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Greg Schinkel Articles

Written by: Greg Schinkel

Leadership: These Seven Challenges Help Managers Succeed - Click To Read Article
We learn best from experience. Even though the school of hard knocks is time consuming and expensive, no amount of management training can completely prepare you for what you will experience as a manager. These seven challenges and experiences help managers succeed.

Leaders and Top Performers: Should You Build Your Own or Steal from a Competitor? - Click To Read Article
Is your organization better off stealing star employees from a competitor, parachuting a leader in from outside or would it be better to grow your own stars and develop leadership from within?

Leadership Tips to Create Greater Accountability in Your Organization - Click To Read Article
Accountability becomes mission-critical in challenging times. We need everyone in our organization to take ownership of results and make things happen. Creating an environment of accountability rests with management. Based on our 22 years of experience in organizational development and leadership training, we have discovered that managers systematically remove accountability. As a result the manager themselves ends up shouldering all the responsibility and stress. Here are some practical ideas to create greater accountability in your organization.

Maximizing Sales and Profits in Economic Recovery - Click To Read Article
As the recovery takes hold your organization will start to do better simply because customers will start buying again. While this provides a much needed break from the angst of recession, it will hardly provide the motivation to excel. Instead challenge your organization to achieve its true potential and watch sales and profits soar.

Productivity Improvement from Employee Engagement, Process Improvement - Click To Read Article
Imagine having to achieve the same amount of output with half the number of people doing the work. This is a real challenge facing companies big and small in North America. By being a workplace of choice and relentlessly pursuing ways to boost output from existing resources, you can get a leg up on the competition in the short term and ensure survival in the long term.

Managing Change: Engage people to implement change - Click To Read Article
Change is constant and accelerating. The only thing we can be certain about is uncertainty. And we need to get used to it. Why is it then that many change initiatives are more stressful, time consuming and ineffective than they should be?

Your Need to Always Be Right Might Keep You From Achieving Greater Success - Click To Read Article
How important is it for you to be seen as always being right? Leadership success depends on your ability to help others discover answers for themselves. Let's examine some ways for you to be a more influential and persuasive leader.

Want to Change Employee Behavior? Change Yourself First - Click To Read Article
The greatest epiphany we see in the managers, supervisors and team leaders we train and coach is that the behaviors (good and bad) of the workgroup often reflect the approach taken by the leader. After learning how to be more constructive, supervisors will say that employees are being more positive, helpful and accountable. The leader changed first - then the employees changed!

Want to Grow Your Business? Stop Blaming the Customer - Click To Read Article
If the staff in your company constantly complain about customers it could be limiting your growth. After all, the customers write the checks that pay the bills. Challenging customers may be difficult to serve but they also need what you provide and may even be willing to pay more for the priviledge.

Want Greater Success? Be Ready to Work Harder and Smarter - Click To Read Article
Take an inventory of the people in your life who you consider to be "successful". Were they an overnight success? Likely not. I can't think of one person who has achieved success who hasn't had to work very hard to achieve it. They might make it look easy but behind the scenes they worked their butt off to get where they are. And likely they are still working their butt off to get to the next level or simply maintain what they have.

Trying to be a Perfect Leader? Good Enough May be Good Enough - Click To Read Article
By reading this article you are demonstrating your commitment to being a better leader. Even the best leaders have flaws so why not go forward now with the leadership skills you have instead of trying to be perfect.

Selling Value Vs. Being a Commodity - Click To Read Article
Buyers and sales reps are in a constant battle. The buyer is trying to strip away the perception of value to drive down prices while the sales rep is left to defend why the buyer should be willing to pay more. The sad truth is that sales people are often lacking in the skills required to sell value. These tips will help you defend your profit margins from erosion.

Practicing the Golden Rule Has Limitations - Click To Read Article
Treating people as you want to be treated assumes that they are like you in terms of their motivation. Instead, you may want to adjust your approach to treat others as they want and need to be treated.

Need More Innovation? Foster a Culture of Curiosity - Click To Read Article
In organizations, curiosity fuels innovation and the solving of stubborn problems. Foster curiosity in yourself and others and you will be on the way to getting breakthrough results.

Leadership Malpractice: What to Do When Leaders Don't Lead - Click To Read Article
What if we were to apply the same coaching, confronting and correcting method to the leader who is not doing what is expected of him or her? By definition, should a supervisor, manager or executive who doesn't carry out his leadership responsibilities effectively be expected to suffer the consequences of his action or inaction?

How Leadership and Corporate Culture Impact Profitability - Click To Read Article
Turns out leadership isn't just a feel good thing. It drives the bottom line. A constructive culture is one where there is a sense of achievement, challenge, growth, encouragement and humanistic relationships. Organizations with a constructive culture had consistently higher profit margins. Aggressive cultures (very task/numbers driven without support/encouragement) have the most erratic profit margins.

Great Leaders Know the Value of Candid Feedback - Click To Read Article
What do people really think of you? Do you even care? Do you care too much? Many of the managers and executives I coach and train start off by being surprised and maybe even slightly insulted to think that they need to improve their leadership skills. After all, they wouldn't have been promoted if they weren't competent... or would they?

