80 Tips for Business Success

1. Before leaving work each day, identify those things you need to do the next day.
2. When you think you may have to compromise on your agenda, classify your issues into "can drop," "nice to have" and "must have" categories. This will prepare you for negotiation.
3. Before presenting a new idea or an action plan, list the people whose support you will need…learn where each one stands regarding your proposal (pro, con or neutral)…and formulate a plan to handle each person accordingly.
4. Publicly recognize and reward people who develop themselves and others.
5. Identify the behaviors that you feel are critical to success in your department, and then lead by example.
6. Despite your workload, don't bring extra work to meetings. Focus on the issues and the other people at the meeting.
7. Limit your use of closed questions—those that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no."
8. Don't overreact to events at work. Problems are to be expected and are rarely catastrophic.
9. Set aside a little time every day in which you will practice a behavior or skill that you're trying to learn or fine-tune.
10. Limit your personal goals. Genuine progress on your two or three most important goals is more meaningful and rewarding than negligible progress on a dozen less critical fronts.
11. When faced with possible resistance, consider pre-selling your agenda to a couple of key players.
12. Avoid collecting and filing information if it is not actually of use to you personally.
13. Understand that emotional intelligence can transform your performance and career.
14. Get to know your staff members so that you are aware of how best to help them.
15. Remember that people of dissimilar ability can find each other difficult.
16. Set aside a little time every couple of months to review job descriptions and spot any needs for change.
17. Take the word "try" out of from your vocabulary. Turn intentions into actions.
18. Remember that, when implementing improvements, things sometimes get worse before they get better.
19. Measure results achieved, not hours worked or number of activities.
20. Write down your most important goals and keep them in front of you at all times-for instance, on a mirror at home, in your middle desk drawer or on the wall in your office.
21. Refrain from saying, "It can't be done," and focus on how you can make it happen.
22. Be persistent but not foolish—if what you are trying is not working, get feedback and ideas from others.
23. Focus on people's strengths rather than their shortcomings.
24. Make sure your network is reciprocal: share information, ideas, resources or influence with others—don't just take from those within your network.
25. Be alert to details, especially when working in an international context. For example, colors, numbers and symbols often have different meanings in different cultures.
26. Set a good example for others by consistently engaging in solid ethical behavior and confronting any unethical practices.
27. Live in the present. Don't stress about mistakes in the past or worry about problems in the future.
28. As a manager, you are now personally responsible for operating within the law. Here's an important way to ensure you're safe: Know the law. Practice the law. Protect yourself and your organization.
29. Remember that good ethics lead to good business.
30. Do not confuse assumptions with facts, or you may make a major mistake.
31. When the minutes of a meeting you attended are distributed, read them through and query anything about which you are dissatisfied—from conclusions reached to assignments given you.
32. Resist using buzzwords—they weaken communication.
33. Express your opinion with conviction, but don't neglect the position of the other person—be prepared to listen and to be influenced.
34. Compare the amount of time you spend talking and listening during a typical conversation. If you are talking more than 50 percent of the time, you're talking too much!
35. Remember that public criticism only works when group dynamics are the issue.
36. Be realistic in budgeting a new project—avoid the temptation to keep costs unrealistically low in order to get the project approved.
37. Build mental flexibility by doing brainteasers, so you are in the habit of challenging your assumptions.
38. Recognize that people learn just as much from mistakes as they do from getting it right the first time.
39. When recruiting, ask what-if questions to determine how the applicant would respond to tricky situations.
40. Let candidates for a job know how much time the interview will take. This will reassure them that they will have the opportunity to give their information and to ask key questions.
41. Monitor trends in your industry to determine which competencies will become increasingly important. Then, ensure that your organization has employees with these abilities either by hiring from outside or training current staff.
42. Conduct an informal survey of your top performing new hires to find out how they heard about their positions. Focus your recruiting efforts on those sources that have produced your best employees.
43. Encourage people to focus their training and development on areas where they can achieve the greatest impact on organizational performance.
44. When searching for the right candidate for a position…remember to target the market that matches your candidate requirements. Don't waste time and effort looking at the wrong people. Instead create a job-specific profile so you have a clear vision of the job and responsibilities it entails.
