IMPORTANT TIPS FOR MOTIVATING YOUR EMPLOYEES Benson Agoha and Divita Hubuto

* Divita Hubuto.

The importance of motivation means that we will continue to study, motivate, evaluate and adapt to necessary conditions capable of achieving the desired results from employees.

1. You can’t actually motivate the employees. What??!?? I understand this first tip seems just a little counterproductive, but bear beside me. You see, motivation is internal, not external.

You are able to motivate individuals with carrots and sticks for some time, but it can’t last. Long-term, people need to motivate themselves. You aren’t powerless, however, because motivation originates from inspiration. So offer your people inspirational goals and they’re going to take on the task of motivating themselves.

2. Create a motivating environment. What’s it like at the business? Do people hit the floor running on Monday mornings, or will they live for the weekends. Your working environment includes a greater effect on your productivity than it may seem. The thing is, watch has a culture. But many have evolved through happenstance and that is far too risky a method to grow your company. From your office décor for your meeting schedules will effect your environment, so assess the impact of each and every move you are making on your culture watching your productivity soar.

3. Involve the employees in decisions affecting them. The employees don’t simply want a job; they would like to be part of some thing. So allow them to. It’s a win-win scenario for everyone. Your employees win as their work becomes fulfilling, and also the company wins, since it benefits from the contributions in excess of just those towards the top of the organizational chart.

4. Share your plans for future years with your employees and obtain them active in the process. If inspiration is paramount to employee motivation, then keeping the employees in the dark about your plans for future years is a sure-fire method to kill your company’s potential.

5. Hire motivated people. Brian Scudamore, president and founding father of 1-800-Got-Junk?, says “we don’t motivate our people, we hire motivated people”. Screen candidates carefully, to check out a history of productivity. Technical skills alone will never be a good enough reason to provide someone employment.

6. Encourage independent thought, creativity and initiative. At Wardell, you will find there’s weekly meeting to go over our progress like a company. Most people are expected to participate and contribute. For instance, one of our agenda items asks each consultant to show something of worth to the remaining group. Its not all idea will probably be as helpful because the next one, but by encouraging this kind of “teaching environment”, we keep everyone growing within the right direction.

7. Profit share. Generally, money is an undesirable motivator if you have nothing else opting for you, however it can be a great supporting tool once you have your people aboard. Profit sharing, obviously, is only one of numerous ways you may do this, but used properly it may be extremely effective. Whether you are offering your employees company shares, options, an added bonus based on clearly defined goals, a portion of your margin, or perhaps a percentage of your profit, what matters most is they don’t feel powerless to affect its outcome. The aim of a bonus would be to support the employees feeling of ownership for his or her work.

Being an aside, steer clear of the dreaded “Christmas Bonus” if possible. Any amount of cash given in this manner will be appreciated the very first year, but will ultimately be seen being an entitlement. Then, in case you have a bad year and can’t afford to offer it, rather than understanding, you will get resentment.

8. Offer varied and interesting benefits. Benefits, unlike bonuses, form a part of an employee’s compensation package. And therefore, represent a chance to impact your working environment. Certainly, standard benefits for example medical and insurance can be area of the package, but think away from box too. For example, you could negotiate a price reduction for your employees in a local health club or restaurant. Our clients has negotiated a price reduction for his employees in a local course.

9. Fire unmotivated people. It’s as vital to get the right people about the bus because it is to get the wrong people from the bus. It might sound harsh, but when you have anyone on your side that you would not re-hire because of the opportunity, make them go away as quickly as possible. It is the right move to make. If you’re unhappy with them, odds are they’re not happy either.

This isn’t to say you should not give people an opportunity, but don’t enter the trap of attempting to motivate somebody that simply can not be motivated. If the employee isn’t inspired with a future together with your company, free these phones find a place that meets them better.

10. Thank the employees for a nice job. For a diligent, dedicated employee little is much more important than genuine appreciation. Demonstrate to them that you notice how hard they work and they’re going to go to the mat for you personally each and every time. Never underestimate the need for a “thank you”. In case your employees don’t feel appreciated, they’ll leave the moment someone offers them more income, but if they love their job, it will require more than a few dollars to lure them.

<>------------------------------------------<>

Benson Agoha (MIPA) is the founder of Woolwich Online

Divita Hubuto is an Independent Entertainment Professional.

