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"..the most important book of the decade." — Richard Boyatzis, co-author of best seller Primal Leadership
Relationships, in all their varied forms, have been the lifetime study of Robert Hall. He brings a rare combination of experience as a researcher, consultant, writer, teacher and CEO in dealing with the real-world relationship challenges of modern organizations. When coupled with a decade of hands-on experience in the gritty world of inner-city homeless families it translates into a tapestry of vivid stories, well-researched and oft startling facts, and strategic insights that weave together the yet untold narrative of society's gravest risk and most stellar opportunity.
Robert has published more than 150 columns, articles, white papers, and research studies on relationship. In addition to being a regular contributor at Huffington Post, his work has been published and discussed in Forbes, American Banker, Sales & Marketing Management magazine, The CEO Magazine, ABA Bank Marketing magazine, Computerworld, The Daily Beast, Business Week, The Dallas Morning News, Los Angeles Times, The Detroit News, The Indianapolis Star and in international publications including Sydney Morning News (Australia), European Financial Management Association (London) and Relational Thinking Network (Cambridge, UK).
I am like the mouse in the trap. I have pretty much given up on the cheese and am just trying to get my head out of the trap. – Weary owner of a major league baseball team after announcing its sale.
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In the midst of the current economic meltdown it is hard to get a handle on what is short-term trauma resulting from the shock of the current crisis and what is the longer term structural shift that represents […]
May you live in interesting times. May you come to the attention of those in authority. May you find what you are looking for.- According to Chinese legend, three ancient curses of increasing severity.
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Oh, the curse of living in interesting times. Business in general is challenging these days and the questions about marketing strategies and budgets are particularly tricky. In the banking industry a number of organizations have gotten adverse publicity for spending marketing dollars on high profile ads, […]
“Chorusing, the frogs appear as one cohesive unit to such a predator.” – The Effect of Low-level Jet Overflights on the Natural Soundscape, Bernie Krause.
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If you work in a bank these days you are probably getting it from all sides. The President and the Congress are standing in line to beat you up both for making too many bad mortgages and not making enough credit available. Groups from afar are interested in executive compensation, reward programs and trips for […]
Scott Ballum … started the Consumer Reconnection Project: a yearlong effort to only make purchases if he could make a personal connection with someone along an item’s production chain. – Rebecca Sheir, NPR, 1/19/09
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Bloody Monday is the name given to a day – January 26 to be exact – when 71,400 jobs are lost. Blue chip companies like Caterpillar, Starbucks, Pfizer, Google, and Microsoft bleed jobs and whole companies disappear at an alarming rate. Economists keep bidding up […]
Who knew Iceland was just a hedge fund with glaciers? – Thomas Friedman
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The victims of our financial services meltdown are everywhere, including Iceland. While many culprits have been fingered – greed, incompetence, lack of proper oversight – I believe there is one underlying cause that warrants further discussion: Too large to manage and too big to fail. Our remedy for organizations that have become oversized and often dysfunctional is to merge them into ever larger, more unmanageable and […]
People today are involved “in a kind of lostness,” in which we destroy the sources of our own lives without knowing what we’re doing. [What’s needed is] an ethic that places paramount importance on the cultivation of love and care for one’s particular place, its people and its traditions … – Wendell Berry
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The signs were already emerging. Customers, employees and even shareholders were beginning to view institutions with greater distrust and even contempt. The recent economic meltdown, the […]
Remember the old joke about the drunk looking for a lost coin under a street light and when asked where he lost it, he points to a darkened area near a stairs. Why are you looking over here under the street light if you lost it back there, he was asked? “Because the light is better over here.”
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A colleague recently invited me to be a ‘friend’ on Facebook. He was telling me how great it would be that I […]
For those in the marketing game, the presidential election to date provides a window into the tools of our trade applied to politics. After all, whether in politics or business, as marketers we are all in the business of getting votes. Things are changing – text message used to inform supporters of the selection of a Vice Presidential candidate, attack ads released within hours of the events of the day and such. Most estimates predict well over one billion dollars […]
Dimension Data surveyed 300 call centers in 36 countries across five continents … From 1997 to 2007, key performance metrics indicated a significant deterioration of quality of service in contact centers. Call abandon rates … increased nearly 127 percent … annual agent attrition rate rose by 93 percent. – Kevin Zimmerman, 1 to 1 Weekly, June 30, 2008
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Some say fish were the last to discover the existence of water. I suspect call centers have become such a way […]
Quitting smoking is strongly influenced by friends and spouses. A spouse who quits smoking makes one 67% less likely to smoke. A friend’s quitting decreases one’s chances of smoking by 36% … Over the past 35 years smokers didn’t make the decision to quit individually, the study found. Instead, large groups of friends all quit together, like the ‘schooling of fish or the flocking of birds.’ – Keith J. Winstein, The Wall Street Journal May 22, 2008
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As marketers, we […]
Copyright 2012 - Robert E.Hall
