Customer Experience When Messages are Mixed 
 
I always wonder: Does senior leadership know what their customer is experiencing, or are they out of touch?  Do they get to hear the truth from consumers of their product or service, or do unhappy customers just say nothing and never return?
 
My husband and I recently took all three (young [...]

Like many of us, I come from a divorced family.  My mom and dad divorced when I was in my late teens, and they have each been married to “new” spouses for longer than they were married to each other.  So, on Father’s Day, I do just as many of you do, call both dad [...]

Today, as I lay on ice to help aleviate my chronic back pain, I felt just a wee bit sorry for myself.  I was scanning my in box and I had an email from coach Jim Vuocolo, who had received this from a friend, and felt compelled to share it with his friends.  He didn’t [...]

A Primer on Loss and Grief for Leaders
If you are running a company of any size, you hear about some relative or friend of your workforce dying almost every day. In even the smallest company, there is loss all around your employees. Loss you don’t see, and I am about to make you aware of. [...]

I just arrived back home after delivering a breakout session on brainpower for Communicatiion ‘10, The District 7 Toastmasters Spring Conference at eh Oregon Convention Center. Because the introductory keynote ran a bit over, I had to cut our session short, so thought it would be helpful to post an outline for you, since we did rather race to [...]

Those of you who know me know I don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t take drugs, don’t usually eat meat, work out on a regular basis, love hiking, used to be a ballet dancer, ran marathons, love yoga and Pilates, and so on.  At one place they used to call me the “Tofu Queen”, and for about 15 [...]

 The discussions of employee re-engagement we’ve been having this month have been filled with great information and lots of interaction.
 If you would like to register for the a complimentary webinar entitled Re-engaging the Workforce , which includes three industry experts discussing how to re-engage employees while uncertainty still exists, scheduled for Thursday, February 18th, you can use the following link:   www.ttidisc.com  [...]

     One of the ways to increase excitement and engagement in the ranks is to raise people’s self-worth.  In this economy, a lot of charities have been hit really hard, and need awareness, funds, attention, and volunteers.  Check out what one young Portland woman started just recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw   It’s called the Pink Glove Dance.  How [...]

As leaders, how can we promote and encourage our workforce to stay productive in these crazy and stressful times? Stress is defined as a general and non-specific response to a “threat”.  That response to a threat frequently appears in the form of fear, disengagement, diminished cognitive ability, lack of creativity, loss of emotional control, fatigue, and eventually chronic pain and illness. The source of [...]

SECRET……The dictionary tells us that a secret (noun) is something that is kept hidden or concealed.
 
Most of us have been exposed to the tremendously successful movie and/or the book called “The Secret”, which contains knowledge that has been around for thousands of years, and it was packaged in an intriguing and ingenious way to attract [...]