An Introduction to Strategic Foresight

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An Introduction to Strategic Foresight

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

Strategic foresight is an essential discipline for organizations aiming to navigate an increasingly complex and uncertain future. It involves a systematic exploration of potential futures to inform strategic decision-making. This approach enables organizations to anticipate changes, identify opportunities, and mitigate risks, thereby ensuring their long-term sustainability and competitiveness.

In my role at Manyone, I am intrigued by how the skills of strategic foresight can be combined with my previous work and research on topics such as innovation, collaboration, mindset dynamics, leadership, team dynamics, strategic HR, and organizational development, including change management and transformation.

Over the next few months, I plan to delve deeper into this integration and share my thoughts, ideas, and perspectives on how we can better utilize these combined insights in our organizations today. I greatly value your input and look forward to an engaging dialogue!

Three Stages of Strategic Foresight

To begin, I would like to present some key elements for implementing strategic foresight in an organization, accompanied by a brief explanation and some key questions for consideration:

1. Leadership Commitment and Involvement: The involvement of top leadership is crucial in strategic foresight. Their commitment legitimizes the process and ensures necessary resources are allocated. Leaders should actively participate and promote foresight, integrating it into the strategic agenda and encouraging organization-wide engagement.

  • How can we ensure continuous leadership support for foresight initiatives?
  • What role can leaders play in embedding foresight into the organizational culture?
  • How can top executives model and advocate for strategic foresight within the organization?
  • How can our leadership teams as well as the individuals in them best gain value from strategic foresight initiatives?

2. Cultural Alignment and Change Management: An organizational culture supportive of foresight is key. Cultures that value long-term thinking and are open to new ideas facilitate successful foresight activities. It may require managing cultural change to challenge existing assumptions and norms.

  • What cultural barriers exist to implementing strategic foresight?
  • How can we foster a culture that values and supports long-term thinking?
  • What change management strategies are needed to align the culture with foresight practices?
  • How can we use strategic foresight to enhance internal and external communication in this context?

3. Building Internal Foresight Capabilities: Developing internal foresight expertise ensures the organization can continually engage in foresight activities. Training staff and integrating foresight practices into regular activities are critical for building and sustaining these capabilities.

  • What training or development is needed to build foresight skills within our team?
  • How can foresight be integrated into existing roles and responsibilities?
  • What resources are required to sustain internal foresight capabilities over time?
  • Who from the outside can help us learn more about and build these internal capabilities?

4. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborating across different departments enhances the foresight process with diverse insights. Effective foresight requires input from various functional areas to ensure a comprehensive understanding of potential futures.

  • How can we facilitate cross-departmental collaboration in the foresight process?
  • What structures or processes are needed for effective cross-functional integration?
  • How do we ensure representation and participation from all relevant departments?

5. Scenario Development and Utilization: Developing diverse, plausible scenarios is central to foresight. These scenarios aid organizations in exploring and preparing for various futures, enhancing decision-making under uncertainty.

  • How do we develop and select relevant and diverse scenarios?
  • How will these scenarios be used to inform decision-making and strategy?
  • What processes should be established for regularly reviewing and updating scenarios?
  • How do we create “living artifacts” that allow us to test out as well as create action steps based on the scenarios?

6. Feedback Loops and Responsive Adjustments: Strategic foresight is dynamic, requiring ongoing refinement. Establishing feedback mechanisms allows for continual adjustment of foresight activities and strategies based on new information and outcomes.

  • What feedback mechanisms can be established to assess our foresight activities?
  • How can we ensure our strategies remain responsive to new foresight insights?
  • What processes are in place for adjusting our approach based on feedback?

7. Aligning Foresight with Strategic Execution: Integrating foresight into strategic execution ensures that long-term insights shape operational planning. This alignment is essential for a proactive and prepared approach to future challenges and opportunities.

  • How will foresight insights be translated into actionable strategies?
  • What steps will ensure foresight is integrated into operational planning?
  • How can we track and measure the impact of foresight on strategic execution?

8. Communication Strategies: Effective communication of foresight findings ensures understanding and engagement across the organization. A clear communication strategy is essential for fostering a shared vision of the future and coordinated action.

  • How do we effectively communicate foresight findings throughout the organization?
  • What communication channels and methods will be most effective?
  • How can we use foresight to foster organizational alignment and shared understanding and in particular in the context of change management and transformation?

9. Balancing Short-term and Long-term Perspectives: Balancing immediate operational needs with long-term foresight is challenging but essential. Organizations must develop tools and processes to ensure short-term decisions are informed by long-term insights.

  • How can we balance immediate business needs with long-term strategic foresight?
  • What tools or methods can help align short-term decisions with long-term insights?
  • How do we manage tensions between short-term and long-term objectives?

