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 [...]

Busy and successful people find themselves getting ”hit up” for all sorts of fundraisers, and to be on boards of directors on a regular basis.  If you are reading this post, you are probably thinking to yourself ”No kidding, it happened to me three times last week.”
Here are some principles I’ve learned since I began spending 1/2 my time volunteering [...]

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. [...]

Look at your business for a moment.  How can you increase your viability?  Even in the largest companies, there are areas where we are “flying by the seat of our pants”, as my mother used to say. 

Are you measuring what your competitors are measuring? What ratios are they looking at, that perhaps you are not? [...]

In my last post I talked about disengagement.  Let’s continue the discussion, first, by giving you a “state of the people” address.  Then let’s look at some actions you can take to proactively position yourself for the next battle:
Some things you should know:  

According to a recent study by the Washington-based Corporate Executive Board, the [...]

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 [...]

We have serious global environmental challenges to face,  an estimated 100 million homeless people worldwide, drugs devastating our communities everywhere, the US Financial Crisis weighing heavily on the global economy, countries at war, including our own, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
You have a company to run, a board of directors meeting to [...]

Yesterday I received an family email from my sister, who is Chief Risk Officer at a very large international bank.  Apparently, family members have been contacting her, asking about economic survival strategies.  They are concerned about their 401K’s, investments, retirement security, etc.
The world is in a panic, and I’m stating the obvious unless you’ve been [...]

Your business plan should be completed by the end of September and now that we are back from our summer vacations and we have the kids back in school, we can focus.  Does it seem like things are just spinning out of control?  Many of you have told me that, and believe me, I am [...]

You’re the guy (or gal) at the top.  The buck stops here.  Let me ask you a question: What is your most important job?  Self-care.  What?  Self-care?  That sounds wimpy, or medical, or stupid; at any rate, we don’t like to hear it.  However, I have personal experience with two separate instances of having to be on bedrest and [...]