“There’s something wrong here.  Something seems to be out of alignment.”

When something is out of alignment; like your car, your back or a door jam, you can feel it.  And in most cases you probably seek immediate treatment because the wear and tear on things that remain out of alignment can be physically, emotionally and or financially painful.

The same is true for goal alignment in a company.  When goals are not aligned between employees and managers you can be sure the wear and tear on strategic organizational initiatives will be damaging.

…Read More

Research shows that we tend to remember:

• 10% of what we read

• 20% of what we hear

• 30% of what we see

• 50% of what we hear and see

• 70% of what we say

• 90% of what we both say and do

In other words, you are more likely to learn and retain when you are fully engaged in the material. When I’m facilitating classes I keep those statistics in mind because it suggests that the students who are active discussion leaders, and are fully participating in the group assignments are engaged with the concepts I’m trying to get across. In short, they usually perform very well, and are a blast to have around.

As a marketer, I also like to reflect on what those percentages might suggest as it relates to customer engagement and retention. Net promoters, advocates, evangelists; whatever you call them, when they are engaged with your brand it’s a blast.

…Read More

According to Socrates, “Wisdom is limited to an awareness of your own ignorance.”  Socrates used his Socratic Method as a means of uncovering this ignorance by challenging the completeness of thinking.  His series of disciplined and probing questions brought his students to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the subject matter or issue.  Can a business leader use the Socratic Method to build a learning organization that is agile, adaptable, and creative?  Is there a business benefit to creating a culture that not only encourages independent thinking and sound reasoning, but also accepts the responsibility of their decisions?

The Socratic process can be broken down into a series of 6 steps of questioning:

…Read More