10. Evaluating External Partnerships: External partnerships can enhance an organization’s foresight capabilities, providing additional insights and expertise. Selecting and evaluating these partnerships carefully ensures they complement internal efforts.

  • How do we identify and select appropriate external partners for foresight activities?
  • What criteria will we use to evaluate the effectiveness of these partnerships?
  • How do we ensure external partnerships are aligned with our strategic objectives?

Of course, this overview is just the beginning. There are many more facets to strategic foresight, and each organization will have its unique perspective, shaped by distinct opportunities and challenges.

I encourage you to use this primer as a starting point to spark deeper conversations about strategic foresight within your organization. Let it be a catalyst for exploring how these concepts can be tailored to your specific context and goals.

If you find these insights resonate with you, or if you’re eager to delve further into how strategic foresight can transform your organization, I welcome the opportunity to connect and explore these possibilities together. Feel free to reach out for a more in-depth discussion.

Image Credit: Pixabay, Stefan Lindegaard (Manyone)

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Success Requires You to Make Time for the Truth

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Success Requires You to Make Time for the Truth

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Company leaders deserve to know the truth, but they can no longer take the time to learn it.

Company leaders are pushed too hard to grow the business and can no longer take the time to listen to all perspectives, no longer take the time to process those perspectives, and no longer take the time to make nuanced decisions. Simply put, company leaders are under too much pressure to grow the business. It’s unhealthy pressure and it’s too severe. And it’s not good for the company or the people that work there.

What’s best for the company is to take the time to learn the truth.

Getting to the truth moves things forward. Sure, you may not see things correctly, but when you say it like you see it, everyone’s understanding gets closer to the truth. And when you do see things clearly and correctly, saying what you see moves the company’s work in a more profitable direction. There’s nothing worse than spending time and money to do the work only to learn what someone already knew.

What’s best for the company is to tell the truth as you see it.

All of us have good intentions but all of us are doing at least two jobs. And it’s especially difficult for company leaders, whose responsibility is to develop the broadest perspective. Trouble is, to develop that broad perspective sometime comes at the expense of digging into the details. Perfectly understandable, as that’s the nature of their work. But subject matter experts (SMEs) must take the time to dig into the details because that’s the nature of their work. SMEs have an obligation to think things through, communicate clearly, and stick to their guns. When asked broad questions, good SMEs go down to bedrock and give detailed answers. And when asked hypotheticals, good SMEs don’t speculate outside their domain of confidence. And when asked why-didn’t-you’s, good SMEs answer with what they did and why they did it.

Regardless of the question, the best SMEs always tell the truth.

SMEs know when the project is behind. And they know the answer that everyone thinks will get the project get back on schedule. And the know the truth as they see it. And when there’s a mismatch between the answer that might get the project back on schedule and the truth as they see it, they must say it like they see it. Yes, it costs a lot of money when the project is delayed, but telling the truth is the fastest route to commercialization. In the short term, it’s easier to give the answer that everyone thinks will get things back on track. But truth is, it’s not faster because the truth comes out in the end. You can’t defy the physics and you can’t transcend the fundamentals. You must respect the truth. The Universe doesn’t care if the truth is inconvenient. In the end, the Universe makes sure the truth carries the day.

We’re all busy. And we all have jobs to do. But it’s always the best to take the time to understand the details, respect the physics, and stay true to the fundamentals.

When there’s a tough decision, understand the fundamentals and the decision will find you.

When there’s disagreement, take the time to understand the physics, even the organizational kind. And the right decision will meet you where you are.

When the road gets rocky, ask your best SMEs what to do, and do that.

When it comes to making good decisions, sometimes slower is faster.

Image credit: Unsplash

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How To Create the IKEA Effect

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A Customer Experience That Will Be Appreciated

How To Create The IKEA Effect

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

When reaching out for customer service and support, most customers still prefer to communicate with a company or brand via the traditional phone call. That said, more and more customers are attracted to and embracing a do-it-yourself customer service experience, known as self-service.

I had a chance to sit down with Venk Korla, the president and CEO of HGS Digital, which recently released its HGS Buyers Insight Report. We talked about investments CX (customer experience) leaders are making into AI and digital self-support and the importance of creating a similar experience for employees, which will get to in a moment. But first, I want to share some comments Korla made about comparing customer service to an IKEA experience.

The IKEA Effect

The IKEA effect was identified and named by Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School, Daniel Mochon of Yale and Dan Ariely of Duke, who published the results of three studies in 2011. A short description of the IKEA effect is that some customers not only enjoy putting furniture together themselves but also find more value in the experience than if a company delivered pre-assembled furniture.

