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In: Operations Leadership

Leadership lessons often come from unexpected places. Some recent events reminded me why we must talk to people not about people. The Valerie Bertonelli Incident Last week, you may have heard about a social media incident that involved Valerie Bertinelli. In case you don’t know, Valerie is an actress, television personality and perhaps most famous for being the ex-wife of Van Halen guitarist, Eddy Van Halen. She currently hosts the cooking shows Valerie’s Home Cooking and Kids Baking Championship on Food Network. Long story short, someone had posted a negative comment online telling her she needed to lose weight. In response, she posted a video sharing that comments such asRead More →

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In: Customer Self Service

Customer support self-service has been around for many years, but in 2020 is more important than ever before. As Gartner states in its article, “5 Customer Service Tech Trends in 2020”, Self-service is king. Some of the drivers of self service royalty include…. Firstly, as a result of the pandemic quarantines, many more employees and customers are working from home. As a result, they have to rely more heavily on self-help technology, and less on day to day human interactions.  Secondly, the pandemic has driven up customer service demand in many businesses. Offering excellent, customer self-service provides another channel for customers to solve problems.  Lastly,Read More →

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In: Decision Making, Operations Leadership

Over the past 5 years I have had the opportunity to volunteer at two different animal rescue organizations. They both have the same ultimate goal, which is to save the lives of animals. However, their volunteer executions plans are vastly different. This is because one leverages a generalist approach, while the other leverages a specialist approach. What is the difference? In her May 2020 article, “Deep or wide: Should you become a specialist or generalist in your career?”, Sharlyn Lauby did a great job describing each option.  Per Lauby, “Generalists are competent in several different areas or activities within a profession. Consider an accountant who’s knowledgeableRead More →