Jenazah-jenazah yang Tidak Membusuk
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Percaya atau tidak, ini benar-benar ada dan merupakan fakta. Kondisi jenazah-jenazah pada foto di bawah ini berlawanan dengan hukum alam. Teka-teki bagaimana...
I grew up on a farm, moved to the big city, if there is such a thing in Nebraska, only to come home and marry the farmer 13 miles up the road from where I grew up. I know a thing or to about cultivating. To the non-agriculture readers cultivate on the farm means to go out into the field and run a machine through it to remove all the weeds and debris from the corn rows. This allows the corn to get all the nutrients that it needs to grow, so that when harvest comes around we have the best yield we can get.
Today was a cultivating day. My office was so stacked with crap, I could barely find the keyboard. I finally had to sit down and clear it out so that I could focus on the work that needed to be done.
Then I proceeded to look out the office door only to realize that the rest of the house was nearly as bad. I needed a machete to cut through the clutter just to find the kids.
Once the house was clean I noticed my 3 kids needed some extra tending so I shut off the phone and heaven forbid hit the power button on the computer. We played some games and even watched a movie.
Then I laid down for a long over due nap.
Work at home moms and dads need to take some time to cultivate something other than their work if they plan to be productive. Going 9 - 0 on the business, the house and the kids all at the same time will eventually take over your productivity. Your focus will be come skewed and you will begin to work more with less output. I bet that the moms and dads that are reading this can relate to these words.
We need to be reminded to stand back and cultivate the important things in life every so often and you will see a greater yield. Do you need to cultivate today?
Managers talk with the people on their teams every day. Whatever the topic, most of these conversations happen with no stress, little anxiety, and minimal tension. But when the conversation is about an employee’s performance, anxieties often abound. Here are four ways to reduce the tension and defensiveness that too often surround performance evaluations.
1. Don’t wait for the meeting to deliver the performance appraisal form.
I worked for large corporations for fifteen years before beginning my consulting career. Every one of those companies — GE, United Airlines, PepsiCo — took performance appraisal very seriously. And my bosses at those companies also took their responsibilities for performance evaluation seriously as well. But all of my bosses kicked off the appraisal discussion in a way that was guaranteed to get it off to a bad start. How did they begin? They set up the time for the meeting and then waited until I was sitting across the desk to hand me their completed appraisal form.
At the start of the meeting my boss would give me his appraisal form and I would engage all of my speed-reading skills, whipping through the document as fast as I could to see what he had said about my performance. While I was reading the evaluation (and probably missing some key points in my haste to take everything in) my boss would be behind his desk, pretending to work, but in truth trying to gauge how I was reacting to the evaluation he had written.
What a terrible way to begin! Don’t wait until the meeting starts to give the employee your performance appraisal document. It’s far more effective to go up to the employee an hour or so in advance of the meeting, and say something like this: “Mary, you know we’re getting together at two o’clock to go over your performance appraisal. Here it is. Why don’t you take some time between now and then to review it? Read it carefully and jot down any questions that you’d like to ask.”
Giving the person the appraisal to review in advance of the meeting can lessen defensiveness. It allows her time to think about what you’ve written and prevents spur-of-the-moment reactions. You’ll usually find that giving the person a chance to read what you’ve written in advance produces much more effective business discussions.
2. Set a time frame (and give yourself an extra fifteen minutes).
Your discussion of a person’s performance evaluation may be one of the most important interactions you'll ever have with that individual; make sure you’ve allowed enough time. In most cases, an hour should be sufficient to review the appraisal document itself as well as discuss many of the other subjects that often pop up during performance reviews — development activities, career plans, and future goals and projects. Make certain that the very next activity you’ve scheduled after finishing the review isn't one that must begin at a set time. If you provide yourself with a little flexibility at the end, you can take the time to wrap up the discussion comfortably.
3. Don’t start by discussing the form itself.
Yes, the form is important, but the form simply serves as the formal record of your assessment of how well the individual has done over the past year. Rather than beginning with the first entry on the appraisal form and moving lockstep through the document item-by-item, it’s more effective to start by asking a general question that requires the employee’s thoughtful consideration: “Tim, you’ve had a chance to read the appraisal. Why don’t you start by telling me how you feel the past year has gone?” Then listen as the individual responds and continue the discussion from there.
4. Don’t fixate on getting the employee to agree with your performance appraisal.
One of the most common questions managers ask me during training sessions involves how they can gain an employee’s agreement with what they’ve written in the performance appraisal, particularly when what they’ve written isn't entirely favorable. “Don’t try!” is my advice to them.
