I have observed an interesting paradox in my work with leadership teams around the world.

The more successful an organization becomes, the more deeply it tends to believe in the assumptions that produced that success.

After all, why question something that has worked so well?

The problem is that those assumptions gradually become invisible boundaries, defining what leaders consider possible and worth pursuing.  This is why I challenge executives with the wise, old maxim:

You can't see the label if you're inside the jar.

The real challenge of market transformation is not coming up with more innovative ideas. It's recognizing that the boundaries within which you are searching for those ideas may themselves be obsolete.

So from the perspective of future-shaping strategy, the most valuable person in the room is not the one with the deepest industry expertise, but the one who asks the seemingly absurd questions.

Here's a question worth bringing to your next leadership meeting:

What are we exceptionally good at today that may be preventing us from seeing our greatest opportunity of tomorrow?

#Leadership #Strategy #Transformation

Not every innovation makes life better.

Sometimes they solve one problem by creating another.

Europe's new bottle caps remain attached after opening so they can be recycled together with the bottle.

Clearly a sustainability supporting innovation. So a good thing, right?

Unless you're trying to drink from the bottle.

Then the cap keeps getting frustratingly in the way.

Similarly, McDonald's redesigned its McFlurry cup with a ridged paper lining. It insulates better, keeping the ice cream cold and customers' hands warm.

But it also makes it impossible to scrape out the pockets of ice cream and topping stuck to the lining, leading to a sense of disappointment and waste.

Both innovations solved a real problem.

They also created a new one.

I often see companies celebrate the success of an innovation because it improved a targeted metric, such as lower waste or higher efficiency.

Meanwhile, customers quietly ask:

"Why did you make my experience worse?"

Innovations shouldn't simply shift or substitute a problem.

At their core, they must have a razor sharp focus on the customer experience, and make sure that it is unilaterally enhanced as the result.

Without any trade-offs.

#Innovation #CustomerExperience #Leadership

Thailand welcomes more than 30 million visitors each year.

If you've traveled there, you probably benefited from one of its smartest innovations...

...without ever noticing it.

As Virginia Postrel observed:

"The most successful innovations are the ones that we stop noticing almost immediately."

Think about your first couple of hours after landing in a foreign country.

You're tired and you are trying to get oriented. Every extra hurdle adds a little more stress. I call this arrival anxiety.

Thailand boldly addressed one of these hurdles.

Instead of asking,

"How can we help visitors assimilate?"

it asked a different question:

"How can we accomodate our visitors?"

So what did Thailand do to minimize arrival anxiety?  It's one of the few countries where hybrid electrical sockets are widely installed throughout hotels, airports, offices, allowing visitors from much of the world to plug in their devices without an adapter. 

The brilliance is the thinking behind the socket. Most companies focus on helping customers navigate complexity. Yet the best innovations are the ones that eliminate complexity altogether.  Ones that we adopt seemlessly without barely noticing. 

So here's my question for you: What innovative solution have you introduced to your customers lately, that they welcomed and adopted immediately without even taking note?  

#Innovation #CustomerExperience #Strategy #Leadership

Quick, what should be the ultimate aim of any business? 

It’s to solve a problem that their target customers have. 

Or, to put it more irresistibly – to transform a customer frustration, inconvenience, point of pain into a point of delight, comfort, efficiency.

This powerful focus is a central pillar of the Slingshot Framework.  And while it seems simple and intuitive, it remains elusive for most companies - even with accelerating application of technology and customers’ ability to express their discontent.

According to the most recent Customer Rage Survey, nearly 80% of Americans had a service or product problem in 2025, and 2/3 of them felt "rage" about it. This means that over half of all customers in arguably the world’s most customer-centric economy felt anger and indignation about how they were treated by companies.

Furthermore, US households lose $165B a year to the "annoyance economy "  - which is time, fees and irritation related to navigating their daily lives.

So how do you think your customers would rate you on this survey? 

And what are you doing to actively transform customer discontent into delight?

#customerexperience #leadership #strategy

In my work with executive teams, I use a simple but highly revealing diagnostic consisting of five basic questions.

On average, leaders get 2 out of 5 questions correct, including those of the most innovative companies. 

What this reveals is not a lack of expertise, but the presence of self-imposed boundaries. And the deeper the expertise, the more likely that assumptions go unquestioned and new possibilities remain undiscovered.

If you’re curious where your boundaries lie, message me for the test. 

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

#Leadership #Strategy #Innovation #Transformation #ExecutiveLeadership