Corporate Character? Don’t you mean Corporate Culture?

What’s that you say? Corporate Character? Don’t you mean Corporate Culture?

Not necessarily.

Corporate Culture is more of a company-driven belief system. Whether it’s derived from its mission statement, is spoken, or is simply “understood,” a company’s culture describes and governs the way the company’s stakeholders think, feel, and act.

But, a Corporate Character (or Company Character) is something different. It’s a bottom-up driven approach to customer engagement.

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Does Hard Work Trump Intelligence?

Granting that there is a lot of cultural diversity within East and West and it’s possible to point to counterexamples in each, Stigler still sums up the difference this way: For the most part in American culture, intellectual struggle in schoolchildren is seen as an indicator of weakness, while in Eastern cultures it is not only tolerated but is often used to measure emotional strength.

It’s a small difference in approach that Stigler believes has some very big implications.

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UnFollow The Leader

Cultural norms of deference to authority figures can inhibit Indian employees from challenging the status quo and sharing innovative ideas with managers.

In a working world made smaller, managers increasingly oversee employees across the globe — and the cultural divide. But while crossing cultures can create new opportunities, it brings challenges, too.

Take India, which seeks to transition from an economy based on manufacturing and offshored services to one based on innovation and design. A challenge for managers is to foster independent thinking in a culture where employees are socialized to defer to authority figures more than are their western counterparts.

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A Little Knowledge Management Can Be a Dangerous Thing

The value of most organizations today is less determined by their physical assets than their intellectual assets. Intellectual property such as patents, technologies, ideas and designs are what keep leading companies like Bose, 3M, Medtronic and Boeing ahead of their competition. A big challenge for many organizations is to document and pass on important knowledge to others in their organization so that they can benefit from the discoveries of others. According to the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC), knowledge management (KM) is defined as: “a systematic process of connecting people to people and people to knowledge and information they need to effectively act and create new knowledge.”

3 CommentsBiz Intelligence, Finance, Management, Risk Management

The Chemistry of Enthusiasm

How is it that year after year, JetBlue Airways ranks first in J.D. Power and Associates North America Airline Satisfaction Study for the low-cost carrier category, with high levels of customer loyalty and advocacy? The key ingredient: JetBlue employees treat customers’ problems as their own.

Running late for a flight? You might be escorted by a JetBlue counter agent to an “employees only” security line, right through to the gate. Putting together a complicated multistop trip? The call center agent will work with you to arrive at a satisfactory solution, not rush you off the phone. JetBlue staff members focus intensely on making the customer’s life easier, and customers repay the courtesy by spreading the word to others.

Organizations have been trying for years to cultivate employee engagement. Like JetBlue, they persist in their efforts for good reason. One of the most powerful factors that spur customers to become advocates for a company is employees’ positive behavior and attitude.

But, how do you cultivate that culture in your organization?

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What Wears Down Employee Productivity and Morale?

Let’s take a break from health care reform/span> and pension funding to look at something really important: Do work-from-home employees wear pajamas all day?

No, seriously.

When companies worry about employee engagement and productivity, the clues to any breakdown in those areas are probably already evident among the workforce. And, yes, one-quarter of employee do wear their pajamas all day when they work from home

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10 Cool Facts About How Americans Spend Our Time (or…Your Day in a Chart)

People over the age of 75 watch twice as much television as teenagers. On any given day, women are 30 percent more likely to do chores than men. The typical college student spends about an hour sleeping for every 25 minutes he spends studying.

Those are just three of the facts you can harvest from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest American Time Use Survey, which using polling data to illustrate a day in the life for Americans by age, gender, and education.

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6 Ways to Reduce Stress

Stress sucks. According to the American Psychological Association, stress can result in headache, muscle tension, muscle pain, chest pain, fatigue, upset stomach, insomnia, anxiety, restlessness, lack of motivation, lack of focus, irritability, depression, eating problems, addiction … and social withdrawal. Yow!

Fortunately, stress isn’t inevitable, even in today’s hyper-connected, highly competitive world.

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How to be The Worst Boss Ever

Recall your worst day at work. [It’s probably not hard to do.] What made it so bad? Was it the workload, the number of meetings, the cafeteria food that day?

Probably not. Probably it was your manager. Something she did, or something he said.

Do you want to learn more about how YOU can be aspire to be an even worse boss? Then read on, dear friend.

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