#164 - The Missing Ingredient in Customer-Centric Leadership: Identity

Speaker A: Yeah. Transformation is an effectual outcome, Right. That lasts, that's, uh, sustained through time. And let me contrast it with. Well, let me say first that all transformation is identity change.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: All transformation is identity change. You're either enhancing some level of identity or expanding some level of identity that you already have. Some aspect of identity, I should say. Or you're gaining a new aspect of identity. Right. You. And. Which I often say is like, you know, I was X, now I am Y. Right. I'm a math major, so I talk in parameters. Right. So I was X, now I was Y. Right. There are, there are transitions in state that don't rise to the level of a transformation. So if I was cold, but now, you know, somebody, uh, helped help, uh, me be warm. If I was hungry, I went to a restaurant and now I am, um, satiated. Right. Uh, those are transitions in state.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: They don't last. They're not really an identity change. So. So it is a change in identity is the way to think about it.

Speaker B: Um, welcome back to the Trusted Guide podcast. What if serving customers well isn't really about understanding what they want, it's about understanding who they want to become. That's the question at the heart of this conversation, and it fundamentally challenges everything we know about being customer centric. This episode also marks a personal milestone. It's the first guest interview since transitioning from the Delighted Customers podcast after over 160 episodes and a seven month break. Now, with a more focused lens on leading change, when you don't have budget or positional authority here on the Trusted Guide podcast, I can't think of a better guest to kick us off in this new era than Joe Pine. Many of you know Joe from the Experience Economy, the book that changed how organizations think about value creation that he wrote 27 years ago. Now he's back with the Transformation Economy. An argument that he makes may be even more profound than. Here's my conversation with Joe Pine. I am so incredibly excited to have back on the show. Joe Pine. Joe, welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Thanks, Mark. It's a pleasure to be with you again.

Speaker B: Yay.

Speaker A: Yay.

Speaker B: Joe is, in my opinion, he's one of the key people in creating the term customer experience. And it was based on his book called the Experience Economy way back when, from that last, uh, podcast, and I encourage you to go back and listen to it. My meeting, my discussion with Joe back then, I utilized that information for a number of things, including the course I taught at Michigan State University. We use clips of that to educate and inform the Masters of Science and Customer Experience Management students. And so Joe, thank you for that.

Speaker A: It's a pleasure.

Speaker B: And uh, and we hope to use this again. I'm, I'm working on some other stuff. I, I'll be teaching at Loyola uh University in Maryland in the fall and hopefully some of what we come into, what we bring up, what we shed light on today will be included in some of their assignments. Yeah. So Joe, the Experience Economy was an amazing book. I consider you a visionary. Someone who is able to take things that exist around us and simplify them in a way that even I can

Speaker A: understand, make it simple enough that your mother can understand. So I'm glad that you and my mother are alike in that regard.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and so going way back to the cavemen, you know, I'm looking at this, um, is page three of the new book called the Transformation Economy. And by the way, the subtitle Guiding Customers to achieve their, to achieve their Aspirations. Uh, and, and going back to the first book, you kind of build off that where you say the progression of economic value is a model that you use to, to help explain how our economy has evolved from extracting commodities to making goods, to delivering services, to staging experiences, and now this most recent Guiding Transformations. So tell me, what was the white space for this book?

