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Brice Alvord - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Brice Alvord has over thirty years experience as an internal and external performance improvement consultant and business coach. Mr. Alvord has extensive experience in designing and developing performance based training programs that get results. He holds a BA in Sociology/Psychology from Central Washington University and an MBA degree from City University of Seattle. He is the author of over two dozen books on continuous improvement and training.
He has worked with a wide range of ... [More]
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- When Accountability Doesn't Work
[Business:Management] Most managers and politicians do not understand the difference between accountability and responsibility. Responsibility merely points out the person who is to be held responsible for failure or success. It is often set in place to be able to find blame rather than to be able to ensure that the system or process works as intended. Accountability on the other hand is all about what was or was not done to achieve goals or objectives. It focuses on the system or process.
- Transitioning to the Business Paradigm - Understanding the Change
[Business:Change-Management] To say that we live in a time of change is an understatement. We are being bombarded with change from all directions. Some of it is good and some of it is not.
- Getting From Short-term to Long-term Thinking
[Business:Management] The success of management is ultimately determined by creativity and teamwork at all levels of the organization and how they react to the environment. None of this is possible for the long term unless there is clarity of purpose or mission and a real commitment to achievement and necessary change.
- Learning to Sail in Troubled Seas
[Business:Management] The most critical step for businesses enmeshed in today's troubled economy is to take a critical look at the future. Too many executives and senior managers are preoccupied with increasing government intrusion and control, financial survival, and fear of the unknown.
- Surviving Today's Economy is Not Enough! - What You Need to Know
[Business:Management] Management must look beyond survival in the current economy. Too many managers and executives are merely hunkered down riding out the storm. It is not enough to merely survive, the focus of today's manager must be on growth and flexibility to adapt to tomorrow's changing paradigms.
- If Your Are Focused on Efficiency - You Lose!
[Business:Productivity] Efficiency is not the best measure for improving the bottom line. As Eliyahu Goldratt demonstrated in his epic novel -The Goal, efficiency can actually sink your company. Much more needs to be considered such as how effective is your equipment in meeting your strategic goals?
- The Need For Workplace Organization
[Business:Productivity] Workplace organization is paramount to workplace effectiveness and efficiency. There are a lot of workplace organization (5S) programs available, only a few properly lay the foundation for success through planning and linkage to strategic goals. If you are contemplating the implementation of workplace organization in your organization or if you have done it in the past and are thinking of re-establishing your program, make sure you determine the impact it will have on your organization.
- Management is Missing Real Commitment to Accountability
[Business:Management] An accountability program should provide a roadmap for the effective operation of the organization. It should link to the mission of the company by addressing the obligations of the company and its managers to the stakeholders in the company.
- Assimilating New Leaders Quickly is Crucial to Productivity Gains
[Business:Productivity] The New Leader Assimilation Process is an eight-step process that offers a new leader's team members the opportunity to ask any and all questions to their new leader. It allows team members to give their impressions of their new leader in a safe and supportive environment.
- Front Line Leadership is the Foundation of Any Productivity Improvement Program
[Business:Productivity] Performance based training is needed to properly develop effective Front Line Leaders. The aim of effective performance based training for Front Line Leaders should be to encourage them to reflect on supervision practice, develop and/or enhance their skills and network with other Front Line Leaders.
- Business Strategies For Turbulent Times
[Business:Strategic-Planning] Turbulent times require a firm anchor point from which to lead your organization. That anchor point must be an effective strategy that is properly communicated across the entire organization. A strategy is a broad statement of planned activities which, when effectively performed, will most effectively accomplish a given objective.
- 5S Leads to World Class Performance
[Business:Productivity] The key to world class performance is found in a simple but effective program called 5S. 5S is all about creating a more effective workplace that is well organized, free of clutter, and organized so that you can easily find things. It is also incredibly clean.
- Vulture Capitalism - Why You Can't Seem To Get Ahead Financially
[Finance:Personal-Finance] Imagine being stuck with $5 fees for ATM transactions. Paying big bucks for insurance you don't need on a rental car or forking over $20 -$25 a day for supposedly "free" wireless internet. When you use banks, cell phones, and credit cards or book hotels and airline tickets, you face the prospect of getting ripped off. We are all vulnerable to the tactics of the VULTURE CAPITALISTS unless we educate ourselves to how the Credit System works and what we can do about it.
