Uncovering Key Business Management Issues

The economy is down and inflation is rising!  The pandemic is not coming to an end yet and schools move to and fro with web-based classrooms - continuing to effect the workability and challenge flexibility of employees.  There are so many issues facing business this year, it is no wonder managers are trying to find what they should be doing to keep their business thriving.  Many are turning to their Human Resource departments to do research or they are doing their own research on the internet or by reading  multiple business-related publications.

There are so many articles and surveys trying to give leaders some sort of idea where to concentrate their efforts.  However, they need to be read carefully for who the article is meant to help.  Is it meant to help most corporations stay in-the-black, or to keep small businesses afloat in uncertain times, or is the article really meant to generate a business need that will actually profit the article writer more than those who read the article or post?

Two surveys that you may want to review include:

• Gartner HR Survey Reveals #1 Priority in 2022 will be Skills and Competencies
• Bloomberg Survey Shows Top 3 Concerns of CEOs in 2022

Is technology a big issue for business in 2022?  Security companies are telling business mangers that cyber security should be their main concern to prevent business interruptions.  However, only 57% of managers they surveyed agreed with that.  At the same time, companies that offer telecommunications are still saying it is important to increase virtual meeting capability and phone app usage as the pandemic has taken various twists and turns.  Are they right and are telecommunication companies ready to meet performance requirements?  Does your company need new technology, better technology, or updates to telecommuting processes and policies?

Are social issues and/or DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) a current  issue for business?  Although consultants will tell you these are major concerns, do they really affect the bottom line?  Yes, if you choose the wrong ones!  Social awareness is supposed to be key to the newer generation of employees but following what maybe advertised as politically correct has cost many companies in loss of valuable customers due to boycotts the past few years.  DEI was low on the Gartner survey as it does impact Human Resources,  Not only as a training program, employees have left companies for bringing in propaganda disguised as "diversity training" that was insulting to their personal morals, values, ethics, and intelligence.  These same employees took customers when they reported the that information on social media, which created a PR nightmare and devastated the image of those companies.  Traditional versions of DEI and EEO to build trust and understanding. as well as prevent racial issues has been effective for decades.  But some of the new "improved" versions may not be what they claim, instead they can build distrust and division.  Employees working against each other can not be good for business.  Management and HR must research heavily and attend the training themselves before they bring in anything that is not skills related to verify it meets their needs to include others not divide people.  Consultants and training material providers want to make sales, just like you do - so verify the facts instead of believing the pitch.  Make sure what you buy truly matches corporate culture and  beliefs.

Is supply chain still a key issue for businesses to be concerned about? This concern did make the bloomberg survey as the continued pandemic has and will affect it.  Whether your business is a supplier or uses supplies, you should be adapting your processes sustainable and resilient.  Organizations will need to become streamline and agile.  Products quality also needs to be maintained to ensure repeat customers. who are moving from a just-in-time ordering process to a storing for future purposes.

Seems like business managers may be better focused on the needs of their particular business than listening to the trends.  Read the surveys to learn what others think, but keep in mind that is their impression based on their experience not yours.  Focus on your compnay leadership, your customer service, and your process improvement.  Yes, you can research "what's new" just be sure to check it through your professional lens to determine if it meets you needs or just send your dollars down the drain into another's profits.  Jumping on a new bandwagon without really looking, means you are likely to totally miss your target!

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Top Ten Telecommuting Tips

According to Global Workplace Analytics 56% of the workforce could use    telecommuting to accomplish their work and 62% feel they could  telecommute  part of their work week.  In a time of crisis or because of limited space, telecommuting becomes important to employers as well.

For various reasons, you may need to work from home or another location other than your company office.  Working from home can relieve the stress of traffic going to work.   The reduced travel time can be used to create a different work schedule.  To be as effective as possible working from a home office there are a lot of things to consider.  There are lots of conflicting ideas on how best to telecommute by working from home office.  Below are the top ten tips for telecommuting.