Speaker A: Well, it's. Transformations have been always part of the progression of economic value. When I discovered the Experience Economy way back when, as I like to, to use your phrase, uh, because it was way back when I discovered transformations at the same time I was, I was a strategic planner at IBM many years ago. And I asking, what's next? What's next? And so I looked at that and, and said, you know, just as, as if you create a, if you create a great service that's, that's so, uh, memorable for people, you turn it into an experience. If you create a great experience, it's exactly what this person needs at this moment in time. Then you can't help but turn to what we often call a life changing experience. That's a transformation. We use experiences as the raw material to guide people to change, to become who they want to become, to uh, flourish as human beings. So it was there from the beginning. It was the last two chapters of the Experience Economy. But it's been 27 since the Experience Economy was uh, first published. Hard to believe that, uh, now in its third edition. Um, basically people have been asking me since then, when are you going to write a full book on transformation? I said, well, two things. One, I don't know enough about it. And two, the world's not ready for it. And that's, that's really what's changed is I learned a lot about it. It took years to, to, to do that. I would often use it with clients in speeches, workshops, consulting that if they. Well the easiest way to think about transformations is any business that's in the business of helping people be healthy, wealthy and wise is in the trans business. So when I worked with healthcare, when I worked with financial services, when I worked with educational institutions and others, I'd always bring up transformations but with no more information really than was in the original book. But um, I was doing more research on it and I, and I particularly once I finally decided that there was ready for it, things there being the creation of the World Experience Organization, the WXO in London, which uh, which I co founded which was the matter saying I got a call. We create this. Yes, please do. I want somebody to do this. Thank you. That was my co founder and uh, and they now I just got back uh, from London a couple of weeks ago for the fourth summit that they've had on it now as part of London Experience Week. And, and from the first summit on all these campfires we did online, it was very clear that all the experienced designers that are part of this organization, which is a, a major uh, subset of the membership, are really focused on transformative experiences. Like two way person. Someone I talk their experiences transform. Not just to entertain, not just to engage. And, and so it's one of those demarcation points among others that hey, the world is, is, is ready for this. That's when I uh, decided to um, uh, do it in uh, 2023 and, and started in January 2024, February. In 2026 it was published.

Speaker B: Well let, let's lay some groundwork for the listeners on what we exactly mean because everybody can have a different concept of what we mean by transformation. So when, as it relates to the transformation economy, what are we talking about when we talk about transformation?

Speaker A: Yeah, transformation is an effectual outcome, right. That lasts, that's uh, sustained through time. And let me contrast it with. Well let me say first that all transformation is identity change.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: All transformation is identity change. You're either enhancing some level of identity or expanding some level of identity that you already have some aspect of identity I should say. Or you're gaining a new aspect of identity.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, you and which I often say is like you know, I was X, now I am Y. Right. As a way I'm a math major so I talk in parameters. Right. So was X, now I was Y. Right. There are, there are transitions in state that don't rise to the level of a transformation. So if I cold but now you know, somebody uh, helped uh, help me be warm. If I was hungry, I went to a restaurant and now I am uh, satiated. Right. Uh, those are transitions in state, right. They don't last. They're uh, not really an identity change. Right. So, so it is a change in identity is the way to think about it. And again it's built on top of experiences. We only ever change through the experiences we have. As the uh, old saying goes, we're all the product of our experiences. You've got the nature of our DNA and you got the nurture of the experiences that we've had in our lives that determine who we are. And, and for the most part people have uh, there's a lot of happenstance involved in that. Right. Intentional about what we're becoming. We you know, if you think about what spending uh, you know, a large part of your day watching TikTok videos does to you as a person, right. It is changing you in some way. And as ah, are we thinking about that and understanding that and being more intentional. So more and more people are being intentional about their transformations they've always experienced like all the economic offerings, commodity goods, services experiences. Transformations have always been around but in the past we're largely our own general contractor of the experiences or excuse me, of the transformations that we want and we have to like. If we want to become more fit we may choose uh, to um, protein powder and organic produce. At the commodities level we may choose to buy self help books and barbells. At the goods level, uh, or you know, Fitbit watches. But at the service level it's really the applications of the Fitbits and Apple watches that give data that we, that we need to be able to figure out how things are going, how we want to improve. At the experience level we may get a membership and a mission feed, uh, or uh, membership feed experience at a, at a gym, paying a monthly fee. At the transformation level you know that maybe we hire a personal uh, trainer that, that really sits on us and ensures that we do what we need and that we achieve our fitness aspirations. But it's much easier if we can go to one company and do all that because there's a lot of that, you know, uh, protein powder sort of stu that that's not being very effective or it doesn't help you as it might others. There may be other things that are better for you. You know, the self help books will only take you so far and they all writ for a general audience and, and so forth. They can help you interpret the data and that's increasingly what people are looking for somebody to say just help me become who I want to be.

