Hey everyone, sorry for being such a bad blogger over the last few months! It’s been a while since I’ve updated this site and I wanted to fill you all in on what I’ve been up to!

I’ve been working hard to build up my personal finance blog Trees Full of Money as well as continue to work on my MBA through the University of Massachusetts. This combined with my “day job” as a captain on an offshore oil rig and my growing family, I just haven’t had time to post any great new leadership articles lately!

In the meantime, be sure to check out some of my personal finance articles including debt snowball calculator spreadsheet program and my technique of using a goodwill letter to remove late payments from your credit reports.

In particular, check out the story of how my family and I paid off a large amount of consumer debt in less than two years!

Hopefully this financial site will keep you entertained until I have the time to manage more than one website!

Last week I received a copy of Jennifer Prosek’s new leadership book Army of Entrepreneurs: Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce for Exceptional Business Growth.

Having read dozens of similarly titled leadership and management books over the last few years, the titles and respective tag lines of each new book were rapidly become more and more of a cliche’. Would I really be more competent or capable at motivating and empowering those under my leadership after reading this book? Would I really glean any practicable information that would have an immediate impact on the value our organization provides for our clients? It wasn’t long into the book that I realized that maybe, just maybe, Jennifer Prosek actually had something of value to share.

The biggest problem entrepreneurs face is they very seldom (if ever) are capable of hiring and retaining qualified personnel that share the same passion and commitment to the organization as they do.  There are many contributing factors to this problem, but Prosek keenly focuses on what she feels is the primary cause.  She feels there is a huge failure in the way most companies compensate their employees.  Empowering employees to proactively engage in the success of the company, and rewarding them appropriately for their successes (and failures), will help build an Ary of Entrepreneurs within your own organization (Prosek promises).

What’s the big secret?

The beauty behind Prosek’s principles is that they are both simple in concept and easy to implement; I’m almost ashamed of myself for not having thought of them first! With her “commission for life” compensation strategy. Any employee who lands a new client for the firm will receive 5% of all future revenues generated by the firm for that client (regardless of the employees position). By effectively aligning the employees compensation with the strategic goals of the organization, employees are encouraged and rewarded for their efforts in identifying and securing new clients.

The book is geared towards business to business (b2b) service industries (consulting firms, commercial banking, etc.) but there is also a great deal of content in this book that will enlighten almost any supervisor or manager within an organization (there are also many great case study examples).

Prosek is very passionate about the development of personnel and she clearly lays out many effective strategies for doing so. One of my favorites is her suggestions that supervisors act as a “sponsor” for an individual or group within an organization who has come up with an idea to improve the way the company does business. Employees closest to the front-line are often the ones that come up with the best ideas to improve the performance of the company. Unfortunately, these same individuals are the ones that have the hardest time getting their ideas to the people who can actually do something about the issue. As a “sponsor”, you can help push along the ideas of your subordinates to senior managers while reassuring your team that you value their ideas and contributions to the success of the organization.

This is one of the better business books I have read in a long time and I do recommend it to anyone desiring exactly what the tag-line promises…”Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce for Exceptional Business Growth”. Whether you own your own business, work in a supervisory role within a large organization, or are just starting your career in an entry level position, this book lays a very solid foundation on a proven way to motivate, empower, and retain highly skilled and competent professionals.

Few things can be more frustrating than the seemingly endless amount of meetings today’s employees are required to attend. While most of these meetings are necessary, the time spent conducting them, and the value they add to the operation, can be greatly improved.

Below are a few simple techniques I utilize to ensure meetings I conduct are as productive and efficient as possible.

1) Take Idle Discussions Off-Line: 

How many times have you been in a meeting when two people start exchanging ideas on an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with the remaining 10 people in the group? When irrelevant conversations pop up (and they always do), it is the responsibility of the discussion leader to stop them. Simply say “let’s talk about that at a more appropriate time so we can stay on track here”.

2) Capture Ideas and Action Items:

If a good idea comes up during the course of a meeting, make sure it is written down! When I conduct a meeting, I always appoint a note taker to specifically capture any ideas or action items that pop up. I like to take it a step further and assign a person responsible for the action item, and give them a time frame to take action on it.

3) Always Have an Agenda:

Never conduct a meeting unless you have a specific goal in mind. Successful meetings have a clear agenda and each agenda topic should be considered a separate goal.

As an example, let’s say you want to discuss next year’s budget with your management team. If you were to write down “discuss next year’s budget” as an agenda item, there is really no way to measure whether or not the discussion was valuable.

On the other hand, if you clearly define your reason for discussing the budget, you reinforce the importance of the meeting and you will have a better gauge whether or not the discussion was valuable. A better defined budget  agenda topic may read like this: “Ensure everyone is aware of the deadline to submit next year’s budget”.

4) Take Breaks, The Human Mind Can Only Stay Engaged for So Long:

In my experience, telling a group to take a 5 minute coffee break usually ends up costing 15 minutes of productivity by the time everyone gets back in their seats and focused on the discussion. This practice is fine for marathon meetings lasting more than an hour or two.

For shorter meetings, one of my coworkers started a tradition of showing a random 30 second video clip that was lighthearted and interesting when it seemed like the group was beginning to fade. People enjoy the brief distraction and the meeting usually continues with an improved sense of energy.

If you have any additional tips please share them in the comment form below!