You can hold effective meetings and become a more successful leader if you avoid these seven monsters. Here's how. > Myth 1: Executives belong in meetings. Although the demands of business cause executives to attend more meetings than other professionals, executives should be very selective on which meetings they attend. Top management is responsible for vision, strategy, plans, and communication. That means wise executives spend most of their time thinking, learning, planning, and communicating. Inefficient, ineffective meetings waste the time of the company's most valuable employees. Better: Ask probing questions when invited to make sure that your presence will add value. For example, "What are your goals for the meeting?" "How will I contribute to achieving those goals?" and "How can I prepare for the meeting?" After all, you want to contribute to an effective meeting if you decide to attend. > Myth 2: [+]

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how 2005 turned out. My business is taking off. I've built a solid foundation to support even more growth (which I forecast for 2006) and I've even managed to take some time off. I'd like other entrepreneurs and business owners to feel as good about their business as I do about mine, so I thought I'd take a moment to share 5 things I attribute to my successful 2005. 1. Attended seminars. This one is HUGE. Nothing beats getting out of your office and away from your computer and actually meeting people face to face. I've come away from these events with clients, joint venture partners, and more. (And that doesn't even include the great information I absorbed and was able to put to use in both my business and my clients' businesses.) If [+]

The Internet may have opened worlds for businesses and consumers, but it has also created a public relations nightmare for businesses. Forums, opinion Web sites, blogs, and anything that is publishable can smear a company's name in moments. Remember, "Yours Is a Very Bad Hotel" presentation that described one customer's bad experience with a hotel chain? Hotels are run by humans. Humans make mistakes. It's how you handle the mistakes that can make the difference in customer service. Since the hotel's employees didn't try to help the customer overcome a bad situation, the customer lashed back and bloggers blogged it. If the hotel is on top of its game, it would unleash its crisis management (also known as reputation management) team to salvage its reputation while it can. It's possible for a company to overcome bad PR and come out ahead as [+]

Be the change you want to see occur in the world around you. We can't make other people be more considerate, helpful, honest, etc., but if everyone were to work on themselves and develop these attributes, our world would be a better place. Don't be judgmental. Look for and recognize the good in yourself and in others. We are all capable of so-called "good" and "bad" behaviors and we all have our "good" and "off" days. We are all unique and it is wonderful that we are different and not all the same - in our appearance, our thoughts, our opinions, our likes and dislikes. Being different is not threatening, it is not "bad", it is just "different". Embrace the differences and be happy for the variety. Likewise, forget the concepts of "right" and "wrong". People are not good or [+]

Business structure planning entails analyzing the different business entity options and choosing the one that is right for you. There is no magic formula for business structures. Your set of reasons for choosing one business structure over another is as unique as your company. There is, however, one universal rule for deciding on a business structure: Consult a Professional. You certainly need to familiarize yourself with the basic types of business structures available but don't think you can make the final decision. If your clients read up on Microsoft Small Business would they be able to install their small business server? No. The same goes for you and your limited knowledge of business structures. Business Structure Options: Sole Proprietorship - one owner with no segregation between business and personal liability Partnership - two or more people with [+]

Competition is great in the market world today and in order to get your business noticed, you will need good corporate identity management. You need to bring together all of the good qualities of your company as well as emphasizing what a great benefit your company will be to those who use your services. Good corporate identity management will do just that if handled properly. It will give your business a clear positioning towards your customers and prospective customers as well as your staff, suppliers, authorities, and even your competition. By making your business easily recognizable to those who want what your selling, corporate identity management will also play a key role in the development and maintenance of your business, and keep it running like a well oiled machine. In today's world, we are all bombarded with information, every waking [+]

Recently, a teacher whose class regularly scores top marks shared her secret for team building success with me. "It's easy," she told me. "Each week, we set a goal as a class. If we've reached the goal at the end of the week, I treat the class to pizza and a game and then we sit down and plan next week's goal." There in a nutshell is a tried and true strategy for building and maintaining successful teamwork that any corporate event planner should take to heart. My teacher friend's Friday afternoon 'pizza party' serves a triple function - it recognizes the work achieved, rewards the team for their work, and serves as a springboard for the next goal. To be successful, a corporate event should do three things - recognize, reward and motivate. Granted, when you're dealing with high-powered executives, programmers [+]

We’ve all heard about the gains in productivity and accountability that businesses can make from implementing a timesheet software system in their organization. However, with so many timesheet packages available on the market today, how do you know which package best meets your needs? The process of choosing the correct timesheet software for your business need not be as difficult as you may think. The first step in choosing the right software is probably the most important, yet all it requires is that you to ask yourself a simple question; what do I want to achieve by using a timesheet system? It may be to improve quoting or budgeting, tracking project progress, tracking attendance and automating payroll, or to assist with client billing. Most of the better-known timesheet packages tend to [+]

If your planning to build the home of your dreams and you want to make sure everything is going the way you want it to go, make sure the contractor draws up a schedule. Construction Project scheduling is the most important part of the plan. A construction project schedule give the ability for all those involved with building your home is on the same page. This schedule will have the ability to successfully organize, plan and control all the different construction projects, giving each of those involved their own specific job to do so there is no confusion during the construction of who is suppose to do what job. The construction project schedule documents everybody's job and when their supposed to be doing. In addition to assigning dates to project activities, project scheduling is intended to match the resources of [+]

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher said "The primary wisdom is intuition." It is not just a theory, it is part of who we are. Without training we can happen upon it occasionally and we usually like the results when we follow our intuition. What would happen if we learned to tap into our own innate intuition on a daily basis? Why don't we? As Carl Jung said "intuition does not denote something contrary to reason, but something outside of the province of reason." It is real and it is not in our heads. And our head can't control it. There are many ways we sabotage our own natural intuition all the time. We don't give it a chance. How? We hurry so much that we don't take time to listen to our intuition. - We need to slow down [+]