Business-Driven 365

The best discussions happen on front porches, not in offices. Last night, a friend and I were sitting on the front porch and he asked me to tell him what I do. I explained, and then he just shook his head.

“Email is nuts! I go into work and see all the stupid stuff that gets sent my way and...

You’ve heard of Microsoft Teams by now, but you’re probably cringing about yet another application to learn. Worse yet, you’re likely thinking it’s another application to unnecessarily distract your employees.

I’m going to tell you why you’re very wrong if you...

This is a boring, but necessary article. It describes how to implement Teams during a two-hour staff meeting. If you’re looking for inspiration on why to implement Teams, look at this post or this post. But, since somebody’s got to discuss the agenda and tactics for the...

So why did I put such a non-business photo at the top of this business post? It’s because non-work activities such as the subject of the photo may be what your employees are most interested in, and why you must use WIIFM to get them to buy into Teams (or any collaboration improvement) from...

“You’ve got to help us!” The man across the table from me practically came out of his seat as my single sentence resonated with him. All I had said at the Chamber of Commerce networking event last Friday was that we help organizations eliminate all internal email.

Such is the...

The Situation

Soon after the merger that doubled our company’s size in 2012, the Senior Vice President of Power Generation Operations informed his Regional Vice Presidents that he needed a “Weekly Report” by Sunday morning each week so that he could in turn, compile and present...

The Situation

The company had been hit with a couple of untimely negative news stories in national, state, and local news. One was the result of a serious environmental event due to a pipe failure. Executive management conducted a risk assessment to identify potential future disasters having low...

The Situation

While on a large conference call, a general manager asked several dozen employees to email their shirt sizes to his administrative assistant because the organization was going to buy polo shirts for employees on a special occasion.

Being one of the employees on the call I realized...

The Situation

In 2005, employees at our largest coal power plant (and the third largest in the country) used various, inconsistent means to request “Lockout Tagout” before working on equipment. “Lockout Tagout” is a process by which mechanics, electricians, and other...

The Situation

Due to very negative publicity resulting from an environmental issue in early 2014, the company began an effort to increase oversight of all activities having any risk of environmental consequences. It was decided that all such activities first be reviewed and approved by a team...