Ideas

R.W. Baird recently stated, "The U.S. M&A market again registered impressive numbers in June. The deal total increased 47.1 percent to 1,025, the second largest monthly figure in the last two years. Announced dollar volume (+93.2 percent) nearly doubled in comparison to the low year-ago value."

Question: "I hear a lot of companies talking about customer service these days, but not enough of...

The loss of trust leaves us with a feeling of emptiness at best, and with deep grief in some cases. You don't have to look far to find people and things we've lost trust in lately – superheroes, huge corporations, political parties, on and on.

While I was dining with several girlfriends, one of them asked, "Hey, do you ever wonder where your brain goes when you hit middle age?"

One sure way to get a unanimous non-show of hands from a group of salespeople is to ask this question: "Let's see a show of hands. How many of you, when you set your objectives for a customer meeting, have at the top of the list: 'I want to come across to the customer like every other salesperson that customer met with in the last week?'

I had the privilege of being one of several business associates asked to deliver a memorial eulogy recently for a prominent 35-year TEC member.

Marquette University's Center for Supply Chain Management, part of its College of Business Administration, has created a new series of courses designed for manufacturing industry executives in need of continuing education – the first such program from an institute of higher education in Wisconsin.

Remember the scene in Young Frankenstein when the villagers were running through the streets of a village in Bavaria with pitchforks and torches looking for the monster?

In my last column, I discussed 12 key characteristics of systems thinking. I described how systems thinking (i.e. holistic thinking) is different than analytic thinking (i.e., parts-based thinking). I made the case that there is great power in looking for interdependencies and connections – between tasks, employees, work areas, stakeholders, etc.

In today's world, there is pressure from all sides for leaders to have the right answers. There is internal pressure to be right, as well as the expectation of others for leaders to have the answers when there are issues to be resolved.