Detox Your Corporate Culture - Click To Read Article
Just because people don't leave your organization doesn't mean the culture is constructive. In high-paying, benefit-rich industries employees can feel obligated to stay even though they are dying on the inside. Instead judge your culture on the level of sick days taken, the enthusiasm with which employees conduct themselves, the amount and pace of change and innovation. If these areas are lower than you like, chances are your corporate culture is sapping the life out of your employees.

Defending Profit Margins - Click To Read Article
Each percentage point of gross profit margin you lose requires a 4% volume growth just to keep profit steady. A five point increase in your profit margin is the equivilent to a 20% increase in sales. A five point increase in your profit margin can equal a 50% boost to your bottom line profit. How do you communicate the value you provide to the customer so that you are not seen as a commodity and therefore maintain the profit margin you need to grow your business.

Dealing with Prima Donnas in the Workplace - Click To Read Article
Do you have some employees or co-workers who think of themselves as extra special, indispensible and untouchable? Their superior attitude often ticks off the people who work with them. Here we look at what you should do and should not do to be more effective.

Dealing with Abrasive Personalities: Is it them or you or both? - Click To Read Article
When coaching abrasive managers and executives I have discovered that in some cases they are only abrasive in the context of an overly passive culture. Before labelling a problem employee or manager, examine the context of the department, division or company.

Check Mark Thinking Gives Executives False Sense of Accomplishment - Click To Read Article
Achievers can fall into the trap of check-mark thinking. They view corporate change as a to-do list. Mission statement - check, Vision - check, Told them what I expect - check, Metrics in place - check. The busy executive then moves on the other things because he or she thought they had "done" everything on the list. Then they begin to see things start to unravel and quickly blame others for not executing properly.

Busy Managers and Executives Need Time to Lead - Click To Read Article
As workload increases, managers trap themselves behind their computers and Blackberries, firing off emails instead of building relationships with their peers and their employees. Instead of one-on-ones, the manager uses group meetings as a convenient way to get the word out. Employees become disengaged, feel the manager doesn't care about them and become less productive.

Career Tips for High Achievers Who Are Feeling Stagnant - Click To Read Article
High achievers are prone to enter a time in their career where they plateau or stall. Perhaps promotions are not coming as fast and furious as they once did or in some cases, they have achieved every goal they have set and have run out of challenges. Achievers will ask themselves, "Is this all there is?" After striving for success, when success levels out, the feeling of advancement is replaced by a feeling of stagnation. This condition could be called Achievers Depression or Career Stall.

What Leaders Can Learn From Dog Obedience Training - Click To Read Article
It is interesting the similarities between managing the behavior of a dog and managing employee behavior. In this article we look at communication, correction, praise, structure, repetitive learning and pack behavior and how it applies to the workplace.

Leadership Tips for the Manager Who is Too Tough - Click To Read Article
Hard-nosed, high achieving managers tend to work long hours, do the work his or her team is supposed to do, be overly critical of others and not keep everyone informed. Despite this and perhaps to some degree because of it, they get great results in the short term. Unfortunately, this type of manager is often disappointed when the team is unable to achieve the desired results. The organization loses because talented subordinates may get burned out and leave or never get the development they need to become future leaders in their own right.

Leadership Tips for the Manager Who is Too Easy - Click To Read Article
The Plant Manager was becoming increasingly frustrated. His production manager was struggling to meet plant performance targets and was not getting his team to take ownership of achieving results. The initial diagnosis was that the production manager was being too easy on his team. As with most management problems, only two or three behaviours cause the majority of aggravation and frustration. Here we examine how to help an easy-going manager achieve what needs to get done.

Leaders Don't Allow Tasks to Take Time Away from People - Click To Read Article
In the short term, focusing on tasks gets things done. In the medium to long term, the task-focused manager creates even more work for themselves because they allow the team to wither and become demotivated. This causes a drop in productivity and results begin to wane. It becomes a death spiral when the manager puts even more emphasis on tasks, hoping to turn things around.

Management actions that speak louder than words - Click To Read Article
Do as I say, not as I do. This doesn't seem to work in parenting and it doesn't work in business either. Communication, despite knowing it to be a problem, continues to be a challenge in most organizations. Typical results-driven managers mistakenly feel that once they have said something once, everyone should have heard and understood the message and be willing to implement immediately. In the absence of plentiful and repeated communication, most messages in an organization are communicated non-verbally through the actions observed. In fact these non-verbal messages define the organization's culture over time. Here we identify four management actions that transmit plenty of information to the organization about what is valued and not valued.

Leadership Tips to Maintain and Cultivate Innovation and Creativity - Click To Read Article
During challenging economic times, it is easy for business owners and managers to get themselves into a funk. Business isn't as fun when sales are soft and layoffs occur. When times are good there is a tendency to get complacent, play it safe and rake in the profits. Tough times present a tremendous opportunity to innovate and be creative. Here are some ideas to maintain your innovation mojo.

Leadership Tips to Manage, Resolve and Prevent Conflict - Click To Read Article
Conflict causes a lot of stress and yet conflict is essential for effective organizations and relationships. Instead of simply managing conflict, we recommend the managers lead conflict and enjoy the tremendous gains that come from constructive conflict techniques.

Finish Strong in 2009 and Set Up for Success in 2010 - Click To Read Article
A new business season is upon us and with it comes some old challenges and some new ones. Here are three action steps to achieve a strong finish in 2009 and set your organization up for a great year in 2010.





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