Management is a noble profession and like any profession, it's something you can continually improve. At the heart of management is understanding how people work individually and collectively. And, tapping the potential of a group of people to accomplish more together than they could individually, as well as knowing when individual work is best for a given situation.
In an era where many companies are on a race to the bottom to offer the cheapest product and service, you can stand out simply by focusing on making customers feel like family. If you legitimatley have their interests in mind and want to help them be successful, not only will your customers be wildly successful, you will be too. And you'll feel good about it, instead of feeling lousy trying to push volume of sales.
The people within your organization are investors in your organization. Wise investments in the people around you leads to greater capabilities, fulfillment and bi-directional loyalty. The first step in creating your desired future is to develop the people that will be a part of it.
Organizations don't exist merely to consume resources and produce waste, they exist to create what does not yet exist. This requires having a vision for what you want to become. Having a vision gives you the ability to create a strategy that becomes a framework to guide you toward your desired future. Because if you're not shaping your future, there are many external forces that will shape it for you.
Both improvement and innovation are necessary in the evolution of any organization. And while I group them together, they are actually quite different. Both involve change, but improvement is an interation of what your business currently does. Whereas innovation is change, guided by your strategy, to become what you want to be in the future. Fortunately, both improvement and innovation involve teachable skills, and along with the right environment, lead to rapid success.
Knowledge is the primarly fuel of modern business. It's easy to drown in the sea of data and information available to us, especially with the advent of the internet. It's also easy to lose track of what is known, even within your organization. Having simple processes in place can ensure that pockets of information disseminate throughout the rest of the organization. And, can dissmeniate beyond the organization: to customers, communities, and other organizations.
Software is an intricate part of business, but it's important to remember that it is a means to an end. Part of that appreciation is recognizing when the unique opportunity exists to leverage software to accomplish something you couldn't before. In some of these situations it makes sense to leverage customized software, tailored to your needs. Managing this, like managing anything, requires the appropriate expertise.