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Add You - Definite Goals And The Burning Ambition To Achieve Them: How To Be A Winner
Usually the defining moment for a small to mid size distributor or wholesaler is when they get a huge order from their best customer. It is not unusual for a large customer to place a few small test orders, and if everything works well, to follow up with a stream of massive orders. This is the kind of situation that can truly grow a company and help it reach the next level.However, this can also present a very significant challenge. Distributors and wholesalers usually buy the products from suppliers in order to re-sell them. And, suppliers always require to be paid either upfront or with a letter of credit. Large distribution companies can usually get terms or a letter of credit without a problem, allowing them to buy the product from the supplier easily. However, this can present a very big challenge for small and mid sized businesses that cannot obtain financing. At its worst, you may not be able to fulfill the order, forcing the client to go to your competitor. The fact is that a big order can either be a blessing, if you have the financing, or a true nightmare if you don’t.When faced with a very large order, most business owners try to go to the bank to obtain financing. If their business meets banking criteria, such as having three years of financial statements and showing significant profits, financing can be usually be obtained. But, if the business is new or has not reached profitability yet, there is little chance – if any – of obtaining any bank financing at all.However, that doesn’t mean you have to turn your client away. It just means you need to try a different financing avenue.Purchase order financing, a long stand
This is very true of course, but often not given the level of priority it truly needs.
The Enfys Acumen can support you to enthuse, encourage and enable your people to achieve aims and objectives in several ways:
• Individual planning and appraisal systems
For many years and in a variety of management roles, I have been developing and refining a system to ensure individual people have personal goals that slot in clearly with the business and organisation aims. I am convinced that in a culture of accountability we need to support people not to just do their jobs but rather to take action to achieve overarching aims and objectives. People need support and resources to do this and that is what individual planning is all about. Why not get in touch to find out more?
• Directors and trustees road maps
I wonder how many of you are responsible for or work in organisations where there is a governance board that meets regularly, people turn up religiously for meetings, but are rarely seen or heard from in the weeks in between. I suspect this is a scenario common to many of you.
Company directors and charity trustees are the key ambassadors of any organisation, they have legal responsibilities for accountability and ensuring resources are in place and appropriately used. Yet often do little more than rubber stamp other people’s decisions and are wheeled out when extra bodies are required. Am I right? The Enfys Acumen is committed to the belief that everyone has a gift they can contribute to a situation and should be encourage to develop and use this gift. When you have agreed your business or organisations aims and objectives, why not enable your directors and trustees to complete a road map to commit to doing something in between meetings to help achieve overall aims. In my experience, people are very willing to do something extra, if only they knew what to do that would be most useful. Talk to us about introducing roadmaps into your organisation.
• Mentoring for managers and lone workers
I have written before about the benefits of mentoring and wish that I’d had the experience of a mentor at various stages in my career. With almost twenty years experience of managing and developing organisations, often learning the hard way, I have a wealth of information I can share with you.
• Life and executive coaching
Coaching differs from mentoring, in that the latter is very much about bringing someone el
In our last installment of medical billing, we looked at what was involved as far as the software company hiring a programmer to create their software that will eventually be sold to the public. But programmers aren't enough because the software needs to be tested. The truth is, programmers make lousy testers because they are biased. That's why the software company needs to hire QA testers to make sure the software works as it should. So what should a medical billing company look for when hiring a QA tester? What follows is a list of a few things that you're going to want.Unlike other industries, QA testing medical billing software is a whole different animal. The reason is because you are dealing with a number of functions rather than just the one or two main things that most software does. For example, with medical billing software you have to not only be able to send out the claims, which is basic, but you also have to post money, add items to various databases, print, barcode and the list goes on and on. That's why most medical billing software companies actually hire specialists in each are. For example, they may hire a QA tester just to test electronic billing modules. Yes, that's how specialized this can be. So what do you look for in a QA tester?Ideally, you would like to find somebody who actually has experience with medical billing. But this is highly unlikely because most QA testers who are working at medical billing software companies simply just don't leave their jobs. They pay well and the security is off the charts. They pretty much have jobs for life. So luring one away is going to be very hard. The salary you wo
If you are serious about developing your business or organization, please spend five minutes reading the rest of this article, it might be the most worthwhile thing you do today.
