All Features
Jack Dunigan
His name is Danny, and he owns “Danny’s Fashion Shoppe, bespoke tailors, Hong Kong.” His store is tiny, tucked into one of the many arcades that line Kowloon’s streets. The walls are stacked high with bolts of cloth, interrupted three or four times by mirrors.
I used to get my suits made there.…
Kelly Graves
What lasts longer, an expensive motivational speaker or a cup of espresso? It’s about the same, but the espresso provides a much better return on investment. You see, from a behavioral standpoint, you can’t motivate me, and I can’t motivate you. However, people can and do motivate themselves, and…
Maxine Attong
Manufacturers know the high cost of defects—the direct and indirect costs of manufacturing the recalled items, the cost to restock, the unquantifiable loss of consumers, and (at times) the need for a publicity campaign to rebuild product confidence and brand reputation. These costs provide a…
John Bell
From as far back as my days in brand management, I have held a deep affection for strategy. This might have something to do with the fact that I can be stubborn. Good strategists are also stubborn, even pigheaded. Why is that?
Because without strategic stubbornness, the hard barrier lines that…
Davis Balestracci
This is a continuation of my last column, which I’ve written to honor my late dad who loved golf. As promised, let’s look at the Masters golf tournament final four-round scores for the 55 players who survived the cut. We’ll analyze and then give it a twist based on the ongoing enumerative vs.…
Kelly Graves
Most everyone has read the maxim, “Plan your work and work your plan.” This is simple and effective advice—when it’s followed. Unfortunately, it can also be overwhelming when it comes to ensuring that everyone in the organization knows what the strategic plan is and how they can directly support…
Quality Digest
When asked a direct question, telling the truth is always a good option, so is giving a direct answer. That being said, sometimes a parable is worth a thousand words.
“The kind of seed sown will produce that kind of fruit. Those who do good will reap good results. Those who do evil will reap evil…
Davis Balestracci
To celebrate Father’s Day in the United States (June 21 this year), I’m going to use this and my next column to honor my late dad by using a game he loved—golf—to teach some very basic statistics lessons. Some of these may have been lost on you previously, not through some fault of your own, but…
Kelly Graves
In my last article, I presented the psychological steps of change and how to overcome the natural human resistance to it. In this installment, I’ll present an example of how to transfer those concepts into plans, the plans into actions, and the actions into continuous behaviors.
This process…
Kelly Graves
As a consultant and trainer specializing in the field of organizational psychology, I’ve come to realize that certain psychological conditions that affect individuals also apply to companies as a whole. That makes sense because, after all, a company is nothing but a collection of people.
In this…
Ken Koenemann
As a business leader, you spend a lot of your time figuring out how to win. With good reason: The most crucial job of every executive is to align efforts at every level of the organization to deliver wins for the week, for the quarter, and for the year.
The people at the front end of the business—…
Ken Koenemann
In my first article on relevant metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), I explained why limiting management’s strategic planning to high-level goal setting is doomed to failure. For strategic goals to be realized, they have to be translated into daily KPIs that are meaningful to everyone in…
Ken Koenemann
During annual strategic planning meetings, the temptation is always to spend most of the time working on the business, discussing the big-picture strategic plans and breakthrough developments that are critical to the future of the company. But just looking at long-term plans ignores a critical…
DeEtta Jones
Do you ever feel overwhelmed as a manager? Being overburdened by the responsibility of having to figure out what the people on your team want and need from you is a familiar feeling shared among leaders. Fortunately, there is a “best practice” for obtaining just the kind of information needed to…
Brenda Percy
This is the fourth installment in our six-part series on how automating common business processes with a quality management system (QMS) can benefit your organization. Here we’ll focus on the training management process and why automating it with a QMS results in effective employees—and makes…
Jack Dunigan
R ecently I shared five reasons why hope is not an effective strategy, but hope is, nonetheless, an essential attitude. What do you think influences that attitude? Let’s take a look.
There’s a difference between hope and hope so. The former is certain, expectant, optimistic. The latter is…
Annette Franz
A few weeks ago, I wrote a guest post for Jeannie Walters of 360Connext titled “A Great Customer Experience Trumps....” At the end I posed the question: “What trumps a great customer experience? Only one thing. Can you guess?”
I’m going to answer the question now. Quite simply, the answer is: The…
Mike Roberts
Editor’s note: A webinar on this topic will held on Nov. 19, 2013, at 11 a.m. Pacific, 2 p.m. Eastern. Register here.
And previewing the webinar, Matthew Littlefield will be a guest on Quality Digest Live this Friday, Nov. 15, 2013, at 11 a.m. Pacific, 2 p.m. Eastern.
Unless you’ve been hiding…
Gallup
In the intense competition to attract and retain top talent, U.S. employers are vying to offer the most alluring perks imaginable to their workers. Companies such as Google are leading the trend, hoping that happy employees are more productive, creative, and passionate workers.
On the surface, it…
Jack Dunigan
What Do You Call Quietly Capable People Who Help You Succeed? Keepers
Resource-fullness Hire people who can solve problems, not create more
Accountability Failure is an event, not a way of life
Emotional and Psychological Security Emotionally secure people are not rare, but they are in demand…
James Brewton
During the past 20 years, lean Six Sigma (LSS) has proven itself as an effective strategy for business success in virtually every industry sector. The methodology has helped organizations realize their processes are the engines that drive operational excellence and customer value. Recently,…
Mary Knight
Companies that want to boost employee engagement sometimes can’t make their efforts stick. These businesses seek the benefits that come from increased engagement—improved productivity, profitability, safety, retention, and customer focus, among others—but they don’t feel that employee engagement is…
Kyle Toppazzini
Confucius, also known as Kong Zi, was an ancient Chinese philosopher who believed that trust—or shin—enables people to contribute to society. He believed that, for a leader, earning trust was essential. In addition, according to Confucius, to consider the concerns and interests of another person…
Timothy F. Bednarz
Effective leaders manage by keeping their finger on the pulse of their employees’ key activities. When tasks and assignments are delegated, leaders must take the time to review each employee’s progress against goals to determine what, if any, additional training and coaching is needed to…
Gallup
Many companies measure employee and customer satisfaction without much to show for it. That’s because their surveys—whether one magic question for customers or 100-plus-item monstrosities for employees—often focus on the rational and exclude the emotional. However, it’s vital to measure emotional…
