Making money and delivering growth are at the core of modern business leadership. Deliver these two things, and the rest will take care of itself. In the late ‘90s things started to slowly change. Organisations became more aware of the world around them — not just of customers and employees, but also of their footprint on the wider world.
Still, mid-way through the 2020s, the majority of business leaders put profit, growth and shareholders, above customers, employees, and everybody else.
The narrative around customer experience may have changed markedly in the last 10-to-15 years, but the degree to which organisations practice what they preach varies enormously.
There have, of course, been great business leaders who’ve built outstanding organisations with great customer experience — Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos are two that spring to mind. But making money and keeping shareholders happy remain the top priority for all but a very select few superstar CEOs.
Leaders rarely challenge the norm
Business leaders who are prepared to challenge the norm, “are few and far between because [they] have to push against cultural norms,” Ian Golding, CCXP, global customer experience specialist and CEO of the Customer Experience Consultancy, told Customer Experience Magazine.
“The shareholder is the most important thing. This is why leaders behave as they do because they want to keep their job,” commented Golding.
But Bruce Temkin wants to change that — one conversation at a time.
Temkin, widely considered one of the founding figures customer experience (CX) , wants to inspire business leaders to build and lead human-centric organisations. He aims to facilitate a new wave of compassionate decision making that can improve the world and deliver results. “Humanity At Scale is about inspiring and empowering leaders,” Temkin told Customer Experience Magazine.
“I have to show them that leading in a human-centric way is not only something that will make them feel better, because they are improving the world and the people around them, but it will help them achieve their goals,” he added.
Temkin has been refining Humanity At Scale since he left the Qualtrics Institute in February of last year. In the last 12 months, he has launched an official website, weekly newsletters and in February a podcast series.
Temkin aims to “spark new leadership thinking”, and provide concrete ‘how to’ advice on creating human-centric organisations.
Sparking new thinking
His ideas focus on four main areas — raising empathy around how humans think, feel and act. Inspiring leaders to recognise and prioritise the people they impact. Sharing best practices that will help leaders act and promoting technology that will “uplift humanity.”
Before the end of the year, Temkin hopes to add some form of certification around human-centric leadership. “My vision is that leaders will augment whatever skills and capabilities they have with a human-centric approach,” said Temkin.
“This isn’t a separate discipline, but a set of capabilities that any leader can add-on to however they lead,” he added.
Temkin’s ideas are insanely ambitious and will be for many business leaders too abstract a concept to either grasp or implement.
However, as Temkin points out, nearly all business leaders already have a strong understanding of how humanity contributes to their success. But only a few have decided to embrace it as a core ingredient of their leadership style.
Increasingly polarised business and political environment
Humanity At Scale has launched into an increasingly polarised political and business atmosphere. Since the turn of the year major corporations including Walmart, Pepsi Co, McDonalds, Meta and Amazon have announced plans to rollback diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.
The work from home (WFH) vs return to office (RTO) debate has also stepped up a notch on both sides of the Atlantic, with large corporations ordering employees back to the office in a bid to improve productivity.
Temkin is undeterred by the volatile environment. “I see it as a better incubator for my work. When people see that humanity is wavering, they yearn for stories, opportunities and inspiration from another direction,” said Temkin.
“If the world was rosy, and there was widespread clarity around humanity’s leadership, my work would be much less important,” he added.
Building human-centric organisations
Despite what some cynics may believe, there are examples of human-centric organisations out there. ALA Insurance, a small brokerage based in North Yorkshire has made giving its staff and customers ‘peace of mind’ a priority.
The end results are impressive. Sales are up over 30% each year, for the last two years, it has a 94% Trustpilot score, and its customer support staff booked over £1 million each last year — two thirds more than the national industry average.
ALA Insurance’s work impressed judges at last year’s UK Customer Experience Awards. At the event in October the firm picked up golds in best customer service and employee experience categories.
But how organisations can take this human approach and scale it, is a major challenge. Too often corporate growth dilutes the human element. “It is the desperate search for scale is where we have lost humanity,” said Golding.
Using technology to scale
Since the first industrial revolution, the quest for productivity and scale has driven IT adoption. It is a familiar complaint from CX practitioners, that organisations turn to technology with little regard for customer or human outcomes.
Some would argue the pell-mell rush to embrace technology and more recently gen AI has further dehumanised organisations.
How AI will be used “is a huge question. You can’t just turn it on. [Organisations] have to understand what customer journeys look like, what the employee experience looks like,” commented Golding.
Efficiency vs human augmentation
How technology and in particular AI, is implemented will likely determine whether human-centric organisations will scale. Will AI replace employees, or help workers become more productive? (And even empathetic?) The jury is still out.
Ultimately, AI is a tool, and it’s up to leaders to determine how it’s going to be rolled out. “If leaders view it as an efficiency tool, then AI will go in a particular direction in an organisation,” said Temkin.
“If leaders view AI as a human-enhancing tool, it’ll flow in a different direction,” he added.
Humanity At Scale aims to promote the use of technology (including AI) to enable human-centric organisations, not suffocate them. “I’m trying to get leaders to think about how they choose to use AI,” said Temkin.
In the hands of Gen Z
If Temkin is successful in influencing a generation of business leaders, the results won’t appear for another 10-to-15 years. Humanity At Scale is a long-term play. And Gen Z — those born between 1997 and 2012 — will have a deciding say.
“Younger people want more purpose in their lives around work,” said Temkin.
“Their reaction to seeing a lot of conflict is a yearning for ideas that negate some of that and bring people together,” he predicted.
Given the ongoing turmoil in the world, it would be foolish to make assumptions about the future of work. If the market crash in 2008 and COVID have taught the world anything, it’s that such ‘black swan’ moments will happen again.
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