Best Practices

Generally Accepted Management Principles are the "best practices" of management. Functionally we Plan, we Direct, we Control our businesses and organizations. All management practices can, in part or in whole, fall into these categories at any point in time. If your thinking about doing something, you're planning, if you're executing it, you're directing, and as you carry it out, you seek to influence the outcome to achieve what you intend, you control.

But how well these functions occur and how we fulfill them, well, that is another story.

This is why it is important to be aligned with a group of peers, who are all trying to function or operate their businesses or organizations in ways where Planning, Directing and Controlling happen in a "best practice" view. Frankly, it's difficult and sometimes lonely to try to build a business when you think that it all rests on you. And frankly it does, but there are was of sharing the burden.

The management skills that are required to operate your business, recruiting, interviewing and selecting the RIGHT people, training them well, providing management that gets this done, leadership that develops people and your vision and so forth, can all be executed by gaining excellence in these three management functions- Planning, Directing, and Controlling.

See it's easy. NOT. As someone once said: There are simple answers, but there are no easy answers.

Jeffrey Pelletier, MA

651-492-8540

jeffreypelletier@comcast.net

Profit

I have a friend who owns a business and he has a way of expressing his profitability that I find intriguing. Once his daughter asked him, "Dad, how do you make money in your business?" His answer was, "Honey, I get the leftovers." Now based on the situation in his business life, the "leftovers" were great or small. But he understood that after all his business obligations had been met, after all the hard work, and all the diligence, he got what was left. What an interesting view of profitability. But if you think about it, a view like this is a highly ethical view. If you look at profitability this way, it compels you to work hard, to generate revenue and control costs, to watch how you operate your business, to fulfill your obligations. And there is no limit to the "leftovers". If you have a focused, clear, vision and your people and your business model are in alignment with that vision, and you have a viable product or service, your "leftovers" can be substantial.

By Jeffrey Pelletier, MA
651-492-8540