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I’m preparing for a keynote to a retail group in a couple of weeks, so I’ve been thinking about how they can better engage with in-store shoppers.

As I see it, there are three shopper mindsets that vary according to task orientation: 

• Lasers, 
• Lanterns and 
• Lava Lamps. 

I’m using light as the metaphor to represent how diffused their focus is.

At one end of the task orientation scale, Lasers are laser focussed on what they need to buy. They want to get in and get out, so don’t get in...

Managing people can be frustrating. You just want them to turn up and do a good job. While it sounds simple, getting employees to turn up can be surprisingly difficult, and unplanned absences can negatively impact your customers, your team’s morale and your stress levels. So, will a bonus for attendance encourage employees to turn up?

That’s what researchers were interested in testing.

Working with a large German supermarket retailer, 346 junior staff (“apprentices”) were assigned to one of...