<>------------------------------------------<>

How to spot a fake £1 coin By Jane Baker (Yahoo! Finance - Family Finances)

Counterfeit £1 coins circulating in Britain right now are worth tens of millions of pounds. You need to learn how to spot a fake.

A fake £1 coin in your wallet is not only absolutely worthless but of course, it’s also illegal to pass it on to anyone else. Nevertheless, you might do so quite innocently as new figures estimate that as many as one in 36 coins in circulation is counterfeit.

How bad is the problem?

The latest data, published in a parliamentary answer from Justine Greening, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, indicates that the value of counterfeit £1 coins circulating today could run as high as £41 million.

This has been a long-standing problem. In 2003/04, when figures were first collated, 85,000 dud £1 coins were returned to the Royal Mint. Five years later the figure had jumped up to a massive one million fakes. And the trend continues to climb ever upwards, reaching a record high of almost two million coins which had to be disposed of by the Royal Mint in the last financial year.

In fact, there are now so many fake coins in circulation that the Royal Mint could be forced into the costly measure of scrapping and reissuing the whole lot with new designs, especially if the number of counterfeit coins continues to increase at a similar rate. The most recent Royal Mint survey indicates that 2.5% of all £1 coins are forged.

Clearly, re-minting all £1 coins would be a nightmare for consumers, retailers and banks up and down the country. But taking no action may undermine confidence in the currency if the problem worsens. A lack of decisive action could lead retailers and businesses to start rejecting the coins, even those which are perfectly genuine.

Spot the difference

Counterfeit coins are becoming a closer match to the real thing, making it incredibly difficult for consumers to spot the difference. In fact, we often only notice we have a fake when it’s rejected by a vending machine, ticket machine or a parking meter. Of course, it’s a huge concern that the counterfeiters are becoming more sophisticated when it comes to passing off fake coins as legitimate ones.

How can you tell if a £1 coin is a fake?

Fake coins are most definitely not easy to spot, but here are ten tell-tale signs you should always look out for:

The coin has been circulating for some time according to its date of issue, yet it looks surprisingly new.

The design on the back of the coin doesn’t match the official design for the year it was issued. You can check which designs were used in each year at the Royal Mint website. £1 coins were first introduced in 1983 and the design has changed every year since. Check out Britain’s £1 Coin Designs which shows the designs that should appear on the reverse of the coin for every year from 1983 to 2010. Remember, if the date and the design don’t match up, you’ve got a fake.

The lettering or inscription on the edge of the coin doesn’t match the corresponding year. Take a look at the Counterfeit Coin Guide which will show you the correct specifications and inscriptions on £1 coins according to their year of issue.
The designs on both sides of the coin aren’t well defined compared with a real coin.
The alignment of the design is at an angle. Hold the coin so that the Queen’s head is upright and facing you. The design on the back should be upright too.
The ribbed edge of the coin is poorly defined.

The lettering on the edge of the coin is uneven, badly spaced or indistinct.
The colour of the coin doesn’t match the genuine article. Fake coins are often more yellow or golden than the real thing.
Fake coins are often thinner and lighter.

Remember, most counterfeit coins won’t be accepted by vending machines unless the forgery is particularly good. This is a clear indication that you have a fake.
So now you know exactly what to look out for. If you do find a counterfeit coin, make sure you hand it in to your local police station so that it can be taken out of circulation.

How Best To Sack A `Manager’ - By Benson O. Agoha

In my continuing treatise on `Leadership Qualities’, I have to visit the issue of dismissal of a Manager. In this case the use of `leader' is to be read as Manager. Now, even leaders can be sacked, but what is the best way to do it? Before making my recommendation, I have to discuss one real life case, which will show that management, though now regarded as `science’, sometimes has no fixed solution to any problem. The course of action is sometimes contingent upon the situation, but a Manager must accept responsibility for his actions and, therefore, must take the course he can defend. Here we go:

Case 1
Prof. Abdul was a renowned lecturer of many years. Borne of Pakistani origin, he has been a visiting lecturer to many Universities and Business Schools around the world and is therefore, a well respected voice. One day he was presented with a situation by one of his students in an MBA class. Odeon was already a General Manager of a Bank before deciding to do an MBA course. He has been facing a situation at work. One of his subordinates was in the habit of flouting some of the bank's policies with regard to the use of office telephone.
The young man has been bringing in large income to the bank and has been responsible for winning big accounts. For that reason, he feels he deserved some special treatment and his behaviour would soon result in protests if Odeon does not act on time. So in this situation, what should he do? Prof. Abdul looked him straight in the eye, adjusted his tie and said `sack him; otherwise he will introduce a bad culture into the organisation'.
Odeon noted the advice from the authority and when he returned to work, was ready to implement the advice which he was sure will send some signal across the organisation. The day after his return, the young man brought in another account of £5m. The General Manager sat back and thought about it and decided to pursue a different course.

Now in my earlier post on Organisational Policy, I stated that policy must be flexible to allow organisational members to exercise discretion during implementation. Had Odeon not used his discretion, he would have sacked a resourceful employee who could have been corrected using a different method.

But what is then the best way to sack a `leader’. Managers across disciplines and organisations do not resort to one best method to sack a leader. The truth is that because leadership position is an enjoyable position, if for nothing else, for the respect and other perks that accompany the position, it is often difficult for occupants of exulted positions to want to leave. They would always like to cling to their position even at the worst of times.

A manager in charge of a restructuring exercise may be tempted to resort to dismissal as a cost saving measure. I have already kicked against dismissal in a restructuring exercise because it could result in one or more of the following:
· It posses its own problems eventually
· Competitors who have been unable to lure your staff away to their own organisations will then find them easy targets.
· If key staffs are affected, it is easy to pass on organisational secrets.
· An employee feels loyal to present employer, not the previous one.
· Only a carefree manager would like to pass on his distinctive competences to other organisations without serious consideration.

How to remove a Leader or sack a Manager

As for other `leaders', they can be removed by an internal coup or by a collective resolution of the group members. It could be by democratic means like voting, or by an external force, as in cases where the leader was also appointed by an external force. But to remove a Manager, I would recommend that the best way to sack a `Manager’ is to promote him. Every promotion is not necessarily laced with financial compensation. Some leaders are happy enough to have attained and been designated a certain position. And because money is not always the best guarantor of satisfaction, some people are satisfied to have their esteem needs met. Therefore a manager who is capable of proving his mettle will appreciate an upward push and perform. Those who cannot, will not and then you will be justified to show them the door.

Identifying Leadership Qualities (Part 1) - By Benson O. Agoha

Identifying leadership qualities in individuals is not as easy as it seems. Yet the world is a `class' environment where no matter how equall we are, some of us must emerge to show the way. And others must be obedient enough to follow their lead. Age sometimes does not matter, nor does education always. Neither does physical attributes such as strenght, beauty or might. Instead, a leader would posses the `X'-Factor which makes others respect and obey his directives. Where this is absent leadership sometimes faces more problems than imagined. In this article we will look at those attributes that a leader should posses so that managers can easily identify those worthy of leadership positions.

See the following people: Jonathan Rock oversees a battalion of infantrymen fighting at the war front. Michael Cains wears the armband and walks ahead of his team-mates to football matches. Oklaman Bart is in charge of workmen every night for maintenance and engineering works at the underground and Mickey Barns heads the South East branch of the bank of commerce. Which of these could be described as a leader?

To answer this question, we must look at the role of each of the men and determine whether they provide any form of `inspiration’ to other team-mates because leadership is not complete unless it inspires others to act and to keep acting in a way necessary, which they would otherwise not have been willing to act, to accomplish a set common objective.

Leadership is important for any group activity to succeed as otherwise, the group will be like a herd of sheep without shepherd.This is the reason why this article will try to show what leadership is and how it is important to the success of any group activity, including organisations. More importantly, it will show that for any organisation to succeed, the organisational members must act in consonance with the direction and example displayed by the occupants of the top hierarchy.

It has often been said that `leaders are born’. Maybe this is true, maybe not, but undoubtedly individuals are born with different traits such that some possess noticeable charisma that enables they win the approval of the majority. In this wise the above phrase might be considered correct. Management however, does not always only look for innate character traits or abilities, otherwise it will no longer be `science’. In seeking out a potential `leader’, Managers are concerned with finding that individual who possesses qualities or skills that can consistently be trusted to inspire others, all things being equal, to work towards the common goal. And even when all things are not equal - such as in periods of industrial action, the leader must have the quality to `manage’ the situation and restore order. Whether these traits and qualities have been acquired as a result of exposure to some conditions such as training, which in turn made it `a relatively permanent observable trait’, or simply traits that are inborn and have been residual for long is immaterial. Equally, and perhaps even more interesting, is the fact that leaders can be removed if they fail to, or stopped being an inspiration to the group.

