“The most important skills I had to learn to be successful were people skills.”  Declared flamboyant businessman Richard Branson. Dr. Daniel Goleman calls these skills our Emotional Intelligence. This involves personal and social competence. Unfortunately, it seems people skills are guilty of desertion when you consider the high levels of management failure, employee discontent and poor […]

Sadly, the great customer experience scam is on. First of all, nearly everybody says they are in favor of good customer service. It’s as desirable as apple pie, family, and free expression, all rolled into one. After all, it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? Could you imagine a company saying, “We don’t believe […]

E pluribus unum is a Latin phrase meaning “out of many, one.”  Most noteworthy, it implies people of honor working together for the common good.  It is what the founding fathers hoped for.  Congress adopted it as the motto of the United States with an act in 1782. However, the leadership of the US government is increasingly polarized. Gridlock […]

Management guru Peter Drucker wrote over twenty years ago, “We have a dearth of leadership”. He prophesied the lost art of servant leadership that we face today. Have you ever lost something very valuable? You looked everywhere but just could not find it. Do you remember how frustrating, annoying and disappointing it was? Employees of companies and […]

Recently these three situations came up in a couple of organizations. Each can define leadership intent-honest or dishonest. It reminded me that little things can make a big difference. At first I thought no big deal. However, after reviewing what happened and getting feedback from a few others a leadership lesson began to formulate in […]

Customer Service Superstars are friendly and helpful when delivering the customer experience. Listening is their highest form of courtesy. The bottom-line to excellent customer service is the quality of the customer interactions in person, on the phone or online. This requires you treat customers with respect, dignity and grace. A negative attitude, poor systems or […]

Horrible customer service is the norm today. It reigns! Have you experienced any similar scenarios recently like the ones below? I have all within the last month. Can you relate to these? I know things like this have happened before to me. I thought, who am I to expect better service? Then, I thought, really, […]

Read these insightful and powerful coaching quotes. Each is especially selected to identify steps to great coaching, while sharing words of wisdom.  Most organizations and managers talk about coaching people but fail in the practice of it. Be one of the “real” coaches who establishes trust, builds people up, and achieves significant sustainable positive results. […]

What do you do if your team’s results are slipping or down right poor? Check out these examples. One by one, a new client’s team leaders covertly came to talk to me about their manager. The consistent message: “Get him out of the office and on the floor, and have him stop sending inflammatory emails […]