“It’s the same in the customer service/support world,” Korla said. “Customers who easily resolve their issues or have their questions answered on a brand’s self-service portal, either through traditional FAQ pages on a website or something more advanced, such as AI-powered solutions, will not only be happy with the experience but will also be grateful to the company for providing such an easy, fulfilling experience.”

To support this notion, our customer service research (sponsored by RingCentral) found that even with the phone being the No. 1 way customers like to interact with brands, 26% of customers stopped doing business with a company or brand because self-service options were not provided. (Note: Younger generations prefer self-service solutions more than older generations.) As the self-service experience improves, more will adopt it as their go-to method of getting questions answered and problems resolved.

The Big Bet On AI

In the next 18 months, CX decision-makers are betting big on artificial intelligence. The research behind the HGS Buyers Insight Report found that 37% of the leaders surveyed will deploy customer-facing chatbots, 30% will use generative AI or text-speech solutions to support employees taking care of customers, and 28% will invest in and deploy robotic process automation. All of these investments are meant to improve both the customer and employee experience.

While Spending On CX Is A Top Priority, Spending On Employee Experience (EX) Is Lagging

Korla recognizes the need to support not only customers with AI, but also employees. Companies betting on AI must also consider employees as they invest in technology to support customers. Just as a customer uses an AI-powered chatbot to communicate using natural language, the employee interacting directly with the customer should be able to use similar tools.

Imagine the customer support agent receives a call from a customer with a difficult question. As the customer describes the issue, the agent inputs notes into the computer. Within seconds, the agent has the answer to the question appear on their screen. In addition, the AI tool shares insights about the customer, such as their buying patterns, how long they have been a customer, what they’ve called about in the past and more. At this point, a good agent can interpret the information and communicate it in the style that best suits the customer.

Korla explains that the IKEA effect is just as powerful for employees as it is for customers. When employees are armed with the right tools to do their jobs effectively, allowing them to easily support customers and solve their most difficult problems, they are more fulfilled. In the HGS report, 54% of CX leaders surveyed cited talent attraction and retention as a top investment priority. So, for the company that invests in EX tools—specifically AI and automation—the result translates into lower turnover and more engaged employees.

Korla’s insights highlight the essence of the IKEA effect in creating empowering customer experiences and employee experiences. He reminds us that an amazing CX is supported by an amazing EX. As your company prepares to invest in AI and other self-service tools for your customers, consider an investment in similar tools for your employees.

Download the HGS Buyers Insight Report to find out what CX decision-makers will invest in and focus on for 2024 and beyond.

Image Credits: Pixabay
This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

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Exploring Performance Management

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Exploring Performance Management

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

Performance management is a tool for managing Performance Zone commitments. These are the outcomes and deliverables that your organization, or for that matter you yourself, are being funded to deliver. In the Vision, Value, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures (V2MOM) framework, they will be represented by one or more of your Methods and will be tied directly to a corresponding set of Measures.

The primary goal of performance management is to ensure success in meeting such commitments. This includes early detection of things going off track—hence the need for frequent check-ins. It includes coaching and mentoring to help team members succeed—something we all need at one time or another. It asks us all to balance empathy for times when people don’t succeed with accountability for the need to succeed. People need help when they are down, but it is not fair to continue to accept funding for outcomes that do not get delivered.

When people under-deliver against their commitments, nobody wins. Most importantly, and this is something a lot of people miss, the person who is under-delivering is not winning. When coaching and mentoring are not getting them to success, the likelihood is that they are in the wrong role. Keeping them in that role, which we sometimes think of as protecting them, just prolongs the agony. A far better response is to step back and assess what would be the right role for this person, whether it be another one on the same team, or one on a different team, or one in another organization, or one in another company. The point is, rather than obsessing about what they are doing badly, we need to focus instead on what they could be really good at and get them into that role as swiftly as possible.

Let me be even more clear. It is obvious that when under-performing folks are kept in a role, everyone else on the team has to work harder. What is not so obvious is that when under-performing folks move on, even if their roles are not back-filled, the team discovers it has less work to do! The reason is that under-performing people absorb everyone else’s time. After all, they are trying to help, they just aren’t succeeding. And since helping teammates is baked into collaborative cultures, we give them extra time even though it is not productive to do so.

Again, nobody is winning here. We need an intervention. In this context, policies that call for managing out the bottom five percent are simply a heuristic that says, in any organization at any time, there are bound to be some number of round pegs in square holes, and leaving them in place doesn’t help anyone.

