Are Your Business Practices in Harmony With Your Strategy?

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

All too often when I start working with a new client, I find that the actions the leader is taking are incongruent with the strategy or the results that they want to see. When you’re betting the future of your business, it’s imperative that your business practices are in harmony with your strategy. In recent years, companies have been focused on cutting costs without recognizing that they are making strategy decisions at the same time.

Two years ago, Cisco purchased the Flip video recorder from Pure Play Technologies for $590 million signaling a desire to play a bigger role in the consumer products industry which equated to 2-4% of their revenues. Soon after, when the market was moving towards multi-purpose devices like the smartphone, the Flip decision became a flop.

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Whose Responsibility Is It?

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

While in Europe recently, I was watching a piece on CNN about the university students in Tunisia. The students talked that things are much better after the uprising, but then they said that they are worried for their future because they wondered what jobs would be available for them when they completed their education.

As I thought about this news clip, I wondered why university students are worried and waiting for someone else to create something for them to do. I mean after all, they have been given a great opportunity to expand themselves through higher education and now have a greater awareness in at least one field. Why aren’t they thinking and masterminding how they can invent, create, start or at the least somehow see ways that they can impact the business world based on their new knowledge.

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Does Positive Thinking Really Work?

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

I just received an email from someone, who a mere two weeks before moving from one continent to another, found out that she will have to have major surgery. This will be her 4th surgery of this type and it will be in the exact same place in her body as she had it last year. In her message, she quipped “So much for thinking positive.” It got me thinking—does positive thinking really work?

As I thought about it, another person came to mind. He was awarded a huge contract last year to do his dream project. At a time when everyone should be happy, the subcontractors started causing problems. Time was slipping by arguing over unimportant matters instead of getting started on the contract. When I first heard about the problems, I gave some suggestions of what to do to turn things around. One of the main suggestions was to quit talking about the problems and the issues with the subcontractors and instead start focusing his mind and efforts on the desired outcome.

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Influence Is a Key to Success!

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

There are 6 leadership competencies that involve relationship management. By improving in one or more of these, a leader will increase their rate of success.

The inspirational leaders can be charismatic, compelling speakers and move employees along in a shared mission. They’re great examples demonstrating the behavior they want others to exercise.

The leaders who focus on developing others are genuinely interested in and good at developing other people’s skills. Natural mentors, they coach others to understanding their strengths and weaknesses.

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Ever Thought About Starting And Growing A Business?

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

It seems that most of us have at one time or another thought about leaving a job and starting a business. Does it sometimes sound like it would be much easier? Or when the big order comes in and you think, “I’m delivering the service/product for my employer. If I had my own business, I could have all the revenue.” Have you ever watched others in your company that don’t have your skills or knowledge, but have a higher position than you do? Or is it the independence that attracts you?

The answers to these questions may prompt you to start thinking again about starting a business; but understand this, there’s a whole lot more to consider before quitting your job, taking your savings and registering a business. In fact, many people think registering an entity is actually starting a business but that’s just the legal formality and nothing more. The shocking statistics show that as much as 85% of new businesses fail within the 1st year. How does this happen?

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Is Your Organization Being Good Or Getting Better?

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson taught us in the reprint last week that the biggest differences in results occur when the goals are about being good rather than getting better. As she said, “Where being good is about proving how smart you already are, getting better is about developing skills and abilities — about getting even smarter.”

What would be the outcome if you, as a leader in your organization, focus and encourage your employees to try harder; to get better at their position by being open to developing new skills rather than trying to be good by not making mistakes? Encourage people to stretch and go beyond their comfort zone. Allow mistakes to happen without recrimination and together look for the learning as a way to improve for the future. People will naturally hide or cover up mistakes if the message is “don’t make any mistakes” rather than being open about an outcome when the message is “how can we improve?” or “what can we do differently next time?”

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It’s Not About Being Good

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

This following article written by Heidi Grant Halvorson, PhD appeared in the Huffington Post. Although it is directed towards children, it contains leadership wisdom for everyone.

“Understanding why some children dig in and work hard when faced with something new and challenging to learn, while others get anxious or give up, has been a focus of research in psychology for decades. Most people assume it has a lot to do with intelligence, but that’s surprisingly wrong. No matter how high your I.Q. is, it says nothing about how you will deal with difficulty when it happens. It says nothing about whether you will be persistent and determined, or feel overwhelmed and helpless.

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Accelerate Achievement Through Quantum Leaps

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

“If you do not expect it, you will not find the unexpected, for it is hard to find and difficult.”
~Heraclitus

“That’s the way we’ve always done it” is the most over-used excuse to either staying stuck or achieving mediocre results. If your organization is chugging along with average results, it’s time to make some bold moves. Price Pritchett, an international specialist on change management, wrote a booklet entitled You2 which provides a high-velocity formula for multiplying your personal effectiveness in quantum leaps. He said that quantum leaps require paradoxical behavior or actions that on the surface seem bizarre and certainly contradict common sense.

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Spotlight on Local Leading Lawyer

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

It’s always fascinating learning about a person’s path to their current destination and this is certainly true with Sahar Askalan. She’s atypical in many ways; beginning with being the only female Omani lawyer in the country who runs her own law firm and is licensed to practice law both here and in the UK. Having left Oman at the age of 16; she lived abroad for 16 years. This experience has proven to be one of her greatest assets because she now has a deep insight how of westerners think and she easily balances between both mentalities.

As an illustration, with a smile she said “Shareholder agreements in UK are 150 pages while they’re only 5 pages in Oman. The Omanis wouldn’t trust someone that has to have such a big agreement or the person giving it to them. Westerners will benefit from understanding how it works here if they want to be successful.” She compared the population of London where she worked to the whole of this country, stating that the laws are still developing here.

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14 Tips For Transforming Your Business

Posted on by Susan Bagyura

Dr. W. Edwards Deming was a statistician who used his expertise to improve the quality of war materials during World War II. After the war, he was invited by Japanese industrial leaders and engineers to help them transform their manufacturing processes enabling them to create innovative, quality products. When they asked how long it would take to change Japan’s image of producing cheap, shoddy products; Deming responded by saying they could it in 5 years if they strictly followed his instructions. Although they didn’t believe him, they were too ashamed to voice their concerns. However, they followed his instructions to the letter and successfully achieved their goal in just 4 years. The Japanese subsequently awarded the famed Deming Prize to organizations that applied and achieved stringent quality-performance criteria.

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