I am sure the majority of you these days have at some time developed business plans or have set objectives at annual appraisals and such like. I wonder though how often these goal plans are revisited once they are written down and how many planning documents are left to get dusty on bookshelves or at the bottom of a drawer. So often, I am sure that in all kinds of organizations, planning exercises are the end in themselves and not the means to achieving success they should be.
The reasons for this are usually quite simple and fall in either one of two categories or frequently both:
• The goals set have been inappropriately stated and have not taken on board the starting point for the organization concerned
• There hasn’t been a sufficient buy in of the plan by everyone in the organization and consequently there is no culture of accountability being nurtured
Does this ring any bells with you? If it does, I’d like to give you some ideas how you can create successful plans that will transform your business or organization. At The Enfys Acumen, we believe that plans should be tools that are regularly used to help you achieve what you want to achieve.
Plans are the most significant management tools we have
I, personally, have been involved in supporting people to develop plans for most of the last twenty-years. Very early on, I realised that plans will fail unless they are truly owned by everyone who has responsibility for achieving the goals set. The best way of ensuring ownership is to involve people in developing the plans in the first place.
People need an opportunity to:
• See it!
• Own it!
• Solve it!
• Do it!
The Enfys Acumen supports organizations to develop a culture of accountability and would gladly discuss ways you can do more to motivate your personnel to achieve your business’ or organization goals. Why not get in touch for an informal chat.
Dreaming, values and grounding in where you are now
The first level of planning, we at The Enfys Acumen call Development Planning. I challenge anyone to say that they are in business or go to work just to make money, so this level clarifies why you really are in the business you are in and the dream or vision you are working towards achieving. We have used this process to support groups of people with a wide range of skills and experience and at a pace that was comfortable to everyone concerned.
During a development planning session we start by covering a blank wall with paper and colourfully proceed to fill it with a definite path to achieve the dream or vision for the organisation concerned and the people it serves. Remember, if you don’t have a dream, how can you make the dream come true and as Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
We then look at where the organisation is today, the external climate in which it operates and what is currently taking place in the organisation itself. So many plans fail because people haven’t truly considered their true starting point and haven’t taken on board the little things that need to be addressed before the big things can be achieved.
In setting the grounding for the plan, we then look at the real current values of the people involved in the project, not the written down values, but those clearly demonstrated in day-to-day activities. Values are important in any kind of business and always influence the kind of customer service or user satisfaction you provide.
"Values truly sculpt our world and the game we want to play”
When we have done this, we look at what the values should be. In most cases, there is a clear overlap, but if there isn’t then the exercise serves as a wake up call for what really needs to be addressed by the business or organization.
The planning exercise moves on to what you want to achieve. You agree a time in the future that you want to focus on, possibly two years, maybe three or even five or more, it all depends on your organization. We have found however that it is nearly always better to focus on a time that is just out of current view, not the point when a major contract ends or a funding scheme dries up. We always clarify clear, achievable goals and transport ourselves in time to think about them in the present time.
Throughout this planning process and in order to ensure everything you need to cover is considered, we use Edward de Bono’s The Six Thinking Hats as a guide. So often we find people get really passionate and excited when setting their long term goals and consequently in this frame of mind, it is so easy to miss out on some crucial issues that have to be thought about if you don’t want to set yourself up to fail.
You complete this exercise by thinking about some of the things the organization or business needs to do to gain the strength to achieve its goals, you list who else can help and who you can work with to achieve your goals. We always recognize that no one is a self-made person, we all need help from other people to achieve what we want to achieve, so we advise you always end the session with getting people to commit to the first steps to take.
When we facilitate a Development Planning session, it usually takes a full day. Enthusiasm and momentum are important in this kind of event and we would encourage you not to take too much time over the exercise. When we do it, we ensure everyone can participate full, have fun and are able to make a 100% commitment. Please ask us for more information.
“When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly love life”
The next level of planning that The Enfys Acumen encourages organizations and businesses to accomplish is what we call Strategic Planning. At this stage, you should be thinking in more depth about your goals and turn them into aims, objectives and outcomes. We have realized that some of the greatest challenges in the world today are challenges of language – especially people saying or not saying what they really mean. Terms like aims and objectives often cause some of the greatest difficulties in communication, so we always encourage people to accept the following definitions:
• Aims are the changes you are trying to achieve
• Objectives describe the planned activities by which you are going to achieve your aims
• Outcomes are all the changes, benefits, learning or other effects that actually happen as a result of your activities
You will find that you are more likely to achieve your aims and objectives if you set in place ways for measurement – Outcome Indicators. These can be qualitative or quantitative and are usually described with the following kinds of phrases:
The extent of…
The level of…
The degree of…
The amount of…
The ability to…
Setting outcome indicators in this way is far more positive and realistic for everyone concerned and whatever the outcome, you will realize that there is no such thing as failure only feedback or results.
