Practical Business Improvements

23/01/2025

We are now officially a member of NEAA! 🙌🏻

We are pleased to welcome Practical Business Improvements as a new who specialise in delivering Business Agility through understanding and implementing Lean and Agile Ways of Working.

Find put more at: https://northeastautomotivealliance.com/directory/practical-business-improvements-ltd/

24/11/2022

***3 Simple tricks for driving change in your workplace, no matter your role***
In our experience, too many people think that the president—or your CEO, organization head, or university president—is the instigator of change, the champion of reform, and the catalyst of new initiatives. That happens sometimes, sure, but we’ve seen just as many occasions when the instigator of massive change is an everyday employee who takes matters into her own hands.
Here are three tried-and-true bureaucracy-hacking strategies that can be used in any organization by any employee to get things done.
PLAY THE NEWBIE CARD
Once you’ve been at a job for a while, the window to ask basic questions closes. One of the best opportunities you have for shadowing processes, visiting other teams, and getting to ask questions that can unlock significant opportunities is by playing the “newbie” card.
Show genuine interest. Asking questions is part of building a relationship and solving problems; it’s not a dry academic exercise. Make eye contact, ask follow‐ups, and try to take notes in a way that still allows for real conversation.
Don’t ignore your inner questioner. Maybe you’ve been in your role awhile, and you have a question you’re hesitating to ask anyone because you think you should already know the answer. Resist the urge to ignore it and find a way to find out— even if you have to enlist a new person or an outside consultant to ask for you.
Ask questions on behalf of others. Earn trust and build relationships by playing your newbie card for others, who may feel they have been at the organization too long to ask without embarrassment.
DON’T MAKE A LAUNDRY LIST OF PROBLEMS
It’s so tempting to make lists of everything that’s wrong in your environment. This can be especially true when you’re new, and you believe that you are the first person to discover inefficiencies, gaps, and other issues. But lists of problems without context, and especially without practical proposed solutions, can cause much more harm than good.
What can you do when you start tracking a list of issues in your head? Write them down, you probably can’t solve all, or even most, of the challenges you’ve identified, but you can pick one or two to start working on.
SHARE CREDIT
Making someone else’s boss look good might sound contrarian. Shouldn’t you be making your own boss look good? Or yourself? Yes— and one way to do that is by giving credit to other people. Ask yourself: Do I care more about being the only person to get credit, or do I care more about my initiative being successful and having an impact?
In the end, bureaucracies are about people working together to achieve outcomes. If you want to build authentic allies, you’ll want people to see you as part of a successful team—and not as a lone wolf. Give credit liberally.

22/11/2022

***3 Surprising qualities of exceptional leaders***
We tend to think of great leaders as especially charismatic or inspirational. They’re the smartest person in the room and the captain sailing the ship.
However, there is another type of leadership that many find surprising and that creates the most exceptional results when applied within a company.
The irony is that we don’t often hear about these leaders; they aren’t in the limelight. They’re the ordinary person in the background . . . quietly, modestly, and unwaveringly steering the ship toward exceptional results.

So, what are the qualities possessed by these exceptional and rare leaders?

They are ordinary, accessible, and humble

The remarkable thing about these leaders is that they seem unremarkable. They might seem shy, introverted, even a bit awkward and this can work to their advantage, as people can relate to them, and they are not trying to be heroic but don’t be fooled: They are ordinary people producing extraordinary results.
Where a “hero leader” may derive satisfaction from taking the credit for results because it feeds into their self-image, an exceptional leader will always share the credit with others first when the team is winning. This humility contributes to team bonding and makes them more likely to achieve excellent results.
They are focused on the success of the company, not the self
They are focused on the “we,” not the “me.” Exceptional leaders are people with conviction who are passionate about the mission of the company they work for and the job they are there to carry out. Passion is contagious, and your employees are more likely to be inspired to achieve goals if they can feel your passion and see the bigger picture.
Because they also are focused on the company (rather than protecting their own position), they focus on creating new leaders, which is essential for the long-term success of the company.

They are focused and disciplined

Exceptional leaders have a ferocious resolve to do what needs to be done and to produce the best long-term results, they are constantly looking for ways to get better. Rather than settling for the status quo, they are always looking to improve.
This leads into how these leaders manage their teams: They are experts at putting the right people in the right roles because understanding where others might succeed is crucial to the success of the company.
Being around an exceptional leader encourages each team member to step outside of their comfort zone and do more than they thought possible. Therein lies the magic of the exceptional leader. They realise that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or of any one individual.

