Barriers to effective communication in an organization

Posted on 06. May, 2010 by Debra Thompson Roedl in Business Mindset, Information Marketing

Communication plays an important role in every organization. Communication effectiveness influences individual careers prospects and organizational performance. Every job involves communication and the job requires them to spend most of their time to interact with people. However, most of the people failed to realize that breakdown in communication will bring many problems to the organization. Therefore, it is important to study various communication barriers that exist in most organizations.

Age difference is one of the barriers of effective communication in an organization. Age difference can occur when members in an organization have a wide range of age gap between the employees that will cause the different perceptions among them. These different perceptions will cause the hardship in communicating among one another. For example, a young employee will remember easily the message convey to them compared to an older employee. The amount of time for both employees to capture the message conveyed to them will be different as well.

The second barrier of effective communication is management and employees are having mistrust. Mistrust between management and an employee happens when either the management or employee or both parties do not have confidence towards each other. One of the barriers that lead to mistrust between management and employees is language barrier. Language barrier exists when a person say things in his or her terms of language which may cause barriers to others who are not familiar with the language. The other person might misunderstand the meaning intended to relay.

Gender difference is the third barrier of effective communication in an organization. It is a common barrier of communication that men and women will communicate for different reasons in different styles. Men and women have their own perception, feelings, beliefs, actions and value, respectively. Both of them are motivated by different things that make them communicate in different ways. For example, women might use softer voice volume to encourage permission and approval while men will use louder voice volume to attract attention and maintain control. There are some men who whenever they communicate with women, they tend to communicate in autocratic manner in order to maintain their pride and egoism.

Another barrier might be the cultural differences. It will be difficult to communicate with the people having a different culture and background. There will be miscommunication when we make the wrong assumption that others people’s attitudes and lives are similar to us. Communicating with colleagues using different native language might be a problem as well.

Therefore, it is important for us to understand that not everyone will behave and communicate in the same way with us. Culture with collaboration and open communication will enhance communication in the organization. Trust and openness to express ideas and perceptions are very important. Barriers of communication that exist will affect the effectiveness of communication in organization. Level of effective communication will actually affect the level of satisfaction of members in organization. Satisfaction of the member will affect the whole operation of the organization.

How to develop business idea and opportunity analysis

Posted on 02. May, 2010 by Debra Thompson Roedl in Business Mindset, Information Marketing

To identify an opportunity is not an easy task. Most opportunities require the entrepreneur to stay alert to the possibilities of the opportunities. Some entrepreneurs observe the current product that need to be modified in order to create a better product that can fully fulfill the needs of the users. Some entrepreneurs will look for their way to create some unique product in order to enter into a new venture.

Customers are often being identified as the best sources to create ideas for new ventures. Some customers might feel that there is something lacking in the product. For example, we can transform a normal umbrella into a unique and usable umbrella because we found out that the normal umbrella was not enough for the hot weather. The customers always complain that the weather is very hot and they hope to have an umbrella that not only can be use during the rain season but also during the hot season-that being able to produce a cooling effect. In order to understand the product needs of the customers, we need to have a close contact with them.

From the statement we know, there is an opportunity to modify our current normal umbrella. We will carefully evaluate and screen the opportunity. This evaluation of opportunity is the most critical in the entrepreneurial process because we need to compare whether the product we created has the return we need compared to the resources required in making this product.

We also need to check the real and perceived value; the risks and the returns, the personal skills required and the ability of the product to differentiate itself from the competitor’s products. The personal skills required include the time and effort needed to put in order to make the venture succeed. The entrepreneur needs to make necessary sacrifices to develop the opportunity. It is important for the entrepreneurs to have confidence in the opportunity in order to gain the result that they desire. The confidence they have will eventually lead them to the right path in pursuing the results that they desire.

The customer is not the only source to identify the business opportunity. We can gain the sources from business associates, members of the distribution system and the technical people. There are some other cases that require the entrepreneur to establish some mechanisms to identify the potential business opportunity. But most of the time, the entrepreneur does not have the formal mechanisms in identifying the opportunity.

This opportunity analysis is just an opportunity assessment plan. This is different from the business plan. This is just one method to evaluate the opportunity. This opportunity plan includes a few elements such as the description of the product, the assessment of the opportunity, the assessment of the entrepreneur and the team, specifications of all the activities and also the resources needed in order to successfully enter this new venture. The most important is we are able to create a product that fulfills the customers’ need.

