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The Three Critical Questions of Business Planning
(This article first appeared in the CED Magazine) As a business leader, your job is to successfully move your organization forward and improve business performance. This requires a continuous process of reflection, analysis, and planning during which you’ll have to answer the following questions about your business: What is your business’ current condition? Where would…
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Net Promoter Score – Promoted or Demoted?
The uses and interpretation of the popular metric Net Promoter Score (NPS) are still being explored and debated. Intended to measure “customer experience”, the metric has exploded over the last 5 years, with companies using NPS scores to assess and improve their products and services, to make investments, and even tying it to executive compensation. …
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Google’s Leadership Test – 5-minutes and 13 questions
What if you could identify in 5-minutes whether or not someone had the potential to be a great leader at your company? It might sound far-fetched, but when Google thinks they can do just that by asking only 13 short questions, it’s worth paying attention. Identifying leadership talent and putting that talent in the right…
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Lemonade – Making Insurance Cool and “Socially Impactful”
Apparently technological disruption can make any industry trendy and cool – even insurance. Startup company Lemonade is being described by users as “instant,” “fun,” and contributing to “social good”. All this about a company that sells renters and homeowners insurance online. Launched in 2016, Lemonade is based on an artificial-intelligence platform and describes itself as…
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Pen and Paper Exercise – Moments of Truth
As business people, we are naturally focused on business results: profits, performance, market share, and the KPI “flavor of the day”… But we also realize that satisfied customers are our most important business result. In the words of Peter Drucker, “…the purpose of business is to create a customer.” Here’s a pen and paper exercise…
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Fun and Games at Work
Fancy coffee bars at work are a nice touch, but to build employee morale while also boosting business productivity, consider bringing games into play. Research has confirmed that adding play to the workplace can actually improve productivity by 20%. Playing while at work unites team members, helps blow off steam, and fosters innovation and creativity….
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How’s It Going? (And Other Elevator-Speech No-Nos)
We’ve all probably heard it 100 times – you need to have your elevator speech ready for that unexpected ride with the CEO. But what if that actually did happen? Would you be ready? Maybe it’s easier to prepare for that day than we think… Here are a few tips and tricks from a guide…
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Custom Business Simulations – Guest Speakers
Customization of a simulation can be expensive. If you can accomplish 80% of the learning with an off-the-shelf business simulation you don’t need a custom one. However, don’t always assume that the simulation software is what needs to be customized. There are simpler ways to customize a learning experience. One approach that can help bring…
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Words to the Wise from the World’s Richest Man
Jeff Bezos and Amazon have become a testing ground for business-thinking in the digital era. Through an extremely long-term vision and a focus on the “huge value” of execution, Amazon has become the world’s most valuable public company, and Jeff Bezos the world’s richest man. Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters to Shareholders offer worthwhile insights for…
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Careful What You Measure For – You Might Just Get It
Breaking news from 50,000 BC – as a business leader, “you get what you measure”. But the key is to identify the most meaningful, and the fewest, things to measure. Here are some tips from a recent Forbes article: Choose business metrics that actually impact business performance. Break down measures into smaller metrics to provide…