Tag: leadership

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Customer service Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Building Connections and Engagement in “Smart Women Conversations”

Connecting and engaging people in the workplace with LEGO® … just one of many fascinating topics shared in my video discussion with Smart Women Conversations’ host Yvonne DiVita, respected blogger, serial entrepreneur, and my former publisher who remains a dear friend.

Yvonne launched Smart Women Conversations to “inform, educate, create laughter and share stories of reinvention” as part of her passion to “inspire and educate smart, talented women eager for business success today.”

I’m honored and humbled to be among the impressive women interviewed in this special series and invite you to read Yvonne’s introduction or just watch and listen to our conversation below.

To learn more, please visit Nurturing Big Ideas and check out these other Smart Women Conversations.

 

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Customer service Engagement Training & Development

What’s Reflected in Your Brand Mirror?

To hold on to your customers amid strong competition, it’s important to provide a positive customer experience. But where do you begin?

You start from the inside out with the employee experience because the way employees feel is the way customers will feel – and if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers. 

Picture the relationship between the two as a mirror. If employees are frustrated by company policy or internal politics, their attitudes can be reflected in their dealings with customers. Who wants to be served by employees who feel hassled or ready to disengage? It takes only one or two such encounters before a customer goes elsewhere. And who knows how many other customers will hear of their experience?

What do you see when looking into your company’s employee-customer brand mirror?

  • a shiny reflection of positive experiences with your internal and external brand?
  • a blurred image that needs polishing to be more employee- and customer-focused? or
  • a cracked image opening up opportunities for your competitors?

Three keys to creating a positive and polished brand reflection:

  • Proactively pay attention and listen to employees to better understand their experience in your workplace; e.g., employee surveys, management by wandering around, engagement discussions, exit interviews, etc. Do your employees have the tools, resources, and information they need to effectively serve customers?
  • Based on what you learn from listening to them, involve employees in improving business operations to better care for customers and each other.
  • If your organization is in transition or stressed with limited resources, positively acknowledge those who rally the energy and enthusiasm to serve customers and co-workers despite the situation.

If you need a reminder :

“There is no way to deliver a great customer experience with miserable employees.”  Steve Cannon

“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.”  Stephen R. Covey

[Image credit: Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash]

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Engagement Marketing

Strengthening Your Company’s Brand from the Inside-Out – Podcast Interview

What a joy to be a guest on the “Profitable Happiness™” Podcast, hosted by bestselling author and musician, Dr. Pelè, who focuses on workplace happiness as a key to success.

In our engaging 30 minute conversation, we talk about what lead me to bridge marketing and human resources with internal marketing to create a positive workplace culture that values employees and customers. We also discuss interesting issues such as how to identify happy workplaces, how to save money on outside consultants, and how to have a positive impact in a toxic environment.

Listen here for our conversation on Internal Workplace Wellness Marketing.

To learn more and listen to Dr. Pelè’s other interviews with “successful workplace happiness experts, executive coaches, and entrepreneurs, check out his website.

 

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Engagement

True Confessions: I’m Tired of Employee Engagement

I started working on employee engagement long before the “e” word came into vogue, and I’m tired of it. Here’s why.

Overused as a business buzzword, the term “employee engagement” has become meaningless. It gets talked about in executive suites and management meetings, yet few companies actually do anything about it because too much effort is required to change a culture that needs fixing and artificial attempts in a cultural vacuum only make the situation worse.

As a result, I’m just plain tired of:

  • the endless rhetoric and discussions that go nowhere
  • the naysayers who don’t think engagement matters
  • executives frustrated with engagement because it’s not a quick fix.

Employee engagement 1.0 and beyond
When I started Quality Service Marketing more than 30 years ago, my work involved helping clients gain employee commitment to marketing and organizational goals. Managers wanted to know how to get employees motivated and willing to work with them to take care of customers.

