Strategic Discipline Blog

What makes people hate their jobs? What makes them non-productive, complaint-happy zombies? 

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Topics: Employee Feedback, employee engagement, weekly meetings, collective intelligence, employee performance, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

Almost two years ago I sat in a hospital room with my wife, my oldest son, and Dr Zenk.  Dr. Zenk gave me the news that I had Acute Myeloid Leukemia.  He was as direct as he could possibly be.  He explained that I would need chemotherapy treatment and if successful a bone marrow transplant.  He noted that typically patients who undergo this type of treatment are out of work a year or more.   He didn’t need to explain that treatment would be expensive. The thought of being out of work for a year, as the sole wage earner for my family, set me back.  How would my family survive?  How would I feel knowing the impossible challenge I’d just put my family in? I was devastated! I cannot recall ever feeling so low. 

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Topics: Acute Myeloid Luekemia, employee engagement, employee performance, Core Purpose, Bone Marrow Transplant, The Power of Full Engagement, Michelle Wick

As a leader the biggest kick I received was seeing my people succeed.  Years ago while still in the broadcasting field I attended an industry conference in Dallas.  There a former sales person approached me and fawned over the training and experience she’d gained working for me.  She was now a radio station general manager and doing extremely well for a sizeable radio station group in Minnesota.  I was overwhelmed.  I had no idea how well she had done, nor would she attribute much of her success to my contribution.

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Topics: employee engagement, Accountability, weekly meetings, employee performance, Business Dashboards, Build Business Dashboard, productivity

Maximum growth and high ideals are not incompatible. They’re inseparable.

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Topics: employee engagement, Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the Wo, Brand Ideal, Stengel 50, Strategic Statement of Values

Organizational direction in your company can come in several forms.  I’m going to divide them into the emotional and objective since they serve two different but critical purposes.  On the emotional side we look at what might be labeled as “Strategic Statement of Values.”  On the opposite side, the objective is the Strategic Objective Statement which produces the Strategy Statement we’ve discussed in previous blogs. 

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Topics: employee engagement, strategy, Business Culture, Q12, Employee Survey

At a recent client monthly meeting we discussed their new employee orientation (onboarding) process and how someone is always included to mentor the new person.  The mentoring program isn’t structured. Its primary intent is to provide an opportunity for feedback and concerns that they might not feel they can address with their supervisor.  The CEO played a video on why mentoring is important this company.  Immediately he observed there were additional opportunities mentoring offers to grow their business.

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Topics: employee engagement, Leadership Training, Leadership DNA, Connecting, Cost of Mis-hire

Inside your business there’s a secret weapon that probably lies dormant.  You’re unaware of the latent potential it possess or didn’t realize how you can develop it in order to increase your capacity to grow.

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Topics: employee engagement, People, Organizational Health, Business Culture, Gallup's Q12 Employee Engagement Survey

Monday morning during the Collective Intelligence portion of one of my customers weekly meetings we engaged in asking the team specific questions from the Q12 Gallup Employee Engagement Processto help solve a specific issue on this company’s top priority for 2013.  

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Topics: employee engagement, collective intelligence, strategy, Q12, Gallup's Q12 Employee Engagement Survey

A customer complaint is a good thing.  It means you know that you need do to something for improvement.

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Topics: Customer Feedback, Net Promoter Score, employee engagement, customer service, customer satisfaction metrics, Qualitative Customer Feedback, customer loyalty

Discovered a great customer experience recently?  When and how were you sure?

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Topics: employee engagement, customer service, customer satisfaction metrics, Q12, customer loyalty, Gallup's Q12 Employee Engagement Survey