Sue's Blog

The Protected Disclosures Act 2000 - also known as the Whistleblowers Act, came into force on January 1, 2001. It seeks to afford protection to employees who make disclosures about serious wrongdoings. For a quick guide to the Act AND some issues to be aware of BEFORE you put the whistle in your mouth, check out: http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/money_politics_law/whistleblower_checklist.htm

 

 

Franchises have an edge over non-franchise businesses and organisations when it comes down to operating systems and processes. Before a franchise chain opens its doors for the first time, every process and system in their operation has been mapped, documented, flow-charted, tested, refined, tested and fine-tuned to perfection. The result is simple, effective, standardised, time efficient systems that anyone can follow. This makes for effective training of personnel and a fast uptake on how the organisation functions.

Can the same approach be said for other organisations? Oftentimes, organisational processes and systems aren't regularly reviewed in their entirety and new processes or systems get added on, as the need arises. The difficulty with this approach is often the add-ons don't marry with the core system, causing some duplication or process gaps or steps that don't match original flow charts or original documentation.

If you haven't done so recently, ask the current users of your current systems and processes how easy they are to follow and use; how logical the flow of information is and how user-friendly they actually are. If the feedback is all positive, that's a cause for celebration. If the findings suggest otherwise, review all systems and processes. Inefficient systems and processes cost time and money and tend to frustrate and turn off the people who use them. Who can afford that?

This is one handy tool for your writing toolkit - an index that gives a simple measure of gobbledygook. It requires identifying the number of syllables per word in a text and it calculates the number of years of education required to read the text. Details on http://www.readabilityformulas.com/

 

Research has shown unconscious behaviours cause self-sabotaging behaviours, which is one reason why people resist change. The difficulty is when people try to use technical solutions to solve adaptive challenges. In essence, individuals need to learn to be more adaptive and the only way to do this is to make a mind shift. To read a more elegant summary, check out: 

http://mindsatwork.com/images/resources/resources-BusinessDigest2009.pdf

 

Ashley Balls tackles this topic in New Zealand business magazine Dec 2011/January 2012 edition http://www.nzbusinessco.nz/ He found proof New Zealand isn't over-regulated or overtaxed. To see the latest research, go to http://www.doingbusiness.org/ and download the report entitled Doing Business in a More Transparent World (published by the World Bank). Ashley's article entitled ‘The Consequence-Free Society' is well worth reading.

Bad debt costs businesses big time. Regardless of the size of your business, you need to have sound credit management policies. At the very least, ensure you have a formal credit policy and detailed credit terms that you share with all customers. Undertake credit checks on new customers and monitor existing customers to see if they can still pay their account. Take every action to trace customers who vanish with debts. Engage specialists to help you find them and don't just write off the debt. Also use specialists to check key customers' credit status as it may change repeatedly in these changing economic times.

A handy resource for your management toolkit is http://thinkexist.com/ It is the place to find inspirational quotes to use in training material or to encourage and inspire the team.

Why use 100 words when 30 would do? Short, punchy quotes on important topics can have more impact than a talkfest or pages of text. Alvin Toffler once wrote "The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn" (nd). This made me think of the ‘programmed knowledge' we all have, gathered from years of experience. It is so ingrained we don't even think about it, information just pops out of us or we act without thinking, in an automatic way. Typically, we don't think much about how we learn yet this is important to know. The best learning occurs by taking actions and consciously reflecting on the success or otherwise of the actions; then taking the learnings from the reflections and adjusting our future actions, to suit. It is a continuous cycle and the key bit is adequate time for reflection and therefore, learning how to learn.

 

 There's nothing new about action learning - Reg Revans introduced it in the 1940s - yet it is still a powerful model for personal, group and organisational change. This is especially so today with unpredictable, major global challenges and rapidly changing environments. Individuals in every workplace today need to be able to act and learn simultaneously and do so continuously. If you haven't already discovered the World Institute for Action Learning, check out: http://www.wial.org/ For a comprehensive guide on action learning, try Michael J. Marquardt's book Optimising the Power of Action Learning (2009).

McKinsey Quarterly's latest article on bringing about organisational change and enhancing your chances of success, is well worth a read. They suggest only about a third organisational change programmes are successful. To get some tips on how to increase your changes of success, look at: https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Organization/Change_Management/Finding_the_right_place_to_start_change_2890