Top 10 Telecommuting Tips

1. Set Work Schedule.  Work-at-home means you set "work" hours for doing the job and keep them separate from "home" time.  Impose "do not disturb" guidelines for your job time.  Set break times, as well as start and stop times.  Make is clear to family that, although you are home, you are really on-the-job during work hours.  Getting dressed, doing laundry or dishes is home-time activities, not part of the job you are being paid for.  Arrange for childcare during work times to eliminate distractions.  Just as you keep work time promise to your employer, keep your promise to family by calling an end to the work day when that time comes.

2. Get the Right Technology.  You must have a good internet connection to work from home.  A LAN connection will typically work more efficiently than WIFI.  Ask your corporate IT for their hardware, software, bandwidth, and cloud/server storage recommendations.  Consider audio/microphone headsets and webcam needs. Make sure your computer/laptop and internet service provider meets those requirements before you transition to home office or telecommuting.  Download the Applications you will be using before you need them.

3. Dress for Work.  Experts say that getting dressed as if you are going to the office will help you concentrate on work and be more effective at the job.  Not only is this a good idea to put you in the right mode, if you end up in an emergency video-conference you will not be caught in your pajamas. 

4. Create a Workspace.  Set-up your work area or office/room with everything you need to perform your job at maximum potential.  When choosing your space, a room with a door is best. Avoid common areas like the kitchen or family room to prevent distractions.  You need a computer, paper and pen for notes, phone, and any job-specific supplies for telecommuting. Using a dedicated workspace in your home lets the rest of the family know when you are "at-work" and therefore you should be left alone.

• Organizing Your Computer Work Space 
• Organize Telecommuting with a Mobile Office

5. Tackle Priority Duties.  Make a "To Do" list for each day and then develop a plan to accomplish the highest priority items first.  If you want to remain a key employee, as an off-site worker you must show your worth by finishing important projects.  This requires good time management and planning.  Being busy with low-level activities gets work done but it does typically not get recognized.

6. Do not Multi-task.  Trying to do too many things at one time will result in sloppy work or missed deadlines.   Finish each work task before starting another.  While at work. do not get distracted by household chores.

7. Be Available to Co-workers. Quick and easy communication with co-workers, customers, and suppliers is important.  Although it is a good time management technique to limit your phone and email use, most of the time that is not an option when working outside the office.  Keep your email or chat windows open and minimized so you receive notifications when something comes in.  Then immediately decide if response is needed or if it can wait determine when to respond.  Prepare to delete - do not keep items that do not require any action on your part.  Same applies to calls and texts on phone.

8. Prepare for Virtual Meetings.  Even though you are not physically at company office, you will be expected to attend team or staff meetings.  Your meetings may be via teleconference, however many corporations are moving to the internet in order to emulate face-to-face meetings.  You need to prepare for virtual meetings in the much the same way as for live meetings, the only difference is the added technology component.  If you listen to music while you work, be sure to turn it off and be in a quiet location before your meeting starts.

• Increasing Focus in Meetings
• Improve Virtual Meetings with Tips and Tools

9. Take Creative Breaks.  Staying in one place for too long can be boring.  Boredom can result is less productivity.  Go to another room or go out for lunch to break the monotony.  You do not have to be in a corporate office to take a business lunch or attend a professional association meeting.  Take the dog for a quick walk or run on your short breaks to revitalize.  Set a timer to keep from extending your breaks too long.  If you need to do a lot of on-line research or write creative text, consider taking your laptop and phone to Starbucks, the back yard, or the park for that small portion of your work day.

10. Attend Meetings and Training.  Going into the office for meetings weekly or a couple of times a month keeps your face in front of co-workers, team members, and superiors,  It allows you to develop a bond for working together and keeps you more up-to-date on what is going on.  Attending corporate classroom training is another way to develop a company network, in addition to enhancing your skills.  Although you can do on-line training from your home office, it does tend to isolate you from other employees.

