More often than not, the average employee views management in a negative light. Feared, resented, or even reviled, bosses are seen as cruel, unfeeling taskmasters that care only for the bottom line and will readily sacrifice any of the rank and file to attain their objectives.

This culture of hating on the management can go two ways: either employees aspire for these positions in order to propagate the perceived cycle of tyranny, or they will not make the effort to become better workers, seeing that promotion will only turn them into the same monsters they so despise. Neither of these attitudes does justice to the employees, the management, or the company they work in, for that matter.

In the case of companies, I firmly believe that the culture is propagated from the top down. This places the responsibility of maintaining a prosperous and positive work environment squarely on the shoulders of the managers and supervisors. Just as bad habits and mentalities spring from negative examples provided by the people on top, productive and motivational attitudes are spread by good bosses.

Many people have plenty of theories on what managers should be doing to keep their people motivated, happy, and productive. In my own experiences as both a subordinate and as a manager, I can summarize all these lessons into four pieces of advice:

Open Lines of Communication

No amount of mutual understanding and teamwork will happen if the boss doesn’t even talk with his/her subordinates. This isn’t limited to meetings or official office correspondence; the ability to be able to shoot the breeze with the troops at the water cooler is an important ability to have, if you want to be an exemplary manager of people. It will give you more insights on what motivates (and de-motivates) your people, and in turn, it will humanize you in their perceptions. You’ll cease to be a cruel monster in their eyes, and that can’t be all bad.

Try smiling a little more, too

Though you want to appear a tad more friendly and approachable, do not overdo this, either. Being too chummy with your subordinates will often result in them respecting you less, and your ability to reprimand or correct them will be severely hindered. This does make things lonelier at the top, but remember, this is for the sake of all of your livelihoods.

Give Them a Chance to Shine

You shouldn’t be taking all the glory and credit for yourself, either. This is probably one of the fastest ways to lose favor with your constituents. When they do something above and beyond the call of duty, or have stayed consistently productive and cooperative, give them due praise, and possibly even a material bonus. Let the entire team know when one or more of them have done well, and if your own boss recognizes your team’s accomplishments, let them know where the credit should go.

Allowing them to take the lead and enjoy the benefits of their own achievements will inspire them to work more effectively, and it will give them lessons that will be of use to them when they become managers and supervisors themselves.

Be The Final Word

The two previous bits of advice portray a softer, more yielding kind of management strategy. One cannot be a boss without putting one’s foot down, however. The final lesson on being the boss your people can respect involves being the authority within the team or organization. You are the go-to guy/gal when they want a decision made, the King Solomon that will decide who gets the baby, so to speak.

As a leader, it is on you to set clear goals for you and your team, and you have to be firm when it comes to these things. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to change your mind; it means that you will only do so if your colleagues make a strong enough case for an alternative, or if you yourself have evaluated the factors and have found that a course alteration is in order.

Are you an effective boss? What are your strategies for leadership?

Image via Pinterest

One of my favorite movies of all time features a trampoline, a creepy antique carnival soothsayer and one of the most romantic songs ever recorded. The movie’s protagonist, Josh Baskin, trapped within his pre-pubescent prison, yearns to be Big.

Isn’t that a common yearning for us all when we launch our businesses and organizations? Don’t we all wish that we had unlimited budgets, plush offices in some groovy building and an ability to dominate the market?

If only we didn’t have to decide whether to pay ourselves a salary or stock up on paper clips. If only we could order a whole quarter’s worth of toner instead of extricating the cartridge from the copier and banging it upside the machine, trying to coax one last ream from it before it expires completely?

Firmly within the throes of Grass Is Greener Syndrome, we wistfully long for the day when we can escape necessity-led scrimping and daily MacGyvering.

Of course, if we spend too much time envying and projecting the assumed Wonderfulness of Being Big, we’re in danger of not appreciating the Power of Being Puny.

• Agility
• Fewer layers of bureaucracy
• Faster iterations
• Greater sense of immediacy and feedback from those we serve
• Flexing and developing skills we never knew we had
• The rush of success
• The thrill of creating something from scratch

I really love movies, and so I’ll cite a couple of other epic examples of Nimble versus Behemoth (or David versus Goliath, depending on your point of reference). The first has to do with an X-Wing, a plucky fighter pilot with some serious Force Mojo and a big honkin’ moon-sized space station of destruction.

Or the Battle of Helms Deep, when the whole she-bang falls because of a grate, an over confident king and a well-placed mutant Orc bearing explosives.