Speaker B: Okay. And, and you, you uh, to go back to your math equation which is the extent of my mathematical abilities is going from X to Y. Um, I assume why in the book you talk about flourishing, right? So define flourishing. How does that all fit into this context?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, the human flourishing has gotten this renaissance over the last 20, 25 years. I mean it goes back to Aristotle and actually you can point in the Bible to proverbs and psalms and uh, you know, where God would want his people to flourish. And it basically means that um. Well the way I define it in the book, there's a lot of people have different measures of it. But I'd like to keep it simple. Which is, it's the extent to which you are who you are meant to be and how can you, how can you become that. Right. Uh, we're never ever going to be ideals, right? We're all you're, we're aging and we all have issues and that sort of thing. But if we become more and more who we're meant to be, that's, that's important. And it goes back to the healthy wealthy why statement that I expanded those into four spheres of transformation. It's not just about being healthy but having health and well being.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Healthcare is a means to which well being is key element of flourishing. Uh, it's not just about wealthy, it's about having wealth and prosperity. Prosperity. I uh, love the uh, Hebrew word shalom which obviously means peace. But as ingredient it's have a good life, right? That's what prosperity, have a good life, whatever. However much wealth you have, you can have a good life. And recognizing that the money is the means of. To that. And then wisdom is about knowledge. Wise is about knowledge and wisdom that we, we gain knowledge through the experiences we have. We apply them in the experience. Uh, wisdom is the outcomes of that that allows us to affect situations in our lives and others lives in the world. That um, um, um, that, that for which money m. You know, knowledge is the, is the means to being able to use that to know what knowledge to apply when. And there's the other sphere of transformation as I call them. Um, that wasn't thought of in that old English proverb, uh, which is purpose and meaning. And that's Core. It's core to human being that we have meaning in our lives, that we need meaning in our lives. And doing things with purpose is a way to get that meaning. So if you have all those four things right, then you're flourishing. If you can, and if you can increase the extent to which the level of those two so that you do become, uh, more of who you're meant to be, then you'll flourish in your life. And what I discovered in the writing of the book, I didn't know this going in, um, fostering Human flourishing is the raise on debt of business. And it's why business exists in the world. And people decry capitalism, even though it's been the greatest force for good, for helping people, for getting them out of poverty into tremendous wealth. I mean, even the poorest people in this country live better than the wealthy people hundreds of years ago, and that's because of that. But there are many ills of it as well. There are many market failures and other things. And a lot of those deals, a lot of greed in the market, a lot of trying to addict people to your applications and whatnot. And all of that, I think, can be traced to people, executives, boards, investors, not understanding that the reason they exist is to foster human flourishing. Nobody ever buys any offering unless they think it makes them better off in some way of all five, uh, genres of offering. So they're willing to exchange the money in their account for your offering only if they think your offering provides more value to them than that money. And, and so you've got to figure out, how do you help in your business people to flourish in your lives across whatever dimensions make sense? And as, as a friend of mine, Stan Houston, likes to say, if your business doesn't help people flourish, then you're a racket.

Speaker B: Well, I love that. What I love about what you're saying is you're really reframing the purpose of business in general at sort of a more micro level. I look at customer experience management and say, I think a lot of times. Cause I had the opportunity to teach at, uh, Michigan State for several years and also at Loyola previously. And even in the bank where I worked, you know, we did orientation. I finished by saying, look, what we're talking here isn't just about getting better metrics on voice of the customer or survey results. Um, it is, if we do this right, it means that we're making a difference in people's lives.

Speaker A: Beautiful.

Speaker B: Because if you take Starbucks as an example, and I go there way too often to be honest, I'm sure there's a 12 step program for that.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, that's the transformation level of Starbucks at the experience level is to wean yourself off of coffee.

Speaker B: So you know, the way that, that I get treated when I walk in, uh, you know, whatever it is, uh, if I'm going to the counter, the way that person interacts with me, how clean the store is, how I feel about myself going through that experience and could, could affect the trajectory of my day and that then affects the people that I interact with. That affects the people they interact with. So we're really talking, this is what I love about what you're, you're talking at a broader scale and illuminating in this book is that we're not just talking about making and selling a product here. We're talking. Would you agree?

