The age-old question – which is more important, customers OR employees – is a misguided, and potentially dangerous one. As a business leader, you shouldn’t prioritize one group over another. Instead, you should link employees and customers. One way to connect employees and customers is to use cultural tenets that are relevant and important to […]
“Start with why.” It’s great advice, but you need to do more than start with why. You need to put your why into action. And that’s where lots of business leaders get tripped up. My latest LinkedIn Brand+Cuture Series post, Start With Why But Don’t Stop There, explores how to close the gap between vision […]
A regular day of rest – a sabbath – is an important leadership practice because it enables you to fill up your tank so you can serve others. And taking a sabbath helps put your brain in task-negative mode which leads to greater productivity and creativity. In my new Smartbrief on Leadership video, I provide […]
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently referred to Meta employees in a new way: Metamates. Is this a good idea? Should you use a coined name to refer to your employees? The poll I fielded on LinkedIn yielded a definitive answer: It depends. 28% supported the practice of made-up names for employees; 32% voted against it; […]
How aligned and integrated are your external brand identity and internal organizational culture? Does your organization have the right core values that it needs to cultivate your desired culture and achieve your brand vision? How big is the gap between your existing brand identity and the one you aspire to? In what specific ways are […]
As you think about the coming year, I’m guessing are you don’t want another only OK, keep-our-heads-above-water, just-grateful-to-still-be-around year – you want 2022 to be a year of greatness! To help you turn your hopes and dreams for the new year into reality, I’ve just published “2022 Great Business Action Plan” – a piece that […]
The problem at Amazon is not simply that its culture has gone awry; more importantly, it has become disconnected from the company’s brand. Amazon’s brand has always been grounded in its aspiration of becoming “Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.” And its leaders have used the organization’s core values, “Leadership Principles”, to guide the company in service […]
Customer Experience (CX) maturity models are used by many companies to guide, measure, and improve their performance on CX. You need a similar tool to empower Employee Experience (EX) excellence. I suggest an EX Maturity Model that incorporates the 10 key building blocks of EX: Strategic clarity – clear vision and strategy for EX EX:CX […]
Your Human Resources and Compliance/Risk/Ethics departments might not be the first to come to mind when you think about culture-building, they can – and should – influence it significantly. And they are only two of the many groups within your organization that must be engaged in culture-building. As a leader, you may spearhead the definition […]
One of my go-to books on leadership is The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, by Michael D. Watkins. I regularly give it to folks who are transitioning into a new role. If I had his address and thought he’d read it, I’d send a copy to Andy […]