Using a business example, according to Saul Kaplan, author and Chief Catalyst at the Business Innovation Factory, Blockbuster got “Netflixed“ by a small start up that saw a niche that wasn’t being filled and built something from nothing to topple a giant in the market place.

Time and again, the power of being small lies with being strategic, focused and responsive in a way a lumbering giant of an organization cannot. It’s true that you can’t turn the Queen Mary around on a dime (that is one big ship!). Same with organizations.

There are certainly benefits to being Big, don’t get me wrong. However, remember that great oaks don’t arrive on this planet 35 feet tall and in full leaf. They grow from acorns. Embrace the power of being small even as you aspire to becoming big.

• Nurture where you are
• Grow your network of “roots”
• Stay flexible
• Reach for the sky

How about you? What are your biggest (no pun intended) challenges of being a smaller business? How do you overcome them? What successes can you share with us?

__________________________________

Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive Foundation).

Like many bloggers in the PR and marketing realm, I’ve been in awe of Liz Strauss ever since I became aware of the “name bloggers” in my professional world. When I started my own blogging journey, four years ago, Successful Blog was one of the first to become a regular stop; always for inspiration, and sometimes as I asked myself the question, “Will I ever be able to like that?”

I met Liz fleetingly a few years ago, when she spoke at a DC-area event. Our meeting was brief. She was standing outside the event venue and, spying her in a rare moment of solitude, I couldn’t help but go up to her and tell her how much I admired her. She didn’t know me from Eve (probably still doesn’t), but that didn’t stop her from graciously thanking me. Later, she was kind enough to connect with me on various social platforms, even though the benefit was certainly skewed towards me.

As Liz recuperates from her illness, I couldn’t help but think of five lessons small businesses could learn from Liz Strauss.

1. You’re only a stranger once.

This is the tagline of Successful Blog, but is applicable to your business if you approach your customers as people first. Sure, customers come and go. But a successful business will convert first-timers into repeat buyers, and repeat buyers into evangelists. I don’t care how large or small your business is, this is possible and applicable…if you treat them as people first.

How do you start doing this? By using today’s myriad two- and multi-way communication channels to build relationships instead of email lists.

2. Building relationships takes time.

Especially with the number of (how many? I don’t know! Too many to count!) social media/self-help/gurus shilling their wares, I am not surprised at how many small businesses that think the way to use social media is this:

After all, once you have a presence, the rest will fall into place, right?

Wrong.

Connecting – i.e. following/being followed back – on a social network does not automatically translate into a relationship. All that that first connection means is that a door has been (slightly) opened to you; how you now conduct yourself will determine whether that door opens more fully or slams shut in your face.

How do you start doing this? Be a human super-collider. Find out what makes the people you meet, whether they are customers, or prospects, or business professionals you come across at networking events, tick.

3. When you build relationships, your community steps up when you most need it to.

Look at the way this blog has been running for the past several months. Liz’ health situation was announced at the beginning of 2013. The last post I read, as I drafted my own, was dated May 10, 2013. That’s a full five months later.

Had Liz not spent several years genuinely building her community via real relationships, do you think she would have had people like Rosemary O’Neill step up to manage the blog in her absence?

No way, Don Juan.

How do you start doing this? Part of the answer is in #2 above, so first I will say, “Read above, lather, rinse, and repeat.”

4. Educate and empower your community.

The second part of the answer is to educate and empower your community. Tell them, as you engage with them over time, what’s important to you… and why (and if your business is community-centric, chances are it’s what’s important to them too).

How do you start doing this? As you continue to engage with them, find people who can become your de facto or de jure community managers, and empower them with enough know-how – such as your engagement goals and guidelines, and your content needs – so that they can step into the breach if and when they need to.

The great thing about this approach is that you may never need them to fill a void in your absence… but if you do, they are ready and willing to do so.

5. Focus on what works.

A recent Constant Contact survey reported that 66% of small business owners use mobile technology. Continue reading, though, and you’ll see: “… it’s important to note that, of the 34 percent not using any mobile device or solution for their business, a resounding 65 percent have no plans to do so in the future, mainly citing a lack of customer demand.”

I don’t think this 65% of the 34% is necessarily behind the times. Being a small business owner myself, I know the conflicting demands placed on small businesses.

What will you pay attention to? When? How? Who’s going to do it?