Engagement’s scope has evolved since then to recognize that employee and employer each bear responsibility for it. Employees need to show up to work ready, willing, and able to do their best, and employers need to provide a workplace where employees are respected, trusted, and eager to do their best.

Work and workplace expectations have also changed. Employees want meaningful work with flexibility and fair pay. And while some companies proactively engage them as valuable partners, too many still consider them as labor to be manipulated in response to short-term market pressures.

That’s the main reason I’m frustrated with employee engagement. We haven’t fully transitioned from the industrial age of management control over employees-as-commodities to a better model of management with employees-as-respected-partners sharing in responsibility and ownership of results.

Not ready to give up
Despite my frustrations, I’m encouraged when I meet with employees who tell me how great their employers and workplace cultures are. Ditto when I hear and read about successful organizations where employee-care is as important as customer-care.

Despite the clueless-in-charge, there are still leaders out there who value their employees and genuinely want to do better with and by them. So I’m not giving up – because people matter and they deserve better.

[Image credit: photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash]

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Training & Development

Why Read About Reading?

Because it’s good for your health.

That’s the key message in Read ‘Em & Reap: 6 Science-Backed Ways Reading Puts You on the Road to Achieving More and Living Longer by Tom Collins. [Disclaimer: I was fortunate to review an early draft of the book.]

Collins draws on research from neurology, psychology, cognition, education, and other fields of science to affirm reading’s benefits that positively impact both physical and mental health. Chapter titles include:

    • Reading Reduces Stress
    • Helps You Sleep
    • Improves Your Decision-Making Capacity
    • Makes You a Better Leader

A quick and enjoyable read, this powerful little book offers insight on “deep reading” to find answers and/or explore problems to generate meaning. Its readers will also find an interesting discussion in the print vs. digital debate.

Why I recommend Read ‘Em & Reap

If you’re a hesitant reader, you’ll get the encouragement you need to read more with help on how to develop a proactive reading plan.

If you’re an avid reader, you’ll appreciate the book’s “tips on adding more reading to your life.”

I enjoyed this book because it affirms the benefits of reading on so many levels. I read nonfiction for work to learn more, and I read fiction for pleasure to escape. Now I’m encouraged to go beyond reading just for work and play. Read ‘Em & Reap was the jump-start I needed to expand my reading even more.

 

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Engagement

At the Heart of a Successful Brand

This powerful statement is from the late Bob Wood, former Chairman of Wood Dining Services, whom I had the privilege of interviewing for my first book on internal marketing, Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee-Customer Care. 

Bob was the epitome of an engaged leader who truly cared about his employees and customers as reflected in this description of the company culture:

“The Wood Company’s recipe for success is developing and nurturing its people.
We value and understand the difference they can make in pleasing our customers.”

I wish there were more inspired leaders like Bob who knew how to nourish a successful brand from the inside out.

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Customer service Engagement

Internal vs. External Customers: Who Comes First?

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

In many organizations there are employees who not only serve customers, they ARE customers.

These “internal” customers are employees who rely on the information and resources provided by fellow employees who work in support functions such purchasing, HR, accounting, IT/information, etc. The level of quality service and support that “internal” customers receive from them impacts their ability to effectively serve a firm’s “external” customers.

Players on the same team?
Consider this statement from a colleague in a customer-contact position who described the response her department received when requesting assistance from support employees in the organization’s parent company: “Sometimes we’re mildly ignored, and other times we’re barely tolerated or just dismissed.” Imagine the frustration she and her team experienced trying to do their jobs.

When internal customers have their business service needs taken care of by co-workers — getting prompt responses to questions and requested support — they can then take care of the company’s external customers. Conversely, when these employees get poor service that impedes their ability to effectively do their jobs, they make take out their frustrations on other employees as well as customers — all contributing to a less than satisfactory work environment.

So which customers come first?
The answer to this question is easy.

“Paradoxically, to achieve an emotionally connecting customer experience, employees come first, ahead of the customer.”  Tom Peters

It’s not that one group is more important than the other; both are critical to an organization’s success. The overarching reality is that the quality of the employee experience (that of all employees in supporting and/or internal customer roles) ultimately impacts the quality of the customer experience.

