Current Events

13 Nov 2015

Does Your Workplace Encourage a Culture of Codependency?

By |2017-04-12T12:13:17-06:00November 13th, 2015|Categories: Current Events, Dream Teams, Leadership, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation|

Culture and Business People Arm Wrestling

A dysfunctional culture can doom your organization to mediocrity or outright failure. How can you tell if you should be worried?

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” ~Peter Drucker

We often see a sports team that seems to have a great pool of individual talent, yet it can’t seem to win consistently and fails to get very far in the playoffs. Then we have the underdog team that surprises everyone with a playoff run, sometimes even taking the top prize.

The difference between winning and losing in […]

5 Nov 2015

When Do Your Strongest Success Traits Make You Codependent?

By |2017-04-12T12:17:57-06:00November 5th, 2015|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Leadership, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation|

Codependency and Entrepreneur Meeting with Stuffed Animals

Startling but true, these success-driven behaviours can be your worst dysfunctional nightmare.

“You have that enormously positive expectation that you’ll be free, and then you realize that you are in a worse prison than before because it’s one of your own making.”  ~ Michael Gerber

Entrepreneurship puts intense pressures on people, and when that happens, we dial up those success traits to the extreme, or take a few shortcuts to survive.

You’ve probably seen this yourself as the business leader or the employee.

This Could Be Your […]

20 Jan 2015

Reduce Risk: Build a Workplace Safety Culture

By |2017-04-03T11:00:30-06:00January 20th, 2015|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Manifast|

Workplace Safety Standards and Culture

For any business that employs workers, keeping employees safe and motivated should be a going concern. In an office environment risks are typically quite a bit lower.

If you are running a business that employs trades, operates machinery, involves drivers, involves health related occupations, etc… the risks of serious workplace incidents go way up.

I like to assume that all business owners and leaders actually care about the employees getting seriously injured or killed. We are talking employees who are real people and whose lives can be impacted significantly.

There are […]

1 Dec 2014

5 Things I Learned About Customer Retention Just by Eating Dinner

By |2017-04-03T11:02:55-06:00December 1st, 2014|Categories: Current Events, Manifast|

We’ve all had that less than memorable customer experience. Slow or wrong order. Late project delivery. How your staff deals with it is just as important as fixing the mistake. It all starts at the top.

By Barbara Abramson

Restaurant Manager Bad Customer ServiceMy husband and I recently stopped for dinner at a local eatery that had gluten-free options. The chain is a step-down of a national chain, but not quite fast food. You order at the counter, are given a number for your table and servers bring your food to you.

The food is […]

23 Nov 2014

When Your Business Plan Derails

By |2017-04-03T11:18:42-06:00November 23rd, 2014|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog, Leadership|

Train Late Derailed Business Plans

I was at the office a little late the other night. My plan was to catch the 9:00 p.m. train and head home, relax a bit, and then get a good sleep.

Sometimes plans get derailed.

I got to the train platform and heard the announcement, “Trains are not running in the downtown core. Shuttle buses will be available for passengers at the orange 201/202 stops.”

Crap! I had thought the earlier accident with a pedestrian was cleared. […]

19 Nov 2014

The Golden Rule and Influence

By |2017-04-03T11:03:25-06:00November 19th, 2014|Categories: Current Events, Manifast|

“Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.”

~ The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann

In Brittany Leung’s debut post here, she explores how the basic rule she learned as a child applies more now than ever.

By Brittany Leung

The Golden Rule and Business SuccessI’m realizing that as much as there is to learn about business, there is one component that is foundational and critical to the success of any company.

This single element is so basic that most people overlook it and never apply it.

The Golden Rule

As […]

16 Sep 2014

Trust is the Real Success Accelerator

By |2017-04-12T13:03:09-06:00September 16th, 2014|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Manifast, Sales|

“All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know like and trust.” Bob Burg and John David Mann – The Go-Giver

At first glance the Go-Giver is a book about sales.The Go-Giver

I agree. Following The 5 Laws will help you sell more.

The Laws apply to life and business as well.

Because they are largely about being human, building relationships and putting the interests of others first while being open to receiving.

We are focused on Joe and how his story relates to us.

But there is another […]

9 Dec 2013

Shipping Zed to Zees: Customer Service Run Amok

By |2017-04-03T11:24:29-06:00December 9th, 2013|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog|

I was placing an order for some furniture from Staples Canada for our office. As I do occasionally, I add things to my shopping cart that I might be interested in (so I can find them faster) and then clean it up before placing the order.

In this case I got distracted and then it was almost time to head out the door. So I pressed checkout without stopping to think. I accidentally ordered two different items instead of two of the same; one I didn’t even want.

No worries, I will just cancel the order or change it.

[…]

3 Jul 2013

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – Attitude Matters

By |2017-04-03T11:27:35-06:00July 3rd, 2013|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

Yesterday could have been a bad day.

An Apple A Day

I lost all of the contacts on my iPhone. I got distracted while connecting the phone to my computer to restore from backup and missed cancelling the automatic Sync and backup process.

I went to restore the contacts and the only options were backups from a few minutes ago with the corrupted data.

Not good.

Brief Rant: Seriously Apple, you should allow me to set how long I want to keep backups for (at least a week); I have lots of hard drive space. People don't always notice the problem right away and aren't technically […]

27 Jun 2013

The Flood of Knowledge Workers…

By |2017-04-03T11:27:45-06:00June 27th, 2013|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

I work in Calgary. On the evening of June 20th, 2013 and into the weekend, Calgary flooded. Many low lying areas along the Elbow and Bow rivers received a lot of damage. 10's of thousands of people were evacuated in less than 24 hours.

Calgary Flood 2013 Disaster RecoveryOn the 25th of June I decided to take the shuttle bus downtown to our office building (which fortunately was undamaged and had power). The Calgary Transit light rail tracks were damaged on the south line.

As […]