All Features
Chip Bell
The Madison, a historic hotel overlooking the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee, was rebranded into a modern hotel. It was, in some ways, a sad event. Memphis is the birthplace of the blues, and the Madison was my introduction to the powerful music of helping customers co-create their own…
Mike Figliuolo
Interviewing for a new job is an exercise in humiliation, fear, and confusion. Whether you’re interviewing for a job at a new company or just changing roles at your present employer, the process is nauseating.
You do everything you can to put your best foot forward. You get your suit pressed. You…
Susan Robertson
Periodically, the popular press raises the idea that group brainstorming isn’t effective at generating creative solutions. That assertion is erroneous for a variety of reasons. Groups can—and do—successfully brainstorm creative and useful solutions.
But research does show that effective…
Creaform
Reaume Bros. Racing is an American professional stock-car racing team that competes full time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Owned by Josh Reaume, the team fields the No. 22 Ford F-150 full time for multiple drivers, the No. 27 part time for Keith McGee, and the No. 33 full time for Lawless…
Mike Figliuolo
For many of us, screwing up is in our DNA. It happens. Blame Murphy if you like, but it happens. However, when this happens to someone on your team and you’re in a leadership role, the implications of a mistake can be far-reaching.
The most important aspect of these kinds of events, however, isn’t…
Ram Charan
In the near future, significant and unpredictable external factors may combine to challenge the global business landscape in unprecedented ways. Responding effectively to those challenges will require adaptability. Although many leaders acknowledge its importance, even successful companies can…
Sara Harrison
A hush has fallen over the workplace. At tech startups and banks, in doctors’ offices and law firms, workers are increasingly being asked to keep secrets. These aren’t personal confidences but organizational secrets about clients, proprietary technologies, or business strategies. Sometimes…
George Schuetz
Electronic temperature compensation in gaging has become a valuable tool in improving the accuracy and gage repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) of gages in harsh manufacturing environments.
The need for temperature compensation comes into play when the expected errors from temperature…
Mike Figliuolo
Moving to a new job can be scary and intimidating, with many risks inherent in making that transition. But if you think of the transition like laying siege to a fortress, you will be just fine.
There are a few major risks you must account for as you plan how to attack your next job. Those risks…
David Satterwhite, Mark Hembree
The world of remote work spawned by the pandemic posed several new and unprecedented challenges as employers and employees alike reconfigured relationships and adopted new expectations for each other.
For most people who were able to do so, skipping the commute and working from home was preferable…
Gleb Tsipursky
The transformative potential of generative AI in learning and development (L&D) is a topic of growing interest among business leaders. And if you think your workers aren’t using generative AI, you could be seriously off base.
According to a global study of 14,000 workers in late 2023 by…
Seb Murray
Last year, the corporate world adopted a new term: flattening. This refers to how tech companies, which rapidly hired droves of middle managers during the pandemic boom, are now eliminating this layer through widespread job cuts.
Recent research by Mustafa Dogan, Alexandre Jacquillat, and Wharton’…
NIST
‘There is a tremendous opportunity for women to influence the manufacturing industry in a positive way,” says Lisa Dach, strategic business advisor at the Northwest Industrial Resource Center (NWIRC), part of the Pennsylvania MEP and the MEP National Network. “Women in leadership improve the…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
When you think of good customer service—particularly the barriers to it—two factors generally come to mind: timing and wording. Imagine walking into a store that sells soap and bodywash products and immediately being bombarded with, “May I help you?” “Looking for anything today?” or the dreaded, “…
Mike Figliuolo
Susan Strayer, a friend of mine, posed a question on social media the other day: “Can you sum up your expertise in 140 characters or less?” Great question. A few people took her up on the challenge. Being an overachiever, I did it in three words. Before I dive in, let me provide some context.
For…
Michael Platt, Vera Ludwig
Four years after the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated remote work, its advantages and drawbacks have been well documented. For leaders, the biggest hurdles have remained constant: building employee engagement, trust, and communication.
Nano Tool
Scientists from the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative …
Harish Jose
Recently, I wrote about the process capability index and tolerance interval. Here, I’m writing about the relationship between the process capability index and sigma. The sigma number here relates to how many standard deviations the process window can hold.
A +/– 3 sigma contains 99.73% of the…
Mike Figliuolo
I hate the use of the word just in front of anyone’s title, as in, “He’s just an analyst,” or, “She’s just a cafeteria worker,” or, “I’m just an administrative assistant.”
No one is just anything. The word is demeaning and pejorative. We’re all people—we happen to have different responsibilities.…
John Tschohl
Are your employees empowered to make decisions on the spot in favor of the customer? Your single goal should be to have overly happy customers. Too many things go wrong each day. You want your employees to understand they are in customer service, and their No. 1 responsibility is to take care of…
Mike Figliuolo
Reading the news (or even your email) can be distressing to the point of despondency. It can also be fun. It’s especially fun when people say or write silly stuff, and the reporter or editor has to write [sic] after a misspelling or a stupid comment in the original transcript. Sic, usually placed…
Daniel Marzullo
The “comfort zone” is that cozy space where everything feels familiar and stress-free. It’s where we stick to what we know, using the same old strategies that keep things steady but can also lead to feeling stuck.
In this zone, there’s not much motivation to push for new achievements, so progress…
Etienne Nichols
On Jan. 31, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its final rule for the new Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR).
The new QMSR is the result of aligning the current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) requirements of the FDA’s quality system regulation (QSR) with the…
Mike Figliuolo
We take ourselves too seriously, and in doing so we become boring and no fun. Sometimes it’s OK to let loose, act silly, and have a good time. It’s energizing.
So often we while away the days being the consummate professional. We read professional journals. We write professional messages. We hold…
Jennifer King
At a time when virtual meetings, video conferences, and online work calls are the norm, there’s good news for those who see a unique value in in-person networking. A survey conducted by Harvard Business Review has found that 95% of professionals believe face-to-face meetings are crucial to…
Jones Loflin
In a previous article, I discussed the concept of “stress bragging”—that tendency to boast about our stress levels as a way to highlight our productivity and importance. I touched on ways to curb this habit in ourselves. But what about when others do it? Here are some effective strategies for…