Speaker A: Yes. Actually it's not just a product. The product is basically a shorthand term for what, uh, more economically we call an economic offering. Right. It's what you sell to others. And, and to recognize that it goes far beyond physical goods, which is generally what many people associate the word product with, and has opportunities for transformation. And even goods providers can offer transformations. I'm thinking of uh, you know, Nicoderm CQ patches and Nicorette gum. Right. People only ever buy those offerings if they want to transform from, you know, again the from to statement, from smoker to non smoker. And uh, they did a study, uh, many years ago and found that only 24% of the people who buy their uh, products or physical products were transformed ever quit smoking. Right. Which is pretty pitiful. And so they put together a transformation program called My Quit. You can go to myquit.com to learn about it where they do a diagnosis up front about why do you want to quit smoking? What are the obstacles you have to overcome, when do you most crave a cigarette and so forth. And then they design an eight week program, tips and inspiration every week, including a, uh, 24, 7 hotline that you can call, right. If you really, really want uh, to like calling your sponsor an aa. Right. I've got this cigarette, I got a lighter, you know, talk to y'. All. And um, and when you go through that program, you have a 50% greater likelihood of quitting smoking. Now 50% on top of 24% is only 36% because quitting smoking is really hard. You know, many transformations are really hard. But, but, but 50% is a huge number in an increase when they think about it as a transformation rather than just the product that they're Selling. So likewise, the way to think about it with whatever offering you have is to ask the old manufacturing technique, asking five whys, right? So they're buying your product. They want to buy your product. They bought your product, right? Why? Why do you want this product? Well, because of. Of this. Okay. Why do you want that? Well, because of that. Why do you want that? And get them to a conversation how many whys it takes till they tell you some core aspiration, like, you know, I'm. I'm, uh, um, buying this, this, uh, flowers. Uh, right. Because I want a better relationship with my wife. Right? And so if you can go all the way and add. Subsume the product within a transformation offering, like Nicorette gum subsumed into myquit.com, um, then you offer transformation. They don't charge for that. They should, right? And I think they do. If they did charge, they'd even do better. But it at least is a transformation program. But even if you only make it two or three whys into that sequence, you're more transformational. And that means you create more value, right? You create that greater likelihood that they achieve their aspiration, or you're an element in that general contracting. Of all the things that I need to do to be able to achieve

Speaker B: that aspiration, there's just so much there that you said that gets my wheels going that I want to unpack. Because that metaphor of trying to quit smoking translates to all sorts of things. And so the first thing that comes to mind is, what do you see, as you mentioned, one of the obstacles. But what do you see as the biggest obstacles to transformation actually working?

Speaker A: Ah, yeah, there's a lot of issues. Um, I would say the biggest obstacle for most transformations, there are some different types of transformations now, but for most transformation, the biggest obstacle, life happens. M. Why do so few people fulfill their New Year's resolution? Life happens, right? They have every intention. They sign up for a gym membership, they get all this stuff, and they start doing it. Every attention, know, the kids are bothering you, work gets hard, you get a snowstorm, and you don't go to the gym once, and it makes it easier not to go the next time. You know, all these things. And that basically is what makes it hard. One of the things, key things that makes it hard to transform. That's where accountability, you know, adding accountability is a key thing. That's where having a company that's guiding it, instead of you being your own general contractor, where they're reminding you, hey, you really knew this, you know, most Gyms, for example, are definitely not in the transformation business. Right. They're charging for the experience because they think their best customers are the ones that make New Year's resolutions show up once and never come again, and they get all that membership money for free for a year. No, you have helped them. Absolutely zero. They came to you because they want to become more fit. And you basically, you know, put your nose up at them instead of saying, hey, you know, when you, the first time you come, what's your aspiration? What do you really want to do and how can we help you do that? Right. And then, and then recognize, okay.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: And if they don't show up, then we're going to call you, right? We'll text you first. You don't respond, we're going to call you, we're going to have a conversation. And then the chances that you stick to it and achieve that New Year's resolution, achieve that aspiration, then go way up.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, and I can personally relate to that. One of the obstacles that I experienced in banking, and it may be true for other industries, the first of two acquisitions in three years. We were on the acquiring side, obviously. For. On the, if you're being merged or being acquired, that's, that's going to obviously affect whatever initiatives are in place. If you're on the, even if you're on the acquiring side. Look, a couple of things are realities. One is, you know, you're merging two different cultures. Two is the customers never asked to be your customers. They were the customer of the, uh, company that just.

