Tips For Effective Delegation Skills Towards Work Life Balance

No matter where we are there is a time and place for effective delegation. Whether it's getting the kids to clean the yard or our accounts manager preparing annual budget, good delegation skills are essential if we want to achieve a work life balance. The art of delegation or doing more by doing less, can be mastered if we heed these following tips.
1.No manager is an island.
Even though others may have different approach or standards we are setting ourselves up to fail if we think we have to do everything ourselves.Accept that in today's interdependent world there is a shared responsibility for getting things done.
2.Delegate don't abdicate
Remember if tings go wrong, it's ultimately our fault. Assess the risk of the failure before we decide to delegate a task and manage any risk appropriately. The only person we can blame is us for not effectively delegating the task at the beginning. And we never know they might even do it better than us.
3.Cristal clear tasks
If we can't define the task to be delegated, it isn't ready for delegation. Good task to delegate are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound.Fuzzy, vague tasks are impossible to complete or result in such a mess we have squandered more time than we could potentially have saved.Part of the art effective delegation is creating smart tasks from fuzzy ones and communicating them clearly.
4.Tools to do the job.

It is universally agreed that sledgehammers are way over the top for cracking nuts and in effective delegation, it is as important we select the right person to do the task.Some people could do the task standing their head, other may need a bit of direction and coaching.As we decide who should undertake the task, make as assessment of their skill and will change our approach accordingly.

5.Give them enough rope.

There is a spectrum of freedom in decision making and action taking that we need to consider before and during the delegation process. This can vary from give the information and will decide through to we decide and do it, no need to check back with.Again our approach depends on the task of failure trust in the people and their ability to do the task.

6. How it was for us.

Effective delegation is about sharing workload, with the added bonus of developing skills and responsibility in others.Maximize the learning experience by taking time for shared reflection of the task once it's completed, what worked, what didn't work and what would we do differently next time?

These tips for effective delegation will help us to achieve a work life balance and become more productive by doing less.

Presentation Skills For Emergent Managers

Management is the art of getting things done. A presentation is a fast and potentially effective methods of getting things done through other people. In managing any project presentation are used as formal methods for bringing people together to plan, monitor and review its purpose.

The objective of communication

The single most important observation that the objective of communication is not the transmission but the reaction.The whole preparation,presentation and content of speech must therefore be geared not to the speaker but to the audience.The presentation of a perfect project plan is a failure if the audience do not understand or are not persuaded of its merits.The main problem with this objective is the people to whom you are talking. The average human beings has a very short attention span and million other things to think about.The presentation should be to reach through this mental fog and to hold the attention long enough to make us point.

The plan

It is difficult to over estimate the importance of careful presentation.Five minute on the floor in front of senior manager could decide the acceptance of a proposal of several months duration for the manager and the whole team.With so much potentially at stake the presenter must concentrate not only upon the facts being presented but upon the style,pace, tone and ultimately tactics which should be used. As a rule of thumb for an average presentation no less than 1 hour should be spent in preparation for 5 minutes of taking.

Formulate objectives

The starting point of planning any speech is to formulate a precise objective.This should take the form of simple, concise statement of intent.No two objective will be served equally well by the same presentation and if we are not sure at the onset what we are trying to do,it is unlikely that our plan will achieve it.

Identify the audience

The next time is to consider the audience to determine how the best to achieve objectives in the context of these people.essentially this is done by identifying their aims and objectives while attending presentation.if we can somehow convince them they are achieving their aims while at the same time achieving our , we will find a helpful and respective audience.Such as if we are seeking approval for new product plan from senior management it is useful to know and understand their main objective.If they are currently worried about their product range is out of date and old fashioned, we would emphasise the innovative aspects of our new product.This principle of matching the  audience aims, however goes beyond the simple salesmanship of an idea, it is the simplest and most effective manner of obtaining their attention ant the beginning.

Structure

All speeches should have a definite structure, a talk without a structure is a woolly mess. If we do not order our thought into a structured manner, the audience will not be able to follow them. Having established the aim of our presentation we should choose the most appropriate structure to be achieve it.However the structure must get into the way of the main message.

The Difference Between conflict Preventation And Conflict Avoidance

Before we make difference between them we should know about some background.There are various approach to conflict and how to deal with it.

The logical conflict management approach

The logical conflict management approach rests on the assumption that people can and will make conscious decisions about how they will deal with specific conflict.The approach outlines modes of dealing with conflict. For example: avoidance, collaboration,compromise etc.

In this approach each of this may fit a certain situation better than the others. So one evaluates the conflict situation, analyze it, and decides on course of action.In this way of thinking it may be perfectly OK to avoid a conflict situation if it is determined that doing something other than ignoring it will be destructive.So in this model avoidance may be an appropriate good response in some situation.The difficulty with this approach is it treats conflict as something that occurs within tow computers that is easy to analyze and isn't heavily influenced by a person's emotional state.

Emotional models

At the other end of the spectrum is an understanding of conflict as involving emotional energy.They see conflict as emotional encounter. They also tend to believe that the suppression of the emotional energy associated with conflict is sweeping the problems under the rug.What's more important is that some feel that this is destructive that unaddressed conflicts fester and gets worse if neglected. So within this way of thinking, avoidance of the conflict or ignoring a conflict is damaging and dangerous.It's often these folks that do not distinguish between conflict avoidance and conflict prevention.

