It is amazing how such an intangible element such as trust can be nurtured by a thoroughly tangible means – all for the greater good of your business. How does information circulate through your organisation? If you are like most, the actual flow has very little in common with the hierarchy...
The research on engaged employees is clear. They are happier, more productive, stay with the organisation longer and perform better across a whole host of measures. So, it’s no surprise that like its cousin on the customer side, loyalty, engagement is getting a lion’s share of people and culture attention. And...
Reading the May edition of Gourmet Traveller magazine provided an unexpected example of the discipline of putting your identity to work for a brand result people care about. It was an excerpt from the book Brae about the famed Victorian restaurant of chef Dan Hunter, who writes dos and don’ts for his kitchen. The list...
A likely candidate for the holy grail of business is customer loyalty. But in another you-can’t-get-there-from-here moment, something critical to achieving that loyalty gets short shift in the minds and wallets of too many organisations. Team loyalty. Simply put you can’t build a great (or even good) brand if you have...
“You get what you incentivise”Peter Diamandis Building a brand, engaging team members, delivering a consistently good customer experience, and ensuring the back office and front lines work in sync. These things have much in common, yet one important element they share is often ignored or given short shift—incentives. Today it seems like...
It’s been quite the few weeks for businesses and unhappy customers. But today my blog isn’t for them or any other businesses. It’s for all the customers out there. In other words all of us, because we’re all customers of something. From lawsuits about mice in hems to burger joints getting into altercations over missing...
The old “what’s best practice” chestnut has been rearing its ugly head a lot lately. I get it, in the absence of any idea of how something could be done, looking at what others who are successful are doing can seem like a pretty good place to start. The key...
The focus is all to often at the edges. Why are we here? What are we going to do, deliver, say and be? The “how” in the middle gets scant attention by comparison. Of course it doesn’t get totally missed or “what” would never happen. The “how” that gets missed is...
I’ve been a casual student of Stoic philosophy for many years and in particular of the slave philosopher Epictetus. I was first introduced to Epictetus when reading Admiral Jim Stockdale’s memoir In Love and War about his time in captivity during the Vietnam War. Admiral Stockdale is a well-known figure in military and...
For a number of weeks now I’ve been recommending the book The Score Takes Care of Itself by the late Bill Walsh and Steve Jamison. While it’s predominantly a leadership book, I can’t think of one thing that has a bigger impact on building a strong, resilient brand than the leadership of...