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Category: Business Skills

Every successful leader or manager possesses a diverse range of business management skills, such team building and motivation. In these articles the brightest business minds discuss the key skills needed to run a company, business unit or team, including time management, goal setting and communication skills.

Want a leading role with a startup?

Tom Lovelace

If you have the right attitude and qualities, joining an ambitious new business could be just the job.

Here are some questions to ask yourself before you take the plunge into this richly rewarding world.

Seven steps to forming a new habit

Cedric Christie Habit

If you want to form and sustain a new habit you should adopt the “7S Model”, writes Steven MacGregor for European Business Review.

Forming a new habit is hard – making sure that new habit sticks is even harder. Here's MacGregor's a seven-step plan for forming and sustaining your new habit. 

Three ways to achieve dynamic reflection

Julie Cockburn

The way you think as a leader can leave gaps in the way your business and working relationships develop.

With awareness and know-how you can adapt your thinking mindset to suit the task in hand.

Here are three key strategies to help bring your thinking skills up to scratch.

Six ways to create better collaborations

Carol Robertson 2

Collaboration is a buzzword in modern business.

But it doesn’t happen overnight, especially if you are seeking to transform outmoded models of command and control, says Carol Kinsey Goman, writing for Forbes.

Five steps to escaping the meeting trap

Tom Phillips

Executives spend nearly 23 hours per week in meetings. If your company’s meetings are badly run, that’s a lot of wasted time – and money.

It's time to institute systemic change. Here's how to escape the meeting trap.

Five steps to conflict resolution

Tim Mara

The key to resolving a disagreement between members of your team is acting as an effective mediator, write Jeanne Brett and Stephen B Goldberg for Harvard Business Review.

People will always disagree with each other – it’s human nature. But if you have to step in, follow these five steps.

Real leaders put creativity centre stage

Derek Hirst Alambra

It’s time to ditch outmoded management models in favour of embracing a leadership style that attracts, retains and encourages creative thinkers.

Exposed to the ever-present risk of digital disruption, organisations need new ideas as never before.

But if modern management is about attracting and retaining clever people, leadership methods must change.

How to make the perfect pitch to a venture capitalist

John Kirby The Door

Charming a venture capitalist used to be an art, but now it’s a science.

Why do proposals that look good on paper fail to make it through the pitch stage? That’s what assistant professor at Babson College, Lakshmi Balachandra, decided to find out.

Harvard Business Review reveals the four key points she discovered.

How to spot an effective CMO with staying power

Michael Kidner Rotational Coloured Circles

Marketing is one of the most rapidly developing areas of the business world and your company needs a champion with the qualities to embrace that challenge for the long haul, writes David Clarke for Strategy+Business.

It’s not so many years since the extent of most companies’ marketing efforts was an advert in the telephone directory. Today it’s a specialised field.

Health suffers when time equals money

Jack Smith Zigzag

Calculating your employees’ pay on an hourly rate can raise their psychological stress levels and eat away at their enjoyment of life, writes Martin J Smith for Stanford Business.

Workers who believe that every second counts in terms of the monetary value placed on their time are more likely to suffer from potentially damaging mental pressures, according to new academic research.

Sleepy millionaires give hope to late risers

Tegamaccio

Is rising daily before the crack of dawn an essential to success as an entrepreneur? Apparently not. Sleep-loving Carol Roth has interviewed seven fellow millionaires for Entrepreneur to prove the point.

The successful American TV and radio personality, author and investor cites positive reasons why she and her interviewees get out of bed between 8am and 9.30am.

Five strategies to reduce the ill effects of commuting

Jiro Osuga

Commuting can negatively impact employees’ performance and wellbeing.

Workers with long commutes are more anxious, less satisfied with life and less likely to find their job and daily activities satisfying. They are also more exhausted and less productive at work, and more likely to get divorced. However, there are a few simple steps you can take to make your commute a more positive experience.

Emotional intelligence: why it should be on your interview checklist

Glen Baxter

If you want to build great teams, you need people who can read people

“Building up a team of emotionally intelligent employees can have a surprisingly powerful impact on your company’s overall performance.

Your company needs emotionally intelligent employees to foster positive relationships with both clients and staff, and to spot and troubleshoot potential sources of conflict early.

A five-step approach to making your reorganisation work

chess

If you’re thinking about embarking on a company reorganisation, it’s worth bearing in mind that 80% of them fail to meet their objectives in the time planned. In fact, 10% of them do significant damage.

“How you go about your reorg is as important as – and sometimes more important than – what you do.”

Here’s a five-step process for getting it right:

How to maximise your virtual network

Octet

When it comes to networking: bigger is better. Thanks to today’s virtual networking opportunities, you can easily build and maintain relationships with contacts around the world.

Face-to-face meetings are the perfect way to conduct business; the ideal way to read, get to know and understand your contacts. However, raising your international profile can also result in professional success.

Three ways to turn stress into a positive force

Austin-Neill

Stress has become a modern obsession, but is trying to get rid of it really the best idea?

Some of us wear it in false modesty like an endurance medal, while others proclaim how hard they work to banish it through mindfulness or exercise.

The truth is that stress is inescapable. We should change focus and embrace it as a powerful tool, rather than fight a perpetual battle against it.

How to play the mergers and acquisitions game

bernard-cohen

If you want to make a deal that works, pay close attention to the data.

Around “70% to 90% of mergers and acquisitions fail to achieve value for the buying company”, says Adi Gaskell, writing for Forbes. In the majority of cases, it’s the company being acquired that achieves most of the value out of the deal.

Why brainstorming needs to change

brainstorming

Traditional brainstorming is a source of groupthink and rarely leads to innovation.

The unwritten rules of a brainstorming session are that all ideas are valid and everyone can feel supported and safe from criticism, no matter how weak or unworkable their suggestions. But studies suggest that it’s better to think alone and share later.

Read on to find out how to brainstorm better.

Don’t let lies spoil your negotiations

Pinocchio

Sometimes people lie in negotiations, but while you might might think you’re good at spotting a fib, research suggests you’re not as good at sifting fact from fiction as you think.

Multiple studies demonstrate that only a little over half of us can actually spot a lie. But you can learn to make life hard for liars, according to professor Leslie John, writing for Harvard Business Review.

The wisdom of Steve Jobs

steve-jobs

On Business Insider, Dylan Love shares some innovation insight in the form of the most inspirational quotes from the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve…