Do Business Well

Whether the employee is at the end of a trial period, or whether he is just struggling along in his current role, it is still difficult to bring him bad news. It is still difficult to tell him that he needs to move out of his role. During Gallup’s interviews, many managers, both great and average, confessed that they were physically sick before each conversation of this kind. No matter how you approach it, no matter how accomplished you are as a manager, removing someone from his role is never easy. Continue Reading »

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Yet today most companies organize their inbound and outbound functions separately. To avoid this, the engaged organization must organize all its marketing, customer service, and support functions into one department. This way, customers visiting the company’s website or receiving email see a single company and a single brand.

There are two primary reasons why it makes sense to combine customer service support and marketing into one department. First, organizing different functions under the same department lets you align their goals and measures of success. When the goal is to build and nurture lasting relationships by engaging customers in an ongoing dialogue, it makes intuitive sense that the inbound and outbound parts of that dialogue come from the same place. Continue Reading »

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Your new assignment may sound like a “mission impossible”:

• You’ve been chosen to direct an important new company project, which involves putting together a group comprised of both new and experienced employees.
• You’re the manager who has been brought in after a takeover and asked to shape up a department.
• You’ve survived a merger or reorganization, but your new job— streamlining the department you’ve been managing—may prove to be an even bigger challenge.

Naturally, you’ll feel anxious about building a new staff or department. To proceed with fewer problems, keep your mission in mind and follow these three steps: Continue Reading »

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