To paraphrase my often-cited quote: “If employees don’t feel valued, neither will customers – internal and external.”

[Feather/egg image by congerdesign from Pixabay. Chick image by Azkia A. Mardhiah from Pixabay]

 

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Engagement

“You’re facilitating with what … ?!”

I’m proud to announce that I’m now a Certified Facilitator in LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.

That’s right, I can help companies “solve real problems in real time in 3D” using specially selected LEGO® bricks.

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is a proven methodology based on extensive research from the fields of business, psychology, learning, and organizational development. It uses the power of “hand knowledge” that leverages the hand-brain connection: research shows the hands are connected to 70-80% of our brain cells. Using the neural connections in our hands, we can better “imagine, describe, and make sense of situations, initiate change and improvement, and even create something new.”

Participants engaged in this innovative approach “lean-in” to deal with business challenges in a safe environment. “Thinking through their fingers,” participants are fully engaged and empowered to unleash “insight, inspiration, and imagination.”

When is it helpful to use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®?

Here is a sample of situations in which it works. Use it when you:

  • Are dealing with a complex challenge/issue that has no clear answers
  • Need to grasp the bigger picture, identify connections, and explore options/solutions
  • Want participants to equally contribute their respective knowledge and opinions on a topic/issue – with 100% engaged participation.

Its application is customized to each organization’s unique situation.

I’m excited to share this new addition to my facilitator tool kit. If your team or organization is ready to discover new insights and uncover fresh perspectives, let’s talk.

 

 

Categories
Engagement

Workplace Engagement: an Inspired Strategy

Image courtesy of https://peopleinsight.co.uk/

We know that people can show up for work fully engaged only to have their enthusiasm and energy chipped away over time; i.e., once engaged doesn’t mean always engaged.

That’s because numerous factors contribute to one’s engagement levels that include an employee’s personal situation (involving health, family, financial well-being, and support systems) and his/her workplace situation (the nature of the job, resources available, company culture, trust, etc.). This means individuals and the organizations they work for share responsibility for engagement: employees need to show up ready, willing, and able to do their best work in a positive environment in which management fully supports employees’ efforts to do their best.

I’ve worked with many people who are committed to doing their best regardless of personal challenges. Whether or not they’re able to maintain their engagement, however, depends on leadership and management effectiveness.

“The willingness of the employee culture can’t be demanded; it can only be inspired. … employee management is only the illusion of control. On their own, people will decide how tightly they’ll embrace a new strategy. Their decision will be affected by whether they’re inspired to do well, whether they have a role model of good performance, and whether they get reinforcement for their performance.” Stan Slap

An engaged workplace is not only inspired, it’s also intentional.

[Image courtesy of http://www.peopleinsight.co.uk/]

Categories
Engagement

When Strategic Change is Designed to Disengage

After hearing from clients and colleagues undergoing organizational restructuring, I’m totally confounded by their descriptions of what’s happening. Managers are brought in from “corporate” or outside the organization and placed in positions to make changes without gathering any input from current managers who are running successful business units.

Yes, I get that company execs can change strategy and supporting structure(s) when and how they want to. It’s the processes they use that are most concerning – especially when they seem designed to disengage. Like changing job responsibilities with no consideration or input from the managers and employees in those roles. Or telling people they have to re-apply for their current jobs. While such an approach might be a way to eliminate under-performers, it’s insulting to those who perform at or above expected levels.

Executives who initiate strategic changes without engaging current managers in the process disrespect them by dismissing their institutional knowledge and experience working in their respective departments.

While organizational change isn’t easy. it doesn’t have to be made more painful by those in charge.

“The trick is to know what to change when. And to achieve that there is no substitute for a leadership with an intimate understanding of the organization working with a workforce that is respected and trusted.” Dr. Henry Mintzberg