How to Use Sports Psychology for Better Customer Experience Results

I spent a decade of my life serving the community in Toronto, Canada as a children’s Karate instructor. As a young man who knew nothing about sports psychology, I had to navigate my way around challenging children. While I taught them self-defense and the importance of discipline and respect, these special children taught me valuable lessons for a customer experience career yet to come.

I must have met hundreds if not thousands of children during those good old days. Some children came with great talent, physically strong but no motivation. You can tell that their parents forced them to come to Karate classes; probably to get disciplined. These children preferred to spend their Saturday mornings somewhere else besides being in my class. Other children came to me were highly motivated. You can tell because their faces were glowing with enthusiasm. They wanted to be the next “Bruce Lee”. But these highly motivated kids often were scrawny and underdeveloped with little or no natural talent. When parents dropped off their students to me, I began to ask myself two questions: do the kids want to be here and do they have skills or know how. This valuable lesson changed my perspective on getting things done as a former Karate instructor and now as a customer experience leader.

Solving for Little or No Engagement With Cross Functional Teams

Similar to the experience of many others, I was often frustrated during the early days of my customer experience career. It was extremely difficult to get others to do things especially if they did not report into me. I only became successful when I began to analyze my team members using the same sports psychology principles that the Karate children taught me years ago.  Are they motivated and do they have skills or know how?

Classify Teams According to Two Dimensions of “Want to” vs “How to”

I classified my cross functional team members in two sports psychology dimensions: Want to vs How to. The first dimension, “want to” is the person’s desire, willingness, or motivation to help you in your customer experience efforts.  Does this person even want to be on your cross functional customer experience team or is the person forced into it?

The second dimension, “how to” is the person’s know-how in terms of what to do. Sometimes as customer experience leaders, we take things for granted. If it is easy for us, it must be easy for everyone else. But that is not necessarily true.  So, assessing a team member’s ability or skill to accomplish even the simplest task is vital to your customer experience success.

The Four Quadrants of Classifying Team Members 

Putting the two dimensions of “want to” vs “how to” at work results in four quadrants or groups of individuals that you will encounter during your customer experience role.

Group A: (Lost Sheeps) “Want To But Don’t Know How”

This group consists of team members who believe in customer experience and want to engage. However, the individuals do not have the skills to help because they lack knowledge. I strategically label them as “lost sheep” because they need direction.

Group B (Busy Beavers): “Want To And Know How To”

These are your allies and they produce for you. They are highly motivated and productive because they believe in the customer experience cause. They are actively involved and busy at work to help you and the organization to achieve its customer experience goals. I label this group as “Busy Beavers” for the amount of work that they produce. Eventually, the goal is to move everyone from the other groups into this group.

Group C (Sleepy Owls): “Don’t Want To But Know How-To”

This is the smart group of individuals who has all the skill and capabilities, but they are sitting in your team meetings with their arms crossed. They are disengaged and likely to be obsessively checking their phones and laptops for messages while you are trying to lead the meeting. They are your underachievers. They are asleep at your meetings and I label them as “Sleepy Owls”.

Group D (Crying Infants): “Don’t Want To And Don’t Know How”

This is the most challenging of the four groups. They are not all that motivated, and they do not have the skills or know-how to help. They do not see the benefit of helping the customer experience cause. Even if they do, they do not have the skills or knowledge to help you. You might see them openly challenge the rationale for customer experience. I call these individuals, “Crying Infants” because they like to complain, and they have no skills.

How to Create Specific Development Plans For Each Group

The first stage to getting great customer experience results relies on your ability to assess your team make up and identify which of the four groups they belong to.  After you have accomplished that, you need a plan to specifically to coach and develop each group.  This can not be a one size fits all approach. 

Group A: “Lost Sheeps” Need Direction

I consider this group as my aspiring customer experience experts. They are likely one of the easier groups to deal with because they are already convinced that customer experience is a great thing. You just need to show them how.

“Lost Sheeps” need to be micromanaged at the beginning of your customer experience efforts until you are confident that they know how. As a customer experience leader, I am amazed to discover that skills natural to me are often difficult for many in the organization. Basic things such as leading meetings, developing action plans, and tracking projects can be foreign to so many depending on their level and function within the organization. Never assume that your team knows how. At the beginning, you will need to hand hold and do the heavy lifting and let the “Lost Sheeps” learn from you.  Eventually, “Lost Sheeps” will become “Busy Beavers”. At that time. You can unleash them into the organization.

Group B: Show “Busy Beavers” Lots of Love

Cherish this group!  They are key to your customer experience success.  As “Busy Beavers” begin to produce customer experience results for you, celebrate every success and keep them motivated.  Make “Busy Beavers” your customer experience heroes and role models.  Utilize them to seed customer experience in their own teams and functions.  

Group C: Show “Sleepy Owls” WIFM (What Is In It For Me)

“Sleepy Owls” need some motivation or else they just might fall asleep in your cross functional team meetings. They have skills, know-how and can certainly help your customer experience efforts but they simply choose not to engage. You need to fire them up!

Your first task is to access what makes these individuals tick. It most likely isn’t customer experience at all. Get into their heads operationally. Sales care about generating revenue. Customer service is worried about call volumes. In order to motivate “Sleepy Owls”, you need to see the world through their eyes.

You next critical step is to show “Sleepy Owls” how they can achieve their own operational goals by helping you with your customer experience initiative. You must, therefore, be able to tie a customer experience action to an operational metrics. For instance, fixing a particular product issue will reduce customers from calling into customer service by a certain percent. Similarly, sales calling unhappy customers back in a closed loop process is a golden opportunity to reduce customer churn by a certain percentage. Once your cross functional team sees how by helping you, they are helping themselves with their departmental goals, that is when they will start to happily engage.

Group D: “Crying Infants” Need The Most Care

“Crying Infants” similar to “Daydreaming Owls” need to be motivated first and foremost.  As a way to motivate them, you would follow the same steps by connecting customer experience to their operational goals. Once they are motivated, you will then need to coach and guide them through exactly what you need them to do as you have done for “Lost Sheeps”.   

Applying these sports psychology principles to your customer experience practice will help you rally the troops and get things done and avoid frustration. Write in the comments and let me know which groups are most common in your cross functional teams.  

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Unsplash photos: Sheep by Yoonbae Cho, Beaver by Du?an Smetana, Owl by Jon Del Rivero, Baby by Katie Smith, Plans by Alvaro Reyes