What is a performance appraisal? It is a formal record of the supervisor’s opinion of the quality of the employee’s work. Pay attention to the key phrase, “. . . the supervisor’s opinion . . .”
Of course the employee is going to have a different opinion — all of us believe we’re above average. The goal in the performance review discussion is not to gain the employee’s agreement, although it is nice if that happens, the goal is to gain the employee’s understanding. As long as the employee understands how you came up with the evaluation, you’ve done your job. Of course, he may disagree (particularly if you’ve set the bar high and have tough, demanding standards). But don’t waste time trying to convince a person that you’re right and she’s wrong. The important thing is that she understands your expectations and how her performance was assessed.
There’s a lot more to conducting good appraisal discussions, of course. But these four tips should make a tough job just a little bit easier.
We all pretty much know that Ebay is this Internet phenomenon that is making billions of dollars by hosting online auctions. Basically, people post things they want to sell and buyers browse the site for the things they want to purchase. Eventually, buyers and sellers meet up and the bidding process begins. But, the Ebay business website is also a place where drop shippers come to unload their wares as well.
Drop Shipping Basics
The term has started to catch on in the mainstream but there are still a lot of people out there that don't know exactly what drop shipping actually is. Basically, drop shipping is sales. Let's say that company A sells product X. Now company A does not sell directly to the public but you can buy their products at stores around the country.
But stores, like the Ebay business machine, operate to make a profit. Therefore, they must charge more than they paid for the product in order to make their profit. So, they either buy the product X directly from the manufacturer or from a distributor at wholesale price and then turn around and sell the product at retail price. The difference between those two prices is their profit.
In drop shipping, you become the retailer. The interesting thing about drop shipping is you do not need a store or even an inventory to sell your products. With the help of the Ebay business machine, you actually don't even need a website either.
Drop Shipping Mechanics
So how exactly does drop shipping work? First of all, you find a wholesaler that is selling products you are interested in reselling to the public. After setting up an account with them, they send you product descriptions of all their products or at least those you are interested in selling. If you do not have a website, you can post these product descriptions on the Ebay business website.
When a customer decides to buy one of your great products, they place an order and send their payment (including shipping costs) to you via credit card. You pass this order along to the wholesaler along with your payment.
The great thing about being a drop shipper is that this is where your involvement ends! The wholesaler then processes the order and then ships the product directly to your customer-but with your company name on the packaging! The customer never knows that they are actually receiving the product from a wholesaler and you are pocketing the difference between the wholesale and retail price! Could it possibly be any simpler?
By using Ebay to advertise your products and benefiting from their incredible traffic flow, you are really reaping the whirlwind at almost no cost and with very little effort. And since retail price is roughly double that of wholesale, just imagine the profits you can make drop shipping! No store to maintain, no inventory to worry about, and no large investment of money-this, friends, is the miracle of drop shipping and why it is definitely the future! There are literally thousands of companies looking for people to sell their products so there are opportunities everywhere right now! By using Ebay, you could literally be selling products within a day and making huge profits so don't delay-start your drop shipping business today!
Every year tens of thousands of people strike out on their own with a vision of starting a successful business. They have the idea, they've got the plan…all they need now is to take the actions to turn their dream into reality.
It is at this point that many a budding entrepreneur comes unstuck. No matter how hard they try, failure seems to greet them at every turn. Of course, all seasoned entrepreneurs know that it takes a hell of a lot of determination and guile to keep on driving forward in the face of adversity. It also takes some know-how…practical knowledge that stacks the odds of success in their favor.
Getting to grips with Joint Ventures
One of the best routes to business success for entrepreneurs is establishing joint ventures. The right joint venture partner can help kick-start a business and get the all-important cash flowing in. What's more, setting up a joint venture does not require a financial outlay on the part of the entrepreneur either.
So, what could a joint venture partner bring to your business? They could bring expertise, a ready-made customer database, manpower, equipment and access to foreign markets. The right joint venture partner could even run your operation for you in return for a share of the profits generated, or provide financing in exchange for equity share. The possibilities are endless!
Finding Joint Venture Partners
Historically, locating joint venture partners to work with tends to be a drawn-out process. First off you must advertise your requirements and then conduct interviews to find the right type of candidate who fits with your needs and company ethos.
Today, thankfully, there is an easier way. Joint venture search companies, such as www.jvbase.com provide entrepreneurs with quick access to joint venture partners.
These types of joint venture search facilities screen potential joint venture partners, manually matching them up with your requirements. They remove a lot of the hassles that are traditionally associated with finding joint venture partners, so leaving you free to concentrate on the more important aspects of moving your business forward.
