Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1412

Five Aspects of Wisdom in the Workplace

People spend significant time in the workplace. However, statistically more than two-thirds of employees don’t feel engaged, what’re the negative feeling employees have, but they might never tell their managers? How would you describe the wisdom in the workplace?
Wisdom in workplace means to have positive mindsets, dealing with the situation intelligently and wisely. Wisdom in the workplace is possessing the knowledge of your workplace inside out and having the ability to pass on that knowledge to others. -Knowledge life cycle is managed very effectively in such workplace; it means that raw data has been transformed into information; information has meaningful connections as facts or ideas, and information is further refined into knowledge; knowledge  is information having value in a context, and wisdom is knowledge that is not time bound and has universal value.
Wisdom in the workplace means grooming and mentoring potential leaders now. Passing on the knowledge to others is true leadership. Succession planning should be proactive, not reactive. Wisdom embodied by good leaders, having the patience to observe, listen, and process what is going on around them within the organizational hierarchy, and effectively executing a decision or direction. We can impart knowledge to managers and leaders, For example, organizations train leaders by giving them the information on how to be better communicators. They coach them on how to be more effective decision makers. This kind of knowledge and information is important. It gives managers knowledge about effective management and leadership skills. However, it is only after someone begins actually to practice these behaviors that they will gain wisdom.
Wisdom in the workplace means to encourage knowledge sharing. When organizational leaders value the contributions of each individual, understand and encourage the career aspirations of each person in the team, the likelihood of information sharing increases, because the old adage "knowledge is power" is less likely to be a barrier to knowledge sharing. When people feel supported and confident they will be developed and valued, turf wars are less likely and information and wisdom more likely to flow. Confident employees are more likely to be open, sharing, and realize that even if their dream job is not within that organization, they can learn and contribute meaningfully for a period of time before they are ready to move to the next level.
Wisdom in the workplace is all about holding the sagacity in the premises and related premises of the organization. It is the proper blend of knowledge, ethics, and peace of mind. Awareness would be the key. Most managers have a full plate and no time to be observative to their surroundings. The best time management is to be consistent with your evaluation of the daily process. The person learns best by listening to his or her co-workers. And also giving feedback on their performance. The person should give the positives and negatives on performance. Listening to what everyone is saying "Really Listening" with your ears and watching body language then look at the Big Picture. Employees will grow and advance in the organization also having the patience to observe, knowing how to allow your experience to lead, your words and actions. This person learns best by doing and touching. We all learn in different ways. These managers have to experience first hand the consequences of their behaviors, actions, and decisions. They seem to benefit not only from self-feedback, but also from observer feedback.
Wisdom in the workplace is not just about productivity; it’s more about building a positive and innovative culture. It’s about cultivating intelligent and empathic leadership and management team, driving fully engaging employees and building high-performing team, and the purpose is to align well corporate goals with employees’ career goals, encourage talent growth, create synergy by putting the right talent at the right position in the right time to achieve ultimate business result.
Different employees may have different expectation for the work they do and the workplace they go, but overall speaking, the wisdom in the workplace means positive atmosphere, growth mindsets, intellectual stimulation, culture of learning, open-minded leadership, and collaborative & professional working relationship to both unleash employees’ potential and drive organizational maturity seamlessly.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Does Change Management Need to Be Changed