- Many Training Departments Are Failing Their Organizations
[Business:Productivity] Many organizations are not getting what they need from most Human Resource Development departments. The focus for too many has been on providing what training professionals feel comfortable providing; not what the organization needs to survive. Training must focus on meeting business needs and resolving performance issues. Performance improvement requires a change in approach.
- Building A Customer Focused Organization
[Business:Customer-Service] Businesses are feeling the pressures of a constantly changing marketplace and are experiencing difficulties differentiating their products or services in the intensified competition of this environment. Many companies have lost focus of the reason for their existence in this turbulent environment. Businesses that neglect creating a true customer focus will feel the unnecessary high costs of poor service through the active word of mouth of dissatisfied customers and increasingly expensive advertising and marketing to attract new customers.
- Defining Your Organization's Future
[Business:Strategic-Planning] Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning. In order to determine where it is going, the organization needs to know exactly where it stands, then determines where it wants to go and how it will get there. The resulting document is called the "strategic plan".
- Building Sustainable Competitive Advantage
[Business:Strategic-Planning] Sustainable competitive advantage allows for the maintenance and improvement of your company's competitive position in the market. It is an advantage that enables your business to survive against its competition over a long period of time. The advantage comes from your company's unique skills and resources working together to implement strategies that competitors cannot implement as effectively.
- Control and the Importance of Standards in Planning
[Business:Strategic-Planning] Managerial control is based on creating a proper plan, and creating the proper plan means having a clear understanding of what it takes to achieve that control. Effective control therefore, depends on the proper execution of key management activities such as planning, estimating, organizing, communicating, measuring, tracking, reporting, and documenting. Today there is a huge cry for accountability, yet with out standards of performance and proper control structures, accountability merely means immeasurable responsibility. To that end, ineffective CEOs will continue to be paid high salaries despite poor performance, and companies will continue to struggle for survival.
- Improved Planning With Multi-level Mission Statements
[Business:Strategic-Planning] A mission statement based on the five fundamental obligations of an organization lays the foundation for a cohesive strategic plan and resulting objectives that include everyone in the organization. It reduces the tendency to develop only those objectives which will guarantee this year's bonus and promotes attention to the long-tern goals of the organization. A well defined set of obligation statements that covers the entire organization provides the basis for improved productivity and performance at all levels. Traditional management by objectives programs fall short because a lack of true commitment and or understanding. Many times this shortfall is due to a lack of understanding or structure.
- Improving Asset Effectiveness Leads To Significant Productivity Gains
[Business:Productivity] In most cases when people talk about productivity, they think in terms of people, another area that is critical to the success of any productivity initiative is the state of the tools or equipment used to produce your product. Focused equipment improvement is one of the major factors involved in Improving productivity . It identifies the major equipment-related losses that lower equipment effectiveness and performance.
- An Effective Tool For Productivity Improvement
[Business:Productivity] One of the more difficult aspects of developing a competency based training program for improving productivity is to determine what should go into the program. Without a structured approach decided upon ahead of time, an effective program will be impossible. The best tool I have found for accomplishing this is a Task Analysis.
- Productivity Requires Competent People
[Business:Productivity] Competent people are consistently able to render valuable or worthy performance without excessively using costly behaviors. Competencies are measures of worker accomplishment that have a value to the organization. In other words, the organization is willing to pay someone to achieve these accomplishments. Competencies are results driven, That is they define a performance based on a standard of performance. Competencies are the foundation of Performance Improvement and productivity initiatives.
- Properly Trained Part Time Trainers Are The Key To Performance Initiatives
[Business:Productivity] Many companies are cutting training departments to meet budgets with little consideration of the long term impact on the survivability of the organization. This comes at a time when a large wave of highly skilled workers are approaching retirement. How will your organization replace the skills and knowledge that is about to go out of the door? Many companies will rely on Shadow Training and will be disappointed by the results. The problem is that they won't find out until it is too late. Find out how to prevent this...
