Clichés in Business World

All languages use clichés and idioms and English is certainly no exception. We will select some clichés you may see and hear in the business world

Have a Chip on the Shoulder
When one has a chip on his shoulder, it means he is ready to fight. You may want to avoid this situation.

Here’s another chip cliché:

The Chips are Down
Literally in the game of poker it means when you have placed your bet (with your chips), you cannot pull them back and change it. So when the chips are down means things are urgent and you have to deal with them.

Thought of the day - A Blender vs. an Engine

A blender has sharp blades, always moves very fast. It spins and forces everything around it into a high speed circular movement; it breaks everything into finite pieces.

An engine moves one direction, drives everyone on board to that direction.

The question is, are you a blender or an engine to your organization?

Are you a sharp leader who drives everyone around you crazy, chops up their ideas and sense of direction? Or are you the engine, who drives your team in one direction and helps them to reach their goals?

Tip of the Day

Don't just command your people, develop them.
Don’t just manage your people, mentor them.

Did You Know

The latest version of the "Did You Know?" video created by Sony for a meeting of their executives in June of this year.

Link:
http://release.theplatform.com/content.select?pid=x7aVOMrlfkkijQwcLllwk6WjB5JE0zrF

What you do today defines your tomorrow

We all see the catastrophic economical meltdown and expect a long winter ahead of us. Many people lost their jobs and many lost hope in rapid career growth in the near future. What should we do?

Companies are looking for a winning strategy to survive in this roller coaster business environment. They are revising their business plans and redefining processes.

This same strategy applies to all working professionals who run their careers as a business. They should re-evaluate and re-plan their careers, redefine current daily tasks to be more competitive and gain the ability to win when the market turns around.

What we do today defines what we become tomorrow. Transformation starts today and carries through each day whenever you decide to do things differently and more strategically.

Let's first understand who we are today. Log your activities for a whole week and classify your activities into the following categories:
Short term
1) Daily operational short term tasks
2) Temporary assignments
3) Tactical meetings
4) Routine jobs

Long term and strategic
1) Networking and mentoring
2) Learning new skills and building new strengths
3) Understand emerging technology and industries
4) Write white papers and summaries about your product and build your portfolio
5) Design and build your personal brand
6) Establish processes and automate your business operation

If you spend less than 20% of your time on long term and strategic activities, you must increase your investment in this category.

If you do spend more than 20% of your time on long term and strategic actives, but you haven't got your expected result, examine your goal and validate your strategy to reach such goals.

Log your time again one week per month, map your actual activities to your goal, measure the results and make it part of your routine.

Define yourself, start the transformation process today, and you will become the new person you are wishing to be in the near future.

Are you effective as meeting participant?

1) Do you prepare your questions and suggestions according to the agenda? Yes: 2, No: 0
2) Do you insert your agenda into official meeting agenda? Yes: 1, No: 0
3) Do you talk to host and make sure your items will be discussed during the meeting? Yes: 1, No: 0
4) Do you talk to other stakeholders before the meeting and get their buy-in on your issues? Yes: 1, No: 0
5) Do you ask questions, re-phrase others and summarize during the meeting? Yes: 1, No: 0


If you score <2,>4, you are effective

Are you effective as a meeting host?

1) Do you publish your meeting agenda 2+ days before the meeting? No: -1, Yes: 1
2) Do you talk to key stakeholders before the meeting to cover key issues?No: -1, Yes: 1
3) Do you constantly get surprises from the meeting outcome?No: 0, Yes: 1
4) Do you engage each participant during the meeting?No: 0, Yes: 1
5) Do you setup video or telephone conferencing for remote participants?No: 0, Yes: 1
6) Do you engage remote participants by asking for their opinions?No: 0, Yes: 1
7) Do you make long discussions or less important issues offline topics?No: 0, Yes: 1
8) Do you make action items with deadlines and be sure someone agrees to "own" the issue during the meeting? No: -1, Yes: 2
09) Do you send participants the meeting minutes with clear action items within 24 hours? No: -1, Yes: 2

If you score <6, you are not effective
If you score 6-9, you are ok host
If you score > 9, you are effective