Lawrence Fine

Employers are responsible for making sure their work places are safe and secure. If they don’t do so, they will most likely be in violation of OSHA regulations.

Employees need to also be responsible for making sure their work areas are safe and secure. This isn’t about liability, this isn’t about placing blame, this is about staying safe.

Too often, people don’t give much thought to safety until it’s too late. They wait till there is a problem then everyone scrambles to place blame elsewhere. Instead, why not be proactive, work to make sure there is a safe workplace and prevent a lot of problems for all.

If you are reading this post at a desk, do you know where the nearest fire extinguisher is? Do you know all your options for exit in case of an emergency? Are there unnecessary sharp objects that could injure you or someone else?

Rather than being like most people and wait to place blame after something happens, why not take charge, make sure your work area is safe and prevent things from happening to you or to others.

We live in a litigious society where people are looking to place blame, sue and get rewarded. Wouldn’t everyone be happier if we avoided these problems in the first place?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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When looking for a specific answer, there is only one right answer. This might seem to be quite obvious but in business, it’s frequently one of the biggest mistakes people can make.

As an example, if sales are down, we tend to look for ways to increase sales. Should we increase marketing? Should we change the price? There are a lot of variables and we keep looking for the one “right answer”

An alternative would be to go in with an open mind and instead of looking for a specific answer, be willing to consider all options.

If you are a consultant and are having difficulties getting new clients, rather than searching for new ways to get more clients, consider more options and see if there are other ways to use your talents.

If you are a marketer and are having problems with finding new clients, rather than banging your head against the walls trying to find new clients, consider creating your own product and market for yourself.

If you run a hotel and are having problems filling the rooms the traditional way, consider other options such as renting your meeting rooms to local businesses for their meetings (many hotels have a few “board room” type offerings and many local businesses have needs for occasional conference rooms but don’t have a need for more office space.

If you are a Realtor and are having problems due to the recent economic downturn, is there something else you can do that would compliment your business?

If you look for a specific answer, at best you will get that answer. If you look with an open mind, the possibilities are endless

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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There is an office building for sale downtown and when I went past it, I saw they had created a web site for the sale and/or lease of the building. Just out of curiosity, I went and looked at the web site.

This is a building that was completely renovated around 5 years ago. A restaurant moved into the building and after a short period of time, shut down due to some structural issues with the building. There were a number of articles in the local paper regarding this issue with the owner saying the building was safe and the tenant saying otherwise.

When looking through the web site, there were pictures of the various floors, with descriptions of the amenities and features. The first floor, where the structural damage was (or wasn’t) is not mentioned on the web site.

My guess is that any prospective buyer or renter is aware of the issues regarding the structural soundness so by not addressing them, it makes it very easy for the potential buyer to assume that since it’s not mentioned and the whole floor isn’t even addressed on the web site, the problems really do exist and they simply look elsewhere.

In my opinion, a much better strategy would be to address the issue head on. Acknowledge the issue, hire an engineering firm to give the building a “clean bill of health”, show the documentation on the web site and it removes the doubts.

It’s easier to avoid the issues but much more effective to address them head on.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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Different people have different preferred methods of learning.

Some learn by listening

Some learn by reading

Some learn by seeing others do it first.

Some learn by doing

Some learn by asking questions

Many people teach using only one or two of the methods people use to learn. Because of this, they limit the number of people who are able to learn effectively from them.

An example of using multiple means of communications in your teaching would be to do the following.

1.Explain the problem
2.Demonstrate the problem
3.Explain the solution
4.Demonstrate the solution
5.Have someone else explain the solution (this does two things, first it’s a way to make sure that person can understands the solution and also gives others an opportunity to hear a different voice and different words give a similar solution)
6.Have the audience (the students), walk through the solution (this helps to ensure they truly understand the solution and also gives them the opportunity to ask questions on the part they don’t understand).
7.Have a question and answer session
8.Have them do the solution at full speed
9.Distribute notes

While this might seem like a lengthy process, once you get accustomed to it, it’s actually goes quite quickly.

The last part, is the distribution of notes. For some people this is extremely helpful while for others, it’s not helpful at all. In my experience, when I’m writing notes when someone is speaking, I tend to miss some of what they are saying. If someone hands me the notes in advance, I tend to read the notes instead of listening to the speaker. If I get to listen without having to take notes, it allows me to give my full attention to the speaker and then by getting the notes at the end, I can read through them afterwards and add any additional notes I feel are important. On the other hand, some people find they learn best by taking the notes themselves so giving people multiple options would be best.

It’s important to understand that just because you learn using one method doesn’t mean that everyone else does as well. If you only teach using one method, you will lose a lot of people.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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Just a quick note that next week, I’m going to make 5 posts on making your work place more efficient and effective. Some will apply to big organizations, some will be geared more toward the smaller 1-2 person operation.

