Prove It
GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato
As a thought leader in human-centered change and innovation, I spend my life advocating for the things that cannot be easily measured: empathy, psychological safety, and customer delight. These concepts are the bedrock of sustainable growth, yet when we walk into the C-suite, we often face the same skeptical glare and the two most powerful words in corporate budgeting: “Prove It.”
In today’s environment of rapid technological disruption, relying on faith and anecdote to justify human-centered investment is not just ineffective; it’s a competitive liability. Agile, customer-obsessed competitors are already translating human insights into exponential growth. To overcome resistance and secure the budget for innovation, we must translate human value into shareholder value. We must stop speaking the language of feelings and start speaking the language of finance. The strongest business case doesn’t just promise a better workplace; it quantifies the dollar cost of the status quo and the concrete returns of a human-first approach. This is about fiduciary imperative, not philanthropy.
The Cost of Inhumanity: Quantifying the Status Quo
Before presenting the benefits of change, the first step in building a compelling business case is to establish the current financial drain caused by inhuman, legacy systems and cultures. You must find the hidden taxes of the status quo:
- Employee Friction Tax: Calculate the cost of replacing talent (high turnover due to burnout or bad processes), time wasted navigating complex internal systems, and lost productivity from low engagement. This is the dollar value of wasted human capital.
- Customer Churn Tax: Calculate the lifetime value (LTV) lost when customers abandon a product due to poor user experience, excessive friction, or ineffective support. This tax represents the erosion of your future revenue base.
- Rework and Failure Tax: Quantify the cost of failed projects, products built on faulty assumptions (due to lack of user empathy), and expensive technical debt incurred by non-agile, siloed teams. This is the direct cost of innovation risk.
By framing the discussion around these quantifiable losses, you shift the executive conversation from, “Should we spend money on this soft stuff?” to, “How quickly can we stop losing this money?”
“The most powerful business case doesn’t sell the future; it sells the urgent necessity of escaping a financially painful present.” — Multiple Potential Authors
Case Study 1: Transforming Legacy IT Systems at a Global Bank
The Challenge:
A major global bank needed to overhaul its decades-old internal IT infrastructure. The initial proposal was a purely technical, multi-year, multi-million dollar project focused on migrating servers—a classic IT modernization effort that often meets with fierce budget scrutiny. It lacked a compelling, human-centered justification, and was viewed purely as a cost.
The Human-Centered Business Case:
Instead of focusing on server specifications, the new proposal quantified the Employee Friction Tax. The team spent two weeks interviewing high-value traders and back-office staff, finding that the slow, arcane IT systems required employees to spend an average of two hours per day manually reconciling data and waiting for systems to load. They calculated the cost of that lost labor—hundreds of thousands of hours annually—and then tied it to specific, high-risk operational errors caused by the frustration and complexity. The final proposal showed that by investing in a user-friendly, responsive new system, the bank would not just save money on maintenance, but would increase the productive capacity of its highest-paid employees by nearly 25%.
The Result:
The project was approved immediately. It was no longer an IT cost; it was a productivity and risk mitigation investment with a clear, measurable ROI tied to human efficiency. The focus shifted from infrastructure to Employee Experience (EX), which became the project’s success metric.
The Metrics Bridge: Translating Feelings into Finance
The secret to building the business case is creating a Metrics Bridge between the intangible human state and the tangible financial outcome. This is where the ROI is forged:
- Intangible: Psychological Safety → Bridge: Employee Submission Rate of High-Risk Ideas → Financial Outcome: New Product Pipeline Value.
- Intangible: User Empathy/Delight → Bridge: Reduced Support Ticket Volume & Higher NPS → Financial Outcome: Lower Cost-to-Serve & Increased Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
- Intangible: Clarity of Purpose → Bridge: Project Rework Hours & Time-to-Market → Financial Outcome: Faster Revenue Realization & Lower R&D Expense.
Case Study 2: Investing in Deep Customer Empathy (Fidelity Investments)
The Challenge:
Fidelity Investments sought to improve the experience for its customers navigating complex life events, specifically the process of settling an estate. The current digital process was logical but emotionally brutal, forcing grieving customers to repeat information multiple times and navigate dense legal jargon. The traditional business case focused on reducing call center volume, a valid but transactional metric.
The Human-Centered Business Case:
Fidelity’s internal innovation team adopted a human-centered design approach, spending time with customers during the bereavement process. They realized the problem wasn’t efficiency; it was emotional burden. The new business case was built around reducing the Customer Churn Tax and maximizing Trust Lifetime Value. They proposed investing in a radically simplified, empathetic digital pathway. The quantitative anchor became the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and, critically, the retention rate of high-value generational assets (the children of the deceased often take their inherited assets to new, more modern firms). They argued that reducing a moment of profound customer pain would create profound and lasting brand loyalty that translated directly into millions in future assets under management (AUM).
The Result:
The innovation, which included a new “empathy-first” platform, drastically reduced the time required to complete the process and improved customer satisfaction scores dramatically. Crucially, the program became the new gold standard for showing how an intangible benefit (empathy) generates a tangible, multi-generational financial return (retained AUM and referrals), proving that EX is directly connected to the bottom line.
The Fiduciary Imperative
Ultimately, the challenge of securing investment for human-centered change is a challenge of communication and perspective. You must treat every human-centered initiative as a financial strategy designed to mitigate risk and unlock latent value. By quantifying the financial pain of ignoring human needs and projecting the clear, measurable financial reward of prioritizing them, we shift from asking for permission to presenting a fiduciary imperative. The time for whispering about “culture” is over. We must now shout the truth: Caring for your people and your customers is the most profitable and strategically urgent decision your company can make.
Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.
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