Statistically, there’s 70% of change initiatives failed today; interestingly, that in the mid 90's, the research found 70% of change initiatives failed (indicates 70% of change projects continue to fail today.) In that twenty-year period, countless studies and experience of managing change has created a vast body of knowledge, consisting of thousands or even millions of books, articles, resources, etc. In turn, this has produced a plethora of change related theories, models, methodologies, tools, and techniques. Even with all this effort, no improvement on 70% failure rate has been achieved. What’s the root cause of such high rate of failures? Is it caused by leadership, process, methodology or technology? Does Change Management need to be changed as well?
Groom Change Leaders and Change Agents: If the individual concerned is either upper management or is an "influencer" within the company, they absolutely need more handling (resources, training, check-back, etc.). Because their potential to counter the proposed changes, and directly or indirectly recruit people to their mindset is so much greater than your average rank-and-file employee. More energy must be expended to check-mate their influence, before it gains traction among that critical 5-10% of the company who may never adapt to the change. Ironically, that leaders who are so data-based about financial and operational elements of the business continue to close their eyes to data about what they need to do differently! And quite frankly, the most impactful way to move the needle on change management success is not on what project teams do, but on what leaders to do to express, model, and reinforce their personal, visible commitment to the change initiatives, not just sponsoring a single project, but focus on building change as an important business capability.It is crucial for senior leaders setting the example and following through because often the lack of communication and setting an example to follow are the root causes of change failure. You need to coach Change Agents how to frame their questions, to drive leaders to demonstrate truly behavioral commitment. Often the team focuses so much attention on project team performance, but the driver for speed and value realization comes from Sponsors!
Data-based analytics to improve Change Management success rate: After all, seeing is believing, which makes the change as much about perception and expectation management as anything else. With more advanced and cost-effective technology and tools, you can leverage an efficient assessment tool that gathers data from different Frames of Reference about past perceptions of project implementation so that you can understand quantitatively the reasons why projects fail or sub-optimize.  If part of the workflow being impacted by the resistance, in that case, extensive data must be collected to show the leadership how the resistant area has become a bottleneck to the change. This must be done carefully with no surprises to the people involved. Simply put, organizations will repeat the same implementation process time and time again, even when it doesn't lead to full implementation! When you put the data in front of executives, they see in "black and white" why projects aren't achieving full value realization. Awareness is the first step, it has to lead to different behavior on the part of leaders. Almost always, sub-optimization can be traced back to the inability of Change Agents to get what they need from leaders.
Setting the priority right: it is a waste of resource attempting to save someone that is clearly set in their ways to the extent that they will never change. Equally there will be those that recognize the need for change and who will commit quickly. Finally, there will be a critical mass of swinging voters in the middle who need the most support and help. This is where the majority of the effort should be spent to get the change over the line. The KPI for change management is the overall outcome, too many folks measure the journey, well setting the right set of measurement is an important step to managing change more effectively.
Compared to the business world 20 years ago, the speed of change is increasing, and digital ecosystem becomes more complex and dynamic, Change Management also turns to be more complex, that’s perhaps part of reasons why the failure rate of Change Management is so stubbornly high. However, the success of change starts at mindset level, today’s digital leaders and professionals must have learning agility to adapt to changes, with more handy technology and analytics tools, and abundance of knowledge and experience sharing, Change Management can become more successful with people as the core of change, the cause of changes and the purpose of change.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Five Aspects of Business Innovation

