You’ve been appointed Chief Experience Officer with a mandate to transform a huge global organization. There’s just one catch: you have no budget, no headcount, and no direct authority. Now what?
Colt Whittall faced just such a challenge as the first CXO for the U.S. Air Force. On the latest episode of Finding Our Way, Peter and I discovered some of the tactics that made him successful over five years in the role:
Drive situational awareness: Good decision making is sometimes most hampered by a simple lack of good information, especially when it comes to the subtle holistic challenges that come with managing complex, multi-platform, multi-channel, multi-modal environments. If you have a mandate to drive broad, systemic change, you’re often the only one who can surface the patterns that just might not be visible to the top decision makers.
Sharpen your messages: The depth and rigor of your analysis won’t gain much traction if people can’t get their heads around it. I loved Colt’s story of whittling his giant report down to “a placemat”—of course you won’t be surprised to hear I’m a believer in the power of the one-pager! He also refined his messages through repetition, presenting ideas over and over again to different internal stakeholder audiences to continue to hone their expression.
Find your leverage points: You won’t be able to tackle everything at once—and if you try, you might exhaust the patience of the people who hired you, waiting for results. Finding the opportunities to drive a near-term result that has clear long-term implications can help you build the support you need to get the organization (and especially its senior leadership) to embrace change and take the occasional necessary risk.
Thanks Colt for the insights, and the conversation!
Jesse James Garrett 