Speaker A: And their employees never asked to be your employees either.

Speaker B: 100%. There's all this change is happening, and if you don't get your arms, if you don't start with that mindset, you can be down a very steep slope, slippery slope. Right. So what I wanted to ask you was in my, in my work, I have found that one of the quiet disruptors of obstacle change is trust. And trust is, can, uh, stall projects, can stall initiatives. There are obviously the lack of, have you found that to any degree in your research?

Speaker A: I mean, yes, if, I mean, basically, if you, if you, if you have, if you've hired a transformation guider, right, someone to help you and there's lack of trust there, then, uh, it just won't work. Right. Trust is paramount to be able to do that. There's a level of authenticity and confidence and other things, but trust is key. Uh, once that's lost, you go in assuming a certain level of trust. But you've got to Build up on that as the transformation guider. And then one thing can just blow it up all in an instant if you, if, if you lose that trust with them. So, yes, I definitely agree with that. One of the things you bring to mind too, Mark, is one of the things I discovered in my research, uh, is that when I first thought about transformations, I thought about it as basically, you know, the bluebird of happiness gets on your shoulder, in your ear and say, oh, I want to become more fit, right? Or I want to become a better golfer. Or, you know, I want to, uh, save more for retirement, you know, whatever it might be. And one of the things I realized that a really large share of transformations, particularly the most major transformations, what I call metamorphosis, right? Metamorphosis is a change in wholesale identity and core identity where you can't go back even if you wanted to, right? That's, that's a, that's a metamorphosis. Big word, but it's, it's the right word. And a lot of metamorphosis happen because of trauma. And trauma. You're like, I lose a loved one, I get divorced, uh, I get fired. I. And what I realize is I get acquired by another company, right? As an employee, that's trauma. And what trauma does is it immediately changes your identity, right? Downwards, right? Immediately changes your identity. I have this. I have cancer. I was cancer free, now I have cancer. That sort of trauma. I was an employee of this company, now I'm an employee of this company. I never even knew. By the way, you could use this guide in your teaching in that there's a famous video clip of David Letterman when NBC got, got bought by GE. And he goes into GE's offices as a, say, uh, I'm a new employee. Just want to meet you folks at the dot. And it's, it's unbelievable what happens. You ever get a chance to look that up? So that's, I mean, it's a merger and acquisition issue. Trauma immediately changes. And the idea then is that you need to get back to whole, right? What you need the transformation guide to do is to get you back to whole. If you think about the example of, I have cancer. So you get a surgical team that does its level. You then get a different chemo team that does its level. You may have a family doctor, but you really need an oncologist. And one of the problems is these people don't talk to each other. And there's no one that's really give. Guiding you through this. No one that you've spent enough time with, except maybe your family doctor who's really not in control here, to gain that level of trust that you're talking about. And it makes that sort of thing, uh, very, very difficult. And so what you need in that situation is you need an advocate for this particular person. You need a guide. And I love that your podcast is now the trusted guide. We pull that back together. I realize now that's why you asked about trust, right? Because trusted guide, the guide is the economic function. You guide transformation. You're a guider, uh, and you need to have that guide. Now, there's many different things you can call it. You could be a coach, you could be a counselor, it could be an alchemist, I call it, for metamorphosis. Could be a, an advocate, a navigator, a guru, a Sherpa, a wizard, you know, whatever it might be that fits your business. And that's what you need in that cancer situation. Right? Just generally, there's nobody who's just focused on you that then is able to talk to the rest and understand what's. What's best for you. So that trusted guide, uh, in any particularly metamorphical transformation. Metamorphic transformation. Excuse me. Um, uh, is a. Is a needed position.

Speaker B: Let me, let me ask you this. As you think about, and I know a lot of your work is, I think about it as macro because you're talking about the economy, but yet the illustrations in your book are very micro, really into the individual. In fact, you say in the book that it's really about individualization.

Speaker A: Right, right. That's the last thing I say in the book.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, but differentiate that from personalization.

