Management & Accounting

Are you a manager who has problems delegating work to employees? You are not alone. The library has many books which address this important topic. Here are a couple.

Marc Durio, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Boosting Employee Performance (chapter 19), outlines excuses that prevent managers from delegating, and looks at them in a logical light. I've paraphrased a few examples below:

"It's easier to do it myself rather than take the time to teach someone else to do it".

But if you do take the time you need to train the employee, your time will eventually be freed up to do all the other tasks you have to do.

"What if my employees fail at the task I've given them?"

There's no guarantee that you wouldn't have made mistakes as well. If you properly train, coach, and review performance, there is little likelihood of failure.

"I'll lose control over my business"

To keep on top of things, remember to check in regularly with your employee, and provide feedback.

Harvard Business Press has published a book as part of their Pocket Mentor series, entitled Delegating Work. It has a very good section about how to delegate effectively. Some of their suggestions include:

Delegate interesting work - not just tedious tasks.
Delegate entire projects, not just small parts of them. This can increase a sense of ownership and motivation and commitment.
Delegate high-visibility tasks that will allow the employee and their work to be noticed by high-level managers within your organization, thus enhancing their career prospects.

Check the Toronto Public Library's catalogue for more books like this. Many books on leadership also include sections on delegation.

About.com has a great little article called The Top 7 Steps For Effective Delegation. There are many other articles on delegation that can be linked to from this one. Take some time to read them all!

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." --General George Smith Patton, Jr

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Categories: Business & Personal Finance , Human Resources , Management & Accounting , Start and Run a Business

A Few Books About Managing Your Small Business Finances

April 23, 2012 | Margaret W. | Comments (0)

The careful day-to-day management of your small business finances is a major factor in the success of your enterprise.

As always, the Toronto Public Library has resources to help! Here are just a few of the books in the system about how to manage your finances properly:


Finance For Non-financial Managers	Financial Management 101: Get a Grip On Yor Business Numbers	Small Business Financial Management Kit For Dummies

Before you can really start setting financial goals, you need to determine where you stand financially.
- David Bach

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Categories: Business & Personal Finance , Financial Literacy , Management & Accounting , Start and Run a Business

Managing Your Cash Flow: An Enterprise Toronto Program

April 5, 2012 | Margaret W. | Comments (0)

Cash flow issues are a constant source of concern for small business owners. But help is on the way!

Enterprise Toronto is offering Managing Your Cash Flow, a program that will provide you with practical tips to deal with cash flow issues.

The program takes place on 18 April 2012 From 10:00am to 11:30am, at Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen St. West, 2nd Floor, Committee Room 4. It is offered in conjunction with TD Canada Trust.

And check out the following book on cash flow, located in the Toronto Public Library System:

Cash Flow for Dummies

Ask a librarian for other books on the subject as well.

Don't let cash flow problems get in the way of your small business success!

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Categories: Business & Personal Finance , Management & Accounting , Start and Run a Business

Shopping for a cause.

November 10, 2011 | Teresa | Comments (0)

I have always been a big fan of Coke and its iconic red can, so the recent announcement by Coke to change the color of its can to all white for a brief time (from November 1, 2011 to January 15, 2012) to help support the World Wildlife Federation's efforts to save endangered animals in the polar region, caught my eye. By buying a "white" Coke during this time I will be helping contribute to saving the polar bears!

With the Christmas season around the corner, and more shopping to be done than any other time of the year, do efforts like this influence how we shop?

A number of companies donate a portion of their sales to worthy causes. A few examples include Tom's shoes which donates a new pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair sold, Better World Books, an on-line used book site that helps find new homes for unwanted books, donating 3.3 million books to date to partner programs around the world. Their five primary literacy partners are : Books for Africa, Room to Read, Worldfund, the National Center for Family Literacy, and Invisible Children and The Body Shop, which runs a program called Community Trade, that has the Body Shop purchasing ingredients, gifts and accessories from marginalized countries - giving small entrepreneurs access to a global distribution market.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR, also called corporate conscience, corporate citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business), has become one of the benchmarks when a company is evaluated by investors and well as potential employees. If done right, it can elevate a company's profile and is good for the bottom line. If done incorrectly, it can smack of hypocrisy and insincerity.

