Crisis management means staying vigilant against potential threats A man in the United Kingdom is the 11th reported patient to be suffering from a new “SARS-like” virus and health officials are trying to determine if the virus is being passed from person to person. The virus was first reported in September when a Qatari man …

Did Carnival learn anything from a similar 2010 incident? As passengers stranded on Carnival Cruise’s Triumph share stories of disgusting conditions, including cabin carpets soaked with water and urine, overflowing toilets, sewage leaking down walls and four-hour lines for hot food, one has to wonder just how seriously Carnival takes its crisis management planning. The …

Part 1 of this series is What Do Consultants Do?, which defines a consultant (as Peter Block puts it) as someone who is trying to change another person, process or organization, but who has no direct control over what they are trying to change. That post also listed numerous roles that a consultant might play …

Ever notice how a new employee’s enthusiasm eventually wears off? In 85% of companies, employees’ morale significantly drops off after their first six months on the job, according to a survey from Harvard Management Update. For the most part, employee engagement is determined by work environment, and it can be fostered or hindered by you—the …

Not All of a Development Officer’s Knowledge is Portable The following is an excerpt from a listserve discussion regarding the ethics of donor confidentiality: I can’t imagine someone saying, while they’re being interviewed for a development position, “Well, I know Mr./Ms. Gotbucks, but I can’t make the initial contact with him/her if you hire me …

I know, I know, everyone else in your organization creates bullet pointed slides, complete with facts and numbers, or long lists of actions, reasons or steps. So why shouldn’t you? Well, one reason is that most of us will end up reading each bullet. Good, bad or indifferent, if it is on the slide we …

he 2013 talent management predictions indicate that we have a storm ahead. Finding and keeping the right talent is going to continue to prove a challenge for organizations. It is further predicted that the old antiquated systems of talent management do not work. If you are working in an organization with talent in almost in any role, you are mostly like already aware that these systems do not work. And with the increase in talent management software solutions flooding the market, it is also likely that you have lived through a revision in your talent management practices in recent years.

I remember, as a child, dutifully memorizing the life-cycles of frogs and butterflies. Now as an evaluator, I find myself participating in a work-related life-cycle of sorts too, though no need of painstaking memorization here: Evaluation Planning –>Negotiating the plan –> Conducting the evaluation (negotiating this) –>Reporting –>Planning of future evaluations…–>(and the cycle continues) While …

In my last post (on Dec. 6) I outlined the first four sections to be included in a grant proposal to a private or corporate foundation: the Cover Letter, Executive Summary, Contact Information, and General Organization Overview. This month’s post will continue with the three additional sections to include in these grant proposals: Program Description …

Consulting Foundations: What Do Consultants Do? Part 1 Peter Block, in his seminal book, Flawless Consulting, explains that a “consultant” is someone who is trying to change another person, process, or organization, but who has no direct control over what they are trying to change. Usually, that change is intended to improve performance – the …