For so long, a simple definition of `a leader’ was disagreeable until the key phrase `to inspire’ was recognised as providing the clearest clue to what leadership constitutes. And no matter what we want to write about leadership, a distinction must be drawn between Political Leadership, as provided by Jonathan Rock above and Managerial Leadership, which Mickey Barns provides for his bank. An important point however is that both men point to the direction their group members must go and provide the actual inspiration that enables them to go that way. It is because leadership provides the vision; strategy and the inspiration needed by organisational members to follow that direction that they must accept responsibility for whatever goes wrong in the process.

Because the `group’ phenomenon is very important to the issue of leadership, it is important to discuss a bit of it.

The Group Defined

A group simply refers to a situation where two or more members come together to interrelate and to be interdependent in other to achieve a common objective. The key words are `two’, `interrelate’ and `interdependent’. For this reason:

· A class of 10 students is a group. But if the teacher splits them into 5 groups of 2 members each, in order to share assignments and eventually produce one outcome, each of the subsets of 2 members also represents a `group’.

· In our example above, the group members must interrelate with each other and the groups with one another.

· The groups must be interdependent such that none of them working independently can achieve the desired results. It is the cooperation and interchange among them that will enable them to attain the desired goal.

The group maybe formed by an outside force or it maybe self-forming. In the same sense, the leader may be appointed by the organiser of the group (the outside force) or nominated by members of the group (the in-group). In some cases, such as where a group is to a great extent democratic, elections are held to choose the leader of the group.

A manager faced with the need to appoint a leader in his organisation, has to watch out for certain attributes, which are identifiable from the study of their behaviour, which include but not limited to the following.

Factors You Must Watch Out For Before Appointing That Next `Leader'

· Considerate: Does he possess traits or skills that mark him out as considerate? When he speaks, how he speaks, does he appear to have feeling for colleagues and the organisation? Being considerate of others enables a leader to treat them with the respect and recognition necessary to avoid rebellion.

· Respectable: Does he attract respect to himself in appearance, conduct and speech? And do his colleagues respect him? A person who is considered respectable by his colleagues stands a good chance of being made a leader without revolt.

· Knowledge: Is he considered knowledgeable and does he possess the technical or commercial skills needed within the group? A leader must be able to display or assess knowledge whenever desirable. Appointing an individual who does not possess known relevant skills for the task can be counterproductive.

· Strength: Does he posses the strength of character? Is he perceived as strong enough to force down mutiny? Strength includes agility. Physical, spiritual, mental and psychological strength are also important.

· Follow: Does he have the right mental attitude not just to lead but also to follow? Can he follow when not leading? A leadership position can be a `tenured’ position. In this wise, a leader must have the ability to follow when he is no longer leading. A leader who cannot follow might not be a good leader. Who needs a dictator for a leader anyway? In any case, an organisation piloted by a dictator will soon be doomed.

Whatever method used to choose the leader, he must posses some or all of the following basic attributes:

Five important attributes of a `Leader'

1. Trust: A leader must have the trust of his teammates which means that he will act in an open transparent manner always and will not act selfishly against them.

2. Intelligence: a leader must have adequate or more knowledge and be able to think fast in case of need. Where he does not have this knowledge, he must have easy access to a source that does and in the even of need, he or this other source must be able to think fast in the case of need. This display helps him to win further trust of his teammates.

3. Power: while a leader should have the ability to `influence’ others to work with him to achieve the common goal, he or his team-mates must have the power to suppress any form of external aggression whenever the group is threatened.

4. Competence/Ability: A leader must be perceived as competent or able or fit as a leader. If it is an intellectually based group, the leader must be competent and perceived as such to leader the group. Imagine a group whose leader is perceived as a square peg in a round hole! Or imagine a person who has no mathematical knowledge being appointed to lead the review of Maths curriculum.

