Arnold Beekes

There is already a lot written about what will happen to the culture of Zappos. Will it remain separate, will it be integrated or will it be the ‘norm’ also for Amazon? I don’t know what will the plan. From a services point of view, it is also very interesting to see what both companies can learn form each other. Amazon They have a fantastic website and from a customers point of view it looks like everything is automated. That is fine, as long as you don’t encounter any problems. Recently I did buy a video camera from them with a tripod. It was until I get to the payment screen that it became clear that they would not ship the tripod overseas. I have no idea why that was the case. I went through a lot of hassle to disintegrate my order. Parts which were okay to be shipped to the Netherlands had to be separated from parts which were only shipped in the US. I really had a lot of problems with this order, so I wanted to call customer service for some help. There was no te

It's a question that has been tackled by thousands. In fact, there are literally tens of thousands of leadership studies, theories, frameworks, models, and recommended best practices. But where are the clear, simple answers we need for our daily work lives? Are there any? Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman set out to answer these questions to crack the code of leadership. Drawing on decades of research experience, the authors conducted extensive interviews with a variety of respected CEOs, academics, experienced executives, and seasoned consultants and heard the same five essentials repeated again and again. These five rules became The Leadership Code. These five rules the book argues can be effectively used by all leaders, regardless of their context or organization. The five rules/leadership code are: * Strategist - shape the future. * Executor - make things happen. * Talent manager - engage todays talent. * Human capital developer - build the next generation. * Perso

There are numerous studies which have shown the positive impact on the results of employee engagement & involvement. But what is employee engagement? It is the extent to which people identify with, enjoy, are enthusiastic about, and are willing to spend extra effort for the work that they do. There are some basic rules which leaders and managers have to follow to stimulate employee engagement: 1. Be honest 2. Practice what you preach 3. Give confidence 4. Create a secure environment for open communication. 5. Listen open-minded 6. Show interest in the human perspective 7. Walk on the shop floor 8. See to it that everyone applies the core values 9. Make sure that everyone knows the mission and vision 10. Ask your clients what goes well and what can be improved 11. Have crossfunctional/crosshierarchical teams 12. Have the guts to say it when you don’t understand something 13. Regularly give compliments 14. Have a learning attitude towards failure This is also true for involveme

The current structure and way of managing our companies is basically the same as when the first companies started in the beginning of the 1900’s. Ford and mining companies are really good examples. The focus was on delivering the products as fast and as cheap as possible. People were just a tool to make this possible. A manager was someone who had done that particular job himself before, so he knew all the details. The employees were not supposed to come up with their own ideas, as that was the role of management. And when they encountered a problem, they asked the manager for help. As he knew the details he was able to support them. The most important investment was the investment in machines. Hence, the metric of ROI (return on investment) became a driving factor in decision-making. The measurement of ROI spread into the Corporate environment like a contagious disease. Nothing can and will be done if there is no ROI projection available. Whether it is a project or a new IT system, or