Organizational Readiness Archives - Page 3 of 5

May 4, 2014October 7, 2023

Blindly Staying the Course When a New Direction Is Needed

The Organizational Schematic

Organizational change and innovation culture are not readily apparent. Whether you lead an organization or are the newest kid on the block, you need to know how things work inside the organization. Don’t bother looking at the organizational chart; that isn’t the way work actually gets done or decisions are made. In fact, much of what is decided is undocumented and the workflow invisible. You know when it is done, or in contrast, when it’s not. But, the in-between state is sometimes really hard to see, especially if you are not looking. There are attributes of a healthy innovation culture that build in safeguards, even when people are not looking. In contrast, all the controls and processes put in place in an unhealthy innovation culture won’t make the organization more innovative any more than an overweight person can think their way to thin.

Bridled and Blind or Agile and Conversant

What is the model inside your organization for staying in tune with a changing business landscape and customer ecosystem? Do you have a way to rationalize what you believe inside the organization with the external customer reality? And, how responsive will you be when something changes? How quickly will you notice and which role or department will it be that senses the change? How will each department be informed? Will they respond in a way that is consistent and uniform with smooth handoffs, or will there be ripple effects, balled dropped, cycles burned and ultimately, opportunities lost? Literally, if your organization’s were a horse, how would you describe it? Bridled and controlled by others, marching blind, or ready to shift directions and conversant?

Organizational Change and Innovation

Most organizations don’t have very authentic dialogue around these subjects let alone operating mechanisms or mental models in place to suddenly shift course. This isn’t good for customers, employees, or for the business. In Chapter 11: Barriers to Innovation and Overcoming the Wall, in my book, The Experience Design BLUEPRINT, I explore these subjects. Readers will gain recipes and tools to have more productive conversations that lead to outcomes beneficial to customers and to the organization.

In that chapter, among other examples, I share how Joe Fugere of Tutta Bella Pizza was able to form a quick response team that seized the opportunity to serve Tutta Bella Neapolitan style pizza to the President of the United States along with 65 other people aboard Air Force One. I also share how a large mobile operator with vastly more resources habitually lets opportunities pass them by. If you want a healthier innovation culture inside your company read the stories, reflect on the recipes, and begin to shift your conversation; Your future stakeholders will be happy you did.

Greg Olson is a business coach to leaders and the author of The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations. Chapters in the book that pertain to this blog post include Chapter 8: The Promise Delivery System and Chapter 11: Barriers to Innovation and Overcoming the Wall. Read it on Kindle or any device using the free Kindle Reader application.

April 21, 2014October 7, 2023

Your Busy Program is Running You

This is a message to leaders everywhere. Perhaps you lead a major corporation, a startup, a non-profit, a small business, or a government agency; it really doesn’t matter, the message is all the same.

Enough! We’ve all been running the busy program, or rather, the busy program has been running us. It’s a bit like driving down the highway, but going too fast to read the signs passing you by. The symptoms vary but may look like: vacations become working vacations; you’re never “off” the clock; there is no time to relax and even in your “idle” time your busy planning your busy time.

The trouble is these “highway signs” you can’t read in your life as your forging full speed ahead are actually opportunities passing you by. One sign that you missed might have said, BIGGEST INNOVATION OPPORTUNITY. Another might say YOUR DAUGHTER NEEDS YOU. Most people never slow down, in order to speed up, that is until they have a personal crisis. For some, that might be a heart attack, death of a loved one, cancer, divorce, or the recognition that your family no longer recognizes you.

It’s time to WAKE UP! You can choose to stop running the busy program at any time. You don’t need a crisis to have a new consciousness.

“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” Henry David Thoreau

Ask yourself what would you do if you had 10 or 20% more capacity? And what about those you lead and interact with. What if each of them had 10 or 20% more capacity? What if that capacity were used to be creative, what would that look like in your organization? What if that additional capacity were put to use solving those persistent, nagging, seemingly unsolvable “wicked” problems. What if that capacity were nobly consumed to live a more healthy lifestyle, or to be more balanced between work and family or personal life? Imagine the kids and Fido seeing more of mom or dad. What if each person WASN’T doing 2 or 3 jobs? What would that mean for your organization? For each of your employee’s experience? For your customer’s experience? What about for the economy?

