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If You Want To Work For a Start-Up

At a macro level, it might seem that this might not matter much for many job roles and employees in a start-up or a very large company. Other than some obvious differences, such as infrastructure or brand name, the core job might remain the same.

For example: The size of the company might not make much of a difference to a software developer who only wants to write good code as a job. But that would be wrong. The first and most important aspect is to recognize that working in a start-up is not the same as working in an established or stable company. When people are looking for jobs, they are apt to take up anything that seems decent and is willing to pay what they want. Hence, it is necessary for every candidate to know that a start-up is different.

Resources and how to use them: Usually, a start-up has limited resources and, more so, financial resources. It is the most important point that a candidate or employee should know. This does not imply that a start-up might be unable to pay salaries or might not pay them on time. It only means that a start-up needs to be thriftyin other words, first earn, then spend.

Company and business model/ idea: All candidates should understand that a start-up is about building a business model/ idea and a company from scratch. There would be a lot of issues and problems coming up on the journey. Any person who likes building things and being part of a process would always be a better match than someone who does not. Every candidate should recognize that and be ready for it.

Infrastructure vs the idea: In a start-up, more focus and resources go towards building the business model than the office infrastructure. An employee would love to have the best infrastructure possible to work in but, for a start-up, it might be some time before that happens.

Multitasking: More often than not, a start-up wants its employees to multitask across roles and skill sets. Its main aim is always to get the maximum done with the minimum resources. For business models which are manpower-centric, asking employees to stretch themselves across different jobs comes naturally.

Social status: Whichever company you work for usually enjoys a social status and generally, the bigger the company, the better it is supposed to be. Working for a start-up of which nobody has heard will not give you that.

Love your work/ work hard: Nothing is achieved without hard work and if the start-up is to succeed, then everybody has to work very hard. Another way you can put this is that, in professional life, there are two kinds of people: those who love to work, to work on great things and want to do very well in their career; and those who work only because it brings them money and would love to be on vacation all their lives, if they had the money. At the same time, both types might be equally talented and skilled in some field or the other.

If you belong in the second category, then a start-up is not meant for you. It is meant for people who genuinely enjoy working and who take time off only when they get tired.

Risk: A start-up is erected on many fundamental risks, such as whether the business model will work or not; whether the entrepreneurs will do a good job of it. Speaking honestly, every employee has to be ready to take his part in the risk: it might work, it might not. If you are the kind of person who does not like to take any kind of risk in life, then again, a start-up is not meant for you.

Desire to learn: A start-up can teach a person a lot of things which big companies cannot. This is due to the fact that there is always a lot of work available to anybody who is interested and to the fact that there is usually a large amount of work to be done by a small number of people. This is one of the strongest advantages of working in a start-up. So, if you are a person for whom learning new things and skill is important, then a start-up is definitely the place for you.

Culture: One of the outstanding features of a start-up is its free, apolitical, non-bureaucratic culture. It is also one of its biggest strengths. It enables employees to focus on the core value they are building and nothing else. Such a culture is always the best for personal growth and learning.

Opportunity: In most cases, a start-up opens up a lot of opportunities for employees who perform and who have been instrumental in the growth of the company. Especially, when the start-up begins to grow into a larger company.

Every employee who is working in a start-up or who is going to join a start-up should spend some time with the entrepreneurs to get to know them, the reason they launched the start-up and where they intend to take it. An employee should like the person on the other side and have confidence in the entrepreneurs ability to build a big and happy company out of the start-up. Know more about startups and related matters only at the University Canada West, the prominent university in Canada offering various business and management related programs. 

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#lsbf #team #building #fun in #management #development with @sailorslounge @giorgiagiacobone, @jng19

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How Are Problems, Types of Decisions, and Organisational Level Integrated

The types of problems, decisions, and level in the organisation are all interrelated. For example, structured problems are responded to with programmed decision making. Unstructured problems require nonprogrammed decision making. Lower-level managers essentially confront familiar and repetitive problems; therefore, they most typically rely on programmed decisions such as standard operating procedures.