As you can see from the above, telecommuting can be challenging.  It requires proper planning and dedicated effort.  For ideas from the leadership side of telecommuting, see Ten Tips for Preventing Isolation in Your Remote Workforce

Bonus tip: Stay-off social media!  Unless it is your job to monitor a business account - Facebook, Twitter, Linkedn, Instagram, etc. can be distracting.  Do not let what others are saying or doing keep you from getting your work done.  If you do, then you ,ay be forced to make up work-hours during home-time, which will make both your family and employer unhappy.

Best Time to Hold a Meeting

Do you ever ask the question "When is the best time to hold a meeting?"  Some time ago, I answered this question in an article on best meeting length and time of day in relation to corporate culture, participant availability, and type of meeting.  This advice still holds true, however there may be more to think about  now, due to technology and research.

Recently there have been productivity studies showing the part of the workday when people are best at decision-making or being creative.  This information is typically used to help plan a daily schedule and to do's for effective time management.  However, this same data may be key to planning meetings, as well.  The studies show that people are most alert during the morning and it is a good time to make decisions, work on major projects or logistical items. Consider the type of meeting you are having, if it is for decision-making, consider planning the meeting in the morning.  Studies also shows people are more creative in the afternoon. This indicates that free-flowing meetings for brainstorming, problem-solving, design, process mapping, or discussion should be planned for the afternoon.  Get the creative stuff done in the afternoon with your group, and if decisions can be postponed plan a shorter meeting the next morning.  This allows participants time to review the minutes and think about things before jumping to fast on a quick solution. 

Before deciding on a time to hold your meeting, first determine if the meetings is really necessary.  Information sharing can easily be done via email instead of a meeting.  Most meetings work better face-to-face, but virtual meetings are a good alternative when the participants are not all located in the same building. 

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Ten Tips for Wonderful Webinars

Webinars are a great way to share knowledge or give presentations to multiple audiences at one time.  People from multiple locations can connect at the same time to hear your message without travel requirements or tie zone issues.  Consider webinars as an e-learning option for training and as a marketing tool for sales prospecting.  Below are ten tips to help you have a problem-free webinar.

10 Tips for Wonderful Webinars

1. Select a webinar platform.  If the organization hosting the webinar does not have a webinar/virtual meeting provider, you will need to research ones that might fit your need.  Most platforms offer a free short trial period you may use to host a small webinar to get started.
2. Alleviate technical issues.  Presenters should use a landline connection over WIFI option to prevent possible downtime. For the best voice sound, use a microphone headset rather than the mic inside your computer.  Turn off any pop-up notifications to prevent distractions during presentation.  Also be in a room where there will be no background noises or voices to interfere with the audio.  
3. Have a technical assistant or moderator, if possible.  This allows the presenter to  concentrate on delivering content rand answering questions over clicking on the computer.  Verify with each other when the pre-webinar check-in time together will be , presentation expectations, and any post-webinar activities.
4. Provide a short speaker bio, if you have a moderator who will be introducing the webinar.  This is especially important if there will be several speakers in a panel or webinar series.  It gives the moderator relevant data on presenter to share before introducing the current topic.
5. Keep it short at 30-60 minutes, but no more than two hours.  People get tired of staring at a screen even if the topic is absorbing.  If your message requires more time, consider making it a multi-part series over a few weeks instead of a long session.
6. Promote the webinar.  Webinars target to a specific group should be communicated via email to target audience.  Open webinars may be marketed via email and/or on social media.
7. Have a photo of the presenter to include with bio and show on introductory/closing slides.  This way the audience knows what you look like.  This will allow you to skip having a presenter camera on you when you are speaking.  Presenter cameras are geared for emulating face-to-face meetings, not for presentations where speaker may be glancing down at notes or on-line ressonses.
8. Prepare a slide show for display during the webinar that is interesting and informative.  Keep slide text as concise as possible, use appropriate statistics,  have relevant graphics often, and use animations/transitions to get attention.  In virtual presentations there is no eye-contact so you will need show more slides and spend less talking time per slide than if you awee doing a live presentation.You may want to give the audience the option of downloading a copy of the slid es to follow-along and make notes.
9. Practice your presentation for attention-getting delivery and with your assistant for technical delivery.  With the technical practice session, include testing pauses for: audience to read statistics or graphs, taking polls, giving quizzes, and answering questions.  
10. Consider recording the webinar so that people unable to attend the original virtual session or missed part of a series has the option of watching at a later date.  You may want to limit the amount of time the recording is available to eliminate the possibility of people seeing out-of-date information.