Speaker A: Yeah, so, well, so, so first, um, there's personalization, there's customization, there's individualization. Right? So personalization is a subset of customization. My partner, uh, Jim Gilmore, and I wrote an HBR article on this called the Four Faces of Mass Customization. And it's a framework in the chapter four of the Experience Economy, chapter five, maybe, of the chapter five of the Experience Economy. And, uh, and talks about four different types of which personalization is what. Personalization is basically what we call cosmetic customization, right? Where you take something that's standard and you demographically understand something, you put their name, and you got a towel, you put their name on it, you've got a cup, and you. They upload an image and you put the image on it. Right? That's personalization. Customization effectively means you're doing something for this individual, living, breathing person or an active corporeal entity. If you're in B2B customization, it's not done in advance, it's done on demand. Um, and um, that's what customization is and that's why it's the DNA. Mass customization being my first book. It's the DNA of the progression of economic value of everything. I think about how I discovered it is understand, customizing good turns into service. Customizing service turns into experience, turns into a transformation, which I talk about in uh, chapter one of the book. Uh, so it's core to doing that. Ishin also incorporates customization percent of um, uh, personalization, vigilation. A superset of customization recognizes that also one of the things that happens as you go up this progression of economic value is you get more individual with the customer. Commodities, goods, services exist outside of us. There are these arm legs things that commodities we hardly ever touch and feel anymore. Goods and services, we generally want to be commoditized as much as possible, bought on price and convenience. So we spend as little time with them as possible. But experiences reach inside of us and engage us. Experiences happen inside of us as reaction to the events that are staged in front of us. So that's much more individual. Even if you're customizing the goodness service, that's much more individual. Transformations are the most individual because they change us from the inside out. Right? You are not changing the customer. If you're changing the customer, then it's more than a racket, it's, it's immoral. Right? Uh, it's, it's like, you know, slavery and um, sort of thing. But the customers change themselves and you create the conditions under which they can, can change. Right? So that's what's important about individualization is they're changing from the inside out in response to, you know, the guidance that you, the trusted guidance that you give them.

Speaker B: So if we could just tease that concept out a little bit as it applies to change that you're trying to make within an organization. And let's just say that, um, I don't know, you're a project manager, you are an IT manager, you're an HR manager, or you're a customer experience manager and you're trying to make a change. You don't have a big team, um, and you're getting some resistance. So one of the things that I loved about your book was you get talk about diagnosis and you get into really understanding the why. Um, and I'm wondering, as I'm thinking out loud, because some of the models that I've Seen have talked about understanding the why. It's easy to, number one, assume that because CEO says we're going to do this, let's just say capture the hill, that you've got all the lieutenants on board. That would be potentially a huge mistake. And so I'm wondering if this process, as I think about it, is understanding the why. Understanding the why at various various perspectives or aspects of the key stakeholders that you need to help. You know, really they're the ones going to be doing the change. You're, you're just guiding it. You're not the hero. That's part of the whole guide hero thing is they are the hero.

Speaker A: They're the hero.

Speaker B: Does this fit into your, your research and your understanding as to maybe an approach that someone would take who's trying to make change within an organization where they don't have all this position, additional authority, right?

