Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

There are a number of trends that will go on unabated for years to come. Among one of the most important is the trend involving co-creating with your customers.

This doesn't imply that all products and services will by any means will be co-created, but even if a small percentage of them are, it's a extraordinary departure from the way things have been done.

Devising better ways of being able to draw from huge collective experiences, skills, creativity, insights and a host of other things that human beings have to offer, can really set you apart from your competitors.

While in a certain way this is new, in another way, on a much smaller scale, it has been going on for awhile. For example how many times have you heard a customer say "I wish you had this..." or "I wish you could do this...etc. That on a small scale is the same as the other.

Last post we talked some about Telling your Story and some mistakes that are made in that area. This post let's talk about the most important aspect about telling your story: living your story. In this information age, one of... Continue Reading

One of the constant dangers that all of us are daily tempted with is to embrace new thoughts and ideas in our minds and then be deceived into thinking that because we understand them, that we know how to execute... Continue Reading

With so much of the media focused upon technology companies as those that innovate the best, here is a company story that is as Rust Belt as you can get, that has provided a 387% return over the last five... Continue Reading

With so much of the media focused upon technology companies as those that innovate the best, here is a company story that is as Rust Belt as you can get, that has provided a 387% return over the last five... Continue Reading

Barry Motz, director of retirement planning at Lord Abbett recently commented "With 84% of the 10 [employee] and under market still not having a retirement plan, and with two out of every three millionaires in this country owning their own... Continue Reading

In a number of studies it has been shown that when management has a good plan in place, it is the consistent application of that plan that produces the superior company results. There are two things to be aware of... Continue Reading

When I used to own a business supplying an array of foods to various outlets, one of the areas of knowledge we had to know was the mircronutrients that had to go into each product we grew. Now on the... Continue Reading

In coming across this word today, it made me immediately think of how it related to managing and management. Have you ever thought of what life would be like without gravity? On the positive side there wouldn't be any plane... Continue Reading

When it comes to the issue of being a great manager, one can read and hear about so many discussions that it becomes really impossible to put together something coherent to grab hold of. Yet there are some management traits... Continue Reading

A seemingly benign set of press releases. An announcement of a partnership. A seemingly simply deal that is interesting but not really that impressive with the numbers thrown around. What am I talking about? The announcement by Major League Baseball... Continue Reading

I remember Stan Davis and Bill Davidson commenting in their book 2020 Vision, about letting the "form of the organization follow the function of the business (p. 115)." Another time in my personal experience, when others and myself were considering... Continue Reading

As a manager, how many times to you crave to be able to be alone so that you can simply gather your thoughts, deal with subjective situations objectively and be in a quiet atmoshere where you can let solutions come... Continue Reading

A long time ago I listened as an experience man in his field talked about success in that specific area. The simple words and phrase he used changed my entire life in its various segments and interests. He made the... Continue Reading

Here is a resource has been around for awhile, it made me think of something that would be good to talk about. While there are some helpful references there, it reminds me of an aricle I wrote recently concerning metrics.... Continue Reading

We've been discussing consistency in its importance to a business or department. I found some excellent comments by John Jantsch at ducttapemarketing.com concerning this very subject. He says that: "The reason people resist change is because they like to have... Continue Reading

One of the things we have to watch in our customer service strategy is its consistency. This is one of the reasons I love to use Wegmans stores and their service as an example to hold up. Wegman's has been... Continue Reading

Don't look down on your day of small things. When you are in management the easiest way to advance is to take those types of jobs handed to you and be faithful and dedicated to accomplishing them. This is almost... Continue Reading

Southwest Airlines(LUV) is always inspiring, thought provoking and plain fun to read about. Recently they developed an initiative Southwest recently gathered people from its in-flight, ground, maintenance, and dispatch operations. For six months they met for 10 hours a week,... Continue Reading

An area where I think the metaphor of an orchestra director fitting the manager, is when you identify and direct your employees' expertise. It is a worthwhile exercise to go over the history of your employees in their files once in a... Continue Reading