Four Strategies for a Better Retail Holiday Season
from Retail Customer Experience
Following one of the worst holiday sales seasons in history, retailers recognize the need to prepare for the upcoming season with carefully planned merchandise assortments, inventory levels and cross-channel promotions that drive sales. While some economic reports have shown bleak outlooks, several indicators suggest the economy is beginning to improve. With so much uncertainty, how will retailers prepare?  More
 

Managing with the Brain in Mind
from strategy+business
Most processes operating in the background when your brain is at rest are involved in thinking about other people and yourself. This presents enormous challenges to managers. Although a job is often regarded as a purely economic transaction, in which people exchange their labor for financial compensation, the brain experiences the workplace first and foremost as a social system.  More
 

Putting Twitter to Work
from My Business Magazine
I know what you're thinking: "Not another article about Twitter." And I agree. If they gave out an award for most written-about phenomenon of our time, surely the microblogging service Twitter would be among the finalists. But maybe there are reasons for all this hype.  More
 

Smile, Don't Bark, in Tough Times
from The Harvard Business Review
Your team is underperforming, it's crunch time, and everyone is stressed. Will you get better results by coming down hard on your employees or by cheering them on and trying to foster cooperation? The cheerleaders will generate better performance than the despots, according to new research by Gerben A. van Kleef, of the University of Amsterdam, and five coauthors.  More
 

Winning at Customercentricity: Tips for Retailers
from The National Retail Federation
Like any other business strategy, the faster an organization embraces a consumer-centric approach, the sooner it will see significant impacts on the bottom line. It's crucial to adopt the strategy wholeheartedly, as the subsequent stages of implementation and optimization will deliver the true benefits.  More
 

How to Write a Mission Statement That Isn't Dumb
from Fast Company
Mission statements are like corporate Hallmark cards. Often written in a bland cursive font and plastered conspicuously at headquarters, these aspiring epigrams are pretty words in Air Supply - like rhythm. Sometimes they're created at a retreat in the woods, between the trust fall and the passing of the speaking stick. Vigorous fights over semantics last for hours, even months. Then you end up with some variation of jargony quasi-poetry.  More
 

Top 10 Ways to Find Joy at Work
from Rosabeth Moss Kanter via The Harvard School of Business
Although some studies report growing employee cynicism, job satisfaction polls show high satisfaction rates for those still employed. Job security has been the most important factor in an 80 percent satisfied rate for the past two years, followed by compensation and benefits. Clearly, people report job satisfaction simply because they get a paycheck. But are they getting joy?  More