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Intuitive Surgical tested out a game-based, data-driven mobile platform that delivers a stream of simple, scenario-based challenge questions to field personnel every few days. This approach helped the organization reach more sales reps than previous solutions and drove significantly higher user engagement.

Staff turnover, elevated sickness absence rates, and reduced output found among psychologically distressed workers yield substantial business costs. In the years to come, workplace programs that can be shown to enhance employees’ psychological well-being and behavioral functioning will come to be viewed less as an indulgence and more as an investment with considerable cost-saving potential.

People who both successfully manage change share two dominant characteristics: perspective and priorities. One healthy and smart perspective in this changing world is to always be ready for surprises. As we peer into the future, the only sure prediction we can make is: We will be surprised. And how boring would life be if we weren’t?

When Baylor’s newest hospital in McKinney, TX, opened its doors, the Emergency Department (“E.D.”) volume was 40 percent higher than expected. This led to longer E.D. wait and hospital discharge times, and low patient satisfaction. In response, the McKinney team implemented Service Care Bundle Training, which was conducted by leaders during staff meetings and via recorded Webinars.

The quality, speed, and execution of key decisions is the source of value creation in a matrix, and structures and processes can enable or inhibit this. As such, it can be helpful to focus attention on four factors and how they affect decision effectiveness in a matrix: purpose, governance, culture, and operations.

Effective leaders understand their people. They provide a firm foundation of expectations from the outset of a mission. They take steps to “get the word out” to everyone. They provide clear direction and follow-up as appropriate. They embrace the power of innovation in their teams. Above all, they take care of their people.

Small group presentations are common and may include training seminars and workshops, pitches to new clients, sales presentations, business proposals, reports to management, and project updates to your colleagues or clients. You’re usually standing just a few feet away from your audience members, which means you must always keep in mind that what works in the ballroom may not work in the boardroom.

Kforce is a professional staffing and solutions firm that specializes in hiring for financial, accounting, health-care, technology, and government organizations. To place consultants with its clients faster, Kforce implemented Adobe EchoSign, an automated electronic signature and Web contracting solution, to speed up the contracting process and place job-seekers with more efficiency and speed.

An owner says to his manager, “What if we spend all this money training our employees and they leave us?” The manager answers, “Worse sir, what if we don’t train them—and they stay?” The moral of the story: Increase your odds for success by hiring carefully and training consistently.

Flooring provider Shaw Industries, Inc.’s “Surround the Account” program was developed as a coaching tool to drive consistent behavior in the field and to connect field sales to more decision-makers and influencers.