A strategy is a theory about what the organization assumes the world looks like, which influence it thinks it can have on it leading to which hypothesized outcomes. — Nobody knows the answer to any of these questions which are most likely multiple and changing all the time (1). One way to set strategy is open, broad statements that can fit a lot of change in them, another is experimentation. With experimentation the strategy becomes active. It’s not a…

the language that you speak shapes the way that you think. And that gives you the opportunity to ask, “Why do I think the way that I do?” “How could I think differently?” And also, “What thoughts do I wish to create?” — Lea Boroditsky (1) We choose labels to…

Measuring a customer as if it is a piece of code, a simple button or algorithm removes what is human from them. This can interfere with our ability to understand them, build for them or even improve ourselves. — A channel is context-less. It’s thin data. A human being is context rich they are influenced by the situation they are in, their individual and cultural experience. They are thick data (1).

In systems thinking the purpose of modelling the world is to better understand the forces of influence, their linear and non-linear effect on each other, patterns of these relationships and how it all leads to the problem or behavior you want to investigate and/or influence. You can do this by…

“People can only make decisions given the information that is available to them in the structure they are able to operate” — James Paine, MIT Sloan School of Management, System Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World. A big part of systems thinking is drawing out peoples’ mental…

Are there any essential principles to a customer-way-of-thinking that even go beyond the customer? I was in a conversation a few weeks back with a colleague trying to describe that the customer is just an element of a customer-way-of-thinking. The mindset and principles run much deeper. So what are these…

How do we know if we are producing value for our customers and why is this important? From a customer experience perspective one way to create valuable outcomes for the business is to motivate customers to behaviors that unlock these outcomes. And one way to motivate customers is by finding…

“The pandemic exposed the lie that was digital transformation,” says Alan Webber, program vice-president, customer experience at IDC (1). As the mid- and/or post-pandemic pressure ramps up on organizations it might become clear which organizations have been using their customer focus as a “slogan exercise” (Philip Gerskovich, Zebra Technologies (2))…

Westerners “live in a simpler, more deterministic world; they focus on [important] objects or people instead of the larger picture; and they think they can control events because they know the rules that govern the behavior of objects”. .. on the other hand .. “The Chinese believe in constant change…