HCM_Sales Marketing & Alliance Excellence November 2022

Cultivate Your Human Authority To Ignite Irrational Brand Loyalty

Show me your gooey insides

- Deb Gabor, CEO, Sol Marketing

Customer Service Heroes

Making customer service your top priority

- John Tschohl, Founder and President, Service Quality Institute

Transforming The Future Of CX With EX

Improving employee experience can help businesses improve customer experience

- Sarah Diegnan, ChartHop’s VP, Customer Experience

Top Picks 13 18 22 28

How To Handle Risks

Learn why it is important to pick the right risks

- William A. Cohen, President, Institute of Leader Arts

HR.com makes HR Professionals smarter and we are sure your solutions do as well.

That being said, we understand how hard it is to market in the Human Capital space, get the attention of your target audience and show HR departments that you are a valuable resource. So, how do you overcome this hurdle?

Easy. Work with HR.com.

With over 19 years experience working with HR solution providers, we give over 1,200,000 HR professionals access to the tools and resources they need to succeed. We work side-by-side with HR solution providers to help them generate sales leads, grow market share, build brand awareness and promote industry expertise.

Checkout our growing list of tools and resources our vendors can take advantage of to get noticed by HR professionals!

Research

Build your brand, content marketing strategies, and thought leadership with exclusive HR.com research. Choose between custom featured research or state-of-the-industry research sponsorship. With custom featured research, we work with you to develop research on the topic of your choice or align your brand with any of this year’s State of the Industry hot topics to highlight the latest HR trends. No matter which research strategy you choose, come away with your very own branded research report and infographic, establish yourself as an industry thought leader by presenting a webcast, get key insights from the opinions of highly qualified HR professionals, and maximize your ROI, and build a healthy sales funnel with over 1,000 qualified leads.

Managed Email Campaigns

Looking to expand your marketing reach? Build long-term customer loyalty? Generate high response rates? Drive website traffic? The value of HR.com’s opt-in direct email program allows you to do just that. Nurture potential buyers on a consistent basis through our managed campaign program. Deliver your message directly to HR decision makers’ inboxes. HR.com’s direct email lists are 100% optin, GDPR, CASL, and CAN-SPAM compliant and contain only the most exclusive names and companies in the human capital industry.

Online Advertising

HR Marketing Institute

The HR Marketing Institute (HRMI) is the ONLY community of Marketing Professionals in the Human Capital space dedicated exclusively to the issues and needs of the marketing professionals and their businesses. This is a community of Marketing professionals who dedicate their time to marketing in the Human Capital space and who support each other to make the right decisions so that your marketing initiatives deliver the impact you need to succeed. Membership includes networking with peers, face to face summits, webcasts, research and benchmarking tools.

Webcasts and Virtual Events

Thought Leadership, Lead Generation and Educational Content

HR.com’s Webcasts and Virtual Events are more than an exercise in brand awareness. They are a comprehensive and groundbreaking way of generating tangible sales leads, while showcasing you as an industry authority to a captive audience of clients, prospects and the entire HR.com global community, giving you a greater market reach. In addition, HR.com’s one-hour webcasts provide valuable education and certification credits for today’s forward-thinking HR professionals.

Onsite advertising is a great way to reinforce brand and profile new products associated with a product launch. HR.com offers a variety of online advertising solutions including banner ads and premier homepage positioning making it a cost-efficient option for maximum brand exposure.

Buyer’s Guide

Be the Answer to the Questions HR Decision Makers are Asking

The HR.com’s Buyer’s Guide is where HR departments from around the world turn first when they need products and services. Put your company at the top of their list and get listed with the resource that HR professionals and decision makers trust.

Excellence Publications

Interactive Targeted Learning ePublications Aimed at Reaching Your Core Audience

HR.com’s 12 targeted and focused monthly online publications provide an invaluable collection of high-quality HR content and experts’ solutions to our members. Ten of our publications now feature themed editions that focus on specific topics. Sponsorship of research reports and webcasts aligned with the themes are also available.

Exclusive HR.com research

Attn: HR Solution Providers! Our solutions will get you more clients, brand exposure, sales –and a marketing community too!

Editorial Purpose

Debbie Mcgrath Publisher, HR.com

Excellence Publications

EDITOR’S

Marketing Effectiveness in the Digital Era

In a digital world, where everything is driven by technology, verifying the effectiveness of marketing initiatives is the foremost priority of a marketing agency. This numbers-driven management method has created a paradigm shift in how marketing agencies can measure success, growth and performance.

In a highly competitive marketing agency landscape, you need to have an undeterred focus on finances, effectiveness of campaigns, and performance and profitability in order to succeed and grow.

Check out Profit.co Bastin Gerald’s article Top Marketing Agency Metrics To Measure: Part I, where he uncovers the top 4 marketing agency metrics that you should measure to improve profitability.

One of the most impactful trends that has developed in the last few years is the rise of the need to see a brand’s gooey insides. If today’s consumers do not see a company’s passions, feelings, and opinions, they do not connect in a human-to-human way.

Read Sol Marketing Deb Gabor’s article to learn how you can Cultivate Your Human Authority To Ignite Irrational Brand Loyalty.

In Customer Service Heroes, Service Quality Institute’s John Tschohl looks into five companies that are reaping the financial benefits of making customer service a top priority.

Also, check out Transforming The Future Of CX With EX by ChartHop’s Sarah Diegnan, to understand how companies can help businesses improve customer experience by improving employee experience.

That is not all! We hope this edition of HCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence, will help you achieve excellence in your sales and marketing efforts.

Happy Reading!

Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed in the Excellence ePublications are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of HR.com and its employees. Under no circumstances shall HR.com or its partners or affiliates be responsible or liable for any indirect or incidental damages arising out of these opinions and content.

Deepa Damodaran Editor, HCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence

In a world of unparalleled challenges (global pandemic, racial injustice, political rivalry, digital 4.0, emotional malaise), uncertainty reigns. Finding opportunity in this context requires harnessing uncertainty and harnessing starts with reliable, valid, timely, and useful information. The Excellence publications are a superb source of such information. The authors provide insights with impact that will guide thought and action.

Dave Ulrich

Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Partner, The RBL Group

Excellence publications are my ‘go-to’ resource for contemporary and actionable information to improve leadership, engagement, results, and retention. Each edition offers rich and diverse perspectives for improving the employee experience and the workplace in general.