Aims and objectives should always be stated well and a tool you might find useful is the CREATE mnemonic:
C Clear and Concise
R Realistic
E Ecological
A As now
T Towards what you want and Timed
E End step and Evidence procedure
We would be delighted to have an opportunity to clarify this tool in more detail and encourage you to get in touch. Strategic Planning does require more time and as you work through the model, you will find that certain aims and objectives will need reviewing so that more meaningful outcomes can be stated. We found that the most relevant people to involve in this exercise are the managers involved in strategic issues and need to have a strong overview of what the business or organisation is set up to achieve.
"Success isn’t about resources but about resourcefulness"
The third level of planning in The Enfys Acumen model focuses on how you can achieve your aims and make the best use of the resources you have available or need to acquire. We call it Business Planning and have developed a matrix to turn the plan into a tool that you can use as both for marketing and for monitoring how far down the road you are travelling to meet your aims.
This matrix has been developed over many years with inputs from many skilled planners and theorists and provides an opportunity to clarify the rationale for objectives, to identify opportunities and barriers to achievement, to resource needs and costs. As I mentioned at the start of this ebrief, it is essential that everyone concerned buys into the planning process and this tool encourages naming responsible personnel and deadlines for completion in the process.
As in all of the planning levels in The Enfys Acumen model, the Business Planning Matrix builds on the Development and Strategic Planning models, it does take some time to complete, but is truly an investment to help you improve your business and quality of service. Contact us to find out how you can use this model in your organisation.
"The map is not the territory"
Having clearly stated goals is the primary purpose of any planning exercise, but unless you go out and achieve the goals the effort is pointless. You wouldn’t go to a restaurant and eat the menu now, would you?
Walt Disney once said:
“You can have the greatest dream in the world, but you need people to build it.”
This is very true of course, but often not given the level of priority it truly needs.
The Enfys Acumen can support you to enthuse, encourage and enable your people to achieve aims and objectives in several ways:
• Individual planning and appraisal systems
For many years and in a variety of management roles, I have been developing and refining a system to ensure individual people have personal goals that slot in clearly with the business and organisation aims. I am convinced that in a culture of accountability we need to support people not to just do their jobs but rather to take action to achieve overarching aims and objectives. People need support and resources to do this and that is what individual planning is all about. Why not get in touch to find out more?
• Directors and trustees road maps
I wonder how many of you are responsible for or work in organisations where there is a governance board that meets regularly, people turn up religiously for meetings, but are rarely seen or heard from in the weeks in between. I suspect this is a scenario common to many of you.
Company directors and charity trustees are the key ambassadors of any organisation, they have legal responsibilities for accountability and ensuring resources are in place and appropriately used. Yet often do little more than rubber stamp other people’s decisions and are wheeled out when extra bodies are required. Am I right? The Enfys Acumen is committed to the belief that everyone has a gift they can contribute to a situation and should be encourage to develop and use this gift. When you have agreed your business or organisations aims and objectives, why not enable your directors and trustees to complete a road map to commit to doing something in between meetings to help achieve overall aims. In my experience, people are very willing to do something extra, if only they knew what to do that would be most useful. Talk to us about introducing roadmaps into your organisation.
• Mentoring for managers and lone workers
I have written before about the benefits of mentoring and wish that I’d had the experience of a mentor at various stages in my career. With almost twenty years experience of managing and developing organisations, often learning the hard way, I have a wealth of information I can share with you.
