Help Wanted -New Business Leadership required to jumpstart the American Economy

Written by Denis Orme


Help Wanted -New Business Leadership Styles and Practices Needed To Build Confidence and Jump-Startrepparttar Economy.

By: Denis Orme ______________________________________________________________________________

America's help wanted ad should read, "New business leadership needed to build confidence and jump-startrepparttar 106732 economy. Only those willing to replace stale management styles need apply."

Business leaders are faced with an unpredictable and frightening economic scenario - one they've never experienced before. First camerepparttar 106733 dot.com crash of 2000, followed byrepparttar 106734 recent terrorist attacks, frightening investors and cripplingrepparttar 106735 financial nerve center of our country.

Even before recent events American business had been in a twelve-month economic decline.

Each year forrepparttar 106736 last five years over 45,000 corporate bankruptcies have impacted onrepparttar 106737 lives of over a million people annually.

Add to thatrepparttar 106738 permanent loss of over 1,000,000 manufacturing jobs since 1999 and USA businesses face serious restructuring in this new one-world market.

Right sizing and scaling down are now normal business tactics. Over 800,000 Pink slips have replaced signing bonuses of just a year or so ago and many businesses are "encouraging" employees to use up vacation days or work 4-day workweeks.

No one ever downsized to greatness.

Politicians have their hands full defending our rights. They needrepparttar 106739 help of strong, innovative senior executive teams and CEO's to rebuild America's confidence and jump-startrepparttar 106740 economy now.

To do that a new breed of business leader is needed. Old management techniques need to be replaced with new leadership skills and business acumen. Traditional Business Planning Doesn't Work

Too often executives tinker with, add to, or subtract from last year's plan. If you want more ofrepparttar 106741 same, just do more ofrepparttar 106742 same. If you had a poor or mediocre result then all you will get is a similar mediocre result. Looking forward, even if you had a good result, incremental planning will now produce a poor result becauserepparttar 106743 economy has stalled, and recovery is not predicted until mid-2002.

In my direct experience and in observingrepparttar 106744 planning process in hundreds of companies, an incremental approach to planning occurs just all too often andrepparttar 106745 approach provides self-limiting outcomes.

The approach is self-limiting in that assumptions (too often based on perception and not fact) are made and self-imposed constraints follow.

Additionally, organizations go through life-cycles, just likerepparttar 106746 life-cycles people experience.

However, often senior management is not aware ofrepparttar 106747 company's life-cycle stage. Ifrepparttar 106748 stage is recognized, management may be unable to getrepparttar 106749 organization back torepparttar 106750 flexibility of a much younger, healthier, growing organization.

Just as a family owned business must successfully transition fromrepparttar 106751 founder to other family members, so too must organizations transition successfully through changes in leadership, economic shifts, or culture in order to getrepparttar 106752 organization on to a new growth cycle. This requires a vibrant leadership vision, new goal-driven strategies, and implementation of that vision by building and retaining high-performance teams.

However, it is difficult to change an organization. The culture you have today evolved over an extended period and changing it will require a sustained commitment. If you relax,repparttar 106753 culture will slip right back torepparttar 106754 starting point.

Any transition typically causes conflict that must be managed. Oftenrepparttar 106755 organization may not be able to transition effectively without intervention from an outside influence or fromrepparttar 106756 occurrence of a triggering event.

The risk is that without change, you will lose your more dynamic people, lose market share and, unfortunately, in some cases,repparttar 106757 organization may die. I have presided overrepparttar 106758 dissolution of several entities that were unable to makerepparttar 106759 transition.

Much ofrepparttar 106760 thinking we do is incremental in nature. For example, in business you spend a lot of time reviewing where you are relative to where you have come from, and also spend a considerable amount of energy benchmarking yourselves against your competitors.

While an incremental approach is human nature, it is also self-limiting because as assumptions are made, self-imposed constraints follow.

The Greenfields Planning process ensures you start with a clean slate. A key element in this approach is to avoid incremental, self-limiting thinking.

The Greenfields Approach is straightforward:

· If you were starting this Business or Business Unit today, would you do businessrepparttar 106761 same way?

· If you would not do thingsrepparttar 106762 same way, then why are you doing it that way now?