Julie Winkle Giulioni

Author, Virtual /Live Keynote Presenter, Inc.’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers

I regularly read and contribute to Leadership Excellence and Talent Management Excellence. I use many of the articles I read to augment my own presentations and I often share the articles with my clients. They are always quick, right on target for the latest issues in my field, and appreciated by my clients. If you want to stay up to date on the latest HR trends, choose a few of the different issues from the Excellence series of publications.

Dr. Beverly Kaye CEO, BevKaye&Co.

Top Marketing Agency Metrics To Measure: Part I

4 metrics, their importance and how to calculate them

By Bastin Gerald, Profit.co

In a digital world, where everything is driven by technology, verifying the effectiveness of marketing initiatives, with numbers as proof of success, is the foremost priority of a marketing agency. This numbers-driven management method has created a paradigm shift in how marketing agencies can measure success, growth and performance.

In a highly competitive marketing agency landscape, you need to have an undeterred focus on finances, effectiveness of campaigns, and performance and profitability in order to succeed and grow.

This article uncovers the top 4 marketing agency metrics that you should measure to improve profitability.

What Are Marketing Metrics?

Marketing metrics are the quantitative measures with which marketing agencies track, measure, and analyze their business performance and the effectiveness of their marketing activities. These marketing metrics help agencies constantly monitor the performance of campaigns, finances and business performance, and make improvements wherever necessary.

The primary objectives of a marketing agency would be to build brands, create visibility for those brands, inspire audiences to reach out, generate leads for the clients, communicate with the leads through various channels and push them toward sales conversion.

In line with these priorities, marketing agencies track many different marketing metrics to improve the marketing ROI (return on investment) and ensure that their marketing campaigns are effective. Marketing metrics also let agencies make data-driven decisions that can have a significant impact on profitability.

Importance of Marketing Agency KPIs

Marketing metrics and marketing agency KPIs are important for agencies because:

1. They let you measure and track the progress of your business and identify areas that need improvement.

2. They give you important insights and let you know if your marketing campaigns are achieving the goals and making the desired impact for your clients.

3

. When your campaigns are not performing as expected, they help you identify the reasons for the failures, and enable you to tweak your marketing strategy.

4. They give you clarity at every stage of planning and executing a marketing campaign, since marketing KPIs are an integral part of your strategy - you need to set goals for the campaign, state how you will achieve them, how you define success and how you will measure success, in the planning phase itself if you have to track KPIs. This in turn gives clarity.

5. Since your marketing KPIs are designed to indicate how much you have achieved against your goals, they help you evaluate your performance, find the right priorities, align and realign the teams to the goals.

6. They alert you when the performance goes down and help you identify the challenges in the immediate future, so that you can prepare the team, be proactive and tackle them.

4 Important Marketing Metrics that Marketing Agencies Should Track, and How to Calculate Them

There are many marketing metrics that agencies should track in order to improve profitability. Some of the most important ones include:

1. Cost Per Lead (CPL)

One of the most important goals of marketing is to bring quality leads. Marketing agencies spend on digital ads, sponsored social media posts, SEO to bring organic traffic and various other channels to bring quality leads to the clients. The effectiveness of your marketing initiatives to generate leads can be measured by calculating the amount the agency spends on bringing every lead.

The more leads you can generate within a given budget the less cost per lead you can achieve. The goal is to generate more leads out of less spending. Ideally, the cost per lead should be less than the gross profit you achieve per sale.

● Measuring cost per lead helps you keep track of your spending on lead generation in relation to the results that you are producing.

● It helps you determine whether the spending is justified and sustainable.

● Periodically measuring cost per lead helps you paint a bigger picture over a longer period, identify the trends, and allocate your resources accordingly and proactively for lead generation at any given period of time.

You can calculate cost per lead by dividing the total marketing spend by the total number of leads generated.

For instance, if your marketing spend per month is $500 and the number of leads generated during that month is 20, then Cost Per Lead = $500/20 = $25

2. Revenue Per Client (RPC)

One of the foremost metrics that any business should be measuring is revenue. Ultimately, every profit-making business strives to bring in as much revenue as possible. Keeping track of revenues is indispensable for any business. When it comes to a marketing agency, success can be measured by how much revenue each client brings to your agency for the amount of resources you spend working for them. So, it is crucial to periodically measure revenue per client (RPC).

Measuring revenue per client:

● Gives you insights on the value that every client brings to your marketing agency

● Allows you to track the highs and lows in revenues from every client over a period of time, and find out if you are over or under-ser vicing your clients.

● Provides you with the insights with which you can make decisive changes to your marketing strategy and business model, and find ways to increase your total revenue

● Enables you to set more accurate business goals and targets

You can calculate revenue per by dividing the total revenue by the number of clients you have.

RPC = Total Revenue/No. of clients

For instance, if your total annual revenue is $1,000,000 and you have 20 clients, then RPC = $1,000,000/20 = $50,000 per annum

3. Gross Margin

When you are running a marketing agency, you have to make sure that your pricing is perfect. This is crucial for your profitability. Gross margin is one of those crucial marketing agency KPIs that helps you track your profitability.

Measuring gross margin helps you:

● Fix the right rates for your services

● Track profitability over time

● Identify how much profit you gain from every work you take up from every client

● Determine which services that you offer provide you with the most/least profits

● Make data-driven decisions on cost cutting and achieving profitability

You can calculate gross margin by subtracting your cost of goods sold and labor costs from your gross income, which is the revenue that is obtained after paying for pass-through expenditures incurred (such as paying for the advertising slots in a newspaper, sponsored posts on social media, etc.)

Gross Margin = Gross Income - Cost of goods and labor costs

For instance, if your gross income over a month is $100,000 and the cost of goods sold and labor costs amount to $45,000, then Gross Margin = $100,000 - $45,000 = $55,000 Gross margin % = $55,000/$100,000 x 100 = 55%

4. Net Profit Margin

Net profit margin is one of the most important marketing KPIs. Net profit margin helps you measure the profits that your marketing agency has made after paying for all the expenses including material and labor costs, operating expenses, taxes and overhead expenses.

By measuring net profit margin, you can:

● Ensure efficiency and profitability

● Make sure that your pricing strategy is right

● Improve your bottom line in the long term

● Benchmark against the industry standards

● Give your investors and other stakeholders key insight on the performance of your marketing business so that they can take informed decisions

You can calculate the net profit margin by dividing the net profit, which is the difference between total revenue and total expenses, by the total revenue.

