Page 29 - Delivering Authentic Customer Experiences

Principle 1 Delivering Authentic Customer Experiences

Keeping it real

Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to work with
organisations which share my values. This has meant I’ve been
able to focus on doing the best job I could, rather than battling
over things that meant more to me than to them. Of course, there
has been the odd exception that has left me feeling frustrated,
unfulfilled and exhausted. At the time, I didn’t appreciate the
profoundly negative effect the feeling of being forced to
compromise my values would have. Here’s an example that
happened early in my career. It made me think about what was
important and how the behaviour of leaders can have a significant
impact on those they work with, and on the end user.
I was asked to oversee an underperforming sports facility on
behalf of another company - an unusual and interesting request
which I was happy to accept. In truth, I was flattered to be asked,
believing I had the skills to help and it would be good for my
continual development.

It wasn’t pretty! Every question I asked, or area I investigated,
opened a new can of worms. Even though I regard myself as a
reasonably resourceful person, there’s only so much I could do
with little authority or budget to address the problems I
uncovered. To cut a long story short, the organisation was already
beyond saving and the job was really about exit management.

I remember the board informing me of their decision to close the
facility, which didn’t come as a total surprise in the circumstances.
The astonishing thing was the manner in which they intended to
do it. There was no exit strategy, and the bitter icing on this
particular cake was when I learned that the staff would be notified
they no longer had a job via a note on the door the day after the
closure. I was flabbergasted, vigorously opposed their intended
course of action and informed them that if they didn’t notify their
team in a more respectful and decent way, I would. As it

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