Comparison of Terms for Robert's Rules of Order and Meeting Wizard’s RARA Process

After asking if Robert’sRules are valid for your meeting, a need to show the differences in process and terms in a more easy-to-read format has come to light.  Roles are often the same, just different names.  Below are three comparison charts to illustrate the differences and similarities.

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History

RONR	RARA
Designed in 1876 for government use and later adapted for societies, 11th edition on Amazaon #ad published 2011	Evolved out of quality improvement and team building efforts in business 1980-1990 then RARA book on Amazon #ad published in 2003 – new release coming  2019

Process Summaries

RONR Process	RARA Process
Formal and strict structure	Informal but adheres to set agenda
Requires motion and 2nd to debate/discuss, if no 2nd then no discussion	Team agrees to discuss issues/solutions or not
Suggests quorum to call for majority vote, minority is allowed to debate/discuss prior to call for vote	Allows for multiple decision-making methods (consensus, majority, ranking, etc.)
Committees do or arrange outside work and report progress	Team members do/arrange outside work and report their progress
Gavel is used to mark meeting progress or gain attention	Facilitator encourages group back to agenda
Includes process to discipline disruptions and problems during meeting time	Suggested methods for handling typical disruptions in meeting
Speaking time per person limited to 10 minutes for small groups and typically 2 minutes each for large groups – also an individual may be limited to speaking 2 times during a debate/discussion	Presentation time is limited to what is set on agenda and individual speaking time during discussion on set topic may be set before discussion begins

Possible Roles

RONR Roles	RARA Roles
Chair/President	Facilitator
Secretary/Clerk or Historian	Recorder, aka Record-Keeper
Assembly/Officers and Members	Members
Guest (cannot vote)	Observer (cannot vote)
Sergeant –at-arms or Doorkeeper or Parliamentarian	Gatekeeper or Timekeeper (optional)
Speaker/Lecturer	Talker, aka Presenter
Treasurer (if $) or Teller (vote-counter)

Most Used Terms

RONR Terms	RARA Terms
Adjourn	Close/Closing
Amend/Amendment(s)	Change/Combine/Clarify
Call to Order	Open/Opening
Debate	Discuss
Decorum	Code of Conduct or Ground Rules
Floor
Minutes	Records/Minutes
Motion/Move                    EXAMPLE IN MINUTES
New Business	Open Time
Order of Business/Order of the Day/Program	Agenda (3T)
Point
Program	Presentation
Recess	Break
Refer/Commit to Committee (or person)	Action Item (3W)
Resolution/Resolved        2-PART DESCRIPTION
Roll Call
RONR = Rules of Order Newly Revised	RARA = Roles, Agenda, Records, Actions
Table/Postpone	Put in Parking Lot
Unfinished/Old Business	Next Agenda or pull from Parking Lot
Unanimous/General Consent	Consensus
Vote/Decision	Decision-making methods

Meeting Types

RONR Meetings	RARA Meetings
Annual
Board/Executive
Committee	Sub-team
Regular
Special	6 types
Electronic (specified method other than face-to-face in bylaws) – added in 11th edition	4 methods – 2019 update to include newer virtual methods and tips

