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Module 8
Enterprise project reference.

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ST. LOUIS- Feb. 28, 2011- More than 55 years ago, Jack Taylor founded Enterprise Rent-A-Car on a simple philosophy: "Take care of your customers and your employees first, and the profits will follow." Launching today, the brand's first new ad campaign in two decades reaffirms that philosophy and the unique culture that flows from it. And, this time, Enterprise employees will tell the story.

At the time Enterprise launched its first national TV advertising in 1989, it was a relative unknown in the car rental industry, primarily providing insurance replacement rentals from a regional network of neighborhood locations. Today, Enterprise Rent-A-Car is the leading brand in North America, with more than 6,000 neighborhood and airport locations and more than 60,000 employees.

"We credit our long-running ad campaign with contributing to our growth and success by building exceptional brand recognition and making 'We'll Pick You Up' synonymous with Enterprise Rent-A-Car," said Enterprise brand director, Jim Stoeppler. "Now we're looking to our new campaign to add depth and dimension to our brand by telling the broader Enterprise story. It takes you beyond the rental transaction to make a more emotional connection based on who we are and what we believe, emphasizing our uncompromising commitment to customer service."

Entitled "The Enterprise Way," the integrated marketing campaign features a wide variety of Enterprise employees expressing the brand's customer service focus, culture and heritage in their own words. Enterprise Rent-A-Car is operated through the regional subsidiaries of St. Louis-based Enterprise Holdings, which is now in its third generation of ownership by the Taylor family.

The first of these 30-second spots airs today and will be prominently featured during coverage of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The campaign will be integrated throughout the brand's social media platforms on Facebook, Twitter, FlickR and YouTube. The creative for the new campaign was developed by Cannonball Advertising and Promotion; PHD Media Network is executing the media buy.

"Over the past several years, we've spent a lot of time talking to our customers and consumers about the attributes they believe have driven our continued growth in an incredibly crowded and competitive industry. The response was always the same: 'It's your people - they're incredible,'" said Patrick Farrell, vice president of marketing and communications for Enterprise Holdings. "They're college-educated, articulate, professionally dressed - and most important, they're empowered to make decisions on the spot to take care of the customer. They are the reason Enterprisehas ranked 'Highest in Rental Car Customer Satisfaction' for the past seven consecutive years*, in the J.D. Power and Associates Rental Car Satisfaction Study SM. In the end, it was really an easy choice to let our people tell our story in the campaign."

"As we worked with Enterprise to develop these ads, we were consistently blown away by the professionalism and enthusiasm of their people," said Steve Hunt, Cannonball's chief creative officer. "But we were just as impressed with how excited consumers became when they learned things they didn't know about Enterprise. Like the brand's 55-year heritage as a family-owned business. Like the way the Taylors have quietly and steadily guided Enterprise to the top of its industry by staying rooted in their values and managing for the long-term. Like their promote-from-within culture that trains and develops smart, hands-on businesspeople and ties their success to their ability to completely satisfy customers. These things really resonate with people."

"That's the story our employees tell in this campaign," Farrell continued. "It's the Enterprise story. It combines a customer-centric business model, highly engaged employees, committed family ownership and a strong, values-based culture in a way that nobody in our competitive set can match. Our people bring that all together in these ads. And they do it very sincerely and gratefully - in a way that simply says, 'Thanks for your business.'"

Enterprise, one of the largest recruiters of college graduates in the United States, is well-known for its internationally recognized management training program and its promote-from-within approach to developing its management team. Nearly every member of the Enterprise leadership team began his or her career serving customers at the rental counter as a management trainee. Year over year, BusinessWeek has ranked Enterprise as one of the "50 Best Places to Launch a Career."

To view the commercials, visit http://www.facebook.com/Enterprise.

About Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Founded in 1957, Enterprise Rent-A-Caris an internationally recognized brand with more than 6,000 neighborhood and airport locations in the United States, Canada, the U.K., Ireland and Germany. Enterprise of North America also is part of a global strategic alliance with Europcar, creating the world's largest car rental network. St. Louis-based Enterprise Holdings, the largest car rental service provider in the world, operates the Enterprise Rent-A-Car brand through its regional subsidiaries. The brand offers a wide variety of car leasing, vanpooling, car sharing and hourly rental programs - and local car rental customers are picked up at no extra cost. For more information about Enterprise's environmental stewardship and long-term commitment to the sustainability of its business, visit www.drivingfutures.com. For more information about Enterprise, visit .

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*Enterprise Rent-A-Car received the highest numerical score among rental car companies in the proprietary J.D. Power and Associates 2004-2010 Rental Car Satisfaction Studies SM. The 2010 study is based on 11,567 responses measuring nine companies and measures opinions of business and leisure travelers who rented a vehicle at an airport location. Proprietary study results are based on experiences and perceptions of consumers surveyed in October 2009 - September 2010. Your experiences may vary. Visit jdpower.com.

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ST. LOUIS - Feb. 28, 2011- More than 55 years ago, Jack Taylor founded Enterprise Rent-A-Car on a simple philosophy: "Take care of your customers and your employees first, and the profits will follow." Launching today, the brand's first new ad campaign in two decades reaffirms that philosophy and the unique culture that flows from it.

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Module 8
Another article about how Toyota had specific strategies to recover from massive recall.

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Starting in 2009, Toyota was hit by one of the biggest series of recalls in the automotive history. Even though it was later proven that there was no intention from Toyota to hide anything and that eventually it was established no defect affected the electronics of the car, the damage to the company's reputation and business was huge.

In 2007, Toyota had become the number one automotive maker in the world. This fantastic continued growth was the result of its reputation on superior quality and safety. A lot of literature had described the recipes of Toyota. It had become the benchmark for almost every company in the world and a symbol of quality and operational efficiency.

All of a sudden, particularly early 2010, everywhere in the world, the headline of the news was about Toyota cars having become unreliable and Toyota having lost its way. The impact was huge for Toyota in terms of sales loss that could be counted in hundred thousands. But more importantly, the essence of Toyota, its reputation was hit in what was the most important for customers, safety. As measured by Interbrand, the brand value of Toyota decreased from 2008 to 2010, in just 2 years, by an impressive 25% globally and lost 8 billions from 34 to 26 billions US$.

In 2014, Toyota brand value, still according to Interbrand, had more that recovered from its pre-crisis level and achieved more than 42 billion dollars up 62% or 16 billions US$ from 4 years before in a comfortable first position among automotive brands.

What made Toyota come back in the race?

I would like to bring here a perspective from inside as I experienced it of how, under Akio Toyoda's leadership, the company recovered.

In 2010, I was in charge of marketing and product planning of Toyota in Europe at TME (Toyota Motor Europe). In 2011, I was called to Japan to take the responsibility of the global "brand project" which eventually became "brand strategy" in the marketing arm of Toyota in Japan. I could witness the rebound from a privileged position.

There were 3 phases of the recovery.

1) Go back to basic and communicate with customers and dealers:

What struck me during the crisis was that everybody stayed relatively calm. We knew that the foundations and values of the company were still here. Toyota was about contribution to society as I could witness everyday.

The first thing we did was to communicate a lot with our customers and dealers. We had to explain in all transparency that some things had gone wrong in the company but that the base, what had made Toyota so successful, had not disappeared. After the peak of the crisis, we communicated using our real people to show that Toyota was made of people really dedicated to quality. In Europe this campaign was called: "Your Toyota Is My Toyota"

Akio Toyoda who had been appointed a year earlier at the helm of the company, went in front of the congress to apologize and explain that Toyota was fully committing to work transparently to reestablish its reputation.

What was very important is the reaction we got from our customers and dealers. They fully supported the company during that period. Customers appreciated that we made the effort to contact each of them individually. In fact if our ability to conquest new customers was impacted, we did not lose any sales to our loyal customers at all. Dealers remained very supportive and loyal too. Akio Toyoda likes recalling how he was moved to tears during a long standing-ovation in front of the American dealers. The famous internal motto, "customer first, dealer second, Toyota third" proved very precious in this time.

2) Empower the regions:

Akio Toyoda had the feeling that the company had grown too big too fast and lost its way in chasing volume and profit. He established a new organization to pilot quality improvements. The base of this organization was to empower the regions and make sure that once detected, any defect could be solved in the region and get the support of headquarters if necessary. The function of regional Chief Quality Officer (CQO) was established. Like-wise, regular organization to identify and cure the quality issues was created. In a few months, the time to find and bring solutions to quality issues was reduced dramatically. Rather than increasing the level of control, Akio Toyoda made the bet that trusting people would be more efficient and it worked. On a regular basis, Akio gathered the CQO to make sure that they had the necessary support from HQ's. Akio Toyoda decided to stop the increase of manufacturing capacity and froze all new projects of plants. He decided to dedicate temporally a big part of engineers to quality issues with the impact that some projects of new cars would be delayed. By doing so, he clearly showed where the priority of the company was. Restoring quality and confidence was more important than growth or profit.

3) Improve the brand:

A very important move that is less known partly because of when it was announced was the clarification of the company vision. Akio Toyoda considered this was a key milestone of the company recovery. We needed to go to basic and define a guidepost so that everyone at Toyota could make decisions according to the company vision. It was unveiled on the 9 th of March of 2011 two days before the terrible earthquake and following tsunami that struck the north east part of Japan. The link is here. The company vision reemphasized the values and foundations of the brand: quality and safety first, contribution to society and continuous improvement. But it brought what Akio Toyoda likes calling his personal seasoning: exceeding customers' expectation and bring a smile on their face. In short, he brought a customer driven spice of emotion in the company policy. It was later summarized in the Japanese onomatopoeia: "Waku-Doki" or the feeling of excitement when you anticipate a great experience. It is on this base that, in 2011, we started establishing a brand architecture with the regions, under the initiative of Hiroshi Takada, head of Toyota Sales and Marketing after the proposal of Bob Peterson. The goal was to define our own brand journey. The first 18 months, we received the support of Jim Stengel, a marketing champion well known for his conviction that companies need a purpose. We, collectively with the head of regional marketing functions, defined our brand promise, which KPI's we wanted to focus on, which common methods and rituals were to be established, which actions we wanted to collaborate on and what our ideal situation should be. This idea of "freedom within a frame" was of upmost importance. We defined the frame collectively, the role of the leader was to listen, understand, analyze, suggest and inspire rather than to decide. Each region would decide to implement its own plans following the common frame freely. Transparency in the group, not control, had become the rule and the level of emulation and communication became very high. All the elements of the communication, from digital to motor-show, from each region's tagline to hybrid communication, Toyota was fighting to bring more emotion and eventually a smile on customers' face.

What I learned from those five years had a huge impact on my life and on how I think big companies should be managed. It will be a big part of my book.

I would like to summarize in three key points:

All organisations should have a purpose that is beyond profit and growth but contribute to improve the world

Company need to have a clear strategy and this strategy cannot be centrally defined only

Management should be left to operations in the frame of the strategy. Transparency is more important than control

The model of pure consensual bottom-up approach relying on operational efficiency to outperform competition has gone, especially when competition is becoming multi form. The model of top-down approach relying on control to ensure implementation does not work either. Ideas come from everywhere and speed has become key. It is time for companies to embrace the "Third Road" of management.

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How Toyota recovered from a huge crisis. What can be learned from it

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Starting in 2009, Toyota was hit by one of the biggest series of recalls in the automotive history. Even though it was later proven that there was no intention from Toyota to hide anything and that eventually it was established no defect affected the electronics of the car, the damage to the company's reputation and business was huge.

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Module 8
This article was a good resource for the Toyota discussion.

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"I Love What You Do For Me, Toyota!"-the once popular motto of a brand that stood for quality, reliability and positive customer experience-has morphed to "Moving Forward!". Ever since Toyota's largest-ever recall of vehicles in the United States in 2009-2010, the company has been trying to recover its brand equity and rebuild consumer trust. It's a formidable task for one of the world's largest automakers. Is it working?