So, why then do we still bristle at the notion of performance management? There’s a ton of psychology behind this question, more than I am competent to address, but the net effect is that performance management puts enormous pressure on a set of social skills many of us lack. That’s not going to change anytime soon, so we should not be surprised at our reluctance to engage. But it is not OK to dodge our responsibilities either. Our best bet, in my view, is to bake into our protocol a discussion of positive next steps that includes concrete recommendations, and cope with our emotional challenges as best we can.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

Image Credit: Unsplash

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How Eavesdropping Can Unlocked Exponential Growth

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How Eavesdropping Can Unlocked Exponential Growth

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

It’s easy to get caught up in the hunt for unique insights that will transform your business, conquer your competition, and put you on an ever-accelerating path to growth.  But sometimes, the most valuable insights can come from listening to customers in their natural environment. That’s precisely what happened when I eavesdropped on a conversation at a local pizza joint. What I learned could be worth millions to your business.

A guy walked into a pizza place.

Last Wednesday, I met a friend for lunch.  As usual, I was unreasonably early to the local wood-fired pizza joint, so I settled into my chair, content to spend time engaged in one of my favorite activities – watching people and eavesdropping on their conversations.

Although the restaurant is on the main street of one of the wealthier Boston suburbs, it draws an eclectic crowd, so I was surprised when a rather burly man in a paint-stained hoodie flung open the front door.  As he stomped to the take-out order window, dust fell from his shoes, and you could hear the clanging of tools in his tool belt.  He placed his order and thumped down at the table next to me.

A Multi-Million Dollar Chat

He pulled out his cell phone and made a call.  “Hey, yeah, I’m at the pizza place, and they need your help.  Yeah, they hate their current system, but they don’t have the time to figure out a new one or how to convert.  Yeah, ok, I’ll get his number.  Ok if I give him yours.  Great.  Thanks.”

A few minutes later, his order was ready, and the manager walked over with his pizza.

Hoodie-guy: “Hey, do you have a card?”

Manager: “No, I don’t.  Something I can help you with?”

H: “I just called a friend of mine.  He runs an IT shop, and I told him you’re using the RST restaurant management system, and you hate it…”

M: “I hate it so much…”

H: “So my buddy’s business can help you change it. He’s helped other restaurants convert away from RST, and he’d love to talk to you or the owner.”

M: “I’m one of the co-owners, and I’d love to stop using RST, but we use it for everything – our website, online ordering, managing our books, everything.  I can’t risk changing.”

H: “That’s the thing, my friend does it all for you.  He’ll help you pick the new system, set it up, migrate you from the other system, and ensure everything runs smoothly. You have nothing to worry about.”

M: “That would be amazing.  Here’s my direct line. Have him give me a call.  And if he’s good, I can guarantee you that every other restaurant on this street will change, too.  We all use RST, and we all hate it.  We even talked about working together to find something better, but no one had time to figure everything out.”

They exchanged numbers, and the hoodie guy walked out with his pizza.  The manager/owner walked back to the open kitchen, told his staff about the conversation, and they cheered.  Cheered!

Are You Listening?

In just a few minutes of eavesdropping, I uncovered a potential goldmine for a B2B business – 15 frustrated customers, all desperate to switch from a system they hate but unable to do so due to time and resource constraints. The implications are staggering – an entire local market worth tens of millions of dollars ripe for the taking simply by being willing to listen and offer a solution.

As a B2B leader, the question is: are you truly tapping into the insights right in front of you? When was the last time you left your desk, observed your customers in their natural habitat, and listened to their unvarnished feedback? If you’re not doing that, you’re missing out on opportunities that could transform your business.

The choice is yours. Will you stay in your office and rely on well-worn tools, or venture into the wild and listen to your customers?  Your answer could be worth millions.

Image credit: Pixabay

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We Must Reinvent Our Organizations for A New Era of Innovation

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We Must Reinvent Our Organizations for A New Era of Innovation

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

In the first half of the 20th century, Alfred Sloan created the modern corporation at General Motors. In many ways, it was based on the military. Senior leadership at headquarters would make plans, while managers at individual units would be allocated resources and made responsible for achieving mission objectives.

The rise of digital technology made this kind of structure untenable. By the time strategic information was gathered centrally, it was often too old to be effective. In much the same way, by the time information flowed up from operating units, it was too late to alter the plan. It had already failed.

So in recent years, agility and iteration has become the mantra. Due to pressures from the market and from shareholders, long-term planning is often eschewed for the needs of the moment. Yet today the digital era is ending and organizations will need to shift once again. We’re going to need to learn to combine long-range planning with empowered execution.

Shifting From Iteration To Exploration

When Steve Jobs came up with the idea for a device that would hold “a thousand songs in my pocket,” it wasn’t technically feasible. There was simply no hard drive available that could fit that much storage into that little space. Nevertheless, within a few years a supplier developed the necessary technology and the iPod was born.

