Let's talk Transformation : The business leaders podcast #77 The Human Experience with John Sills
"you are everyone you've ever met and you learn something from every encounter however brief..."
A fun conversation with John about the power of lived experiences, sharing stories and understanding different perspectives around the Human side of business and indeed of life.
How can we make life better for our customers ? how can we create more human centred practices in organisations ? how can we use the experience of everyone to better the Human experience ?
We delve into the myths and realities of the Human experience and discuss the enablers and behaviours. Organisations nowadays are full of humans who aren’t allowed to act in a human way because there are too many barriers; Repressing natural human behaviour removes freedom and results in a lack of common sense; a lack of humanity; and a waste of time (and potentially money) – we should look at the human experience from the customer angle given that what’s good for customers is good for business.
John shares his insight, stories, thoughts and inspiration from working with businesses large and small.
The main insights you will get from this episode are :
- ‘You are everyone you’ve ever met’: we learn from the people we meet and the situations we’re in - this builds resilience, grounds us to reality and gives us an understanding of others’ lived experiences.
- There are 5 enablers and 7 behaviours for being ‘human’; storytelling plays a big role, as does listening, and seeing things from different perspectives - the emotional experience is far more important than the functional one.
- Organisations nowadays are full of humans who aren’t allowed to act in a human way because there are too many barriers; companies should unwind restrictive policies and procedures to allow human behaviour.
- Repressing natural human behaviour removes freedom and results in a lack of common sense; a lack of humanity; and a waste of time (and potentially money) – we should look at the human experience from the customer angle given that what’s good for customers is good for business.
- Staff must be empowered to act instinctively to help, for example - this requires a healthy culture in which senior managers allow people to do the right thing for the customer, which can then be discussed and used as a learning.
- Customer experience is an ‘outside-in’ process: human bias means that we see the world from the inside out - from our own perspective - and organisations are no different; they are closer to their own business than their customers.
- We must see business as the planet exerting a strong pull that needs to be resisted in order to remain close to customers - decision-makers cannot really know what customers want and it is a continuous process of finding broader perspectives and connecting with customers.
- Intentional curiosity makes for competitive advantage, and leaders must face uncomfortable truths, both in the form of data, but even more hard-hitting, hearing them first hand.
- Common myths in terms of the customer experience are:
· Feedback – countless surveys produce huge amounts of data that convince senior leaders they are close to what matters, giving a false sense of security – it’s about genuine understanding.
· Loyalty – does not exist, it is more a matter of usefulness; if senior leaders believe customers are loyal, they stop trying
· ROI – must prove how it adds revenue; a bad customer experience is very expensive to provide and causes customers to leave; it is the cost of inaction.
- Data gives comfort and certainty and allows management around figures - pioneers are needed to make fundamental changes and see the customer experience in a more human-centred way, e.g. trying to overcome the inequality that wealth and confidence buy a good experience.
- ‘In a crisis, service matters’: companies should aim to give good service to everyone, to save people time and stress so that they can enjoy life as much as possible.
- We must work on our own ‘inside-out’ process and give ourselves time to be – organise our thoughts, make a commitment to something that could be a starting point for so much. Just try! If in doubt, be human and learn from mistakes.