Recently, a group came together to discuss a very interesting topic: the engagement and motivation of employees.  The following questions guided the group through our conversation: What is the difference between motivation and engagement? How does merger and acquisition activities impact engagement and motivation? Is motivation something that can really happen, or can we really only demotivate? Isn’t motivation something that can only come from within? How does the culture…

MelissaLynne Burch has been hard at work on four new case studies: Passion and Persistence: You Can Implement KCS on a Shoe-String Budget featuring Schneider Electric Play Catch, Not Ping Pong: Intelligent Matching featuring Cisco Using the KCS Evolve Loop to Improve the Customer Experience featuring Omgeo When Everyone Can Publish featuring Avaya Each of these is a great example of what’s possible with a clear vision and a few…

Struggling with employee engagement and motivation?  Take small steps toward autonomy, mastery, and purpose for yourself and others. The other day, I was talking with Sally Sapikoski at ACI Worldwide and our discussion led us to the topic of engagement and motivation.  I find that this is a common theme lately.  One quick Google search and you see that many people are trying to figure this out.  I suspect it…

Strategic leadership in a self-managed organization:  what does it really look like? The KCS Book Club recently read a book called Beyond Empowerment: The Age of the Self-Managed Organization by Doug Kirkpatrick.  The group enjoyed reading the book because it walks readers through a description of what a self-managed organization looks like as well as offers tactical steps to take to get there.   It is definitely worth a read. This…

Change is a constant now: new initiatives come, old ones go, processes are tweaked and the tools get updated.  Isabelle Suares has a very interesting challenge at Cisco.  Her role is to help Cisco Support manage the many change initiatives underway simultaneously.  Her experiences coordinating over 40 change initiatives and a 30-day Agile tool development cycle gives her a unique perspective on how people within organizations adapt to change. It…

Two minute video summary: A recurring topic of interest for Consortium members is how to energize or re-energize a KCS implementation. A group met at the Apollo Group in Phoenix, AZ to explore a handful of topics that impact KCS, including change fatigue, gamification, and individual health. Melissa George from the Consortium spoke about game design as a useful tool to increase engagement, learning, and results. Designing a process to…

A DeepDive Discussion with Jennifer MacIntosh, OKAS Consulting, on 16 August 2012 What is a Customer Experience Journey Map? A customer experience journey map is a document that visually represents the entire experience your customer has while interacting with your company. The customer experience is mapped with three perspectives in mind: Need – what the customer sets out to achieve Interaction – steps customer takes to reach their goal or…

Two minute video summary: Gamification.  What is it? Can we use it in our KCS implementations? A group of Consortium members gathered at Dell in Austin TX to discuss the topic of applying game design to KCS. Dr. Michael Wu, Chief Scientist at Lithium, started off the discussion with a workshop defining gamification and its components. Simply put, to “gamify” something is to use game attributes to drive game-like behavior…

In the spirit of total honesty, I have to tell you that until recently, every time ITIL came up in a conversation, invisible shields went over my ears and I started humming.  This technique worked to drown out the sound of the person telling me important information about ITIL that I should have known long ago. To my great shock, when Rick Joslin of HDI provided an update on KCS…

KCS implementers have all experienced the ebb and flow of enthusiasm during the adoption of KCS.  Here’s a scenario that might sound familiar:  the KCS implementation kicked off with a tremendous amount of excitement.  Organizational leaders have sent supportive emails, the tools have been tested, and all the training sessions have been held.   Now, after a few weeks or months, the initial roar of excitement has dipped to near silence. …