Thought Leadership from Ben Baran Ph.D., top management consultant in Ohio, educator, speaker. Expert in high reliability organizations, organizational agility, leadership training based on military, leadership methodologies, human resource strategy, human resource management, latest science on human resources.
Feel free to check out any of the content I have here, but also be sure to check out my newest content at Reckoning and Elevating What Works.
Two weeks ago, I praised the customer experience I had with a seasoned contractor named Mike. He managed a wide range of work on my house, which included replacing the siding and the windows. Throughout the process, he was thorough and extraordinarily responsive.
But then, something happened.
Read MoreRecently, a flurry of skilled laborers worked on my house. Some of them replaced the siding; others replaced the windows. A separate group painted the exterior trim, and still another group handled replacing the rain gutters.
Quarterbacking this major project was a big, friendly guy who has been doing roofing and siding on homes in my area for decades.
We'll call him "Mike." Because that's his name.
A number of aspects of how Mike managed this project impressed me, but most of all,
Read MoreMy research, teaching and consulting frequently focuses on employees and the strategic use of human capital, and the topic of employee engagement has been hot for some time now. It’s clearly important—organizations oftentimes thrive most when their employees are fully contributing their efforts and expertise. Related to the topic of employee engagement is the area of customer engagement—another critical topic.
Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to pick the brain of someone who is on the front lines of engaging both employees and customers at one of the world’s largest companies: Heather Gordon, Ph.D.
Heather is currently the customer strategy manager at Duke Energy Corporation. Here’s my interview with her.
Read MoreDuring a recent conversation I had with a senior executive, I brought up some of my efforts to promote strategic thinking and using data to guide decision-making among human resources (HR) professionals. She nodded in agreement, but then she interrupted.
“You know, there’s one thing I hate about our HR department,” she said. “They think like gate keepers, when they should be thinking like service providers.”
She went on to describe how
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