As you return from this Sunday, whether that was an Easter Sunday for you, or any other Sunday, ask yourself, what if? But, then as soon as you are done asking, do something about it; for you and for those that around you. Chances are, if you are running the busy program, you never saw this message, at least not until somebody that cared, forwarded this post to you.

image of Greg-Olson-Managing Director of Delightability and author of Experience Design BLUEPRINT

Greg Olson is a business coach to leaders and the author of The Experience Design BLUEPRINT:
Recipes for Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations. Chapters in the book that pertain to this blog post include Chapter 8: The Promise Delivery System and Chapter 14: The World of Work has Changed. Read it on Kindle or any device using the free Kindle Reader application.

February 6, 2014October 2, 2023

CVS Pharmacy Writes Future by Saying Good Bye to Cigarettes

Bravo to CVS for their Tobacco Decision

CVS to Stop Selling Tobacco Products

The CVS tobacco decision is heralded by some. Others think it to be a poor decision that will harm earnings and inconvenience customers. If we were living in a different time, with different knowledge, and CVS was scrapping by needing to sell anything in order to put food on the table, I’d agree. But, this isn’t the case. Healthcare has become more complicated, competitive, and future focused. Meanwhile, CVS has become an integrated pharmacy company with a wide and growing breadth of capabilities.

CVS No Longer Smokes Customers

Punching customers in the face and then offering to dress their wounds isn’t consistent thinking and it isn’t good business. With smoking being the leading cause of premature disease and death in the United States and it exacerbating other conditions like hypertension and diabetes, it no longer makes sense for a healthy-human centered business to continue supporting such a deadly habit.

A Polarizing Decision
The decision to stop selling cigarettes and tobacco related product is polarizing. CVS customers that smoke will now likely shop elsewhere for cigarettes and other needed items as well. But, the nonsmoker audience that already eschewed tobacco products will likely see the company as more committed to its promise of helping people on their path to better health. This change actually frees up CVS from conflicting and confusing messages as they begin to offer smoking cessation therapy and engage on a national smoking cessation program.

A Courageous Decision
It is as though CVS is saying, “If you want a serious pharmacy that is interested in making and keeping people healthy, then come to CVS. But, if you demand a nicotine fix from your local pharmacy in addition to making other purchases, then please shop elsewhere.” Saying something IS saying something. CVS will likely attract a multitude of new customers who believe that taking a stand against smoking, is taking a stand towards healthier communities.

“We’ve got 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners who are helping millions of patients each and every day,” said Larry Merlo, the chief executive of CVS Caremark.

In my book, The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations, one of the recipes I share is especially relevant to this story. It is also relevant to every organization you’ll ever be a part of.

From the book:
Recipe #3: Write the Future You Want
Create the stories that you wished customers would retell. Write these down. In Chapter 7: Improving the Journey, you’ll learn some tools and techniques to intentionally design these new customer journeys.

Imagine the powerful stories told by the millions of patients that are helped by the 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners serving across 7,600 CVS stores. Stories about managing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, kicking the smoking habit, getting flu shots, alleviating symptoms, managing diseases, etc. In short, stories about getting healthier, being more comfortable, and managing diseases throughout our human journey.

With customers (patients) at the center of focus and with the future in mind, opportunities abound. CVS and its stakeholders can design new services that win the hearts and minds of customers, increase employee engagement, more than offset the lost revenue from cigarette sales, and ultimately lower the cost of healthcare. But, the product to cut or shape shouldn’t begin and end with cigarettes alone. Fully embracing Recipe #3 will have CVS moving toward a future where other current products are scrutinized and similarly dropped, while other products might be newly introduced. Again, it all depends upon the stories we wish our customers to recall and tell others.

Greg Olson is the author of The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations. See the Book and Author Summary PDF or find the book on Amazon.