I’m just sending this out so that if you know anyone who might find this of interest, you could encourage them to subscribe and receive them via email by going to http://www.lawrencefine.com/blog/subscribe/

As always, have a great day!

Lawrence

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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw

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How much time and money does your organization allocate for education?

Do you not have the time for the proper training of your staff? Does it not fall within our budget to provide ongoing training for the people in your office?

Recently, I was speaking with a business person who mentioned that the company she worked for used to provide training on programs such as the use of Microsoft Excel, Creating Power Point Presentations, Time Management etc but a few years ago the company made the decision to cut back and no longer provides this training. Because of this, they are less efficient, make more mistakes and generally don’t do as good a job simply because people don’t know how to use the tools required to do their job properly.

For a very small amount of money (in the overall scheme of things), this company can get more work done, more efficiently and have more productive employees.

So, how much money and time do YOU have allocated to your ongoing education?

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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Recently I had a glass of wine with dinner at a nice restaurant in town. The wine was very nice so the next day, I went to a wine shop that is located right next door to the restaurant and told them what I had and asked if they carried something similar. It ends up, this wine store carries all of the wines offered by the restaurant next door (plus many more). They don’t openly solicit business from the restaurants customers but they have found it’s good business policy to carry what the restaurant carries for the same reason that it worked with me.

This made me wonder, how well do businesses know the surrounding businesses and how do they take advantage of those around them (by take advantage I don’t mean to abuse the relationship but rather to work together to the benefit of both)?

A hotel will know (hopefully) what is going on at the convention center but do they also know what is going on at the local church down the street? Are there advantages to knowing about upcoming weddings or other special events?

A restaurant will know about the big concert in town but do they also know about the gallery opening down the street which will have a lot of people who might be interested in the restaurants offerings?

There is a fine line between getting too deeply involved in what others are doing which results in us neglecting our own work and being so self centered that we don’t know what is going on around us and thus lose out on great opportunities.

Make sure you know what is going on around you, there are wonderful opportunities for those in the know

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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A few days ago I was speaking with a high school soccer coach. I asked how one of his former players was doing at college and he told me she had been cut from the college program. He explained how the college had a change of coaches and the new coach hadn’t seen her play so when the girl failed the fitness test, it gave the coach the excuse he needed to cut the girl. In this high school coaches opinion, the college coach wasn’t fair and didn’t give the girl a fair chance at making the team. Without knowing much about the situation or knowing whether this girl could help the program or not, this is what I do know. If she truly wanted to make the team, she shouldn’t have given the coach the chance to cut her. College athletes know what the fitness tests are going to be (in most cases) and while it’s debatable whether fitness tests are an effective way to evaluate players, if you know you are going to be tested and evaluated on certain criteria, then make sure you meet that criteria. If this girl really wanted to make that team, she would have passed the tests and not given the coach the chance to cut her.

If you know there potentially are going to be lay offs at your work, don’t give them the chance to lay you off. Be the first at work and the last to leave. Do more than is asked and more than is expected. Don’t try to simply reach your numbers but do everything you can to exceed your numbers.

Just the other day I was speaking with a partner of a small law firm. He was saying that one of his partners would be retiring in the next year or two. There are two associates who would hope to be considered to replace him as a partner but he said he is in the office before those two every day and usually is there after them as well. He has never seen them in the office on weekends and sometimes they bill the number of hours they are supposed to and other times they don’t hit their expected numbers. Chances are, each thinks they have a good shot at becoming partner but they are giving the partners a chances to say no but not taking the extra steps.

We want to control our own destiny but when given the opportunity, too many of us give others the chance to say no.

Do everything you can to not give others that chance

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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Hopefully everyone understands they are selling something every day. It might be that they are a salesperson selling products. It might be that they are selling their services or it might be that you are selling your credibility.

The question you must ask yourself every day is “how do you earn peoples trust?”

Some organizations try to earn people’s trust by purchasing advertising which tells people how trustworthy they are. The problem with this is you are the last person who should be telling people about yourself.

Other organizations will work hard to get testimonials of people telling other people about yourself. The problem with this is it’s difficult to determine when testimonials are legitimate and when they are fake or paid for. For years, paid endorsers would appear on TV giving the impression they use a certain product or service. These days, people are more aware that these people are frequently being paid for their testimonials.

The most effective use of testimonials is when they come from a friend. While this method has always been effective, it used to be difficult to get this type of message to enough people. However, with today’s means of communication using the Internet, it’s much easier and more effective. People blog, people tweet people use various social networking sites to get their messages out to their friends.

If you don’t know if or what others are saying about your organization online, you are missing out on important information.

Use things such as Google Alerts to let you know when something is posted about you or your organization, Do regular searches to see what is being said. Be willing to answer questions, refute accusations etc.

It’s easy to ignore what others are saying about you but that isn’t the best way to handle things.

Remember, information is power.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

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