February
2004
Dietitians at St. Mary's/Duluth Clinic Health System were at a crossroads. Their team didn't have enough people and felt ignored. Their workspace was "dismal." A few were quietly threatening to resign. Here's how one manager attacked this problem and raised employee engagement from average to extraordinary -- in just a year.
Companies around the world are rediscovering a basic tenet: no customers, no business. But before executives develop a strategy to retain customers, they must first ask these fundamental questions: Why do businesses lose customers in the first place? And what can they do to reverse this trend? These six steps can help your company compete in the “emotional economy.”
Consumers aren’t all the same, so they shouldn’t be treated that way. But marketers remain stymied when it comes to defining real and actionable consumer differences. Recent Gallup research offers new insights on ways that companies can identify -- and act on -- truly meaningful customer segments.
Important business outcomes suffer when managers make the wrong decisions about the roles employees should play. But what can organizations do to address this dilemma? In this column, the authors of Animals, Inc., offer three suggestions that can get your organization -- and its employees -- back on track.
In this month’s excerpt from Animals, Inc: A Business Parable for the 21st Century, the animals discover the “competencies” required for running a successful farm. But here’s the problem: Is it right to expect Orville the pigeon to give milk? Or Big Sam the sheepdog to learn to fly?