Authentic, self-determined loyalty only occurs after hard-earned, authentic trust is well established. This is true for interpersonal relationships just as it is for the relationships between customers and firms or between employees and firms. Trust is always a fundamental prerequisite to loyalty. If you are serious about earning sustainable and authentic loyalty, you must have established an authentic and thorough foundation of trust.

Once you have gained trust, the next natural step in your customer relationships is loyalty. The “buy 12 cups of coffee and get the 13th cup free” type of loyalty behaviors some companies use to bribe through discounts or freebies are not sustainable. You have to keep giving the discounts to continue to get the behaviors. The type of blind loyalty demanded by drug warlords or mafia boss “leaders” who use fear, manipulation or outright bribery is generally feigned as well. When a more powerful, more frightening or higher paying leader comes along, loyalty is quickly questioned.

One of the greatest teams I ever worked with delivered some amazing, impactful software for a small scrappy startup. We were building something amazing for the world and we knew it. Some of the technologies we worked with were cutting edge. Very few people in the world, at the time, had experience with some of these technologies and documentation was scarce. Our team had to figure a lot of things out and many mistakes were made. Additionally, when we started, we were working in a domain that we knew nothing about. We had to acquire both a tremendous amount of domain knowledge and the requisite technical skills in order to succeed together. The team had many ups and downs and overcame some incredible challenges. In the end, the company was successfully acquired by a multi-national, multi-billion dollar enterprise and their services were incorporated into their offerings.

The team learned at an incredible rate and was able to accomplish what felt like super-human things that none of us could have possibly accomplished on our own. If you have had this type of experience in your career, you know what a feeling it is to be a part of a team like this. It is amazing. Looking back, you will reflect on these experiences as the best working experiences of your life. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls these peak experiences for individuals “flow.” This concept of flow extends to high-performing teams. When a team of competent people “flow” together, creativity emerges and they thrive.

Your teams want to produce great things together. They want to build things that will change the world. Change that is worthwhile requires the coordination of many competent minds, communicating and cooperating at scale. Most teams that accomplish worthwhile things, however, don’t start out with all the knowledge required to succeed — they have to figure out how to get it. When equipped with a motivating, worthwhile vision and some initial skills and knowledge, teams learn together and innovate and deliver amazing things. The more they learn, the more they realize how much knowledge is out there that they will never know, but this shared quest is a powerful, creative force for change.

When you have the right people on your team, those who care deeply about solving the problems you intend to solve, they will crave the kind of work environment that pushes the limits of their creativity.

Why Treating Every Client As #1 Gets Us In Trouble

Clarifying Our Vision Through Strategic Stakeholder Prioritization

In any thriving business, possessing a clear, mutually understood vision of whom your organization serves stands as the hallmark of robust strategy and compelling leadership. This understanding becomes particularly critical as organizations expand, necessitating that leadership teams grasp and effectively communicate the complexities of stakeholder hierarchies. These hierarchies guide more informed, effective decision-making that aligns with the organization’s long-term objectives.

However, misconceptions or misalignments within these hierarchies can lead to significant strategic missteps, often manifesting as widespread confusion about the primary focus of service. This blog proposes a structured approach to dissecting and prioritizing stakeholders to ensure targeted, impactful engagements.

Several years ago, I collaborated with a major corporation grappling with a technology crisis. To make a long story short, market criticisms about security vulnerabilities within their key software precipitated a hasty decision to overhaul and re-platform the application. Driven by a reactive concern for market perceptions – primarily focused on stock price impact – the corporation’s leadership mandated a rapid redevelopment cycle. This rush sidelined potential incremental improvements, aiming instead for feature parity with the legacy system.

Upon release, the new version (while technically superior) failed to meet user expectations. This led to market backlash and a tarnished brand reputation. While totally understandable, this scenario exemplifies a breakdown in understanding service hierarchies, where the focus skewed too heavily toward investor concerns at the expense of user satisfaction.

A well-run organization, with highly motivated and aligned people, is a powerful form of high art. It includes the performance art of your people delivering services and coordinating activities at scale and it has artifacts, symbols, and physical art that have the potential to leave a profound impression on the people it touches. The art manifests in and through all of the layers of the organization’s culture.