We're approaching the world with hyperconnectivity, and the highest level of education ever, and as a result, more people are competing in an increasingly competitive global arena. The classic Schumpeterian definitions of innovation stress that true innovation create a competitive advantage that is not limited to an economic advantage. With well-educated digital workforce today, it's obvious that innovation is being pursued now more than ever, and in fact we see much more innovation in more and more areas of the business landscapes as a result of an increasingly well-educated population across the globe.
Being innovative is more important than any specific innovation. Innovativeness is a way of thinking. While change was often previously discrete, intermittent, and rather predictable, it is now constant, discontinuous, and unpredictable, so we need to change the way we change. This is where absorptive capacity, dynamic capabilities, learning organizations, etc. are needed. We don't really know the future of the industry or the environment, but we prepare ourselves to create better it and compete in it. 'True innovation—opportunities “missed by most people,” Thomas Edison famously said, because they’re “dressed in overalls and look like work.”' Innovation is the idea brought to market even when other people thought the idea was crazy or too obvious --and later when it leads to success, everyone looks at and says, " I wish I had thought of that!"
Looking at innovation from the perspective of developing business-wide innovation capabilities. This requires an effective 'innovation system' that is capable of supporting both widespread incremental innovation in products/services and ways of working as well as the rarer 'step-change' innovation in products/services, working methodology, business model and market positioning. Businesses need to determine where best to focus their innovation activities From a business perspective, 'anything new to your business' is an effective definition to encourage both large and small ideas and ideas that are new and 'copied with pride' from others. If it brings increased value to the business, then that's what's important, not semantics. Establishing sustained and institutional-level innovation is the goal. Innovation consists of two phases; the creative, ideation up front, and then the sharing and implementation downstream (when explaining, developing, and selling to sufficiently involve others in adopting and improving upon the "excitement" are involved). In other words the "moment of Eureka" may be very exciting, but hanging on for the long term adoption and extended use phases may become quickly challenging and exhausting. So, it pays to learn to view innovation matters realistically.
Innovation has three phases: discovery of a problem or new idea, designing a prototype solution and the ultimate delivery of a commercially astute outcome. That the best point of view is to see innovation as a system, capable of delivering organization wide capability. If you look at all the attempts over the last few decades to create a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive typology for innovation you will soon realize that it is probably not possible given that almost every area of human endeavor is subject to change and thus "innovation." The three classic qualifiers (novelty, value, implementation) are possible to satisfy in any area, so anything is fair game.
Successful innovation is finding a the bridge between 'push' and 'pull'. Commercial implementation may be represented by creating a need for or finding a need for a 'pull.' To build that bridge requires enthusiasm, belief, determination and commitment as well as a good business case. Innovation is not so much a system, although you need to have processes in place, but more a responsive way of working in general. There is breakthrough innovation or radical innovation, evolutionary innovation, and incremental innovation as well. The minimum requirement for innovation is that the product, process, marketing method or organizational method must be new (or significantly improved) to the firm. This includes products, processes and methods that firms are the first to develop and those that have been adopted from other firms or organizations.
'Innovation Agility' enables people to see and solve problems in flexible and adaptive ways. It is incorporating entrepreneurial and startup principles, with a focus on reducing risk adversity to add value to the quality of people’s lives. This involves thinking systemically because it involves organizational climate, culture, and process changes, simultaneously, within a business ecosystem context. Innovation as the creation and development of new ideas causes meaningful change for customers and the company. This isn't always a new product or service but can also be an improvement in processes, employee satisfaction or the environmental impact. If it makes your customers happier, the firm will eventually also benefit from that!
Innovation is the development of a new combination of available resources, in a way that solves problems of others in a more efficient way. Using the principles of adaptive innovation, one starts with the amount or quality of time itself translated into major societal need. Major jumps in time availability or quality dictate if true innovation can or does occur. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Digital IT Tuning: How to Harness IT-Business Collaboration

It is a thorny journey for IT to transform from a back-office function and cost center to a digital transformer and value creator. What’s the reality of your IT organization? How do you get the non-IT stakeholders to recognize and support the notion that IT and Business are not separate or independent departments? How do you get all stakeholders (IT and non-IT) to encourage the notion that IT and business need to work together to be successful? How do you get non-IT stakeholders to focus on collaboration, transparency, respect, and providing clear leadership, scope, responsibility and performance metrics?
The CIO must be a partner with every aspect of the business: The supporting IT budgets must reflect business priorities and urgency. Too often IT claims success when they have delivered a technological solution, and the business respond so what. Business cares more about the delivery of a viable business solution than the technology that supports it. This is often an IT failure to demonstrate value through the gathering and use of metrics long after the solution is deployed. The CIO's greatest challenge is to educate the business on the cost/benefit for each of their alternatives, and together they make the best-informed decisions they are capable of. IT budgeting is not done in a vacuum. Business units that want it all and want it now will do whatever they can to expedite new technologies to gain a competitive advantage in their respective markets. With cloud computing and web-based technologies readily available, it is easier than ever. If the internal IT department can't deliver the capabilities, the business will go outside. The CIO can embrace it by setting down rules and guidelines and working with the business to get it done correctly.
Educate non-IT professionals to get buy-in and acceptance of the pain of digital transformation: Business managers and professionals need to have a new way to look at perceived problems and to make them help with the direction of corporate IT departments can only help with buy-in and acceptance of the pain of transformation. One of the greatest challenges for the business is benefits realization from the investments they make. It is the responsibility of the business to take ownership of their investments and use it to its full capabilities. This becomes difficult as it often involves a disruptive change to the business, or reductions in force with significant impact on all aspects of the business production departments, all of which business leaders loath doing. In the cases involving IT investments, it is too easy to point the finger at the CIO and claim the new system doesn't work when the business leadership has not taken the time, nor made the effort to put the organizational changes into effect that it had agreed to when the new system was first envisioned and approved.
Well define the IT scope and refine CIO influence: Some IT gurus suggest to extend the role of CIO to go beyond Information Technology to encompass all information and knowledge. While others suggest, CIO is a misnomer as the CIO should handle the technology while business owners should handle the business processes and information. What are the ideal relationship between business and IT: competition, collaboration or “coorpetition”? What are the most effective and efficient way to manage information, technology, knowledge and wisdom holistically? Does the CIO compete with the CFO, internal/external audit, or the board of directors all of which have compliance, governance, or oversight responsibilities, or do they work collaboratively and cross-functionally to achieve the outcomes of the organization?
Organizations rely more and more on technology; the IT department has more and more to overcome to running at digital speed. People tend to have a high expectation of digital flow, very little patience with technology issues. Only through mutual understanding and cross-functional collaboration, business and IT can work as a whole to manage a smooth digital transformation, with an ultimate goal to build a high-intelligent and a high mature organization.