• Life and executive coaching
Coaching differs from mentoring, in that the latter is very much about bringing someone els
Common sense you tell you that when you contact the management looking for a job you need to be knowledgeable about what they do there. What are their needs and wants in an employee? Are you the one that can fulfill those requirements?If you do not currently possess those skills, get them. Practically everything you could possible need to learn you can get from night schools or the Internet. You can even convince many employers to do it as on-the-job training.My friend is a career coach and I was amazed as her skills in sifting through people's career to pull out different job skills. She then re-packages a person's resume to show the skills the prospective employer wants. Often an outside person needs to be the one to help us figure these skills out for us. The reason is we are so close to the action we may not have realized how many people we interact with each day. That means we have people skills, but in our minds that was not part of our job, even though it really was.When you take a moment and think about all the different skills that are required to do any job, we quickly become multi-talented. I remember being hired once for a single line a past employer put in a reference letter. It said I had experience in a fairly narrow expertise and this new employer really needed that skill. They hired me on the spot and it turned into the greatest experience of my working career.Now you may not be a world expert at all your past job requirements but there is normally is a grace period when you start a new job. Typically during this time the staff is extra helpful with your questions. Take this time to figure out what you need to be
During a development planning session we start by covering a blank wall with paper and colourfully proceed to fill it with a definite path to achieve the dream or vision for the organisation concerned and the people it serves. Remember, if you don’t have a dream, how can you make the dream come true and as Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
We then look at where the organisation is today, the external climate in which it operates and what is currently taking place in the organisation itself. So many plans fail because people haven’t truly considered their true starting point and haven’t taken on board the little things that need to be addressed before the big things can be achieved.
In setting the grounding for the plan, we then look at the real current values of the people involved in the project, not the written down values, but those clearly demonstrated in day-to-day activities. Values are important in any kind of business and always influence the kind of customer service or user satisfaction you provide.
"Values truly sculpt our world and the game we want to play”
When we have done this, we look at what the values should be. In most cases, there is a clear overlap, but if there isn’t then the exercise serves as a wake up call for what really needs to be addressed by the business or organization.
The planning exercise moves on to what you want to achieve. You agree a time in the future that you want to focus on, possibly two years, maybe three or even five or more, it all depends on your organization. We have found however that it is nearly always better to focus on a time that is just out of current view, not the point when a major contract ends or a funding scheme dries up. We always clarify clear, achievable goals and transport ourselves in time to think about them in the present time.
Throughout this planning process and in order to ensure everything you need to cover is considered, we use Edward de Bono’s The Six Thinking Hats as a guide. So often we find people get really passionate and excited when setting their long term goals and consequently in this frame of mind, it is so easy to miss out on some crucial issues that have to be thought about if you don’t want to set yourself up to fail.
You complete this exercise by thinking about some of the things the organization or business needs to do to gain the strength to achieve its goals, you list who else can help and who you can work with to achieve your goals. We always recognize that no one is a self-made person, we all need help from other people to achieve what we want to achieve, so we advise you always end the session with getting people to commit to the first steps to take.
When we facilitate a Development Planning session, it usually takes a full day. Enthusiasm and momentum are important in this kind of event and we would encourage you not to take too much time over the exercise. When we do it, we ensure everyone can participate full, have fun and are able to make a 100% commitment. Please ask us for more information.
“When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly love life”
The next level of planning that The Enfys Acumen encourages organizations and businesses to accomplish is what we call Strategic Planning. At this stage, you should be thinking in more depth about your goals and turn them into aims, objectives and outcomes. We have realized that some of the greatest challenges in the world today are challenges of language – especially people saying or not saying what they really mean. Terms like aims and objectives often cause some of the greatest difficulties in communication, so we always encourage people to accept the following definitions:
• Aims are the changes you are trying to achieve
• Objectives describe the planned activities by which you are going to achieve your aims
• Outcomes are all the changes, benefits, learning or other effects that actually happen as a result of your activities
You will find that you are more likely to achieve your aims and objectives if you set in place ways for measurement – Outcome Indicators. These can be qualitative or quantitative and are usually described with the following kinds of phrases:
The extent of…
The level of…
The degree of…
The amount of…
The ability to…
Setting outcome indicators in this way is far more positive and realistic for everyone concerned and whatever the outcome, you will realize that there is no such thing as failure only feedback or results.
Aims and objectives should always be stated well and a tool you might find useful is the CREATE mnemonic:
C Clear and Concise
R Realistic
E Ecological
A As now
T Towards what you want and Timed
E End step and Evidence procedure
We would be delighted to have an opportunity to clarify this tool in more detail and encourage you to get in touch. Strategic Planning does require more time and as you work through the model, you will find that certain aims and objectives will need reviewing so that more meaningful outcomes can be stated. We found that the most relevant people to involve in this exercise are the managers involved in strategic issues and need to have a strong overview of what the business or organisation is set up to achieve.
