blog of engagement

Strategy execution is really hard. It’s difficult to focus on everything that needs to be done to keep the business running smoothly meeting key objectives, while still minding the store to make sure the people within it are engaged, productive, and clear on what they should be doing to contribute to the business.

As in all powerful customer relationships, we hope to help you see the challenge and opportunity of strategy execution through people… from their view

In his book The Upside of Irrationality, Dan Ariely uses a series of experiments to shed insight into human behavior and why our actions often defy logic and intuition.

Employee engagement always seems to be a nice to have. It usually comes after things like sales targets and product development. The thing most leaders fail to realize is that employee engagement can boost productivity in all areas of the business.

Staffing can be tough.  It takes a lot of effort and investment on the part of an organization to find the right person for the job you’re trying to fill.  So once you’ve put in all of that hard work, you want to make sure it was not all in vain.

If your leaders aren’t clear and aligned, then it’s nearly impossible for the rest of the people in the business to do their jobs successfully is an often-overlooked part of strategy execution.

Driving change is one of the hardest things that people or organizations need to do. Approaching it as you would to form a new habit helps make it manageable and achievable.

Hilton Garden Inn noticed their niche market was becoming populated by additional brands going after the same target customers. This wake-up call drove them to refocus their business strategy.

While it’s commonplace for companies to carefully craft strategies for launching and connecting their products and services to the external marketplace, the bigger question is whether or not this same discipline is applied to connecting to their internal marketplace(s).

It’s amazing what a fear-free, open environment will do in terms of encouraging people to share ideas. If people know it’s not only safe, but that they are welcomed to share their thoughts and opinions in the workplace, the floodgates will open.

Realism and truth telling are at the heart of authentic engagement and change. The challenge is that rarely have we seen organizations of any type, profit or non-profit, where people tell each other the truth. And the higher you go in an organization, the worse it gets.

All too often, we hire new people with great excitement and anticipation only to see our hopes for success fade away with a resignation, dismissal or, even worse, lingering underperformance.

One of the biggest misconceptions about organizational change is that EVERYTHING has to change. The truth is, every organization has aspects that work and others that could use improvement or revamping.

Communication is at the core of any organization. It surrounds every aspect of company processes and culture and helps create solutions. Without effective dialogue, achieving real results can be challenging.

If people are your organization’s most valuable assets, why is it only HR's job to ensure they are engaged in their work?

There are five capabilities of a highly cohesive and high-performance team, which is the nucleus of creating a culture of discipline and execution.