Based on consumer attitudes toward the Toyota brand derived from GfK MRI's Starch Advertising Research Brand Disposition, Toyota has many miles to travel before it can regain its pre-recall popularity.

Prior to Toyota's historic recall in November 2009, Starch found that over three-quarters (83%) of U.S. adults surveyed were positive about the brand while fewer than 1 in 5 (17%) were negative. These data clearly show the majority of consumers had tremendous confidence in the Toyota brand.

On November 2 of 2009, Toyota recalled 3.8 million vehicles because of floor mats that trapped accelerator pedals, followed by an additional 400,000-vehicle recall four weeks later. These recalls were triggered by a car collision in August 2009 that took the lives of four people. Subsequently, consumer attitudes toward Toyota began to change. Positive brand disposition fell five points to 78%. Negative brand disposition rose five points to 22%.

But, Toyota's recalls weren't over yet. On January 21, 2010, after receiving customer complaints, Toyota recalled millions more vehicles (followed by another million or so three weeks later) for problems with accelerator pedals sticking in cars without floor mats. Then, from February through April 2010, Toyota recalled other car models for an array of problems, among them: Camrys for potential brake problems; Tacoma trucks for defective front propeller shafts; and Sienna minivans for corrosion of spare-tire carriers.

Following this second major recall in January 2010 and subsequent recalls through April 2010, Starch data showed that consumers' positive feelings toward the Toyota brand dropped even farther-19 points to 59%. Consumers' negative feelings rose 19 points to 41%.

Since these painful recalls, Toyota's new motto is "Moving Forward!"-an attempt to communicate to consumers the company's desire to start afresh and look toward a better future. But are consumers buying it? Starch data show they are...but gradually. From May 2010-December 2011, consumers' positive disposition toward Toyota recovered 11 points (to 70%) from the second and subsequent recalls. Those consumers negatively disposed fell 11 points to 30%. Good news indeed! But the percent of consumers who are positively disposed to the Toyota brand is still lower than pre-recall scores.

Readers old enough to remember the unintended acceleration problems that plagued the Audi 5000 brand in the mid-1980's would probably agree that brand crises aren't necessarily permanent. Audi subsequently renamed the 5000 model and was able to recover to its pre-crisis sales in the United States within about five years. Toyota's challenge is bigger since its recalls were recurring and encompassed more than one model. In the absence of further problems, however, the company appears to be on track to regain its footing via a combination of quality craftsmanship and smart pricing.

I am the global director of product marketing for The GfK Group, one of the world's largest research companies. GfK provides a comprehensive view of consumers at every s...

Read More

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Has Toyota's Image Recovered From The Brand's Recall Crisis?

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"I Love What You Do For Me, Toyota!"-the once popular motto of a brand that stood for quality, reliability and positive customer experience-has morphed to "Moving Forward!". Ever since Toyota's largest-ever recall of vehicles in the United States in 2009-2010, the company has been trying to recover its brand equity [...]

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Module 7

The section about effective coaches made me want to read more. This article highlighted some good qualities of successful coaches which is a career interest I have in the future.

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SPECIAL ISSUE: "What makes a GOOD COACH?" -

Before we discuss what qualities and skill sets that make for a good coach, we need to first acknowledge how very difficult this profession of coaching really is. Coaching is sometimes a thankless, frustrating "no-win" kind of job. It's an occupation that is most often done in a public fishbowl. In other words, if you coach, then you are in a highly visible position that continually exposes you to the public's scrutiny and evaluation. It's one of those professions where the general public regularly weighs in on what kind of a job they think you're doing whether you want their evaluation or not.

When it comes to judging your job performance, everyone seems to be an expert and have the "qualifications" to criticize you. Fans, parents, students, alumni, the media, and the team's organization or administration all seem at the ready to offer you either the thumbs up or thumbs down signal. What's even more frustrating for a coach is that so much of this external judgment comes from individuals who don't seem to have a clue about you, your players, or what you're trying to accomplish with the team.

Coaching is also one of those jobs where your professional effectiveness is almost always narrowly measured by something that is very often totally out of your control: winning and losing.

In many ways you can be a bad or ineffective coach, yet because you are lucky enough to have great players on your squad, you win all the time. Because of this external record you are considered in your profession to be a "great" coach. Similarly, you can be a wonderful coach and teacher but because of a lack of player talent, luck, or other circumstances beyond your control such as player injuries, your won-loss record is just mediocre and, as a consequence of this, you're seen as an ineffective coach.

So now let's take a look at what makes a really good coach.

If you're an athlete then what follows will help you figure out how your own coach measures up. It will give you some valuable information that will allow you to more intelligently evaluate how your coach conducts him/herself in relation to you and your teammates. In this way it will give you the ability to better "reality test" the coach-athlete situation that you currently find yourself in. It's very often quite difficult for an athlete to really know if there's something wrong with him or the coach. Most often in emotional coach-athlete interactions, the athlete typically comes away feeling badly about him/herself. Hopefully the information that follows will help you better understand what is really going on and help you not blame yourself for things that you shouldn't.

If you're a parent of an athlete, our discussion will help you get a good idea of what to look for when you shop around for a coach for your child. How do the better coaches conduct themselves? How do they treat their athletes? How do they interact with you as the parent? How do they deal with winning and losing? How do the better coaches deal with mistakes and failures? Parents need to be educated as much as possible about their child's sport and coaches in order to help their son or daughter have the best and happiest experience possible.

If you're a coach, then our discussion will help you get a better sense of how the finest in this profession conduct themselves. You will learn which behaviors and characteristics will best motivate and inspire your players. How do the really great teachers conduct themselves? What it is about these individuals that make them so successful? What are some specific things that you can learn from them that will help elevate you in the coaching ranks? If you so choose, then you can use this list to begin to work on making yourself that much better as a professional.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD COACH?

#1) The very best coaches GET THEIR ATHLETES TO BELIEVE in themselves - good coaches inspire their players to do more than they think they can. In fact, all good teachers do this. They get their students to entertain possibilities that stretch the limits of their beliefs. Part of this involves building the athlete up rather than knocking him down. Good coaches always build self-esteem rather than undermine it. This self-esteem building is not a gimmick nor is it done artificially. In other words the coach doesn't praise a mediocre effort. He/she simply makes it a practice to catch his/her athletes doing things RIGHT. The good coach doesn't get caught up in playing head games that leave the athlete questioning his/her abilities.

#2) The really effective coaches DO NOT USE EMBARRASSMENT & HUMILIATION AS "TEACHING TOOLS" - they understand that embarrassing or humiliating a young athlete for a mistake, failure or short-coming is an aggressive assault on that athlete that doesn't build mental toughness or enhance performance! There is NOTHING educational or constructive about it. It tears down that athlete and grossly undermines his/her self-esteem and creates performance problems.

#3) Great coaches are GREAT LIFE TEACHERS - a good coach understands that what he/she is teaching goes far beyond the X's & O's. This kind of coach does not just teach the skills, technique and strategy within the narrow confines of the sport. Instead he/she looks for opportunities where the more important life lessons can be taught such as mastering hardship, handling and rebounding from failures and setbacks, trusting your teammates, sacrificing individual needs for the benefit of the group, emotionally dealing with winning and losing, good sportsmanship, fair play, honesty, integrity, etc.

#4) The best coaches KEEP THE GAME IN PERSPECTIVE - they do not get distracted by how big any one game is in relation to their job as a teacher. Similarly, they understand that sports are just games and are merely a vehicle to teach their charges other, more important life lessons. They understand that what they teach and how they teach it will have an impact on the student that goes far beyond the sport.

#5) Great coaches DO NOT LET THEIR EGOS AND SELF-WORTH GET TIED UP IN THE OUTCOME - the best coaches are mentally healthy enough to know that they are NOT their performances, regardless of what others around them may say. They do not feel diminished as an individual when their teams fail nor do they feel that much better about themselves when their squads succeed. These individuals understand that coaching is only one thing of many that they do and therefore they do not let this one thing solely define themselves as a person. Coaches who get into trouble with their athletes do so because they are emotionally more vulnerable and tend to feel threatened by a loss or failure. Their egos are on the line whenever these individuals compete and therefore they feel like they have much more to lose. Many blatant coaching mistakes come directly from the coach's overemphasis on the game's outcome because that individual self-esteem is too caught up with this outcome.

# 6) Great coaches UNDERSTAND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN THEIR ATHLETES - the best coaches have a basic understanding that each athlete on their team is different in attitude, personality, response-ability, sensitivity and how they handle criticism and adversity. These coaches take the time to get to know each athlete's individual differences and styles. They then hand-tailor what they say to, and how they treat this athlete to achieve maximum coaching effectiveness. They know that while one athlete may respond well to a hard edge and raised voice, this approach may totally shut another one down.

#7) The best coaches COACH THE PERSON, NOT JUST THE ATHLETE - really effective coaches take the time to get to know the athlete as a person. They take an interest in the athlete's life off the field, court or track. They don't see personal, academic or social problems as a distraction to the job of coaching. They view "outside problems" as an opportunity to further build a relationship with the athlete. This kind of caring is never lost on the athlete. Coaches who take an interest in the athlete's total life are more trusted and respected than those who don't. As a result, coaches who really care about the athlete as a person find that their athletes are more motivated and work harder. You can't ever separate the athlete as a performer from who he/she is as a person.

#8) The best coaches are FLEXIBLE -they approach their teaching by continuously looking for a beter way to reach each athlete. When an athlete struggles to learn something the better coaches do not look at this as a "learning disability" and blame the athlete for their incompetence. Instead they approach it as a "teaching opportunity" and therefore change how they are presenting the material to that athlete. If one approach doesn't work, then they try another until they figure out the best way to reach that particular athlete. Just because that athlete may not be responding to your coaching does not mean that he/she has an attitude or commitment problem. Coaches who are rigid, who continually adopt the attitude that "it's my way or the highway" are far less effective than those coaches who have mastered the fine art of being flexible. Understand here that flexibility does NOT mean being wishy-washy. You can be flexible and strong at the same time.

#9) The great coaches are GREAT COMMUNICATORS - they understand that communication is a two-way street and involves a back and forth between coach and athlete. Bad coaches think that communication is a one-way street. You talk and the athletes listen. Instead, effective communication entails that you as a coach carefully listen to what your athletes are saying. When your athletes talk you must BE QUIET INSIDE SO THAT YOU CAN LISTEN. Unless you carefully listen to them when they talk then you won't have a clue as to what your athletes are really saying or how to best help them. Far too many coaches are too busy countering in their head what their athletes are saying to actually hear them. If you can't learn how to listen then you will never truly be effective in reaching your players.

#10) Good coaches TAKE THE TIME TO LISTEN TO AND EDUCATE THEIR ATHLETES' PARENTS - they make it a regular practice to communicate with the parents and educate them about the sport and the role that they need to play on the team. Your success as a coach often depends upon getting parents to work with you, not against you. The only way to make this happen is if you take the time to talk to and train your parents. This means that you must learn to listen to their concerns and questions. Take a proactive role with them. Do NOT wait for a problem or crisis before you decide that it's time to actually approach your parents. Do so right from the beginning of the season and do it often. Let them know about their support role on the team. Help them understand that their job is NOT to motivate or coach their child. Teach them what are appropriate and inappropriate behaviors at games and on the sidelines. Educate them about the sport and what it takes to excel. Explain your philosophy about competition and playing time. Be open to feedback in a non-defensive manner.

#11) GOOD COACHES "WALK THE TALK" WITH THEIR ATHLETES AND PARENTS - good coaches know that what you say and how you act are congruent. YOUR MOST POWERFUL TEACHING TOOL IS MODELING. They operate on the principle that their actions and how they conduct themselves will always speak much louder than your words therefore they actively model the behaviors and attitude that they want their players to adopt.