Net Profit Margin = (Total revenue - total expenses)/ total revenue

For instance, if your total revenue per month is $100,000 send your total expenses per month is $75,000, then

Net profit margin percentage = ($100,000 - $75,000)/$100,000 x 100 = 25%

Bastin Gerald is the CEO and founder of Profit.co.

Would you like to comment?

We Are Forever Confronted With Time Thieves

Set your goals, control your activities, and time will reward you

By Jim Stovall, Narrative Television Network

Throughout my 40-year business career, there has been a proliferation of books, videos, and training courses on the subject of time management. Any number of experts will take your attention, effort, and money to fulfill the mission of helping you to manage your time. Managing time is as absurd a concept as managing the weather. You can’t control the weather.

At best, you can prepare by equipping yourself with an umbrella, a warm coat, or rain gear. Whether you prepare or not, the weather will do what it’s going to do, and whether or not you and I are organized or productive, there will always be 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and seven days each week.

Once we understand that we can’t control time, we face the ongoing challenge of controlling ourselves. Controlling how we utilize time is difficult because we are forever confronted with time thieves. These are the people, activities, and distractions that gobble up our minutes, hours, and days.

It’s important to realize that you cannot judge what is the appropriate utilization of your time unless you have a specific objective and a definite goal. A goal is a dream with a time limit and an action plan. Without a deadline and a plan to reach your objective, you don’t have a goal; you simply have a wish. Once you’ve established a firm goal, you can then begin to control yourself and your efforts within the context of your daily schedule. Even after you’ve established a firm goal and an action plan of how to achieve it, the time thieves will not leave you alone. In fact, they may increase their efforts to distract you.

One of the biggest time thieves for entrepreneurs is government paperwork and reporting. This thief is not optional and cannot be avoided, so it should be reduced to a bare minimum and delegated to the greatest extent possible. Without getting partisan or political, I tend to support candidates and initiatives that reduce these burdens on entrepreneurs. Since

small businesses create the majority of new jobs and opportunities, government roadblocks impact us all.

There are salespeople, survey takers, casual acquaintances, and other people who will call you, send you an email, or drop in while you’re trying to focus on your goals and objectives for the day. You can’t control yourself unless you control these potential time thieves.

As you go through your day today, set your goals, control your activities, and time will reward you.

Today’s the day!

Jim Stovall is the President of the Emmy-award-winning Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of more than 50 books—eight of which have been turned into movies. He is also a highly sought-after platform speaker. Would you like to comment?

Cultivate Your Human Authority To Ignite Irrational Brand Loyalty

Show me your gooey insides

By Deb Gabor, Sol Marketing

One of the most impactful trends that has developed in the last few years is the rise of the need to see a brand’s gooey insides. If today’s consumers do not see a company’s passions, feelings, and opinions, they do not connect in a human-to-human way.

Consumers have millions of brand choices, so brands have to be more human and stand for something. Back in the Mad Men era of advertising, if you asked Gillette what they stood for, they would probably say, “Shaving. Now get the hell out of my office.” But today, consumers demand to know more—they want to know a company’s values and what a brand stands for. A brand can not reply, “A great product.” Nope. The public wants more.

Let us look at the case of the chicken sandwich wars. It is all about who has the best chicken sandwich, right? Wrong. It is about the gooey insides; it is about what a company stands for.

Chick-fil-A has always had legions of fans. Let us all just admit…they make a damn good chicken sandwich. It is so good, it can make its way into your dreams. But the gooey insides of the company are not very pretty, and it has repelled a certain segment of society. My daughter grew up eating Chick-fil-A. It was one of her favorite fast-food joints. But then she reached adulthood and found out that Chick-fil-A’s

charitable endeavors include huge donations to organizations that are solidly anti-LBGTQ. So now, as a super-woke, 24-year-old Brooklyn resident, she loves the food, loves the product, and loves the experience, but hates the fact that the founders actively work against LGBTQ rights—the rights of many of her friends.

Chick-fil-A has created friction in my daughter’s mind. She wonders, How can this thing that I love represent the polar opposite of my values? She would feel weird and dirty if she chose to patronize Chick-fil-A. This theme plays out in her brand choices as well. As one of those millennials, who is coming of age and starting to enjoy some purchasing power, these issues continually swirl around in her head.

Because of Chick-fil-A’s divisive brand identity, other fast-food chains saw an opportunity. In August 2019, Popeye’s fired a shot directly across the bow of Chick-fil-A. They launched their new chicken sandwich, which came with an unspoken message: you can get a really good chicken sandwich and not feel like shit for eating it. And the chicken sandwich wars began. But the war was not really about a better chicken sandwich. It was about where you can eat and not have a guilty conscience.

Recently, Wendy’s launched a french fry war with McDonald’s, the conflict revolves around crispy versus soggy fries. But it isn’t getting the same publicity as the chicken sandwich wars, because their war isn’t over an issue that means something to consumers.

Consumers are not only concerned with a brand’s public stance on issues. They also want to know each company’s internal policies regarding equality, fairness, and safety. During the pandemic, people had nothing better to do than read the news and react. They responded to issues they never cared about before. They suddenly had plenty of time on their hands to be outraged. In addition to PPP shaming, people started to judge companies for how quickly (or slowly) they were bringing workers back, how safe the work environments were, and whether companies were putting employees or profits first. Consumers were up in arms over insider reports of the work environment at Amazon fulfillment centers, including stories of warehouse employees remaining on their feet for eighteen-hour shifts with few bathroom breaks. Meanwhile, when a few companies quickly switched to a remote work format and even furnished their employees with ergonomic chairs for their home offices, consumers applauded.

Later in 2020, when stores finally began to open up, customers wanted a brand’s COVID safety measures to reflect their own level of caution. If a customer was taking virus precautions seriously, they tended to avoid the stores that weren’t providing masks and hand sanitizer, enforcing social distancing, or limiting the number of people in their stores.

When customers started to demand to see brands’ values, it extended to every part of the brand—from charity giving to employee relations. And this trend affects branding profoundly.

You Are Your Brands

“Welcome to Ethical Burger, may I take your order?” “Yeah. I’ll take two Equality Burgers, two Local Farm Fries, and a Low Emissions Shake.”

“Will that complete your order?”

“Oh, and an Inclusivity Cookie, please.”

“Your total is…double the other places. Please pull forward.”