Notice how the bulk of the profits went to Apple, which designed the application and very little to the supplier that developed the technology that made it possible. That’s because the technology for developing hard drives was very well understood. If it hadn’t been that supplier, another would have developed what Jobs needed in six months or so.

Yet today, we’re on the brink of a new era of innovation. New technologies, such as revolutionary computing architectures, genomics and artificial intelligence are coming to the fore that aren’t nearly as well understood as digital technology. So we will have to spend years learning about them before we can develop applications safely and effectively.

For example, companies ranging from Daimler and Samsung to JP Morgan Chase and Barclays have joined IBM’s Q Network to explore quantum computing, even though that it will be years before that technology has a commercial impact. Leading tech companies have formed the Partnership on AI to better understand the consequences for artificial intelligence. Hundreds of companies have joined manufacturing hubs to learn about next generation technology.

It’s becoming more important to prepare than adapt. By the time you realize the need to adapt, it may already be too late.

Building A Pipeline Of Problems To Be Solved

While the need to explore technologies long before they become commercially viable is increasing, competitive pressures show no signs of abating. Just because digital technology is not advancing the way it once did doesn’t mean that it will disappear. Many aspects of the digital world, such as the speed at which we communicate, will continue.

So it is crucial to build a continuous pipeline of problems to solve. Most will be fairly incremental, either improving on an existing product or developing new ones based on standard technology. Others will be a bit more aspirational, such as applying existing capabilities to a completely new market or adopting exciting new technology to improve service to existing customers.

However, as the value generated from digital technology continues to level off, much like it did for earlier technologies like internal combustion and electricity, there will be an increasing need to pursue grand challenges to solve fundamental problems. That’s how truly new markets are created.

Clearly, this presents some issues with resource allocation. Senior managers will have to combine the need to move fast and keep up with immediate competitive pressures with the long-term thinking it takes to invest in years of exploration with an uncertain payoff. There’s no magic bullet, but it is generally accepted that the 70/20/10 principle for incremental, adjacent and fundamental innovation is a good rule of thumb.

Empowering Connectivity

When Sloan designed the modern corporation, capacity was a key constraint. The core challenge was to design and build products for the mass market. So long-term planning to effectively organize plant, equipment, distribution and other resources was an important, if not decisive, competitive attribute.

Digitization and globalization, however, flipped this model and vertical integration gave way to radical specialization. Because resources were no longer concentrated in large enterprises, but distributed across global networks, integration within global supply chains became increasingly important.

With the rise of cloud technology, this trend became even more decisive in the digital world. Creating proprietary technology that is closed off to the rest of the world has become unacceptable to customers, who expect you to maintain API’s that integrate with open technologies and those of your competitors.

Over the next decade, it will become increasingly important to build similar connection points for innovation. For example, the US military set up the Rapid Equipping Force that was specifically designed to connect new technologies with soldiers in the field who needed them. Many companies are setting up incubators, accelerators and corporate venture funds for the same reason. Others have set up programs to connect to academic research.

What’s clear is that going it alone is no longer an option and we need to set up specific structures that not only connect to new technology, but ensure that it is understood and adopted throughout the enterprise.

The Leadership Challenge

The shift from one era to another doesn’t mean that old challenges are eliminated. Even today, we need to scale businesses to service mass markets and rapidly iterate new applications. The problems we need to take on in this new era of innovation won’t replace the old ones, they will simply add to them.

Still, we can expect value to shift from agility to exploration as fundamental technologies rise to the fore. Organizations that are able to deliver new computing architectures, revolutionary new materials and miracle cures will have a distinct competitive advantage over those who can merely engineer and design new applications.

It is only senior leaders that can empower these shifts and it won’t be easy. Shareholders will continue to demand quarterly profit performance. Customers will continue to demand product performance and service. Yet it is only those that are able to harness the technologies of this new era — which will not contribute to profits or customer satisfaction for years to come — that will survive the next decade.

The one true constant is that success eventually breeds failure. The skills and strategies of one era do not translate to another. To survive, the key organizational attribute will not be speed, agility or even operational excellence, but leadership that understands that when the game is up, you need to learn how to play a new one.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credits: Pixabay

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Creating a Seamless and Unique Customer Experience

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Creating a Seamless and Unique Customer Experience

GUEST POST from Howard Tiersky

Most companies recognize that creating a seamless and unique customer experience is key to success in the digital world, but that’s not always easy to do. How can you deliver the optimal digital experience to your users?