"Success isn’t about resources but about resourcefulness"
The third level of planning in The Enfys Acumen model focuses on how you can achieve your aims and make the best use of the resources you have available or need to acquire. We call it Business Planning and have developed a matrix to turn the plan into a tool that you can use as both for marketing and for monitoring how far down the road you are travelling to meet your aims.
This matrix has been developed over many years with inputs from many skilled planners and theorists and provides an opportunity to clarify the rationale for objectives, to identify opportunities and barriers to achievement, to resource needs and costs. As I mentioned at the start of this ebrief, it is essential that everyone concerned buys into the planning process and this tool encourages naming responsible personnel and deadlines for completion in the process.
As in all of the planning levels in The Enfys Acumen model, the Business Planning Matrix builds on the Development and Strategic Planning models, it does take some time to complete, but is truly an investment to help you improve your business and quality of service. Contact us to find out how you can use this model in your organisation.
"The map is not the territory"
Having clearly stated goals is the primary purpose of any planning exercise, but unless you go out and achieve the goals the effort is pointless. You wouldn’t go to a restaurant and eat the menu now, would you?
Walt Disney once said:
“You can have the greatest dream in the world, but you need people to build it.”
This is very true of course, but often not given the level of priority it truly needs.
The Enfys Acumen can support you to enthuse, encourage and enable your people to achieve aims and objectives in several ways:
• Individual planning and appraisal systems
For many years and in a variety of management roles, I have been developing and refining a system to ensure individual people have personal goals that slot in clearly with the business and organisation aims. I am convinced that in a culture of accountability we need to support people not to just do their jobs but rather to take action to achieve overarching aims and objectives. People need support and resources to do this and that is what individual planning is all about. Why not get in touch to find out more?
• Directors and trustees road maps
I wonder how many of you are responsible for or work in organisations where there is a governance board that meets regularly, people turn up religiously for meetings, but are rarely seen or heard from in the weeks in between. I suspect this is a scenario common to many of you.
Company directors and charity trustees are the key ambassadors of any organisation, they have legal responsibilities for accountability and ensuring resources are in place and appropriately used. Yet often do little more than rubber stamp other people’s decisions and are wheeled out when extra bodies are required. Am I right? The Enfys Acumen is committed to the belief that everyone has a gift they can contribute to a situation and should be encourage to develop and use this gift. When you have agreed your business or organisations aims and objectives, why not enable your directors and trustees to complete a road map to commit to doing something in between meetings to help achieve overall aims. In my experience, people are very willing to do something extra, if only they knew what to do that would be most useful. Talk to us about introducing roadmaps into your organisation.
• Mentoring for managers and lone workers
I have written before about the benefits of mentoring and wish that I’d had the experience of a mentor at various stages in my career. With almost twenty years experience of managing and developing organisations, often learning the hard way, I have a wealth of information I can share with you.
• Life and executive coaching
Coaching differs from mentoring, in that the latter is very much about bringing someone el
Are you opening a dollar store? If so it is important to remember that merchandising within your store is required to maintain and even increase total sales. Sure it takes time and effort, but you will be rewarded as sales grow.One of the most important areas for continual maintenance is end cap displays. When properly managed end caps will be the highest selling areas of your store. In fact with proper management end caps can also provide a little extra excitement as shoppers find new and different items and then purchase those items. When opening a dollar store it is that excitement that will also bring shoppers back to your store time after timeThere are several actions that should be taken to properly manage your end cap displays when opening a dollar store. Start by rotating in new items that are related to that aisle where the end cap is located. For example, displays of household cleaners could be placed on an end cap at the end of the household cleaner aisle. Another variation is to rotate in new items onto end caps that complement the aisle. For example sponges and scrubbers could be placed on that same end cap in the household cleaner aisle.There are some other methods to incorporate in your end cap management strategy when opening a dollar store. Be sure to use signage on you end caps. This will draw attention to the items that are being displayed. Clean, bright, properly printed signs also brighten up your store.Be sure to throw in a special from time to time. That will add interest and excitement when shoppers discover the extra savings. Buy merchandise for your end caps when there are special prices available. When
You complete this exercise by thinking about some of the things the organization or business needs to do to gain the strength to achieve its goals, you list who else can help and who you can work with to achieve your goals. We always recognize that no one is a self-made person, we all need help from other people to achieve what we want to achieve, so we advise you always end the session with getting people to commit to the first steps to take.