The problems confronting managers are likely to become less structured as they move up the organisational hierarchy. Because lower-level managers handle the routine decisions themselves and pass upward only decisions that they find unique or difficult. Similarly, managers pass down routine decisions to their employees in order to spend their time on more problematic issues.

Managerial decisions in the real world can either be fully programmed or fully nonprogrammed. However, most decisions fall somewhere in between. Few programmed decisions eliminate individual judgment completely. At the other extreme, even the most unusual situation requiring a nonprogrammed decision often can be helped by programmed routines.

Organisational efficiency is facilitated by programmed decision making a fact that may explain its wide popularity. Whenever possible, management decisions are likely to be programmed. Obviously, this approach isn’t too realistic at the top of the organisation, because most of the problems that top-level managers confront are of a nonrecurring nature. However, the necessity to control costs and other variables motivate them to create policies, standard operating procedures, and rules to guide other lower-level managers.

Programmed decisions minimise the need for managers to exercise discretion. This factor is important because discretion costs money. The more nonprogrammed decision making a manager is required to do, the greater the judgment needed. Because sound judgment is an uncommon quality, it costs more to acquire the services of managers who possess it.

What types of Decision-Making Conditions are faced by Managers?

When making decisions, managers may face three different conditions: certainty, risk, and uncertainty. Let’s look at the characteristics of each.  The ideal situation for making decisions is one of certainty, which is a situation where a manager can make accurate decisions because the outcome of every alternative is known.

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Programmed and nonprogrammed decision making

There are certain procedures, rules and policies of programmed decision making process.Procedures A procedure is defined as a series of interrelated sequential steps that can be used by a manager while responding to a well-structured problem. The only real difficulty is identifying the problem. Once the problem is clear, so is the procedure. For instance, a purchasing manager receives a request from computing services for licensing arrangements to install 250 copies of Norton Antivirus Software. The purchasing manager knows that a definite procedure is in place for handling this decision. Has the requisition been properly filled out and approved? If not, he can send the requisition back with a note explaining what is deficient. If the request is complete, the approximate costs are estimated. The decision making process is merely the execution of a simple series of sequential steps. Rules Rules are explicit statements that tell a manager what he or she ought or ought not to do. Rules are frequently used by managers who confront a structured problem because they’re simple to follow and ensure consistency. Rules can simplify the manager’s decision about company. Policies A third guide for making programmed decisions is a policy. It provides guidelines to channel a manager’s thinking in a specific direction. The statement that “we promote from within, whenever possible” is an example of a policy. In contrast to a rule, a policy establishes parameters for the decision maker rather than specifically stating what should or should not be done. It’s at this point that one’s ethical standards will come into play. As an analogy, think of the Ten Commandments as rules and the U.S. Constitution as policy. The latter requires judgment and interpretation; the former do not. Nonprogrammed decision making Examples of nonprogrammed decisions include deciding whether to acquire another organisation, deciding which global markets offer the most potential, or deciding whether to sell off an unprofitable division. Such decisions are unique and nonrecurring. When a manager confronts an unstructured problem, no cut-and-dried solution is available. A custom-made, nonprogrammed response is required. The creation of a new organisational strategy is a nonprogrammed decision. This decision is different from previous organisational decisions because the issue is new; a different set of environmental factors exists, and other conditions have changed. For example, Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos’s strategy to “get big fast” helped the company grow tremendously. But this strategy resulted in perennial financial losses. To turn a profit, Bezos made decisions regarding “sorting orders, anticipating demand, more efficient shipping, foreign partnerships, and opening a marketplace allowing other sellers to sell their books at Amazon.” As a result, for the first time, Amazon was able to achieve profit target

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Multicultural Leader’s Role

The increased number of variables including political, economic and cultural in the context of the managerial job abroad requires astute leadership. The multicultural leader’s role thus blends leadership, communication, motivational, and other managerial skills within unique and ever-changing environments. Leaders should have:

Leadership experience and technical knowledge

Cultural adaptability

Clarity of information available in host area

Level of authority and autonomy

Level of cooperation among partners, government, and employees.

