Building an Experience Mindset: New Research & Best Practices

Companies that prioritize both the customer experience and their employee's experience grow at twice the rate of companies that prioritize only one or neither.

How does a focus on employee experience directly lead to customer and revenue growth?

We were thrilled to welcome Tiffani Bova to CMO Coffee Talk last Friday to share new research and insights from her latest book The Experience Mindset.

Chat highlights from both sessions, including links to numerous additional resources from Tiffani's research and work, are linked below.

If you are a CMO or head of marketing and want to join a community of 2,600+ of your peers, let me know or click here to learn more and sign up.

Business is picking up big time from a P/E perspective!

Are you just seeing a lot of roles?

asynchronous work and working out loud

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Experience_Mindset/gE6GEAAAQBAJ?gbpv=1

This blog post has a good summary of her reccos: https://qz.com/4-ways-to-increase-accountability-for-customer-and-empl-1850529185

Stats here: https://www.tiffanibova.com/experiencemindset/

There are new tools and platforms for EX, question becomes who will want to own the expense and resources. HR vs. Marketing.

HR typically does not have budget.

Documentation is key.

Learned that from maximum async open source projects. Do what feels like over documentation, and it’ll be just right.

Here are a few other reads I came across recently: https://fortunly.com/statistics/job-satisfaction-statistics/

https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/culture/employee-engagement-statistics/

One strategy is rotating team meeting time each month, so that for 1 month the folks in extreme time zones have a challenge, but it’s not persistent. We also stay away from Mondays and Fridays for team meetings

You might want to find out if they are morning or evening people..

Exactly, ask yourself: do you really need to meet or can this be discussed via other communication methods

I managed a team with members on both coasts, EMEA and APAC - we found a time that worked for everyone for a team meeting and people who had to work off hours for that meeting worked adjusted day and actually loved it. We collaborated online outside of that and worked very well as a team.

Agree on recording - we used Zoom. And we also did a quick Slack thing every Monday - quick form - top 3 things I’m working on this week and a separate “I need help on”.? Really kept us connected.

If / when it fits — ideas on employee engagement: 1. Think of all employees like creatives “they want to build their books” - how do you facilitate that? 2. Allianz had an amazing many ways of engaging employees — monthly SOAR awards peer to peer. 3. Small things are big things for helping people feel appreciated — highlight work on Town Halls (call out names specifically, etc.) — Employees are our most important resources

A yearly onsite sometimes satisfies those folks to feel included.

We use avoma recordings, their AI generates meeting summary with tagged notes. Team loves it, esp those who miss or are on off hours

This could have been an AI prompt is the new "this could have been an email"??

Put the video into ChatGPT and query it

I’m waiting for AI to clone me for meetings

How many of us really go back and watch a meeting we missed?

“No-one"

Our IT dept won’t let us use any AI tools for meeting recordings bc of security and GDPR, etc.

We also record sales meetings with avoma and AI meeting summary is injected into Salesforce records so we finally have some good salesforce note taking hygiene as well

Async video. Love that

the folks at Avoma, Gong, and other meeting recording vendors have pretty good docs you can share with IT/SEcurity or even get them all on the phone. We are a security company and our security team was impressed with Avon’s security models

Our APJ Team would actually watch the team meeting videos where they couldn’t make it.? They’d ask questions about it when we met separately.? So it does happen.? But I don’t go back and watch meetings :-)

We do a lot of quick videos, but not for communicating something big. More for context adding context on something that’s easier to say than write out

Gong latest release is AMAZING for notes, outlines and to-dos

Also for standups.

I used to do a morning “vibe check” where everyone in the (small) team uploads a 30 second “how’s it going” kinda thing.

+1000 — ESPECIALLY Women — and ESPECIALLY when you start a role so it does not all of the sudden change when you realize you cannot keep it up.

Involve the team in making schedule decisions, our crew did a great job of collaborating to create meeting and communication patterns that work for all, sharing the pain of yucky times over time

I like the one day a week for all the late/early calls.

Agree with boundaries and agendas. I was so sick of joining meetings that had no focus or outcome.? I started declining any meeting that did not have an agenda associated.

Def block the calendar for can’t-move family stuff. I have to leave to get the kids at 4:45, so my cal is blocked at 4:30 to avoid that meeting time slot

I tried no meeting WED. It worked for like 2 weeks

Never had no meetings work.? We had Wellness Fridays but the CEO would call meetings that day at one company for Exec Staff (Said they helped? his wellness)

We did “no meeting Fridays” and it worked very well.

Introduce Fun!

