Students Of Success

I remember once seeing a cartoon which showed two people working a counter. On the wall behind them was a sign which read, “Quality Work, Low Price, Fast Service - Pick Two.” In order to deliver all three, which is what customers expect, it’s important to understand the flows of your organization.

The first flow is, of course, cash flow. This comes in two varieties, money coming into the organization, revenue, and money going out, expenses. Understanding cash flow is not as easy as it appears. Throughput accounting and Lean accounting are two methods some companies are using to try and get a better understanding of how cash flows through a business.

The second flow is the product or service flow. This starts with how the product or service is designed. The next step is how the product is built or the service delivered. How is the product or service used? Finally, what happens when the customer is done is the product discarded, recycled, or consumed.

How does information flow through the organization? How does it come into the company and how does it leave? How is it used in the organization, does it follow the work or pull the work forward? What types of feedback is received?

How does material flow in the company? If a product is built, how are the raw materials or parts brought to the point of assembly. For a service, how do the necessary information, materials, and people get to where they are needed?

How does the movement of the workers flow? Is the motion smooth or does it start and stop like rush hour traffic? Are there any wasted motions, like retrieving a paper file from a cabinet in another room or walking over to get a tool which is required for product assembly? Why is the tool at the point where it is needed? Why is the file located in a cabinet in another area?

Creative flow is important to understand. Creative energy, like any other kind of energy, can be harnessed and managed. Does a research and development department create everything and the rest of the people just do what they’re told? Or are all employees thinking about innovation, how to reduce costs, looking at safety issues, reducing wastes, and improving the environment. Are people developing skills to identify, articulate and communicate those kinds of things?

The final flow is time. Time is, of course, a factor in all the other flows. Since we can’t change time, rather than looking at how time flows; we need to see how the organization flows through time. How long does it take to accomplish things? Can the time be reduced? By reducing the time it takes to do our work, we reduce or eliminate the wasted things we do. Eliminating wasted brings us closer and closer to excellence.

By observing the flows in our work, we can see where things run smoothly like a tranquil river. Bottlenecks in the workflow create turmoil, much like the rapids in a river.

“Oh, this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though,
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow,
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow.”
- Bob Dylan (Watching The River Flow © 1971 by Big Sky Music)

Any process, any product, any service can be made better in some way, somehow. So observe and understand the flows of your organization, it will lead to improvement opportunities.

Copyright © 2005 Chuck Yorke - All Rights Reserved

Chuck Yorke is an organizational development and performance improvement specialist, trainer, consultant and speaker. He is co-author of “All You Gotta Do Is Ask,” a book which explains how to promote large numbers of ideas from employees. Chuck may be reached at ChuckYorke@yahoo.com

Speaking to large groups involves learned techniques and practice, practice, practice. If you haven’t stepped to the podium, you can. If you have been a featured speaker, you can get better.

“A good presentation is about the topic–not you,” says T. Stephen Eggleston, founder of The Eggleston Group in Alexandria, Va., and director of Internet Technology for Kobrand in New York. “Get rid of everything that doesn’t contribute to the message.”

Tuck away the stomach back-flips and get busy on your presentation. Here’s how:

Begin with the obvious: Know your subject. Some speakers overlook this basic point and quickly come unglued during the question-and-answer period. The audience assumes you’re an expert with knowledge to impart. As the featured speaker, you should assume that your audience is informed, curious and bursting with pointed questions.

If a small amount of research will help you, imagine what a moderate amount will do.

Know your audience. You wouldn’t make the same presentation about a new software package to engineers, accountants and top managers. The engineers want to know about the tool’s whizzes and whirrs–what it can do for them and why it beats competing products. The accountants want to know what it will cost and how it will save them money. Top management wants to know how it will boost productivity and give the company an edge over the competition. So adjust your pitch as needed.

Develop a theme for your presentation. The topic of discussion may be complex, and its ramifications may not be fully apparent, but you’ve got to sum it up in a few short sentences. At the beginning of your presentation, you must tell the audience: 1) “You need to know this because…,” 2) “Knowing this will help you to…” and 3) “Here’s what you need to know…”

After defining the focus of your presentation, you’re ready to draft an outline. Remember, you don’t want to read a script to the audience because doing so is a snoozer and an insult. To connect with the audience, you must be animated and enthusiastic about the topic.

