A few weeks ago I wrote about how important it is that we offer awards that have some substantive value to them, in order to “put our money where our mouths are” and ensure proportion and fairness.

A few weeks before that, I wrote about how mistaking “pointsification” for gamification could backfire on employers, and how important it is that we be thoughtful when we gamify a solution, and not get caught up in bells whistles and leaderboards.

Ordinarily I don’t get all self-referential, but when I saw the Dilbert comic below from this Sunday’s paper, I was pretty tickled at how it segued with those two posts. I wanted to give Scott Adams a high five. (Click the image to see it larger.)

© DILBERT 2013 Scott Adams. Used By permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved.

Not only does Adams reference the current problems with outdated performance reviews, but he also gets right to the heart of the need for meaningful recognition and reward.  Adopting any solution simply because it is trendy is a grave error that will likely backfire on a company.

Now don’t get me wrong. Gamification has its place. I wrote all about that ...

Recently, I have been repetitively reinforcing the importance of creating exceptional employee and customer experiences. I’ve talked about the economic benefits that the results produce. I’ve also talked about the correlations between leveraging enabled and engaged employees and the impact that it has on net promoter scores and customer loyalty. And thus, bottom line financial results.

Often times, when people think about enhancing employee or customer experiences they mistakenly think that experience enhancement is going to cost them more money.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Consistently and repeatedly in every industry across the globe I have witnessed that employee and customer experience improvement always coincides with and process improvements and cost reductions.

I have previously written that it is impossible for external experiences to be stronger or better than internal experiences.

That doesn’t mean it takes more time, energy or more financial resources.

When engaged employees consistently do the right thing, the right way, at the right time, for the right reasons, fantastic results follow.

These results include positive impact in ...

Recognize This! – Strategy can only be executed by those who intimately understand strategic objectives and their role in it.

Strategy is one of my passions. I’m fortunate that helping clients formulate strategy is also my job. Indeed, my title is Vice President, Client Strategy and Consulting. I greatly enjoy my work helping organizations of all stripes develop a strategy for proactive management of their company culture. Yet, I also believe that everyone is (or should be) strategist in their organization.

Two pieces on strategy I read last week helped me coalesce my thinking. First, from Strategy + Business comes the ideas of Cynthia Montgomery, Timken Professor of Business Administration and former chair of the strategy unit at Harvard Business School. The article describes Montgomery’s approach to strategy this way:

“When you look at strategy as a frame of mind to be cultivated, rather than as a plan to be executed, you are far more likely to succeed over the long run… To Montgomery, a business strategist is not primarily an analyst of position, or of resources; nor is the strategist purely adaptive, responding reactively to the vagaries of ...

A few unique job interview tips to make you the one they want.

This is a guest post by Thomas Taylor. If you’d also like to guest post here on JobMob, follow these guest post guidelines.

Job interviewers read and hear so many clich?s these days that they just about walk and talk in their sleep during the recruitment process. No more “I should get the job because I’m honest, hardworking, and reliable” — it’s time to say something different if you want to them hire you.

In job interviews, you’ve not just got to talk the talk. You’ve got to walk the walk. Here’s how with these unique job interview tips.

1) Give examples

It’s more than likely that you’ll never have met the interviewer. Somehow, though, you have to convince them that you’re the person for the job.

How?

You prove you’re not just blowing hot air, by supporting your answers with examples: of problems you’ve solved, of (good) results, of how you’ve turned things around in some way (if that’s the case).

Show that you understand the job requirements. Demonstrate that you know about the sector by highlighting key ...

Recognize This! – Innovation is not just the big, market-transforming end result, but the little ideas along the way.

What’s the most powerful word in business today? Innovation.

Read any blog, any news source, any prospectus and you will quickly stumble over “innovation.” How the company pursues innovation, how innovative the products are, how “innovation” is a core value of the company. And this is all well and good – innovation truly is what propels industries and markets ever forward.

But the real question smart companies should be encouraging every employee, in every role, to ask is: “What can I do, in what I do every day, to be more innovative? How can I innovate our product, our service approach, to better serve our customers, change the market, or push the company forward?”

Unfortunately, too many people think innovation is too big for them or “not in my job description.” I believe that’s because we as leaders have failed to explain what real innovation actually looks like. David Steinberg, chief executive of XL Marketing, gives a much better definition of innovation in a recent New York Times ...