5. Consistency: He must be consistent in speech and action. A leader must also be consistent in his protection and defence of the group and group members. This wins him more trust and support from the in-group as consistency means that the members know how they can expect their leader to behave given challenging situation.

Reviewing Your Organisational Policy - By Benson O. Agoha

Russell worked for one of the Fortune 500 companies with a branch in Canary Wharf, London. One day he was out walking the dog accompanied by his 10-year-old son. Jack was clutching his mobile phone close to his ears. At the other end of the line was his mother who was at home preparing dinner in their pent house residence. They were living the dream. As father, son and dog walked past a Signpost of one of the budget stores, Jack, still talking with his mother, asked her if they could stop by and get some ice-cream. His mother said `no’. She had her reasons. They were living the high life and, it must be demonstrated, she thought. `Please Mom’, Jack insisted but his mother told him “Jack, it is against our policy to buy our ice-cream from that store”. The boy turned to his father and asked “Daddy, what is `policy’”? Russell looked down at his son and said “son she meant to say it is our `principle’ not to buy our ice-cream from that store”. The boy asked, “So, does `policy’ mean `principle’”? The man smiled and said to his son, `no not exactly’.

So what is Policy?
In its simplest and yet broad form, policy `is a guide to action’. So whether it is Fiscal Policy, Insurance Policy, Corporate Policy, Public Policy, this definition is broad enough to cut through all and without further explanation, one might be tempted to refer to other types of policy than intended in this article. For our purpose, the use of `policy’ relates to business or corporate policy. Therefore, in specific terms, we would define business or corporate policy “as a guide to managerial action in their day-to-day activities directed towards the achievement of the corporate objective’.

No doubt a manager trying to reposition an organisation will find that, in his corporate analysis, one of the issues he must review is the organisation’s policy document otherwise called `policy manual’, without which implementation of plans will be difficult.

Five main types of Policies that are very important for any organisation are the following:
· Regulatory Policies –which guides the conduct and behaviour of organisational members in and around the company. It spells out what is expected of them in certain situations, how they should respond to circumstances and issues as they arise while at work. Regulatory policies may also spell out such things as appearances or wearing of uniforms at work and what a manager can do if a member of staff violates this guideline.
· Distribution policies – which guides the organisational members, especially the marketing and sales staff, with respect to how they should supply or distribute the companies products. Which market should they focus on and at what time, especially if they are dealing with seasonal products? Distributive policies may also spell out guidelines about what products should be `pushed’ and which should not. This guideline may further assist the marketing department to decide how much advertising should be done for each product.
· Financial Policies – which spells out guidelines for raising of funds for the finance of corporate activies. Finance policies, will guide the organisational members, for example, with respect to what percentage of sales should be in reserve, when to go to the money or capital market to raise funds for the finance of organisational activities. It may even spell out when and where not to go borrowing.
· Personnel Policies – which spells out guidelines for the recruitment of human resources for and into the company. Personnel policies may include the display of `diversity’ in the recruitment process. Others may simply prefer to be `equal opportunity’ employers for all races and gender. It will also spell out guidelines about promotion, redeployment and even dismissal.
· Production/Service Policies – spell out guidelines about what products or services the organisation sells. How and when will new products be developed? By whom and how much resources are to be dedicated to product development and manufacturing? The guidelines assist the production manager and his department to take actions in their day-to-day activities. For service organisations, service policies spells out what services the organisation can undertake and what they cannot.

Ofcourse, the purpose of corporate policy is to guide organisational members when they need to make decisions on issues affecting the business, with or without their superiors present. If the guideline requires a manager to consult his superior, it would be insurbodination for him to do otherwise.

How Firm should Policy Be?
Fellow twitter, LaRita Heet, once asked so how firm should corporate policy be? The answer to this question is in the definition of policy itself. As a `guide’, corporate policy cannot and should not be rigid. It is simply a `guide’ and should be flexible enough to allow organisational members to use their discreation. The efficiency of any orgnisation is partly dependent on how much resources they have, and partly also, on how effectively the resources are allocated and managed by the organisational members.
But then, what marks an organisation out from their competitors is their distinctive competences, which includes, not just the available resources and their allocation but on how much `efficiency’ was achieved as a result of the display of `discreation’ by the organisational members.

