BI #65: Paul Carroll on Learning from the Worst Business Failures: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Duration: 12 minutes, 22 seconds

Show Notes:

Canadian Management Centre is pleased to present the American Management Association’s strategic planning podcast “Learning From the Worst Business Failures” with special guest Paul Carroll.

Paul Carroll is the coauthor of the best selling book Billion-Dollar Lessons and a former Pulitzer Prize nominee as a journalist for The Wall Street Journal.

During this presentation Mr. Carroll will discuss the importance of looking at business failures in order to identify strategies that are prone to failure.

Mr. Carroll will also review the fallacy that “execution is the key to a successful business strategy” citing professional studies that show the importance of investigating past business failures.

Today Mr. Carroll will outline the two major reasons why companies continue to adopt poor business strategies:

1. Personal Psychological Pressures - People often have a unrealistic view of their own capabilities.
2. Rationalization of Failure - Laying blame with someone or something else.

Mr. Carroll will prove why looking back at past failures will show that there are some strategies that are prone to disaster no matter how well they are executed.

 

 BI #64:Rodd Wagner on Defeating Workplace Disengagement: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Duration: 11 minutes, 17 seconds

Show Notes:

Canadian Management Centre is pleased to present the American Management Association’s Customer Service podcast “Defeating Workplace Disengagement” with guest Rodd Wagner.  Rodd Wagner is the co-author of “12: The Elements of Great Managing”; a book developed from an analysis completed by Gallop 15 years ago based on hundreds of questions fielded with many organizations. This analysis identified twelve elements that best differentiate between the most productive from the least productive workers.

One of the causes of employee disengagement includes managers that do not engage their employees effectively.  Companies need to make sure that a manger has this ability and just because someone is good at accounting, doesn’t necessarily mean they would make good accounting managers.

The most fundamental element in creating employment engagement is that the employee must know what’s expected of them. They also must be given right materials or equipment to get their task done.

He goes on to talk about how important employee engagement is in improving productivity and how having a best friend or close affiliate in the company is part of what makes a team work well together.  Creating employee enthusiasm stems from managers who care about the employee’s best interest and give recognition and praise. This makes the employee want to reciprocate in the same manner.

 

 BI #63 Alexandra Levit on 'Harnessing the Next Generation Workforce': Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Download here: BI #63 Alexandra Levit on ‘Harnessing the Next Generation Workforce’ Duration: 12 minutes, 49 seconds
Show Notes:

Canadian Management Centre is pleased to present the American Management Association’s Customer Service podcast on ‘Harnessing the Next Generation Workforce’ with guest Alexandra Levit.

Alexandra Levit is the author of They Don’t Teach Corporate in College and has two books due out next year.  She is the founder of the career consultancy Inspiration at Work and advises companies and individuals on how to harness the next generation ‘Y’s potential.

Alexendra speaks about the growing number of millennials or generation ‘Y’ and how critical it is for companies within the next 5-10 years to learn how to effectively interact, recruit, and retain them.
Alexandra goes on to talk about person to person communication skills and the importance of this when working with the baby boomers generation.   She also mentions how important it is for organizations to offer a successful mentoring program and that it does not need to be formal.

Some of the qualities Alexandra points out when selecting mentors are:
-    empathetic
-    have a nurturing attitude
-    exemplify the best of the company’s culture
-    1 to 2 levels above the ‘mentee’

Alexandra talks about the different ways managers can effectively assimilate university grads into the organization by simply taking the time to understand each millennial’s unique capabilities and customizing assignments to meet the individual’s desires.  Alexandra also mentions that the younger generation does not want to be micro managed, but given timely and consistent feedback and individual performance goals.