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Life is a Journey with Success and Failure

Life is a journey, failure is the chance to teach you the depth of life; success is the opportunity to show you the height of life.
True success means one is able to see the seed of failure in every success and within every success the possibility of failure. It means that one must always be humble enough to know that failure is always an option even when one is on top of the world. And diligent enough to recognize that if learn from the mistakes when fail. Life is a journey, failure is the chance to teach you the depth of life; success is the opportunity to show you the height of life; only experiencing both, you may live a multidimensional life.

The first one is the self-awareness which has to do with “knowing yourself.” It means knowing how to identify our strengths, our weak areas, our own way of reacting to situations, our preferences (in what situations and in what I'm good or I do not feel at ease), our desires, needs, emotions. Know ourselves allows us to predict how successfully we tackle the various situations that life or work will put us in front, going to meet prepared, and thus able to choose situations, behaviors and attitudes based on their functional objectives. Cognitive psychology is the study of the way in which the brain processes information. Neurophysiology is the branch of physiology that deals with the functions of the nervous system, and psychoneuroimmunology is the study of how emotional and other psychological responses influence the biochemistry of the brain, hormone production, and the immune response. When all of these sciences are working in concert in addition to personal characteristic traits one may possess such as being motivational or inspiring, can advance the manner of overcoming challenges and adverse situations while realizing one's own self-worth and abilities (or lack thereof) of realizing their goals or desired outcomes or not.

Learning is a continuous process: You can only get better from one's mistakes if you learn from them. Having a "positive attitude" is great, but if you don't learn something from the failures in your life, you'll just be a "positive-minded" failure. Learning is the key to moving forward to address any future potential challenges and issues with more confidence, and the knowledge that you "know" what to do to avoid previous failures. We only get better from every mistake or failure we make in life, if we take it with a positive attitude. The thing that's hard is, some mistakes we make in life can never revert or have a second chance. With failure, you can fall down and stand up again. With mistake, we must take it with a positive attitude, once you take a positive attitude by recognizing your mistake, you're already learned from it in some way. It is not that every time we make mistake and then only learn, learning is a constant process, to be better and better. When you do any mistake inadvertently, it is more than an ordinary, an ongoing learning opportunity, because here you learn from a mistake, something more, because, you have already paid for your mistake, so it is all the more important learning that you should never repeat the same, in your life in future, and if possible, one can be a guide genuinely for people in need, if come across, on such a point of life.

Building optimism by praising accomplishments can encourage a lifelong can-do attitude. An old saying goes like this: train to have confidence in yourself, because if you do not believe in yourself, forget that someone else do it for you! To achieve success is necessary above all the “enthusiasm,” the inner strength that is able to increase the quality of the individual and collective performance. The human being needs to be enthused to participate fully. Get excited about a goal to achieve is a form of love that allows you to pursue it with greater emotional determination. In general, objectives achieved without enthusiasm are mediocre. The second is the ability to impose themselves a method to set priorities balanced and impose the discipline needed to run them. When properly applied, the method allows to increase the ability to achieve personal and professional goals, but also to develop better relationships. It is a path that requires great openness and total involvement. Hence, the importance of enthusiasm, so that everyone can find their own implementing rules, reflecting on their habit, on their daily behavior, in order for the change to happen from the inside and become a way of life and work.