If you are looking for a quantum difference in your business thenrepparttar 106763 planning process should not commence with incremental, self-limiting thinking. Determination of actual constraints or finding ways to work around perceived constraints arerepparttar 106764 final stage inrepparttar 106765 planning process #6 - Implementation Action Items. The Greenfields planning process has six key elements to be explored inrepparttar 106766 context of your business, and it is now time to start rethinking your business and developing plans which need to deliver sustained high-performance results. The planning process is rigorous, urgent, and driven by Results-Based Leaders.

Remember, it is planning without constraint.

1.SITUATION ANALYSIS - Ensure broad participation inrepparttar 106767 completion of a detailed Situation Analysis to identify all areas in your organization requiring major review and change.

Note that an organization in decline will typically have low-growth or no-growth expectations.

Many of those inrepparttar 106768 organization will be less likely to want to even attempt to change or recapture market share and will reward those who 'follow and don't rockrepparttar 106769 boat.' Generally, these organizations are more interested in retaining internal relationships than taking personal risks usually associated with change.

Accordingly, in those cases it will be important to form a more objective Venture Team to carry outrepparttar 106770 Situational Analysis.

How do you complete a Situational Analysis?

Determine those five or six Critical Success Factors - critical torepparttar 106771 success of your organization or functions within your organization, including typical Strategic Plan elements: Market Research andrepparttar 106772 Opportunity for market share gains; Marketing & Sales; Production & Distribution; R & D; Finance - [new month-by month Cashflow and Profit Forecasting required]; Human Resources; Organizational design & General Management.

Dot Bomb - Trend or Lesson?

Written by Michael Bloch


In these days ofrepparttar "dot bombs", there are a number of us who are getting nervous aboutrepparttar 106731 future ofrepparttar 106732 WWW as a viable means deriving a living.

We have been made very aware through different forms of media that some ofrepparttar 106733 big names onrepparttar 106734 Internet have closed their doors. The sale of personal computers and IT job availability in many countries has slowed down.

After every boom; there has to be a bust... it's justrepparttar 106735 way of things.

Is what we are experiencing currently a "bust"????

Should we all start closing our websites and calling it a day?

Definitely not.

During my training, one of my mentors drew a Chinese character onrepparttar 106736 whyteboard. It wasrepparttar 106737 pictogram forrepparttar 106738 word "crisis". This pictogram has two elements; one representing "danger" andrepparttar 106739 other was OPPORTUNITY. This very much applies torepparttar 106740 current situation of Internet eCommerce.

In this geeks humble opinion, all we are experiencing onrepparttar 106741 WWW atrepparttar 106742 moment is a bit of a cull. Consumers are becoming more net savvy and somewhat impatient with sites that are constantly ramming "buy me" messages down their throats. Investors are no longer rushing torepparttar 106743 stock exchange to buy shares at grossly inflated prices in IT start-up companies that are purely based on promotional hype. Search engines and indexes are becoming tighter and tighter in their submission rules to combatrepparttar 106744 amount of spamming that is occurring in their databases.

The average Internet surfer has put across a message to us, loud and clear, "we're as mad as hell and we aren't going to take it any more!". People userepparttar 106745 Internet to locate information suited to their needs. There is nothing more frustrating than to search on a particular subject or item only to find sites that are 99% hype and 1% information, or to spend half a day navigating complex menu systems, ducking misleading banners and links, in order to locaterepparttar 106746 information required.

While onrepparttar 106747 subject of web site design, a survey was recently carried by Knowledge Systems & Research Inc between March 30 and April 3, 2001, based on responses from 990 online users. These results were compiled into a report entitled "What Makes A Person Want To Come Back To Your Site?" byrepparttar 106748 highly respected Arthur Andersen company.

The ratings were based on percentages,repparttar 106749 higherrepparttar 106750 percentage,repparttar 106751 more importantrepparttar 106752 aspect:

Ease Of Use/Navigation: 74% Fast Download Time: 65% Regularly Updated Information: 58% Quality Of Content: 57% Organisation Of Content: 40% Access To Customer Service: 40% Quantity Of Content: 30% Search Engine At The Site: 25% Front Page Layout: 20% Fun: 19% Look And Feel Of The Site: 18% Inclusion Of Animated Graphics: 9%

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