If you’ve ever been to the arctic circle, there are icebergs that are not only acres wide, but that rise hundreds of feet above sea level — truly massive objects. Yet what is perhaps even more amazing is that scientists tell us that almost 90% of a typical iceberg’s mass is underwater, and not visible to from the surface. If you are in the “iceberg business” — studying them for science or cutting through them for ships to pass — it’s quite important to understand not just the visible component, but the full scale and depth of the iceberg.

Similarly, most companies now recognize that creating a seamless, elegant and differentiated customer experience is key to success in this increasingly digital world. Defining that optimal experience is not necessarily an easy task. In fact, it can seem like a huge undertaking, and at FROM, it’s something that we spend a large portion of our time working with clients to optimize.

But we also see many companies struggling to execute on delivering their customer experience vision. There are many reasons for this, but a starting point of success is realizing that excellent customer experience is more than meets the eye. While concrete manifestation of the experience is found in the brand’s digital properties, content, and features, this is just the part of the iceberg that sticks up above the water. Beneath the waterline is three additional supporting elements that must also be effectively managed in order to achieve an excellent customer experience and the associated business outcomes.

User Experience FROM Iceberg

1. Technical Architecture

Outstanding customer experiences are supported by modern technology stacks that permit two essential capabilities:

Access From Any Touchpoint

Great customer experiences have the flexibility of touchpoint, and permit you to not only interact via web, phone, mobile, kiosk or other devices but have all actions instantly updated and available in a consistent manner. An example of what not to do: I placed an order on HomeDepot.com and immediately realized I made a mistake. I wanted to cancel it, but due to technical constraints, you can’t cancel orders on the website, only from the call center. So I called the call center, and they told me they wouldn’t be able to “see” my order (and therefore weren’t able to cancel it) for about an hour when the systems synchronize, and I should call back then. Not a great or accessible customer experience.

Flexible Frameworks

Flexible frameworks have the ability to be modified rapidly along with the changes that are being frequently deployed. The number one secret to how great customer experiences got to be great? It’s not by having a genius team that gets it right the first time; it’s through an iterative process of testing and learning. To do that, you have to be able to efficiently code, test, and iterate or kill new ideas quickly. Furthermore, the frameworks for presentation, business logic, and transaction processing need to be flexible. If user testing shows that changing the sequence of information collected from users during a checkout process might improve conversion, you need to be able to make a change like that reasonably simply. We often see companies with aging mainframe-based “back office” systems that are holding them back from being able to re-engineer their customer experience because “that’s not how the legacy system works.” No matter how much pain, companies in this situation need roadmaps to upgrade, redesign or replace these inflexible systems to permit the creative evolution of their customer experience.

2. Business Operations

Serving the digital customer effectively is not just about creating digital touchpoints, but about evolving the total experience with digital at the center. That means you will need to change the way you do business in a variety of spheres. Customers who use online chat to ask questions expect answers far faster than those who email, let alone those who send in snail mail. Digital customers opening an account at your bank don’t want to have to wait to receive a thick packet of forms in the mail that they have to sign in 17 different places. You may want to offer digital customers alternatives in “out of stock” situations (such as a direct ship) or permit them to customize their purchases in ways that weren’t previously possible. Truly optimizing for digital will probably change how you merchandise, your return policies, your customer support, customer communications, and, well, everything. It may require new roles, new processes or a re-organization of the company.

3. Business Model

One of the benefits customers see from digital is a huge improvement in the value equation. Skype has taken our long distance bill from hundreds of dollars to pennies. Spotify has given us access to practically any song ever recorded for a few dollars a month, and Netflix has done the same for movies. In many markets, Uber has halved the cost of a taxi. This is awesome for consumers, but threatening to incumbents whose business models are dependent on the pricing levels of legacy business models. Jeff Zucker, the former CEO of NBC, echoed this concern a decade ago when he bemoaned having to trade “analog dollars for digital pennies.”

Why are some companies able to offer consumers a “better deal?” Because digital can take substantial cost out of the equation, allowing more digitally centric companies to be more cost-competitive or shift to totally different business models (subscription access to huge content libraries instead of one by one DVD rental in the case of Netflix; offering the largest ground transportation fleet in the world without ever buying a single vehicle in the case of Uber; likewise eBay and Alibaba, two of the largest online stores, both of which stock no inventory.) You can have a great website and app, but if the fundamental value equation of your business is no longer competitive, you are going to struggle.

Don’t Bolt On Digital

Digital started out as a means of communication. We then had the era of eCommerce, where we “bolted on” digital alternatives to access the same inventory and offers available in our non-digital channels. But today, the winners are “digitally-transformed” companies that are offering a digital value proposition and have a technology stack that empowers them to create a great customer experience, and the business processes necessary to support and deliver on it.

