Part of the series, “What the CEO Needs to Do to Ensure Chief Customer Officer Success.” (5 of 8)
Demand regular accountability sessions for the sole purpose of identifying and tracking progress with the customer agenda.
Resist the temptation to tack it on to some other meeting. What often happens is that the customer topic moves from the top of the agenda to the bottom of the agenda, then its erased off the agenda completely as other priorities prevail, and the meeting time runs out.
Don’t make your CCO expend energy and cycles lobbying to get a place on the corporate agenda. That’s the irony to this work that I’ve never quite understood. Why bring someone into the job and then make it nearly impossible that he or she be heard?
Instead, establish a set of meetings with the specific agenda of discussing and advancing the customer experience work. Create continued clarity by having the CCO drive these meetings and steer the process. The CCO can create a flow and meeting focus by topic area and can facilitate the meetings. However, the executive sponsor will need to step in as the person asking for and expecting the performance.
I’ve said the same thing; that CEO’s might be well served by “driving performance management”. Well, I don’t actually tell CEO’s that’s what they should do.
I’d like to see CEO’s of companies telling each other what the should do, rather than us shouting from the lower echelon trying to tell them what they SHOULD do.
Or maybe, CEO’s would be best served NOT telling each other what they SHOULD do, but talking about the complexities, values, reasons, why’s and such of various courses of action.
Maybe those reporting to CEO’s, or writing on the Internet could give more consideration to the process of TELLING and SHOULDING
SHoulds are funny creatures. I need to think more about this.