We only get better from every mistake and failure we make, if we take it with a positive attitude and learn on. That said, adversity quotient or the science of measuring and strengthening human resilience encompasses the craftsmanship that have a direct correlation on how we act, react, think, and do things in all types of situations. Success is the relation between “who you are” and  “what you do”; "what you want," and "what you have." Success is filling the gap between "where you are & where you want to be"; Success is being where you want to be, and when you want to be there.
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Inspirational Quotes Collection

The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.


We can put our whole heart into whatever we do; but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we're setting ourselves up for stress. Instead, we could just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead. This kind of open-ended inquisitiveness captures the spirit of enthusiasm or heroic perseverance. -Pema Chodron

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things - Peter Drucker

You have to obey the forces you want to command - Francis Bacon

It’s when we let go that we can truly grow.

If there is anything in your life that you can still hold on to, you will.

The wheel of the mill grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly fine.

You are the sky; everything else is just the weather - Pema Chodron

The mind is everything. Rule your mind and you will rule the world. -Buddha.

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble on the road. - 19th-century American cleric Henry Ward Beecher

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. -Goethe

Being the best is the only market that is never crowded. - Montazze Van

Anyone can get physical, but a mental connection is so very rare. Anyone can hear your words, but how rare it is to find someone who can hear your silence too.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Lao TzuFollow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

How to Leverage Systems Thinking in Solving Thorny Problems

Systems thinking is about reaching a shared understanding through studying, knowledge and experimenting.
As some saying goes: It is not what we don’t know that is a problem; it is what we know that is not so, that is a big problem. The world becomes overly complex and paradoxical, does every problem have solutions? How can you leverage Systems Thinking in problem-solving? What is the best way to handle a problem that seems to have no solutions?




Systems Thinking is all about understanding the situation as it changes, as an emergent system of learning. This capacity to hold alternative mind-generated possibilities simultaneously, and then use various criteria to compare and contrast them against unfolding reality, is what is required for adaptive management in complex circumstances. It also reflects different levels of capability and maturity: What do you do when your beliefs cannot be proven, or, when your facts don't match your beliefs. Systems thinking is about reaching a shared understanding through studying, knowledge and experimenting. It is a method of development that works with certain conditions being met/ prepared. It changes the way you think. It should be performing within a controlled environment. It is about creating an anticipatory whole system design; and good design - the design that best meets the needs of many, it becomes the 'ideology du jour' to those that do not continue to inquire as to the 'fit' of the level of thinking with dynamic system context.

Einstein wisely pointed out: you cannot solving a problem with the same level of thinking when you created it: First of all, a problem, any problem depends on your perspective. A problem is a difference between an expectation (or intention, vision, ..) and the actual situation (current reality) coupled with a negative feeling. When you encounter a tough problem, you need to use a creative way. You seek for inventions, new designs, creative problem solving. It drives innovation. Co-create alternative visions and dream into existence of new solutions, these are the capacities of humans who are not trapped in 'the same level of thinking' as others, or even former personification of 'selves.' Evaluating which alternatives might work better than others - that is the realm of logical analysis within systems understanding.

Problem-solving itself is paradoxical: all problems are created by solutions. What is the best way to handle a problem that seems to have no solution?" Scenario aside, a problem that has no solution is not a problem - it's a dilemma. Dilemmas have no solutions, these challenges are not binary. Dilemmas need to be managed, often best managed by recognizing the tensions between presenting polarities. The Systems Thinking principle that says one should aim to enhance total systems properties and resilience might be of help in this situation. From this perspective any action that enhances the functioning and survival of the system as a whole could be regarded as moral behaviour, because in the end all the elements of the system will benefit from this. Instead of action - reaction, creativity is often the secret sauce for problem solving via assessing what is your current situation and what is your fundamental choice. Leadership is based on understanding a situation and weighing up the odds, trying to find an entrepreneurial way forward; it is very aligned with the wider principles of Systems Thinking. Every problem has a way forward, to determine that a problem has no solution is giving up, even a dilemma has a way forward and impossible choices become easier when the options are limited, in fact, the choices become based on values as an alternative level of thinking.

