Article Directory :: Authors :: N :: Leon Noone Articles

Articles by Leon Noone

• How To Escape The Trap Of Interpersonal Conflict: The Symptom That Looks Like a Problem
  Interpersonal conflicts at work may be awkward. But they also often reflect serious problem managers should address.
  Published 06Nov2010, viewed 338 times

• Small - Medium Business: How To Keep Employees Well Informed And Improve Business Results
  Many small - medium business managers are reluctant to share corporate information with employees. You may be concerned that the employees won't value the information. If you fail to keep your employees well informed, you're making a rod for your own back.
  Published 06Aug2010, viewed 299 times

• How Four Little Words Will Improve Your Delegation And Give You More Time To Manage
  Time management and delegations are trouble twins. You can't have one without the other. Four little words hold the solution.
  Published 06Aug2010, viewed 130 times

• 7 Keys To Designing Workplace Training For Successful On Job Performance
  This article is about preparing on job workplace training: training leading to on job competence. It's not concerned with classrooms or presentation skills. You might be the best classroom presenter in the world. If your training design is inadequate, your training or instruction is unlikely to lead to on job competence.
  Published 24Jul2010, viewed 176 times

• A Checklist For Successful Staff Selection In 21st Century Small-Medium Business
  Selecting staff is a complicated business. Most managers aren’t naturally good at it. And staff selection is expensive. The cost of “mistakes” is huge and haunting. Poor staff selection erodes profitability and increases pressure on other staff.
  Published 23Jul2010, viewed 263 times

• How To Stop Modern Media Reducing Effective Face To Face Communication At Work
  So called "modern" communication techniques often devalue the spoken word. Yet the spoken word – face to face communication – is still the quickest and most fruitful way to exchange views, sort out disagreements and create common ground for future action.
  Published 23Jul2010, viewed 273 times

• 7 Words That Will Develop Your Staff, Improve Delegation and Enhance Your Time Management
  Improve your delegation skills, enhance your time management and develop your staff. It's all possible with seven little words instead of weeks of management training.
  Published 30Jun2010, viewed 274 times

• 10 Tips For Building Better Teams In Small-Medium Business
  Effective teamwork is important in all business. But it's absolutely essential in small-medium business. The fewer the number of people you have working for you, the more essential and valuable it is that they work together: teamwork. Here's how to develop your workgroups.
  Published 29Jun2010, viewed 148 times

• Small Medium Business: 7 Tips For More Effective, Purposeful and Shorter Business Meetings
  Meetings are common in business. They're just a form of face to face communication. They may be formal, semi-formal or informal. But if two or more people get together to “discuss” or “talk about” something, it’s a meeting. That includes videoconferencing and teleconferencing. But meetings aren't always a rewarding experience.
  Published 29Jun2010, viewed 150 times

• How To Make Staff Induction The Perfect Start For The New Employee
  When someone joins your company you have an opportunity to set a successful union in place. When induction is effective, you, your company and the new employee gain real benefits.
  Published 04Jun2010, viewed 272 times

• Small Business: Why Staff Selection Interviews Should Be The Last Part Of The Selection Process
  The staff selection interview is a privilege not a right. It's a major feature of the selection process. To gain full benefit you must do it at the right time: as the final act in staff selection.
  Published 03Jun2010, viewed 218 times

• Managing Employee Performance: Does Your Perception Stop You Getting Better Job Results?
  "What you see is what you get", goes the old saying. It's wrong. What you get is your interpretation of what you see. There's a big difference. It's usually called perception. It's defined as how you perceive people, things, situations and circumstances. It pervades business life.
  Published 02Jun2010, viewed 507 times

• Small Business: A 4 Step System to Focus on Standards Instead of Procedures to Achieve Performance.
  "We need a procedure for this". How many times have you heard that statement or something like it. Maybe you said it yourself. Fact is, that all the procedures in the world are next to useless without clear performance standards.
  Published 25Mar2010, viewed 131 times

• 7 Things You Really Must Do To Make On Job Training Successful in Small-Medium Business
  Whether training a new or current employee the old adage still applies. "If the student hasn't learnt, the teacher hasn't taught". In the workplace you also suffer a major penalty. It costs you heaps when employees can't do their jobs properly because of poor training.
  Published 25Mar2010, viewed 268 times

• Managing People In Small Business: 7 Issues the Books and Training Courses Ignore
  A small business manager has limited resources, major time pressures and a vast number of "balls to keep in the air". It's far more difficult managing a small-medium business with 20-30 employees than managing the same number in a large business. Small-medium business managers may need to follow the same principles. But the practice is quite different.
  Published 25Mar2010, viewed 167 times