Meeting Application for Smart Phones

In my book R,A!R.A! A Meeting Wizard’s Approach (available on Amazon #ad), I share tips for preparing and evaluating meetings, as well as how to run them effectively and efficiently.   Because I am a certified meeting facilitator and author of various business books, I get asked to recommend technical solutions in addition to the meeting leadership and participation guidelines found in my book. For that reason I wrote the post on evaluating meeting planning and measurement tools that are free on the internet since not many people know about the options I listed.  Most people already know about holding meetings with internet tools like GoToMeeting, Skype, and WebEx, so I just encourage them to improve their virtual meetings with tips and toolsfrom my book and articles. Now I will share a new tool businesses may be interested in.

The video below introduces an easy-to-use application for meetings and webinars called ThinkRite Assistant.  This application could be very handy for field sales team meetings as the sales representatives can easily join meetings when on-the-road from their mobile phone.  This solution may also be a good fit for global project teams who must collaborate virtually rather than physically.  The option to use a smart phone for checking into webinars also makes this app a great way to make sure continuous learning is available to off-site employees who are not able to come to a central location for seminars and training classes.  After watching the video and if you are interested in learning more, review the website at http://www.thinkrite.com/.

List of Team-building and Training

I put this together as a reference for my friends and associates from ATD.

Quick List of Team-Building posts by Shirley Fine Lee:

• Who and what has your team meetings hung up?
• Start Virtual Team Meetings with a Little Business Improv
• Team Rebuilding and Recognition
• Teambuilding events must be worth the business investment
• What is the right size for a team?
• Evaluating meeting tools that are free on the internet
• Assessing the Effectiveness of a Virtual Team Leader
• Buying Business Books as Recognition Gifts
• Are empowerment and teams buzzwords now?
• Starting a Virtual Team with the Right Membership
• OPIE Planning Process and the Project Team
• Facilitation Tips for Process Mapping in Team Meetings
• Responsibilities of Self-directed Teams from the Team Coach

Fast Link to Shirley Fine Lee's Team-Building articles.

Quick List of Informative Training posts by Shirley and her fellow bloggers:

• The Five Stages of Learning as a Skills Matrix
• Emoticons as Training Evaluations
• Training on a Tight Budget
• Ten Ideas to Learn Your Way to Success
• Can reading club complement training initiatives
• The Marvelous Method of the Lunch and Learn!
• The Managers Buffet - What will you pick?
• Leadership Training – Report Indicates Top Four Needs
• Partnering for training success
• Recognition Badges and Training Gamification
• Tips for Supporting Training Initiatives
• 14 Success Factors for Leadership Development and Training
• Perfect Phrases to Encourage Participation or Creativity
• Create Your Training Needs Analysis
• Ideas from Two Training and Meeting Game Books

Fast Link to Shirley Fine Lee's Training articles.

Books for Facilitators, Instructional Designers, or Trainers (with Amazon #ad links fro reference):

- Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries by Morrison, Conaway, and Borden 
- Measuring Leadership Development: Quantify Your Program's Impact and ROI on Organizational Performance by Phillips, Phillips, and Ray

Given Away:
- Program Development and Evaluation Resource Book for Trainers by Rosemary S. Caffarella 
- The Complete Guide to Supervisory Training and Development by Lester R Bittel
- The Facilitator's Fieldbook by Jamieson and Justice
- The Accelerated Learning Handbook: A Creative Guide to Designing and Delivering Faster, More Effective Training Programs by Dave Meier 
- Perfect Phrases for Ice Breakers by Runion and Windingland 
- Diversity: The ASTD Trainer's Sourcebook by Tina Rasmussen 

Preparing for Presentations by Playing the Part

As a person who has given many presentations and taught others on how to do so, I review books on the subject to see what is new.  Play the Part (on Amazon #ad) by Gina Barnett (that rhymes!) just came out as a two part instructional with activities and worksheets.  The first part of the book covers the signals your body language tells about you in both leadership roles and as a presenter and gives tips to improve.  This book is a great asset for those who want to learn more about body language.  The second part of the book is where she gets more into planning and delivering presentations.  I will focus on the 2^nd part of the book in this post.