Check out some other examples of CSR done right and wrong. Toronto Public Library has a number of books on this topic. Check out a few recent examples below:

TPL also subscribes to a periodical entitled Corporate Knights, which is devoted entirely to this topic, as well as having a number of websites bookmarked that discuss CSR.

Do you support a company that is trying to make the world a better place?

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Categories: Business & Personal Finance , Company Information , Management & Accounting , Marketing, Advertising & Public Relations

Free Help With Hiring And Keeping Staff - Through The Career Foundation

November 7, 2011 | Margaret W. | Comments (0)

I attended the Enterprise Toronto Small Business Fair a few weeks ago, and came away with some great information about services to start-ups and new businesses.

One of the most impressive services I came across was The Career Foundation's Recruitment and Training Assistance Program.

The following is a quote from their information brochure about the program's benefit to you, the employer. They include:

Having their experienced staff identify candidates with the right fit for your employment and retention success
Advertising your job opportunities anytime, anywhere on their on-line database or searching for and recruiting job ready candidates
Accessing financial incentives that offset your costs of training new employees and other services to support your training needs.

This is all free!

The Career Foundation is a "non-profit organization which partners with government agencies, private sector companies, educators and community organizations".

Check their website for eligibility requirements.

It sounds like a great opportunity for small businesses to get help with a difficult aspect of the process - hiring and keeping staff.

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Categories: Business & Personal Finance , Management & Accounting , Marketing, Advertising & Public Relations , Start and Run a Business

What do you look for in a leader?

September 8, 2011 | Teresa | Comments (0)

Three individuals have been in the news the past few weeks - each from different walks of life. Each considered outstanding leaders. I wanted to have a closer look at what qualities each possessed for people to consider them great, since the topic of leadership is one that is perhaps the most written about in management literature.

So what do we look for in a leader of an organization, be it a company, political party or a social movement? How important is a good leader to an organization? I think most will agree that a company that has a strong front line staff, is wasted, if there isn't someone there to lead them towards a common goal.

All of the below have any number of "great leader" skills, but these were the qualities that stood out for me.

Approachable personality: Recently deceased NDP leader Jack Layton had many strong attributes, but one that was frequently written about at the time of his funeral was how open and approachable he was as a politician. During the most recent campaign, he was voted the leader most Canadians would want to sit down and have a beer with. A good leader can dialogue with people on a variety of levels and make them feel like their voices are heard in the organization. Many ordinary people who came to pay their respects during the funeral spoke of how Mr. Layton's values and causes spoke to them.

Visionary: Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple, recently stepped down from his post as CEO due to health problems. A lengthy article in a recent Globe and Mail article entitled "Right up there with Edison and Ford: He may have been the best boss or the worst, but Jobs earned his place in the pantheon of great industrialists" by David Ebner (August 26, 2011, p A3) describes a man who founded 2 successful companies (Pixar the other), who had a vision of where he wanted to take Apple. He was an inventor, who personally held over 300 patents, including 85 iPod and iPod related items, and despite being accused of being a micro-manager, made stellar hiring choices and motivated his company into dominating the market. His favorite quote is of Canadian Wayne Gretzky: "I skate where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been".

Inspirational: Late August marked the 48th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. To commemorate the event, a statue of Dr. King was unveiled honoring this event and his legacy. His electrifying speech, almost 50 years after being given, still gives one goosebumps in its soaring oratory and inspirational message. It gave voice to the civil rights movement. It is still studied today in classrooms as an example of motivational speech.

Want to read up on these leaders or on leadership in general? Check out these books available at the Toronto Public Library. The system has many books on leadership.