15/11/2022

***Top 7 Productivity Tools to Increase Efficiency in Your Business***

It’s no secret that the biggest hindrance to business productivity is constant email interruptions.
Just as you’re getting into the flow of completing a task or project, you hear a *ping* sound, letting you know a new email has landed in your inbox. Can you resist the urge to check it right away? Of course not.
The problem is that once your focus is interrupted, it takes a long time to get back into the groove of what you were doing prior to the interruption.
Top 7 productivity tools to increase efficiency in your business
1. SaneBox
SaneBox is a clever tool that discerns how important an email is before it ever hits your inbox. It pushes messages it deems as not important into dedicated folders so that you don’t get interrupted while you’re working. This way, only critical messages appear in your inbox. The rest can be checked at a time more suitable for you, without interrupting your workday.
2. Mailbird
Mailbird is only available to use on Windows. This email tool allows you to connect multiple email accounts and streamline everything into a single feed. It’s a handy tool if you have a number of different email addresses to check each day and would like to be able to see everything in one place.
3. Hiri
If you a Microsoft email user? Hiri gives you the ability to filter messages based on whether you need to respond to them, or if you can look at them at a more convenient time. You can also turn emails into tasks if you need to take action on them.
4. eM Client
If your work requires you to write in several languages throughout the day and you aren’t completely fluent in every language, eM Client could be the email productivity tool for you. This tool includes built-in language translation features – perfect for those who are bi-lingual.
5. Drag
Drag is an interesting email management tool that turns your Gmail emails into cards – not unlike Trello. You can move them around the dashboard to track their status. Drag allows you to make columns for placing each email.
6. Active Inbox
Active Inbox is an email productivity tool that allows you to turn your emails into ‘tasks’. With Active Inbox you can set deadlines on your emails. That way if you don’t want to respond to an email right away, the deadline will remind you to respond by a certain time so that you don’t forget about it.
7. Boomerang
Boomerang is another email management tool available exclusively on Gmail. It tracks messages you send and alerts you if a recipient doesn’t respond to your email within a specified timeframe.
With one of these handy email management tools, you can save time lost on responding to unimportant emails and ensure you and your team spend your work days focusing on income-producing activities.

10/11/2022

Happy Birthday to one of the PBI team, Ashleigh!

Ashleigh is our Accounts Administrator 🎉

But what better way to get to know her than by taking a look at some fun facts about her!😆

We wish you a very Happy Birthday Ashleigh from the whole team here at PBI!🥳

08/11/2022

***How to become a master of your time***
When you’re managing your time well, important work gets done ahead of schedule, your teammates feel like they can rely on you, and you can feel good about how you spent your time.
On the flipside, poor time management may lead to important work getting neglected in favor of urgent work, your teammates losing trust in you, and you feeling constantly stressed and regretful about the work you chose to focus your time on.
These techniques can help you shift from feeling strained to on top of your game.
1. Make a pie chart of where you ideally want to spend your time
Think about all your responsibilities and types of work you do or want to do and write them down.
Write down what percentage of your time you would ideally spend on each of those.
2. Understand where your time actually goes
Easy way to track your time is to retroactively add calendar events a few times per day with a summary of how you spent that time.
Once you’ve visualized your ideal and actual pie charts, compare them to see where you are out of sync. Seeing major inconsistencies? You’ll need to readjust how you’re spending your time to get your actual closer to your ideal.
3. Delete, defer, delegate, or diminish
When you don’t have enough time for a responsibility, there are four ways to spend less time on it: delete it, defer it, delegate it, or diminish it.
Delete it
Much of our outstanding work is less important than the work we could be doing if we just had more time.
If you consider deleting work from the perspective of what’s good for you and your company and it doesn’t feel terrible, then it’s probably the right option. It can feel scary to say no, but picking the work you won’t do is just as important as picking the work you will do.
Defer it
If you don’t have time now, but will in the future, deferring a responsibility is an excellent option. Set a reminder to complete the task on a specific date in the future.
Setting a reminder makes it easier for you to not feel stressed about the work while it’s deferred.
Delegate it
For responsibilities that still need to get done, evaluate if it can be reassigned to another teammate.
Diminish it
When you really want to own a responsibility yourself, you can find ways to reduce the time you spend on the work.
4. Choose work based on your ideal time allocation pie chart
Once you’re ready to start working, remember the principle of big rocks first: if you put small rocks (representing smaller tasks) into a jar first, the big rocks won’t fit. Start making time for the big stuff first, then work in the little things.
Proactively blocking off time on your calendar for your most important work — those big rocks — can help you get uninterrupted time to get into the flow and take control of your day.

03/11/2022

***Does your place of work benefit your wellbeing?***

Being comfortable, healthy and happy at work can sometimes fall down the priority list with so many other things going on, but its importance should not be overlooked.

Improving your wellbeing at work can be done in many ways, but having your managers and and bosses onboard can be really powerful in ensuring everyone in the workplace knows their wellbeing is valued.

At PBI, every morning during our Huddle meeting, we have a touch point which gives people the opportunity to raise any concerns or thoughts they might have, which can be really helpful (it's the small things)!

Our virtual office has been created to encourage an 'open door policy' where anyone can pop up to your desk if they need anything or just want a quick chat with a colleague.

The virtual office has also helped with feeling less isolated during WFH, due to the open plan layout and the quick conversations you can take with your colleagues.

For example, if you lose track of time and miss the beginning of a meeting, it is easy for a member of the team to wonder over to your desk and give you a little nudge!

How does your business help the wellbeing of the team?