If you were selling a car you would clean it inside and out before any prospective buyer came to see it – wouldn’t you?

Even if the car was mechanically sound, a great car to drive and very efficient – we all know that people form impressions by the outward appearance of things – as humans we can’t help it. If you were buying a house and you saw it had a broken window or two, an uncared for garden and peeling paintwork you might not even bother looking inside. If you were going on a date...

The idea that companies must “delight” their customers has become so entrenched that managers rarely examine it. But ask yourself this: How often does someone patronize a company specifically because of its over-the-top service? You can probably think of a few examples, such as the traveler who makes a point of returning to a hotel that has a particularly attentive staff. But you probably can’t come up with many.

Now ask yourself: How often do consumers cut companies loose because of...

As surprising as it might sound, conflict can be a good thing for your business. In high-trust organizations, it can even be great.

In most workplaces, people squabble over creative differences, project ownership, and budgets – they butt heads over all manner of political issues. Generally speaking, the more people there are, the more issues they have to fuss over. It’s just a fact of life – and work. But the difference between conflict in a dysfunctional company and in a high-trust...

What do you think is the relationship between success and happiness? Is it causal and if so, which is the chicken and which is the egg? Does success lead to happiness? Or does happiness lead to success? Or perhaps it’s a more nuanced relationship, more co-linear or part of a richer stew of life?

While it may be a largely American concept, many people think that the primary objective of our lives, or at least our working lives, is to journey toward “station happiness” as the ultimate...