February 1, 2014October 2, 2023

What Patient Experience? The Hardest Problems are Invisible and Require New Thinking to Solve

The Patient Journey Starts Before and Ends Long After the Patient Sees the Caregiver

As much emphasis that is placed on patient care and better health, there is an invisible trauma inflicted on patients everyday. Patient experience problems extend beyond the point of care. Misinformation, poor customer service and communications, time wasted, lack of respect, etc. all diminish the positive attributes of medical care. At its worst patients dread the very thing that will make them better.

“First, do no harm” is part of Aim #1: Health Care Must Be Safe in the “Implementing the Quality Chasm Report” a resource from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. While it is necessary for healthcare providers to adopt such a maxim it alone is not sufficient to ensure that harm is not done to patients.

Because the patient experience involves more than the interaction with the caregiver, the physician or nurse alone cannot ensure a great experience. Communications online and with reception staff, lab and testing interactions, and patient billing post services all impact the overall quality of the patient experience. One patient interview revealed angst over an unpaid bill for services provided that the insurance company deemed out of network, even though the specialist the patient saw was in the facilities of the in network provider. The patient was not informed of this nor were they provided any options to visit other specialists. The provider has left a poor brand aftertaste in the mind of the patient who after a year, still refuses to pay the bill, “until things are sorted out”.

The maxim that has guided healthcare professionals for millennia doesn’t penetrate deep enough into the health care system. Employing systems level thinking, and mapping the entire patient journey across all touchpoints can reveal many insights into reducing harm, improving patient care and identifying organizational execution gaps. Results include increased organizational effectiveness, reduced staff turnover, and happier patients and families.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

Patient Experience Problems Span Organizations

Part of the challenge of fixing problems such as healthcare is that the patient experience and problems span many organizations. No one hospital, insurance company or collective can solve the entire problem on their own. Each type of organization has their bias and perspective. Still there exists many opportunities to improve within each organization. To provide remarkable cost effective patient care requires an objective view that spans organizations while never losing sight of the patient perspective. When this happens, we will all feel transformation in a system that today continues to inflict harm to patients.

Get Started: Cure Patient Experience Problems

Charter a team with a vision for improving the patient experience
Get an outsider to facilitate the process
Prioritize and map the patient journeys
Prioritize & implement high impact improvement projects

Want to try it on your own?

Change the conversation in your organization by improving your team’s experience vocabulary. Learn how patients see the healthcare experience differently than you do. Learn about the experience honeycomb, experience hoop and halo, and how to model patient experiences. Then learn how to apply filters, lenses, and levers to improve experiences for patients and for staff. Paying attention to your promise delivery system and the three psychological zones can move a stumbling team forward, turning lackluster experiences into experiences that are remarkable for patients, guests, and caregivers.

The book, The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations, contains 25 examples, 78 images, and 56 recipes that you can immediately apply to your organization no matter the size and type of your organization. Click the image to get the Kindle formatted book that is readable on nearly any device including Kindle, Smartphones, Tablets, Mac or PC, even a web browser. Download the one page book summary along with author contact information. Please reach out if you’d like some help.

January 18, 2014October 2, 2023

Free Q1 Calendar Tool to Make 2014 Sing

Did you get it done today? What about last week, did you finish all that you were piling on? How about last year? How did you fare in 2013? If your year were a song, how would it sound?

If you are like most people, you wandered in the swamp a bit, got some things done, and have a long list of projects that you’re now re-prioritizing. Your 2013 song probably lacked harmony.

We all tend to be overconfident in accomplishing too much in too little time. After all, our ambitions will always exceed our ability to execute, given the available level of resources. It doesn’t matter if we are acting alone or with a large group; smart creative people can simply think of stuff faster than that same stuff can be done. Our priorities change and our lives and workflow are often interrupted by unplanned activities and people. We may even interrupt ourselves as we generate ideas that come at times inconvenient. If our lives in such a state were put to music, that music would be full of staccato notes or might even resemble a cat randomly dancing on a piano keyboard.

