Leadership Lessons from St. Patrick

Every year for the past 30 years or so, the Gallagher's have hosted friends & family for a St. Patrick's day party. This year was no different as over 100 of our friends gathered together in Follansbee, WV for fellowship and cheer.

What may get lost in the fun times are the reason for the celebration each year. St. Patrick was quite the leader. I found a cool article recently that chatted about how his forgiving spirit forged relationships in Ireland that brought many people to understand his faith and how he impacted an entire nation.

Click here to read the article.

Pocket Change - Leadership Development

Pocket Change - "Find someone with the ability and willingness to learn, and then invest a lot of time in their lives." - John C. Maxwell

Pocket Change - "Don't bankrupt your leadership" - by John C Maxwell - http://ping.fm/aKRiy

UPDATE - Expensive laundry - There has to be a better way!

Recently, I blogged about my Staples certificates going through the laundry. I promised an update and I am pleasantly surprised:

Dear John,
We have reissued your rewards. Please allow 7-10 business days to receive the new rewards in the mail.
Rewards can be used like cash at Staples - in store, online, or over the phone. Rewards do expire. Expired rewards cannot be reissued. Staples is not responsible for lost or misdirected postal mail.
If you have any additional questions, please contact us at StaplesRewards@Staples.com or by calling 1-800-793-3320 Monday through Friday, 8:30AM-8:00PM EST.
Thank you,
Richard Conway
Staples Rewards Premier

Kudos to Staples for reissuing the certificates. When I replied to the email with a 'Thank you', this was the auto response I got:
Thank you for contacting Staples Rewards.
We are currently experiencing high contact volume; please expect a delay in our response.

The dangers of auto reply emails!! Oh well, now I can get that file cabinet in 7 to 10 days! I won't even bore you with my recent Dell service experience...It was good, but again, 7 to 10 business days before i get my laptop back!

Have any good customer service experiences you want to share?

Checklists (aka Standard Work) can improve productivity...and save lives

Both in manufacturing and real estate, I have harped on the need for Standard Work (the way we do things) - documenting it, posting it, measuring it, improving it - and there are a lot of folks who give me funny looks about it! Here is an article below(click on link to see) that discusses the importance of Standard Work (author refers to it as 'checklists') and that helped save the lives of those who landed in the Hudson River on a recent US Airways flight. Also, the article talks about how it is used in the emergency room to help save lives!

Checklists(aka, Standard Work) offer a cure for many ills

I have been itching to write a series of posts on the Continuous Improvement cycle, and this article has triggered that itch! Look for a series coming real soon.