#12) Good coaches KEEP THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT EMOTIONALLY SAFE - they understand that the emotional climate on the team dramatically affects how players practice and perform. They make it their job to directly and immediately deal with scapegoating, bullying, ostracism and petty jealousies that sometimes arise between players. They give a very clear message that cruelty and mistreatment of others will not be tolerated and are counter to the mission of the team. As a consequence this kind of coach creates an atmosphere of safety on the team that is absolutely crucial for optimal learning and peak performance.

#13) Great coaches CONTINUALLY CHALLENGE THEIR ATHLETES TO DO BETTER AND PUSH THEIR LIMITS - they inspire their athletes to believe in themselves is by continually putting them in situations which challenge their limiting beliefs. They don't allow their players to just get by with the status quo. They do this by pushing their athletes outside of their comfort zone, physically, mentally and emotionally, and then helping them discover that, in fact, they can do better than they first believed they could. They teach the "GET COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE principle," which states that the only way to grow physically and emotionally is to constantly challenge yourself to do things that aren't easy. In this way they refuse to tolerate mediocrity in effort, attitude, technique, training or performance.

#14) The best coaches CONTINUALLY CHALLENGE THEMSELVES - they continually model the attitudes and behaviors that they want their players to adopt. They maintain a "beginner's mind" when it comes to their professional development. They understand that regardless of how much success they may have had in the past doing things their own way, they can always learn new and better ways. In this way these coaches continually step out of their comfort zone as "experts" and put themselves in the more uncomfortable position as "beginner and learner." Because these coaches "walk the talk" and demand from their athletes exactly what they demand from themselves, their athletes are far more motivated to meet the coach's higher expectations.

#15) The very best coaches are PASSIONATE ABOUT WHAT THEY DO - these coaches know that passion (love) is a high test fuel that will power you over obstacles, beyond setbacks and through frustration until you achieve success. Their passion is infectious, motivational and inspiring.

#16) Good coaches are EMPATHIC AND TUNED INTO THE FEELINGS OF THEIR PLAYERS - they have the ability to communicate to their athletes that they truly understand them. When you are empathic you leave your athlete feeling that you as his/her coach deeply understands. This goes a long way in building athlete loyalty, self-esteem and motivation. Keep in mind that being empathic doesn't necessarily mean that you are an emotional pushover. You can have the ability to understand where your players are coming from and still make the coaching decisions that you feel are necessary. Coaches who lack the ability or don't take the time to tune into the emotions of their athletes because they mistakenly believe that "all this emotional crap" is a total waste, end up inadvertently undermining their best coaching efforts.

#17) Good coaches are HONEST AND CONDUCT THEMSELVES WITH INTEGRITY - they know that their most powerful teaching tool as a coach is modeling. They also know that how they conduct themselves in relation to their athletes, the parents, opponents, the referees, the fans and the media is never lost on their players. They are honest and demonstrate charachter and class in everything they do.

#18) The best coaches MAKE THE SPORT FUN FOR THEIR ATHLETES - they realize that sports are just games, and games are meant to be fun. They find creative ways to integrate this fun into what they do over the course of the season, on a daily basis in practice and during competitions. When an athlete is enjoying him/herself, that athlete is loose and relaxed. Since loose and relaxed are two of the most crucial ingredients to peak performance, it is in your best interests as a coach to find innovative ways to keep your athletes smiling.

#19) Good coaches are NOT DEFENSIVE IN THEIR INTERACTIONS WITH THEIR PLAYERS OR PARENTS - they understand that part of being a good communicator is that you have to be open to negative feedback and criticism because within this feedback are the seeds to becoming a better, more successful coach.

# 20) Great coaches USE THEIR ATHLETES' MISTAKES AND FAILURES AS VALUABLE TEACHING OPPORTUNITIES - they know that their athletes need to be relaxed and loose in order to play to their potential and that a fear of making mistakes will always undermine this relaxed state. To this end, the good coaches give their athletes permission to fail and make mistakes. They instill in their players the understanding that mistakes and failures are nothing more than feedback, feedback about what you did wrong and specifically about what you need to do differently next time. One of the bigger teaching mistakes that coaches make is to get angry and impatient with their athletes when they mess-up or fail. This response to your athletes' mistakes will insure that they will make plenty more of them. Knowing that your coach gets impatient and angry when you make mistakes will cause you to worry about this while your performing. The best coaches teach that failure is feedback, and feedback is the BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS!

Questions? I want to hear from you!

Please click the link below:

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SPECIAL ISSUE: "What makes a GOOD COACH?" - Before we discuss what qualities and skill sets that make for a good coach, we need to first acknowledge how very difficult this profession of coaching really is. Coaching is sometimes a thankless, frustrating "no-win" kind of job.

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Module 8

This article really helped me to understand the quality control issues Toyota experienced.

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by Michael Connor

Toyota's announcement of a technical fix for its sticky gas pedals - which can lead to sudden acceleration problems - is not likely to bring a quick end to the company's current recall nightmare.

Having already halted sales and production of eight of its top-selling cars in the U.S. - and recalled more than 9 million cars worldwide, in two separate recalls - Toyota faces the prospect of billions of dollars in charges and operating losses. The Toyota brand, once almost synonymous with top quality, has taken a heavy hit.

While all the facts are not yet in, it's clear that Toyota's crisis didn't emerge full-blown overnight. Fixing the problem and ensuring that something like it doesn't happen again will require an all-out effort, from assembly line to the boardroom. Even then, there are no guarantees. Maintaining a good corporate reputation in the 21 st century is tricky business indeed.

Toyota's case offers a number of valuable lessons for other business people and companies to consider. Here, for starters, are five:

Aggressive growth can create unmanageable risk. Toyota's desire to supplant General Motors as the world's number-one car-maker pushed it to the outer limits of quality control.

"The evidence that Toyota was expanding too much and too quickly started surfacing a couple of years ago. Not on the company's bottom line, but on its car-quality ratings," writes Paul Ingrassia, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former Detroit bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal.

Ingrassia, who has just authored a new book on the auto industry,notes that in 2005 Toyota recalled more cars and trucks than it sold; by 2007,Consumer Reports magazine stopped automatically recommending all Toyota models because of quality declines on three models.

One wonders if, when accepting management's plan for aggressive growth, Toyota's board of directors exercised appropriate diligence to ensure that growth could be achieved without betting the entire franchise. Were quality control and safety part of the discussion? Maybe gaining market share wasn't worth the trade-off. Quick tip to directors of other high-growth-oriented companies: read up on Merrill Lynch's experience with dominating the sub-prime mortgage market.

Get the facts quickly and manage your risks aggressively.One of the more troubling aspects of Toyota's recalls ( there have been two) has been the company's differing accounts of the source of the problem. The current recall, covering 4.1 million cars, involves potentially sticky gas pedals. Late in 2009, Toyota also recalled 5.4 million cars whose gas pedals could get stuck on floor mats. Plus, Toyota says there are some cars affected by both problems. (For an interesting technical analysis of some of the issues involved, go here.)

Uncertainty is not an asset, especially when lives could be at stake. A Los Angeles Times investigation, for example, casts doubt on Toyota's explanation, quoting one auto safety consulting group as saying, "We know this recall is a red herring." (Read Toyota's position here.)

And the questioning is just beginning. A U.S. Congressional committee headed by Rep. Henry Waxman has already requested copies of emails and other documents from both Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which regulates Toyota with regard to the recalls. Congressional hearings are scheduled for Feb. 25.

In cases such as this, investigators almost always start with two time-worn questions. What did you know? And when did you know it? Answers to those questions provide the groundwork for analysis of a company's response and handling of a problem. Were employees encouraged to flag safety issues to senior management? Were sufficient resources devoted to investigating the problems? When did the board become aware of the situation and what did it do about it?

Companies generally can't predict when crises might occur. However, good internal risk assessment programs can help identify those areas of the business where management should be on the alert. Robust risk management programs help a company address problems as they pop up on the internal corporate radar screen - and before they explode in public.

Your supply chain is only as strong as your weakest link. The reality is that auto companies make hardly any of their parts. They assemble cars from parts made by others. In this case, the offending gas pedal assembly was made for Toyota by a company called CTS of Elkhardt, Indiana.

It's far from certain how much blame the parts supplier deserves. In fact, CTS says Toyota's acceleration problems date back to 1999, years before CTS began supplying parts to Toyota. (And the replacement gas pedal parts Toyota has announced as a fix for the problem will be made by CTS, suggesting a degree of confidence in the supplier.)

Nonetheless, "(if) you are outsourcing for your entire vehicle line, [and] the outsourced component is defective, the recall and the embarrassment is much greater," iconic car company critic Ralph Nader told Toronto's Globe and Mail last week. "The overall message is that quality control [means] daily vigilance," Nader said. "You can't coast on your reputation because it can fail very quickly."

Supply chain monitoring is a critical factor for companies that rely on third-party suppliers. That's increasingly true for a broad variety of industries, not just automobiles, as business grows ever more global. Smart companies will know their suppliers and their respective strengths and weaknesses.

Accept Responsibility. This is one area where Toyota seems to be doing a good job, albeit maybe a year or more too late.

Two decades ago, when Audi encountered a safety issue similar to Toyota's, Audi took the position that "it was the driver's fault," David Cole, Director of the Center for Automotive Research, told Design News. Coles says that reaction ultimately hurt Audi's reputation.

Toyota seems to be avoiding the appearance of passing the buck. When pressed by the New York Times about problems that might have been caused by supplier CTS, for example, Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said: "I don't want to get into any kind of a disagreement with CTS. Our position on suppliers has always been that Toyota is responsible for the cars."

Accountability matters enormously. Johnson & Johnson's 1982 recall of its painkiller Tylenol, following the deaths of seven people in the Chicago area, has earned it a permanent place in the annals of crisis management. But that recall stemmed from the deadly act of an outsider (who has never been caught), not any problem with the product itself, as is the case with Toyota.

Take the Long View. The three leading factors burnishing corporate reputation these days are "quality products and services, a company I can trust and transparency of business practices," writes public relations executive Richard Edelman, who last week released his corporate "Trust Barometer" survey for 2010.

That's unfortunate news for Toyota, given the hand that it's currently playing. But the company doesn't have much choice. By one estimate, auto industry recalls conservatively cost an average of $100 per car - suggesting that Toyota might be on the hook for at least a one billion dollar charge. That doesn't include lost revenue to Toyota and its dealers from the production shutdown. And competitors are already trying to woo customers away and capitalize on Toyota's misfortune. Disgruntled investors and Wall Street analysts will make the company aware of their feelings; class action lawsuits are almost a certainty (one lawyer is already searching for Toyota customers as clients).

Reputation can be easily lost - and Toyota's reputation is indeed threatened - but it's highly unlikely the company will collapse completely. And that may be one of the one of the biggest lessons for other companies as they study how Toyota emerges from this recall crisis. The reality is that Toyota is positioned for recovery about as well as it could be - owing, in large measure, to the reputation for quality products and corporate responsibility it has developed over the last two decades. That reputation is a valuable asset, and one that Toyota will undoubtedly be citing and calling upon, in the weeks and months ahead.

Related Posts:

Tagged as: Accountability, Akio Toyoda, Center for Automotive Research, Consumer Reports, Corporate Responsibility, CTS, David Cole, Design News, Ethics, Growth, Henry Waxman, Johnson & Johnson, Los Angeles Times, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Paul Ingrassia, Ralph Nader, Recall, Reputation, Responsibility, Richard Edelman, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Supply Chain, The Wall Street Journal, Toronto Globe and Mail, Toyota, Transparency, Trust Barometer

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by Michael Connor Toyota's announcement of a technical fix for its sticky gas pedals - which can lead to sudden acceleration problems - is not likely to bring a quick end to the company's current recall nightmare. Having already halted sales and production of eight of its top-selling cars in the U.S.