I prefer my music and life more harmonious so I created a tool for myself to help stay on top of my changing priorities. I call it my Daily Flight Plan. I print and use this daily. You should use it, or something like it, too.

I periodically update the calendar on this Daily Flight Plan productivity tool and always make it available for FREE. This version has a Q1 2014 calendar along with week numbers. Print one and use it daily to keep track of what you are doing. If you want to learn more about the visual cues at the top then read the original blog post or read my book, The Experience Design BLUEPRINT. If you want to compliment this with a larger format sticky note based wall planner, then check out the PlayBook from the Big Idea Toolkit.

I hope your 2014 is more fun, more impactful, and more meaningful than your 2013 was. If your 2013 rocked then maybe you can lend an ear, hand, brain, or whatever to someone that struggled. While GDP and the stock market are up in the U.S, most people’s personal economies are still fragments of their former selves and not improving rapidly. There are plenty of people that need help. Reach out. For ideas on what to do check out Chapter 14: The World of Work Has Changed in my book, The Experience Design BLUEPRINT.

Good luck, have fun, and make more meaning. I hope your 2014 song is easy on the ears.

December 8, 2013October 2, 2023

Would You Have the Courage to Sound the Alarm at Pearl Harbor or in Your Organization?

Would You Have the Courage to Sound the Alarm?
Did you feel that? Something just changed. There it is again. You see it that time? OK, so you missed it this time, but will you sense it next time? And, if you do, will you do anything about it?

Sometimes a failure to confront reality has no impact. Time innocently advances and things seem to go on as normal. After all, you don’t see the thing that you’re not looking for. And, if it isn’t noisy or disturbing enough, it doesn’t punish you for not noticing.

Lessons from Pearl Harbor
This wasn’t the case on the morning of December 7, 1941 at Opana Point, Hawaii. Here at 7:02 in the morning, privates Joseph L. Lockard and George Elliot had been monitoring the mobile radar unit and noticed a large blip, more like a curtain, on the radar screen. When George reported what they believed to be approaching aircraft, to the information center at Fort Shafter, the United States Army Pacific headquarters, they were assured “not to worry.” The large blip on the new radar was reasoned by the commanding officer, lieutenant Kermit Tyler, to be Army B-17 Flying Fortress bombers that were scheduled to arrive that morning. But, Tyler’s prediction was deathly wrong as Pearl Harbor was under siege less than one hour later.

Some of the lessons of the Attack on Pearl Harbor are resoundingly clear:

Early warning systems can alert you to trouble, but only if you trust what you are are sensing
The chain of command can sometimes prevent the truth from surfacing
Consequences of inaction can be debilitating and devastating

You don’t have to be in the military for these lessons to apply.

Is your organization making these mistakes?

Your organization ignores warning signs and stories shared by employees, customers, and partners. Some people may be labeled as “alarmists”.
Your culture restricts or retards the flow of information across functional areas as well as up and down levels of the organization
Decisions made are protected and unable to be changed or even informed
As the world outside your organization continues to morph, your company further solidifies its inside-out viewpoint; the strategy drifts from a marketplace reality

Signs of decay within the organization
An organization that makes these mistakes can lose market share to more courageous and thoughtful brands that listen and attempt to understand customers. When customers defect it’s rarely about price. People give allegiance to brands that better understand them and deliver customer experiences aimed to win hearts and minds not just profits. But, perhaps as bad, when leadership and the culture within a company commit these offenses the organization becomes crippled and is unable to effectively collaborate across the silos it has created. Information even if it is seen is not absorbed into the knowledge of the organization. There is no rally around the truth. Competitive attacks occur and with greater frequency and intensity and employees further disengage. Problems seem too big to solve and outside of their domain or department. The cycle seems to get worse with each new plan, new launch and new initiative. Customers and employees suffer, but so does the overall health of the organization. When this happens you’ve built a lumpy snowball.

The Curse of the Lumpy Snowball applies to you whether you are an army of 10 or 10,000 or more. No organization is immune, not the government, small or large business, non-profit, budding entrepreneur or neighborhood association in your community.

