Quest 4 Quality with Joe Higgins

Keynote speaker and former executive with the Whirlpool Corporation, Joe Higgins,  gives us a small sample of the presentation he has prepared for his third appearance at BrandSource's The Summit Convention in Orlando, Florida in March of 2017.

The title of this Podcast is The Value of High Performing Cultures Within an Organization. Culture is the deepest held reflection that you have about business, it is your beliefs, commitments, ideals, dreams and everything else you want to achieve in your enterprise. 

For more information about Joe Higgins and to see several samples of his presentations on topics such as The American Economy, Building Healthy Teams, Customer Service, and Leadership visit www.Q4QwithJoe.com

Recently we have heard a lot of talk that our country is, and has been, in decline.  Joe provides us with some statistics that will remind us why this country is, and always has, been great with his new presentation called, America - We the People.

There can be no doubt that one of the drivers of a great business is how often and effectively it drives high levels of customer service. I have spent more than four decades visiting and working with customers across America and during that time I have experienced just about everything as it relates to delivering a quality experience for your consumers. 

In this podcast you will hear examples of companies and the things that they have done to take their businesses to the next level and it begins with treating the customers with respect and dignity and offering a unique and differentiated shopping experience. Remember that treating customers in a positive manner leads to customer loyalty, defined as a consumer that is loyal to your business and wants to come back and shop in your store. 

We all know this when we it happens to us in a restaurant, a theater or the ball game. When people go out of their way to fill a need we may have, our brains work in such a way that makes us want to return to that business. The power of a smile, a thank you or someone who carries our groceries to the car can’t be overestimated. It is unique and in this podcast you will learn about the things you can do to make your store a destination for your customers.

Back in the early 1920’s in America, researchers concluded that rats who were not fed enormous amounts of protein eventually died early in their lives. Ever since that report hit the newspapers, Americans began to see protein as a miracle food. It sustained life and therefore you could never get enough of it they thought. This started a lifelong romance with any food deemed to contain protein, especially meat. Unfortunately, after they discovered that the studies were not applicable to humans, as rats need 10 times as much protein as we do, this update was never really assimilated by the population. 

Today the average American gets nearly three times as much protein as they need every day and as a result it has had very dire consequences on our health. Protein deficiency is extremely rare in this country, so rare in fact that most of us have never known anyone who died of a lack of protein. At the same time we all have been through heart attacks, cancer, diabetes and stroke with someone close to us.

This podcast discusses protein in a way you will not have heard before and while you may find it hard to believe, you can fill all your nutritional needs with a plant based diet or one that includes less animal foods. You will at least come away with some ideas on how you can improve your health and that of your employees. 

In a book I read more than 30 years ago titled The Save Your Life Diet, by Dr. David Reuben, he made the point that Americans are suffering from a deficiency of fiber. In all the time since then, the community of researchers have determined that we need to consume more plant based foods and they have not backed off that recommendation.  

Keep in mind this simple rule, fiber only exists in plant based foods and obviously the more variety of foods you get in your diet each day the better quality of fiber will moved through your system. This component of food has a long list of health benefits and reduces the risk for all of the chronic diseases we are suffering from in America.  

I will repeat this lesson often, it is not what you take out of your diet that makes you healthy, and it is what you add into it that will sustain you over the long run. Eat a grapefruit at breakfast, an apple on your break, have a salad for lunch and add some veggies at dinner, you will go a long way to a life of better health. This podcast talks about the benefits of fiber. 

This Podcast deals with the complications of high blood pressure. I start hear because this is one of the most common diseases in this country and one that is easiest to control without medication. It is estimated by the CDC that nearly 80 million Americans have either pre-hypertension defined as a reading above 120 over 80 or high blood pressure, which is defined as a reading greater than 140 over 90. 

The common vernacular for HBP is “the silent killer,” quite an ominous term but it is accurate in its depiction of this disease.  The fact is that with HBP you rarely know you have it until it is too late to act on it. This is a disease that ravages the body’s cardiovascular system and can be the cause of stroke and heart disease and while it is deadly, if you pay attention to the causes it is often times easily cured.

