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

EXPERIENCE-LED TRANSFORMATION

The final form for Experiences = Transformation. Rather, they’re transformative. 

I believe Purposeful leadership, and how that translates into the Future Of Work is an expression of time and effort ; in which we unlock value. 

There’s a brilliant book by Jordan B. Peterson called the Maps of Value – that talks about, amongst other things, how we humans  perceive and understand value. 

For most of us CX practitioners, our Purposes will align and resonate with statements like “creating magical Human Experiences”. That may be  further nested into phrases such as “..by closing experience gaps, one at a time”, or “…by teaching the world about Journey Science, the science of magical human experiences.” 

Which brings me to the overused word “Transformation”. 

Transformation, in our definition, is the final/highest form of experiences; that is commodities -> goods -> services -> experiences -> transformation 

So it goes that transformations are well, transformative – according to Pine, they alter – the elicitor (the one offering transforming) alters the state, being, physicality of the aspirant (the one undergoing transformation). 

Further, we take it that these alterations are end-states & steady-states that are best described as outcomes, or results.

There are many examples e.g. 

• Insurance companies providing practice care (extending their ecosystems into hospitals and caregivers)
• Telcos becoming more than a dumb pipe; becoming System Integrators, gaming companies, even platforms and marketplaces 
• Travel industry e.g. being about self, generative healing and sanctums preparing weary road warriors for the day ahead 
• Management consulting (my industry) offering ‘more than’ insightful reports ; putting skin in the game and actually/proactively  helping clients attain the promised results ie. growth % 
• System integrators, tech companies working with CIOs offering their tools and wares on an outcome, results basis – for IT that typically would be cost take-out and reduction

Ascension, enlightenment, achieving Purpose, delivering on vision and mission- many such words and phrases  have been used. Perhaps the closest definition to my heart = results . Do these businesses, having progressed up the experience  value chain, enjoy the fruits of their very own labour? What does success actually look like?

That’s an existential question; rather the better question is “Why we do What we do”. How we do it is really downstream (and that follows).

For the management consulting industry; we have to (help clients) literally Start with Why – popularised by Simon Sinek.

The first step in getting ‘results’ is to innately understand what those ‘results’ are! Imagine racing ahead with (which is usually the case in the last 10 years) transformation after transformation, and worse, measuring/benchmarking progress of those!

We essentially just hurtled faster and faster in the ‘wrong’ direction; further away from our purported North Star, the Purpose manifesto.

What seems to  work better is agile-like; increments in the ‘right’ direction then measure, and then progress along the next minimum viable product (MVP) again; ad infinitum.

Yes as infinitum. There’s no finish line. We are playing the Infinite Game (in game theory, that just means we are playing to better ‘beat’ ourselves- the version today>yesterday as I often simplify)

Getting into what makes a good Why/Purpose statement is not the objective of this book – but i urge  those wishing to go down this rabbit hole called creating magical Human Experiences to start with their Whys

There are ways to measure the fidelity of these Purpose statements, assess ‘cracks’ e.g. typically when founders transition out, or when new leadership takes over.  

(it’s quite obvious, founder led companies have  higher Purpose momentums and commensurately higher EX and CX).

The ‘distance’ the employees feel; how well they relate to the Purpose is of vital importance; perhaps the closest thing to the ‘soul’ of the company – its almost the ‘ will’ to survive and thrive in these very, very trying conditions. 

Hopefully that sheds a little more light why getting the upstream ‘right’ is quintessential. Here (upstream) primal ‘forces’ such as innovation and design are sparking new alternate realities, giving us a glimpse of the many potential, probable future(s). 

Taking Elon and his Tesla and SpaceX companies as an example.

If we posit the man wanted humans to be multi-planetary (Mars is his moon-shot) – his companies are developing solutions (technologies) that will help us get there. Meaning if Elon’s Purpose is to get to Mars, everything that Tesla, SpaceX (more apparent towards serving the objective) does inches, maybe leaps, towards that North Star of his. 

Put it this way. It’s definitely not just about benchmarking and measuring against what other companies are doing! No other company is attempting the same yet. Bezos may want to go to space, but he’s not going to Mars. 

Using that to illustrate; how both men think  about travel are fundamentally different! 

While one may see the space travel industry as ‘shorter term’ – the other really just sees the 2021 space orbits as a ‘step’ towards going to Mars. It’s a very different perspective of things !

Perhaps why one of the billionaires have thought up a cost model (counting $ fiat, projections), while the other ‘gave it away for free’ – how fascinating the differences of  presentforward and  futureback, regardless the end point at hand. 

Bringing us back to Earth.

 The operational focus of the downstream is a given/prerequisite. The rigour, the fastidiousness, the appreciation of numbers. Notice I call it numbers, not outcomes and/or results. There’s a difference.

I use another example.

What happens when you set up NPS benchmarks vs competitors and even players from adjacent sectors? NPS is of course a very popular survey metric popularised by Bain.

Most clients have a basket of metrics they’ve implanted over the years – ends up chasing their own tails, or see the workforce cherry pick to inflate/deflate scores  (I actually suggest thinning/simplifying these derivatives into <5) 

What you end up with is an unhealthy attention  diffraction – away from delivering good services, experiences (and into meeting operational hurdles).

There’s also when the NPS scores were benchmarked against the ‘best’ – I recall it was popular for executives to awe at Tim Kobe’s work (the Apple Store, Genius Bar). While it’s very possible to achieve even exceed Apple’s  NPS scores (ok, maybe we have to dissect some of their supporting data) – and some of my clients did – that’s missing the point completely. 

What’s the so what?

Those meteoric scores did not translate into (at least not obviously)  bottom line impact. I think we had a few years of this phenomenon; chasing scores – which got the Boards excited at first. Eventually, as always, the world (thank you Adam Smith) went back to  good economics. 

Please don’t get me wrong – 100% definitely  set up benchmarks and measurements e.g. NPS, CES, CSAT (there’s a whole plethora to choose from! You can even make/blend your own!) 

Operational metrics are a must – they give us a pulse of the business. They validate our efforts. They validate the time and effort we sink into these efforts – what’s not validated, or not aligned, is the value that is unlocked. And it seems our default store of value, as it has been for hundreds of years, is fiat currency founded on good economics. Hence the rise of Experience Economy and now, we enter an accelerated hydra  ‘fork’ of  Industry 5.0, Web3 and the Metaverse. 

• Transformation Office
• Agile, devops – backlog prioritisation