In my book, The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations, I introduce the Promise Delivery System, a visible closed loop system that revolves around an intended audience and includes four major components:

Develop Strategy
Produce & Deliver
Insights & Validation
Apply Learning

Among other things, the promise delivery system shows how to adjust your strategy based on changing conditions, so your organization’s promises can meet and exceed your audiences’ expectations. Making the organization’s promise delivery system visible helps people to collectively stay on track, employees to be more engaged and know how ideas fit, and to understand how to improve the organization, its offerings, and how it communicates.

With a fully functioning promise delivery system all of the organizations’s stakeholders become the collective everyday intelligence that prevents the need to sound the alarm or declare a state of emergency.

About the Author

Gregory Olson is a consultant, speaker, and author of The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations.

Connect with Greg on Linkedin, Facebook, or Twitter.

Exercises and mental models in the book will build your confidence and competence in envisioning better possibilities and then making them come true, whether you are working alone or alongside a team. Chapters in the book that especially pertain to this post include:

Chapter 1: What Makes and Experience?
Chapter 6: Aiming for Remarkable, Unbroken, and Generous Design
Chapter 8: The Promise Delivery System
Chapter 11: Barriers to Innovation and Overcoming the Wall

See a book summary. Read the book reviews on Amazon. Read The Experience Design Blueprint on Kindle or any device using the free Kindle Reader application or read the full color print edition. Already read it? Please connect and let me know.

December 4, 2013October 2, 2023

Are You an Idea Asset or an Idea Liability?

We do it with food and wine. We also do it with relationships.

We test ideas for value. Sometimes we do this as though we are on autopilot. We’ve all tasted food before committing to consume the entire meal, or sniffed and sipped before imbibing fully in a glass of unfamiliar wine.

But, sometimes in business, in government, and our organizations of all shapes and sizes we forget that we naturally test ideas.

In the confines of our organizations we often act differently than we do “in the wild.” After all, we have departments, hierarchies, biases, tenure, and a culture that isn’t solely our own. Most likely, it evolved and was never intentionally or thoughtfully designed. Our tolerance or intolerance rather, in that environment, changes.

Also, in our own life, we are inherently engaged. This isn’t necessarily the case in the workplace or volunteer space. Employee engagement is down and active disengagement is on the rise. If you work with others, picture this for those around you. That spells increasing trouble for being tolerant, embracing ideas, moving forward and innovation culture in general.

You may see the signs. You may be guilty yourself. We shut down the idea that may come at the wrong time or look unfamiliar. It’s as though we are saying of the new, “Oh no, I don’t drink, or eat, or do anything that you might be offering actually.”

We also shut down ideas that shift us slightly from our comfortable spaces. If the idea comes from outside or the new kid on the block we may especially disfavor it.

Sometimes, we don’t shut the idea down so much as we let it wither on the vine, like forgotten fruit. Avoiding the conversation, avoiding the vote, avoiding … period. It has the same result, namely no chance to be tested for value, no chance for progress.

Chances are, you have some ideas that are worth exploring. You’ve likely had past ideas fall victim to the filibuster of life. But, you’ll have more ideas. I hope they’ll get fair treatment.

Chances are also, that your current colleagues or one that you’ll meet for the first time soon, will have what could be the best idea ever. I hope you’ll really HEAR it.

As you head into the new month and new year, reflect on your own behavior. Choose to be an idea asset not an idea liability. Have the courage and tolerance to help explore, nudge along, develop, and breath life into budding ideas, no matter their sources, so that the benefits of good ideas may be felt in the real world. And, if the idea tested proves not valuable today, well, you’ll have something to morph, put on ice, or draw inspiration from. At the very least, you’ll have a story of collaboration to share over your next meal or sip of wine.

To see contrasting stories between how a large mobile operator and a regional hotel and restaurant chain handle ideas in their respective innovation cultures, check out my book, “The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations.”

See the Book and Author Summary PDF or visit my author page on Amazon.

November 30, 2013October 2, 2023

When Your Organization Becomes a Leaky Boat?

