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Showing posts from July, 2011

USE THE STRENGTHS OF YOUR TEAM

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Many managers are delegating to members of their team for three reasons: -        Time (they don’t have enough time to do the job/task themselves) -        Skill (they lack the skill to perform the task themselves) -        Like (they don’t want to do the task themselves) While the first two reasons can be quite acceptable, the last one clearly is not. The employees will soon notice why you have asked them to do the task. This will negatively impact their motivation as well. You could say that this is a form of delegation from weakness. Bearing in mind the fast pace of change, it is critical that you continuously innovate with a high-performance team. This is normal in sports. The coach looks at the strengths of the individuals first and then sees how this person best fits into the team. In every position you will find the player with the best capabilities, both individually and as a team player. The need for a continuously high performing and innovative team requires to delega

LEARN TO MAKE AN APOLOGY

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You all know the power of word of mouth. So, here is what happened. Some of my friends stayed to have dinner at the golf course. They ordered a simple meal. After waiting for an hour they did ask the waiter why it was taking them so long. The waiter went back to check with the kitchen. After waiting another ten minutes my friends did check with the waiter again. She told them that the order wasn’t communicated to the kitchen in the first place, so they just started with the preparation ten minutes ago. This infuriated the customer. He told the waitress that mistakes could happen. But he didn’t accept the fact that the waiters didn’t inform him of the mistake, nor that they didn’t made an apology for the mistake. S, they did immediately leave the restaurant. As, they are well known members, this experience quickly disseminated in the entire club. The damage is therefore much bigger than the two meals, which were being prepared in vain. Many members will think twice whether they wa

SUBCONTRACTING DOESN’T RELIEVE YOU FROM BEING RESPONSIBLE.

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Many organizations are focused on their core activities and the rest they outsource or subcontract to third parties. When I contact the customer service department from my service provider, than they are still responsible for solving my issue. This is not clearly understood by some of them. After an accident I did call my insurance. They told me that the next day the expert would come to assess the damage. The next day the expert didn’t show up. So, I called the insurance again. They said that they subcontracted the activity of the expert to another company. They said “ we can’t influence that and it is not our responsibility”. This is clearly a mistake. The service provider (the insurance company) remains responsible at all times. The performance of the subcontractor is their responsibility and has a direct impact on my customer experience. So, they have to design the service (including the subcontracting) in such away that they always remain in control. How is subcontracting