“Leadership demands vision to see the path before us, the courage to take it and the strength to follow it.”    Dr. Jeff Turnbull, outgoing president of the Canadian Medical Association.

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Categories: Business & Personal Finance , Management & Accounting , Start and Run a Business

Toastmasters International: Not Just Another Meeting

September 5, 2011 | Margaret W. | Comments (0)

Toastmasters International, a non-profit organization, is well known for its excellent public speaking training. Less is known about the leadership skills that can be developed through Toastmasters clubs - skills from which small businesspeople can certainly benefit.

If you want to learn how to run better meetings, Toastmasters is for you. If you want to learn how to deliver constructive criticism, Toastmasters is the place to do it! If you are interested in learning firsthand how to motivate people to push their limits and do their best, Toastmasters is for you too.

How is this accomplished?

Every Toastmasters meeting has a Chair whose job it is to organize a meeting, appoint the other people who will be in charge of various parts of the meeting, make up an agenda, and make sure everything is covered in the meeting, on time.
Each meeting also has a Toastmaster. The person in this role recruits (from among the club's members) the evening's speakers at least a week ahead. This person also writes and gives the toast of the evening, which is a set length of two minutes.
Meetings usually has a section for people to practice impromptu speaking. The Tabletopics Master's job is to choose the topic (and keep it secret until the Tabletopics section begins), and then keep people to their time limit, which is usually one minute.
Evaluators praise and critique speeches. Here is a real opportunity to learn how to offer critiques in an effective, supportive way - one that motivates a person rather than alienate or discourage them.
Club members can run for president, area governor, district governor and other higher leadership roles within the organization.

All of this may seem like a lot of work, and it is - but the opportunities for learning to be a leader are many. It is another tool that can be used to build a smooth-functioning business, and it's fun!

Here are some books on running meetings. All can be found at the Toronto Public Library.

10 Steps to Successful Meetings

The only real training for leadership is leadership.
~Antony Jay

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Categories: Business & Personal Finance , Management & Accounting , Start and Run a Business

Help With Small Business Bookkeeping

September 1, 2011 | Margaret W. | Comments (0)

Small business owners either love or hate bookkeeping - there seems to be no middle ground. If you are looking for help in doing your own bookkeeping, Enterprise Toronto is sponsoring a program in September called Does It Add Up? Basic Bookkeeping for the New Business Owner. Click on the link for more details.

Here are some books at the Toronto Public Library that will help you get started:

If you decide you want to hire a bookkeeper, how do you find one? Have a look at the Canadian Bookkeepers Association website. It includes a list of association members organized by province and city.

You may also wish to check the Scott's Business Directory Online, one of the online databases to which the Toronto Public Library subscribes. Using Scott's you may narrow your search to bookkeepers close to you - for instance, in your forward sortation area (the area represented by the first 3 letters of your postal code). You can also sort by how long the company has been operating.

You will need your Toronto Public Library card to access this database from home. You may want to come into the library the first time you use the Scott's so a librarian can assist you.

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Categories: Business & Personal Finance , Management & Accounting , Start and Run a Business

The best of the Harvard Business Review

July 28, 2011 | Teresa | Comments (0)

I love magazines - both for work and pleasure. And while my intentions are always noble in terms of reading them in a timely manner, I generally fall short. So I have unread piles at home, and piles at work.

If you are like me, then this newest series of books published by the Harvard Business Review Press is for you. The editors have combed through the archives of the venerable Harvard Business Review and have selected the most significant articles they have published over the years on a range of topics.

If you aren't familiar with the Harvard Business Review (HBR), you should have a look. HBR began in 1922 as a project of the faculty and students of the Harvard Business School. Its aim from the beginning was to share research and experiences with other business practitioners. Many top management thinkers, such as Peter Drucker, have written for the magazine over the years.

Check out these titles, recently received by the library: