Andy Atkins's blog

Our 2011 Building Trust in Business research survey measures critical indicators for trust, leadership, and collaboration — pointing to how high-performing companies achieve key business results by emphasizing all three.

The 2011 survey of nearly 200 business leaders represents the third year that Interaction Associates has explored the formula for success at high performing companies.

A 90-minute Lead Now web event to equip leaders with powerful decision-making skills. Register here. [8]

Featuring Interaction Associates Founder, David Straus, author of the book How to Make Collaboration Work,
and Andy Atkins, Director of Research and Development, Interaction Associates.

This is a recording on demand, available for just $79 for unlimited access.

Human Resources Professional, Canada's biggest human resources trade magazine, published my analysis of Interaction Associates' Trust research in their monthly "Strategy" section. It's an overview of how top performing companies excel now.

Read the article here. [11]

Andy Atkins, Director of Strategic Collaboration Consulting at Interaction Associates, reviews the key findings of the Research Report: Building Trust in Business. This on demand webinar covers:

You are invited to a complimentary webinar, presenting our 2009 research in the overlapping areas of Trust, Leadership and Collaboration. After all, building trust with customers and employees is vital, but how do top performing companies do it?

We have powerful answers – research from 150 companies and 211 executives across the business world. To celebrate our 40th Anniversary, Interaction Associates commissioned major research on the overlapping areas of trust, leadership, and collaboration.

How does building trust with customers and employees help your business achieve key business goals? What are top performing companies doing to deepen trust and succeed in key areas?

Those questions and others are explored in our new research report, Building Trust in Business [19].

Collaboration is getting all kinds of attention these days. But many of us innovating at the leading edge of collaboration — especially around the power of collaboration as a strategic business tool — are often puzzled by much of the dialog. The word "uneven" comes to mind, but the dialog’s also often misleading about what collaboration is, and isn’t.

Kelley Holland’s recent article, Improve Morale by Knowing your Employees [26], (Under New Management, New York Times, 12/26/08) explores techniques for building teamwork as a means of improving morale in tough times. The article explores both "feel good" techniques typical of traditional teambuilding exercises and Jon Katzenbach's recent work on employee pride.

The Conference Board is out with its annual assessment of the top ten challenges facing CEO’s, which it delayed slightly this year in order to gauge the impact of the financial crisis. The report, CEO Challenge 2008, shows a shift in CEO focus with talent management dropping from the top 10 list — edged out by an emphasis on execution, productivity and change management.

Writing recently in the New York Times ("It May Be a Good Job, but Is It 'Good Work'?" [34], 11/16/08), Daniel Goleman explored ideas about what makes work fulfilling recently championed by Howard Gardner, William Damon and Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi. Three factors come into play — excellence, ethics, and engagement.