Speaker A: Yes. And it's a matter of understanding that you actually have multiple constituencies, not actual customers constituencies. You need to understand the why of each one. You need to understand how the change you want to make helps them do their jobs better. And if it doesn't help them do their jobs better, and there may be certainly situations where that's the case, right. Where we're doing this for different reasons, then you need to make sure they understand the reasons and why this is for the greater good. How do you do all that understanding? Recognize transformations only happen through experiences. Only. Only. Only happen through experiences. So often we try to like give them just information which is the service level, send them reports, do uh, a presentation and so forth. No, you need to get them to viscerally feel this and, and how it matches their why and what they're trying to accomplish. And ideally not just the why of whatever this particular thing is. But I'll, I'll say it's uh, the big W. Why, which is the purpose. What is their. What is their purpose as an individ person which hopefully is aligned with the purpose of the corporation. And one of the things I recommend, and this makes whatever these changes easier too, is that every company or business unit within a company should have its own meaningful purpose for why it exists in the world that leads to human flourishing. Right? Because that then gets inside of people's minds and they recognize, hey, I'm doing this for that. What I'm doing actually has an impact on the world, on uh, individual customers and how that then impacts the world from there. And that makes change so much easier. Because you say, are we going in the direction that our meaningful Purpose is that, that you, that over time, at least everybody accepts. Accepts when you, when you, uh, uncover it and, and promulgate it. And if yes, then you, okay, I can see why we're doing it. That's the right thing to do. But if it's not right, then you've got that disconnect and then you're going to have problems. But then you got to see, how do I get all of this to align? How do I get this project, whatever it is that you're talking about, Hill that you want to capture, aligned with the greater battle of what we're trying to do, aligned with the war that we'. Just to extend the metaphor you started a little bit, and how that aligns with each individual, uh, person's purpose. It's why the, uh, military service in general and the US army in particular is one of the greatest transformation guiders in the world, almost accepting none. I would put the US army as the number one transformation guy. I never put it that way before. I'm going to have to remember that, right? The number one.

Speaker B: You heard it first on the Trusted Guide podcast.

Speaker A: Right. They do it by getting people to, in platoons, to, to trust each other, to uphold each other, to do whatever it takes for them. And then a platoon level, then they get to know what the mission is. And part of that mission is ensuring that they never let down their buddies. That's the key. They never let down their buddies. They do everything they can help that admission, because they're doing everything they can, uh, for that. And so that's the sort of alignment

Speaker B: that you want to have implicit in what you just shared. And your reminding me is, to me, what I'm hearing is there's a bridge. There's a bridge between first understanding and sometimes this is going slow to go fast. It's first understanding what their why is, not just what they're saying on the surface, but, like, maybe a little bit deeper. What's their philosophical reason for doing what they're doing? What is their belief in the way things ought to be and the way things should be? And how can you connect that? Because it's not impossible. How, uh, you can connect that to this other corporate mission and the reason for change in this case, uh, whatever the outcome is, doesn't could be the improved customer experience, whatever the outcome is. And if you can bridge that, but until you bridge that gap, you know, you could, you could. If you ignore it or if you assume it down the road, it could come back to bite you. Right, Right.

Speaker A: And, and Bridging that gap, Mark, creates trust. Right? What can you think of more than be able to share at that level with someone and then knowing that they're using that in the right way?