When we facilitate a Development Planning session, it usually takes a full day. Enthusiasm and momentum are important in this kind of event and we would encourage you not to take too much time over the exercise. When we do it, we ensure everyone can participate full, have fun and are able to make a 100% commitment. Please ask us for more information.
“When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly love life”
The next level of planning that The Enfys Acumen encourages organizations and businesses to accomplish is what we call Strategic Planning. At this stage, you should be thinking in more depth about your goals and turn them into aims, objectives and outcomes. We have realized that some of the greatest challenges in the world today are challenges of language – especially people saying or not saying what they really mean. Terms like aims and objectives often cause some of the greatest difficulties in communication, so we always encourage people to accept the following definitions:
• Aims are the changes you are trying to achieve
• Objectives describe the planned activities by which you are going to achieve your aims
• Outcomes are all the changes, benefits, learning or other effects that actually happen as a result of your activities
You will find that you are more likely to achieve your aims and objectives if you set in place ways for measurement – Outcome Indicators. These can be qualitative or quantitative and are usually described with the following kinds of phrases:
The extent of…
The level of…
The degree of…
The amount of…
The ability to…
Setting outcome indicators in this way is far more positive and realistic for everyone concerned and whatever the outcome, you will realize that there is no such thing as failure only feedback or results.
Aims and objectives should always be stated well and a tool you might find useful is the CREATE mnemonic:
C Clear and Concise
R Realistic
E Ecological
A As now
T Towards what you want and Timed
E End step and Evidence procedure
We would be delighted to have an opportunity to clarify this tool in more detail and encourage you to get in touch. Strategic Planning does require more time and as you work through the model, you will find that certain aims and objectives will need reviewing so that more meaningful outcomes can be stated. We found that the most relevant people to involve in this exercise are the managers involved in strategic issues and need to have a strong overview of what the business or organisation is set up to achieve.
"Success isn’t about resources but about resourcefulness"
The third level of planning in The Enfys Acumen model focuses on how you can achieve your aims and make the best use of the resources you have available or need to acquire. We call it Business Planning and have developed a matrix to turn the plan into a tool that you can use as both for marketing and for monitoring how far down the road you are travelling to meet your aims.
This matrix has been developed over many years with inputs from many skilled planners and theorists and provides an opportunity to clarify the rationale for objectives, to identify opportunities and barriers to achievement, to resource needs and costs. As I mentioned at the start of this ebrief, it is essential that everyone concerned buys into the planning process and this tool encourages naming responsible personnel and deadlines for completion in the process.
As in all of the planning levels in The Enfys Acumen model, the Business Planning Matrix builds on the Development and Strategic Planning models, it does take some time to complete, but is truly an investment to help you improve your business and quality of service. Contact us to find out how you can use this model in your organisation.
"The map is not the territory"
Having clearly stated goals is the primary purpose of any planning exercise, but unless you go out and achieve the goals the effort is pointless. You wouldn’t go to a restaurant and eat the menu now, would you?
Walt Disney once said:
“You can have the greatest dream in the world, but you need people to build it.”
This is very true of course, but often not given the level of priority it truly needs.
The Enfys Acumen can support you to enthuse, encourage and enable your people to achieve aims and objectives in several ways:
• Individual planning and appraisal systems
For many years and in a variety of management roles, I have been developing and refining a system to ensure individual people have personal goals that slot in clearly with the business and organisation aims. I am convinced that in a culture of accountability we need to support people not to just do their jobs but rather to take action to achieve overarching aims and objectives. People need support and resources to do this and that is what individual planning is all about. Why not get in touch to find out more?
• Directors and trustees road maps
I wonder how many of you are responsible for or work in organisations where there is a governance board that meets regularly, people turn up religiously for meetings, but are rarely seen or heard from in the weeks in between. I suspect this is a scenario common to many of you.
Company directors and charity trustees are the key ambassadors of any organisation, they have legal responsibilities for accountability and ensuring resources are in place and appropriately used. Yet often do little more than rubber stamp other people’s decisions and are wheeled out when extra bodies are required. Am I right? The Enfys Acumen is committed to the belief that everyone has a gift they can contribute to a situation and should be encourage to develop and use this gift. When you have agreed your business or organisations aims and objectives, why not enable your directors and trustees to complete a road map to commit to doing something in between meetings to help achieve overall aims. In my experience, people are very willing to do something extra, if only they knew what to do that would be most useful. Talk to us about introducing roadmaps into your organisation.
