Living Through Change
By Olga Potaptseva, Founder- European Customer Consultancy | 5 min read.
I was born in a country that сeased to exist when I was 11, change felt exciting. Later in life, going through a horrific divorce I felt even the slightest change like a train delay was unbearable. I got through it, rebuilt my family, moved countries, launched a successful global customer experience consultancy and embraced the change paradigm forever, as it is the only constant. I am happy to be sharing my personal and professional experience of managing and leading change, through the CX lens.
When I started leading customer centric change professionally, it puzzled me why the company I worked for went through the never ending cycle of excitement, anxiousness, denial and acceptance. As human beings, in our personal and professional capacity, we seek predictability, consistency and order. However, our ability to predict, let alone manage future events is exceptionally limited and learning how to operate in the ever changing world is key.
Wouldn't it be nice to be in a comfortable state of change?
One of the biggest problems I see in global CX practices is organisational adoption and 1 in 2 CX professionals agree with me by saying stakeholder engagement and leadership buy-in are their biggest challenges*. There is normally a great deal of excitement developing a CX Strategy and mapping customer journeys, but when it comes to implementing the required changes all of a sudden we see priorities change. Being immersed in this subject for a while I developed an agile CX Management Toolkit and it’s application with clients taught me three things:
Set a clear CX ambition but don't create an impression it should now be carved in golden letters and never changed, because it will need to be adjusted in time
Plan small achievable and timely tasks to advance towards your goals
Create enjoyment around tasks completion, even a micro win is a win and deserves to be celebrated
Set a clear CX ambition
To set a clear CX ambition it is useful to understand your current state. Just as you would do outside of CX, when you for example think about personal finance. You would assess how much money you have coming in, where it’s currently going and how this needs to change to achieve a saving goal. Make sure you as a CX leader and everyone in the organisation is clear on your current CX maturity in terms of strategy, measurements, processes, culture, customer understanding and decision making. Only then could you devise a customer experience strategy, linked to the business strategy, and key milestones to achieve it.
Set small achievable and timely tasks
Going back to a saving money analogy, you need to conduct a feasibility assessment. Would it be possible for you to save 500 USD a month? Would it be sustainable? Could you start by going out once less a month? Where else could you be comfortable making small sacrifices to achieve a bigger goal?
First thing to get familiar with is Result Oriented Task Setting. Here I would use 4 steps to ensure the task is clear (even when it’s myself executing it) and everyone has the same expectations from the result.
Why do we need this task?
What result do I expect?
Does my task start with a result-oriented verb, such as sign off, improve, deliver?
Is the first step clear to make sure the execution can be started immediately?
Do not forget to review the results in planning/synchronisation meetings and to ask yourself “Is the expected result achieved? Any further steps needed to complete it?” (yes, This is a reference to PDCA cycle, a basic, but nonetheless useful approach to the task performance)
Create enjoyment
“Be the leader you wish you had” said Simon Sinek and I couldn’t agree more. It is in your gift to create a change climate that feels rewarding rather than threatening. Continuously remind people how many small tasks they have completed successfully and how they contributed to the overall success, thank them for their contribution and celebrate successes.
Living through change and leading change is not a child play but in our often fruitless search for stability we may miss amazing opportunities. Be brave and embrace the ever changing world!
Olga Potaptseva Bio
Being born in the Soviet Union into a family of a rocket scientist has a strong influence on one’s values and professional qualities. Olga has been exposed to systemic thinking, cutting-edge technology, and futuristic concepts all through her childhood which fuelled her creativity, intelligence, and analytical skills.
She also got a taste of true freedom restrictions and closed-up thinking, something she never agreed with, and as a result she purposefully supports diversity, collaboration and best practice sharing.
So far, Olga has lived in 5 countries and, with her 20 years professional experience in CX, has been named amongst Top 150 CX Professionals globally. She has managed, consulted, and mentored leading organisations and individuals around the world across industry verticals like Insurance, Telco, Banking, Hospitality, Retail and others.
She promotes CX best practice creation and sharing through her role of the Executive Director at the Customer Institute, a Judge at the CX Awards, an author, and a speaker.