45. Make department and corporate goals come alive for staff members by identifying the enablers—resources, skills or abilities critical to mission and goal achievement—that will allow the group to contribute to the corporate mission and goals.
46. When you encounter recurring issues or opportunities, seek the help of those unfamiliar with the situations to get a fresh perspective.
47. Regularly assess the strengths and weaknesses of your strategy, your processes and your customer approach. In today's fast-changing world, ongoing review of these areas-and implementing change as needed-is critical.
48. Consider how your organizational structure will need to change in the near- and long- term. Give your employees the chance to adjust beforehand.
49. Incorporate communication strategies into your business plans. Ask yourself what information and feedback you need to achieve your objectives.
50. Complete a thorough and objective evaluation of your product or service annually; also determine the health of your organization and its ability to grow.
51. Draw how you see the solution to a problem—visual images may be a greater stimulus to creativity than your words.
52. Make your decision, but prepare a fallback position. If you've made the wrong decision, you'll know what to do next to rectify the situation.
53. Monitor employee progress on a task—but not every hour of the day. If things go wrong, give your employee the chance to put them right by him- or herself.
54. Remember that teleworkers are entitled to a life outside of work. So don't telephone them at home in the evening or on the weekend unless it's a major emergency.
55. Ensure that people who work with you and your employees know that you have delegated a task to your employee and that you have given the employee the authority to do the job.
56. Monitor the performance of anyone you ask to assist new hires before you make the assignment.
57. Share solutions to problems found by your department with other groups within your organization, thereby saving other groups from having to reinvent the wheel.
58. Treat resistance to change as a problem to solve, not as a character flaw.
59. Test the practicality of your decisions to increase their probability for success. Get into the habit of asking yourself at each stage of the decision-making process whether the decision is workable.
60. Ask your employees how their objectives contribute to the unit's success. If they don't know, help them understand how their goals align with the unit's strategic objectives.
61. Do an annual review of efforts to achieve your unit's goals to determine any training needs or other shortcomings holding you back. Then, act to address the issues identified.
62. If work due dates are missed, discuss the consequences and options with the person to whom you assigned the task. Don't take the incomplete delegated work back.
63. Remember that management is not a popularity contest-you should work and behave not to be liked but to win the respect of others.
64. If you're new to management remember these words of caution: hold your authority in check. Don't overreact to your new position. And don't play favorites.
65. Isolate the reason for poor performance. Maybe the staff member does not know what you want him or her to achieve.
66. Communicate constantly with project team members: hold daily team briefings and weekly team meetings and encourage people to share information and ideas.
67. If you want your team to reach a consensus, let them know the place and time for the meeting in advance. With a few days, notice, they will have time to consider alternative ideas and arrive at the meeting with an informed choice.
68. Meet regularly with those responsible for project implementation, not only to determine the project's status, but also to communicate its importance to the support of the group-and consequently, the corporate-goal.
69. Consider the variety of time zones or office locations for those you are contacting and rotate locations and/or start times for meetings.
70. Challenge the analyses and findings of groups that have worked in the same area for a long time. Encourage the members to rethink their conclusions to ensure they are timely and accurate.
71. Inform customers and suppliers of significant change initiatives, and ask how these could impact the support they receive from, or provide to, the organization.
72. During face-to-face meetings, reinforce the corporation's commitment to customers as often as possible if you truly want to build a customer-centric organization.
73. If a customer requirement changes, be prepared to change your process or system, too.
74. Think globally. Study how your competition sells its products internationally to see if you can do the same.
75. Write the business proposal first, then think about how you want it to look.
76. Identify the key people you need for your strategy to work. Focus on attracting, deploying, developing and retaining these people.
77. Put yourself in your competitor's shoes. If you were to compete against your firm, what would you do? Based on your thinking, plan a counterstrategy.
78. Identify and plan to avoid the constraints to implementing a plan before you begin implementation.
79. Be open to the idea that others’ behavior, no matter how unreasonable, may be due to personal or work-related problems about which you know nothing.
80. And don’t forget: maintain your sense of humor. Humor is the best antidote to stress. We do our teams and ourselves a favor when we remember to stop and laugh. It will lower the emotional temperature.