If you have a business idea and have the determination to make it work, no matter what obstacles stand in your way, get together with a joint venture partner. By doing so, you could find yourself on the fast track to success.
Revenue is down. Sales are slowing. The CEO looks up from the business plan and realizes that the company won’t meet analysts’ expectations. Focusing on the organization’s sales leader, the stage is set for sacrificing a scapegoat.
Upon who else should the axe fall when the sales organization misses revenue targets? After all, aren’t sales and revenue the responsibility of the sales leader? The answer may be as easily forgotten as it is obvious.
To one degree or another everyone in an organization impacts the revenue generating process. The strategic plan of the board of directors and the CEO provides the overall strategy for revenue generation. The marketing department provides crucial demographic and psychographic customer or client information on which the sales department relies in formulating industry and account strategies. Manufacturing, finance, legal, customer service and all other departments facilitate or constrain the process of generating revenue, each in their own peculiar way.
The sales organization’s influence in enterprise revenue generation is con-centrated in the sales pipeline. Identifying bona fide sales opportunities, managing those opportunities through the sales pipeline until they produce revenue, and then managing customer or client relationships are the primary responsibilities of the sales and sales management teams. Rarely, if ever, does the sales organization control the resources of manufacturing, marketing, finance, legal and customer service.
The picture most companies present to the world show the sales organization “out there,” in front of customers and clients and in front of the rest of the company’s departments. Even marketing, the first cousin of sales, is more often than not as disconnected from sales as are the other departments. The sales group leads the company charge, and the other departments take up rear support positions, providing tangible and intangible support.
Revenue generation is a cross functional, company-wide process that involves every department and all employees in the organization. The CEO and the Board of Directors set corporate strategy and everyone else in the organization executes that strategy. We have never observed a situation where the sales organization is in disarray while all the other business segments are humming along with little or no friction. In those rare cases where the failure or underperformance of an enterprise’s revenue generation process lies within the sales organization, the appropriate sales executives, managers and sales professionals should be held accountable and should suffer the requisite consequences. Before CEO’s shoot their sales teams, however, they might want to take a critical look at the entire revenue generation process and how each business segment contributes to or detracts from the success of the process. Like America’s favorite psychologist, Dr. Phil, would advise: Every department in an organization either contributes to the company’s revenue generation process or contaminates it.
Here’s a true story I’d like to share about doing the right thing—even when her job was at stake.
Her name is M. and she is an attorney who manages the legal department of an insurance company. As my coaching client I supported her through a really challenging ethical dilemma with her boss. She had finished giving her annual performance evaluations to her small team, two of whom received the highest marks. Their annual salary increments were based on these ratings.
M’s boss meanwhile was on a new track regarding performance evaluations. He felt that the trend in recent years was to for managers to be too generous. He wanted stricter accountability in certain areas and this meant lower ratings in general.
So he called her into his office one day and told her that he disagreed with one of the two highest ratings she had given. He wanted her to lower her evaluation for this individual.
M. genuinely respected her boss but felt that he was mistaken in this case. She really believed that the person to whom she had given the excellent rating deserved it. She thought it would be unfair and potentially very damaging to his morale and commitment to the job if his evaluation was lowered. So what to do?
M. had impressed me from the beginning of our coaching engagement with her deep connection to her spiritual values and how she tried to use them as guides in her work. She was nearing retirement age and was working on a Master’s degree in pastoral counseling, something she looked forward to doing at her church when her lawyer-ing days were over.
So after informing her boss that she didn’t want to change the evaluation rating of her direct report and why, he continued to pressure her to do just that. They had several conversations that didn’t create a win-win resolution.
We discussed her feelings, thoughts and options in a couple of coaching sessions. M. felt very strongly about her position and even concluded that, if push came to shove, she was willing to risk her job rather than back down on the issue. In fact, during one of our sessions, she was convinced her boss would fire her. Fortunately for her, she was in a financial position where she could take an early retirement.
Would she have taken the same strong position on her value of fairness and honesty if she was at an earlier stage of her career? What if she had a young family to support—how would that have affected her willingness to compromise with her boss? Let’s face it, circumstances do play a role in how far we are willing to go to do the right thing. I guess everyone’s conscience operates differently, so there really isn’t any one “right” moral course of action in so many of the situations we face. We take everything into account—our values, our feelings, our needs, the needs of others who rely on us –and then we make the best ethical or moral decision we can. And that’s not always easy!
