Best-Practices Leadership

Time to stop testing for marijuana?

May 11, 2022
In this competitive hiring environment, Quest Diagnostic reports that fewer companies these days are testing their employees for THC, the chemical component in marijuana that delivers a high. Many employers have decided it’s most practical to stop testing for marijuana in most locations.

Learn from the craziness of the minor leagues

May 11, 2022
Look at your organization and give it a letter grade when it comes to creativity in naming everything from your products to your internal processes. What’s keeping you from getting bolder and more fun?

The #1 legal mistake entrepreneurs make

May 11, 2022
It’s important to know the boobytraps (lack of capital, leadership or customer research) facing entrepreneurs who are starting out on a new venture, whether it’s cake-baking or inventing a new dating app. Mistakes will be made.

Set your business on the road to transparency

May 11, 2022
Being transparent means a more successful business. But what does it really look like? And where does it start? When inspecting your company’s transparency, it helps to go back to the beginning.

Establish a customer chat function

April 13, 2022
Live chat is now a common part of customer service (it beats waiting on hold, right?). While big businesses have the budget to explore lots of options, small companies may need a more careful examination period to determine if chat is something that they should offer as a feature on their websites. If that’s your situation, here are some tips for moving forward and finding out more.

Give employees room to figure it all out

April 13, 2022
Writer Susan Orlean has always found stories of the extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary. In the book The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft, Robert S. Boynton asks Orlean about her reporting routine—which, you’ll quickly see, bears a strong resemblance to how people struggle to pitch product or process ideas to their boss.

6 tips for better customer web experiences

April 13, 2022
Homepages and landing pages. With such similar-sounding names, it’s not difficult to see why the two terms get conflated. But they serve two distinct purposes.

At happier.com, a fountain of peace

April 13, 2022
At a time when recent surveys show a majority of workers feel highly anxious, overwhelmed, stressed and burned out, many employers have begun offering wellness benefits for their workers. That’s why Nataly Kogan, co-founder of the website happier.com, is really, really happy.

Shake up the team and its results with sprints

April 13, 2022
The sprint process as it relates to business is just what it sounds like: a burst of intense activity for a short, set amount of time, typically about five days. A team is challenged to zero in on one big goal and move from idea to prototype to customer outreach within that tight window.

Set customers straight without hurting yourself

April 13, 2022
The consequences are really not that dire for salespeople who have to tell customers or prospects that they’re misinformed. But if you’re not careful, you can kill the sale. Let’s look at some tactics for setting customers straight about your own product or a competitor’s without casting yourself as the bad guy.