Gina introduces a Key Message idea for planning presentations and provides a worksheet with the headings What, How, and Why to create your message.  Under each heading, your answer the following questions:

• What is the situation (concept, problem, idea, or challenge)?
• How can you address it (recommended actions)?
• Why do this (goals, results, or desired outcomes)?

She goes on to discuss ways to grab the audience and get them to tune into the purpose of your presentation using: a catchy title, headlines (for your key messages), and telling stories rather than stating facts.  She says people can better understand and empathize with metaphors and similes than facts and figures.  Although, she seems to agree with me that if numbers are needed to prove a point, they should be in a graph rather than a table or buried in text.

I found it interesting the Gina had a 5P instruction in her book that stands for “Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.”  I give a 4P approach in my presentation keynotes: Plan, Prepare, Practice, and Perform.  At the end of her book, Gina also dedicates 12 pages to talk about virtual meetings.

You can find her 3-question Key Message template after chapter seven of her communication book Play the Part.  Or you can find a 6-question Presentation Plan format in my meeting management book R.A!R.A! available on Amazon #ad. 

Increasing Focus in Meetings

RARA A Meeing
Wizard's Approach

So many people hate to go to meetings because they seem to be a waste of time that could be spent on more valuable work.  There are even lots of statistics on how much time people spend in meetings and how little they feel they achieve. 


It is not that meetings are not good communication tools; it is more that many people do not know how to properly run a meeting or participate in making it worthwhile.  Meetings where everyone is focused on the task at hand can accomplish a lot in very little time.

How do you increase focus in meetings so they can be very effective and still run efficiently?  Follow this simple outline

I. Start with proper planning using the first RA (Roles, Agenda) in RA!RA!

1. Create an agenda using the 3 T’s and stick to the time constraints as much as possible in the meeting.  Don’t deviate from the agenda unless you pool all participants to make sure changes are ok. (FYI - the RARA book (on Amazon #ad) has a reproducible meeting agenda form inside as well as a checklist and presentation planning form.)
2. Assign roles like facilitator, minute-taker, gatekeeper, etc.in advance rather than wasting valuable meeting time getting volunteers.  Consider rotating the roles on a regular basis so everyone gets to do each role and knows when it is their turn.

II. Keep the meeting focused on the topic at hand by:

3. Starting on-time will get people used to the ideas of arriving early rather than late.  If you start on-time, you should be able to stop on time; you may even be able to get out a little early sometimes once your meetings become more effective. 
4. Turning off phones and other electronic devices that are not relevant to moving the meeting along the desired path.  This keeps interruptions and distractions to a minimum, as well as making it easier for all to participate in the meeting discussions. 
5. Having a written record of what the group is working on visible throughout discussion and decision making processes.  This can be accomplished with PowerPoint slides, flip chart, or marker boards in the room.
6. Stopping rabbit trails right away and bringing the group back on track by pointing to the agenda that you are following.
7. Recording all decisions and actions as you go along to reduce repetition during the meeting and questions later.

III. Follow-up with documentation using the last RA (Records, Actions) in RA!RA!

8. Send out the minutes of the meeting within 2 days of the meeting date.  Minutes should be an exact duplicate of the written record taken during the meeting.  Sending the minutes out quickly gives people the opportunity to ask questions for clarification before doing outside tasks. (FYI - the RARA book has a reproducible meeting minutes format inside as well as an actions form and meeting evaluation.)
9. Insure all action items are assigned using the 3 W’s with due dates.  Send an action reminder out a few days before the next meeting so people have time to complete actions or prepare a progress status.

If the meeting is to be virtual rather than face-to-face, check out post with links to virtual meeting tips.