Authors Posts by Andrea Olson
Andrea Olson
Andrea's 20-year, field-tested background provides unique, applicable approaches to creating more customer-centric organizations. A 4-time ADDY® award-winner, she began her career at a tech start-up and led the strategic marketing efforts at two global industrial manufacturers. In addition to writing, consulting and coaching, Andrea speaks to leaders and industry organizations around the world on how to craft effective customer-facing operational strategies to discover new sources of revenues and savings. Connect with Andrea to access information on her book, workshops, keynote speeches, training or consulting.
Workforce Values and the Strategy of Diversity
There's a big push in companies today to create healthy cultures. Many organizations go through detailed processes to identify where culture is going astray...
Why Subtlety Is Critical to Organizational Change
When organizations examine ways to improve their culture and communications, they often look to the obvious. Simplifying overly complex processes, eliminating redundancies, encouraging people...
Why Business Purpose is Critical
Remember back in 2014 when CVS made the decision to stop selling tobacco in their stores? CEO Larry Merlo was willing to leave billions...
Why You Can’t Train Your Way To Change
American companies spend enormous amounts of money on employee training and education—$160 billion in the United States and close to $356 billion globally in...
If You Want to Recruit The Right Talent, Think Like a Baseball Scout
This fourth of July, I enjoyed a game at our regional Single-A affiliate stadium, with sun, beer, brats, and great baseball. We also had...
Is Your Focus On You, Or Your Customers?
We often oversimplify what we believe a customer’s need is, often due to the fact that many organizations view customer needs through an internal...
The Skills Gap Isn’t The Only Workforce Challenge
We talk extensively about the “skills gap” facing manufacturing. The problem is this only partially true. Yes, there's a deficit in our skilled trades...
To Train or Not To Train?
In the restaurant industry, training is a given. There's no question that a new hire won't get a minimum number of training hours, from...
How Speed Bias Impacts Innovation
We all know about human biases. Many of us might know of certain biases we have, while others blindly ignore them. There's even courses...
Office Apprenticeships Will Save Mid-Market Manufacturing
We talk a lot about apprenticeships within manufacturing, and many skilled positions require an apprenticeship prior to full time employment. Yet with many mid-market...