In this podcast I discuss what HBP is and some actions you can take to improve your outcomes and if you are leading a team it will give you ideas on what you can do to help your employees.

It is a pretty simple sentence that nearly every American has said to themselves at least once in their lives, “if you don’t have your health you don’t have anything.”  I have asked audiences all over this county to finish that sentence by giving me the tenth word, “anything” and 100% of people get it exact and on Que. Americans say they believe it but their actions don’t fall in line with their beliefs. 

As a nation, we sit in fear everyday about homicide, we practice prevention in our lives when it comes to the threat of murder or assault. We put dead bolt locks on our doors, we have alarm systems that warn of an intruder, our dogs actively bark if someone approaches our house and some keep a loaded gun by the nightstand. I say all this, while important, it ignores a larger issue because in America it is not homicide that is our biggest risk of death, it is chronic disease.

In the past few years in our country about 15,000 people die on average from homicide. The real risk comes from the CDC that reports that nearly 2 million Americans die each year from chronic diseases like, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, cancer and from complications of high blood pressure.

I have spent the past 40 years reading every peer reviewed study on health and nutrition and have used my own life as an experiment in how to live a healthy life and pass it on to your teams in whatever type of business you work in at the moment.

This podcast will explore these ideas.

The title of this Podcast is Creating a High-Performance Culture and people always ask me what that is, my answer is simple, it is one that exceeds expectation. Let’s face it, every country you visit and every business worldwide has a culture that is unique and distinct. It is what allowed humans to survive and thrive as a part of our evolutionary past. It doesn’t matter where you go, your church has a culture, so does your bank and your gym, each one different than others in your community. 

Businesses need to make sure that they cultivate their cultures and create a vision and mission statement so that their employees understand the expectations of their leaders.  Culture is the deepest held reflection that you have about business, it is your beliefs, commitments, ideals, dreams and everything else you want to achieve in your enterprise. I tell CEO’s, Presidents, GM’s and all those who run a business, don’t keep these things a secret, be explicit so that your teams have mission clarity.

You will learn in this podcast how to make this a reality in your operation. I will give you examples of what other successful companies have done to promote their culture through a vision that will drive behavior.

The Harvard Business Review talks about empathy as one of the characteristics of a great leader. Research suggests that the ability to connect quickly and emotionally with other people is one of the hallmarks of strong leadership. Let’s face it, we would all like to work for an organization and a manager that values our contribution to a company and one that is willing to help us when tragedy might strike. 

Empathy is a unique talent that leaders possess in abundance and allows them to treat people with care and compassion. This is one of the issues often mentioned by employees who leave a company after consequential life event when the company or leader shows a void in compassion. 

Great leaders care about people, customers, friends, family and they make others feel like they are important to whatever enterprise they are managing. Never be afraid to show compassion and concern in any circumstance. I have watched over the years as CEO’s of companies have cried on stage while talking about the death of an employee or a natural disaster and I am sure that most of my readers can remember an empathic person becoming emotional at a public event. It is very powerful and it creates a bond in a company that compels employees to want to work hard and succeed.

When you reach a leadership position in anything you do, it normally means you have a team involved, whether it is sports, work or a charitable organization, if you want to become a leader you need to learn how to motivate and inspire a team. Leaders do not become successful on their own, they only win if the entire team raises the bar of performance and takes the leader with them to the next level. I learned early on in my career that the further I moved up in the organization the more dependent I became on my team for my own success in life.

You will find that the skill set you acquire in business around leadership and building great teams will bleed into your personal life because family and friends have many of the characteristics of running a team. You will be a better father, mother, son or daughter, a better mentor or friend. These skills can improve just about every aspect of your life as it applies to functioning in the world. 

In this podcast you will learn how to take the next steps in your caret and how to go about building a team that in the long run will create higher levels of success in your life.