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  • The Employee Experience Journey Matrix

    As I am trying to conclude my work on the Employee Customer Experience Connection trend report, I felt an important yet lagging part of not just my work, but generally, was a comprehensive view of the employee journey. Not just the journey but what contributes to making it successful. The result of that is this…

  • SenseMaking from the Web

    How to Communicate Your Company’s Strategy Effectively Posted on November 30. For too long, communicating strategy has been an afterthought. Executives have shared long, bombastic documents or withheld critical information and expected people to just “get it.” And it hasn’t worked. Greater external uncertainty, collaboration, employee anxiety, and organizational openness … Three Pillars of User…

  • Suite or best of breed strategies for customer success when enterprise software budgets are squeezed

    It is in economic hardship that many offerings are put to the test and not least, the enterprise software offering. I’m reminded of this every day since I work supporting one of the most well-known suites out there, Microsoft 365 (disclosure). It was brought back to my attention by this post in The Information: Zoom…

  • Microsoft 365 customer questions – Teams top tips

    The question (that I am answering in this post) is actually part of a broader set of questions which I will be answering in a virtual session with over 100 executives and users that a customer of mine is hosting and has asked me to speak at. It is a deceptively tricky question because there…

  • SenseMaking from the Web

    3 science-backed ways to train your brain to have a growth mindset Posted on November 11. There’s a key link between helplessness and mastery, it’s worth figuring out. A growth mindset is the belief that a trait (like intelligence or resilience) is malleable and can be developed through hard work, good strategies, and the ability…

  • Cutting bureaucracy – 5 ways to sharpen your scissors

    I’ve been on the case for cutting bureaucracy before in relation to my profession, customer success. Beyond that, there are so many good reasons for doing it. It’s the bane of modern life and often the preserve of large, monolithic organisations. But no one is immune and especially in an already chaotic and complex world,…

  • Stop waiting for the permission bus

    I’ve made it analogous to waiting for a bus, this whole topic of permission, and how it pertains to work. What I mean is I often see teams or individuals waiting for permission before they take any action. Sometimes they know who they seek permission from, often not – they are just waiting for someone…

  • Microsoft 365 customer questions – Viva Amplify boosting internal comms

    I have written about Microsoft Viva before, in relation to an employee experience trend report I am working on as well as in answer to other customer questions on the multiple Viva modules being rolled out. As that roll out continues, I continue to address the new opportunities and questions that arise. Past posts below…

  • SenseMaking from the Web

    The missing apex of Maslow’s hierarchy could save us all Posted on October 28. In his later years, psychologist Abraham Maslow added a new apex to the pyramid of human needs: self-transcendence. It’s Time to Rethink the Employee Experience Posted on October 28. The research found that 96% of survey respondents consider recruiting CX employees…

  • Features that delight – delayed receipt and sending of messages

    I love some of the options we are given to skip receiving something or delay sending something. The benefits are many, chief amongst them that you have the time to address the message properly at a later stage. This works in both instances, i.e. you snooze the message to a time when you can address…

  • SenseMaking from the Web

    Growth hacking is really just growth testing Posted on October 10. Who knew that “growth hacking,” a term coined in 2010 by Sean Ellis, the first marketer at Dropbox, would become so commonplace in 2022? Considering the fact that growth marketing wasn’t even a formal function at startups 12 years ago, I think it’s okay…

  • Why do we work if not for meaning

    This is a gloss on an Annie Dillard piece when she was writing about writing. I read her classic book called The Writing Life not too long ago and this excerpt stuck with me. I thought it could easily apply to many things but especially work. If you want to find the original piece, go…

  • SenseMaking from the Web

    3 simple tricks for driving change in your workplace, no matter your role Posted on October 7. The authors of ‘Hack Your Bureaucracy’ explain a central misunderstanding about getting things done: change happens just because the person in charge declares it should. In our experience, too many people think that the president—or your CEO, organization…

  • Launching a business in a recession – 4 of 4 – Selling

    This is a post in a series of four detailing how you can start a business during a recession (find them all eventually under the startup innovation tag). I think it is a commonly held view that we are about to enter into or are already in a recession. For whatever reason you are thinking…