By Eliana Barriga Publisher and Managing Editor for The Retail Observer People ask Bill Aris, over and over, how his Fayetteville-Manlius High School (NY) girls’ cross country teams have managed to win the Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) an amazing ten times. (NXN, where the nation’s forty best teams compete, is the de facto national high school cross country championship.) Bill graciously shares his methods. He patiently explains how he trains his runners. And other coaches suspect he’s signifyin’, as they say in the Ozarks. Coaches fall off their chairs when Bill explains that he spends relatively little time designing his runners’ workouts. “I spend 80 percent of my time on psychological and emotional considerations of each kid,” Aris says. “I put 20 percent of my time into designing the training. I spend most of my time thinking about and trying to get to the heart and soul of each kid, to both inspire them and to understand them. I’m always trying to figure out what keys unlock what doors to get them to maximize their potential.” Other coaches believe there’s no way Aris can produce national champions without huge numbers of kids trying out for the team, and without recruiting. In fact, Fayetteville-Manlius High School has 1,500-2,000 students, yet just 25 runners turn out each fall for cross country. And Aris doesn’t need to recruit, because his methods turn talented kids into champions. Aris’s boys’ teams consistently place in the top five at NXN. To put this in perspective, it’s a tremendous honor to be among the forty teams invited to compete at NXN. Scoring in the top five puts the F-M boys in the absolute stratosphere of high school cross country. The lessons for retailers are clear: if you want to be a champion, it might be a good idea to start investing a significant portion of your time in getting to know your employees’ and customers’ dreams – then do all you can to help them realize them. Here's to investing in your dreams! Eliana Barriga [email protected]
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By Eliana Barriga Publisher and Managing Editor for The Retail Observer Can cultivating a happy culture at work help your business succeed and your customers and employees thrive? When Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google in 1998, they established a policy of hiring only the most brilliant applicants in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math), and 15 years later, Google decided it might be a good idea to evaluate the results of this policy. A Washington Post article titled “The surprising thing Google learned about its employees–and what it means for today’s students” (December 27, 2017), summarized what Google learned from Project Oxygen, the detailed examination of its hiring practices. Project Oxygen completely overturned the company’s assumptions about the qualities that best predict success in a high-tech business environment. Most notably, among the eight standout qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise was dead last. The top qualities that augured success at Google were “soft” skills. The researchers found that the most successful Google employees:
What conclusions can we draw from these studies, about the best way to help our employees and customers (and our business) thrive? The top Google employees help create a culture where the employees are free to include the needs of others. Want to create a successful, customer-centric culture for your organization? Surely it would be worth “doing as Google does.” Happy Mothers' Day, Eliana Barriga [email protected] |
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December 2021
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