- Stakeholder Analysis - Key to Productivity Initiatives
[Business:Productivity] Stakeholder analysis aims to identify the stakeholders that are affected by the results of a performance improvement project. Stakeholder Analysis is the first stage of planning any performance project. It is where you identify and start to understand your most important stakeholders.
- Strategic Thinking Vs Strategic Planning
[Business:Strategic-Planning] Strategic thinking is often described as reflective dialogue about the future so that one can avoid pitfalls as well as take advantage of opportunities. It is a process whereby you learn how to make your business vision a reality by developing your abilities in team work, problem solving, and critical thinking.
- Improving Performance With Strategic Thinking And Strat Frame
[Business:Productivity] Inadequate planning is a persistent problem and fundamental when organizations attempt to carryout the strategic intent of management. Most organizations have a planning function and the resulting planning documents are often specific and clear about the financial and physical inputs, activities of people, and the expected physical results. What is often missing, is a thorough assessment of the overall objectives, the stakeholders, and the external factors and assumptions which determine ultimate success or failure of the organization. This article opens the door to an exciting tool called StratFrame(TM).
- The Phoenix Effect - Benefiting From Our Failures
[Self-Improvement:Success] Failure is one of life's great forces; it's driven far more innovation than talent, creativity, or necessity combined. It's the failures we face in life, large and small -- and the way we face them -- that make us who we are and give us the opportunity to make ourselves better. Failure is natural, normal, and is going to happen. It is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. In the end, it is only by embracing failure that we achieve success.
- Accountability Is Essential For Productivty
[Business:Productivity] There is one vital ingredient that prevents mediocre work: Accountability. Accountability is the common thread which is woven throughout all professions and is especially important in today's business world. Accountability unlike responsibility, implies a definable and measurable commitment to deliver a specified result. It is critical to all productivity efforts, with out it, the status quo wins out, and programs quickly become "Flavors of the Month!"
- Safety And Productivity Go Hand In Hand
[Business:Productivity] Lasting productivity improvement requires transitioning from a "fix it" mind-set, to a "solve and prevent it" mind-set. No where is this more important than when addressing safety in the workplace. Safety and performance improvement go hand-in-hand. An effective performance improvement program requires that you dig into the causes of accidents, determine the conditions that are at the root of those causes, and determine the best practices to prevent those conditions from reoccurring. The solution is the implementation of a productivity & safety program
- What is a Lean Management Audit?
[Business:Productivity] The Lean Management Audit is a structured knowledge gathering and assessment activity based on your company's vision and strategy, its development plan, and its annual policy. It is crucial to improving performance in your organization.
- Designing Competency Based Training for Improved Productivity
[Business:Productivity] An effective competency based training program must be based on the actual tasks successful workers perform on the job, rather than what is found in text books or classrooms. This will ensure that the participants will master the skills that will contribute to improved performance at your facility.
- Competency Based Training is Critical to Productivty
[Business:Productivity] A Competency Based Training program must be designed so that it provides participants with high quality, carefully designed participant focused learning activities that will help them master each task required to perform their jobs. What is the difference between traditional training and competency based training?
- Keys To Building and Maintaining a Competitive Edge
[Business:Productivity] Performance based training is one critical key to building and maintaining a competitive edge in business, competency is another. How these two critical elements work together is the foundation for the effective operation of your organization. In a performance-based environment, the focus is on being able to do what the job requires rather than on knowledge and understanding of content. Performance-based training emphasizes proficiency in essential job tasks. It is a systematic approach to training based on tasks and related knowledge and skills required for job performance. At its core, performance-based training is focused on providing learners with practice and immediate feedback on all the skills required to perform a job to meet management expectations.
- Strategic Thinking For Operations And Projects - Part II
[Business:Productivity] The STOP program was designed to help you build a strong business case for change. This program will guide you through a proven framework for developing strategy.
- Strategic Thinking For Operations And Projects - Part I
[Business:Productivity] The STOP program was designed to help you build a strong business case for change. This program will guide you through a proven framework for developing strategy.
- Productivity Depends on a Good Safety System
[Business:Productivity] Implementing a performance based safety program requires that you implement a universal set of principles and activities that sustain safe conditions in the work area. The starting point is an uncluttered, well-organized, and understandable workplace.
- Share Our Business Information With Who?