What you eat, what you drink, what you wear—the brands that you use—all say something about you. Brand identity has evolved over the years to a point of near transubstantiation, in which brands are part of the consumers who use them. It has become more important than ever as a shorthand for who you are inside.

Deb Gabor is the CEO of Sol Marketing. She is also the author of the new book, ‘Person-ality: Cultivate Your Human Authority To Ignite Irrational Brand Loyalty’. Would you like to comment?

A Delicate Balance: How Structure, Creativity And Innovation Play A Role In Advancing Change

By Jaime Vos, Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM)

After my first week of being hired at a manufacturing company, I saw an opportunity for efficiency if workers simply altered the process in which they were fulfilling orders. I made my

suggestions to the owner of the business, after which he shook his head and replied, “Thanks, but we’ve been doing it this way for years.”

For any organization to remain profitable, it must develop structured processes and procedures

Thinking about something in a new way is often hard for people to grasp. Our minds are programmed to establish patterns of familiarity so that we can more easily predict approaches and outcomes. When a new idea is introduced in business, you can almost always expect resistance.

It is easy to understand that for any organization to remain profitable, it must develop structured processes and procedures. These guidelines help employees work efficiently and facilitate the growth of the product or service. Based on this, the attitude of “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” can become prevalent within any business over time. And while establishing processes often leads to profitability, it only tells one side of the story.

The other area that needs to be considered is innovation. If a business does not create new products and services, its competition certainly will. No matter how efficient a company is, if it fails to innovate, it loses customers and ultimately goes out of business.

However, this poses a significant challenge: How does an organization work within its structured operations, while at the same time, jump-start innovation to encourage new ideas?

Here are a few considerations to keep top of mind:

1. Empower Creative Thinking

First, it is important to acknowledge that creativity is the birthplace of innovation. Recognizing an organization’s employees know the business better than anyone else, if leadership empowers their teams to approach work creatively, new ideas and possible solutions follow. However, if ideas are going to be explored, employees need the freedom to be curious and ask: “What if?” They need space to mix and match their ideas, collaborate with others and have fun. Once they find value in their ideas, they can give them structure and deadlines, however, first, innovation needs an unstructured creative approach.

2. Embrace the Paradox

Organizations typically focus on logistics and structure, and even though we are conditioned by routine to make life easier; creativity is often messy and unorganized. Ideas need space to be viewed from many different angles, torn apart, and re-pieced back together. Creativity is the antithesis of structure. It demands courage, willingness, and an open mind to consider the weird, the wacky and the impossible.

And yet, an innovation process driven only by loose ideas does not gain any traction. It must be managed against goals, objectives, strategies and deadlines in order to be measured.

So, how does an organization balance the process of creativity and innovation effectively?

3. Focus on the Problem You’re Trying to Solve

What are your customers asking for? What problems do they encounter that your company might be able to solve? Is there an unmet need in the market that your business could fill? How will your organization’s innovation process address these needs? This is where the creative process begins.

4. Assemble a Diverse Team

It is important to diversify your innovation teams to maximize creative ideas. Different people think in different ways, and often complement one another’s ideas. The engineer, the artist, the programmer, and the accounting manager do not have to be experts in innovation. They just need to be willing to share and be open to new possibilities.

5. Think Boldly/Act Prudently

This is the heart of managing the process. Even in the most innovative companies, leaders promote a balance of “the sky’s the limit” and “approach with caution.” Enough of the former will build creative momentum, while enough of the latter will keep budgets and deadlines intact.

6. Broaden Your Viewpoint

Resist the mentality of “only invented here” within your culture. Be sure you are also looking for ideas

outside of the walls of your organization. Consumers, customers, vendors and agencies provide valuable insight into ideas you may have not considered. Share your ideas with family and friends. What is their viewpoint? How do they see the problem/ solution differently?

7. Balance the Process

It is important to recognize how creativity feeds the innovation process and how to balance it accordingly. Deadlines, sales goals and quarterly projections can pressure any company to rush innovation, however, too much structure can kill the creative idea by moving it forward too fast. While speeding an idea to market is tempting to increase revenue, research, testing and predictive analysis should be carefully managed and measured without pushing too much and too soon.

In Summary

Companies that focus strictly on cost-savings and efficiencies will suffer in the long term when their customers demand new products and services in a rapidly changing world.

It is crucial that organizations balance structure, creativity, and the innovation process accordingly. Empower your diverse teams to think differently, challenge them with exciting goals and measure their progress at agreed-to intervals. Efficiencies and structure may help businesses survive, but a well-planned and balanced innovation process can make them thrive.

Jaime Vos is the Director of Safety Materials at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) Would you like to comment?

Customer Service Heroes

Making customer service your top priority

By John Tschohl, Service Quality Institute

Weall need a hero—someone who, by their actions, can inspire us to do better, to be better. The five companies I profile here are reaping the financial benefits of making customer service a top priority.

Amazon is the best of the best. It builds everything around customer experience. That includes speed, flawless execution, and exceptional service response. Amazon also empowers each of its more than 1,650,000 employees throughout the world to take care of their customers without asking for permission, trusting them to do what is best for the customer.

Ease of shopping—along with ease of making returns—is the standard at Amazon. The company uses technology to ensure its customers have the best experience possible. Customers are notified within seconds that their orders have been received; they are also notified when their orders are shipped and when they are delivered. If a customer needs to contact someone at the company by phone, an employee will answer the call; there is no robotic technology involved.

Amazon’s commitment to its customers has paid off in numbers its competitors can only dream of achieving. In 2021, sales increased by $83.7 billion over the previous year’s sales of $469.8 billion.

Costco is another company that is incredible in the service it provides its customers. It offers the high est-quality products and the best prices—including gas at 30 cents per gallon less than standard gas stations. The company provides great service at great speed. Often the lines of customers waiting to check out with their purchases are long, but each checkout station is manned by two employees—one scanning the products while the other loads them into a cart, which moves the process along with great speed.

Costco also uses technology to ensure its customers are well cared for. I recently returned some fish that I did not like. The employee did not ask for a receipt; she simply pulled up my purchase information on the computer and instantly refunded it to my credit card.

The company operates 838 warehouses throughout the world—528 of them in the United States. Fourth quarter sales were up 8.7 percent for the year ending August 28, 2022. Its sales during that time reached $70.8 billion, a 14.4 percent increase over the previous year.

Chewy.com also makes service a priority and is handsomely rewarded for doing so. The company was sold to PetSmart in 2017 for $3.5 billion—and today has a value of $35.billion.

