Book Review- Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard
Chip and Dan Heath gives some compelling insight to change. The book, Switch, starts by talking about 3 surprises about change. The most powerful insight here is that often with change what looks like a people problem is often a situational problem. When I work with business owners and we talk about what’s going on in their business, the conversation always turns to employees. More specifically, how bad their employees are. What Switch shows is that many of our problems with other people have to do with the process and environment other the people themselves. This is true whether we are talking about employees or our kids. The entire book
Book Review: Fake Work
Fake Work is defined as work that is not targeted or aligned with the strategies and goals of the company. Looking at the landscape of work today, you see companies making cut backs on personnel and resources which then transfers additional responsibility to the people in organization who still have a job. In this type of an environment, it becomes even more critical to spend your time working in alignment with what makes your company successful. Americans are working longer and are busier than ever, unfortunately this has not actually translated into productivity. Consider this quote from page 11 of the book: An average worker today needs to work a
Bringing Humanity Back To Testimonials
You ever been to a website or visited a sales page or seen an endorsement on the cover a book and wonder, is that real? I know I have and I think a lot of you reading this have experienced that to. The problem with testimonials today is that businesses have gotten sloppy in their use of endorsements for their product or service. We are all too content with the generic phrases such as; “This product/service was great, really informative!” What does that really tell a customer about your product/service? You guessed it, nothing. When we look at testimonials, we want to see authenticity. We want to feel like the
The People Pleaser’s Guide to Productivity
Being a people pleaser can be a blessing and a curse. It’s great because, deep down, a people pleaser just wants other people to be happy. Being a people pleaser becomes problematic when it causes you to over-commit yourself to projects and tasks. How can you as a people pleaser, make people happy and be productive? Before I get into the mind set, what does the downside to being a people pleaser look like in business? I worked with one person in particular who had a hard time with being a people pleaser and running an effective business. They were constantly over-promising on deadlines and under-delivering their finished product. They
Are You Sliced Bread? 3 Questions To Ask To Make Your Business Exceptional
In business today, we want to be the best things for our clients since sliced bread. In an increasingly busy marketplace where there are too many choices and not enough time, how do you make sure that you are exceptional and that you are the one chosen. There are 3 questions that you can start the conversation with to unlock your exceptional activities and structure your business so that you can focus on those exceptional areas. Before I get into those questions, first think for a minute about the activities that you do on a day to day basis. You will have a wide range of things that you do
