It's time has come for kindness to rule the world!

Please spend a moment to watch this inspiring video of my favorite RAK group in the world.
They show you can make a difference, where you are, with what you have. You just need to start something.


The Kindness Offensive thinks it's time has come for kindness to rule the world! They are not a religion, company, charity or official group of any sort; they are a group of friends and like-minded people. In 2008 the three founding members of TKO headed out of their front door to see what they, as ordinary people, could do to make the world a better place. Since that day they have donated millions of dollars in goods and touched millions of people. They are creating a contagious environment for RAK and it just keeps growing.

Watch them on a recent TED Talk here:



Cheers
Calvin

But, We’ve Trained Our Employees

While employees may have gone through some “training,” they are never “trained.” Thinking about any training as a milestone is dangerous. The goal isn’t to complete some training sessions, but to get people to behave in a way that’s consistent with fulfilling your organization’s brand promises. This requires ongoing communications and reinforcement, in addition to the periodic refreshment of some training modules.

Keep in mind that companies throw a lot of information at employees, so it’s easy for them to forget what they’ve seen in training or to think that it’s no longer relevant. Also, there are always new people entering the organization who have not been exposed to some of the training.

Here are some recommendations for shedding this fallacy:

• Assume people will forget (or ignore). If you assume that employees will forget or ignore what they’ve learned as soon as they leave training, then you will have the right attitude about what you need to do.
• Focus on ongoing learning. Rather than thinking about delivering training, think about enabling ongoing employee learning. Identify the things that you want employees to know, believe, and do­, and then find ways to reinforce those specific things across multiple mechanisms.
• Continuously tailor training. Don’t just repeat the same training over and over. Instead, develop measurements to track the areas of training that are most needed by each employee or group of employees. As much as possible, deliver training that aligns with these gaps.
• Keep training material up to date. Store all training material on the company intranet or in a WIKI for easy access. Having one master document keeps everyone organized and updated when there is a change and a convenient location for new people to access.
• Help managers reinforce the application of learning. One of the most important elements of learning is on-the-job reinforcement. Nothing crushes the value from training than having managers deliver conflicting messages. Make sure that managers understand their role and are equipped in supporting the learning of their employees.

The bottom line: It's about ongoing learning, not training.

* Portions of this post were shared from one of my favorite blogs "Customer Experience Matters". Thanks Bruce.

Cheers

Calvin

The Lykkiplex

If we didn't have enough on our plate at Lykki with the new software systems - we are also building new offices.

Here's is a sneak peek at the new Lykkiplex we plan to occupy by June if all goes to plan. The vision is to create an amazing and inspiring work space that is a collection of ideas and designs from cool offices we have visited over the years. Our vision is to turn the offices into a tropical setting - something like memories of past holidays and future dreams of sunny places yet traveled. I think it will be so inspiring a space that each day we will all want to work hard to realize our goals of traveling and relaxing under Palm trees and the warm Caribbean sun........ Toes in the sand.......laying in a hammock......the breeze..... A cold beer........Whoa, I think I was day dreaming for a second there.

At Lykki we have come to understand that our work environment is so important to overall happiness and well being. It only makes sense since you spend more time in the office than probably any other room in your life except your bedroom. I'm excited to see this project completed as I have spearheaded the concept and design and invested hundreds of hours to date. My home office wall has turned into a patch work of swatches and clippings to give us ideas. I hope everyone loves it.

Construction started this week!

I'll post more as the project progresses. 

Cheers

Calvin

Quarterly Theme - Customer Happiness

Each quarter at Lykki we have a theme to focus on in improving the business and culture. This quarter we thought our theme should be around Customer Happiness. Although it seems obvious that every day is a focus on customer happiness, we wanted to dive deep into each process and system at Lykki that touched our customers. We call them our Moments Of Truth or MOT's.

MOT's like the picture here is a step by step process of how we want the customer experience to be each and every time. Consistency is key!!

This quarter we wanted to re- document each process and look for additional WOW moments like credits and returns. How about offering one year to return something? Or when an item is returned, we promise to credit the customer in 24 hours? 

These are a few processes we have implemented in the past so each time we do this exercise it gets increasingly more challenging to out do ourselves. But that's the fun!

Cheers

Calvin 

Did You Know?

Here is the latest research from one of my favorite sources XPLANE.

This company has created an ongoing series of compelling and amazing data filled info graphic videos that make me just shake my head in astonishment.

Check out their YouTube channel here for all their excellent work.

Did You Know? 6.0: Change to Survive is a run thru amazing facts about how Technology and behavior are radically re shaping business- on a global scale. 6.0 advances the conversation about organizations can adapt and prosper by changing the way they work.

Cheers

Calvin