What are some of the changes you’ve seen in business

I have seen a lots of changes in business. When I was a kid the strategies followed were different and now its entirely different from the past. This might be due to the government policies and the development of our culture and trend. I will discuss about the major change that took place withing a couple of years.
A major change—especially in the last half-dozen years—is the impact of what I call the process revolution. And what we find is that revolutionary goals do work. When I was younger, the whole name of the game was the annual business plan negotiation with
the parent company. All the divisions wanted to pare back the numbers, have the plan come in, and then cruise right past it and get a big bonus. That’s the way American business worked for most of the postwar period—an incremental, few percentage points of improvement each year. What we’ve learned with the impact of the process revolution in the 1990s is that you can set and achieve revolutionary goals—breathtaking kinds of numbers. I can give you countless examples in the business world where you set a goal for, like, 100 percent improvement and doubling profit or halving cost and it actually happens.

Key Aspects in Creating Communication

I have already written a post on the importance of the communication. Here I thought of discussing about the key aspects of the communication. These stuffs were gained by me from a book. I am sharing with you the stuffs I read which would be beneficial to you. So let's come to the key aspects of communication.

There are two key aspects to improving communication in any organization. First, you must remove the barriers to communication. What are some common barriers? An “us” versus “them” mentality separating workers from management, an overly formal or strict hierarchy that discourages employees from bringing their ideas or opinions to the attention of management, and an environment of fear that causes workers to be afraid to try new things are just a few possibilities. Take a close look at your own organization and see which ones you find. Second, you must encourage communication within your organization in every way possible. Require your managers to communicate with their staff in a variety of different ways to let them know what’s going on. Be real at all times and deal with things as they come up. Invite regular workers to attend management meetings. Encourage managers to meet informally with workers
over breakfast or lunch. Ask employees to make their opinions and suggestions for improvement known—and reward them when they do. Launch cross-functional teams of employees—from all levels of the organization—to work together to solve problems. If you take this two-step approach, you’ll go a long way toward improving communication in your organization.

Japanese Management

Each and every one of us have different types of approach over management. Many follow different strategies in their business and their policies. I would like to give you a brief content about the japanese business. I will be talking about the style of japanese management, how they organise plans, how they make decisions and more.
Briefly, the core of what is known as the Japanese style of management comes from an emphasis in Japanese society on building consensus in group decision making. In Japanese business (as in Japanese society), the group comes before the individual. Managers are, therefore, expected not to command employees but to lead them by consensus. In general, Japanese managers encourage their employees to make suggestions for improvement and to participate in an organization’s decision-making process—much more than in most American organizations. They take time to create buying, which then allows them to implement decisions much faster after a decision is made. They also tend to favor the development of long term relationships and strategies over short-term gain. In his book, Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Management Challenge (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publication Company, 1981), William Ouchi noted the following characteristics of Japanese organizations: lifetime employment (this has become difficult for many Japanese companies in recent years), slow employee evaluation and promotion, no specialized career paths, implicit control mechanisms, collective decision making, collective responsibility, and holistic concern for the employee as a person. To learn more about this approach to management, pick up a copy of
Ouchi’s book, or visit the Japanese Management Today web site at www.apmforum.com/japan/jmt.htm.

Communication

Proper communication is essential for the organization. When a message is conveyed to the layman it should be conveyed in a language he understands and simple in such a way that the layman is able to visualize what you aim to do. There are various levels of communication. Communication between employee and manager, manager and higher officials, employee and employee and etc.

Communication is the lifeblood of every organization. Information is power, and, as the speed of business continues to accelerate, information—the right information—must be communicated to employees faster than ever. Constant change and increasing turbulence in the business environment necessitate more communication, not less—information that helps employees better do their jobs, information on changes that can impact their jobs, and information on opportunities and needs within the organization. Master these new functions of management, and you’ll find that your employees will respond with increased engagement in their work, improved morale and loyalty, and enhanced productivity. The result is better products and services, happier customers, and a more favorable bottom line. Aren’t these all things that you would like to see?

Energize Empower Support

The other things important apart from leading and controlling are energize,empower and support. These are like the roof for a home. We will be able to live without roof during nights but during day time its difficult to live without the roofs. This helps the management process run smoothly.

Energize: Today’s managers are masters of making things happen.
The best managers create far more energy than they consume. Successful managers create compelling visions—visions that inspire employees to bring out their very best performance—and they encourage their employees to act on these visions.

Empower: Empowering employees doesn’t mean that you stop managing. Empowering employees means giving them the tools and the authority to do great work. Effective management is the leveraging of the efforts of your team to a common purpose. When you let your employees do their jobs, you unleash their creativity and commitment.

Support: Today’s managers need to be coaches, counselors, and colleagues instead of watchdogs or executioners. The key to developing a supportive environment is the establishment of a climate of open communication throughout the organization. Employees must be able to express their concerns—truthfully and completely—without fear of retribution. Similarly, employees must be able to make honest mistakes and be encouraged to learn from those mistakes.