• Mentoring for managers and lone workers
I have written before about the benefits of mentoring and wish that I’d had the experience of a mentor at various stages in my career. With almost twenty years experience of managing and developing organisations, often learning the hard way, I have a wealth of information I can share with you.
• Life and executive coaching
Coaching differs from mentoring, in that the latter is very much about bringing someone el
Anytime your nonprofit receives positive media attention, its simply human nature to want to share this information with target audiences via your website (and every other communications channel). But beware, in this day and age of easy access to information, including news coverage, it's all too easy to forget copyright and permissions conventions.Due to the plethora of online publications so easy to cut-and-paste, these issues are more important than ever before. There is no universal approach to permissions on the part of print and online publications. The only absolute is that you should always ask for permission, whether you plan to reproduce content in hard copy or online.The issue is what's called "fair use." Frequently, publishers will allow nonprofits to use articles at no cost and don't require permission. However, others require a fee. In many cases, once a nonprofit requests reprint permission, and clarifies how it plans to use the reprint or online reproduction of an article, the fee will be waived. But you have to ask.Asking will get you more than the answer you need. Your request helps the publisher understand which articles are of greatest interest to its readers and why. That's the kind of information we all appreciate.To give you an idea of the range of permissions policies, I've excerpted a couple here:The Santa Barbara News-Press "All staff articles, graphics and photos in the Santa Barbara News-Press and on Newspress.com are copyrighted by the Santa Barbara News-Press. You may not reproduce, republish or redistribute material found on the web site or from the pages of the News-P
Aims and objectives should always be stated well and a tool you might find useful is the CREATE mnemonic:
C Clear and Concise
R Realistic
E Ecological
A As now
T Towards what you want and Timed
E End step and Evidence procedure
We would be delighted to have an opportunity to clarify this tool in more detail and encourage you to get in touch. Strategic Planning does require more time and as you work through the model, you will find that certain aims and objectives will need reviewing so that more meaningful outcomes can be stated. We found that the most relevant people to involve in this exercise are the managers involved in strategic issues and need to have a strong overview of what the business or organisation is set up to achieve.
"Success isn’t about resources but about resourcefulness"
The third level of planning in The Enfys Acumen model focuses on how you can achieve your aims and make the best use of the resources you have available or need to acquire. We call it Business Planning and have developed a matrix to turn the plan into a tool that you can use as both for marketing and for monitoring how far down the road you are travelling to meet your aims.
This matrix has been developed over many years with inputs from many skilled planners and theorists and provides an opportunity to clarify the rationale for objectives, to identify opportunities and barriers to achievement, to resource needs and costs. As I mentioned at the start of this ebrief, it is essential that everyone concerned buys into the planning process and this tool encourages naming responsible personnel and deadlines for completion in the process.
As in all of the planning levels in The Enfys Acumen model, the Business Planning Matrix builds on the Development and Strategic Planning models, it does take some time to complete, but is truly an investment to help you improve your business and quality of service. Contact us to find out how you can use this model in your organisation.
"The map is not the territory"
Having clearly stated goals is the primary purpose of any planning exercise, but unless you go out and achieve the goals the effort is pointless. You wouldn’t go to a restaurant and eat the menu now, would you?
Walt Disney once said:
“You can have the greatest dream in the world, but you need people to build it.”
This is very true of course, but often not given the level of priority it truly needs.
The Enfys Acumen can support you to enthuse, encourage and enable your people to achieve aims and objectives in several ways:
• Individual planning and appraisal systems
For many years and in a variety of management roles, I have been developing and refining a system to ensure individual people have personal goals that slot in clearly with the business and organisation aims. I am convinced that in a culture of accountability we need to support people not to just do their jobs but rather to take action to achieve overarching aims and objectives. People need support and resources to do this and that is what individual planning is all about. Why not get in touch to find out more?
• Directors and trustees road maps
I wonder how many of you are responsible for or work in organisations where there is a governance board that meets regularly, people turn up religiously for meetings, but are rarely seen or heard from in the weeks in between. I suspect this is a scenario common to many of you.
