A Dozen Ideas

• How is the health of our overall operation?
• Do you spend more than half of your time helping your team?
• Are you clear on what your company won't do no matter what?
• Can you be honest with yourself about your organization?
• Do you have strong financial leadership?
• Is your business plan clear, concise and executable?
• Can you clearly articulate how your team will successful compete their work?
• Have you removed all unnecessary meetings from everyone's calendar?
• How do you measure success other than revenue?
• Are you aware of all opportunities and the realistic outcomes of each?
• Do you have a strong sense of your people?
• Is each member of your team working more than 80% of their time on strengths?

How many are on your priority list?
__________________________________________________________________
Kneale Mann | People + Priority = Profit
New Book out in 2016 – Details soon!

Questions for All Leaders

• Do you spend dedicated time helping your team?
• Do you provide the same care to your team as you do to your customers?
• Do you have a strong sense of your people?
• Is each member of your team working the majority of their time on strengths?
• Do you truly care about your team and their personal development?
• Is there encouragement for people to grow and try new things?

How many are on your priority list?
__________________________________________________________________
Kneale Mann | People + Priority = Profit

istock

Important Questions for Any Leader

• How is the health of our overall operation?
• Do you spend more than half of your time helping your team?
• Can you be honest with yourself about your organization?
• Do you have strong financial leadership?
• Is your business plan clear, concise and executable?
• Are you aware of all opportunities and the realistic outcomes of each?
• Do you have a strong sense of your people?
• Is each member of your team working more than 80% of their time on strengths?

How many are on your priority list?
__________________________________________________________________
Kneale Mann | Leadership and Culture strategist, writer, speaker, executive coach engaging leaders, collaborative teams, and strong business results.

valteroni

Hierarchy of Business Needs

From Start-Up to Actualization

If you manage a company, you know it takes more than products or services to be successful. Without strong people, you will struggle to make it. It is much more than having a slick mantra claiming your people are your strongest resource.

There are zetabytes of data available on the topics of social networking and building audience, finding your trust agents and being authentic, having patience and giving more than receiving. But so what if you aren’t or won’t execute on any of it.

Complaining Won't Make a Difference

Bars and homes are filled nightly with people commiserating about their work space. We live in a time where we can create our own online and retail experience. It is a buyers’ market and we're all buyers. Treating people fairly can be the single biggest way to positively affect your bottom line. The five pillars of any business are people, operations, finances, marketing and media. Business is not daycare but people are not robots. We have feelings and dreams and goals. If you can mesh the two, you can take on any formidable foe. The single biggest area where most companies falter is with their people.

As superstars rise up the ranks, they are often promoted based on numbers but as more responsibility is heaped on them, the pressure increases for higher performance. But often they are shoved into the new gig with not nearly enough management training and asked to manage people who will help improve that performance.

Important Questions for Any Manager

• How is the health of our overall operation?

• Can you be honest with yourself about your organization?

• Do you have strong financial leadership?

• Is your business plan clear, concise and executable?

• Are you aware of all marketing opportunities and the realistic outcomes of each?

• Do you spend more time in meetings than doing the work?

• Do you have a strong sense of your people

• Is each member of your team working more than 80% of their time on strengths?

Have a look at your to-be-done list and see how many of these items you can make a priority.

Kneale Mann

image credit: istock
Encore post from November 2010

Our Need to Belong

What do you need?

Abraham Maslow wrote a paper in 1943 entitled The Theory of Human Motivation. The most famous portion of the work was his Hierarchy of Needs.

As you may know, it covered everything from our basic requirements for food and shelter to safety, self-esteem, morality, health, self actualization and one aspect that I find fascinating which is our desire to belong.

It is the reason we have clubs, teams, communities and networks. We need each other for commerce and business but we also need each other to converse and create, build and share. It is the essence of social networking which has been around for a couple of hundred million years.

Read the Room

While attending SobCon earlier this year, I noticed a shift in the tone of the discussions. It was not a room full of web geeks; it was an astute group of smart established business professionals. Sure, many of us met online but that’s where the conversation began. It was a conduit at best.

I was smiling yesterday as I read some positive comments about BlogWorld happening in Vegas this week and some even shocked about the professionalism of the speakers and presentations. Perhaps this is because we believe the online tools will help move the revenue line but still surprised that it really is doing that.

But SobCon and BlogWorld or any other convention is irrelevant without the people and our need to belong. You don’t get excited that you’re going to the game this weekend so you can sit by yourself, you are going to share an experience with others – in some cases, thousands of others.

So what do we do with all this?

Our need to belong is wired into our collective DNA. Don’t believe me? Remove all contact with humans for 24 hours. No contact! No email. No Internet. No phone. No tweets. No TV. No radio. No wireless device. Nothing.

The entire reason 33 miners were pulled out of an apartment sized hole in the earth a mile down was their ability to be a community. They longed to survive together.

How can you embrace our inherent need to belong in your business?

knealemann

image credit: socgeo ruhosting

The Hierarchy of Business Needs

From Start-Up to Actualization.

If you manage a company, you know it takes more than products or services to be successful. 

Without strong people, you will struggle to make it. 

It is much more than having a slick mantra claiming your people are your strongest resource.

There are zetabytes of data available on the topics of social networking and building audience, finding your trust agents and being authentic, having patience and giving more than receiving. But so what if you aren’t or won’t execute on any of it.

Complaining won't make a difference.

Bars and homes are filled nightly with people commiserating about their workspace. 

We live in a time where we can create our own online and retail experience. It is a buyers’ market and we're all buyers. Treating people fairly is the single biggest way to positively affect your bottom line.

Five Pillars of Business

People, operations, finances, marketing and media.  

Business is not daycare but people are not robots. We have feelings and dreams and goals. If you can mesh the two, you can take on any formidable foe. The single biggest area where most companies falter is with their people.

As superstars rise up the ranks, they are often promoted based on numbers but as more responsibility is heaped on them, the pressure increases for higher performance. But often they are shoved into the new gig with not nearly enough management training and asked to manage people who will help improve that performance.

Important questions for any manager.

• How is the health of our overall operation?

• Can you be honest with yourself about your organization?

• Do you have strong financial leadership?

• Is your business plan clear, concise and executable?

• Are you aware of all marketing opportunities and the realistic outcomes of each?

• Do you spend more time in meetings than doing the work?

• Do you have a strong sense of your people

• Is each member of your team working more than 80% of their time on strengths?

What would you add?

knealemann

image credit: kiva