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Module 7

This resource really helped me to understand Apotheka as a leader at HP and why he wasn’t successful.

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Meg Whitman (left) will replace Leo Apotheker as Hewlett-Packard's CEO.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hewlett-Packard's board on Thursday ousted CEO Leo Apotheker after just 11 months on the job, replacing him with Meg Whitman.

"I am honored and excited to lead HP," Whitman said in a prepared statement. "I believe HP matters -- it matters to Silicon Valley, California, the country and the world."

HP's board said the company needed a change at the top. The company cut its financial outlook three times in Apotheker's tenure, and on Thursday, HP said it was not confident it would be able to meet its sales targets for the current quarter.

Shareholders sent the stock down more than 40% this year before Fortune and other outlets broke the news this week that the board was considering letting Apotheker go.

"We are at a critical moment and we need renewed leadership to successfully implement our strategy and take advantage of the market opportunities ahead," said Ray Lane, who on Thursday was named executive chairman of HP's board.

Lane was formerly an independent, non-executive chair. The company said it will look for someone to fill that independent role on its board.

The chairman said on a conference call Thursday that the board considered many candidates and decided together that Whitman was the right fit.

"I can't think of a name out there I would select as CEO over Meg," said Lane.

As the former head of European software giant SAP (), Apotheker was a curious choice to lead HP (, Fortune 500) -- the largest U.S. technology company by sales -- since it is predominantly a hardware company. HP's software business makes up around 2% of the company's annual revenue, which hit $125 billion last year.

Apotheker stuck to what he knows best and decided to refocus HP on higher-margin businesses like cloud computing and software. He was particularly bullish on HP's acquisition of Palm, which was made prior to his arrival at the company. He planned to let Palm's webOS software permeate the company's various hardware lines, including PCs, phones and the much-publicized TouchPad tablet.

But the TouchPad was a failure, HP's phones weren't selling, and PC sales slumped globally. Last month, Apotheker announced yet another hard left turn: He opted to end the webOS experiment and said HP would get out of the PC business entirely -- a market that it leads both in the United States and globally.

The problem with Apotheker wasn't lack of vision as much as a lack of execution and communication, Lane said.

Whitman said Thursday that the company under her leadership would stay the course and continue to transition to an enterprise software business.

"The only thing we can do to regain investors' and customers' confidence is to execute, and that's what I intend to do," she said.

The ousting of its third straight CEO marks yet another dramatic crisis in a decade of turmoil for one of Silicon Valley's original pioneers. A year earlier, Mark Hurd was fired as HP's CEO after submitting false expense reports in what appeared to be an effort to conceal a relationship with a former employee.

In 2006, HP's chairwoman Pattie Dunn was shown the door after it was revealed that she had spearheaded a secret probe to spy on fellow board members and journalists, in an attempt to find the source of board-level media leaks.

A year before that, in 2005, then-CEO Carly Fiorina was booted out (she technically resigned, but, the move wasn't especially voluntary) after spearheading HP's the failed merger with Compaq. The company's stock price was cut in half during her tenure.

The CEO revolving door has cost the company more than $83 million in severance pay, including more than $25 million that will be owed to Apotheker.

Fending off criticism from analysts that the board is dysfunctional, Lane argued that the board is very different than the ones of the past, comprised of 8 new directors since the company ousted Hurd.

"I tell you this right from my heart," he said. "That's not this board. They work really well together."

Whitman, who is also an HP board member, was formerly the CEO of eBay (, Fortune 500). She headed the online auction site for 10 years, taking over the company in 1998 when it was in its infancy. By the time she left in 2008, the company had grown to an $8.5 billion e-commerce behemoth.

She was the Republican nominee in the 2010 California gubernatorial race, spending much of her fortune in her unsuccessful campaign. She then resurfaced several months later, when she was named to HP's board in January.

Lane, HP's chairman, praised Whitman, saying her experience gives her the right set of skills to steer HP back on course.

"Meg is a technology visionary with a proven track record of execution," he said. "She is a strong communicator who is customer focused with deep leadership capabilities. Furthermore, as a member of HP's board of directors for the past eight months, Meg has a solid understanding of our products and markets."

Still, many analysts were scratching their heads about the choice.

"I'm not really convinced she's the best fit -- HP needs to regain the confidence of its enterprise customers, and her expertise resides in the consumer retail market," said Ron Gruia, principal consultant at Frost & Sullivan.

"She's on the board, so she's a logical interim choice, but not a person who's going to be driver for HP as it transitions to a software and services kind of model," Gruia added.

Some believe that HP is making a fatal decision.

"As if HP didn't make a mistake on bringing in Leo Apotheker, now they are making an even bigger mistake by bringing in Meg Whitman, someone with very little experience in the core areas of HP," said Vanessa Alvarez, analyst at Forrester Research.

"This is plain carelessness by the board of directors, and quite frankly, hammering the last nail in the coffin for HP. Its leadership is in the gutter. I'm appalled," she added.

But other analysts believe Whitman is capable of doing the job, albeit a very difficult one.

"She's a great communicator; a great marketer; and, an excellent manager, but she'll need to put a strategic stamp on HP," said Joel Achramowicz, senior vice president of research at Blaylock Robert Van.

"There are even more questions and concerns regarding HP exigent from both the Street and from customers. She'll have to work expediently."

First Published: September 22, 2011: 4:08 PM ET

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HP CEO Apotheker fired, replaced by Meg Whitman

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Meg Whitman (left) will replace Leo Apotheker as Hewlett-Packard's CEO. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hewlett-Packard's board on Thursday ousted CEO Leo Apotheker after just 11 months on the job, replacing him with Meg Whitman. "I am honored and excited to lead HP," Whitman said in a prepared statement.

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Module 7

This article was a good reference for the discussion assignment this week.

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Michael Krigsman/Flickr
On a conference call with analysts, HP chairman Ray Lane spelled out the three reasons the board decided to can Leo Apotheker:

1. HP's executive team was not on the same page. "This is a big company that requires the executive team to be on the same page ... we didn't see an executive team working together," said Lane. [It must have been filled with executives fighting each other.]

2. No operating execution. Interestingly, Lane and the board like Apotheker's strategy, they just hate his inability to pull it off. Lane said Apotheker couldn't get down deep in the business to land it ahead of expectations.

3. Communications were horrible. Sounds like Apotheker's undoing started on August 18 when the company announced plans to kill the TouchPad, and potentially spin out the PC business. It was muddled message, and the board didn't appreciate it.

Lane wasn't just negative on Apotheker. He was also negative on Mark Hurd. He said Apotheker came and the company's spending had been cut to the bone and it couldn't operate. Apotheker had a strategy, but the board saw "weakness" and didn't think he'd get the job done.

Lane believes that the three areas of deficiency he outlined are strengths for Meg Whitman, the new CEO. Her greatest attributes are, "leadership," "team play," "communications," and "execution," according to Lane.
Don't Miss: HP Chairman Ray Lane: This Board Didn't Even Hire Leo, So Stop Ripping Us

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HP's Chairman: Here Are The Three Reasons We Canned Leo Apotheker

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On a conference call with analysts, HP chairman Ray Lane spelled out the three reasons the board decided to can Leo Apotheker: 1. HP's executive team was not on the same page. "This is a big company that requires the executive team to be on the same page ...

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This was a good resource to help me write my reflection for the employee survey.

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(Editor's Note: Today's post is brought to you by Readex Research, which provides expert survey services to help businesses understand their internal and external customers. Their services include employee experience surveys. Enjoy the post!)
Let's say your organization has conducted your employee engagement survey. You've used the principles of survey research to design the survey. The survey was implemented well and received high participation.

Now, employees will expect to hear something about the results.

I've always said that the absolute worst thing companies can do is ask employees for their thoughts and then do nothing with the information. The whole purpose of a survey is to take action.

Action demonstrates that the company is listening to employees.

It shows that the company is open to new ideas from every level of the organization.

Taking action creates employee engagement.

Trust builds between employees and the company when action is taken.

Just to be clear, taking action doesn't mean that organizations have to say "yes" to every suggestion. But it also doesn't mean you can say "no" either. Once the employee engagement survey results are in, organizations have three action steps:

Step 1 - Digest the information

It's very easy to get consumed by the wealth of information provided in surveys. Organizations need to be careful they don't fall into the trap of analysis paralysis. It's important to be mindful of the things you learn that need to be changed/improved. We can have built-in biases and skepticism of overall survey results that lean in a bad or negative direction.

I asked Readex CEO Jack Semler if there's a formula for digesting survey information. "Digesting survey results is kind of like writing a paper. You write and write, put the paper down, and the next time you pick it up you invariably find something to change or a new idea. Well, it's the same thing when you are reviewing survey results. The second and even third time around there are new ideas that pop up or you see what you saw before in a different way. There's nothing wrong with taking time to digest and reflect."

Equally as important is not spending enough time processing the responses. Don't let initial reactions drive your process. Review the results, then put them down for a while, and review them again. Semler says there's no overarching rule of thumb on how much time to allocate. "It could depend on the length of the survey (how much info there is) and any deadlines from other stakeholders on reporting. I would say two to three reviews is typically sufficient to gain clarity."

Step 2 - Communicate the results

After HR has processed the survey results internally, share information with key executives first, before sharing with the entire workforce. The group can then decide on how and how much of the results will be shared with the employees in advance. If specific feedback needs to be shared with an individual, schedule a one-on-one meeting to deliver the results. It shows that the company values the feedback as well as the person it's being given to.

When it comes time to present the results to employees, think about the best way to conduct this meeting. It shouldn't be like the weekly staff meeting. Conveying employee survey results is different and, dare I say, special.

I once worked for a company that did something unique for employee survey meetings that worked well. We called it a "max-mix" meeting because it provided maximum participation by a mixture of people. Here's the meeting agenda:

The senior management team delivered an overview of the company results. Speaking of presenting results to employees, consider the use of graphs, charts, and other visuals to show results. Data tables and numbers aren't always as presentation-friendly. For some creative inspiration in designing visuals, check out the TEDx talk " How to Avoid Death by PowerPoint ".

Then, employees worked in groups to develop questions for the senior management team. Each team designated a spokesperson to ask the question. Senior management didn't know who initiated the question. And the spokesperson was typically someone who was comfortable speaking in front of groups.

For any questions that there wasn't enough time for, were put on index cards. HR was responsible for getting the answers and posting the responses in writing for all employees to view.

Step 3 - Make decisions using the results

After holding the all-employee meeting, let employees know how and when action items from the survey will be addressed. It's realistic to think that some suggestions can and will be implemented right away, others might need further research, and some will not be feasible for a variety of reasons.

Senior management will want to decide how employees will learn when survey suggestions have been implemented or are under consideration (i.e. company email, employee newsletter, on the website, or multiple channels). They will also want to decide how to communicate when suggestions will not be considered (i.e. department meetings, employee town halls, or possibly one-on-one conversations.)

Last and certainly not least, HR and senior management need to thank employees for their participation and communicate details for future surveys. If employees feel their feedback was openly accepted, carefully considered, and acted upon, they will continue to offer feedback.

Three key steps to turn employee engagement survey results into action Click To Tweet

Employee Engagement is Good for Business

I'd like to think that I don't have to convince anyone that employee disengagement is bad for business. We've all seen the Gallup report stating that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. $550 billion annually in lost productivity.

Organizations must address employee engagement and take steps to improve it. But instead of guessing about what to do, survey employees and find out what they're thinking. Then do something.

Readex has created a series of white papers to help with your employee engagement survey design and implementation. You might want to bookmark these links for future reference:

" 5 Questions to Ask Yourself about Employee Engagement Surveys "

" 6 Guidelines for Employee Engagement Survey Design "

" 3 Tips for Presenting Employee Engagement Survey Results "

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HOW TO: Turn Your Employee Engagement Survey Results into Action

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(Editor's Note: Today's post is brought to you by Readex Research , which provides expert survey services to help businesses understand their internal and external customers. Their services include employee experience surveys. Enjoy the post!) Let's say your organization has conducted your employee engagement survey.

