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Touch: Five Factors to Growing and Leading a Human Organization
For better or worse, digital business has fundamentally changed how organizations hire staff, market their services, and connect with stakeholders. The problem is, in an effort to use technology to connect with people more effectively, we have lost the humanity — that critical person-to-person connection — which is the engine of commerce:
• Hiring is done by automated keyword searches.
• Offices have regressed to sterile, highly controlled environments.
• Communications staff rely exclusively on pre-approved template responses.
• Websites are designed for search engines, not people.
• Leaders are focusing on arbitrary “best practices” and antiquated PR practices.
In a world filled with complicated web forms and digital marketing services, we have lost the "human" element in how we run our organizations. TOUCH will identify these problems in stark terms, then provide business leaders in all types of organizations — private to public sector, small to enterprise business — with real-world, tested solutions that will drive the bottom line.
• Hiring is done by automated keyword searches.
• Offices have regressed to sterile, highly controlled environments.
• Communications staff rely exclusively on pre-approved template responses.
• Websites are designed for search engines, not people.
• Leaders are focusing on arbitrary “best practices” and antiquated PR practices.
In a world filled with complicated web forms and digital marketing services, we have lost the "human" element in how we run our organizations. TOUCH will identify these problems in stark terms, then provide business leaders in all types of organizations — private to public sector, small to enterprise business — with real-world, tested solutions that will drive the bottom line.
264 pages, Paperback
First published September 22, 2014
16 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 21, 2014
Something about this book – exactly what is unclear – just didn’t gel with this reviewer at first glance. In a typical bookshop browse that would have meant the book would have been replaced and the next one selected for consideration.
That would have been a mistake. With a modicum of perseverance these initial problems soon disappeared and one cannot really recall what led to that initial thought. With this book you get a fairly humorous, focussed, detailed, cynical and truthful look at many businesses today. They might talk a good game, they might even have great products and services but one of their most important assets – their staff and how they interact with the customers – are not always being allowed to truly shine.
A book like this might figuratively open your eyes and have you looking at your own business operations AND especially those of your competitors and suppliers in a totally different way. You will want to effect change, especially before anyone else does. Many elements of modern-day business are trapped on the equivalent of a hamster wheel, a slave to the machine, believers in bullshit and bravado wrapped around technology. Have we truly forgotten our customers and that they are human? Can we reclaim lost ground and show we care. Actions speak louder than words.
If you invest time in this book you will surely look at things differently. Little hints here, dirty great big suggestions there, plus case studies and examples thrown in for good measure. Is the jigsaw puzzle starting to solve itself? The book’s authors propose a series of solutions, although the implementation is down to you. They make a compelling series of arguments that seem hard to dispute, even if it might prick one’s pride along the way and who wants to admit that they might have been suckered in by a seductive technology or latest trend?
Together we can rebel against the machine and have it working for us, not against us. Are you ready to join the fight? For less than a cost of a lunch you could get a lifetime of new thoughts for you AND your company.
TOUCH: Five Factors to Growing and Leading a Human Organization, by Tod Maffin & Mark Blevis and published by Dunburn. ISBN 9781459728752, 256 pages. YYYYY.
That would have been a mistake. With a modicum of perseverance these initial problems soon disappeared and one cannot really recall what led to that initial thought. With this book you get a fairly humorous, focussed, detailed, cynical and truthful look at many businesses today. They might talk a good game, they might even have great products and services but one of their most important assets – their staff and how they interact with the customers – are not always being allowed to truly shine.
A book like this might figuratively open your eyes and have you looking at your own business operations AND especially those of your competitors and suppliers in a totally different way. You will want to effect change, especially before anyone else does. Many elements of modern-day business are trapped on the equivalent of a hamster wheel, a slave to the machine, believers in bullshit and bravado wrapped around technology. Have we truly forgotten our customers and that they are human? Can we reclaim lost ground and show we care. Actions speak louder than words.
If you invest time in this book you will surely look at things differently. Little hints here, dirty great big suggestions there, plus case studies and examples thrown in for good measure. Is the jigsaw puzzle starting to solve itself? The book’s authors propose a series of solutions, although the implementation is down to you. They make a compelling series of arguments that seem hard to dispute, even if it might prick one’s pride along the way and who wants to admit that they might have been suckered in by a seductive technology or latest trend?
Together we can rebel against the machine and have it working for us, not against us. Are you ready to join the fight? For less than a cost of a lunch you could get a lifetime of new thoughts for you AND your company.
TOUCH: Five Factors to Growing and Leading a Human Organization, by Tod Maffin & Mark Blevis and published by Dunburn. ISBN 9781459728752, 256 pages. YYYYY.
November 30, 2014
Most popular business books gradually build up evidence through examples until I am sick of the theory by the end ("Alright, I've got it, stop giving me examples and get on with telling me your main idea.") In this book, by contrast, authors Maffin and Blevis give the overarching theory up front. Examples then follow, substantially expanding on their ideas. This book is very readable with many examples I had not seen before. I suspect it will become a go-to resource in the future.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews