The optimism of #Purpose & science of #design in forging #digital customer experiences! Opinions my own!

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

The Experience Economy likened XM to the performing arts. There were actors, scriptwriters, stage crew, technicians and even props – all under the supervision of the Director, and he/she having to thread the fine balance between producers, financiers and the production crew. Not an easy feat. The Human Resources (HR) department is likened to the Casting Director- getting the right actors/talents on board, supporting the Director. Disney famously calls all of these personas as cast  members, given they’re all important to the ultimate experience or performance. 

I’d like to give EX necessary emphasis and focus. I posit that CX has been over emphasised in the last 10 years –  the flavour for most, if not all digital transformations has been said to be “customer-centric”. 

This phenomenon, combined with the fact we’ve to contend with the messy middle, have eroded Experience Equity overall. 

More simply, there’s ROX deficit as upside/surplus  from CX isn’t enough to cover the debasement/erosion from EX. 

Things got so bad -the pandemic really just showed us exactly how bad – the world is calling this the Great Resignation (the overly positive orgs prefer the Great Return i.e. they believe the workforce will embrace the return to office work. 

That’s presumptuous to say the least. 

Sadly, this EX related ROX  decimation didn’t happen overnight. Even the chaotic,  messy middle was cumulative over the many years (that Digital Transformations overtly neglected internal process improvements – or rather, not near the pace/velocity seen on the front side of the house that’s  client facing).

Simon Sinek popularised the Golden Circle -essentially that EX comes first before CX. Richard Branson famously quipped “if you take care of  your employees, they will take care of  your customers.” There’s quite a lot of truth in all that these experts are saying. We’ve allowed the EX CX ROX deficit, the chasm to grow so wide that now only a major overhaul will do. CX experts call this the Great Pivot – going into 2022, EX will surely be top of mind (survival really) for all companies. 

There’s the perfect storm brewing.

The pandemic has really rejigged our priorities; first it was (2020) all about safety and job security. Then in 2021 thematics shifted to autonomy and control; most wanted more control over their own time, and nobody really wanted to return to the office (and what it represented). The leadership – baby boomers, Gen X – had a tougher time ‘adjusting’ to this new future of work. These leaders are at the tail-end of a presentforward society, more harshly the remnants of the Industrial Age (caught – some like rabbits in headlights – lost in transition between the Industrial, Service and Experience Economies). These org designs from the 60s were adapted (over years) to increase yields,  maximise  operational efficiencies and produce goods/services – but hardly any thought was given to how employees progressed over time. During the Industrial Age, Austria pioneered the earliest factory schools – these were meant to produce tenable, amicable  workforces, good at listening and processing instructions. It made sense back then, factories had heavy machineries requiring operators. These events marked a time between WW1 leading all the way up to WW2 – during which America was incepted as the world’s premier superpower. 

This book doesn’t delve into the world history – but in summary  (Western) Europe ceded quite a lot of economic power across the ‘pond’, across the Pacific, to the Americans. 

The rise of America as superpower and the golden age of the 1950s meant that there’s  no labour shortage – the population boom in the 1950s, the baby boomers now have their last 20 or so years before they leave the workforce. 

The great factories of the Industrial Age got better and better, more efficient at generate output and throughout (goods, commodities – the orgdesign and workforce was tuned for such: command & control, centralised hierarchies and pliability -all necessary to scale up and industrialise operations. And as  one would imagine, both leadership and the workforce were indoctrinated differently. They were built for efficiency – during their pinnacle we saw great industrialists such as Jack Welch teach the world (other factories) about Lean Six, Six Sigma, Toyota did it their Way, etc.  Today, GE is a zombie company kept alive artificially – another huge topic, pet peeve on central banking, overfinancialisation and money/fiat  policies vs the freemarket – which we don’t go into for the reader’s sake 😉

So now, present day, the millennials want their (promised) world back- another reason why new asset classes such crypto, DeFi and DAOs (communities really) are the wealth generators of this generation. They saw the American Dream play out for the Baby Boomers (not so well..) and they’re determined to carve their own path. 

Long story short, the orgdesign, the workforce didn’t really change, adapted much since the 60s. We’ve adapted the presentforward (Industrial Age) orgdesign so many times we’ve all but lost count – leaving us with matrices and siloes deep and divided – we almost nearly need a major overhaul (to me that’s the Journey-Led org utopia). I see how ‘slanted’ an org is constructed – the ‘best’ being laying flat on its belly (transposed on the x-axis = JLO)

Borrowing Pine’s analogy of the Director being supported by the Casting Director (HR) in hiring talents fora major production/film- the stage itself has irrevocably changed over time.

The cast members as Disney fondly calls them- using a JLO tenet- are each capable of holding their own performances, they’re multi-disciplinary. Contrast that to the troupes of old, and their performances (regardless theatre, stage, improv, street), which are sequential and more siloed: requiring the Director to orchestrate the entire production of course. Perhaps that’s what we mean by decentralisation of the workforce, the envisioned Future Of Work (that were already living). Perhaps that’s another definition of what being Agile means.

Truth be told, the same tech stacks we’ve put in place for the customer-facing bits-guess what, they work arguably better for the employees! Again borrowing Pine’s analogy, the script writers are the processes, the code and language of the business/performance/offering. It’s these very processes- through BPR and TQM – that needs reimagination for what the future holds- an immediate future being the Metaverse.