It isn’t a question of never paying attention to technological advances, it’s a question of being attuned to the technologies your customers are using or expect, and providing the appropriate platforms, while planning for the future. Just as Liz does here on Successful Blog, by maintaining a framework visitors are familiar with, but by keeping an eye on what’s to come.

How do you start doing this? Stay on top of technological and industry developments. But don’t jump on the bandwagon until your business can sustain and recoup the additional investment… and don’t let anyone pressure you into doing so either.

I’m sure there are many other lessons you have gleaned, on a business level, from Liz’ incredible contribution to the blogosphere and our time. Would you share what you have learned, so that we can salute her collectively?

Thanks for the shout-out, Shonali! I was honored to be able to give back a tiny bit to Liz, who has shown her generosity and kindness to so many over the years. She is the nougaty goodness at the center of this amazing community.

Rosemary

Are you working toward a specific life’s goal, either personally or professionally?

Have you stopped to analyze the reality of achieving your goals?

For example, if one of your career goals is to become a famous speaker, giving keynotes all over the world for big-time fees, have you considered the travel involved? Time away from your family, hotel rooms, TSA inspections? Yep, that’s glamorous.

If your corporate goal is to bring in 10 Fortune 500 clients, have you thought through the realities of servicing an enterprise customer? Massive bureaucracy, expectations, slow decision-making…and reliance on a few large customers can be risky as well.

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

The homework today is to review your goals, both written and unwritten. Take a half hour to visualize what your life would be like if you achieved them. Is it the life you want?

If not, you need new goals.

Image via Flickr CC: Mediocre2010

In some cases, those running companies will give input and even sit in on a number of or all interviews with prospective candidates. In other cases, however, they leave it to a staff member or members to do the interviewing and ultimately hire the individual for the needed job.

So, the question then begs if you should be more active in the hiring process, especially given how too much turnover and training of countless individuals can have a negative impact on your business finances?

In the event you decide to become more active, here are some things you should look at when considering each and every applicant who walks through your doors:

* Are they truly qualified? – While many candidates who come to you seeking a job are truly qualified, others will try and pass off their experience as suitable for the job. The danger with the latter is that you could end up hiring several times until you get the right fit. Some companies will test applicants on their knowledge of the position they would be doing if hired, while others base their decision off of the person’s work background. Either way, make sure you get the most qualified man or woman in order to hopefully fill that spot for several years to come;

* Will they fit with the team in place? – Chemistry in the office is key to any successful business, so keep that in mind when you interview candidates. Does their personality seem like a good fit for the employees they would be working with? Are they outgoing and seem like they will pitch in whenever asked? Do they have a positive attitude that will help them get through stressful times, including constant deadlines? It just takes one wrong piece to mess up the puzzle of office success that you have worked to put in place;

* Is their background too social for me? – Even though there is nothing wrong with prospective candidates being on social media, more companies are checking the social backgrounds of individuals they interview, looking for any red flags. In the event they have questionable comments and/or images on their social media pages, it should at least give you pause to think about if they’d be a good fit for your business. When you look at the judgment they used in some of their tweets or shares, should you worry that they might use similar questionable judgment when working for you? If you do have such concerns, feel free to bring them up during an interview;

* Long-term plans – Finally, while it is not uncommon for workers these days to move from job to job, this unlike the days when people stayed at a company for several decades, you do not want a revolving door at your business. That being said, question each candidate on what their career plans are, where they see themselves in three to five years, and if they feel they can achieve long-term success with you. While most candidates will say the “right thing” in order to increase their chances of attaining the job, some will be very honest and tell you what their plans are. Even though you should not discount those that can’t make a long-term commitment to you, it does give you pause to think about whether or not to hire them.

As a small business owner, what do you look for when a prospective candidate walks through your doors?

Photo credit: ehow.com

About the Author: With 23 years’ writing experience, Dave Thomas covers small business topics for a variety of websites, including Reputation.com.

A website can be and do just about anything. It can be a brochure, a greeting card, a catalog, a conversation space, an announcement, a research tool, a library, a photo gallery, a way to spark ideas, build connections, engage people and speak about your corner of the world.

But it can’t really do all those things (unless you are Google or maybe Facebook, in which case, “hi!”). It can do one or two of those things well. It can do three or four of those things well with an exponential increase in resources, but that’s it.

So instead of spending millions on a legion of developers, creative directors, content managers and the staff to populate their respective armies, maybe you should focus your intention down to one thing.

What is your website supposed to be or do? Boil it down to a phrase a five-year-old could understand.

