Latest / The Tech Matchmaker / CX Leadership: The Servant Challenger Mindset Explained
Transcript
- Gina: Good morning, everybody. Today we are chatting with Nate Brown, who is the founder of CX Accelerator. Nate, welcome to the Tech Matchmaker. You have Nate Brown: Yeah. Gina: built one of the most respected community-driven resources in the CX space. And we're really excited to have you here and to dig into it. Nate Brown: it's such a thrill to be on this show. I love what you've created with this, Gina, and just love you and your energy. I I I totally missed my opportunity to meet you at CCW so I'm so glad that we're connecting this way. Gina: Love it. Love it. So let's start with the basics. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself? Nate Brown: Yeah, I'm a I'm a certif 2X certified pickleball instructor. I've got a a five point one duper. so I love playing me some pickleball. Gina: I didn't even know it went that high. Nate Brown: It's a it's a little inflated, Gina because I got that duper a few years ago before all the freaking kids got really good at pickleball. I'm like scared to go into a tournament now 'cause they're like, this guy must be the real deal and I'm like, well I was three years ago. but it's it's a blast. Yeah, d do a lot of disc golf, competitive disc golf, you know, a few years ago. I got two kiddos. we we live in Middle Tennessee. We've got some chickens and a cut flower garden and all of that. So love loving life out here in Middle Tennessee. but but most of all, I am a CX guy who loves the customer experience universe and love helping people on their career journeys. Gina: I love that. So let's let's dive into CX Accelerator. You created a nonprofit. Can you talk a little bit about the vision, the mission, and what you do? And I know you also have what is it, CXnate? Experiencenate.com. So let's talk about that. Nate Brown: www.experiencenate.com Which I'm a little bashful of that. You can you can make fun of that if you want. Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: there's many domains that weren't available before I did www.experiencenate.com, but but anyway, I digress. So CX Accelerator. Yeah, I got going in 2018, if you can believe that, Gina, and was just I was a lonely CX professional. I was working at UL, great organization, learning so much as a customer service leader. And the and the world of CX opened up before my eyes. And I was like, my gosh, I don't have to wait for these tickets to come in. I can I can design experiences upstream and think more holistically about these customer relationships. And like I went both feet into that and got to do some really cool stuff at UL from a CX perspective, but you know, was was feeling kind of lonely because the the concept of CX wasn't very mature yet. Gina: Mm-hmm. Nate Brown: Inside of my own organization. So it's like, well, what's going on out there in the world? And was able to pull in some dear friends, Jeremy Watkin, Jenny Dempsey, Kaye Chapman, Erica Marois, Becky Roman. And we really kicked off CX Accelerator together. And they're still amazing friends and so grateful to them to to helping to get that that all going. And my father, Dan Brown, has been such a remarkable part of that as well. And We've got a great board of directors to the nonprofit. That that includes Jeannie Walters and Matt Lyles and Justin Robbins and Juanita Coley and Natalie Perez. So super grateful to those folks. So definitely wasn't a Nate Brown creation. There's been a lot of folks who have contributed to this mission of equipping and connecting and encouraging CX professionals on every stage of their career journey. That's what we're all about. Gina: So, how would somebody get involved in the organization? So, as a CX professional, maybe I am the director of the contact center. Is that one of your kind of ideal people that you would help along kind of progress their career? Nate Brown: You're like our favorite person because yeah, I mean that's that's kind of where we started. The origin story was the the contact or customer service professional that's making the leap into more of a CX mentality. Like Gina: No Nate Brown: that was our bread and butter in in the beginning, and now you know, have really focused on the the idea of on every stage of the CX career journey. So it's like identifying those stages and making sure that we're equipping people in those different ways and categories. but yeah, I mean, Gina, to your question, the the answer is absolutely yes. many have seen CX Accelerator as like a really good starting point in into the space, into the work, just seeing what's possible, what's available. And then, you know, we we recommend and have people kind of continue on in their journey in CX Accelerator, but continue to be fed with outlets like the CXPA and and other places like that. Gina: That's fantastic. And so now what does your typical day job look like? Because I know at the nonprofit it no doubt probably takes a lot of your Nate Brown: Yeah. Gina: time, but what what does that look like? Nate Brown: Definitely depends on the day. next Monday. Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: Next Monday, I am teaching pickleball in the morning. I am doing photography at a tutorial school in the in the midday, but but most days, you know, I'm focused on it's the same thing, Gina. It's like, okay, so how can I help to elevate this conversation in the space around CX professionals and the work that we do? So I do consult, I do speak, I do create content on this topic. The thing that I am most activated on right now in terms of the the content and the the way that I try to awaken people's mindset around the urgency and criticality of this work is something I call the servant challenger mindset. And it's really this idea of, you know, if we're going to be able to challenge people to be the very best that they can be and to innovate and and create a culture of collective genius, to use that Gina, that Linda R. Hill term. we've got to be able to challenge people. It's it's not Gina: Yeah, yeah. Nate Brown: enough just to maintain the status quo and to to go along, you know, in in a and to be nice, you know, in the sense of like just kind of checking boxes and and no, that's not enough. So, Gina: Mm-hmm. Nate Brown: but we can't just come out swinging, like, you know, challenging people like you can do better and this needs to be better. And what about this, you know, just kind of that what what are they what do they call them? Seagull managers that fly in and poop all over and then fly Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: out. You know, that's So you gotta you gotta earn the