Chewy.com makes it easy to purchase its products online. Like the other companies mentioned here, it has high-quality products and great prices. It also has a money-back guarantee and makes it easy for customer to return a product. When my dogs did not like one type of food I had ordered, I contacted the company—employees answer the phones in person 24 hours a day, seven days a week—and was told there was no need to return it. The employee told me, I would get a refund and suggested that I give the food to a friend whose dog might like it.

When it comes to the healthcare industry, the Mayo Clinic outperforms all others. The care is the best in the world, but the cost is similar to that of other institutions. It also goes the extra mile to ensure that patients and family members are comfortable in its facilities. That includes attractive waiting rooms and offices and computers located throughout the Mayo

for use by anyone without the need for a password. The Mayo is the Ritz Carlton of health care; virtually all other healthcare organizations fall into the Motel 6 category.

The Mayo’s focus on providing exceptional service to its patients and their families has resulted in impressive numbers. In 2021, it had more than 1.4 million patients from throughout the United States as well as from 139 foreign countries. It also had $15.7 billion in revenues and spent more than $1 billion on philanthropic endeavors.

Northeast Delta Dental is an insurance company that works with businesses to provide their employees with dental coverage. What sets this company apart from others is that its plan includes a Guarantee of Service Excellence Program that addresses seven areas—ranging from quick processing of claims to no inappropriate billing by participating dentists—and it backs up those guarantees with money.

In 2021, Northeast Delta Dental had $422.9 million in revenue. That year, the company paid out $10,843.15 for incidents when it did not meet its guarantees. Today, the company has a market share of 70 percent in New Hampshire, 60 percent in Vermont, and 50 percent in Maine.

These companies go the extra mile in meeting—and exceeding—their customers’ expectations. In doing so, they are hugely successful and are great role models for other companies that want to make service their highest priority.

John Tschohl is the Founder and President of the Service Quality Institute. He is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on all aspects of customer service and has developed 17 customer service training programs that are used by companies throughout the world. His latest book, ‘Relentless’, is a bestseller.

Would you like to comment?

How Emotionally Intelligent Is Your Team?

6 tips to responding to a heated argument

By Anja van Beek, Anja van Beek Consulting & Coaching

As we enter year three of the pandemic and confront global difficulties that force us to live in a state of uncertainty, empathy in the workplace is now taking on a new level of significance and necessity.

For team members to excel, be challenged, and feel like they have a purpose in their job, leaders must foster an environment and culture that allows them to bring their best selves to the table. Leaders must constantly remember that the way they lead, and the things they do and say affect how others feel on the inside.

EQ (Emotional Intelligence) Becomes Crucial

● What do you say when a co-worker has missed a deadline three times in a row in the past week?

● What should you do if the team feels unmotivated because you decided to go back to the office full-time?

● Or when they are waiting for someone else to act rather than taking responsibility for improving a client’s situation.

● On the other hand, do you acknowledge the team’s modest gains and not just focus on the big stuff?

One of my favorite quotes is Viktor Frankl’s words “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” This is sometimes easier said than done.

Here are 6 tips when reacting to a heated argument

Reframe Your Thinking

We often jump to a conclusion and easily take things personally. Reframe your thinking by considering what other possible reasons may be for the person to act the way they are behaving. A level of self-awareness is also hugely beneficial. For example: ‘What is my role in this scenario?

How has my behavior impacted the other person’s view – without being aware of it?’

Take a Pause

Never underestimate the impact of taking a few deep breaths to slow down your heartbeat and be able to evaluate what is happening and what will be the best way to respond to this situation.

Remain Curious

Ask questions to truly understand the other person’s perspective. Help me understand why do you want to achieve XYZ. What is the real issue for you? If you choose X what are you saying no to?

Be Aware of the 4 F’s

When you are triggered, you are in a fight, flight, freeze or fawn state. A chemical reaction results in our neocortex (thriving, prob lem-solving part of the brain) not functioning optimally. Instead of allowing an unconscious habit to drive your reaction, reactivate the neocortex and be mindful in choosing how you want to respond.

To reactivate your neocortex, ask yourself questions such as: What is the real issue for me? What might support a different explanation? What if this was someone else behaving in this way? What is my behavior communicating? to notice what is really going on in the moment?

Name the Emotion

It is helpful to be able to name the emotion you are experiencing and consider what is the emotion

trying to tell you. Instead of being angry, perhaps you are disappointed with how your idea wasn’t taken, despite you being verbally told that your idea was the best idea.

Tactfully Share What You Are Experiencing

Remember, an experience is made up of four elements – what am I observing, thinking, feeling and wanting. When sharing your experience, a good start is to

start with the “I”. For example, when the project’s team leader did not schedule sufficient time on the agenda: “I noticed that this is the third time that we didn’t have sufficient time allocated to the brainstorming topic. I feel disappointed that my idea wasn’t heard after the request to make the research a priority. How can we ensure we have sufficient time allocated to this agenda point moving forward?”

As an international, highly sought-after coach, speaker, trainer and published avuthor, Anja has more than 20 years of experience enhancing the performance of individual executives, teams, and organizations. She is an Agile Talent Strategist, Leadership & HR Expert, and Executive Coach. Anja was one of the first to be authorized as an Agile People professional and facilitator. She partners with leaders and HR teams on all people-related aspects with a specific focus on integrating agile principles and practices. She is a leadership coach and an expert in supporting teams to remain relevant and thrive in the future of work. Would you like to comment?

Transforming The Future Of CX With EX

Improving employee experience can help businesses improve customer experience

By Sarah Diegnan, ChartHop

Customer expectations and requirements have shifted dramatically over the last few years, transforming how companies engage customers and meet their demands. To keep pace with evolving expectations, businesses must harness additional resources to offer more robust customer support.

Organizations often overlook one of their most important assets: human resources. Traditionally, companies have not considered HR an essential support function for improving customer experience (CX). Yet by supporting and creating engaged employees, HR teams indirectly support CX. Engaged employees spread their contentedness to the customers they serve.

Parallels Between EX and CX

HR leaders have a unique opportunity to drive their companies’ external and internal success. The skills HR leaders use to support and retain employees

can also assist customers, directly impacting business growth. Further, there are important parallels between CX and EX.

1. Onboarding

The onboarding process is a new employee’s first (and most critical) experience with their company. During those first interactions, employees form judgments about their new company. If the onboarding process lacks structure or an employer fails to create a foundation of belonging and provide training, an employee can start out disengaged and may eventually think about looking for a new role.

Leaders should create an onboarding experience merging new hires seamlessly into the fabric of their company, expediting job satisfaction. That experience should include a detailed schedule for the employee’s first week and an onboarding buddy — a friendly

face that gets new employees up to speed on day-to-day processes and familiarizes them with the organization’s norms.

For customers, the onboarding process sets them up to get value from using a company’s product immediately and repeatedly. The customer onboarding process should include a kickoff call, product setup, and routine check-ins. Customers may search for a different company if they feel disappointed or unimpressed during any step of the experience.

Employees involved in the onboarding process need to get customers excited about their product and reemphasize the value it provides. Organizations must be especially thorough when preparing for customer kickoff calls, which sets the stage for overall customer success and experience. That preparation should include time spent researching and customizing kickoff call agendas.

2. Understanding the employee and customer journeys

If companies want to know how their employees feel at work and in their jobs, they must be committed to talking to and building relationships with all employees. Managers should engage with employees to:

● Build trust.

● Identify pain points and objectives.

● Empower them to discover their full potential.

● Help them meet their goals.

Through these conversations, managers can also garner insights and data to better develop initiatives to reduce

attrition, like promoting pay transparency or amplifying diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives.

Managers can also use a people analytics platform to track employee satisfaction metrics through employee net promoter scores (eNPS) and comprehensive surveys.

Organizations also have a responsibility to build relationships with customers. Surveys offer a great first step to gauging customer satisfaction, but organizations must follow through with communication. Customer-facing employees can prioritize communication by treating customers as partners, identifying their requirements, and guiding them toward

achieving those goals. Ultimately, customers want to feel valued and confident that they have spent their money well.

Similar to HR teams, CX teams can use data to create a more optimal experience for their customers. For example, customer health scores allow businesses to assess their relationships with customers. They can learn whether a customer is in danger of churning or ready to make additional purchases or upgrades.

By understanding the parallels between their job functions, HR and CX teams learn from each other and can adjust their processes to better serve employees and customers.

Transforming

The Future Of CX With EX

The Impact of EX on CX

HR also positively impacts CX by improving EX. Too many companies believe they must choose between prioritizing CX or EX. In fact, 88% of C-suite executives encourage their employees to focus on customer needs above all else — including their own experiences and requirements. However, a powerful CX starts with an employee-first approach, supported by people analytics. By identifying gaps, monitoring trends, and tracking progress, people analytics empowers HR teams to create a more comprehensive employee engagement strategy

It is more important than ever for organizations to work on their employee engagement strategy.

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2022 report, only 21% of employees feel engaged at work — 13% fewer than the year before. Engagement supports both employee well-being and overall customer growth. Engaged employees are more likely to become company promoters and brand evangelists, attracting more customers.

Engagement levels also influence how employees interact with customers, from kickoff calls to help desk interactions. Engaged, content employees who feel shared ownership in their company’s mission want to see their organization succeed. That ownership is critical, especially for customer-facing employees. A single employee interaction can make or break

a customer’s experience — and customers remember, for a long time, their positive and negative company interactions.

Sarah Diegnan is ChartHop’s VP of Customer Experience. After leading complex implementations at Acuity Brands, Opower, and Oracle, she brings operational excellence to creating and delivering a world-class customer experience for all of ChartHop’s customers. Would you like to comment?

2023 Will Be The Year Of The Fixer

Building a C-suite that is wired for challenge

By Robert Jordan, InterimExecs

Asbusinesses begin to look ahead to next year, it’s hard to get a sense of what to plan for. One headline implies that economic headwinds are beginning to abate, while the next points out the ominous storms still lurking on the horizon.

We’re living in historic times, the pundits are saying. Inflation, war, changing monetary policy, supply, and labor problems have created “cross-currents” in the global economy that are hard to make sense of in real-time. In other words, the days we are living through are historically confusing.

Businesses are bleeding from the C-suite on down. CEO turnover rate hit a record high this year with 832 CEOs leaving their positions between January-July 2022, an 8% increase from the same period in 2021.

How Can Companies Equip Themselves with a C-suite that is Wired for Challenges?

Knowing what specific challenges your organization will have to rise to next year—and how many people it will take to get the job done—is tricky. Businesses are battening down for a recession while praying for a rebound.

No economist or business leader has a crystal ball, but you don’t need one to make the following prediction: Next year will bring a series of challenges to businesses in every industry. Some of these will be familiar, and simple matters of supply and demand or shifting consumer tastes. But others will be brand new, and their solutions will not necessarily come with a playbook.

Obstacles, bottlenecks, and complications seem like a given for 2023, and some of these are likely to be surmounted with tried-and-true business strategies. But others will seem intractable to company insiders and will require a new set of eyes.

That’s why 2023 will be the year of the Fixer.

What Is a Fixer?

Businesses often bring in outside executives to help steer the ship through uncertain waters. In my work, bringing these businesses together with interim executives, I have sat down with hundreds of on-demand executives, who are the type to run toward the fire instead of away from it, and want to turn around companies that are hemorrhaging cash, customers, and morale. Many have done just that.

I have noticed the differing leadership styles that these executives bring to the table, and the varying ways they approach problems.

Some bring the style and temperament of an artist, treating a business like a blank canvas. Others are natural-born strategists or builders. And then there are fixers.

Fixers are drawn to the most dysfunctional situations the way an adrenaline-junkie mountain biker is drawn to the steepest and most dangerous hills. They thrive on the challenge: Creating order out of chaos, chopping through tangled messes and figuring out what about a business needs to be expanded, cut, streamlined, aligned, and organized to create something better. And when it’s done, they are off to the next dysfunctional company.

There’s a reason I’m not pausing here to point out history’s great fixers so we can all learn from their examples. It’s because their names wouldn’t ring a bell. Companies that emerge leaner and meaner from hard times do make the headlines, but the fixers who put them on their path to profitability seldom do.

Unlike the other leadership types—the artist, the strategist, and the builder—fixers do not weave dreams. They simply get the job done, whatever the job is, and then they move on to the next challenge.

The coming year will bring plenty of opportunities for builders, artists, and strategists. But with so many “cross-currents” in the business landscape—read: thorny problems—next year will be the time to shine for those who expertly fix problems.