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This article was very helpful while researching for the employee survey assignment and answering the questions

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This is an employee engagement message from the heart.

I'm doing my best to strip away HR-speak, academic jargon, and journalistic style in an attempt to actually reach crazy-busy front-line managers who've heard it all before. It's my vain attempt to actually influence someone.

Despite the best intentions of so many, the truth about employee engagement isn't getting out. You need to understand...

First, you, as a manager, are responsible for the engagement of your team members. The buck stops with you. The research is clear: managers account for over 70% of the variance in employee engagement. I wish it weren't so, but it is. You can't just think engagement is the responsibility of HR. You can't blame your team's low engagement on your vision-less CEO, or slow computer network. Whenever I look at a company's engagement survey results, I see a wide variance in engagement levels from team to team. They all have the same CEO, the same values, the same benefits, often the very same tools...the one thing that is different, their boss.

Second, you need to care about engagement not because it's nice to make people happy, but rather because engaged workers give you discretionary effort and they stay in their jobs longer. The " engagement profit chain " establishes links between caring, productivity, service, customer loyalty, and ultimately sales and profits. How? Engaged sales reps are still cold calling on Friday afternoon, while disengaged ones start their weekend early. Engaged customer service reps are just as patient at the end of the day as they are at the beginning of the day. Engaged software engineers write clean code, easily maintained by those who come after them. Engaged factory workers make fewer mistakes and have fewer accidents. Engagement yields measurably better results.

Third, engagement has nothing to do with parties, picnics, or balloons on your birthday. Employee engagement is the emotional connection one feels to his employer and its goals. Read that definition again, and notice it doesn't mention fun, happy or even satisfied. There is no data that shows that your company's fun committee has any impact on engagement. (Hey, it might be nice to have fun at work, and there may be benefit to creating some social bonds, but those things have nothing to do with engagement.) Engagement isn't about having fun. And no committee's work will impact the engagement on your team more than you do.

Fourth, to drive engagement focus primarily on growth, recognition and trust. Based on research on over 10 million workers and on my own experience as a Best Place to Work winner, people feel engaged primarily from growth, recognition and trust. You, as the boss, can trigger those feelings. You foster a team culture that can promote those drivers. Yes, yes, there are at least a dozen drivers of engagement and one consulting company will call it "growth" and another will call it "learning and development" and another will call it "mastery of challenging work". Don't overcomplicate it. In general, we all want (1) to grow and learn new things, (2) to feel appreciated and (3) to trust that leadership will guide us to a brighter future.

Fifth, increasing engagement takes minutes, not hours; you do have the time to engage your team. If you think you don't have time to do employee engagement stuff, you aren't thinking about it right. For the driver of recognition, how many minutes would it take for you to say "thank you" a little more often? It would only take you one minute per week to implement the habit of starting every team meeting with a positive shout out to someone who deserves the recognition (e.g., "Before we start the meeting I just want give a big 'thank you' to Sheryl. Last night we got way busier than normal and I asked her to stay past her shift with virtually no notice. She stayed two extra hours which really shows her dedication to her colleagues and to customer service. Thanks, Sheryl.") To trigger positive feelings about future trust, spend a minute reviewing the annual goal at your team meetings. Heck, spend five minutes right now to send out an email just reminding people of the mission and annual plan. Pick one person a week and ask, "Hey, just curious...do your remember what our mission is here? Do you remember what our team's annual goal is?" Twice a year talk to people about their career goals. Your new mantra: engagement takes minutes, not hours.

Five simple things. That's it. Somewhere along the way engagement has become complicated, expensive and often, someone else's job. It shouldn't be that way.

I'll conclude by asking a favor.

Are your team members managers themselves? I hope you'll print a copy of this article out to distribute and discuss at your next team meeting.

Do you work in HR? Perhaps you will forward this article to all the people managers in your company.

Managers are the key to engagement, and it doesn't take a lot of time or money.

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5 Things Every Manager Needs To Know About Employee Engagement

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First, you, as a manager, are responsible for the engagement of your team members. The buck stops with you. The research is clear: managers account for over 70% of the variance in employee engagement. I wish it weren't so, but it is. You can't just think engagement is the responsibility of HR.

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Module 6

Employee surveys. Some humor.

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Employee Satisfaction Cartoons and Comics - funny pictures from CartoonStock

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Employee Satisfaction funny cartoons from CartoonStock directory - the world's largest on-line collection of cartoons and comics.

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Module 6

Great resource for what to include in an effective employee survey.

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Module 6
Great article about organizing committees

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This article was co-authored by our trained team of editors and researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness. Together, they cited information from 24 references. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article meets our high standards.

Categories: Meeting Rules and Procedure

In other languages:

Español: organizar un comité, Português: Manter um Comitê, Italiano: Gestire un Comitato

Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 70,361 times.

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Being the chairperson of a committee means you must encourage everyone together to reach a common goal. If you are just starting out as a chairperson, the task can seem a bit daunting. Nonetheless, with a few preparations and a little...

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Module 5

A good article about healthy organizations

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The Top 10 Characteristics of a Healthy Organization

For companies to achieve long-term success, they must create and maintain healthy environments in the workplace. Healthy organizations understand that it takes a collaborative effort to compete in their market segment and produce continuous profits. Recognizing and understanding the characteristics of healthy organizations can help you detect problems in your company if it is unprofitable and take corrective steps to operate a successful business.

1. Effective Sharing of Goals

A healthy organization shares its business goals with employees at every level of the organization. Management shares goals with employees and gets them on board with the mission and vision of the organization. Employees and managers understand what is required to reach these shared goals and make every effort to achieve them.

2. Great Teamwork

Another characteristic is teamwork. Healthy companies know how to develop teams that collaborate to achieve common goals. Employees and managers readily offer their assistance to each other to meet corporate objectives.

3. High Employee Morale

Healthy organizations possess high employee morale. Employees value their positions in the organizations and desire to work there for a long time. Productivity is high and organizational events are enjoyable and successful.

4. Offers Training Opportunities

Companies provide on-the-job training and opportunities for employees to enhance their work-related skills. Organizations bring in other individuals to provide necessary departmental and corporate-wide training. Companies also offer opportunities to pursue certification and continual education.

5. Strong Leadership

Good leadership is one of the main characteristics of a healthy organization. Employees have good relationships with management that are based on trust. Managers know how to get employees to function together. When correction is needed, employees readily accept the constructive criticism offered by leaders.

6. Handles Poor Performance

Companies confront poor performance instead of ignoring it. Organizations take corrective actions to improve performance. Upper-level management values the input of employees who make suggestions on how to improve productivity and achieve high performance rates. Companies may even bring in specialists to detect problems and offer solutions.

7. Understands Risks

Healthy organizations understand the risks they are open to and take the necessary steps to protect themselves against them. When an event happens due to organizational risks, a healthy organization learns from the event. Companies use precaution but understand that risks are necessary to facilitate growth.

8. Adapts to Opportunities and Changes

Healthy organizations know how to recognize and seize good opportunities. Healthy organizations always look for opportunities to grow. They also know how to adapt to technological or operational changes. They try to stay ahead or inline with changes in the industry and business environment.

9. Clearly Defined Structure

Companies possess a sense of order and organizational structure. The structure and order of the organization does not limit innovation and growth. Employees do not mind complying to the company's order because they understand it and see the benefits of its implementation.

10. Well-Known Company Policies

Organizations create and implement company policies that are readily available to their employees. Healthy organizations follow the policies and regulations of local, state and federal governments. When employees or managers break policies, the issue is dealt with immediately and in a professional manner.

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The Top 10 Characteristics of a Healthy Organization

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For companies to achieve long-term success, they must create and maintain healthy environments in the workplace. Healthy organizations understand that it takes a collaborative effort to compete in their market segment and produce continuous profits. Recognizing and understanding the characteristics of healthy organizations can help you detect problems in your company if it is unprofitable and take corrective steps to operate a successful business.

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Module 5

This article was extremely beneficial for understanding organizational cultures.

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Work culture is a topic that many of us are familiar with, mostly because we work and we more often than not do this with other people. The type of organization, the staff, the principles, policies and values of the work place all make organizational culture what it is. So what type of work culture do you work in? What type works better than others? There is a large variety of organizational cultures that materialize in different environments; some occur au natural and some are implemented by the higher-ups in the company. Workplace ethos silently (and sometimes not-so-silently) guide employees on how to behave amongst each other, with customers and with management.

If you are running an organization and need a little refresher on key management techniques, check out this Introduction to Management course.

Importance of Organizational Culture

The culture of a workplace makes the organization what it is. Culture is the sum of attitudes, customs and beliefs that distinguish one group of people from another. Organizational culture is no different from ethnic culture except it usually includes people from all different backgrounds and histories. These cross-cultural connections can blossom into ingenuity and understanding that promote a better workplace and arguably a better world community. An office culture creates a unique brand for a company which helps them stand out amongst the rest of their competitors. It also defines standards and set procedures that give the company and furthermore the employees direction as they conduct their daily business. Culture unifies people and allows them to learn from one another and strive to be the best they can be. No company exists without a culture, but every company operates under a different type of one. Don't worry if you are struggling a little bit to control and motivate your team - it happens. Uncover skills you didn't know you had in the Ultimate Management System online guide.

Types of Organizational Culture

Before we get into the specific details of the different types of cultures, there are two overarching models that companies will fall into, strong culture and weak culture. In a strong culture, employees have a sense of empowerment and understanding of the company goals, regulations and philosophy. This kind of culture allows employees to be driven and feel respected which benefits the overall health of a company. In a weak organizational culture, employees are lost, unmotivated and operate under a regime of fear. Fear may motivate individuals but not for long and for all of the wrong reasons. Employees should never feel like they will be wrongly reprimanded for making mistakes or needing a little extra guidance. Having trouble disciplining your employees? Don't get crazy on them for minor oversights, in Employee Discipline you can learn all the right tricks for dealing with confrontation. Alright, now let's explore some organizational culture archetypes.

The name says it all. Academy culture depends on employees who are highly skilled, studious and welcome further training and advancement. This type of work place environment thrives off of intense training for employees being brought on board and ongoing training for the employees already there. Organizations that choose to follow this culture are very particular about who they hire, their existing skill sets and their willingness to learn and grow. This format of management keeps turn-over rates low and the employees eager to do their job to the best of their ability. Many hospitals, universities and other educational institutions rely on academy culture to stay up to date on the newest information and technology.

This is your everyday corporate workplace. Normative culture is very cut and dry, following strict regulations and guidelines that uphold the policies of the organization. Employees rarely deviate from their specific job role, break rules or do anything other than what is asked of them. These type of organizations run a tight ship and are not suited for every type of employee. Know anything about The Carrot, The Whip or The Plant? These are object-oriented approaches to motivating your employees. Learn more about these techniques and others in Motivating Employees.

You know that saying the customer is always right? Well, that is the first and only rule of a pragmatic culture workplace. The customer or client comes before anything or anyone else. Because every customer is different, these type of work places are very opposite of the normative culture environment as employees don't adhere to strict rules. Whatever the customer wants, the customer gets (within reason, of course).

Nothing but the best. This type of culture requires employees to be very skilled and competent in their niche of work. Educational qualifications, prior work experience and even personal interests are taken into consideration before an employee is hired. (Learn effective hiring methods if your organization follows club culture.) Club culture can be seen in organizations like the FBI, commercial pilots and specialty branches of the military. The hiring process can be pretty intense for these work environments, requiring multiple interviews, a stellar resume (and references to back it up), background checks and so on. The upside of being a part of a club culture is your hard work will pay off. These types of employers often reward hard work with promotions but with that are frequent appraisals of your work and role within the company.

