Business and Administration

MANAGEMENT: WHO´S GOT THE MONKEY? by William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass The Idea in Brief  You're racing down the hall. An employee stops you and says, "We've got a problem." You assume you should get involved but can't make an on-the-spot decision. You say, "Let me think about it." You've just allowed a "monkey" to leap from your subordinate's back to yours. You're now working for your subordinate . Take on enough monkeys, and you won't have time to handle your real job: fulfilling your own boss's mandates and helping peers generate business results. How to avoid accumulating monkeys? Develop your subordinates' initiative, say Oncken and Wass. For example, when an employee tries to hand you a problem, clarify whether he should: recommend and implement a solution, take action then brief you immediately, or act and report the outcome at a regular update. When you encourage employees to handle their own monkeys, t...

El Liderazgo es una actividad que pude ser realizada por cualquier persona, por ello cada día surgen oportunidades de Liderazgo prácticamente en todas las facetas de nuestras vidas (planteamientos de desafíos importantes, problemas éticos y de valores, conflictos no resueltos, etc.). Es decir que cada día existe la posibilidad de producir cambios en las personas y en las situaciones que nos rodean y esto nos hace tener que tomar decisiones sobre si ejercemos el Liderazgo y hacemos una contribución o, simplemente, dejamos pasar el momento por no molestar o hacer ruido.Esta es la gran dificultad del Liderazgo, el tener que elegir y dejar las cosas como están o desafiar a situaciones y a relaciones y conducir a las personas a través de cambios que pueden afectar a aquello que más les afecta: sus hábitos y valores, sus maneras de pensar, etc. y lo que es peor, sin poder ofrecer una solución práctica o implementable sino, muchas veces ofreciendo solamente una posibilidad. Liderar supone muy...

Companies that sell  perfume, candy bars, and other consumer products are expert at “decommoditizing” them: finding and capturing the value of intangible benefits and building strong brand names that can (and are willing to pay for) quite different things. This would in turn help manufacturers focus on the segments whose business they can win and retain most profitably: the segments seeking product or service attributes that correspond to their strengths. provide a kind of differentiation in the minds of consumers. But companies that sell products such as bulk chemicals, paper, and steel to businesses tend to be unsophisticated in these matters. Burdened by corporate cultures that emphasize operations and sales over marketing, many of these companies constantly strive to churn out more and more product more and more cheaply and then to sell as much of it as possible at the market price. Viewing themselves as commodity producers, they are particularly likely to overlook the nonfunct...

PARIS — Just as European markets seemed to resume their normalcy after the tumult of their sovereign debt crises, the wolves are back at the door. Two weeks ago, the markets seemed to be on firmer footing after the new bailout of Greece was structured to prevent contagion. But on Tuesday, traders renewed their attacks on Italy and Spain pushing their borrowing costs, at least for now, to the tipping point that led Greece, Ireland and Portugal to apply for bailouts. Some people now fear that Italy and Spain could run out of cash to meet their debt obligations in a matter of months if, like the others, they are shut out of international markets. JPMorgan is warning its clients that Italy and Spain have thin margins of safety. The countries “will run out of cash in September and February respectively, if they lose access to funding markets,” the investment bank said. Those fears risk leading to “a self-fulfilling negative spiral,” the bank added. The rescue fund negotiated last month a...