knowing what is true and what is not.

I'll be honest, I've put forth things I hoped would turn out to be true but didn't know for certain at the time what was and wasn't real.

Dishonest?

Compensation: All For Some or Some For All?

"My husband once worked for a company that had a merit pay system. After six months they told him he owned them money."

Phyllis Diller

Personally I like performance based compensation. The company makes money, everyone who works there should as well and when it doesn't, all oxes must be gored.

Of course for this to work all employees must plan for the inevitable ups and downs that affects every company. Not likely; even management doesn't always do a good job of that. And there is the little problem of senior managerial greed

Still, I like the concept of we all eat or starve together.

What about you?

Employees: More Than the Numbers?

"Organizational effectiveness does not lie in that narrow minded concept called rationality. It lies in the blend of clearheaded logic and powerful intuition."

Henry Mintzberg
Researcher, McGill University

Outstanding? Do you know why?

Because it came from an academic researcher; a profession that usually only accepts what it can measure.

When you hire, do you consider the unmeasurable along with the measurable?

Educational degrees, employment history, etc., are important but what about creativity, intuition and other "soft", usually unprovable qualities?

Is it this combination of things that makes one successful or is it only about the ruler?