Along the lines of helpful articles and tips, this comes from Jim Paterson and the September 2008 issue of "Counseling Today." While I'm a coach and not a counselor, I found this shadowbox article (on page 54) valuable to any business owner.

In his article, Jim identifies "six key points to consider before choosing a specialty":

While cleaning my office for year-end planning, I came across a batch of articles I had saved over the years while managing various departments (sales, service, training, admin).

One such article (from a Priority Management* newsletter) is called "Eight Ways to Make Teams Work." Here are their eight tips (in bold) with my thoughts (in italics):

Managing people can pose a variety of challenges, but there are simple building blocks you can use to identify performance issues, address them, and create the results you want.

So my gift to you this holiday season is a variety of tips to help you improve your management skills and increase your impact.

For me, it starts before you hire anyone. You see, there are only a few reasons people don't perform (and we can only influence a few of them):

If you like what you read here about my brain-based approach to coaching professionals and individuals, help my ratings and click the button:

Thanks!