Amazon was a bookstore. Now it is an everything store. Google is a search engine. Those are easy, mostly because they have smart marketers and leadership who knows that you need to excel at one thing before you expand to something else.

But what about the website for your favorite coffee shop? It could be a brochure: hours and location with a pic of a cute barista. It could be a branding peice: pictures and animations that are warm and inviting about the idea of coffee and scones. It could be a business development peice: Get you excited about the idea of hand-roasted select gourmet coffee and how it will make your life better. It could be a store: place your coffee order and schedule a pick-up time or delivery. It could be a research tool: Everything you could want to know about coffee from different regions of the world, how it should be roasted, what the types of roasting levels mean and how they affect taste.

One coffee shop, four intentions. Each intention shapes the nature of the website, who uses it and why. Intention therefore determines the site’s success

For example, will more people come to your coffee shop because they know more about all the different coffee varieties? If your goal is to sell more coffee, then maybe that intention doesn’t align with that objective. If you spend 3,000 words talking about thirty different coffee varieties, and you only sell two, what was the good in that? You may have just gotten them excited to go to another coffee shop.

Nailing down the intention of your site, especially in relation to your total marketing strategy and your business strategy, increases your likelihood of success. Now I’m going to go drink some coffee.

Look before you leap, says conventional wisdom. But if you have an iota of entrepreneurial essence to your soul, part of you inherently rejects this wisdom. Entrepreneurs, by and large, operate outside conventions. These are they who see what doesn’t exist, march to different drummers, chart their own courses.

But as we’ve also established through previous posts, there’s a difference between risk and folly. An entrepreneur takes calculated risks and is also comfortable with flux and the unknown. That said, part of any risky action is performing due diligence, whether that is researching your chosen industry; reaching out to others in related fields or drafting a business plan.

In so doing, you begin to form a network (some call it your tribe). These are the folks you turn to as mentors, guides and other resources as you move forward toward independence and fulfilling your dream –  launching from the cliff, as it were.

Your network is your wings.

Your wings actually form themselves – triggered by your action.

Once you step out in faith, your network activates in an effort to help you. If you’ve cultivated your network properly, the anchors within will enable you to move upward more easily. These people have probably achieved a level of success that enables them to operate from a position of stability and strength. They *want* you to succeed as well.

——
Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish the Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through the Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or a href=”http://twitter.com/WWDr1ve”>@WWDr1ve (Women With Drive)

Do you know how to prioritize? I mean really “know” – not just intellectually, but in reality!

My belief is that most of us rank somewhere between alright and pretty poor when it comes down to prioritizing.

It falls somewhere between crisis management and those “things I like to do”!! Not the most scientific criteria!

I have had the pleasure of working with some top CEOs and they are really good at prioritizing. This is how they do it

They challenge themselves with these 5 questions:

1. Is this on my dashboard of 5/6 key drivers of the business?

2. Will I add value to this task?

3. Am I the one who should be dealing with it?

4. Should I be dealing with this right now?

5. Do I have all the information I need to deal with it?

If they get a “No” to any of those questions it does not get to their priority list.

Allow me to delve a bit deeper:

Dashboard of 5/6 key drivers. I first heard this from Warren Buffet who maintains that there are ever only 5/6 key items that must be monitored at all times. These are the 5/6 items that matter most. Great CEOs focus on what matters most – they are really good at this. They cannot focus on everything – they just focus on what matters and what delivers results.

Will I add value? If it is not clear where they, and only they, can add value, they will not get involved.

Am I the one to deal with it? Top CEOs are really good at identifying whether they are the right person to deal with an issue, or is it somebody else’s job? The old saying of “don’t buy a dog and bark yourself” comes to mind!

Is this the right time to do it? In other words, am I doing this to fulfill my own agenda or someone else’s? Is it the most important thing for me to do in this minute? Is there anything more important I should be doing right now? Top performers are really good at answering that question

Have I got all the information I need? There is nothing more frustrating than starting something and then realizing that you don’t have all the information you need to complete. Make sure that you have the right amount of information or input to complete what you start – it’s a good example to your people, if nothing else.

Top CEOs are really good at this process. They know how to prioritize their work and, by definition, the work of their team tends to be well prioritized also. It is no coincidence!

One of the main challenges I have found when working with clients is to get them to identify the 5 or 6 key drivers. When you first go through this process you will always end up with a much longer list. But there are not 10 or 15 key drivers!

I will not argue with Warren Buffet – his track record is unquestionable! So, be tough with yourself and get to 5 or 6 – it will be worth it to you, and your business.