Contents of Policy Document
A well articulated policy provision should be able to contain the following:
· Reason for which the policy is being issued
· What should be covered and how far should the policy go. Who are those likely to be affected by the policy
· When should the policy take effect? I discuss this further below under communication of policy
· What part should you play and which individuals or parties should play certain roles as needed.

Stages in the development of policy:
Despite what several authors write, there are six generally acceptable stages of policy development and introduction:
1. Identify the problem areas in your organsiation, bearing in mind the need to prescribe `guidelines’ to the conduct of organisational members in their day-to-day attempt to solve those problems and achieve a common goal. In an earlier post, I stated that every organisation has a problem. The difference is only in the degree of the problem within the company. It is because organisations have `problems’, that they need to be managed. Common problems in every organisation often concerns the allocation of resources within the company. How well the organisational members can effectively allocate the resources and solve organisational problems makes the difference. This is why some organisations prosper, while others fail. So having identified the problem, proceed to the next stage.
2. Formulate appropriate policies after consultation with the top level management in your organisation. Policies have to be formulated by the top level management because they have the capacity to look into every nook and cranny of the company and to see when things are not going well. It is also on their shoulder that the issue of leadership and control rests. So organisational members will be looking up to them to `show the way’ or the direction that they expect their organisation to head. Loose organisations soon become obtuse, amorphous and unguided. The result is best imagined.
3. Adopt the policy as evidence of its acceptability to the management team as the acceptable way to follow in their daily activities in trying to solve organisational problems within the company. Adoption is very much like accenting to a bill in the legislature. It is the stage at which the signature of the executive powers in the company is obtained. It is usually important to secure the support of the management team as evidence that it is not a unilateral action. After that, the next stage.
4. Take adequate measures to communicate the formulated policies to every member of the organisation as the acceptable way to follow in order to appropriately solve the organisation’s problems. Ensure that group meetings, if possible is held to formerly present it to them. Use film shows if available or latest presentation techniques, such as projectors, so that they understand what has been decided and why. Set effective date and move to the next stage.
5. Once the policies decided have been communicated and policy document presented, the implementation takes effect from the stipulated date. Managers can look up issues with the policy document if need be and take appropriate decision as the guidelines stipulates. Implementation is a very important stage of policy development because a badly implemented policy can wreck an organsiation.

6. Evaluation: As feedbacks are received, check the implementation part of the policy development from time to time to see where managers are having problems and why. Policy development without evaluation is not complete and it would be difficult to make necessary corrections for effective running of the organisation.

EVER HAD A DOOR SLAMMED ON YOUR FACE? - Benson O. Agoha

When was the last time a door got slammed on your face? What did you do? Well, if you are a Marketer, I should suppose you let out steam and then tried the next door?

Marketers are trained to handle abusive or irascible prospects. Often, this changes once the prospect confirms the `lead' or becomes a customer. But to get a `lead' you must be prepared to smile, make apologies, keep smiling and if the door does not slam soon, chip in a few words, then another few, and the third, till you collect his details. If the prospect is still listening, he is not determined to close the door and might just give in to the marketers gift-of-the-gab. That was what happened to a colleague today.

If you are like me, a marketer of home improvement products, you would often have to go into the fields on canvassing walks. You must be prepared to meet different kinds of people, in different kinds of situations in different environments. But remember that `the customer is always right'.

Tuesday July 14th was for me an eventful day. The morning session walk was, in terms of yielding a `lead', fruitless. But then, came the evening walk, we had been out nearly three hours, knocking on doors. It was not until we were doing the odd numbers side of the last street that the event occured. I had approached a door to knock when a van pulled by and inside were the home owner and two others. A brief introduction, and I secured two `leads' at once.

Experience has thought us that even though some prospects need some kind of gentle persuasion, if they dont want it, they wont want it. So whatever you are selling, one advise worth remembering is never to approach a door thinking that this must be the one `lead' I have been expecting. Customers, like everybody else, have their needs and order their priorities to suit their needs.

And oh! when it turns out to be a day for taking the blows, don't forget that it is part of job and ensure you take it your own way. Smile, swallow your pride and move one. The next door might just be the icing in your cake.

Reviewing Your Organisational Culture - By Benson O. Agoha

It is not impossible to discover, after a restructuring exercise that the usual way of doing things, otherwise called `organisational culture’, has been left unaffected.