Every situation has choices, every situation has unknown unknowns, the only way we get to understand these is by not giving up and using a higher level of thinking than we used when they found themselves adrift. Systems Thinking, coupled with design thinking, allows us to not only see systemic dynamics and relationships, but also how to step out of or beyond them, to see things differently, and therefore, have better opportunity to solve problems or improve situations creatively.
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Is Net Performance Score a KPI?

A true NPS score will take into account many aspects of a typical customer engagement.

Net Promoter Score, or NPS, acts as a leading indicator of growth. NPS measures customers’ overall experience of your brand. (NetPromoterCommunity.com). On one side, it is a very popular and well-accepted term to measure Customer Experience; on the other side, some worry there are declining relevance of NPS, so what are the pros and cons to measure NPS? Is Net Performance Score a KPI?

A true NPS score will take into account many aspects of a typical customer engagement (sales, service, return policy, billing, follow-up, tech support, etc.); and therefore a typical employee will only have influence on one or a few of the many aspects that go into an NPS. NPS scores tend to be more strategic rather than tactical and so therefore shouldn't drastically change on a quarter to quarter basis unless there is a full process by the company on a particular issue or concern. Look at the average NPS score and, also, the calculated score. Small sample sets can create a highly fluctuating score, but tracking the average score can show subtle changes. For example, the NPS this quarter is 10 and the average score is 7. Next quarter, NPS is 11 and average score is 7.7. NPS only changed by 1 but average score rose 0.7 points. That rise in average score is important because it shows incremental growth.

NPS can provide you with valuable information, but it does not eliminate the need to understand WHY a customer is either a promoter or a detractor. Using NPS as an individual KPI is fraught with danger and can be counter-productive if it is not understood well what the customer is really answering, and what they are telling you. It is also important for companies to examine two other issues with using NPS as an individual agent level KPI. First ask yourself what the customer is telling you. No matter whether you put "based on your recent interaction with our Customer Service Dept" at the start of the question, when a customer is asked if (s)he would recommend your company, their answer is going to be based upon the entire experience, not just one call. Many factors will weigh as heavily on the score they give the performance of one CSR. Second - listen to what the customer is telling you. If they are dissatisfied with other elements of the service, then these are what needs to be fixed.

Focusing on the customers, first and foremost and getting them to a superior state of satisfaction will bring the renewal and a higher NPS. NPS alone is volatile, especially for small volumes of data. It needs to be bolstered by other operational or product feature metrics. Even as a customer satisfaction rating, it is rather limited in providing a comprehensive review about the overall operation. For instance, a low NPS may be driven by a very specific operational/product feature and a simple change in that can drive higher CX. But if you are not measuring that via specific metrics/text analytics, then moving NPS will be difficult and resource intensive at the very least. There are many other metrics that can be used before looking at NPS that are easily accessible, but often not utilized. Once these other metrics that reflect engagement (absenteeism, employee turnover, productivity, wastage, on time deliveries etc) have been understood and actioned, then NPS does provide a position on ultimate output - the customers who are advocates of your business.