The Job Context:

Host professional contacts, and community relations

Level of authority granted to leader

Physical location and local resource availability

Organisational structure, scope of internationalisation, technology, etc.

Business environment: social-cultural, political-economic, level of risk

Systems of staffing, coordination, reward system and decision making, locally and in home office.

The impact of E-Business on Leadership

Technology is becoming increasingly pervasive in its ability to influence the global leader’s role and environment and will, perhaps, contribute to a lessening of the differences in motivation and leadership around the world. More and more often, companies such as Italtel S.p.A. are using technology such as the Intranet to share knowledge and product information throughout their global operations. In the case of Italtel, this required wide delegation and empowerment of their employees so that they could decentralise.

Individual managers are realising that the Internet is changing their leadership styles and interactions with employees, as well as their strategic leadership of their organisations. They have to adapt to the hyperspeed environment of e-business, as well as to the need for visionary leadership in a whole new set of competitive industry dynamics.

Numerous leadership theories focus in various ways on individual traits, leader behavior, interaction patterns, role relationships, influence over followers, influence on task goals and influence on organisational culture.

It is important to understand how the variable of societal culture fits into these theories and what implications can be drawn for international managers as they seek to provide leadership around the world. Although leadership is a universal phenomenon, what makes effective leadership varies across cultures.

The generally accepted image that people in different countries have about what they expect and admire in their leaders tends to become a norm over time, forming an idealised role for these leaders. Industry leaders in France and Italy are highly regarded for their social prominence and political power. In some countries, leaders are respected as total persons and leaders in society, with appreciation for the arts being important.

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Importance of Relationship Building in Negotiation Process

An important stage of negotiation process is relationship building. In most parts of the world, this stage usually has already taken place or is concurrent with other preparations. The process of getting to know one’s contacts in a host country and building mutual trust before embarking on business discussions and transactions is known as Relationship building. This process is regarded with much more significance in most parts of the world than in the U.S. U.S. negotiators are, generally speaking, objective about the specific matter at hand and usually want to waste no time in getting down to business and making progress.

This approach, well understood in the United States, can be disastrous if the foreign negotiators want to take enough time to build trust and respect as a basis for negotiating contracts. In such cases, American efficiency interferes with the patient development of a mutually trusting relationship. Relationship building is the very cornerstone of an Asian business agreement. Nontask Sounding In many countries, such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and China, personal commitments to individuals, rather than the legal system, form the basis for the enforcement of contracts. Effective negotiators allow plenty of time in their schedules for such relationship building with bargaining partners. This process usually takes the form of social events, tours, and ceremonies, along with much nontask sounding—general, polite conversation and informal communication before meetings—while all parties get to know one another. In such cultures, one patiently waits for the other party to start actual business negotiations, aware that relationship building is, in fact, the first phase of negotiations. It is usually recommended that managers new to such scenarios use an intermediary—someone who already has the trust and respect of the foreign managers and who therefore acts as a “relationship bridge.” People in Middle East countries prefer to negotiate through a trusted intermediary, and for them as well, initial meetings are only for the purpose of getting acquainted. Arabs do business with the person, not the company, and therefore mutual trust must be established. As a bridge to the more formal stages of negotiations, relationship building is followed by posturing, that is, general discussion that sets the tone for the meetings. This phase should result in a spirit of cooperation. To help ensure this result, negotiators should use words like “respect” and “mutual benefit” rather than language that would suggest arrogance, superiority or urgency.

[winzmot-blog]

LSBF ACCA: P7 Advanced Audit & Assurance with Paul Merison

Paul is LSBF’S director of ACCA studies, with over 17 years of experience. He was named Accountancy Lecturer of the Year at the 2013 PQ Awards. In this video, Paul will take you through a topic summary, past exam questions and exam tips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hdMrQ1RYR4

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LSBF ACCA: P4 Advanced Financial Management with Frederick Aikon

ACCA accredited, Frederick is a seasoned tutor, with an enviable academic record. In this video, Frederick will take you through a topic summary, past exam questions and exam tips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc2Blnl9-TM