Getting Your Operations House in Order for the New Year

operations in 2017

With the start of the new year behind us, now is a great time to get your house in order from an operations viewpoint. You still need to do all the usual tasks (close the books, update payroll and 401K information, etc.), but should also have on your to-do list tasks like re-visit your employee handbook and take another look at your internal processes.

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How Staples Is Making Its Easy Button Even Easier With A.I.

It’s a cultural icon. The red, plastic “Easy Button” that Staples first introduced as part of a marketing campaign in 2005.

It’s not at all uncommon for me find these buttons throughout my clients’ offices. In fact, in the last decade, the office-supply retailer has reportedly sold more than $7.5 million worth of Easy Buttons.

The Easy Button serves as a symbol, acknowledging the frustrations and challenges of small business. It’s also a statement about Staple’s responsibility to make things easier for their customers.

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Process Improvement: Prepare Your Team for Success in the Coming Year

Process Improvement: Prepare Your Team for Success in the Coming Year

Internal improvement is a constant and often invisible process. There is no silver bullet and you can’t solve every problem overnight. It is a long slog and you have to balance short-term ‘putting out fires’ with long-term process improvement that will (hopefully) make life easier and set you up for future success.

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Using Technology to Support a Culture of Safety

Using Technology to Support a Culture of Safety

There is an average of 12 job-related fatalities every day in the U.S., according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). 893 incidents are listed on their website so far in 2016 alone, each involving a serious injury or fatality to one or more employees.

If you spend every workday sitting in front of your computer with the occasional walk to the break room to top off your coffee, safety likely is not top of mind. Yet, for millions of workers across the globe, their jobs can put them in some extremely high-risk environments where valuing safety can mean the difference between life and death.

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It’s All In Your Head: How to Achieve Mastery and Improve Performance

It's All In Your Head: How to Achieve Mastery and Improve Performance

My son starts kindergarten in a week and a half. It’s a big life change, not only for him but for the entire family. A symbolic coming of age and the beginning of the next stage of his growth and learning.

What have we been doing for the last week to help ensure he gets off on the right foot? Rehearsing. Every morning the alarm goes off and we rouse him from his slumber, just like a normal school day. We usher him through his new routine, going so far as walking him to the bus stop to wait for the pretend bus to arrive.

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How to Overcome the Biggest Barriers to a Lean Office

lean office

Lean methodology is a common sense approach to increasing customer satisfaction, decreasing costs and improving the quality of products and services, concurrently. In order to accomplish this, organizations must create full transparency and be clear about what metrics matter to their overall performance. This sounds so easy and straightforward, so why aren’t we all doing it?

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Apply a Military Mindset to Make Your Business Less Fragile

Apply A Military Mindset To Make Your Business Less Fragile

From startups to the federal government, no organization is immune to the unpredictable.  We’re only halfway through 2016, and the U.S. Department of Defense is already tackling a range of complex challenges: battling the Islamic State group, combating domestic terrorism, and ensuring that key initiatives receive sufficient funding. And the impending presidential administration change will bring new priorities, regardless of who wins the White House.

Without a crystal ball, the department must develop solid strategic plans to achieve its goals this year and beyond. These techniques are based on military ideas, and you can apply them to your business, too.

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Implement Black Swan Modeling to Avoid Government Catastrophes

Implement black swan modeling to avoid government catastrophes

Black swan events are inherently unpredictable — and they’re all around us. From responding to cyberattacks, military conflicts and natural disasters to handling issues in environmental sustainability and third offset strategy, federal leaders need a new response strategy predicated on vulnerability and a willingness to explore.

Historical data cannot foresee these new and emerging threats. Major terrorist attacks on U.S. soil were never a part of our history, but 9/11 still happened. Other threats are unavoidable. In nuclear power, for instance, one industry expert describes unforeseen events as “inevitable.”

To counter these risks, federal leaders need to open their thinking to the unknown. They need to adopt black swan modeling.

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