1. Think of all employees like creatives “they want to build their books” - how do you facilitate that? 2. Allianz had an amazing many ways of engaging employees — monthly SOAR awards peer to peer. 3. Small things are big things for helping people feel appreciated — highlight work on Town Halls (call out names specifically, etc.) — Employees are our most important resources

1000% Think about everyone who chipped in!

AND check the list with others on the team so that you do not inadvertently miss someone

Always start marketing staff meetings with shout-outs!

I did shoutouts every week in my marketing update to the company. People appreciated the mentions — especially those who I might not have talked to that week on a zoom call or that were in a meeting with me. Goes a long way.

Our weekly meeting starts with 1 Question for fun that everyone answers and shoutouts. The shoutouts idea has gone viral and most teams that have regular meetings across the company now start or end with shoutouts

We used Bonusly to give shoutouts and points, they could convert to gift cards, etc. Every employee got X amount of points to give on monthly basis

On the video collaboration front - our team uses Loom to collaborate with our colleagues in Australia: Loom: Async Video Messaging for Work

Modeling is big here. If we don’t do it, no one else will.

It starts at the top. I’m going to challenge our exec team to do high-fives or shout-outs weekly. THAT feels doable.

just in case people haven’t seen this, this is a very useful tool to help you manage the time zone suckiness https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

We also had a “CMO Circle” award once a month for a team member. My direct reports were not eligible, but they nominated the team member each month.

On the video collaboration front, our team uses Loom to collaborate with colleagues in AUS Loom: Async Video Messaging for Work - works great

From a connectedness standpoint - we started our weekly pulses (all company Monday meeting for dept updates) with an icebreaker question that is started by a new employee each week. We’re 15 people, so everyone is able to get to know each other and it’s filled a bit of a gap from the lack of office chat

We also have employee awards twice per year, nominated by peers, winners get stock options and cash and Hat and desk trophy

+1 To give the “how to handle / the script” as a lot of jr team members use the “we don’t meet on Friday"

Tried to make “no meeting day” work across two different companies. The biggest challenge is for some people schedules are so packed that if you want to try to meet, the next available day is 3 weeks from now and it slows some of the projects down - especially when everyone is remote. It works for some people but I gave up on mine

If it comes from the top, it can work. Otherwise it never will. Also instead of saying “no meetings” we said, “No team meetings” that day.

Not realistic with larger teams we tried for 5 months

Tues and Thurs we have no meeting mornings with blocked time across the team for individual work time. Folks said they were sharper in the morning so wanted to use the morinings as individual time. We also found 2 half days was better than 1 full day

We hold a balance holiday on the first Friday of every month. It is almost a religion and is adhered to from the top down.

We used to do Two Lies and a Truth for new Team Members joining our team at one company.? It was a great way to get to know the new folks.? They provided the 2 Ls + 1 T - and it got very creative.

One other thing we tried is a daily block for leadership as needed. We don’t use it much, but if we needed to connect on something asap, we had that block available.

the problem is the disasters NEVER know that THEY are the disaster

I would generally suggest to never just scheduling off hours meetings without asking what they are comfortable with. My former APAC team member wanted to meet 8pm their time and have the next morning off. When I did my 1:1s with APAC they were between 9-10pm so it’s comfortable for them.

Don’t make it a group grope therapy session!

groping will get you in trouble

I love taking groups through Myers Briggs and reinforcing how we all best work and dovetail together with different personality types!

Platinum Rule idea is great suggestion.

Hats off to the introverted leaders!

6 genius book is amazing by Patrick

Good point, also lots of cultural sensitivities around recognizing individuals.? Our team in Sweden does not like it when individuals are called out.? It’s uncomfortable as success or a good effort is always a team thing.

https://hbr.org/2007/08/the-three-signs-of-a-miserable

Love this chain. I took a leadership class centered around psychological safety at work and it changed how I thought about conflict

“Let them make decisions” +1000

https://www.amazon.com/Orbiting-Giant-Hairball-Corporate-Surviving/dp/0670879835

It was through Pavilion - a 3 week course that was one section of a 4 part series. Incredible teacher Joelle Kaufman

It always amazes me that other leaders resent that we are seen as better leaders because we take care of our people

I had a boss once tell me that he was concerned I was not doing my job well because my team had too much respect for me and their satisfaction level was too high. SERIOUSLY

?that says more about him than you!

And the yelling doesn’t work!

That is insecurity at the highest level because they can’t be the leader that you all are!!

Table Group is Lencioni’s company - have had them do workshops - they are fantastic

Unfortunately the people who need the course aren’t self-aware enough to take it/prioritize it.

Always keep a box of Kleenex is on your desk u learned from one of my bosses.

Always ask at the end of meetings… what decisions can we make now to move forward

Agreed re swearing - good for any hobby

Have a great weekend friends!!