AchieveGlobal's blog

A Loyal Customer is a Happy Customer

We’ve all heard the popular statistic: “happy customers tell one person about a good experience and unhappy customers tell ten about a bad one.” The best companies find ways to tune in to customers' voices everyday and equip employees with the skills they need to create favorable, lasting impressions with clients. In today's highly competitive business arena, customer loyalty means the difference between an organization that struggles to survive and one that thrives. Motivating employees in this economy will not be an easy feat without having a skilled leadership team to support initiatives. Leaders must be able to inspire cross-functional teams to deliver their value proposition across the entire customer experience. Data mining and customer relationship management (CRM) systems can be valuable, but the ultimate test of loyalty lies in what a customer tells others. In a recent poll, 80 percent of dynamic retailers reported pursuing Customer Experience Management to boost sales. What actions is your organization taking to increase revenue and operational efficiency?

How Learning and Development Initatives Sustain a Challenging Economy

Let’s face it. Employees need good leaders in order to be productive. A recent study revealed that many organizations are seeing the need to improve upon their leaders’ abilities to motivate and encourage prosperity across employee teams. Leaders across all industries agree that employee learning and development is a must-have. The reasoning behind the need to strategically improve on the employee training process is revealed in this brand new Quick Read Report, “AchieveGlobal Survey Analysis: Learning in Difficult Times.”

I ’m a Leader – So What Do You Expect?

By Craig Perrin We recently concluded a worldwide study of what’s different about leading in the 21st century. What we learned will re-shape both what we say about leaders and how we develop leaders at all levels. Given the 21st-century coming together of peoples, economies, and cultures, we were pleasantly surprised to find a firm picture of good leadership emerging from our research.  Effective leaders, we learned, tend to focus their efforts in six distinct “zones of leadership”:

• Reflection: The tendency to evaluate one’s own motives, beliefs, attitudes, and actions.
• Society: The tendency to apply principles – such as fairness, respect, and “the greater good” – to balance individual and group welfare.
• Diversity: The tendency to value human differences, including gender, ethnicity, age, culture, beliefs, and work styles.
• Ingenuity: The tendency to offer and execute practical ideas and enable others to do the same.
• People: The tendency to engage the hearts, minds, and actions of others in productive work.
• Business: The tendency to make and execute sound plans and decisions.

While individual contributors and leaders at all levels in Asia, Europe, and North America endorsed these six “zones,” the relative importance of the zones (and of 42 specific behaviors that comprise the zones) differed by organizational level and global region. My limited point here: Good leadership in part is relative to the expectations of those being lead. If I’m a senior leader, for example, I may see profitable operation as my highest priority. Everyone else, however – all the people I lead – may see my ability to admit my mistakes as the bellwether of my credibility. Until I meet that expectation, I’m less likely to secure the commitment and effort that promote profitable operation. This and many other implications of our study will be the focus of a comprehensive report due out this Fall.

Managing by Wandering About (MBWA)

By Andrew Calvert In one of my roles at a large US-based manufacturing company, I spent a portion of my week wandering around the office and plant. There were over 300 people in my building – tech support, finance, marketing, purchasing, material handlers, DTP operators and customer service. Quite a mix: Baby boomers, Nation builders, Gen X, Gen Y ... As I wandered around I would stop and chat to people. Often I would have a joke to tell, a story to share, or a question to ask. And that last point is most important ... a question to ask. You see, by wandering about I learned about the people I worked with, their challenges, victories, hopes, and fears. I found out whose daughter just got into medical school, whose parents were visiting (or driving them mad). I also found out who had a proposal into a ministry or was dealing with a troublesome vendor. And it is this information that allowed me to ask questions the next time I saw the person, to build a relationship that I could leverage into meaningful results when I needed to. There were many managers in the building – more than a dozen I can recall. But only two of us used the principal of MBWA. The other managers were ill-informed about employee morale and opinion. People didn’t share ideas with them – even when they were encouraged to. The reason was that speaking to those managers was strange and unusual. By MBWA, my colleague and I were making it normal and safe to speak with us. Fast forward to this economy, where fewer have to do more than ever before. Engaging EVERY employee as fully is possible is critical to getting results. So the next time you have the chance, get out of your seat and take a walk.