Monthly Archives: December 2011

Loving and Serving Each Other – Digging a Bit Deeper

by Posted under Company Culture | 4 Comments
One of the values that we hold dear at Astonish is “loving and serving our client and each other”. I wanted to dig a bit deeper into that value. People use the word “love” all the time. I LOVE this pizza. I LOVE my Ipad. I LOVE going to the movies. The true meaning of the word “love” can get diluted and lose its meaning if we’re not careful. So what does it mean to “love and serve each other” when it comes to business? I think that this is an extremely important and powerful value if it is lived out in our lives. I “love” the Wikipedia definition of the word: "The unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another" It’s interesting that Wikipedia uses Read more [...]

Using Checklists to Improve Results

by Posted under Processes, results | 6 Comments
I read another interesting book recently, “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande. The author shows how a simple tool, a checklist, can help organizations avoid errors and improve results. Gawande is a surgeon and he was asked by the WHO (World Health Organization) to come up with a low-cost way to improve surgeries across the globe. After a great deal of research Gawande came up with a simple checklist. The results were pretty staggering. This simple step caused an incredible decrease in infections and many other post-operative problems that plague surgeons. I immediately thought of several areas where a simple DO-CONFIRM checklist could help improve customer service and results for Read more [...]