• How To Manage The Peaks and Troughs That Can Make Day to Day Management a Real Hassle
  When we first become managers we don't learn the truth. The truth is that management is a series of peaks and troughs: not a more or less straight line with occasional bumps in it. Unless some sympathetic mentor tells us the truth, those peaks and troughs can be very tough going.
  Published 19Mar2010, viewed 216 times

• Employee Performance: Why Good Systems Matter More Than Pop Psychology
  When performance falters, look at your systems before you look at your employee. There are more theories about people management than there are about successful marriage. I don't pretend to be an expert in either subject. But in over 35 years in human resources and performance management, this is what I've learned.
  Published 27Feb2010, viewed 194 times

• Why Team Development Is Essential In Small-Medium Business And How To Make It Happen
  Millions of words have been written about successful teams and successful team performance. Thousands of teams have been studied intensively to find out why they're successful. The answers are as varied as the teams. But there are two features that stand out.
  Published 26Feb2010, viewed 183 times

• Meaning: The Secret Ingredient That Enriches Face To Face Communication In The Workplace.
  You’ve probably read, watched, heard and learned intuitively all sorts of good stuff about face to face communication. I don’t want to challenge that. But I do want to remind you about one essential element. It’s often lost in all the talk about what to say and how to say it.
  Published 29Jan2010, viewed 323 times

• 7 Tips That Will Gain You More Time To Run Your Small Business.
  Small business managers are often under extreme time pressures. They work longer and longer hours just to “keep up”. They spend more time “fire fighting” and feell guilty about neglecting their family responsibilities. If this describes you, consider these techniques.
  Published 29Jan2010, viewed 239 times

• Small Business: How to Create A Champion Workplace Team Instead Of A Team Of Champions.
  Summary. “A champion team will always beat a team of champions.” That statement’s often heard about sports teams. But it applies in the workplace too. Manager sometimes concern themselves with building a team of champions. They should concentrate on building a champion team. These ideas may help.
  Published 28Jan2010, viewed 282 times

• Why Staff Are Your Most Important Customers In Small-Medium Business. If You Disagree, Do The Math
  What's a customer? Someone who buys something from you? Someone you provide a service to? Someone to whom you provide goods and services to in return for payment? However you define "customer" they are vital to any business. In small-medium business how you treat customers could be the difference between success and failure.
  Published 18Dec2009, viewed 296 times

• 7 Ways To Get Staff Committed To The Success of Your Small-Medium Business
  If there's one wish, one hope, one desire I hear more than any other from small medium business managers it's this. Why can't my staff be more committed, more dedicated, even just more interested in my business? Don't they realize that they have a major vested interest in its success? It isn't as difficult as it seems. But you need the right mindset.
  Published 17Dec2009, viewed 188 times

• Are You A Performance Stopper Manager? Check Yourself On These 5 Examples
  Demanding top performance from employees is every manager's right. But some managers demand high standards then put obstacles to achieving them in the path of employees. Put bluntly, these managers become "performance stoppers". Do any of these describe you?
  Published 17Dec2009, viewed 212 times

• Getting Management Information: How Phrasing Questions Can Make or Break You
  The quality of the information managers receive is determined by the questions they ask. Some managers believe that they merely have to ask in order to find out what they need to know. If only it was as easy as that...! The good news is that the problem's easily fixed. The bad news is that if it's happening, it's probably your fault.
  Published 17Dec2009, viewed 203 times

• Small-Medium Business 10 Golden Rules For Managing People For Best Business Results
  Summary. Small-medium businesses have unique characteristics that require special responses. They are not underdeveloped big businesses. This is particularly so in people management. If employees don't respect each other's work and contribution, you'll have "people problems".
  Published 03Dec2009, viewed 232 times

• 5 Proven Methods for Making Your Incentive Schemes Work in Practice.
  Summary. You need sound structures to underpin your incentive schemes. You also need good administrative back up. Your actual incentives may be very attractive. That's not enough. You need to get the basics right before you start.
  Published 03Dec2009, viewed 228 times

• Small Business People Management: The Secret The Gurus Don't Tell You
  We need well schooled and skilled managers. But knowing how to manage is only part of the story. What you're about to read isn't mentioned frequently by management gurus. That's because the management development industry is based on developing individual skills. That hides a secret you should know about.
  Published 03Nov2009, viewed 427 times

• Matching Performance Standards and Customer Feedback: 7 Ways To Put the "Perform" in "Performance"
  We should design customer feedback to include measurement of staff performance. But we don't. We're so anxious to discover what customers think of us, we fail to ask them what they think of our performance standards. It's so simple, we forget to do it.
  Published 30Oct2009, viewed 537 times

• Staff Performance Appraisal: Do It Daily To Simplify And Improve Your Management And Cut Paperwork
  "Performance Appraisal" often strikes fear into the heart of the most intrepid manager. It's associated with "in depth" interviews, filling out complicated forms and planning career development. No wonder it scares people. But if you do it every day, it's a breeze.
  Published 30Oct2009, viewed 1102 times

