A team, according to Katz Enbach, is a small group of people with complementary skills, committed to a common purpose and a set of specific performance goals. As a team leader you are likely to inherit or build a new team at some point during your career. It is vital to your success to produce a team with individuals who share visions and interests, enjoy working with each other and have a winning attitude.

This article focuses on five main areas that should be considered by team leaders or project managers when managing a successful and productive team.

Time management in effect refers to management of what we do about what is important to us. It is about achieving our goals in less time and with less effort. Time management skills are essential for increased productivity and success in both personal and professional life.

This articles explores a number of techniques you can use to quickly imporve your productivity, almost immidiately after you have finished reading the article!

Communication is the exchange of information, ideas and feelings with other people through a medium. In this article we focus on conversation as the most common form of communication in the workplace. Effective communication forms the basis of any successful company or organisation. The way a business deals with development and monitoring communication channels between employees and employers shows its level of commitment to increased productivity and success.

What process should you follow when delivering an appraisal? Which areas are critical? Should you focus on objectives, on personality or on group adaptability? This article explores the concept, ideas and tasks an appraiser should consider when promoting an employee.

It is well known that presenting is different from training. A good trainer focuses on delegates and his intention is to transfer a set of skills to them. In contrast a presenter is interested to report what has already been accomplished for the benefit of the audience. Although they are both public speakers, their roles are fundamentally different. A good trainer should put the delegates at the centre of the learning process and continuously use novel interactive high retention methods to make sure the delegates learn the new skills and remember them well after the course is finished.

How exactly can a trainer achieve this? The following is a number of core principles a good trainer should follow to get quality results from the training he provides.

Negotiation is the process of bargaining that precedes an agreement. Successful negotiation generally results in a contract between the parties. Best type of negotiation is “win-win” which means both parties will be satisfied with the result.

“Win-Win” negotiation is about alliance not conflict. Successful negotiation results in long lasting and fruitful professional relationships between parties, reduced tension and stress associated with aggressive bargaining methods and leads to more productive and creative businesses.

In this article we explore five steps to a more successful negotiation for all parties involved:

If there is one thing less appealing than giving a public talk is giving a bad one. If you haven’t prepared your speech don’t have high expectations. Experience shows that giving a speech without prior preparation often fails to impress.

Public speaking is not most people’s ideal way of delivering their message or selling their ideas and products. We much rather write to people about our cause than give a speech in to a group of people. Especially if it is going to be in front of unfamiliar faces. Fear of failure, being unfairly judged or even not accurately delivering what we are passionate about is what makes public speaking so unpopular.

A well structured and interesting speech combined with expression of passion and interest in the subject makes the whole experience easier and even enjoyable. Delivering a speech that you have written means that you will be in control of expressions, examples and conclusions. You can decide how successful, interesting, informing or humorous your speech is and how much it would influence those listening. Knowing the basic guidelines to write an engaging and enlightening speech will increase your confidence while delivering and ultimately plays an important role in increasing the rate of success in your personal and professional lives.

This article explains six steps essential to composing a successful speech and contains some useful tips on how to make the process as flawless as possible.