Though the differences between products and services may seem obvious, in truth, in our everyday consumer culture, we are being trained to see the world in terms of products specifically. To this end, it becomes increasingly important to find ways to 'package' your services (as well as the outcomes of those services) into products that customers can examine, compare and build brand loyalty with.

We are being increasingly saturated with metrics throughout our daily lives, measuring hundreds of factors at every moment. This need to keep score, while good in intention, often becomes so overwhelming, we lose sight of the purpose of the metrics in the first place. Today, Clint discusses how team-based approaches can benefit from deciding on 2-3 important key metrics and setting goals around them to drive focus within an organization.

There is a tremendous difference between satisfying a customer and dazzling them. Despite any environmental factors/product features/etc that are initially impressive, the best way to dazzle ultimately comes down to our interactions with people! Clint shares his thoughts on how and why we need to hone our skills at delivering dazzling services and behaviors.

In a world where organizations are becoming increasingly specialized in an effort to remain competitive, there is great benefit to be found when partnerships can be forged to complement each other's niche specialties. This concept extends within an organization as well. Examine your job today to see who your potential partners can be to help you deliver better service.

While big successes are obviously great to have, it is highly important to celebrate the little successes too. We've found that the three best ways to celebrate the smaller victories focus around food, prizes and men in tights. Find out what Clint means by that!

As Clint has echoed repeatedly this past week, teams are a key factor to successfully tackling practically any task in an organization. To that end, Clint shares ideas on creating 10-12 member 'SuperTeams' which drive higher-level initiatives by coordinating and working with sub-teams throughout the organization.

In continuing Clint's principles regarding organizational processes, recruiting good co-workers is another critical function of business, and as such, it needs to be driven by the team, just like team-based targets and team-based selection of co-workers. It is vital to utilize a team approach in bringing in new strengths to your existing teams.

In the healthcare profession, there are processes that we continually strive to improve. That is great that we do this - it is, after all, expected that we strive to get better. How does your customer, however, perceive the 'outcomes' of your process improvements? That is far greater in importance to your success.

The world isn't fair. We all know this... and yet we still complain that things aren't fair when life doesn't go our way. How do we deal with this situation so it doesn't come to overrule life? Clint gives you his take.

Few things can be as destructive to an organization as "Family Secrets" - that tangled mass of rumors, half-truths, grapevines, gossip and such that leads in the opposite direction of team-based, whole-organization involvement and strategic action. Putting a stop to this waste of energy is a difficult yet critical task for every organization.