• Small Business: 10 Golden Rules To Ensure That You Meet Staff Expectations
  Small business owners and managers face two special issues. Your staff see and talk to you daily, even frequently each day. You're exposed in both good times and bad. That's high visibility. The other's high dependency. If you're business doesn't succeed, their jobs are seriously threatened. Manage staff expectations carefully.
  Published 01Oct2009, viewed 374 times

• Selection Interviewing: 5 Rules To Follow To Guarantee Success
  Successful selection interviewing is a great skill. Most managers just don't get enough practice to master it. If you follow these simple rules your lack of practice won't be a problem.
  Published 30Sep2009, viewed 452 times

• Performance Punishing: 7 Ways To Avoid Demotivating Your Most Valuable Employees
  Many managers encourage good performance then punish the good performers. They don't do this intentionally. But the effect is no different.
  Published 30Sep2009, viewed 583 times

• Improving People and Performance: 5 Simple Engineering Techniques To Use For Superior Results
  Are you tearing your hair out because your training's not working and you can't understand your employees? Why not try an engineering approach for better results? Each of the following statements flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Yet each of them is absolutely true.
  Published 30Sep2009, viewed 247 times

• How Good Staff Appraisal Starts With The Job Ad You Put In The Paper.
  Do you advertise for staff in the local paper? Do you use a consultant or a notice board? Whatever you do to attract people to join you, bear this in mind. The on job success of the person you select will be largely determined by your position description or job analysis - "the ad you put in the paper".
  Published 30Sep2009, viewed 258 times

• Performance Standards: The Scoreboard That Records Progress Towards Goals
  Performance Standards are more important than goals. They tell people how well they're progressing towards goal achievement. They are the scoreboard that keeps us informed about how we are going and whether our goals are worth persevering with, and whether we need to change our tactics.
  Published 10Sep2009, viewed 431 times

• Staff Selection - The Experience Trap: How To Keep Experience In Perspective When Selecting Staff
  We place great emphasis on experience when selecting staff. Yet, in other areas of our lives, we know that there's more to successful accomplishment than experience.
  Published 10Sep2009, viewed 300 times

• Managing People: 7 Proven Methods To Ensure Your Staff Meet Your Expectations
  Do you find yourself complaining that some staff don't do what you want them to do? Do they repeatedly make simple errors that drive you nuts? Do they lack "common sense"? Maybe you're part of the problem. Try these simple but effective techniques.
  Published 28Aug2009, viewed 246 times

• Managing Staff Performance. How What You Expect From Your Staff Is A Major Influence On What You Get
  In "Pygmalion" George Bernard Shaw wrote "The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves. It's how she's treated." Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe based their famous musical "My Fair Lady" around Shaw's concept. If it's good enough for Lerner and Loewe and GBS, maybe you should consider the power of expectation.
  Published 28Aug2009, viewed 231 times

• Managing People Performance: 5 Ways To Make Consequences Positive For Employees
  Consequences are a vital key in people management. Your most brilliant ideas can soar or crash depending on how much thought you give to consequences in your planning.
  Published 24Aug2009, viewed 351 times

• 10 Things That Clear Performance Standards Tell Your Staff About You
  Millions of words have been written about the importance of performance standards. But the very fact that they exist says something about you to your employees. And what it says is worth a thousand pep talks.
  Published 21Aug2009, viewed 467 times

• Small Business: 5 Ways To Get Your Staff To Be Truly Enthusiastic About Building Your Business.
  “It isn't theirs!” That’s the reason your employees don’t commit to your business in the same way you do. You don’t stick up for other people’s children the way you do for your own. You don’t feel the same sense of outrage when someone else’s car is stolen as you do when yours is. It's not yours. It's as simple as that.
  Published 13Aug2009, viewed 243 times

• Small Business Staff Need Special Qualities: What To Look For When Recruiting Staff
  Small business is unique. It's not a kindergarten big business. Staff who succeed in small business need adequate qualifications and experience. But they need other qualities too so that they'll "fit" the small business environment.
  Published 13Aug2009, viewed 351 times

• Why A Small Business CEO Needs A Special Approach To People Management
  A small business is not a little big business. You can take many big business principles and apply them effectively in your small business. But there are differences merely because the business is small. People management is such as issue.
  Published 29Jul2009, viewed 367 times

• Employees Give You What You Ask For: How To Phrase Questions To Gain Information
  "Good managers ask lots of questions". So they should. But that's not the point. It's the answers you get to your questions that matter. And if you don't phrase your questions properly, you won't get the information you want.
  Published 29Jul2009, viewed 255 times

• 7 Keys To Open The Door To Effective Face To Face Workplace Communications
  "Be a good listener". Every manager has heard that exhortation umpteen times. It's true. Sadly it doesn't say how. So we ask lots of questions and shut up. Being a "good listener" needs more than that. Here's how.
  Published 04Jun2009, viewed 261 times

• Practical Performance Appraisal: Measuring Staff Performance Successfully Without Filling Out Forms
  The term "performance appraisal" usually means filling out forms, reviewing employees' work, a formal interview and planning development or remedial activities. And it's often a hassle. It shouldn't mean any of that.
  Published 04Jun2009, viewed 924 times

• 10 Things You Must Do To Write The "Ideal" Job Advertisement To Attract The "Ideal" Applicant
  The "ideal" job ad attracts only one applicant. That applicant meets each requirement of your job analysis or job description precisely. He or she lives locally, is delighted with the remuneration package and desperately wants to work for your company. Ensure that your job ad attracts no one else.
  Published 29May2009, viewed 312 times

• Small Business: 7 Simple Methods To Create Positive Staff Expectations In A Recession
  In a recession, the doomsayers have a field day. Doom and gloom dominates. Your employees hear and read the dire predictions. They can become negative about the future of your business. If this happens, you're in trouble. As the owner or manager of a small-medium business, it's you job to create positive expectations.
  Published 29May2009, viewed 348 times

• 7 Traps To Avoid In Staff Selection And What To Do Instead
  Much of what you're about to read is totally different from what you'll hear from selection "experts" and recruitment courses or read in staff selection books. If you want a different way, you'll find some useful ideas here.
  Published 22May2009, viewed 242 times

• 10 Things To Do To Empower Staff To Survive Recession And Keep Your Business Viable
  You'll survive recession in various ways. But survival isn't enough. You'll need your staff to ensure that your business is viable in 2011/12. How you lead will have a major impact on business viability.
  Published 22May2009, viewed 238 times

• Small Business: How Your Telemarketing Voice Must Enhance What You Say
  We tend to concentrate on what telemarketers say: the "spiel", rather than how well they said it. You must have the right product or service, target market, offer, script and all those essential basics in place. But the sound of the telemarketer's voice TIES those basics together.
  Published 15May2009, viewed 266 times

• Small Business: A 7 Step System For Rectifying Poor Employee Performance
  When an employee's work performance falls below standard or expectation most managers "have a chat" with the employee. I reckon that's the last resort. Here's a systematic alternative.
  Published 15May2009, viewed 307 times

• Small Business: How To Help Your Staff Create "Seamless" Customer Service That Delights Your Custome
  In tough economic times, retaining current customers is essential. "Seamless" customer service will go a long way towards that. Your customers will judge the quality of your service on how they're treated by your staff. And regardless of all your lecturing, hectoring and exhortation, you won't change that.
  Published 07May2009, viewed 253 times

• Small Business: 7 Tips To Help Create Positive Consequences to Improving Staff Performance
  Have you ever introduced some new staff initiative or benefit only to find it didn't work well? Perhaps it failed completely. Were you surprised? Perhaps you simply failed to consider the real consequences.
  Published 06May2009, viewed 697 times

• Small Business: How To Stop Doing Your Employees' Work And Have More Time For Your Own
  So many managers allow their employees to "delegate upwards" as it were. These managers effectively do their employees' work. A General Manager I used to work for had a sign on his desk "Be Part Of The Answer, Not Part Of The Problem". Trite? Yes. Corny? Yes. Old Fashioned? Probably. Sensible? Absolutely!
  Published 29Apr2009, viewed 257 times

• Small Business: How To Avoid The Traps of Exit Interviews And Get Real Value From Them
  Exit interviews are discussions between terminating employees - those who've resigned of their own accord – and employers. They are your last chance to benefit from the resignee's experience with you. Use them to obtain information which you can use to improve systems and relationships in the company. They are not "to discuss problems of working for us".
  Published 29Apr2009, viewed 229 times

• Small Business: How To Ensure Your Staff Realize Why Value Is More Important Than Cost Or Price.
  People ask "How much is it?" and "What's it cost?" for two reasons: to find out if they can afford "it" and to decide whether the price or cost is good value. In other words, is "it" worth the money? Value is what really matters to consumers. And that includes consumers of ideas.
  Published 22Apr2009, viewed 221 times

• Small Business: Performance Appraisal: Make It Readily Achievable Using One Simple Question
  One question: that's all you need ask. Ask yourself. Ask the employee. You can have meaningful performance appraisal based on one question alone. Of course you also have to know how to find the answers. That's another good reason to ask it.
  Published 21Apr2009, viewed 240 times

Free Report!
Ten Essential Secrets Of Article Marketing ... Grab Your Free
Copy Now:

Need Content?
Regular Top Quality Content for your Blog, Ezine or Website ...
Delivered Direct,
For Free!
Click For Details