This could be the best type of organizational culture from an employee's stand point. Remember how pragmatic culture focuses on the customers? Well, baseball team environments say it's all about the employees. As long as the workers are happy, comfortable and feel respected, the work will get done and the employees will want to stick with the company for the long haul. Google is a good example of a baseball team culture, the employees get to pretty much do what they want, soup up their offices with whatever makes them feel creative - and it's on the company dime. Company outings are a regular thing, social events within the office and incentives are a big component of this type of culture. Sounds good, right?

Contrary to baseball culture, fortress culture could be the worst (or the best if you're really good at what you do) for employees. This type environment is all about the numbers. If the organization is doing well as a result of the employee's productivity then the employees continue to have a job. If the organization begins to see a downfall in success then the individuals that aren't pulling their weight are terminated. An example of a company that follows this structure is WorldStrides and more specifically their sales department. Salespeople have a very important job to do, they seek out business, secure business and retain business. If a salesperson is not fulfilling their quota or cannot meet the demands of the department then the company will replace them in hopes of a better outcome with someone else. Another downside to this type of work culture is the time and money invested in training these employees. With such a high termination rate these companies will hire a new set of people and be forced to train them only to find out they cannot stay up to speed. However, if you are good at what you do you will often be praised and will not have to worry about job security.

Tough guy culture is basically another way of saying micro-management. Employees are monitored every step of the way and when something does not meet the standards or expectations of the company the employee is given guidance and monitored further. It can be a tough (hence the name) environment for some to work in especially if you are independent and have a creative mind. An example of this would be in a customer service role. Most companies have scripts that customer service representatives must follow when answering calls in a call center. If you stray from the script at all, even just a word, it can mean the difference between being in good standing with management - or bad. Calls are often recorded for quality assurance and the employees will be reviewed consistently to ensure that they are following the protocol. Sometimes these cultures follow the three-strikes-you're-out practice in which you can be terminated if you do not act on any corrections provided to you during your review. It's hard to be watched all the time but these type of companies just want to ensure consistency and commitment to their customers and they need employees that can be shaped to do just that. Performance reviews can be tricky, try not to intimidate your employees, instead find tactful ways to say what you need to say in Performance Evaluation Comments.

This type of office culture provides a set of regulations and procedures that the employees follow. It's different than the normative culture as the regulations are not a bullet-pointed list of do's and don'ts so much as it is an ideology that the employees adhere to. Employees know what they are getting into when they sign-up and are often self-starters. Unlike tough guy culture, these employees are not micro-managed and they rarely are given performance reviews. If they are given reviews it's annually and it's to assess their work on a large scale, their aspirations within the company and potentially a discussion about salary. More often than not, government agencies run operate under the process culture.

This culture is for the patient risk-takers. Organizations that follow this culture are known to literally bet the success or failure of their company on single decisions of which the outcome is completely unknown. It can be a wild ride working for this type of company as you don't know what each day is going to bring. The consequences of the decisions made by the individuals working in the bet-your-company culture can be so dire that the company goes under; contrarily, they can be so excellent that the company thrives more than ever before.

Now you see that there are many different types of culture that develop within a company. Some companies practice more than one of these and some are strictly one of the above. Overall, rooting your employees on while ensuring the customers are happy is the best balanced culture there is. Try talking to your employees about what they like and dislike about the work place and you can begin understanding what changes need to be made for the health of your organization. Want to build a team of all-star employees? (Who doesn't!) The course Develop Superstars will show you how.

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9 Types of Organizational Culture: Which One Are You?

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Work culture is a topic that many of us are familiar with, mostly because we work and we more often than not do this with other people. The type of organization, the staff, the principles, policies and values of the work place all make organizational culture what it is.

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Module 5

Another helpful resource for Case Challenge of the company of Zappos and the purchase by Amazon

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The deal is done, and we're still digesting the news: Amazon has acquired Zappos for $850 million. The acquisition, confirmed by both sides, places the popular online apparel and footwear company squarely in the control of Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos.

But Amazon's already the master of online product distribution - they take online orders faster, ship goods cheaper, and trounce their competition. What could Zappos bring to the table that Amazon hasn't already figured out? Like you, we wanted to figure out exactly why Amazon put down close to a billion dollars for Zappos (if you're unfamiliar with Zappos, we suggest reading The New Social Engagement: A Visit to Zappos).

While we're still sifting through all of the details, several interesting tidbits have already emerged. So, here are the facts behind the acquisition and why we think both companies decided to tie the knot:

The Terms of the Deal

Here's the summary of the deal: Amazon will purchase all of the outstanding shares, options, and warrants from Zappos for 10 million shares of Amazon's common stock - currently worth about $807 million. In addition, Amazon will also provide $40 million in cash and restricted stock, specifically for the Zappos employees. Zappos will still operate in Las Vegas, NV and the management team will not be replaced.

The announcement from the Zappos side came from Tony Hsieh, the Zappos CEO, in an open letter to employees. The information is generally the same, although it deals more with why Zappos is excited about the deal and whether Zappos employees will still have a job (the answer: "Your job is just as secure as it was a month ago.") Still, Tony confirms that none of the leadership (Tony Hsieh, Alfred Lin, and Fred Mossler) are leaving.

But if you're curious as to how the deal came to be, these three paragraphs from the Zappos letter are most enlightening:

"Several months ago, they reached out to us and said they wanted to join forces with us so that we could accelerate the growth of our business, our brand, and our culture. When they said they wanted us to continue to build the Zappos brand (as opposed to folding us into Amazon), we decided it was worth exploring what a partnership would look like.

We learned that they truly wanted us to continue to build the Zappos brand and continue to build the Zappos culture in our own unique way. I think "unique" was their way of saying "fun and a little weird."

Over the past several months, as we got to know each other better, both sides became more and more excited about the possibilities for leveraging each other's strengths. We realized that we are both very customer-focused companies - we just focus on different ways of making our customers happy."

Despite the holding-hands rhetoric, the basic summary is this: Amazon reached out to them, and eventually the terms of the deal were too good to turn down.

The deal isn't done yet though, and probably won't close until the fall. The other big takeaway from the letter is the emphasis that Zappos is still a separate brand that will retain its own staff and culture.

Why the Deal Took Place

Now that we know how the deal went down, let's talk about why it happened at all. Here's what Amazon says about it:

The acquisition brings together two companies who share a passion for serving customers and whose customers benefit from cultures of innovation and long term thinking.

"Zappos is a customer focused company," said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "We see great opportunities for both companies to learn from each other and create even better experiences for our customers."

And while Zappos had a lot more to say about the matter, this section of the CEO letter sums up their thoughts:

We are excited about doing this for 3 main reasons:

1) We think that there is a huge opportunity for us to really accelerate the growth of the Zappos brand and culture, and we believe that Amazon is the best partner to help us get there faster.

2) Amazon supports us in continuing to grow our vision as an independent entity, under the Zappos brand and with our unique culture.

3) We want to align ourselves with a shareholder and partner that thinks really long term (like we do at Zappos), as well as do what's in the best interest of our existing shareholders and investors.

This information is good, but it doesn't dig into the meat of why Amazon really put down $850 million for Zappos. To figure out the real reasons, we have to read between the lines, and more importantly, go to another source. The source I'm referring to is a video that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recorded for Zappos employees that we have embedded above. Here are three quotes that struck us while analyzing his presentation:

1. "Zappos has a customer obsession which is so easy for me to admire. It is the starting point for Zappos. It is the place where Zappos begins and ends. And that is a very key factor for me. I get all weak-kneed when I see a customer-obsessed company, and Zappos certainly is that.

Zappos also has a totally unique culture. I've seen a lot of companies, and I have never seen a company with a culture like Zappos'. And I think that kind of unique culture is a very significant asset."

2. "You're in such great hands with Fred, Alfred, and Tony. That's a really big deal. I've seen a lot of leaders of companies too, and I haven't seen peopel better than those three."

3. "There's a lot of growth ahead of Zappos."

Why did Amazon acquire Zappos? We've thought about this, and narrowed it down to four primary reasons:

1. Zappos has a lot of growth potential

2. Zappos has a one-of-a-kind culture that has bred it's success. It's also one that no company, even Amazon, can easily replicate.

3. Zappos is known for its legendary customer service. Amazon thinks this is an asset in the future.

4. Amazon is buying Zappos for its people - its leadership and its employees.

It's going to be an interesting next few months. While Zappos will remain independent, it's a guarantee that Amazon will find ways to integrate the Zappos product, brand, and culture into their business. There are still many questions that require answers, but for today, both sides are celebrating.

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The deal is done, and we're still digesting the news: Amazon has acquired Zappos for $850 million. The acquisition, confirmed by both sides, places the popular online apparel and footwear company squarely in the control of Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos.

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Module 5

A great resource for the Case Challenge of Zappos company

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Tony Hsieh is sporting a Mohawk, the first I've encountered atop a gainfully employed billionaire. I ask the Zappos CEO, who sold out to Amazon for $1.2 billion but continues to run his operation largely without interference, how the Mohawk got there.

"I try to do one uncomfortable thing every day."

Noted.

My visit with Hsieh (in theory pronounced "Shay," but everybody calls him "Tony")continues in this funhouse manner for the rest of my time at Zappos' new headquarters. I'll get back to my visit with Tony in a minute, but first follow me upstairs to the call center. Because to understand Zappos, and in particular Zappos' celebrated customer service methodology, Tony isn't the only place you can start. I'd argue, in fact, that the best way to understand Zappos and its approach to customer service is by studying the chalkboard on the wall of Zappos' onsite contact center.

This board, the "Daily Breakdown Report," is a lot simpler than the kind of call analytics you'll find at traditional contact centers. It lists three categories of customer interaction, each sporting a Zappos "z" for good measure:

* Phonez

* Live Chatz

* Emailz"

For each of these channels, someone has written in the number of customer inquiries received for the day (yesterday), and the average time it took for Zappos to respond. The volume of these customer inputs is heavily skewed toward telephone: 7,394 calls, answered in 25 seconds on average, as opposed to 1656 chats (sorry, "chatz") answered in 31 seconds each, and 988 emails (sorry again: "emailz") answered on average in 4 hours and 15 minutes. This final statistic is troubling to Ryo Hanalei Zsun, a former call center agent ("customer loyalty team member," in Zapponian) who served as the guide on my tour, and whose dialogue until now has been bathed in Hawaiian-inflected equanimity (as he told me, although he's lived on the mainland since 1999, he "proudly carries on the spirit of Aloha"). "We fell down on the email response there," he tells me with some agitation. "Our goal for emails is to respond in an hour."

Four hours does seem long to me on the email front (I counsel customer service consulting clients that every hour seems like a day in internet time; after just a couple hours not hearing from you, customers start to assume that a company's never getting back to them), but more, I was impressed that the Zappos volume is weighted six- or sevenfold toward the telephone as opposed to email or chat. "That's because other companies hide their phone number. We put ours front and center on the website," says Ryo.

The chalkboard has a second sector of hand-drawn stats that you'll never see compiled at any other contact center, these telling how many flowers, cookies, postcards and unnamed "wow gifts" have been sent to customers in the previous month and previous year. Ryo told me the story behind one of the 2016 "flower stats" on this board:

Last year, when I was working the phones, a woman called, trying to return some boots. The sad story turned out to be that she had bought them for her father, who had since died. I told her not to bother returning them; that we would refund her money but she was free to give the boots away instead of returning them. And after the call I felt moved to send her some flowers-just one of the 380 gifts of flowers you can see on the board that we sent out last year. Some time after that, she sent me a letter and a photo of her father."

It was quite a story. But Ryo didn't want me to take the wrong lesson from it. "The flowers aren't what mattered here most. The phone is. It lets us have these in-depth, textured conversations with our customers. It's the key to how we build customers for life."

