In her work as an analyst, specialising in technology research and strategy, Charlene Li has found that the exceptional companies have one thing in common, they are customer obsessed.

A lot of businesses like to think they are customer centric, but are they customer obsessed?

At Human Experience we love the impact that we can have working with our clients and we love data, because it quantifies the impact that we have.

If I’m honest recruitment has never been one of my favourite tasks but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate just how critical it is to find the best people for your business. When I am in recruitment mode, I throw a lot of time, energy and resources into it because I’ve seen first-hand how a business’ talent is a key determinant of success or failure.

Now any leader would most likely agree with my sentiments “yes of course, we want to make sure we hire the best” and while it might seem straight forward, the reality of what goes on when recruiting is very different.

In September last year, my favourite blogger, Seth Godin, wrote a great article he called “One at a time. Over and over.”

In it, Seth spoke to the fact that it doesn’t matter to the customer that you’re serving right now; that they are 100th customer for you that day, that you have dozens of other things that you have to do or that last week you got an awesome online review. In that moment, to that customer, there’s just this one experience that they are having right now.

Over the past several years I’ve taken numerous business owners, senior leaders and teams within large organisations through a strategic planning framework.

No matter the team, the industry, or if we’re writing a 1-year or 3-year plan, the first step is always the same. Look back on the last 12 months. What will this year be remembered for? What were the highs? What were the lows?

A few years ago, I was speaking to a HR Manager who works in the retail industry and I was telling him about my new mystery shopping business. He screwed up his nose a bit and said “Mystery shopping? Isn’t that a bit old school? Does anyone even do that anymore?

I took a deep breath, told myself not to be defensive (although I must admit his comments did sting) and tried my best to explain the good work that we were doing with our clients...