On April 25th, 2011, CNN Money published an article entitled, “New Home Sales Hover Near All-Time Low,” which referenced the most recent housing statistics just released by the United States Census Bureau.  In addition to the requisite data points and the predictable storyline that followed (and which supported the headline), this article provided an excellent [...]

Making sense out of data collected and being able to connect the dots is key for transformational success.  By the halfway point in the transformational process, there should be a huge amount of data collected – it is literally an art to convert this data into powerful knowledge.  If I had to make a comparison, [...]

America’s history has been marked by the creation and growth of massive business enterprises, many of which adopted a “command and control” management philosophy within their organizations.  Within a typical command and control business hierarchy, the directives and the “orders” came from the executive suite, and then gradually trickle down through the various middle managers [...]

Executives and management are a vital part of understanding the voice of the stakeholders, but it is just as important to hear the voice of those working on the front lines of your company to monitor perceptions and employee morale throughout the transformation journey.  To accomplish this, the survey approach would be the most ideal [...]

Sixty years ago, with the help of noted thought leader and business consultant W. Edwards Deming, the Japanese manufacturing community created and perfected a system of process improvement called “Kaizen,” meaning improvement or change for the better.  Central to this managing philosophy was a commitment to evaluating and improving any and every component of the [...]

Once a firm has cataloged data collected from customers, vendors, and partners, the next step is to solicit information from those with a more intimate knowledge of your company’s internal working.  Here we must reach out to the employees and stakeholders themselves to solicit their input on what’s working and, most importantly, what’s not.  This [...]

In working with clients both large and small over the past decade, one of the most predictable obstacles I have learned that I must effectively manage is what I like to call “Impact Time.” Impact Time is the number of hours elapsed between the time that a transformation initiative is first introduced to the greater [...]

Every so often, I like to share specific experiences I’ve had in working with clients as they grapple with enterprise-wide issues related to quality, productivity, brand perception, profitability, customer service, and even retention.  With these case studies, I hope to demonstrate that many of the problems that organizations face are fairly common, and whether the [...]

The voice of the customer should be the loudest voice that a front-running company hears every day – louder than colleagues, louder than managers, and even louder than the CEO.  The problems that spring up within companies can often be traced back to instances when they stopped listening to the customers; a cultural change that [...]

Front runners in the business world thrive on talent, motivation, skill, persistence, and a variety of other vital assets that propel their success.  Each front-running company is unique in its own definition of, and journey toward, success.  However, ALL front runners use the same basic fuel – knowledge – as energy to propel them to [...]