[Business:Productivity] Business information has traditionally been kept hush-hush. Typically it is only trusted to upper management and the finance department. Sharing such information was once an unspeakable sin. Today, things are quite different in the workplace.
- The Power Of Overall Equipment Effectiveness
[Business:Productivity] Measuring Overall Equipment Effectiveness is a simple but powerful measuring tool for obtaining information about what actually happens in your plant. Overall equipment effectiveness is not the only indicator to assess a production system, but it is certainly very important if our goal is continuous improvement.
- Introduction To Identity Theft
[Legal:Identity-Theft] Identity theft is no longer an unusual occurrence. It is rapidly evolving and is quickly becoming a socio-economic inevitability. Identity theft is the fastest growing white-collar crime. It is a crime in which an impostor obtains key pieces of your personal identifying information such as your Social Security number or driver's license number and uses them for their own personal gain.
- Operational Effectiveness - Another Way of Looking at Performance
[Business:Productivity] Many organizations measure the performance of the organization on efficiency. The field of cost accounting is built around these concepts and principles. The problem is that efficiency is no longer an effective measure of what is happening in the operation of the organization. It is possible to achieve high levels of efficiency and still operate at a loss.
- Human Performance - One of the Keys To Productivity
[Business:Productivity] A highly productive organization requires adequate human performance. The single most important measure of human performance is competence. An effective manager must understand the difference between traditional training and competency based training.
- Beyond Training
[Business:Productivity] When people feel that their own success and that of the company are linked the will be motivated to give their personal best and will achieve the desired levels of competency. Identifying and using the individual talents of the people who make up your team is perhaps the most important job of any manager or supervisor.
- Enhancing Human Performance
[Business:Productivity] Enhancing human performance requires a team of managers and supervisors that can Perform as both a well organized administrator and have an in-dept understanding of people's basic needs and behaviors. It is not enough, however, to just know them, the manager/supervisor must be able to put them to practical use in order to have a positive influence on the organization.
- Reducing Training Costs With One-Point Lessons
[Business:Productivity] One-point lessons are a simple yet powerful learning and operational tool. When applied systematically throughout the work site, one-point lessons provide many benefits. They can help deploy just-in-time knowledge and skills across an organization. They also positively affect employees' abilities to perform daily tasks as well as improve an organization’s cost efficiency and product quality.
- Building A Reliable Organization To Survive The Current Market Place
[Business:Productivity] Many tasks, methods, and tools can be used to achieve reliability. Every system requires a different level of reliability. A commercial airliner must operate under a wide range of conditions, the consequences of failure are grave, but there is a correspondingly higher budget. A pencil sharpener may be more reliable than an airliner, but has a much different set of operational conditions, mild consequences of failure, and correspondingly lower budget.
- Squeezing Greater Performance In A Tight Market - The New Business Paradigm
[Business:Productivity] A recent study showed that 87% of Americans expect to continue to do things the same way and still get different results. Does this philosophy drive your company's performance? In today's market, many managers have retrenched their approach to managing their company. Many have given lip service to new ways of managing while continuing to use old, outdated measures of performance and success.
- Accountability - They Are Still Missing The Point
[Business:Productivity] Many in Government are talking about accountability in business as a result of the accounting and stock market scandals. President Bush signed the Corporate Fraud Law, which was supposed to make CEO's accountable. They are still missing the point about accountability. What they are really talking about is responsibility to the law, not accountability! In addition, they are talking about accountability as if it were something that can be legislated or directed - it cannot!
- Mentoring For Supervisors
[Business:Productivity] Supervisors must make sure that they shift their focus from the work itself to the people who do the work - supporting their needs, developing their abilities, removing obstacles and making resources available. They need to make the right decisions the first time and keep trial and error learning to a minimum. All supervisors need clear, simple models of supervision practice that will help them learn how to implement their complex human relations tasks.
- The Need For Strategic Thinking Is Critical To Effective Continuous Improvement
[Business:Productivity] Strategic thinking is a mindset or way of thinking about a business or organization. It is a process whereby you learn how to make your business vision a reality by developing your abilities in team work, problem solving, and critical thinking. Strategic thinking is the process whereby you examine the implications of your choices and analyze the options available to you before making a decision.
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