How to Get Out From the Rat Race

Posted on 28. Apr, 2010 by Debra Thompson Roedl in Business Mindset, Information Marketing

Every morning, the alarm clock will buzz you at the same time and you pretend not to listen to that sound. But after all, you will still have to accept and face the fact that you need to go to work and get the pay check back home. Deep in your heart, you know that you have a lot of commitments. You are thinking of the house mortgage, car, bills, and credit cards to pay every month. No matter how much you hate your boss, you will be looking and smiling at him or her every day. You scare that you will get fired if you do not do your job well.

Have you ever think of how long this situation will continue to happen? You wanted to change the whole situation yet you do not know how and what to do. Here is some guidance for you to help you get out from this situation. It might not provide direct solution to your problem but after reading this, it might change your whole perspective.

First of all, you have to be mentally prepared. You have to know that no matter how hard you work, how many jobs that you do, there will not be enough. This is because human desire is one of our biggest enemies. We never feel satisfied. We hope to get a house of our own. After we got the house, we hope to get a bigger house. Trust me, this kind of attitude that is actually leading us to get more and more debts.

Secondly, we always blame others and we will find every single reason to make our judgment rational. For example, we hate our job because we are getting too much of responsibilities. We blaming our boss and saying that they actually exploit us for giving us such low pay. But have you ever thought that the job and your boss might not be the real problem? It is obvious that life is pushing you around and you are accepting it without fighting.

Many people is playing safe when they deal with money. They will go out to find more and more jobs because they believe that by doing so, they able to get out from the debts. But the fact is, this is not going to solve the existing problem. We should try to think how to let the money work for us instead of us being the slave for them. The most important here is, we must understand that the problems exist and getting more money will not be the solution for this. If we continue to ignore it by accepting more and more jobs without deep thinking, then we will continue with this rat race until our retirement age and we might end up working whole life without purpose.

Making the first move might be the most difficult step to do but you must tell yourself that if you are able to make changes to your life, then this will lead you not only to financial freedom but also having time freedom.

Purpose and value of the business plan

Posted on 24. Apr, 2010 by Debra Thompson Roedl in Business Mindset, Information Marketing

A successful business is about the efficient allocation of scarce resources. In other words, planning is needed in order to allocate the resources efficiently in a variety of ways.  A business plan is a written document prepared by the entrepreneur that describes all the relevant internal and external elements involved in starting a new venture. It also includes the short-term and long-term decision making for the first three years of operation.

A business plan is important because it provides a framework for informing employees and others about the company’s future direction. It also helps ensure that management decisions are based on the objective analysis of the company’s strength and weaknesses. It also makes management aware if they are maximizing the financial return on their scarce resources or not. It also ensures that the team considers the future strategy of the firm. It also means that we can determine how much money is needed for the existing sources or new sources to achieve the plan.

The entrepreneurs should write the business plan, themselves. They can get consultation from other sources such as the lawyers, accountants, marketing consultants and engineers. Another source might be the Internet which can provide wide information or the examples of the outline for business planning. The employees of the company, bankers, investors, suppliers or the shareholder and others may read the business plan. Different people read the business plan for different needs. For example, the investor wanted to see the Return on Investment (ROI) and the profit of the company.

Basically the business plan is divided into eleven components. The first is the introductory page, which provides a brief summary of the business plan’s contents. This is followed by the executive summary, which summarizes the complete business plan. This section is very important because the investor will refer to the summary in deciding whether they want to invest in the plan or not. Then will continue with industry analysis, which focuses on reviews the industry trends and competitive strategies.     

Next is the description of venture. This describes the overall overview of the products, services and the operations of the new venture. This is followed by the production plan, which describes in detail how the product will be manufactured. Then, it is followed by the operational plan. The operational plan describes the flow of goods and services from the production to the customer.

This is followed by the marketing plan. The marketing plan describes how the products or services will be distributed, priced, and promoted. After we do the marketing plan, we need to do the organizational plan that describes the venture’s form of ownership whether it is sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation. Then, it leads to the assessment of risks. The potential risks and also the alternative strategies to meet business plan goals and objectives will be identified here. Next is the financial plan, which projects the financial data that determine economic feasibility and necessary financial investment commitment. Lastly, all the backup material or reference to any of the documents should be put under the appendix of the business plan.