It may seem like a lot. And it is. The world is changing fast, and the companies that succeed in the future will be those that make the transition. The ones that don’t will wind up on the list with companies like Kodak, Polaroid, BlockBuster, Sports Authority, Borders, Linens and Things and Circuit City. You can use this as a high-level roadmap for what you need to do to keep up with the digital transformation era. If your formula is not working yet, ask yourself which of these three areas you might not be paying enough attention to, or adapting quickly enough.

This article originally appeared on the Howard Tiersky blog
Image Credits: Pexels

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You Don’t Win By Completing the Most Tasks

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You Don't Win By Completing the Most Tasks

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you have too much to do, that means you have more tasks than time. And because time is limited, the only way out is to change how you think about your task list.

If you have too many tasks, you haven’t yet decided which tasks are important and which are less important. Until you rank tasks by importance, you’ll think you have too many.

When you have more tasks than you can handle, you don’t. You can handle what you can handle. No problem there. What you have are expectations that are out of line with the reality of what one person can get done in a day. What you can get done is what you can get done. Then end. The thing to understand about task lists is they don’t give a damn about work content. They are perfectly happy to get longer when new tasks are added, regardless of your capacity to get them done. That’s just how it goes with task lists. Why do you think it’s okay to judge yourself negatively for a growing task list?

Just because a task is on a task list doesn’t mean it must get done. A task list is just a tool to keep track of tasks, nothing more. A task list helps you assess which tasks are most important so you can work on the right one until it’s time to go home.

Here are some tips on how to handle your tasks.

Identify your top three most important tasks and work on the most important one until it’s complete.

When the most important task is complete, move each task one step closer to the top and work on the most important one until it’s complete.

If you’re not willing to finish a task, don’t start it. (Think switching cost.)

Don’t start a task before finishing one. (No partial for a half-done task.)

The fastest way to complete a task is to simply remove it from the list. (Full credit for deleting a task of low importance.)

Complete the tasks you can complete and leave the rest. (And no self-judgment or guilt.)

It’s not about completing the most tasks. It’s about completing the most important ones.

Image credit: Unsplash

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A $3.7 Trillion Customer Experience Problem

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A $3.7 Trillion Customer Experience Problem

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Bad customer experiences could cost organizations throughout the world $3.7 trillion annually. That’s according to new research by the experience management company Qualtrics. This figure is up 19% from the company’s projections last year ($3.1 trillion). This is a mind-blowing statistic considering the importance companies and brands are putting on customer service and experience.

During the third quarter of 2023, Qualtrics surveyed about 28,400 consumers in 26 countries about their bad experiences with organizations across 20 different industries. The good news is that the survey found consumers had 2% fewer bad experiences compared to the year before. Still, because of increased spending and other factors, the result is a potential loss that, to put it in perspective, is more than double the U.S. deficit in 2023.

Our just released 2024 customer service and CX research (sponsored by RingCentral) also has some important findings that support the need to provide a better experience. While the Qualtrics survey is international, we focused on the U.S. consumer, matching the census for age, gender, ethnicity and geography. So, what do these findings mean for a company or brand? They have two choices: accept the loss due to a bad experience or create a competitive advantage with a service experience that drives higher sales, higher profits and customer retention. Consider the following:

  • In 2024, 88% of customers think customer service is more important than ever. That’s up from 83% in 2022 and 2023. In 2010, major consulting firms (Walker, Forrester, Bain and others) started predicting that within 10 years, the customer experience would be as important—if not more so—than the product. Of course, the product has to work, but comparable products can usually be purchased from numerous retailers or vendors.

  • In 2024, 64% of customers said no matter how much they enjoy the product, if the company doesn’t provide good customer service, they will find another company to do business with. And that’s the point those major consulting firms were making more than 10 years ago! While product quality will always be important, the majority of today’s customers (more than six out of 10) insist on an experience that meets their expectations.

  • In 2024, 85% of customers are willing to go out of their way to do business with a company that has better service. That’s up from 76% last year. Customers are willing to put forth more effort, spend more time, drive farther and put up with other inconveniences if they know the company or brand will provide a better experience than a CX laggard that may be more convenient. So, the question is: Are you the company that customers go out of their way to do business with?

  • In 2024, 94% of customers feel convenience is important. Convenience is the highest rated experience customers want. But as you saw in the prior finding, convenience with bad customer service still puts you at a high risk of losing customers.

  • In 2024, the top three reasons customers come back to a company are helpful, knowledgeable and friendly employees. Customer service doesn’t have to be complicated. How hard is it for people to be helpful and friendly? And being knowledgeable is a function of training and education. These three together create a powerful experience that gets customers to come back and evangelize a company or brand.