Finding the Right Fixer

If your company is considering bringing aboard an interim executive to help navigate times that are difficult to predict, you are hardly alone. If you know your company needs fundamental, bottom-up changes, then you need someone who does far more than help a company navigate. You need a fixer.

A fixer is not a person who claims they can fix problems, but a person with a track record doing this. Their resume should feature a virtual horror show of businesses that have been close to the brink. An effective fixer has no fear, because he or she has already been to the abyss, and emerged stronger.

With this in mind, here are a few questions you can ask that will tell you whether a purported fixer really has the steely determination to fix problems:

What was your worst-ever day of work like? This seemingly innocuous and friendly question is an important one. The fixer’s worst day should sound grueling instead of something that makes a cute story. Whatever situation you are presenting to the fixer, you want someone who has been through worse.

If we take you on – what will happen on Day One? The answer to this question offers clues to the fixer’s process. At the beginning of the engagement, it should be all about listening. An effective fixer on day one will be kicking off the long process of listening to workers from every level of the organization.

What happens on Day 30, or Day 90?

While the fixer will still be in listening mode— understanding that great insights often come from

the bottom of the totem pole—this person should be able to talk about who on the staff will be part of the company’s go-forward team.

Why are you the best fixer for my company’s problems, and what is the worst possible outcome you can foresee?

The worst outcome should be that the business goes belly-up. Any other answer is sugar-coating it, which you don’t want from a fixer. You want fixes, not platitudes. Additionally, any fixer who describes himself or herself as the best is the one to steer clear of. A doctor capable of saving lives will never say they are “the best.” A fixer shouldn’t either.

In the year ahead, some businesses will have challenges, which can be surmounted. But others will run into problems, and those will need fixing.

Businesses that bring in an outsider for this purpose will hardly be alone. There will be ample opportunity for fixers to fix problems. But before bringing aboard a fixer, ask the right questions to ensure that this person not only has the brains to fix problems but the stomach for it.

Robert Jordan is the Founder & CEO at InterimExecs . Robert, along with Olivia Wagner (Founder & President, InterimExecs.) just released the Audible edition of their book Right Leader Right Time: Discover Your Leadership Style for a Winning Career and Company (G&D) Would you like to comment?

How To Handle Risks

Learn why it is important to pick the right risks

By William A. Cohen, Institute of Leader Arts

Risk is usually unavoidable.

Drucker found that though risk cannot always be avoided or even reduced, it can be managed. This is important because potential success is frequently dependent on the amount of risk and at times, the higher the risk, the greater the payoff and chance of success. Moreover, the risk may be so obvious that a potential action may seem unlikely and ignored by an adversary or competitor and your strategy will work because of the risk!

During World War II, aircraft designer Geoffrey de Havilland suffered because aluminum and steel were in demand. In response, he designed and built a combat bomber using a plentiful, but highly unlikely material: wood. This had not been done since WW I. Some thought this was impossible in modern air warfare. In any case, De Havilland eliminated all armor and defensive armament and developed a two-engine bomber that was very light with a crew of only two, but had the bomb capacity and range of a heavy but well-armed 4-engine bomber.

He named it the “Mosquito.” Capable of 400 mph. It was one of the fastest planes of the war and operated effectively at both high and low level, which made it highly versatile. Nearly 8,000 wooden bombers were built. With its speed losses were not excessive and De Havilland’s risk paid off. Risk acceptance is as important a factor in business as in war.

Gillette’s Safety Razor

Faced with the hazard inherent in self-shaving with an exposed blade, K. C. Gillette developed a razor consisting of a thin double-edged steel blade mounted between two protective

plates. This limited potential hazard and made self-shaving safe. To eliminate the need for sharpening, the blade was thrown away when it became dull, and a new blade used. However, the device was more expensive to produce than a straight razor. In fact, Gillette had to practically give away the razors and make money only by selling blades. A significant risk! The first sale was for only 51 razors and 168 blades. However, a year later, Gillette needed 90,000 razors and almost 13,000,000 blades to meet the demand. The risk had been significant, but the product created a profitable industry.

Focusing on

Lower

Risk Can Be Wrong

Drucker saw that focusing on lower risk, professionals in many professions frequently assumed that existing trends would continue. This was almost never true. A competitor’s action or something in nature or human affairs including a pandemic, war, or the weather could change everything.

Even Drucker erred as a journalist, when he predicted a continuation of the rising trend of the stock market in a newspaper article he wrote just before the great depression of 1929. After this experience, Drucker advised managers not only to expect change, but also to initiate it with planned innovations and to carefully analyze and accept the right risks.

The Need for Risk Controls

It is not only important to take the right risks, but also to establish controls over the risks taken. However, Drucker cautioned that risk control was difficult due to three important characteristics:

1. Lack of objectivity

2. Though focused on results, results aren’t always controllable

3. Though they must be measurable, the measurements cannot always be exactly calculated

The Objectivity Challenge

The control selected was lighting conditions at the Hawthorne

Works, a factory outside of Chicago. One experiment examined the effect of increased lighting. It was simple enough. The control was objectively based on increasing the wattage of light bulbs and then noting the change in work productivity. It was assumed that productivity would increase as wattage was increased and lighting got increasingly better, and it did. . . at first.

However, after one week, the wrong bulbs were used by mistake, and wattage was decreased instead of increased. Productivity should have declined, instead, it improved! It was not a miracle nor an error in measurement, nor were these unique bulbs. What happened was that workers expected the lighting intensity to increase weekly, and this fact motivated them to work harder to achieve the expected results.

Today this is called the “Hawthorne Effect”, named after the company that identified this phenomenon first. It demonstrates that the novelty of having research conducted along with the increased attention to measured results can by itself cause an observable change in results. Drucker said, “Controls are not applied to a falling stone, but to a social situation with living, breathing, human beings who can be influenced by the controls themselves.”

Focusing on the Real Results

It may be relatively easy to measure effort or efficiency, but

much more difficult to measure real results with the control. Drucker pointed out that it was of no value to have the most efficient design department, if the department was efficiently designing the wrong products.

Some Results Aren’t Measurable

Controls are also difficult because some results, important to the risk, are not noted or even measurable. Even if you can predict that eventually an earthquake or a pandemic is inevitable, precise knowledge regarding the date, size, and resulting damage is unknown.

Changes were anticipated with the introduction of the pocket-sized battery calculator. However, it caused the almost complete disappearance of the ubiquitous slide rule, carried by engineers, and manufactured as the sole product of several established companies. Yet the need for them had disappeared.

