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Showing posts from April, 2010

SERVICE WITH(OUT) STRESS

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In the April issue of Fast Company there are quite some facts listed about stress. -        62% of Americans are stressed about work, according to the American Psychological Association. -        In Sweden mental illness, including stress and anxiety, accounts for 41% of total sick pay, up from 15% in 1990. -        One in four Americans admits to having taken a “mental-health day” to cope with stress. This costs employers $602 per worker per year. -        Each year more than 275,000,000 working days are lost in the US because of absenteeism resulting from stress. This is shocking, both for employees and for employers. So stress makes you feel not good and it costs a lot of money as well.  But what are we doing about it? It looks like many people think that stress is normal and that you just have to cope with it. What a sad way of looking at stress this is. In our workshop about stress management we use this definition: ‘Stress is a form of pain which comes to tell me there is som

DESIGN THINKING AND SERVICES: WHY THIS IS NEW AND NEEDED

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I just finished the inspirational book ‘Change By Design’ from Tim Brown. You can feel the passion as Tim describes the difference between being a designer and thinking like a designer. That passion, like most other passions, is contagious. For me it was revealing, because it explains why service innovation or service design are still relatively new topics in the business world. I have been working in that area for more than 20 years, but service innovation was always part of marketing or business development. And it was never called that way. And there was no R&D department for services, even though most of the revenue and the profit were provided by services. That is still the case in many companies. In Western economies services accounts for more than 80% of GDP, but there are not many service companies who have their own ‘innovation labs’.  This is a huge opportunity AND a must as well. A must, because services (and experiences) are the only sustainable way of growing and c

Dear Leaders, You Have To Change Too!

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Last week I had a series of interviews with executives from a company which manufactures cancer treatment equipment. What stood out were two things: 1.     Leaders are not open for personal change. 2.     The new ways of doing business were totally unknown: old practices were the norm. Unfortunately these issues are very widespread. ‘Unfortunately’ because that heavily impacts the culture and the enthusiasm in an organization as well as its (lack of) competitiveness. Ad 1 Leaders are not open for personal change. In 2009 McKinsey published an excellent article: The irrational side of change  management. Most senior executives understand and generally buy into Ghandi’s famous aphorism, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” They commit themselves to personally role modeling the desired behaviors. And then, in practice, nothing significant changes. The reason for this is that most executives don’t count themselves among the ones who need to change. How many executives whe