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How to be an Effective Manager

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Effectively managing people, processes, or both is in many ways a balancing act. Some would even describe it as an art form. There are many variables in play simultaneously which determine if somebody will ultimately be successful in a leadership role.

Before a manager begins to understand all of these nuances they must learn one of the major underlying principles if they are going to recognize their full potential as leaders. They must learn to walk the tightrope between being personal and professional at the same time. It is important to be personal and on good terms with your team members because this is the only way to ensure teamwork and peak performance, but you must also be professional to be respected and trusted. Be too friendly and you may be taken advantage of or not taken seriously, be too buttoned up and ‘professional’ and you risk coming across as uncaring and stubborn.

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About the Author

Gabriel Bristol, president and CEO of Intelicare Direct, is one of today’s most versatile CEOs, having led remarkable turnarounds for several large corporations as well as helping establish rapidly growing start-ups. Gabriel’s success has been well documented, with features in Forbes and other publications throughout the country. To read Gabriel’s complete biography, click here.

Three Ways Document Management Software Can Streamline Operations

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No matter what size or type of business you run, chances are, you’re overwhelmed with incoming files – both paper and electronic documents. It generally starts slowly – an email here, a receipt there, incoming invoices and customer correspondence, and before you know it, you’ve got a mountain of paper and no way to find the documents you need.

There’s a better way. Document management software can put important documents at your fingertips in seconds and help you keep everything organized. But which document management solution would work best for your office? Here are three tips to help you understand how document management software can help and which features you’ll need to make it work.

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About the Author

Jeff PickardJeff Pickard founded Lucion in 2005 and brings over 15 years of management experience and innovation to Lucion, where he continues to steer Lucion’s technology advancements in the document management and paperless office software markets. After three years as an attorney with the Chicago-based law firm Kirkland & Ellis, Jeff founded zCalc, LLC, a software company which served the needs of professionals in the estate and financial planning fields. In 2005, he sold the company to Thomson Fast-Tax and then began to focus his attention on paperless office software. Jeff graduated cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, where he was editor-in-chief of the BYU Law Review.

Standards and Expectations – Defining Performance Standards, part 1 of 8

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StrategyDriven Standards and Expectations ArticleStandards and expectations define how work is to be performed; providing guidance for the consistent, efficient, value-based execution of tasks. At the outset, developing a comprehensive set of performance standards often appears to be an overwhelming and daunting task as employees within even the ‘least complex’ organizations perform countless different activities every day. However, it is not intended that performance standards be developed for every conceivable activity. Rather, standards should be formulated for those activities reflecting organizational values, implementing corporate strategy, and presenting significant risk. The documented basis behind this finite set of standards provides the guidance needed for employees to make rational judgments about the conduct of less significant activities.

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StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 21e – An Interview with Duane Sparks, author of Sales Strategy from the Inside Out

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 21e – An Interview with Duane Sparks, author of Sales Strategy from the Inside Out explores how businesses employing a consultative sales method realize dramatically increased revenues. During our discussion, Duane Sparks, author of Sales Strategy From The Inside Out: How Complex Selling Really Works and Chairman and Founder of The Sales Board, shares with us his insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the five decisions individuals go through before making the final buying decision
  • how to bring other team members into the sales process and the benefits of this practice
  • determining the right number of client needs identification interactions before presenting a solution balanced with the client’s desire to hear the solution given their time investment
  • role of the sales professional in orchestrating solution presentations made by client personnel

Additional Information

In addition to the invaluable selling skills insight Duane shares in Sales Strategy From The Inside Out and this special edition podcast, please visit his company’s Sales Training or Sales Management site. To discover why this selling skill is so effective at maximizing sales productivity, purchase Duane’s book: Sales Strategy From The Inside Out.

Complimenting Sales Strategy From The Inside Out, are Duane’s four other books on the consultative sales process including:


Read a Summary of the above Sales Books.

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us on iTunes by clicking here. Rating the StrategyDriven Podcast and providing your comments online improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!

About the Author

Duane Sparks, author of Sales Strategy From The Inside Out, is Chairman and Founder of The Sales Board, a Minneapolis-based strategic sales training company that has trained and certified more than 350,000 salespeople in more than 3,000 groups in the system and skills of Action Selling. He has written five sales books, personally facilitated more than 300 Action Selling training sessions and continues to engage in the business and art of the strategic sales process. Read Duane’s full biography and the history of Action Selling Sales Management Training.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:35 — 44.8MB)

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Five Easy Principles?

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It’s not enough to know what to do. Understanding why is important, too, so the Ethics Guy explores the deceptively simple guidelines that govern behavior

Over the past four weeks, this column has looked at some ethical questions that arise in professional and personal life, such as the ethics of New Year’s resolutions, whether it’s O.K. to lie to help the company, and collecting for kids at the office. By now, you might be wondering, “On what are you basing your analyses, Ethics Guy?” After all, it would be easy for anyone to shoot from the hip and say what he or she feels is the right thing to do when presented with an ethical dilemma.

As a professional ethicist, however, my responsibility is not merely to explain what we ought to do, but, perhaps more importantly, to say why we ought to do it. My ethical obligation to you is to provide good reasons for how we ought and ought not to act.

For the next several columns, I will present an account of the five fundamental ethical principles that are the foundation of right conduct in any arena of your life. They are:

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About the Author

Dr. Bruce Weinstein is the public speaker and corporate consultant known as The Ethics Guy. His new book, Is It Still Cheating If I Don’t Get Caught?, (Macmillan/Roaring Brook Press) shows teens how to solve the ethical dilemmas they face. For more information, visit TheEthicsGuy.com. To read Bruce’s complete biography, click here.