(Time to read this Blog article is about 90 seconds) You can’t grow your business without growing your people…and growing yourself.  What skills, training, coaching and encouragement does each person on your team need to do their job better in 2017…and to be prepared to take on more responsibility or a new position in the […]

(Time to read this Blog article is about 2.5 minutes) Managing any business today is tough…and getting tougher. We’re all faced with more demanding customers, more and stronger competition, increased complexity and shrinking margins. On top of that, great staff are hard to find and keep…and that problem won’t go away any time soon. Every […]

To all our readers and fans of the Donald Cooper ‘straight talk’ Management E-Newsletter: We’re keeping up with the times.  As of December, 2016 our monthly E-Newsletter has become a Blog. It will be shorter, but more frequent and easier to read on portable devices.  Our website has also been redone to be compatible with […]

In every industry, today, there’s an urgent battle being waged for customer ‘ownership’.  The winners of this battle will achieve higher sales and profitability…and the losers will become a commodity with an uncertain future. Ultimately, customer ownership is all about creating, delivering and communicating compelling Value. Customers demand it and businesses promise it, but there’s […]

Item #1:  China is making a come-back.  China is expected to become the world’s largest economy by the year 2030. But what few people realize is that China was the world’s largest economy once before …way back in the year 1820 during the Qing Dynasty.   Item #2:  The importance of small business.   About 40% of […]

One of the biggest problems in most businesses today is the failure to deal with non-performance.  They’re wasting good money on non-performers or downright toxic employees…and it’s killing them.  So, here’s a simple approach to dealing with this important problem. Everyone on your team is either part of your value or part of your problem.  […]

When working to ‘fix’ their business, many managers address the symptoms rather than dealing with the real issues. And then they wonder why the problem persists. To use a medical analogy, ‘high blood pressure’ is a symptom.  To fix it, we must address the real causes which are likely too much salt, smoking, not drinking […]

The real battle in business today is the battle to attract, engage and retain ‘talent’.  So, understanding what employees want most from their boss will be helpful. According to a recent survey by CIPD, a British HR Association, the following 10 ‘boss behaviors’ are most important. They’re listed in order of importance.  Rate your performance […]

Managing any business or department sometimes calls for making tough decisions.  Some of the toughest are about what and who to ‘let go of’. So, what and who do you need to ‘let go of’ to make 2017 your best year ever?   The list could include… Products or services that are out-of-date, losing you money, […]

How we think about our business and ourselves has a lot to do with how far we go. I was reminded of this recently while speaking at the Annual Conference of a large automotive repair franchise.   To make a decent living in that industry, a ‘garage’ needs to do at least a half million […]