Don't Try to Win Them Over
Data and AI professionals have to navigate the treacherous politics of the work environment on a daily basis. My new book, Data, Strategy, Culture & Power, was written to help you see those forces around you so you can respond more effectively. But there are times I wish I’d known what I know now, and could apply it to working with business execs – like in this personal story where Greg Satell’s wisdom from Cascades could have saved me two months, a lot of agony, and about $150K.
Several years ago, I was working with the VP of E-Commerce at a multi-billion dollar Consumer Goods company… an org solidly in the Fortune 500. Like most companies of that size, their data was a mess, but there was a major new product release coming up and the executive team really needed some solid KPIs to guide their decision making.
My job was to help them figure out how to get there.
After a 6-week deep dive with a team of 5 people, we figured out the quickest...
The Achilles Heel of Customer Journey Mapping
Achilles was that guy in Greek mythology whose mother, when he was born, wanted to protect him soooo much that she held him by the heel and dipped him in the power-giving waters of the River Styx -- making him bullet proof (and much more; no bullets then), except at the heel, because for some reason she didn't think about just dunking him a few inches deeper. Maybe she didn't want to get her hand wet? Who knows. (In the research literature this is called perverse unintended consequences -- it happens in business too. You try to make an improvement or protect against a particular hazard and oops, you made it worse.)
Customer Journey Maps (CJM)
I've been reading a lot about the Customer Journey Maps (CJM) technique used in marketing (see Folstad & Kvale (2018) for a fantastic and comprehensive review). It formalizes the very good suggestion that when you're trying to figure out how to engage with prospects, you should put yourself in their shoes. Empathize with...