
Why leaders should learn to value the boundary spanners
Entrepreneurial talent who work with other teams often run into trouble with their managers. Here are ways to get the most out of your ‘boundary spanners’...
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by Seán Meehan, Charlie Dawson Published July 3, 2021 in Brain Circuits • 3 min read
In relation to being customer-led, it is helpful to recognise two particular belief systems.
Most companies have inside-out beliefs. Executives making decisions are separated by layers of people and process from their customers. They are surrounded by financial reports, quarterly targets and a sense that their company matters a great deal. But of course, to their customers it might not.
Customer-led beliefs work outside-in. The business understands the problems their customers really want to solve or the outcomes they want, and they can see this is bigger than the products or services they buy today. By finding new and better ways to solve these customer problems or achieve these outcomes, by innovating, customers get continually growing value.
If you start off inside-out then the biggest barrier to becoming outside-in is the perceived risk. Customer-led initiatives have some difficult qualities – they tend to be clearly good for customers but much less clearly good for the business, at least in the short term. Think about reducing queues for example – better for customers, costly for the business, but not clear whether customers will spend more as a result.
Because of this, inside-out companies prefer the status quo to taking steps to become customer-led.
But it can be done. There are four stages in to moving from an inside-out belief system to one that is outside-in.
If you want to learn more about what we learned about how to be customer-led, dive deeper with our book the Customer Copernicus.
Martin Hilti Professor of Marketing & Change Management and Dean of Faculty at IMD
Seán Meehan is Professor of Marketing & Change Management at IMD. He works with senior executives globally to help them provide a focus on customer value creation. Seán is the author of The Customer Copernicus.
Founder of The Foundation
Charlie Dawson is Founder of The Foundation, a London-based consultancy that helps organizations create customer-led success.
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