Over the past few decades many organizations have jumped on the change bandwagon with a long list of resolutions to change their ways and develop new habits. Here’s a partial list: Safety culture Customer centric/focus/service Teamwork Innovation Flexibility/adaptability to change Best place to work/top employer Excellence Market/industry leadership Higher employee engagement Like too many New […]
Read post »I was just talking with a CEO Client about the development work we’ve been doing with his team. This led to a discussion about the state of our businesses. His company is doing fairly well during these uncertain times. He asked about our business. I told him that we saw many organizations cut back sharply […]
Read post »My last blog post announced that you can now view last Friday’s (November 4) full Leading a Peak Performance Culture webcast with all slides and audio track. You might want to view (or review) the session on your own or share it with your management team and/or improvement professionals concerned with leadership and culture development. […]
Read post »Last Friday (November 4) I delivered a very fast paced and information packed 60 minute presentation by webcast. My goal was “culture change in an hour!” I tried to stuff the major learning from our thirty years of working with hundreds of organizations and the latest research on culture change into 60 minutes. We had […]
Read post »Author and futurist Alvin Toffler’s powerful phrase “hinge of history” is an apt descriptor for our times. Our highly integrated global village is going through huge and massive shifts. We’re now in the midst of a major pivot point. The “Shift Happens“video (my last post) vividly illustrates these dramatic and accelerating changes. History teaches that […]
Read post »Last week I ran a highly customized Peak Performance Leadership workshop and facilitated a strategy session in beautiful Colorado Springs. It was the perfect place to discuss climbing to higher levels of personal, team, and organization performance — especially during these fast changing and turbulent times. We also got to experience their first heavy snowfall […]
Read post »I just came across a Corporate Executive Board (CEB) study showing the incredible penalties and pay-offs of good and bad communication practices. A survey of 300,000 employees shows that open and honest communication pays huge dividends to companies with transparent cultures. A CEB poll found that nearly half of executive teams don’t get critical information […]
Read post »This week kicks off a new academic year in much of the Northern Hemisphere. As classes resume, here’s a critical question for our ongoing personal, team, and organizational effectiveness: is learning a phase of life or a way of life? September, from the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry Learning is to leadership as […]
Read post »Organizational culture development is a complex topic with many intertwined leadership components. Establishing a peak performance culture in what’s sometimes called a “green field” situation has different challenges than changing an established culture (sometimes called “brown field”). In response to my July blog, RIM/Blackberry is at a Critical Leadership Crossroad, a subscriber sent me this […]
Read post »I recently came across this bit of wisdom from an unknown author, “Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold — but so does a hard-boiled egg.” Way too many managers confuse intentions, plans, and declarations with actions. Managers must LOL — lead out loud […]
Read post »Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere means vacation travel for many of us. Heather and I just returned from a very enjoyable two week road trip through New York State, New England, and Pennsylvania. With record breaking heat and humidity during the “dog days” of July, we often put up the roof in our little […]
Read post »We often hear the axiom that "perception is reality." When it comes to assessing the service/quality levels delivered by our teams/organizations just who’s perception of reality are we using? Reinforcing this month’s four-part series of blog posts on The Three Rings of Perceived Value, here are key perspectives on using our customer perceptions of their […]
Read post »Fourth in a four part series on The Three Rings of Perceived Value. Years ago author and speaker on organizational excellence, Tom Peters, declared, “we can no longer afford to merely satisfy the customer. To win today, you have to delight and astound your customers — with products and services that far exceed their expectations.” […]
Read post »Third in a four part series on The Three Rings of Perceived Value. Today’s external customers or internal partners are looking beyond the core product or service (First Ring) to broader levels of support. The Second or Support Ring encircles a huge array of services and factors. Basically it includes anything an organization does to […]
Read post »First in a four part series on The Three Rings of Perceived Value. Customer service and continuous quality improvement have always been important. As organizations struggle to grow revenues and reduce costs in our challenging economic times, service/quality is becoming even more critical. It’s where organizations thrive, survive, or nosedive. The June 30 blog post, […]
Read post »In the Northern Hemisphere, tomorrow (July 6) marks the beginning of the “dog days of summer,” lasting until early September. Some historical references to this period of hot and sultry weather marked it as an evil time. According to a description written in 1813 by J. Brady in Clavis Calendarium, this is “when the seas […]
Read post »The CLEMMER Group has been purchasing our computer equipment from Dell since we began in 1994. We like their technology, customizing equipment to our needs, value, and next day onsite service. That may change. I just got off the phone from a painful hour of experiencing Dell’s inward focused bureaucracy as Gary, our IT support […]
Read post »Tomorrow is June 1 – my favorite month in our garden and around Southern Ontario. It’s also the month when seasonal change is sharpest with the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of winter in the Southern Hemisphere. This brings to mind the popular song, “To Everything There is a Season.” […]
Read post »It’s a classic good news, bad news story. Consumers are willing to spend from 7 – 22% more for better customer service. But 60% believe organizations haven’t increased their focus on providing good customer service. That’s slipped from 55% in 2010. And 26% of this group feels organizations are paying less attention to service. The […]
Read post »As we roll into the central month of spring we can look back at turbulent times so far this year. Many headlines have focused on natural disasters, riots and war, political conflict, and economic uncertainty. Many organizations, teams, and individuals continue to be challenged — and stimulated — by shifting customer priorities, rising numbers of e-mails, meetings, […]
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