What (Who) Influences you at Work?

You have to sit down and say, “This is what’s influencing me,” and look at your mental model. You have to see those influences and how you are handling it and recognize what’s happening to you in your situation, first, right? Can you give me an example of a couple of things you might tell Read More …

Is Visual the Key to Engagement?

In a 2-part podcast next week, I have Bob Petruska, author of Gemba Walks for Service Excellence: The Step-by-Step Guide for Identifying Service Delighters and Mick Wilz, Director of Enterprise Excellence and Co-Owner of Sur-Seal Corporation. Mick, co-owner of Sur-Seal Corporation, began his own journey to personal and business excellence about five years ago by Read More …

Storytelling in Healthcare

Annette Simmons wrote the book, The Story Factor (2nd Revised Edition), and a hidden gem, Territorial Games. The Story Factor became a classic when 800-CEO-READ named it in their book as one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (Penguin, 2009). Annette is the founder of Group Process Consulting. Related Podcast and Transcription: Read More …

The Sales Story Funnel

A common sales exercise is to have a new salesperson state in a paragraph what they do for the company. They are then asked to state it in a sentence or two, after that one word. Organizations will often do the same thing in a mission exercise. It provides clarity to the mission. It is Read More …

Storytelling: What Data Can’t Talk About

Everyone is told to tell stories. In sales and marketing area, we are told that to have people listen to us and remember what we say, frame it in a story.  But it doesn’t seem that a lot of people ever get any training in stories or how to construct good stories. I asked next Read More …

The Environment of Lean and Rowe

David Kasprzak, of the blog, My Flexible Pencil discussed the intersection of Lean and ROWE in a Business901 podcast. ROWE is a concept developed by Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler, co-authors of the book, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution. ROWE stands for  Results-Only Work Environment. Related Transcript and Podcast: Read More …