Customer Obsession

  • AI & Leadership: The risk of not being data-driven

    Last month, I sat across from a CMO who runs marketing for a $400 million services business. She told me her company had invested heavily in a new CRM, built dashboards for every team, and launched a data analytics project with a major consulting firm. Then she said something that really got my attention: “We’ve… Read more

  • The MRI: Your Business Framework for AI Leadership and Acceleration

    Most businesses know they need an AI strategy. Few have the framework to make it stick or the insight to understand why the human side of implementation is where it all succeeds or fails. We are at an inflection point. AI is no longer a future consideration, it is a present-tense competitive reality. The leaders… Read more

  • Your Strategy Is NOT the Problem

    Your CULTURE is. And if you’re a senior leader right now, that’s either the most uncomfortable truth you’ve read today or the most liberating. OFFER: If you make it to the end of this article, I’ll give you a free digital copy of The Human Culture Imperative. Not as a gimmick, but because if this message resonates,… Read more

  • The CEO’s Fog: Why Great Companies Fail to See the Iceberg

    In the history of business, companies rarely fail because they lacked data. They fail because of  The Fog. As a senior leader, you’re expected to see the future. Yet many executives spend their days driving strategy through a windshield covered in mist. That fog usually comes from two places: 1. External Blindness – not clearly seeing what… Read more

  • “‘You Can’t Handle the Truth’: Why Most Leaders Say They Want Clarity — But Won’t Take the First Step”

    In A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson delivers the iconic line: “You can’t handle the truth.” In the end, though, the truth always prevails. Building a business that succeeds in its early years is challenging. Sustaining that success as the organization grows is even harder and it starts with leaders being willing to face the truth,… Read more

  • “But We Don’t Have Any Customers!”

    That was the response when John Stanhope stood up to deliver his first address as Chancellor of Deakin University in 2016 and declared he wanted to make the university customer-centric. John Stanhope AM standing in front of Deakin University, Geelong, Australia. The academics were genuinely confused. Customers? This is a university, not a retailer. I… Read more