Difference between avoidance and prevention

To start with a basic analogy, is there a difference between preventing contracting AIDS by the use of appropriate precautions and avoiding treatment if one has contracted it.The idea of conflict prevention recognizes that conflict takes many forms. Like the logical conflict managers we recognize that there is some conflict that is destructive, some that is hopeless and can never be resolved.So we can talk about destructive conflict and constructive. Destructive conflict is that has a low probability of being resolved and is primarily personality driven rather than conflict that is issue based.

often issue driven conflict turns into emotion based conflict and that's one thing we need to make sure doesn't happen.Emotion based or personality based conflicts are very difficult to deal with and with a relatively low probability of resolution.That's why we use the term destructive conflict because perusing the issue will often make things worse.Sometimes one must leave the conflict as it is ans make the best of it because pursuing it will make it worse.We are always going to have issue based disagreements and conflict. Well intentioned people often disagree.What we need to do though is focus our attention on reducing the incidence of personality based conflict because there are techniques that can reduce its frequency.

So conflict prevention isn't about preventing issues based disagreements at all. It isn't about keeping our mouth shut up if we disagree. What it is about is reducing conflict that comes from behavior and ways of communicating that create unnecessary conflict.It's about learning to say things in a ways that do not get people's defenses up.It's about saying things so other don't get pissed because of your choice,tone,purchasing or body language. It's tool for the resolution of issue based conflict not a way of avoiding it.

Knowledge accessibility and New Firm Formation

It is obvious that knowledge plays a fundamental role for successful entrepreneurial activities. To have a chance to succeed new entries of firms into the market place must be based upon a new combination of knowledge that is at least marginally superior to existing combination in terms of product characteristics or price.Thus knowledge flows play an important role in fostering innovative and entrepreneurial activities.However the generation of the new knowledge by the means of both university and company R & D is strongly concentrated to a limited set of region.
Hence there are very substantial spatial variations in the accessibility to existing as well as new knowledge since flows of knowledge often are spatially bounded.The fact that knowledge can diffuse between locations does not imply that it transmits costless across geographic space.Accessing and absorbing knowledge is costly and geographical proximity reduces these costs.
There are major role of knowledge for successful entrepreneurship.Here are discussion of the role of accessibility to university and company R & D for new firm formation.Company R & D is assumed to contain a higher share of R & D directed towards generating technical knowledge.Since knowledge can also be assumed to be spatially bounded and diffuses in geographical space, it is argued that local interaction, measured by intra-municipality accessibility to knowledge, have a stronger influence on new firm formation than inter regional interaction.

Here is presented a micro-model of knowledge creation and transfer in a small group of people. It is intended to contribute eventually to the development of micro foundations for aggregate models of knowledge externalities used in various literature's, such as those pertaining to endogenous growth theory, urban secularisation and growth,organizational R & D and knowledge creation and human capital accumulation. Our model incorporates two keys aspects of the cooperative process of knowledge creation. They are-1.heterogeneity of people in their state of knowledge is essential for successful cooperation in the joint creation of new ideas, while, 2.the very process of cooperative knowledge creation affects the heterogeneity of people through the accumulation of knowledge in common.In the two person case we can show that the equilibrium process tends to result in the accumulation of too much knowledge in common compared to the most productive state.Unlike the two person case, in the four person case we can show that under certain conditions the equilibrium process of knowledge creation by four persons may converge to the most productive state.

Basic Context For Organizational Change

It seems like the topic of organizational change has reached evangelical proportions. There is an explosion of literature about the subject and an accompanying explosion in the number of consultants who offers services in this general areas. The following information attempts to provide some basic perspective about the concept of organizational change.

What is organizational change?

Typically the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization wide change, as apposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person.It includes a change in mission, restructuring operations, new technologies, major collaboration, new programs such as total quality management, re-engineering, etc.Often this term designates a fundamental and radical reorientation in the way the organization operates.

What provokes organizational change?

Change should not be done for the sake of change. It is a just to accomplish some overall goal. Usually organizational change is provoked by some major outside driving force such as substantial cuts in funding, address major new market, need for dramatic increase in productivity etc.Basically organization must undertake wide change to evolve to a different level in their life cycle, e.g..going from highly reactive.Transition to a new chief executive can provoke organization wide change when his or her new and unique personality pervades the entire organization.

Why is organization wide change difficult to accomplish?

Typically there are strong resistance to change. People are afraid of the unknown.Many people think things are already just fine and dont understand the need for change.Many are inherently cynical about change,particularly from reading about the notion of change as if it is a mantra.Many doubt there are effective means to accomplish major organizational change.Organization wide change often goes against the very values held dear by members in the organization, that is the change may go against how members believe things should be done.That's why much of organizational change literature discusses needed change in the culture of the organization, including changes in the members values and beliefs.

How is organization wide change best carried out?

Successful change must involve to management including the board and chief executive.A change agent role is usually responsible to translate the vision to a realistic plan and carry out the plan.Change is usually best carried out as a team wide effort.Communication about the change should be frequent and with all organization members.To sustain change the structures of the organization itself should be modified including strategic plans, policies and procedures. This change in the structure of the organization typically involves an unfreezing and re-freezing process.The best approaches to address resistance id through increased and sustained communication and education.For example the leader should meet all managers and staff to explain reasons for the change, how it generally will be carried out and where other can go for additional information.Plan do change.