Half an hour later, Tony himself points to the telephone as the differentiator of the Zappos customer experience. We're talking about the challenge at Zappos of competing directly with its overlords at Amazon.com, often selling the exact same items, and sharing the same technological backend. I define the Zappos/Amazon difference thus: Amazon's site is set up for customers who want the fewest clicks and the most streamlined experience, while Zappos appeals to customers who enjoy a touch more backstory on the merchandise and have a bit more interest in the people who are selling it to them. Tony is insistent, however, that this differentiation isn't achieved through the website; it's a result of how people are treated when they actually interact with Zappos. "I don't think the difference [between the appeal of Zappos and the Amazon brand] is in the UI [the website user interface]. It's in how we build a personal connection, primarily on the phone. We're actually experimenting with ways to get more people to call because it's such a valuable marketing and brand builder for us."

It might sound anticlimactic to hear that Zappos feels that its unique customer service differentiator is the lowly telephone. I think it's most meaningful and useful if you take this comment both narrowly and broadly. Narrowly speaking, it's true: Zappos takes the telephone experience very, very seriously. This starts with promoting the chance to call Zappos 'round the clock-you're invited to do so right at the top of the Zappos homepage, where, in their signature white on blue color scheme, they proclaim, Customer Service Available 24/7 at (800) 927-7671. (Good luck uncovering a phone number on the Amazon site.) In this narrow sense, Zappos is serious about wanting you to call them; Hsieh's theory on this is that even though a very small percentage (fewer than 5%) of Zappos sales are made on the phone (almost all are made on the website), a much higher percentage of Zappos customers will call the company at some point in their life as customer. When that one call comes in, Zappos will do anything to make sure it's an engaging and personable experience for the customer, in the hope that a single great phone interaction will serve as a proxy in the customer's mind for the overall personality of this company-that "this company wants to be my friend," to put it rather elementarily.

Broadly speaking, the telephone at Zappos represents human contact, and extending rather than contracting the amount of time and resources that the company wants to spend in human-on-human connect with customers, whether it is telephone to telephone, terminal to terminal, or even asymmetrically, like when the wildly engaging employees at Zappos create their signature video demos for any and all products they have for sale on their site. So, if telephone inquiries ever drop off from Zappos customers-which seems likely as customer support trends continue to move toward messaging, chat, and social media-I expect Zappos will find ways to have engaging conversations on those channels as well.

Either way, Zappos is depending on customer service as marketing, trusting that the intimate engagements they're having are enough to cement the loyalty of the customers on those calls and ensure that word of the Zappos brand will spread.

And about that ten-hour contact center phone call we've all heard about? I wanted to know: "What did they talk about? And did they get bathroom breaks?"

"I don't know if they got bathroom breaks," says Tony-Jamie Naughton, Zappos Chief of Staff, breaks in and confirms that they did. "Well, that's good news-but, seriously, what did they talk about?" I persist. Tony looks at me sourly, or as sourly as his essentially affectless demeanor would allow. "Whatever friends would talk about." But, not to flog a dead phone line, but they weren't friends-this was a call between a contact center employee and a Zappos customer. And unless he was talking her off a cliff, the 10-hour scenario isn't understandable by traditional call center logic. It's only understandable (and as such it makes sense) as a flag that Zappos has planted to show their employees how important it is to connect with customers. The 10-hour phone call, which has become an essential part of Zappos lore (akin to the tire-refund legend at Nordstrom, that other customer-focused company) is no joking matter to Tony, but to lighten the mood, he pulls up a Jimmy Fallon segment on his laptop where the agent on the Zappos end of the marathon call finally gets to meet the customer he was speaking with. Unfortunately, the internet connection, ironically, is terrible, and we never get to see the full segment.

But I got the picture.

****

Next article, I'll revisit Zappos to consider how its proudly-weird culture does, or doesn't, fit into the customer service picture.
Forbes readers: Get two free chapters of Micah Solomon's books here. Reach him directly here.

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Tony Hsieh Reveals The Secret To Zappos' Customer Service Success In One Word

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Tony Hsieh is sporting a Mohawk, the first I've encountered atop a gainfully employed billionaire. I ask the Zappos CEO, who sold out to Amazon for $1.2 billion but continues to run his operation largely without interference, how the Mohawk got there. "I try to do one uncomfortable thing every day."

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Module 4

Great extra reading on Peter Drucker’s management theory.

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Peter Drucker is world-renowned for his innovative thinking in the ways of business management. His work turned management theory into ...

Peter Drucker is world-renowned for his innovative thinking in the ways of business management. His work turned management theory into a serious discipline among sociologists and he participated in nearly every aspect of management theory development. The practice of business ethics and morals was at the top of the list of the many elements of business management Drucker found important. This guide will introduce you to aspects of Drucker's theories and the organizational results of his life's work.

MBO
MBO stands for Management by Objectives, a phrase coined by Peter Drucker in his book "The Practice of Management," published in 1954. MBO measures the performance of employees as compared to typical standards for the job. The belief is that, if employees help determine those standards, they will be more likely to fulfill them.

SMART Method
Drucker's SMART Method is a means of checking to make sure an objective is valid. Managers carried out this verification by using the SMART acronym to make sure the objective is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-related.

Knowledge worker
"Knowledge worker" is one of the many terms coined by Drucker within his management theories. By the measure of today's society, a knowledge worker is equivalent to the executive of a company.

Decentralization
Drucker was a believer in decentralization of management. He saw that many leaders try to take on everything in a demonstration of power or a means of maintaining control, under the assumption that only they can accomplish a task correctly. Drucker believed that managers should delegate tasks in order to empower employees.

School of Management
Peter Drucker came on as staff at Claremont Graduate University in California in 1971, when he began constructing one of the nation's first executive MBA programs for working professionals. In honor of his work, the university named its management school after him in 1987. Later, his Japanese friend and businessman received the same honor, resulting in the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management.
Claremont Graduate University's School of Management.
Drucker Institute
More than 100 followers of Drucker's management theories tried to determine his legacy following his death in 2005. Thus began The Drucker Institute.

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Management Theory of Peter Drucker Key Terms

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Peter Drucker is world-renowned for his innovative thinking in the ways of business management. His work turned management theory into ... Peter Drucker is world-renowned for his innovative thinking in the ways of business management. His work turned management theory into a serious discipline among sociologists and he participated in nearly every aspect of management theory development.

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Module 4
A great website for additional information about In-N-Out

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Across the country, new breeds of restaurant chains are popping up to fulfill Americans' endless appetite for the hamburger. From mega-chains in the making to artisan burgers crafted by celebrity chefs, there's a multitude of challengers taking on big players like McDonald's and Burger King. Here now, part one in a five-part series profiling the "better burger" chains. Today: In-N-Out vs Five Guys.
There's an epic hamburger battle going on across America as Five Guys edges in on In-N-Out's territory. People are skipping the "clown and the crown," and these bi-coastal burgeoning superpowers are both on the move to fill the most burger-hungry bellies. Can In-N-Out keep up, or is Five Guys going to take charge of the "better burger" arena?

Over the last eight years, Five Guys has expanded from Arlington, VA to become a ubiquitous fixture in the fast food game across the country. Having grown to over 750 locations, this burger boom is about to face some strong competition from the West coast. Cult favorite In-N-Out Burger has saturated the Southern California market with a staggering 203 locations in California - 66 in the Los Angeles area alone. While expansion outside the golden state has been slow, it's about to get a whole lot faster thanks to the construction of a second meat processing plant in Texas.

In-N-Out: The First Drive-Thru Hamburger Stand

In-N-Out, Santa Clarita Valley. [Photo:
~R. E. ~/ Eater LA Flickr Pool]

In 1948, Harry and Esther Snyder opened the first drive-thru burger stand in Baldwin Park, CA. Grounding their fledgling business with stringent control over quality, freshness, and service, the Snyders were slow to expand, teaching the business to sons Guy and Rich along the way. By the time Harry died in 1976, In-N-Out had expanded to 18 drive-thru locations and left the business in the hands of the 24-year-old Rich.

With Guy's help, Rich drove the rapid expansion of In-N-Out by establishing a central headquarters in Baldwin Park and creating the "In-N-Out University" to assert total control over both the ingredients and staffing of all locations. While Rich was president, In-N-Out expanded to 93 locations by 1993 and, under the leadership of Guy, grew to 140 locations in California, Nevada, and Arizona before his death in 1999.

While In-N-Out's expansion has been checked by the company's rigorous and unwavering oversight procedures and private family business model, they have risen to a level of clear regional domination on the West Coast. But, thus far, only on the West coast. Of the 258 current locations, 66 are in the LA area alone, and 203 are in California. The brand has achieved something of a cult status among Californians with staggering digestive feats on the "Secret Menu" and unparalleled market saturation.

Five Guys: Inside the Beltway to National Takeover

Five Guys Burgers, Valencia, CA [Photo: R. E. ~/Eater National Flickr Pool]

The Five Guys phenomenon may have reached more strip malls and airport terminals than imaginable, but this heavily franchised family burger chain has its roots as a Washington insider. The Murrell family founded their first burger restaurant in 1986 in Arlington, VA, when the "five guys" were Jerry Murrell and his four sons. Soon after, the family added a fifth son and, by 2001, they had opened a restaurant per son around the DC metro area.

When Five Guys initially decided to franchise in 2002, they limited expansion to Maryland and Virginia to accommodate the area's burgeoning cult fan base. Yet, when the local territories quickly sold out, they opened the rest of the country for franchising rights. Barack Obama's 2009 Five Guys lunch with Brian Williams only spotlighted the hamburger hubbub. Territories are currently sold out across the country, officially bringing over 250,000 possible burgers and free peanuts to 40 states and four Canadian provinces.

Business Models: Do You Have to Choose Grind or Grow?

To expand into the Texas market, In-N-Out had to design and build an additional processing center because trucking beef that far from headquarters costs too much while undermining the company's promise of never-frozen freshness. While other burger chains can boast that they grind their own meat, none does so in the elaborate and centralized manner In-N-Out has fine-tuned over the last 63 years. From the Baldwin Park plant, the chain's spread has been limited by the ability to truck unfrozen meat that meets the chain's freshness standards. Currently, the farthest beef is sent 685 miles to a restaurant in Centreville, UT. Based on that distance, a plant in Dallas would be able to truck beef to 13 new states for In-N-Out.

Without the limitations of proximity to production, Five Guys has been able to rapidly extend their reach across the country. The company makes no claims about the origin or processing of its meat, and this distinction has facilitated the chain's dispersal. By sourcing meat from more convenient, local purveyors, Five Guys has been able to focus on making the chain profitable and extending the brand nationwide. While Five Guys began as a family business just like its California competitor, franchising has led to massive growth since 2003 and every territory in the United States and Canada has been sold.

Time for a Burger Battle

Thus far, In-N-Out maintains an iron grip on the Southern California market. With rapid expansion and sold-out franchising territories, Five Guys is breaking into the West Coast burger business, outpacing In-N-Out in the San Francisco area. There's also a showdown headed for Sin City: Nine Five Guys locations are scheduled to open in Las Vegas this year, flooding a city that's already home to seven In-N-Out restaurants. In addition, now In-N-Out is headed to Texas.

Projected Expansion

Five Guys is set to open another 200 locations in 2011. In-N-Out is planning on opening eight restaurants in Texas. While the company has not released official information on how many new locations in total will be opening in their expanded territory, given the construction of an entire new processing facility, they must be planning enough to make the secondary plant worthwhile.

Looks like it's game on for these two. Now, can we get that animal style?

Tomorrow, mega-chains in the making: Mooyah Burger, Smashburger, and Elevation Burger

· All Burger Week Posts on Eater [-E-]
· All Hamburger Coverage on Eater [-E-]
· All Five Guys Coverage on Eater [-E-]
· All In-N-Out Coverage on Eater [-E-]

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In-N-Out vs Five Guys: The Big Chains' Bi-Coastal Burger Battle

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Across the country, new breeds of restaurant chains are popping up to fulfill Americans' endless appetite for the hamburger. From mega-chains in the making to artisan burgers crafted by celebrity chefs, there's a multitude of challengers taking on big players like McDonald's and Burger King.

