The five minds of a manager

Managers are told: Be global and be local. Collaborate and compete. Change, perpetually, and maintain order. Make the numbers while nurturing your people. To be effective, managers need to consider the juxtapositions in order to arrive at a deep integration of these seemingly contradictory concerns. That means they must focus not only on what they have to accomplish but also on how they have to think. When the authors, respectively the director of the Centre for Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter in the U.K. and the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal, set out to develop a masters program for practicing managers, they saw that they could not rely on the usual MBA educational structure, which divides the management world into discrete business functions such as marketing and accounting. They needed an educational structure that would encourage synthesis rather than separation. Managing, they determined, involves five tasks, each with its own mind-set: managing the self (the reflective mind-set); managing organizations (the analytic mind-set); managing context (the worldly mind-set); managing relationships (the collaborative mind-set); and managing change (the action mind-set). The program is built on the exploration and integration of those five aspects of the managerial mind. The authors say it has proved powerful in the classroom and insightful in practice. Imagine the mind-sets as threads and the manager as weaver. Effective performance means weaving each mind-set over and under the others to create a fine, sturdy cloth.     

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) in Construction Schedule Risk Assessment

Construction project scheduling is one of the most critical factors for project success measurement.Not only for the project planning but for construction process management,the scheduling is the basic tool for communication between the owner and the project manager.By developing the schedule before the project starts,the owner knows in advance that the expected timeline of the project.By preparing construction process scheduling,the owner and general contractor can better manage the subcontractors,sub-trades progress,materials storage and deliveries,labors schedule and equipment set up which will eventually save time,money and hassle.Basically,Critical Path Method(CPM) is commonly used in the construction industry.CPM is a deterministic method that assumes that through the network,there is at least one path that determines the project duration and that the path is the critical path.CPM does not consider the uncertainty in the activities;rather it assumes that each activity can be finished in the given situation.Program Evaluation and Review Technique(PERT) is a stochastic technique which is based on the assumption that the duration of a single activity can be described by a probability density function.PERT takes into account the uncertainty during the construction process and has been created out of the need to plan,schedule and control complex projects with many uncertainties.The PERT approach is stated in some books and papers,but there is no deep investigation on the application in the schedule risk assessment.This paper investigates the PERT work process and takes a valuable try on the construction schedule risk assessment by using case studies.The utilization in the estimate the construction liquidated damage with the uncertainties is performed,which also can be used in the insurance company to calculate the insurance premium.     

扭亏为盈路:“死二活三”

<正> 济南市天桥毛巾厂由于资金缺乏、设备陈旧、产品滞销、人员老化、亏损严重,已到了奄奄一息的地步。千余名职工在家待业,厂方欠职工4个月工资。面对这种状况,企业领导认识到     

东非地区正在改变投资伙伴

【肯尼亚《民族报》5月16日】东非地区在新投资和大宗合同方面正在转向东方吗？虽然这听起来有点像传奇故事，但总体情况是，中国和阿拉伯国家正在逐渐取代欧洲，成为东非地区新投资的主要来源和重大合同的执行者。     

浅谈促销管理

成功的促销可以增加商场的销售、提高自身竞争力并削弱竞争对手,给商场带来喜人的回报;不恰当的促销也能降低商品的获利能力、增加消费者的价格敏感度.如何正确使用促销这个有效的竞争武器,是每个商业企业都关心的问题.     

管理创新为中小企业打开创业之路

知识经济时代下，中小企业必须进行整体的管理创新。所谓管理创新，是指为了更有效地运用资源以实现目标而进行的创新活动或过程；或者说，是一个新的管理思想从提出到首次付诸实施并取得预期效益的非连续性创新过程。