There are pros and cons to using NPS as employee performance metrics. The great thing about putting NPS on all employee performance metrics is that it has a unifying sense that we all have to do our part and that we are all part of one singular vision and goal. Just be sure to continually communicate this as often as possible to individuals and the company at-large. However, using the NPS for employee performance could be unfair in some cases. While NPS could be used as a corporate measure, it will not provide a good indication of employee's performance. Better and fairer to gauge employee performance on things that are within their influence, rather than a number they have only a component of influence. This is why it makes more sense to gauge senior management on NPS rather than the typical employee. Also, to jump to NPS too early will mean a lack of appreciation as to the other elements that contribute to it. As we all know, to build engaged employees, they need to feel that they are helping to co-create the future success of the business. Jumping to NPS without dealing with the other metrics first will lead employees feeling disconnected and not involved. Metrics can drive the wrong behaviors. Irrespective if they are NPS, Sales, or whatever. Ensure your employees are displaying the right behaviors, and the improvement in the metrics will follow. To manage employee performance effectively, you have to think both on an aggregate as well as an individual level. NPS is a great metric for overall customer experience. It does, however, not tell you how your individual team members are doing compared to each other and where your areas for improvement are to make sure your NPS rating stays at the right level. You need to keep looking for continuous improvement both at team and individual level, otherwise your NPS will certainly suffer. The hardest part of the NPS system as a performance KPI is employee participation. There are so many front level employees do not understand why they need a "high score." NPS is a valuable system when used correctly, but companies must use the information to improve their service and they must educate their employees as to WHY the company needs the information, not just to increase employees participation but to improve overall moral. You need to have a component of an individual's performance based on KPIs that they have direct influence over, have a portion that is based on the team's performance, and lastly a component that is based on company performance. The individual would always have an eye towards their part in the company's goal ( improving NPS), but since metrics like NPS is affected by many factors, the low percentage means they will not be negatively impacted if the score is low due to another area of the organization. To be clear, the percentages would change depending on the role. As an example, a VP/Director level would have a greater percentage applied to the company performance. But more importantly, to inform the business as to which forward-looking decisions will have the greatest impact on the future of the business, you need to tie meaningful satisfaction scores to future behaviors. Predictive measurement of employee engagement is what drives actionable improvements.

NPS as loyalty measurement is leading indicator that will direct all KPIs as one direction. To implement NPS as KPI should be followed with defined other lagging indicators for Key Customer Business Process. There is nothing wrong with using it as a KPI: it doesn't have to be and should not be the only performance measure, that's all.




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How Do Employees Make Judgment about Top Management

Trust between top management and employees should be built via mindset, attitude and behavior levels! There are many gaps existing in contemporary organizations, the mistrust between business and IT; management and employees, the silo thinking in different divisions, the gaps between strategy and execution, etc. Do employees think top management wise or stupid, why, and how can management team gain the trust from their people, and what’re approaches you shall take to build a strong leadership reputation?

It is critical to building a trust relationship between management and employees. A good leader relies on the skills and intelligence of the staff they lead so that they can focus on the bigger picture, develop strong, insightful strategy and build the competitive advantage for their businesses. Anything else could be considered micro management and/or limit staff empowerment and growth. This trust will build a strongly committed workforce that is required for a successful Company. The elements that need to be present in order to build trust include: a) Vision b) Credibility c) Reliability, d) Intimacy (emotions) and e) Self-orientation

It’s crucial to mind gaps in both top-down and bottom-up communications: Some top executives micromanage their employees, while many employees also mistrust their managers, even think their top management “stupid.” The statement is depicting complete communication gap or otherwise the organization cannot sustain its success level. With such defects at a higher level, the organization cannot survive except in some exceptional circumstances. If the sentiment expressed by the illustration is pervasive across the organization, it is likely traceable to a lack of quality communication of vision, mission, strategy, goals and the metrics and measures for performance with the employees The scenario is not so much the lack of trust, but the distrust of management. If employees feel this way about management, it's never without reason. It is good reasoning to start with in-depth communication. An organization should not underestimate the power of building a stronger sense of each employee's role in an organization and why it matters.

Different skillsets are needed in different level of organizations: Broad statements such as "my management is stupid," are not always true and reveal a single sided view of an issue. this is a relatively common and rarely stated sentiment of employees which generally originates from either an inflated opinion of themselves or a lack a complete perspective of the responsibilities and tasks required of senior leadership. Upper management can definitely be ineffective, but to completely devalue a role that is not intended to run reports, but to make decisions and operate at a more strategic level, is to misunderstand what makes mid to large sized businesses work. Someone has to be accountable for the bottom line and overall direction and delivering on that requires a whole different skill set when compared to other staff. A skillset that is not best-used running reports and will not always make sense to an outsider. Now, the digital technology trends such as collaboration platforms and tools makes it possible to handle much of the vertical communications in both directions by eliminating management redundancy. And it shortened the number of hops, as per the Peter Principle, before people rose beyond their level of competence.

The common problem is that most companies are still relying on business reports. Reports are in most cases a summary of "what" had happened, but never the "why" it happened, or "who could have" happened. Most reports are purely on financials and do not combine it with external factors. Most reports are so high level that most problems are being hidden. True best of breed organization should have an analytic team that can help look for trends and insights behind the high-level results. They should come up with actionable insights and recommended actions for management to look at and then make the informed decisions. Another problem is that these initiatives often overlook the pushdown of report content to those same people tasked to collect the new data that the boss demands. A wise top management needs to have a good reputation to leverage the right information to make the right decision at the right time.

Top management needs to consider both incremental improvement and leapfrogging transformation: Although top management spends the significant time in making strategy, higher management must also need to take in consideration that little changes play a better role in an organization than big bang, drastic changes that triggers alarm bells inside the brain, consequently executing resistance in workforce. The negative feedback about management perhaps also points out the reaction to a big 'change.' Management teams need to have both empathy and capability to manage change in the thoughtful way to gain trust and reputation via employees’ engagement and commitment. If possible, top managers can share their thought processes, make change processes more transparent, and win the heart and mind accordingly.
Trust is the two-way street, it should be built via mindset, attitude and behavior levels, when top management trust and share their thought process and insight behind important business decisions, they have a humble attitude to listen to their people via empathy, and they also have exemplary behaviors to walk the talk, they leap leadership maturity and improve management effectiveness.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Three Aspects of Customer Experience

Customer-centric organizations are moving up from doing customer service to managing customer experience, and ultimately driving customer success.
Digital is the age of customers. Customer-centricity is the description of the nature of the priorities in the organizations today. Customer Experience is the actual battleground for the companies aiming at staying above the competition owing to the happy experiences they design for their customers. How can you leverage CX as a differentiator of a brand, how to transform a satisfied customer into a loyal one, and how to excel customer service, optimize Customer Experience and achieve overall customer success ultimately?

Customer Experience is the differentiator of brands. When customers are "highly satisfied," they have more opportunities to be loyal. When a customer is loyal to your brand, they will have more visits, recommend your brand to others and, as a result, your brand's reputation is up with sales up as well. So customer experience and measuring that experience is crucial for brands. There are so many things that contribute to being "in the age of the customer." Now all types of experiences are shared online, social media, online reviews. Given that social media and global connectedness is pervasive, then it is easier for customers to share experiences, good and bad, so experiences are amplified. It has become very important to pay attention to customer requests. News travels fast nowadays. Therefore, experiences good or bad is known quicker. People are more willing to share instantly. What a customer says can contribute to making or breaking you. The customer experience needs to be considered at every level of contact that you as a brand has with your customer. It is a key differentiator.

The entire customer journey at each stage needs to be mapped out clearly. Customer Experience is the new and most potent differentiating factor in business that look to embrace universal greatness. However, it presents some business strategy challenges such as increased need for product flexibility, easy transaction processes and safeguarding customers’ interests. It means doing innovation with the business flexibility to continually exceed customer expectations; bearing in mind that the cycle of exceeded exceptions and feeling of it has shortened. It is now mandatory to do innovation with speed. Not only when they walk into your store, interact with your product and speak to your staff, but also when they get in contact via multiple sales channels. The entire customer journey and experience they have of your brand at each stage needs to be mapped out clearly to be sure that your customer is getting the best service, and that their experience is consistent, on-brand, relevant and refreshing.   Being a satisfied customer doesn't always automatically equate to loyalty: Loyalty comes from the product or service delivering its intended benefit consistently over time. Customers don't want to have to be interrupted and expend a lot of effort and hassle to have a product or service do what it’s supposed to do. Even if a support agent eventually does a fantastic job, when a customer has to interrupt their daily routine to look for the help, this takes customers’ time and effort, the more time and effort that is invested has a corresponding reduction on loyalty. Customers are also more demanding in their requests, putting pressure on service delivery! That's the right path for businesses to take - stay focused on delivering exceptional customer experience every day and at every touch point. Where revenue matters, retention matters, and loyalty impacts retention.

Customer service is reactive, customer experience is interactive, and customer success is proactive. Customer experience can't be achieved unless the internal customer service is superior, and processes within your business will reflect outwardly. Customer-centric organizations are moving up from doing customer service to managing the customer experience, and ultimately driving customer success.

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