For some, notes scribbled on 3-by-5 index cards are enough, while others need more detail when outlining. Don’t try to memorize your presentation, because even if you don’t sound like a robot on a bad hair day, you’re bound to stumble or skip a portion, and going back to the missed material will be awkward and disjointed.

The presentation should be simple and direct. It includes an opening, body, summary and closing.

“Some say you should always begin with a joke or an anecdote,” Eggleston says. “It’s not a rule, and if it were, it should be ignored.”

The opening sets the stage for what’s ahead. State the purpose of the presentation and quickly summarize the main points to be covered.

The body of the presentation covers the nits and grits of the topic in detail. Break the issues into discrete parts that the audience can easily understand. Each subsection should make a single point.

Keep the summary short. This is where you underscore the presentation’s theme and key points.

After a question-and-answer period, thank your audience for their attention and hand out any material that wasn’t vital to the presentation. In general, material handed out during the presentation is a distraction and will weaken the impact of your talk.

Remember two critical points when preparing a presentation.

First, take Henry David Thoreau’s advice and “Simplify, simplify.” It’s your job as speaker to translate complex details into simple, direct sentences.

Second, follow the advice of broadcast editors everywhere: “Tell them what you’re going to say, say it and then tell them what you’ve just said.” Repetition needn’t be repetitious. Reinforcing central points of the presentation depends on your skill as a speaker and takes practice. Getting it right is the difference between an effective presentation and wasting the audience’s time.

Slides can be a key element of a solid presentation. Keep in mind that slides are bullet points–not paragraphs. If you have to say, “I know you can’t read this, but …” you’ve flubbed it. In most cases, limit each slide to two or three key points expressed as succinctly as possible.

If a member of the audience nails you with a question you can’t answer, don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know. I’ll have to look that up and get back to you.” Thrashing around for an answer–any answer–will be obvious to the audience and instantly kill your credibility.

If you’re confronted with a heckler who won’t shut up, say, “Let’s talk privately at the conclusion of my presentation. There are others with questions I must get to now.”

The foundations of a solid presentation are the same whether you’re speaking to a service club or a giant like Exxon Mobil, eBay, and JPMorgan Chase.

Finally, remember that no matter how detailed your preparation, things can still go wrong.

“You never know what will happen,” Eggleston says. “The extension cord for the projector won’t be long enough, there won’t be a plug or the bulb will burn out. So no matter how carefully you’ve prepared your visuals, always be ready to sing a cappella.”

Manik Thapar (MBA)

http://www.careerpath.cc

Is Terrorism a Part of Globalization? In the world today, there
is a growing trend in violence, both domestically and
internationally, in the form of terrorism. It is present in our
everyday lives and in every part of the world–some more than
others. Terrorism takes on many forms and has had an impact on
all our lives in one way or another. Whether it affected us
directly with the loss of a loved one or an incident we were a
part of, or indirectly by heightened security at the airports
causing delays, sudden drop in a stock values we own, or
emotionally by the countless reports and images displayed by the
media, terrorism has affected us all and shows no signs of going
away anytime soon.

The underlying question then, is what has caused the sudden trend in
terrorism? Has it always been around but just not focused on
by the media, or has something taken place on a global scale
causing the sudden trend? There are many groups and a magnitude
of theories on the sudden trend of terrorism.

Political scientists worldwide are at the forefront of this
investigation. Amongst this group are many differing opinions
and theories. One popular theory used to explain the sudden
trend in terrorism is globalization.

There is another idea that there is an association between
terrorism and globalization - groups which commit terrorism from
areas where little globalization has occurred leading to a third
association between terrorism and globalization, known as a
“North-South” divide. The countries of the North (i.e. United
States, Canada, and Europe) are more developed than those of the
South (i.e. Africa, South America, India) and since 1980 the
economic gap has spread apart tremendously during the
accelerated globalization phase. As this gap has spread,
westernization or forced norms have taken place. This is due to
the fact that organizations, mostly commercial, have moved into
these southern areas for production purposes. Many poorer
nations are now feeling the double punch of a slowing global
economy and political unrest at home. They want rich nations to
open their borders to exports of agricultural commodities,
textiles and steel. But rich nations, including the United
States, aren’t in any mood to do this - the best way to fight
terrorism over the long term is to give young people in poorer
nations a reason to believe they can make it in the new global
economy.

Globalization is also creating enormous economic, political, and
cultural losers who have some idea of how the winners are doing
which creates more fertile ground for terrorism by exacerbating
ethnic and cultural conflict.

Interested in this subject? Try this link for more of the same