When Vickie started working here, she went out of her way to serve her customers quickly, and with a smile. Now she takes much longer, and often just tells them why something can’t be done. What happened to Vickie? In her first week when Vickie checked with another department in order to give fast answers to customers, her co-workers coldly informed her "That’s [...]

  You go, girls! Thirty fitness buddies are exercising themselves dotty. On the chart shown above, fitness buddies launched their goals and feedback for fitness. Buddies wrote their first names into a square, claiming it for their self-posting of points earned during a month. Their checklist of fitness behaviors they perform to earn points include keeping a food diary, hiking, playing [...]

Every supervisor, manager, and leader knows how uncomfortable it is to give feedback. Receiving feedback is several times worse for many of us. We like to believe we’re doing everything right, or if we aren’t, that no one has noticed. My title above is extreme (to get your attention, of course). Few of us believe [...]

We speak without talking. Our most powerful messages don’t come from our words. They come from:      – our eye movements      – our facial expressions      – our posture and gestures As far back as 1959, anthropologist Edward T. Hall named these behaviors "The Silent Language." Most telling today, though, is the blackberry or cell [...]

  Poka Yoke.   You think, "Isn’t that the video game my children play?"  No, that’s Pokemon, "Game Boy" game with cute animated characters.  The challenge of that game is to train your Pokemon (pocket monsters) to do non-lethal battle against other Pokemon.    Poka-Yoke is the Japanese term for "mistake-proofing."  Like the video game, the challenge is to [...]