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I just love this conversation. Could talk to you all day, but I want to have you back for your next book. What, what I'm going to ask because you said you're always thinking about what's next. And uh, in the back of the book, you know, in the back of each section, you, you include reflections. And, and what I love about that too is you, you say inherent in the success of any transformation is follow through, not just follow up. Right. And, and just explain that and then tell me about what's next.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, um, so, um, there's basically three phases to any transformation. You mentioned diagnosis before, right? Diagnosis, who is this customer, what?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And that, then you develop that from to statement, you have a generic from to statement that you have for your business. But each, every individual is different, right? It's getting at their core of why they want to quit smoking, for example, which differs for other people, you know, and if it's, if it's a health thing, it's different than if it's a family thing, right. Which gets much more emotional about, you know, so forth. So then you have the set of experiences that you undergo. It's generally not monotonically increased or generally. It's never monotonically increasing. There's always ups and downs. There's always regress as well as progress. And you have to be able to sense and respond to that and help people recover from things that they need to stay on track. And then that's where and most transformation. Guys, I think, okay, that's it. Job's done, right? But no, you need follow through, right? Follow through, which is ensuring that the transformation takes hold, that it's sustained through time.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: If I go through committed quitters program and after eight weeks I stop smoking, but three weeks later I light up again. I wasn't truly transformed. And they have no follow through on that. So it's follow through, uh, that you need to have that sustains a transformation through time. It's one of the key characteristics of transformations as an economic offering that it's sustained through time. Um, so that's follow through. What's next? It depends on what you mean by that. Mark. Mark, if you mean what's the next economic offering and the progression of economic value, the answer is there isn't one. There is. And so there's this. Explain why there's this. I always say that transformations are the fifth and final economic offering. Because we got, uh, this heuristic where customization is the antidote to commoditization, right? Uh, commoditization drags you down year after year. If you do nothing else, then eventually you'll become a commodity where people buy you just based on price and convenience. Customization lifts you up. You can't help but be differentiated, I. E. Not a commodity if you're working with individual customers on exactly what they want. And again, that's how he discovered each of these progressions. So I looked at that heuristic because I did ask, what next? From, uh, back originally, way back when I asked what's next after transformations and decided, well, one is that you can't commoditize transformations in the same way. You can commoditize the individual experiences that lead up to a transformation, but you can't commoditize them in the same way. Because with transformations, the customer is the problem product. It's the change customer. That's the actual outcome. Outcome being a key word for transformation. It's the outcome of the offering of the product, if you will. And you can't commoditize. Human beings rebel against the notion of selling body parts or selling our bodies for sex and so forth, right? We recognize that's not right, even though it is attempted. And then what happens when you customize, ah, an offering, a transformation. I thought, well, what would be. What would design exactly the right transformation for exactly this person? What would that be in that way? And the only thing come up with is that it would be perfecting human beings so they have no need of more transformation, right? Otherwise it's just transformations all the way to the end. Uh, and that's not the province of mankind. That's the province of God, right? God's the only one who can, uh, perfect us, sanctify us. Uh, and so that's. For that reason, there isn't. And also there's. There's five and five ways you charge for. I had. Every once in a while somebody tries to convince me there's a 6 economic offering. And, uh, and a woman did this a couple, three years ago, I remember. And finally I said, it's just a different form of transformation. And I said, okay, well, tell me what you would charge for differently, right? Then, because you are what you charge for. If you charge for undifferentiated stuff, you're in the commodities business. If you charge for tangible things, you're in the goods business. If you charge for the activities your people perform. You're in the service business and you're in the experience business. If economically, if and only if you charge for time, the time customers spend with you, which is either admission fee, membership fee or some other way of doing that. With Transformations, you're in the transformation business economically, if and only if you charge for the demonstrated outcomes your customers achieve. Right. Because the customer's apply inputs don't matter her only outcomes and she couldn't find another way to charge for it. I said okay, well come back to me when you find some sixth way of charging. So that's the other reason why Transformations is the uh, fifth and final economic offering.

Speaker B: Yeah. And if you get the book and it's the transformation economy and I'll have a link in the show notes. He walks through different, different ways that you can charge for outcomes. Different based on the research. I have one question that I should have asked earlier, but I don't want to leave because I'm thinking if I'm a listener and I thought about it even in the first book, I gotta ask. And, and I don't necessarily personally have an objection, but I do wanna ask that question in the audience. And that is. So I, I'm going to Amazon and I click and I buy more coffee or, or, or uh, widget, a box of paper clips and let's just say I'm a widget manufacturer and I supply the widgets that go into an engine, that goes into an aircraft or something down the road. How am I being transformed? You know, do I have an emotional connection to this? How's my identity going to change? What would you say to that person?

Speaker A: No, it's not. There may be accumulation of things, but no. Right. Not everything is a transformation. Not everything leads to a transformation. But I will say, but what you did do is enhance your flourishing at least a little bit with each one. Right. Again, all economic offerings do that. Amazon, uh, and I'll throw in Walmart and I'll throw in McDonald's in. There are some of the greatest forces for human flourishing in the world. Why? Because they commoditize things. They commoditize goods and services. They get you to the point where you can buy them at the least possible price and the greatest possible convenience, which frees up your time and your money. So you spend your hard earned money and your harder earned time on the experiences that you value that offer time well spent versus time well saved. And then even those transformative experiences, the transformations that offer time well invested, where you're investing your time and becoming better off. So they give you more money and they give you back time that you wouldn't have that enables you to, uh, flourish in all these other ways.

Speaker B: Well, there you have it. There you have it. All right. Well, Joe, thank you so much for coming back on the show. I so enjoyed the book, the Transformation Economy and having you back on the show.

Speaker A: Thanks, Marco. Really appreciate it.

Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Trusted Guide podcast. If this conversation resonated with you, you can find more episodes@empoweredcx.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you're leading change without formal authority, you're not alone in that work. I'll see you next time.

Speaker A: Sam.