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Module 4

This website was beneficial in my research for SWOT analysis of In-N-Out Burger restaurant

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At In-N-Out Burger, quality is everything. That’s why in a world where food is often over-processed, prepackaged and frozen, In-N-Out makes everything the old fashioned way.

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Module 3

This site helped in my research on the topic multi-generational employees

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Employers and HR teams are managing employees for a workforce that stretches across three to five generations. This workforce is complex, and its workers have varying needs from generation to generation. That's why a multigenerational benefits strategy is in order.

Baby boomers preparing for retirement may have an ongoing relationship with doctors and a number of medical appointments in a given year. On the other hand, millennials and members of Generation Z - the latest generation to enter the workforce - may shy away from primary care doctors and focus more on options to pay off student loans and start saving for retirement.

Given these dynamics, it's important that two separate departments, finance and HR, need to develop a benefits strategy that keeps costs as low as possible while being useful to employees. Finance leaders understand they need to retain employees - turnover is expensive - but they're still interested in cost containment strategies.

Employers should approach their multigenerational benefits strategy on finding a balance between cost containment and employee engagement.
Cost containment
For the first time in six years, the number of employers offering only high-deductible health plans is set to drop 9%. But the idea of employee consumerism is here to stay as employers see modest rises in health insurance premiums.

To effectively contain costs, employers should first weigh the pros and cons of their funding model. While most companies start out with fully-insured models, employers should seriously evaluate a move toward self-funding. Sure, self-funding requires a larger appetite for risk, but it provides insight into claims and utilization data that you can leverage to make informed decisions about cost containment.

One way to move toward a self-funded model is with level-funding, which allows employers the benefit of claims data while paying a consistent premium each month. In a level-funded plan, employers work with a third-party administrator to determine their expected claims for the year. This number, plus administrative fees and stop-loss coverage, divided by 12, becomes the monthly premium.

A tiered contribution model might also help to contain costs without negatively affecting employees. In a typical benefit plan, employers cover a specific percentage and employees contribute the rest - say 90% and 10%, respectively. In a tiered contribution plan, employees with salaries under a certain dollar amount pay less than those high earners. That means your employee making $48,000 pays $50, while your employee making $112,000 pays more. It's a way to distribute the contribution across the workforce that enables everyone to more easily shoulder the burden of rising healthcare costs.
Employee engagement
To create a roadmap that not only helps you gain control of your multigenerational benefits strategy but keep employees of all ages happy, it's necessary to consider employee engagement. While new options like student loan repayment could be useful to part of your workforce, it's best to start much simpler with something that affects everyone: time away from work.

A more aggressive paid time off policy, telecommuting policies and paid family leave are becoming increasingly popular. Many companies are offering PTO just for employees to pursue charitable work - a benefit that resonates with younger workers and can improve company culture. And a generous telecommuting policy recognizes that employees have different needs and shows that employers understand their modern, diverse workforce. Beyond basic time away from work, an extended leave policy outside what the law guarantees is another tool that can keep employees engaged.

Making it easier for employees to get care is another trending benefit, which can keep employees happy and contribute to cost containment. Concierge telemedicine has been called the modern version of a doctor's house call. This relatively inexpensive benefit provides your employees access to care 24/7 by phone or video chat, which is convenient regardless of the user's generation.

Employees and other covered individuals can connect to a doctor to discuss symptoms and get advice, whether they are prescribed a medication or they need to seek further care. This is another benefit that's useful for young workers who may not have a primary care doctor or older workers with families.

Finally, your tech-savvy workforce expects to access their plan information wherever they need it. Ensure your carrier offers a mobile app to house insurance cards, coverage and provider information.

When it comes to a multigenerational benefits strategy, creating harmony between finance and HR might seem like a daunting task. But considering some relatively small benefit changes could be what allows you to offer a benefits package that pleases both departments - and all of your employees.

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How to build a multigenerational benefits strategy

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Employers and HR teams are managing employees for a workforce that stretches across three to five generations. This workforce is complex, and its workers have varying needs from generation to generation. That's why a multigenerational benefits strategy is in order.

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Module 3
Another site that helped in my research and discussion assignment for the Marroitt and Starwood merger

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One Step Closer to More Choices for Marriott Rewards Members

A LETTER FROM ARNE SORENSON

We're excited to announce that we've secured shareholder approval for Marriott International to join together with Starwood Hotels & Resorts-a significant milestone towards creating the world's largest lodging company and strongest loyalty program in the industry. Since we announced our plans to merge with Starwood, you've raised questions about the impact of the merger on your membership and the Marriott Rewards® program. I want to take this opportunity to provide an update on where we stand.

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Marriott Rewards | Marriott - Starwood Merger

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A LETTER FROM ARNE SORENSON We're excited to announce that we've secured shareholder approval for Marriott International to join together with Starwood Hotels & Resorts-a significant milestone towards creating the world's largest lodging company and strongest loyalty program in the industry.

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Module 3
This site helped in my research discussion on Marriott

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Marriott International, Inc. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. are planning to merge, creating the largest hotel company in the world. During separate stockholder meetings in 2016, shareholders of both Marriott International and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide proposals which outlined plans for Marriott to acquire Starwood. At the close of the deal, Starwood shareholders received 0.8 shares of Marriott including $21 per Starwood common stock. The deal was in September of 2016, which began the journey towards total integration of Starwood into Marriott.

The merger is not simply a benefit for shareholders or a step closer to building the world's largest hotel empire. Additionally, the merger of the loyalty programs specific to Starwood and Marriott will secure the foundation for the largest loyalty program of its kind. By offering to prospective customers a choice between over 5,500 hotels in over 100 countries, their expanded portfolio caters to a commitment to customer experience and satisfaction that is shared by both companies.

In the beginning, Marriott chose to keep loyalty programs for the two hotel brands completely separate; that is, customers could book Marriott hotels with Marriott Rewards Points and Starwood hotels with SPG Starpoints. Additionally, members had the opportunity to link both accounts in order to enjoy elite status in both programs and switch between point currencies at an exchange rate of one SPG Starpoint for every three Marriott Rewards Points. This pleased Starwood account holders, as it respected the value of SPG Starpoints and made sure that the merger would work for both parties.

Upon closing, the plan was to eventually build a newer, stronger loyalty program that played to the strengths of each one. "Marriott will draw upon the very best each program offers and we can't wait to show the loyal members of these programs the power and benefits of Marriott and Starwood coming together," explains Executive Vice President and Global Chief Commercial Officer Stephanie Linnartz.
Recent News on the Starwood and Marriott Merger
The final version of the new loyalty program (with many, but not all of the details) was announced on Monday April 16, and although it will not go into effect until August, Marriott has revealed some of the things to expect when it does. First, the overall loyalty program merges benefits across Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards. Moving forward, all three loyalty programs will become one comprehensive loyalty program, where all points will be converted into Marriott Rewards Points. The original 3:1 SPG Starpoints to Marriott Rewards Points ratio will still apply, so all SPG Starpoints will be converted to Marriott Rewards Points using that conversion factor later in 2018.

However, the new loyalty program is still unnamed and will remain that way until 2019. Because of this, members will still be earning points under the old program names until then, even though the merge will begin in August. Non-elite members will enjoy an upgrade from the old Starwood system, earning 10 points per dollar spent at each brand apart from Residence Inn, TownPlace Suites, and Element which will earn 5 points per dollar spent.

Instead of maintaining elite status with each program, elite members will now enjoy one consolidated elite rewards system. When the merge is complete, the elite earning structure will contain five categories: Silver, Gold, Platinum, Platinum Premier, and Platinum Premier with Ambassador. The highest level is achieved after 100 booked nights; Platinum Premier with Ambassador members will earn 17.5 points per dollar spent. However, this will be the only elite tier with a spending requirement of $20,000 per year; an average of $200 per night. Additionally, the new elite benefit structure encourages members to earn Platinum status, since this unlocks all of the benefits apart from access to an Additional Choice Benefit, 48-hour Guarantee, Ambassador Service, or Your24 service.

Keep in mind that under the new points redemption structure, customers will enjoy the privilege of having no blackout dates. However, the new loyalty program will introduce a way for hotel brands to price-gouge (or, points-gouge) during peak seasons. For example, if a property is worth 25,000 points per night during "standard" season, it will be worth 20,000 points per night during the "off" season and 30,000 points per night during the "peak" season. Members should keep this in mind when deciding when and how to redeem points under this structure; however, this change will not take effect until February 1, 2019. Additionally, the category status of each hotel brand has not yet been announced, so this change may end up being beneficial to members rather than a devaluation. Marriott has announced that it will start categorizing brands beginning this June.

Marriott has also announced that the SPG airline transfer points program will remain in effect, and with the 3:1 points ratio discussed above, the transfer value of SPG Starpoints will not be affected. Additionally, ten more airlines are due to join the partnership and the efficiency of the program is projected to increase, decreasing processing time and encouraging customers to take advantage of transfer opportunities.

The merger will also expand Marriott's credit card reach, including new cards coming from Chase and American Express. American Express, which was originally partnered with SPG, will offer a brand new Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Luxury Credit Card which will be accompanied by a myriad of great benefits. Also, new benefits are coming for SPG and SPG Business cardholders through American Express. Through Chase, the all-new Marriott Rewards Premier Plus Credit Card is set to launch on May 3rd, accompanied by an impressive 100,000 point sign-up bonus. Marriott Rewards Business and Ritz-Carlton Rewards cards will still exist under the new system, but the original Marriott Rewards Premier card will be phased out once the new one launches.

All things considered, the merger is turning out to be beneficial for both brands, upholding the value of Starwood rewards and remaining true to Marriott's successful business model. Keep looking out for more updates as the merger continues towards completion.

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Details Surrounding the Marriott and Starwood Merger

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Marriott International, Inc. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. are planning to merge, creating the largest hotel company in the world. During separate stockholder meetings in 2016, shareholders of both Marriott International and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide proposals which outlined plans for Marriott to acquire Starwood.

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Module 4

This was very helpful for SWOT analysis example

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Module 3
This cartoon sums up the culture profiling training needed when working with international companies.

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A great cartoon that sums up the Y Generation workers.
https://www.upworthy.com/millennials-can-totally-relate-to-these-cartoon-characters-navigating-life-in-17-comics

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This cartoon shows the differences between Baby Boomers and Millennials.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cartoon+image+of+millennials+at+work&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=z5DtaRfFVkRieM%253A%252CTqK3A2rzXWHPMM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kRmFjUAm80GhlCK4wE9mmYZHr_mxg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj8-Nyftc3gAhUR0awKHfg9ACQQ9QEwA3oECAAQCg#imgrc=8q9Ougvfr3cZvM:&spf=1550772373265

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The following link is a article that helped me in my response to discussion of gender benefits.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2017/05/21/432758/womens-leadership-gap/

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This article was the one I chose for this module. It was about the benefits and common mistakes leaders make in organizations with multi-generational employees.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/wesgay/2017/10/20/multigeneration-workforce/#47fec1e64bfd

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Introduction-
I hope that this course will help me in my field. My friends say I catch onto things pretty quickly and I hope this class doesn't throw me any curves. I'm juggling a lot this semester so I don't want to run into any problems. My goal is to do well and hit a homerun!

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A site called  RememberingSteve@apple.com
was a site I explored to learn more about the personal side of Steve Jobs and how he influenced so many people with  his creativty.

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https://padlet.com/support/padlets_howtopost

This link was helpful when I initially created my pallet wall which was introduced in module 1.

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This cartoon captures the introduction concepts in chapter 1 for me. The fact that management and leadership go together to be effective.

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https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/rodney-adkins

This is a link that I read about Rodney Adkins and his success leading up to all his years working at IBM.