These findings are meant to make you think about the advantages and disadvantages of delivering an excellent experience. I’ve always preached that customer service is common sense—that’s not always so common. Customer experience includes service, but there’s more to it as you look beyond the traditional human-to-human contact, and instead, analyze every interaction the customer has with your organization. To eliminate some of the complications and confusion, start with the end in mind, which is to understand your customers’ “journey” and what you must do to meet their needs and expectations. Build out the experience from there—an experience that doesn’t push them to the competition, but instead gets them to say, “I’ll be back.”

Image Credits: Pixabay
This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

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Four Secrets of Building a Shared Team Identity

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Four Secrets of Building a Shared Team Identity

GUEST POST from David Burkus

Creating shared identity on a team is crucial to building a high-performing one. Shared identity refers to the extent to which team members feel the same sense of who they are as a designated group. It indicates whether or not individual members truly feel like this is the team they’re a part of and most loyal to.

Decades of social science research have shown that individuals make sense of their world by applying categories and labels to their environment—including themselves and the people around them. “Team” is one such label, and it carries great importance, because when we identify with a particular group, that group shapes our own identity and behavior.

A strong shared identity on a team reduces conflict, standardizes norms of behavior, increases cohesion and collaboration, and ultimately enhances team performance. In this article, we will explore four key actions that leaders can take to foster a shared identity within their teams.

1. Start With Purpose

The first action in creating shared identity on a team is to start with purpose. Understanding the purpose of the team’s work and how it aligns with the organization’s mission is the first step in creating a shared identity. For most teams, this isn’t about restating or even remembering the larger organization’s mission statement. It’s about how their specific work relates to that overall mission. More importantly, it’s about who is positively affected by the team working well together.

One question to distill this “who” is simple, asking the team “Who is served by the work that we do?” By answering that, team members can gain a deeper understanding of the impact they have on the organization and the people they serve. And when team members recognize the significance of their contributions, they are more likely to feel motivated and engaged/ Identifying the specific group of people that benefit from the team’s performance allows team members to connect their work to real-world outcomes and identify with the team to realize those outcomes.

2. Build On Values

The second action in creating shared identity on a team is to build on values, meaning to determine the team’s specific values and how they want to treat each other. By identifying the values that the team wants to emphasize in their interactions, team members can establish a common set of principles to guide their behavior. Or as Seth Godin is fond of saying, it’s about emphasizing that “people like us, do things like this.”

The other benefit of discussing values is that it establishes the compromises that the team would never make in serving their purpose. By defining the non-negotiables, team members can align their actions and decisions with the team’s values. And as team members internalize those non-negotiables, they start to identify with the values underlying them and align their behavior accordingly. Not surprisingly, identifying more and more with those values helps them identify more strongly with the team that wrote them.

3. Focus On Goals

The third action in creating a sense of shared identity on a team is to focus on goals. By breaking down the team’s purpose and values into specific goals, team members can have a clear understanding of what they are working towards. These goals should be challenging yet achievable, providing team members with a sense of purpose and direction. Sometimes these goals, objectives, or key performance indicators are handed to the team from higher up in the organization. But even then, it’s important to have a team-wide discussion about the assignments and create milestones and sub-goals collectively to build a plan of action.

Setting the team’s goals for completion lays the groundwork for setting the individual goals team members will use to hold each other accountable. When team members have personal goals that contribute to the overall team goals, they are more likely to feel invested in the team’s success. And when those goals are achieved and celebrated, shared identity grows even more. By acknowledging and celebrating achievements, team members feel valued and recognized for their contributions. This fosters a sense of camaraderie and encourages continued collaboration and success.

4. Define Habits

The final action in creating a sense of shared identity is to define habits. Habits here means establishing norms and behaviors for communication and collaboration within the team. It’s about building group norms and expectations. Defining habits means agreeing to use certain communication tools and deciding how they will be utilized. By establishing guidelines for email, instant messaging, and other communication platforms, team members can ensure effective and efficient communication. This reduces misunderstandings and promotes collaboration.

Defining habits has a secondary benefit similar to building on values discussed above. As people share in the process of defining habits, they take greater ownership over the finished set of norms. And as their actions align more strongly with the group norms, their sense of identity with that team grows stronger as well. Overtime, they start to feel less like they act in a certain way because it was laid out in the group norms and more like they act a certain way because “that’s just what we do.” The “we” here being a short but strong signal of shared identity.

Creating shared identity on a team is crucial for achieving success. By starting with purpose, building on values, focusing on goals, and defining habits, leaders can foster a sense of belonging and connection among team members. This leads to a more focused, cohesive, and productive team. By implementing these four actions, leaders can create an environment where team members work together towards common goals and in pursuing those goals, do their best work ever.

Image credit: Unsplash

Originally published on DavidBurkus.com on July 24, 2023

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