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Each year, MindTools.com helps more than 10,000,000 visitors learn the essential skills they need for an excellent career. Isn’t it time you discovered the secrets of their success?

Learn hundreds of essential management skills, FREE of charge, using the menus above, and develop yourself on an ongoing basis with our popular free e-newsletter.

Then boost your career to new heights in our members’ area, the Career Excellence Club! Find out more by taking the Club tour, or browse the featured resources below.

Today's Featured Resources:

The GROW Model
Coaching others to improve performance
Feb 9th, 2010

This simple-but-powerful model will help you to structure your coaching so that you can better help your people to develop themselves. All Readers' Featured Favorite

Free Skill-Builders:

Free and online at Mind Tools, you can discover the essential skills and techniques that help you excel in your career - whatever your profession. Learn leadership, personal effectiveness, goal setting, and stress management. Further, discover techniques that improve creativity, assist problem solving, organize time and deadlines, and improve your memory.

Start building your skills using the navigation bars at the top of this page, or by clicking the links below:-

Time Management Leadership Skills Stress Management Information Skills Practical Creativity

Problem Solving Decision Making Project Management Communication Skills Memory Improvement

Or use this site as a practical course in thinking skills. Do this by following our free career skills learning path, and read articles one-by-one learning the essential skills you need for an excellent career. Once you've read an article, use the 'next article' button at the foot of each page to move to the next. You'll find this below.

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New Articles (Not included in the Mind Tools E-book.)

* Shows articles available in full only to Career Excellence Club members

5 Whys - Getting quickly to the root of a problem

Acrostics - Memory curiosities
Adams' Equity Theory - Balancing employee inputs and outputs
ADL Matrix - How industry position influences your strategy
Affinity Diagrams - Organizing ideas Into common themes
AIDA: Attention-Interest-Desire-Action - Inspiring action with your writing
The Ansoff Matrix - Understanding the different risks of different options

The Balanced Scorecard - Motivating employees to deliver your strategy
Beating Self-Sabotage* - Recognizing and overcoming it
Behavioral Assessments* - How personality affects the way people do their jobs
Belbin's Team Roles - Understanding team roles can improve team performance.
Benne and Sheats' Group Roles - Identifying positive and negative group roles
Blake Mouton Managerial Grid - Balancing task and people-oriented leadership
The Boston Matrix - Focusing effort to get the greatest returns
Bowman's Strategy Clock* - Making sense of eight competitive positions
Burke-Litwin Change Model* - Unraveling the dynamics of organizational change

CATWOE - Understanding the different elements that contribute to a problem
Using the Change Curve* - Accelerating change, and improving project success
Change Management* - Making organization change happen effectively
Congruence Model* - Aligning the drivers of high performance
Core Competence Analysis - Get ahead. Stay ahead.
Crawford's Slip Writing Method* - Gathering ideas from many contributors
Critical Success Factors - Identifying the things that really matter for success
Cross Culture Communication - Collaborative efforts a must!
The Cultural Web - Aligning your organization's culture with strategy
Customer Experience Mapping* - Looking through the eyes of your customers

Decision Making - Are you "cautious" or "courageous"?
Decision Model, The Vroom-Yetton-Jago* - Deciding how to decide
The Delegation Dilemma
The Delphi Technique* - Achieving well thought through consensus among experts

Empathic Listening* - Going beyond active listening

Finding Career Direction - Discover yourself and your purpose
Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing* - Helping new teams perform effectively
Future Proof Your Career - Developing skills for your future as well as for today

Golden Rules of Goal Setting - Five rules to set yourself up for success
Good Manners in the Office* - Realizing there's no excuse for discourtesy
Avoiding GroupThink - Avoiding fatal flaws in group decision making
The GROW Model - Coaching team members to improve performance

Heuristic Methods* - Using rules of thumb
Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions - Understanding values around the World
Hoshin Planning System* - Steering everyone in the right direction
How Good is Your Time Management?* - Discover time management tools that can help you
How to Ask for a Pay Raise* – Objectively evaluating your value to your organization
How to Relax After a Hard Day* - Leaving work at work
Humility - The most beautiful word in the English language, by Bruna Martinuzzi

Inductive Reasoning* - Drawing good generalized conclusions

Job Enrichment - Increasing job satisfaction
Maximizing Job Satisfaction - Getting the most from your job

Kano Model Analysis* - Developing products that delight
The Kepner-Tregoe Matrix* - Making unbiased, risk assessed decisions
Kotter's 8-Step Change Model - Implementing change powerfully and successfully

Locke's Goal Setting Theory - Understanding SMART goal setting
Locus of Control - Finding out who's in charge of your destiny
Logframes, and the Logical Framework Approach - Planning projects robustly

Making the Right Career Move* - Choosing the role that's best for you
Management by Objectives (MBO)* - Aligning people objectives with org goals
McKinsey 7S Framework, The - Ensuring all parts of your org work in harmony

Nominal Group Technique* - Prioritizing issues and projects to achieve consensus

Organizational Design - Aligning organizational structure with business goals
Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Change - Moving to a high performance culture

Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) - Implementing new ideas in a controlled way
Dealing with Office Politics* - Navigating the minefield
Porter's Diamond - Shaping strategy to reflect national strengths and weaknesses
Porter's Generic Strategies - Choosing your route to competitive advantage
Prioritization* - Making best use of your time and resources
The Product Diffusion Curve - Keeping you marketing message fresh
Project Dashboards - Quickly communicating project progress
Project Milestone Reporting* - Keeping projects on track by monitoring check points

The RACI Matrix* - Structuring accountabilities for maximum efficiency and results
Reactive Decision Making* - Making good decisions under pressure
Resolving Team Conflict* - Building stronger teams by facing your differences
Role Playing* - Preparing for difficult conversations and situations

The Sales Funnel* - Keeping control of your sales pipeline
Scenario Analysis* - Exploring different futures
Schein's Career Anchors* - Understanding what inspires you in your career.
Starbursting - Understanding new ideas by brainstorming questions
Stepladder Technique* - Making better group decisions
Succession Planning* - Seamlessly Transferring Key Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
Surviving a Merger* - Taking control and proving your value

Team Charters - Getting your teams off to a great start
Team Management Skills* - The core skills needed to manage your team
Using the TOWS Matrix - Developing strategic options

The Wheel of Life* - Finding balance in your life

Theory X and Theory Y - Understanding team member motivation

A full list of Mind Tools articles is available here.

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