Book Short: Is CX the new UX? Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, by Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine from Forrester Research, was a good read that kept crossing back and forth between good on the subject at hand, and good business advice in general. The Customer Experience (CX) movement is gaining more and more steam these days, especially in B2B companies like Return Path. The authors define Customer Experience as “how your customers perceive their interactions with your company,” and who doesn’t care about that? A few years ago, people started talking a lot more about User Experience (UX) as a new crossover discipline between design and engineering, and our experience at…
Category
Management
Connecting the Dots
Connecting the Dots Although I still maintain that the three primary roles of a CEO are to set Strategy and communicate it, develop Talent, and ensure that the business has proper Resources to run (see post here), I am increasingly finding that I play a fourth role in the organization that’s probably somewhat important, which is Connecting the Dots. What do I mean by Connecting the Dots? I mean helping others network internally, or helping others connect their work to the work of others, or helping others connect their work to the mission of the company, or even to the outside world. Here are a few examples of how I’ve done this kind of work recently: – I joined an…
The People Who Go to the Trainer the Most Are the Ones Who Were in the Best Shape to Begin With
The People Who Go the the Trainer the Most Are the Onese Who Were int eh Best Shape to Begin With Have you ever noticed this? That the people working out with trainers in the gym are usually in great shape? So why do they keep working with the trainer? So they maintain their awesome level of fitness, of course! The lesson for business is the same. Just because you have a strong suit doesn’t mean you can afford to ignore it and rest on your laurels (at least not for very long). This is true in good times, and in bad times. When things are going well, it can feel like it’s the right time to turn your focus…
The Nachos Don’t Have Enough Beef in Them
The Nachos Don’t Have Enough Beef in Them Short story, two powerful lessons. Story: I’m sitting at the bar of Sam Snead’s Tavern in Port St. Lucie, Florida, having dinner solo while I wait for my friend to arrive. I ask the bartender where he’s from, since he has a slight accent. Nice conversation about how life is rough in Belfast and thank goodness for the American dream. I ask him what to order for dinner and tell him a couple menu items I’m contemplating. He says, “I don’t know why they don’t listen to me. I keep telling them that all the people here say that the nachos aren’t good because they don’t have enough beef in them.” I…
Book Short: Plain Talk
Book Short: Plain Talk An HR rock star I met with recently told me that “You can say anything you want to your people, as long as it’s true,” which of course is great advice. Plain Talk: Lessons from a Business Maverick (book, kindle), by Ken Iverson, the long-time CEO of Nucor, pretty much embodies that. If you’re not familiar with Nucor, it’s a steel company – right, steel – and the most successful one of the last 50-75 years, at that. You may think an industrial company like this offers no lessons for you. If so, you are wrong. The reason Nucor has been so successful, if you believe their long time leader, is that they run the people…
How to Wow Your Manager
How to Wow Your Manager Last week, I talked about how to Wow your employees. Now I am going to discuss the converse of that – How to Wow your Manager. Why Wow your manager? Even if you are senior leader in an organization, the Wow factor is still important. What impact does a Wow have? It sends the signal that you are on top of things. Symbolism is important. It also advances the cause further and faster. Why do you want to foster Wow moments with your team? High performing teams have a lot of Wow going on. If all members of a team see Wow regularly, they are all inspired to do more sooner, better. Here are my…
How to Wow Your Employees
How to Wow Your Employees Here at Return Path we like to promote a culture of WOW and a culture of hospitality. Some of you may be asking, Why Wow your employees? The answer is, there is nothing more inspirational than showing an employee that you care about him or her as an individual. The impact a WOW has is tremendous. Being a manger is like being in a fishbowl. Everything you do is scrutinized by your team. You lead by example whether you want to or not and showing your own vulnerability/humanity has an amazing bonding effect. Why do you want to foster Wow moments with your team? High performing teams have a lot of Wow going on. If all members…
Book Short: Entrepreneurial Lessons
Book Short: Entrepreneurial Lessons The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups from 42 Founders, by David Kidder, is the ultimate coffee table book for entrepreneurs and people who are interested in how they think about running their businesses. David is the author of the Intellectual Devotional series (here’s a link to one of the five or six books in the series), he’s a good friend of mine and a member of a CEO Forum that I’m in, and my major disclosure about this blog post is that I’m one of the 42 entrepreneurs David interviewed for and profiles in the book. The Startup Playbook is very different from my own book (in progress) on being a Startup CEO. Where…
Taking Stock, Part II
Taking Stock, Part II Last year, I wrote about the three questions I ask myself at the beginning of every year to make sure my career is still on track. [https://onlyonceblog.wpengine.com/2012/01/taking-stock] The questions are: Am I having fun at work? Am I learning and growing as a professional? Is my work financially rewarding enough, either in the short term or in the long term? This year, I am adding a fourth suggestion following a great conversation I had a bunch of months back with Jerry Colonna, a great CEO coach, former VC, and all around great person. Question four is: Am I having the impact I want to have on the world? This last question was probably always implicit in…
The Value of Paying Down Technical Debt
The Value of Paying Down Technical Debt Our Engineering team has a great term called Technical Debt, which is the accumulation of coding shortcuts and operational inefficiencies over the years in the name of getting product out the door faster that weighs on the company’s code base like debt weighs on a balance sheet. Like debt, it’s there, you can live with it, but it is a drag on the health of the technology organization and has hard servicing costs. It’s never fun to pay down technical debt, which takes time away from developing new products and new features and is not really appreciated by anyone outside the engineering organization. That last point is a mistake, and I can’t encourage…
Not Just About Us
Not Just About Us When we updated our values this year, we felt there were a couple critical business elements missing from this otherwise “how” series of statements. One thing missing was our clients and users! So we added this value to our list: Not Just About Us: We know we’re successful when our clients are successful and our users are happy. This may be one of the most straightforward statements of all our values, so this will be a short post. We serve lots of constituencies at Return Path. And we always talk about how we’re a “People First” organization and what that means. I suppose that inherently means we are a “Client Second” organization, though I’m not sure…