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BBC News – Viewpoint: The transparent supply chain
As we are all busy clicking, collecting, shopping and dropping, how often do you spare a thought for the long journey the goods you are buying have taken to get to you?
The “supply chain” describes the journey products and materials make long before they reach the shelves.
It involves all processes from getting material or produce out of the ground, processing it into product, distributing it to customers and finally returning the product to the ground in a sustainable way.
Technology impacts each element of the supply chain from distribution to getting the product back into the ground.
Our new year bottle of champagne, for example, will involve:
- the agricultural supply chain of growing grapes
- pressing grapes
- using the grape skins to create alternative gas sources
The glass supply chain is required for the bottles. Corks, labels and the metal to hold the cork also needs to be sourced and produced.
We then need to move our bottle of champagne from vineyard to supermarket, to your home and finally once drunk the bottle may be recycled and the process continues again.
via BBC News – Viewpoint: The transparent supply chain.
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Business Magazine | Work Healthy – Managing Stress
Image by giuseppesavo via Flickr
The workplace is a stressful environment at the best of times, we’ve put together some tips that may help you get through that tough day.
We all struggle from time to time with managing our stress, but in today’s economy with high unemployment, huge corporate layoffs and bad economic news at every turn, the volume of stress has been turned up for everyone, no matter the job or walk of life.
Of course stress is a natural part of living and working, but during times like these when the pressure seems to be mounting, and we spend more and more of our days in frenzied action to cope with the difficult economic environment, our health and productivity can suffer severely. How do we get a handle on this without having to change our whole life or rethink our career? Well, the good news is the person who puts the most stress on you is also the person who can help you learn to manage it. That person is you!
via Business Magazine | Finance & Legal Magazine, Financial Corporate News.
Strange Random Stress Quote:
Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. – Chinese Proverb
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Ten Things Only Bad Managers Say – BusinessWeek
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We know the kinds of things good managers say: They say “Attaboy” or “Attagirl,” “Let me know if you run into any roadblocks, and I’ll try to get rid of them for you,” and “You’ve been killing yourself—why don’t you take off at noon on Friday?”
Bad managers don’t say these things. Helpful, encouraging, and trust-based words and phrases don’t occur to them.
Crappy bosses say completely different things. For your enjoyment, we’ve gathered together 10 of the most heinous, bad-manager warhorse sayings. Do any of them sound like something a manager in your company might say or might have said this week?
If you don’t want this job, I’ll find someone who does.
Great leaders understand that the transaction defining the employer-employee relationship—the fact that an employer pays you in cash while you cough up your value in sweat and brainwork—is the least important part of your professional relationship. Good managers realize that to get and keep great people, they have to move past the dollars-and-cents transaction and let people own their jobs. Good leaders give people latitude and let them know that their contributions have value. Lousy managers, on the other hand, love to remind employees that it’s all about the transaction: “You work for me.” They never fail to remind team members that someone else would take the job if you ever got sick of it or let the lousy manager down in some way.
I don’t pay you to think.
This is what a bad manager says when an employee offers an idea he doesn’t like. Maybe the idea threatens the inept manager’s power. Maybe it would require the lousy manager to expend a few brain cells or some political capital within the organization. Either way, “I don’t pay you to think” is the mantra of people who have no business managing teams. It screams, “Do what I tell you to do, and nothing else.” Life is way too short to spend another minute working for someone who could speak these words.
via Ten Things Only Bad Managers Say – BusinessWeek.
Strange Random Management Quote:
“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.” – Paul Hawken
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How to Look and Act Like a Leader – WSJ.com
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Savvy executives know the part, act the part and look the part. That’s because they exude “executive presence,” a broad term used to describe the aura of leadership.
For Janie Sharritt, now a vice president at Sara Lee Corp., an image makeover helped her gain the managerial gravitas that she needed to advance further up the ladder.
In 2005, Ms. Sharritt was a newly promoted middle manager for another consumer-products manufacturer. She preferred to wear a ponytail, scant makeup, khakis, sweaters and loafers. But by taking a “Power of Image” workshop led by image coach Jonna Martin, she got an expert makeover. Her revamped look included a sophisticated hairstyle, dressy slacks and jackets, pumps, colorful necklaces and extra makeup.
She thinks the changes boosted her self confidence, resulting in faster acceptance of her ideas by senior management. “In the past, [that quick buy-in] wasn’t one of the things I was known for,” says Ms. Sharritt. She joined Sara Lee four years ago.
Executives with presence act self confident, strategic, decisive and assertive, concludes a study released late last year by the Center for Work-Life Policy, a New York think tank.
via How to Look and Act Like a Leader – WSJ.com.
Strange Random Leadership Quote:
To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves! – Lao-Tsu
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