Whether you are the chief executive officer or the newest and lowest ranking employee, you’re often faced (like right now) with a leaky boat. You have a choice to make.

If you are the chief, then you can delegate or trust that others will take care of the problem. You can get involved directly. You can ignore the problem, because you have more pressing matters to attend. Or, you can empower your people to take care of this leak and all future leaks. But, do your people even care?

With employee engagement low and sinking lower, employees have choices to make, too. As an employee, you can abandon the boat. You can choose to fix the leak, even though it might not be your job or the responsibility of your department. You can wait for the boat to fix itself or hope that someone else will. This bystander effect has long since been proven in experiments that most people will simply wait for others to take action; the more people present, the more inaction. You may also choose to ask somebody else to fix the leaky boat. But, chances are, as an employee, you probably don’t care all that much since it isn’t really your boat to fix. Simply put, you aren’t that committed to this boat.

In times of natural disaster people from different walks of life can more easily shed their biases, titles, and beliefs in order to cooperate toward mutual survival and comfort. We need to be able to get to the same level of cooperation in the workplace, short of an actual disaster. The world of work has changed. There has been a flight to values. Too high of a percentage of the people I interviewed for my recent book, changed jobs before my book completed. Organizations continue to shed people like dirty gym clothes and employees, conditioned by the new normal, have recognized that the number of people looking out for their interests can be counted on one finger. So, at the first sign of smoother waters elsewhere, they head for another boat.

If you want to increase engagement and build a better innovation neighborhood inside your organization, then you’ll need new mental models and new conversations. You won’t accomplish much with a leaky boat. For far less than the price of your next non-productive meeting you can pick up a copy of my latest book, the Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations.

You can read the Kindle formatted book on nearly any screen, even in a browser, using the free Kindle Reader Apps. Even if you cherry picked only a few of the 56 recipes and 25 examples to learn by and apply to your business, you’d be well ahead of where you are today. Learn how to be more like bees, and less like raccoons. Discuss how you can emulate a better neighborhood. Make your Promise Delivery System visible. Intentionally design the experiences of internal customers so that together, you can win the hearts and minds of external customers.

Be courageous and start a new conversation; to benefit yourself, your people, your customers, and ultimately the entire organization. Tomorrow there will be new leaks; I promise you that. I only hope you’ll be prepared to handle them.

Greg Olson is the author of The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations. See the Book and Author Summary PDF or find the book on Amazon.

November 27, 2013September 30, 2023

Daily Flight Plan for Productive People

Mobile technology is a great lifter, providing people of most any means the ability to learn, share, communicate and even publish. But, sometimes technology needs to be augmented with objects of a nontechnical nature, like the pencil, the pen, a calendar, ordinary paper, or the movable sticky note.

We’ve all been talking on the phone while at the same time had the need to see a future date, write down what we are hearing on the phone or capture an idea. Of course, if we are really bored on the phone (or in a meeting), we’ll also need a place to doodle. Few reading this may remember the Pee Chee folder, a staple of yesteryear, where students could doodle or otherwise fashion their paper folder treasure with names of rock bands, their best friends, or the like.

Yes, technology might give us the ability to entertain our time away playing games, send messages, or access information, but it doesn’t help in the situations mentioned. For those you still need paper, pencil, a calendar, etc. That is why I created and use the daily flight plan.

Q1 2014 Calendar Daily Flight Plan graphic - Click Image to Download full Size PDF from Delightability — click image to open latest Daily Flight Plan Calendar as PDF

I’ve also made it free and available to you. It is good for all of those things already mentioned but it also gives me the ability to list my dozen or so priorities for the day. I’m guessing you have some too, unless you are a cat. If you are a cat, please turn your reading device over to the person who feeds you. After all, they need your feeding to be a priority.

The Daily Flight Plan is:

Printable
Glanceable
Writable
Carryable
Free

The daily flight plan helps me to stay focused on the things I’ve committed to. It also helps me to understand the trade-offs when I get interrupted and need to shuffle my priorities. It can help you, too.