Good Tips on Operating A Business

Posted on 20. Apr, 2010 by Debra Thompson Roedl in Business Mindset, Information Marketing

Have you ever wonder why some companies engaged in the same business as you do have earnings at least twice more than yours? Their businesses and yours started operating on the same day and theirs are actually smaller than yours. What causes them to do well in their businesses? Doing business is actually more than just selling the product and gets the profit. There’s more to it.

Before Operating Your Business

Planning is the most important step before you start your business. Good planning will lead your business moving forward while making a bad decision will not only leave the company without profit but might even suffer from losses. Planning includes the short- term and long-term plans. A short-term plan is usually around one year and long-term plan is more than that. Short time plan includes the budget for one-year business, the cash flow for each month, goals to achieve within the time frame and many more. Long-term planning is more towards how to sustain the business, expanding the business and how to get more capital from the existing business.

Start Operating Your Business

You must always remember that planning is not just a plan. You must also foresee some unexpected circumstances that may happen beyond what you expected for your business. For example, if you plan to have your products in May, but somehow the processing department is having problem with the workers and not able to produce it on time. You already agreed to provide your customer with the product within the specified date. Therefore, you must always be aware that this kind of situation happens unexpectedly. Having a backup is one of the suggestions. In this case, you can employ more part-time workers as a supplement to help speed up your processing process. You might even have to move certain workers from other departments to help this department. Therefore, you must be prepared to face obstacles that are beyond your expectations.

Having a good financial advisor for your business is also one of the ways to help your business to grow. You can employ external advisor to help see your company’s financial situation. They can provide you with some suggestions and solutions on how to handle your business. It would be much better to employ the external advisor because this external advisor does not have any relationship with your business. If you are using the existing employee as your advisor, they might be reluctant to provide you information of the real situation of your company. The internal advisor is afraid because by letting you know the situation, this might affect their jobs in the company as well. But the disadvantage of using an external advisor is they might not be very familiar with the operation of the company unlike the internal advisor. They might need more time to conduct research on the company before they are able to analyze it. Some internal advisors might not even cooperate with them.

Therefore, as the boss of a company, you must be smart when handling different kinds of situations. Making a good decision might be the most difficult task for you because this will affect the whole operation of your company.

Do You Have The Right Business Mindset

Posted on 04. Mar, 2010 by Debra Thompson Roedl in Business Mindset

How many times have you heard someone complain that they are unable to start a business, grow it and turn a profit because they do not have capital? No doubt that capital is an important part of successfully running a business. But contrary to what some might believe, many unsuccessful businesses and have their problems based less on the amount of capital the business has access to and more on the mindset of the business owner(s). Going into business with an employee mindset as opposed to a business mindset can break even the most capitalized of businesses.

The first path to having a successful business is based on one fundamental principle: businesses are set up to make money. Every action and decision that you as a business owner take must be informed by the return you will receive from the action. You might have heard the phrase ‘If you enjoy what you do, you will never have to work a day in your life’. It is true that enjoying what you do is always a plus in any business you do. But there must be a clear distinction that the end goal in setting up the business is to make a profit; having fun as you do so is an added benefit.

Another key component of a success mindset is collaborative but independent thinking. There is nothing wrong with asking for advice on certain aspects whether it is strategic advice from someone who has experience operating your kind of business or at an operational level from one of your employees. However, the key decisions that will determine the direction the business will take must ultimately be owned and rest with you. Even in the absence of such input from knowledgeable persons, you must understand your business well enough to be able to make key strategic decisions on your own.

A business mindset also means being open to ideas for generating income from multiple sources. Focusing on your core business is not a bad idea. However, and more so for small businesses, diversification might be the path to generating adequate income to shore up your core product during leaner times. In addition, you could land on a particular angle of business that might have such strong growth potential that you end up setting an entirely new company just for it.

Finally, a business mindset demands that one must be intimately familiar with the vital numbers that define their business. Trends in expenses, revenue, new products, overall employee headcount, individual strengths and weaknesses of key staff, market share and business forecasts. In addition, you must keep tabs of changes in the regulatory environment to ensure that you not only avoid falling foul of the law, but that you can also take advantage of opportunities that the new laws may present. Understanding the key parameters around your business does not require you to be an expert in accounting or law; having a success mindset only requires that you have a working knowledge of the information.