Company directors and charity trustees are the key ambassadors of any organisation, they have legal responsibilities for accountability and ensuring resources are in place and appropriately used. Yet often do little more than rubber stamp other people’s decisions and are wheeled out when extra bodies are required. Am I right? The Enfys Acumen is committed to the belief that everyone has a gift they can contribute to a situation and should be encourage to develop and use this gift. When you have agreed your business or organisations aims and objectives, why not enable your directors and trustees to complete a road map to commit to doing something in between meetings to help achieve overall aims. In my experience, people are very willing to do something extra, if only they knew what to do that would be most useful. Talk to us about introducing roadmaps into your organisation.
• Mentoring for managers and lone workers
I have written before about the benefits of mentoring and wish that I’d had the experience of a mentor at various stages in my career. With almost twenty years experience of managing and developing organisations, often learning the hard way, I have a wealth of information I can share with you.
• Life and executive coaching
Coaching differs from mentoring, in that the latter is very much about bringing someone el
Recruitment consists of knowing exactly what you are looking for, determining how to know when you’ve found it and making employment offers that get accepted. The first step is determining exactly what level of competency you are looking for:THE IMPLICATIONS OF COMPETENCIESPeople have and get COMPETENCIES (Combinations of knowledge, skills and attitudes)We apply these in the form of BEHAVIOR (Actions, thoughts feelings)Our behavior produces OUTPUTS (Products and services)How this is done yields RESULTS (Criteria for managing the prior three steps)In order to determine the kinds of people you are looking for, it sometimes helps to start with a picture of the “ideal candidate.” This person would possess the competencies and exhibit the behaviors that generate ideal results.What would happen if someone:• Negotiated the best deal every time you placed an order? • Romanced the Reps that call on you? • Aggressively worked on getting the right new lines? • Placed literature orders weekly? • Used every order to get a favor? • Really planned and prepared for sales meetings? • Kept a leash on salespeople giving away margin? • Assured that you had enough accurate competitive price information? • Stayed awake at night worrying about dead inventory? • Made sure that buddy calls and product training was effective? • Stayed on top of cycle counts to make sure the inventory was accurate? • Actually matched up your order backlog with vendors and your sales forecast? • Changed inventory mix to account for lost sales?
This is very true of course, but often not given the level of priority it truly needs.
The Enfys Acumen can support you to enthuse, encourage and enable your people to achieve aims and objectives in several ways:
• Individual planning and appraisal systems
For many years and in a variety of management roles, I have been developing and refining a system to ensure individual people have personal goals that slot in clearly with the business and organisation aims. I am convinced that in a culture of accountability we need to support people not to just do their jobs but rather to take action to achieve overarching aims and objectives. People need support and resources to do this and that is what individual planning is all about. Why not get in touch to find out more?
• Directors and trustees road maps
I wonder how many of you are responsible for or work in organisations where there is a governance board that meets regularly, people turn up religiously for meetings, but are rarely seen or heard from in the weeks in between. I suspect this is a scenario common to many of you.
Company directors and charity trustees are the key ambassadors of any organisation, they have legal responsibilities for accountability and ensuring resources are in place and appropriately used. Yet often do little more than rubber stamp other people’s decisions and are wheeled out when extra bodies are required. Am I right? The Enfys Acumen is committed to the belief that everyone has a gift they can contribute to a situation and should be encourage to develop and use this gift. When you have agreed your business or organisations aims and objectives, why not enable your directors and trustees to complete a road map to commit to doing something in between meetings to help achieve overall aims. In my experience, people are very willing to do something extra, if only they knew what to do that would be most useful. Talk to us about introducing roadmaps into your organisation.
• Mentoring for managers and lone workers
I have written before about the benefits of mentoring and wish that I’d had the experience of a mentor at various stages in my career. With almost twenty years experience of managing and developing organisations, often learning the hard way, I have a wealth of information I can share with you.
• Life and executive coaching
Coaching differs from mentoring, in that the latter is very much about bringing someone else’s experience, knowledge and skills to the party, being able to sound out your ideas against someone who has been there before. Coaching on the other hand is more about helping you to decide your priorities in life, to achieve your goals and quite simply to help you move from dreaming to action. The planning skills that The Enfys Acumen has developed are equally relevant to individual people as they are to businesses and organisations. However, in our constant quest to learn new skills and develop service quality, I am currently following a coaching diploma course with Europe’s top Coaching Academy. If you would like to explore the benefits of coaching to your life and career, please do not hesitate in getting in touch.
Have a look at our website www.enfysacumen.com to find out some of the ways we might be able to help. If what you need isn’t listed, but think we might be able to help in some way, please get in touch.
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