A lemonade stand is no Fortune 500 company, but with refreshing simplicity, it reveals some of the key principles of empowerment. (more)

212° The Extra Degree captures the essence of excellence in an unforgettable way...At 211° water is hot. At 212°, it boils. And with boiling water, comes steam. And steam can power a locomotive. The one extra degree makes the difference.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't

by Jim Collins
Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time.

They finally settled on 11-including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo-and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success.

Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and

Aligning actions and goals

Executives spend too much time drafting, wordsmithing, and redrafting vision statements, mission statements, values statements, purpose statements, aspiration statements, and so on. They spend nowhere near enough time trying to align their organizations with the values and visions already in place.

Email Signatures - Nonprofits' Most Missed Marketing Tool

Email signatures (a.k.a. sig lines) are powerful, low-cost, high-return
marketing tools (a virtual business card or ad) for your foundation or
organization. What's interesting is how seldom sig lines are used.

Implement a Mentoring Program in Your Biz

Pick-your-own mentor programs help new employees move ahead.

By Mark Henricks
Scott Allison, 41, knows the value of mentors for recruiting, retaining, developing and motivating his 44 employees. "Every time we've done an employee survey, mentorship has popped up as an interest and a need," says the president and CEO of San Francisco-based national independent communications firm Allison & Partners.
Allison's appreciation for mentoring dates to the early days of the 4-year-old company. Back then, however, the firm didn't have enough resources to establish a formal mentoring program; there weren't enough senior people to supply mentors to everyone who was interested. Allison decided to allow for informal mentoring, where employees got to choose their own mentors. That method, he figured, made the most of the mentoring resources he had. The approach worked well enough that today, even though Allison has enough senior employees to designate mentors, he still uses the voluntary program.

How to Raise Your Firm's Financial IQ
We all live and die by the numbers-but do we really understand what they mean? Here's how managers can help all employees understand cash flows and liquidity ratios.

Assessing Your Organization's Innovation Capabilities
This article offers a framework to help managers confronted with necessary change understand whether the organizations over which they preside are capable or incapable of tackling the challenge. (more...)

 

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Out Of Every Thousand People...
The most organized person will achieve the most, do it faster with the least amount of effort AND have the most free time...
==>Learn NOW how simple & easy it is to be that one in a thousand.