When an organisation reengineers, it reviews and replaces, or to save cost, improves on its production or service processes as a way to ensuring that things run smoothly, unaffected or unhindered by unnecessary protocol.

Often times, a smooth process ensures speed and better quality of the products and services. But once in a while, it could be discovered that certain cultures need changing. Management may also decide to introduce and inculcate new cultures into the organisation. What cultures do you now practice which you believe contribute to achieving negative results and need changing?

A&C bakers, is now over 80 years old. But at inception, the promoters conceived it, as an organisation with continuous process for production of bread and related pastries. It was strategically located in the South of England and presently, has about 16 factories throughout Britain.

Within the past five years, A&C bakeries have undergone a profound makeover that strengthens its claim to leadership position in the food and beverage industry. Thorough overhaul of its processes and changes made to the ways things are done around the company has seen improvements and positive reports being filed back to the promoters of this massive 4-plant factory.

The review saw the Traywash section losing its two old Autarchy feeders and also ensured that the main Washing facility was redesigned and made less cumbersome, the offloading bays have now been equipped with Ramps which assist drivers offloading returning Trays for washing before supply to the packaging facilities inside the factory. The result is that less calls for engineers are now made from Traywash and by extension, it represents cost savings from engineering hours.

Some of the organisational cultures that have been changed include to employment of University graduates and highly skilled professionals to restructure the bakery, thereby injecting new outside `brains'. The canteen has been refurbished, food subsidized to ensure that staff and temporary workers are happy. Sales of Bread for staff is also subsidized at just 20p per loaf.

But, to whom much is given, much is expected. So in exchange for the generosity, the staff are to change from their uniform to mufti each time they come out for break, before they come to the canteen area, although they get 5mins extra. They must also wear Hi-Vest before they go outside the main factory either for smoking or to go to either Traywash or Despatch sections of the company.

Compliance is monitored. And the staff are happy to comply. Can you think of measures you know if you introduced into your business, your staff will be happy, while at the same returning your business to profitability? That is the essence of organisational repositioning.

The way things are done around an organisation can make or mar it. A good organisation culture can make a business be perceived as outstanding. Good organisation is reflected in the type of culture existing in the company. A bad culture brings disrespect and can make a business loose customers. A good organisational culture wins more customers and respect and reposes more trust in the company. RG Owens (1987) defines organisational culture as “the body of solutions to external and internal problems that has worked consistently for a group and that is therefore taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think about, and feel in relation to those problems”

Because culture is a multi-level feature of an organisation, a manager who identifies bad Organisational culture in the company can make changes by following some simple procedures:

1. Discuss your findings with your superiors and obtain their support with respect to the changes you plan to introduce and how far it should go.

2. Study your staff with a view to understanding their behaviour so as to be able to predict their future behaviour.

3. Review the prevailing culture, but this time doing it with a view to identifying obvious signs of possible culture clashes and or culture variation. Clashes of culture within an organisation can cripple it and create internal chaos within the company.

Bearing in mind that culture is a form of control within the organisation, how tough or soft do you want to be? Bear in mind that creating, reshaping or introducing a new strong organisational culture is not an easy task and is one of the most important tasks of leadership.

4. Communicate the new culture and watch out for your feedback as evidence of learned culture. Some methods of communicating culture include using the process of socialization, stories and language. Whether they are facts or mere fiction, stories and language help you communicate your new culture in such a way that it will be understood and practiced.

5. Allow enough time for the organisational members to learn the new culture. Be ready to be firm but do not apply tough measures from day one against offenders or non-complaint staff.

6. With the passage of time, you will successfully gauge the degree of diffusion. If you have introduced your new culture in the so-called `green fields’, it should not be very long before it is communicated and accepted. Green fields are always the fertile grounds for introduction, communication and acceptance of new culture.

A company that does not pay attention to and study its prevailing culture will not be able to identify what culture contributes to its operations. But as I pointed out above, culture is a multi-level phenomenon in any company and as a result, its importance cannot be disregarded.

Study your prevailing organisational culture from today, and see how changes can reposition your business.

<>--------------------------<>

* Benson Agoha (MIPA) is the founder of Woolwich Online.

<>--------------------------<>

Articles for publication must have full contact details, including name, address and telephone number of sender and sent by email to: onlinewoolwich@yahoo.co.uk.