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Human Sigma

Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter

Published by Gallup Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

Six Sigma changed the face of manufacturing quality. Now, HumanSigma is poised to do the same for sales and service organizations.

Human Sigma offers an innovative, research-based approach to one of the toughest challenges businesses face today: how to effectively manage the employee-customer encounter to drive business success.

Based on research spanning 10 million employees and 10 million customers around the world, the Human Sigma approach combines a proven method for assessing the health of the employee-customer encounter with a disciplined process for improving it.

Human Sigma is based on five rules to bring excellence to how employees engage and interact with customers:

RULE #1: E Pluribus Unum. Employee and customer experiences must be managed together — not as separate entities.

RULE #2: Feelings Are Facts. Emotions drive and shape the employee-customer encounter.

RULE #3: Think Globally, Measure and Act Locally. The employee-customer encounter must be measured and managed at the local level.

RULE #4: There Is One Number You Need to Know. Employee and customer engagement interact to drive enhanced financial performance. And this interaction can be quantified and summarized with a single performance metric.

RULE #5: If You Pray for Potatoes, You Better Grab a Hoe. Good intentions alone do not constitute a plan of action. Sustainable improvement in the employee-customer encounter requires disciplined local action coupled with a companywide commitment to changing how employees are recruited, positioned in roles, rewarded and recognized, and importantly, how they are managed.

Essential reading for global business leaders, Human Sigma shows how sales and service companies can flourish in the new global economy. It reveals a profoundly different method for managing human systems for growth. Blending strategic analysis with hands-on, practical steps and advice, Human Sigma will change how you view your work, your employees and your customers forever.

About The Author

Jim Asplund is The Gallup Organization’s Chief Scientist for Strengths-Based Development. He leads Gallup’s global research on the science of human strengths, and how to apply them to improve organizational performance. His consulting expertise focuses on how strengths, employee engagement and customer engagement interact to drive financial performance. Jim is also one of Gallup’s leading methodologists, specializing in complex research and development efforts.

Prior to joining Gallup, Asplund spent eight years as a lobbyist and policy expert at the Minnesota Legislature, representing clients in the areas of taxation, education funding, utilities, land use, and economic development. Asplund earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Grinnell College in Iowa and his master’s degree in public policy with emphasis in mathematical demography from the University of Minnesota. He lives near St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife, Susan, and their sons, Jakob and Jonas.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Gallup Press (October 28, 2007)
  • Length: 320 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781595620453

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