You can be a human super-collider.

Pay close attention to the people around you, their characteristics, dreams, businesses. Take mental note when someone shares their life experiences with you. Then when you see an opportunity to put two people together for their mutual benefit, do it.

When you proactively connect your connections, magical things will happen. Especially if you do it without any thought in mind of how it will benefit you.

How to Become a Human Super-Collider

Get very good at remembering names. Here’s a great article that will help you build that muscle and start connecting names to faces.

When you meet new people, find out what they’re up to. Don’t just go for the standard “what do you do,” think of interesting ways to draw out their long-term goals and dreams. Next time, try “what made you decide to go into [digital marketing/psychiatry/dog grooming]?”

Listen deeply and actively. Molly Cantrell-Craig wrote an excellent post about how to listen earlier this year.

Create a system for organizing information. You can use the notes section of your Address Book client, use the new LinkedIn Contacts app (they have a special spot for noting where you met someone), or try Evernote. As soon as you can, jot down some details about the person you just met. Bonus points if you remember to go back and read it before the next time you see that person again.

Don’t be afraid to introduce people. They may or may not hit it off, but you’ve just shown them both that you have their best interests in mind. Be sure to include the reason why you feel they should connect (do they have a mutual interest, are they going to the same conference, are their businesses complimentary). Here are some tips on the etiquette of introductions.

When you start consistently doing these things, you’ll start to see the magic of particle collision. Just don’t tell those folks in Switzerland.

Image via Flickr CC: Image Editor

While the U.S. economy is still on shaky ground for many people, others have taken the opportunities that are out there to start a new business in 2013, be it on their own or with employees helping them along the way. Still, others have not signed off on a new business venture, fearing that the timing is not right.

Whichever category you find yourself in, keep in mind that your business plan will go a long way in determining whether or not your venture takes flight, or if it comes crashing to a halt.

Unfortunately, too many starting out for the first time fail to properly craft a business plan, meaning they go head first into their business without a safety helmet on. As many probably know, one in five businesses fail within their first five years of operation, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA).

There are, however, steps that can be taken to increase the chances of getting one’s business done right the first time around.

They include:

* Be financially prudent – If you are starting your own business, consider opening it on a part-time basis while you are still hopefully gainfully employed by someone else. In many cases, individuals leave their full-time job or are let go, then turn to their own ideas to make money. While some circumstances can’t be prevented (layoffs, etc.), you are in a better financial position to open the business while getting a full-time check and health benefits elsewhere. Along with being better off financially, you can determine if your business of choice will have a good shot at making it after you get through the first few months. Most importantly, do you have a financial plan B to fall back on if your business does not take off the way you want it to? Don’t go into a new venture without the right financial backing, especially in today’s topsy-turvy climate;

* Be a promoter – There is a good chance that you are light in the wallet when it comes to being able to promote your new business venture, so promote it in ways that won’t cost you anything more than time and effort. Two of the best ways to do this are blogging and social media. With blogging, you can write posts both for your site and as a guest blogger, allowing you to be seen as an authority in your respective industry. Make sure you link back to your site when you guest blog for others, allowing you to drive traffic your way. With social media, this is an excellent means to promote your business, and it does not cost you a cent. If you have not already, make sure you sign up and get business accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest for starters. You need to dedicate a decent amount of time to each site so that you’re both relevant and seen as a regular. Use the sites to answer customer questions, solve their problems, provide them with information from your respective industry, and to engage with them in real-time. Also make sure you share and retweet items of interest with other relevant sources so that you can build your social networking profile;

* Be resilient – Finally, know that there will be some ups and downs with your new business venture, so prepare for the worst and shoot for the best. Unlike your current full-time job where you may only work a 9 to 5 shift or something along those lines, starting your own venture will mean dedicating many hours a day in most cases. Remember, you’re considered the person who not only runs the normal day-to-day operations, but answers those other needs when the business is officially closed. In the event your business doesn’t take off right away, don’t throw in the towel. Yes, you don’t want to go into financial collapse over a business, but you have to be able to wait out the tough times as much as possible. You may end up even having to lean on others to help you with running the business or putting in some financial backing, but it could pay off for you down the road.

While some may be hesitant to start up a business in today’s economy, others may throw caution to the wind and run with it.

If you are in the latter group, make it your business to succeed.

Photo credit: smartincomeguide.com

About the Author: With 23 years’ writing experience, Dave Thomas covers a variety of business and consumer topics, including doctor reviews.