The 7 Risk Control Requirements

Drucker determined that controls must satisfy seven basic requirements:

1. They had to be economical –less the cost of employing the control itself create problems

2. They had to be meaningful in important ways

3. They must be appropriate to what you are measuring –absenteeism of a yearly average of 10 days per employee sounds acceptable, but what if you have only two employees and one

was never absent and absences creating the “average” were due solely to the other employee?

4. Measurements must also be appropriate to the phenomenon measured. Victor Kiam, an entrepreneur, bought the failing Remington Electric Razor Company in the 1980s which he made profitable and wrote a book explaining his success which he promoted on television along with the razor. His TV promotions were successful, and the book sold well, but some said the book offered few useful insights explaining Kiam’s success at Remington. Yet the book sold more than 200,000 copies, surpassing many books on entre preneurship published about the same time.

5. Later it was speculated that the author had spent almost $2,000,000 on his TV ads in selling the 200,000 books. The net to the publisher was roughly 50% of the sales price. This book was priced at $30. Book royalties for non-fiction books to the author at the time were about 15% of the net amount received by the publisher from the bookseller. Therefore, the author had earned the following in royalties: ($30 x 50% x 15% x 200,000 books= $450,000) which was $1,550,000 less than cost of the cost of Kiam’s advertising. He may have been willing to take this loss for bragging rights and possibly for also promoting the company’s razors. But book sales contributed little to razor sales, and while sales numbers were typically used to assumed to represent the value of the book to

the reader it was questionable in this instance.

Control requirements 5, 6, and 7 are equally important. First, they need to be timely. Results are an expensive waste of time if the information received arrives too late to be of use. They need to be simple. Complicated controls can cause confusion and lead to other errors. Finally, they need to be oriented toward action. Controls are not for academic interest. They are for implementing strategy and action with the appropriate risk.

The Final Limitation

The final control is the organization itself. An organization operates with rules, policies, rewards, punishments, incentives resources, capital equipment, etc. but its success comes from people and their daily, sometimes unquantifiable, actions such as the impact of customer interaction, morale and company policies. The expressions of actions, including compensation, may be quantifiable. However, feelings, drive, ambitions, leadership, vacations, and the health of employees may be less so.

As an operational system the organization cannot be accurately quantified except by results or progress toward defined goals.

What Risk Analysis Means

Consideration of risk is essential. However, it is important to pick the right risks and to control these risks considering all factors which can affect them.

Knowledge is power, or at least stored power. Selecting the right risks and monitoring the seven important aspects of risk controls as identified by Drucker means effective risk management. A manager cannot do more, nor should any manager consider doing less.

*Adapted and syndicated internationally from Consulting Drucker and Peter Drucker on Consulting: How to Apply Drucker’s Principles for Business Success/ (LID 2016, 2018.)

William Cohen was the first graduate of the PhD program that Peter Drucker co-developed at what is now the Masatoshi Ito and Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management. Graduating and becoming Drucker’s friend, he applied Drucker’s methods and rose to become an Air Force general and the author of more than 50 management books published in 23 languages. He is the President of the Institute of Leader Arts. Cohen’s latest book is Peter Drucker on Consulting: How to Apply Drucker’s Principles for Business Success

Would you like to comment?

4 Characteristics Of High-Performance Teams

By Dr. Dawn-Marie Turner, Turner Change Management

Have

you ever been part of a high-performance team –one where everyone works well together, things seem to flow, and you accomplish much more than what you could do individually? If you have, then you know there's a

big difference between working in a group and working with a team.

In business, we use the word “team” for just about any group of people who work together. Yet a team is more than just a group of individuals working

together. A team creates new work from a collective capability, a contribution that you couldn’t get individually. Focusing on shared purpose and collective contribution, rather than the individual members, helps build a team.

Cultivating these areas can help you build teams that produce results

I've worked on some great teams, but they've often taken time to develop. On one occasion, however, I was in a situation where suddenly and rapidly, almost spontaneously, a group I was working with began functioning as a high-perfor mance team. I decided to take a closer look at how this occurred.

We had all the usual things that characterize a team. We had a clear goal, all our rules and responsibilities were well outlined, and we had a clearly defined project. None of these factors however explained the rapid transformation from a group of people working together to a high-performance team. Here are some common traits of high-per formance teams I gleaned from this experience:

1. Respect. Each person on the team is an individual and comes with a unique perspective, ability, history, and communication style, and those need to be respected and leveraged. Each person may be chosen because of their expertise and knowledge, but in a high-performing team, they are valued beyond that, as a whole person.

2. Trust. High-performance teams exhibit a sense of trust that everyone in the group is smart and knows their stuff. When this type of trust develops, group members participate more fully in the conversations, and prob lem-solving becomes a shared experience, and the need to be right is replaced with the desire to find the best solution.

3. Fun Under Pressure. Deadlines and the commitment to meeting goals don’t overtake the group’s ability to enjoy the work and the people. Our project had a firm and immovable deadline for completion. The pressure to complete at the desired quality was intense. Yet we still made time to socialize and enjoy the process. We laughed at ourselves, with each other, and through the ups and downs of the work. In these moments of fun, we shared insights, got to know one another, and celebrated our differences. This was all done virtually, but because we made time to do it, we got a better understanding of our similarities and differences. And the laughter helped us move into that trusting team performance level.

4. Valuing Perspectives. Effective teams are inclusive. Each person feels actively connected and involved. The value we place on everyone's perspective and experience helps create collective intelligence. Our group was diverse. We came from multiple industries with a variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise, and we crossed multi-generational lines. Our team leader made the time and space, without rushing, for each member to contribute and no one person dominated the conversation or the work. Each person was given time to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and contribute. The different levels of thinking, experience and perspectives were acknowledged, valued, and celebrated to allow us to

create something that was new and unique

The collective intelligence of groups isn’t strongly correlated with the average intelligence of individuals in the group, MIT researchers have found. What counts more is the diversity of experience and thinking. Creating a high-performance team is not about putting a bunch of smart people together in the room. It is about cultivating different ways of thinking and different perspectives to create collective intelligence and solve problems faster.

Dr. Dawn-Marie Turner , author of “ Launch, Lead, Live: The Executive's Guide to Preventing Resistance and Succeeding With Organizational Change,” teaches stories, techniques, and the science to take your team from change-resistant to change-ready, from stressed-out to resilient.

Would you like to comment?