In a coaching session, we worked through the steps listed in the “Tips” section below. M. decided to stick to her guns and to let the chips fall where they may. Doing so had an interesting effect on her boss. He stopped trying to persuade her to lower the evaluation. Instead, he took full responsibility for his decision by lowering the evaluation himself and telling the employee that it was his decision. He prepared M. for what he was going to do and she had time to think it over before the three of them met together. She decided that, even though she disagreed with what he was doing, she could live with it as long as the employee knew where she stood.
During the meeting her boss took the high road and made it completely clear that the lowering of the evaluation was totally his choice and he gave M. the opportunity to state her position. The consequence of this was that her relationship with the employee remained solid and M. felt good about herself for taking a stand on one of her core values. Her respect for her boss increased because of the way he handled the situation in the end. The employee wasn’t happy, but his feelings were balanced out some by the show of integrity from both superiors, she found out later.
Notice how M.’s taking the moral high road influenced both her boss and her direct report to do the same. Instead of initiating a nasty grievance process or resigning, her employee dealt with his setback in-house rather than going outside for help or leaving.
This story strongly illustrates the ripple effect of putting trust and integrity principles into practice at a high level. When one person does this, it seems to turn on a light for others, and that’s really beautiful to behold. It’s so easy to take our cues from others, after all we’re social animals. But then someone comes along who takes their cues from somewhere else, from a place deep inside and we call that special place by so many different names. So when a courageous person does this, then we are all reminded that we have that place inside too, and we start to dare to live from there once again. I want to encourage you to be that courageous person.
If you are struggling with an ethical dilemma at work, and aren’t sure how to move forward, email or call me, and I’ll be glad to discuss the situation with you.
Tips for Doing the Right Thing When Facing a Tough Ethical Choice:
* Take your time. Before making a tough ethical decision at work, take the time to identify the core value you feel is in danger of being compromised in the situation. * What are your needs? Once you identify your core value at play, clarify your needs in the situation. For instance, M. needed to act with fairness and honesty, to maintain her direct report’s high morale and commitment, and to continue her good working relationship with him. * Look for the third alternative. What are your options for getting these needs met? This can be tricky, because if strong emotions come into play, which they often do, it’s human nature to narrow down our options to one or two courses of action, usually the ones at either extreme such as giving in or getting out. There may be a third alternative you just can’t see yet for meeting your integrity needs. In M’s case, the third alternative presented itself after she drew her line in the sand. I’ve seen that happen a lot. When you take a strong stand, the other person stops trying to change your thinking and changes their own instead. * Wait and see. Sometimes, if possible, doing nothing is the best response to pressure to do something that feels unethical or against your conscience. The person applying the pressure just stops after a while, often because they regained their emotional balance.
Find out if discount merchant account services are available for your company by browsing Websites of potential lenders. By checking application guidelines, you will soon see whether you quality, and if so, how to apply and enhance your chances of being approved for this account. Getting a merchant account makes you eligible to accept credit card payments. Think of how greatly your sales volume could increase when you allow customers to pay with credit instead of insisting on cash or checks. They will love you for providing this option, and your sales volume could quickly skyrocket when happy customers come to visit with plastic in hand.
A discount merchant account lets you provide credit payment options at one low price. For example, after paying a possible application and setup fee of perhaps $100, you may be charged just $19.95 per month for the options of accepting credit card and debit payments as well as e-check processing and related services. You have to be careful when shopping for a merchant account, as there may be all kinds of hidden fees that are not listed on the home page. Instead, these may be buried in fine print or posted on a distant link from the home page. You need to find out in advance what the costs will be and how you will be expected to pay them. For example, ask about an online application fee, a membership fee, and a setup fee, among others, if you don’t see these posted. Some services will tell you that what you see is what you get. In other words, if you don’t see a certain fee in the price list, it doesn’t exist and cannot be added later. Even if you accept a merchant account under certain conditions the first year, during the second year your fees could change, so ask about the long view as well.
Applying for a discount merchant account must be undertaken with caution. Something that sounds too good to be true probably is just that. Look for a lender’s name you can trust along with a reputation built on values like integrity and respect. Avoid companies that you are unfamiliar with, as there are many fly-by-night entities looking to make a fast buck. Get the contract in writing, and make sure you read it all before signing up. Ask for clarification of any terms or conditions you do not understand. All too often, an unwary entrepreneur may end up in dire straits when a seemingly lucrative merchant account becomes a sinkhole.
Don’t rush out and buy all types of credit processing equipment when your merchant account is approved. First, make a business budget that includes a category for growth and marketing. Then look for the right kind of equipment that will best serve your customers’ needs. For example, you don’t have to buy every type of credit processing system available when a simple plug-in terminal will do. Keep your expenditures low while you get used to this new way of collecting payments. If all works out well, you can add more options later with your discount merchant account.
