Authors Posts by Andrea Olson
Andrea Olson
Andrea Olson is a speaker, author, behavioral economics and customer-centricity expert. As the CEO of Pragmadik, she helps organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to Fortune 500, and has served as an outside consultant for EY and McKinsey. Andrea is the author of The Customer Mission: Why it’s time to cut the $*&% and get back to the business of understanding customers and No Disruptions: The future for mid-market manufacturing.
She is a four-time ADDY® award winner and host of the popular Customer Mission podcast. Her thoughts have been featured in news sources such as Chief Executive Magazine, Customer Experience Magazine, Industry Week, and more. Andrea is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences and corporate events throughout the world. She is a visiting lecturer at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, a TEDx presenter and TEDx speaker coach. She is also a mentor at the University of Iowa Venture School.
Overly Lean Organizations Are Less Resilient
Lean is all about simplification, streamlining, and eliminating waste. What could be bad about that? It has been found to not only improve consistency...
A Pandemic Shows How Organizations Can Change Faster Than They Think
The coronavirus pandemic has transformed our world virtually overnight. Companies have had to change on a dime how they operate and communicate. While this...
Why Organizational Leaders Often Misdiagnosis Problems
Every leader wants to fix the problems in their organization. The issue is, that most leaders have a hard time diagnosing those problems correctly....
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...