When you set priorities and make them visible, there is more likelihood you’ll complete them. Having this visibility helps you to prevent committing to things unseen. You can set a task, and know where it falls on the calendar so that you can prevent disappointing yourself or others. You can also see how many weeks away something is. This is especially useful for planning out activities across time rather than leaving everything to be completed at the last minute. The daily flight plan uses week numbers, a universal concept that you can also enable in your electronic calendars.

Fun fact: If you used the daily flight plan M-F for every week of the year, you’d have methodically and predictably completed 3120 tasks that might otherwise be left undone, undeveloped, incomplete or completely forgotten.

On the daily flight plan there are mental reminders for the 3 legged stool, 3 funnels, touchpoints and some guiding principles that can help you stay on top of your game. By doing so, you’ll be much more productive, reduce your stress, and still make time to play those games or actually talk on the phone.

Download your free daily flight plan and begin your path to more productivity.

For more info on the 3 legged stool, touchpoints, and 3 funnels see the prior blog post. These models are also covered in more detail in my book: The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations.

November 14, 2013September 18, 2023

New Book Now Available, The Experience Design BLUEPRINT

The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations

Dear Friends,

Today, we are proud to announce the publication of a new book, The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations. This highly visual book is chock full of 78 images, new mental models, and 56 recipes that you can immediately apply to your own organization, no matter your title or role.

It doesn’t matter where you sit in the organization, happier customers and a healthier organization should be front and center in what you do. But, chances are your mental models and conversations are hangovers from the industrial era. And, that prevents you and your organization from living up to your potential. If you have the courage to stop accepting mediocrity and to do something different, then The Experience Design BLUEPRINT is your actionable practitioner’s guide that can supercharge your team -whether you are an army of 1 or 1000’s.

The first section of the book is about making the invisible, visible. The aim is to see experiences, the organization, and its stakeholders, in a new light. With new eyes, you can envision promising possibilities for your customers, the organization, and those who serve within.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust

The second section of the book is about making those possibilities come to life. It is about transformation and building an innovation neighborhood amid a world of work that has changed. I’ve also revealed the psychology at play and barriers that work against you reaching your intended destination. The second section of the book has more recipes, more models, and examples that will help you have more productive conversations and create a clear path forward so you can feel less argh and more aha!

I’ve done my part by writing the book and sharing models, examples, and step-by-step instructions for how to design new or repair existing experiences. Using nature and neighborhoods as inspiration, I’ve also provided a practical path forward that is equally relevant to the grass roots start up, the business on main street, or the government agency or large enterprise that struggles to remain relevant in an age of relentless change. No matter the size or type of the organization, the contents of this book apply to you as a human and a citizen of the planet.

Now it is time for you to do your part. By reading this book you’ll better understand why you feel the way you do about your own experiences as a customer, an employee, or leader. But, more than that you’ll also better understand how you can shape the experiences of those around you and contribute towards building a more healthy organization and innovation culture. Read a sample of the book. Better yet, invest the equivalent price of 2 cups of coffee and purchase the book. Indulge, get lost in new possibilities, and change your world. Your customers and those serving alongside you will thank you. I thank you too!

I truly hope you enjoy the book, spark new insights, and make a bigger impact in what you do. Oh yeah, one last thing. The book is available in full-color print and also in electronic format, readable on nearly any device. Aside from the various Kindle devices, you can read the book using the free Kindle reading apps available for computers, tablets, smartphones, web browsers.

I want to share this book far and wide, to reach as many people as possible. Please help to spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or whatever medium you prefer.

Very Sincerely,

Greg Olson

about the author

Greg is a virtual chief marketing officer to small and medium sized businesses. He founded Delightability, LLC. with the belief that if you delight customers success will follow. Greg authored The Experience Design Blueprint, a book about designing better experiences. The second half of that book is concerned with building a healthy innovation culture so that once you design better experience you can more easily make them come to life. Gregory Olson’s also authored L’ impossipreneurs: A Hopeful Journey Through Tomorrow, a light-hearted and deadly serious book about a brighter future where we live more meaningful lives, governments invest in people and sustainable progress, and technology serves humans.