It seems I have a never-ending supply of stories from mainline companies who just can’t get their customer service act together. Here’s my reasoning for sharing them: since I try to highlight the good and innovative things companies do, it’s only appropriate that when there is a customer service failure, I call that out, as […]
Tag Archives: management
Enabling Someone to Do the Right Thing
If you travel as much as I do, you’re bound to be a frequent customer at the dry cleaners. Since my move to Sugar Land, I found a cleaning business conveniently located on my way to work; they are very efficient and have been a delight.However, upon closer inspection, a shirt of mine was damaged […]
Reverse Brainstorm To Great Insight
In July, I teach two weeks at the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Colorado (GSBC). One of my students once showed me a great video called “7 Ways to Maximize Misery.” The idea is to get people to focus on happiness by showing how absurd it is to embrace being miserable. I […]
Paying it Backward
I was chatting with a good friend and pro speaker, Chris Petersen, and she shared a cool story. Seems she was in line at a Chic-fil-A to grab a quick bite on the road, and once she got up to the window, the server told her that her meal had been paid for by the […]
Cocky Goliaths Can Fall Hard
The year was 2004. Two software giants were duking it out for supremacy in the microcomputer market. Well, that’s not really true. They were not equally gigantic, at least in relative terms. The giant was Microsoft and in 2004, it had a revenue of $36 billion. Its “competitor” was Apple and in 2004, it had […]
Siri, I apologize…
We jump to conclusions based on incomplete information and when we overreact, our words and actions can cause real harm. I was ending a meeting in the Buckhead area of Atlanta and had a meeting up in Norcross, Northeast of Buckhead. Since I travel in this area frequently, I am relatively familiar with navigating the various […]
Releasing Your Lifeboat
I got home early from an out of town business trip, and we decided to catch a movie (a genuinely Grounded person finds unexpected ways to delight their spouse or significant other, an impromptu “date” is one that my wife especially likes …). We decided to see The Finest Hour, an incredible tale of a […]