right first. So how do we earn the right, Gina? We earn the right through trust, through great relationship. And and I think about radical candor. Before you challenge directly, you gotta care personally, right? And so it's like, well, how do we care? And and those servant leadership principles come in. It's like we we earn that trust, we demonstrate we care about you as a human being first. Like you matter and you're important. And like we and then. We share this common bond. We get to work inside this community, this workplace community together. We care so much about this mission. We care about our customers that we get to serve. It's like, wow, this is the foundation of a really meaningful relationship. Like let's grow that and foster that. Then it's time, Gina, to challenge directly. Let's innovate. Let's design experiences that can earn lasting loyalty, even today when that's really hard to earn, harder than it's ever been. Gina: Because the the choices are are so numerous. it the the changes that I have seen just from a customer experience perspective. We released a book, what, three or four years ago, I think, about customer experience. And I remember when we first started writing it, the whole idea of a customer service or the customer experience officer hadn't even come around yet, right? And Nate Brown: Wow. Yeah. Gina: now most of the larger corporations have a a CXO or someone in in charge of it, thank goodness. But What are you seeing like what other changes have you seen over over the time in the space that are actually making an impact for the customer experience? Nate Brown: I mean, gosh, it it's hard to it's hard to tendril in on one thing. I mean, if if you think about the structure of the organization, like I've I've been calling Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: it the Great Convergence. Because it used to be you had a you know that CX team that ran the Voice of Customer program and some transformation Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: initiatives that were customer focused. And you had the customer service team that's over here taking tickets and solving problems, and you had The marketing team that's managing strategic customer relationships and figuring out, are we defending the brand promise? What is the brand promise? Then you have the ITSM department somewhere in the basement, you know, using agentic technology and doing all these, again, case ticketing, creating, cre creating the digital ecosystem that our customers are now using for self-service capabilities. So it's like, Gina, holy crap, you know, th these conversations cannot Gina: Amazing. Nate Brown: be. Siloed anymore, the way that these organizations were structured does not lead to experience innovation or or the type of unified capabilities that have to be there for us to deliver on the promise. So the structure is changing. And to use a Justin Robbins term, it's it's this idea of like a customer interaction leader. So it's like, you know, you have all these customer-facing elements that culminate in these powerful ways. So, you know, organizations are restructuring in favor of these. These new capabilities and some of it is technology driven. Like, why why are we gonna have all this agentic capability on the IT side and over here in CRM and then over here in the support department? It's like, no, these things gotta work together. If if we're gonna be able to have the self-service automation reach in and find the right data and take action on behalf of the customer, we cannot continue to silo this stuff. I mean, this is your world, Gina, you know, tech tech Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: matchmaker. Thinking about in 2018 Cloud Security Alliance report, the average enterprise organization had 464 custom applications in. And the data was so siloed and it was such a mess, the digital ecosystem was a mess. Gina: Mm-hmm. Nate Brown: And so, like, we're we're paying the price of that still today. You know, people are running trying to implement AI and trying to leapfrog and do these things, but they're stuck paying the bill of the fact that even a few years ago, we had a tool for every problem. Gina: Yes. And and don't you find that still like that mentality somewhat still exists when they're buying AI? Because now they're buying AI in silos. And it's like w we're recreating the Nate Brown: Yeah. We've always done it that way. It's wrong. Gina: same problem, only different. Yeah. Yeah. Nate Brown: It it can't it can't happen. So like it's a it's a organizational structure change. It's a Gina: Yes. Nate Brown: technology like digital ecosystem major overhaul change. It's a process change. I mean all pick pick your pick your poison, like Gina: Yeah. Tell me Nate, when you get into an organization, and maybe, you know, without using names, of course, or anything, but one of your success stories, like how do you walk them through what we're talking about and help help your customers or potential customers actually see see the light? Nate Brown: Yeah, I mean I like to think about it and and I'm working on a a cool resource with Ben Fodden from Help Field right now. And we're thinking through like the levels of service evolution right now. Because you know, the bar is elevated so quickly that it's it's even hard to to visualize like what did the legacy service center look like and what does the modern elevated service center look like? And like what are the real gaps now? Gina: Mm-hmm. Nate Brown: Like that that needs to that that needs some clarification. But you know, I think as I was writing that document or working on that last night, I thought back to one transformation that I helped with, where the organization was kind of stuck at level three, which to me is like super capable guide, but also super reactive. Gina: Mm. Nate Brown: So it's like we're sitting here waiting for service tickets to come in. That doesn't, we don't get to do that anymore, Gina. Because if if you're if you're sitting back waiting for tickets to come into you as a brand, guess what? They're not coming to you. Because now people are going out to Reddit and to YouTube and third-party Gina: Mm-hmm. Nate Brown: communities. They're going out to other places to resolve the issues that they have with you. So we gotta be present in these third-party environments. We got to go out there. We got to be super aggressive with our knowledge curation process to where those sources of truth. When when when Jim and I is amalgamating this macro resolution document when somebody searched for the resolution of an issue, we want to have a voice in that. Like we want to we want Jim and I to find our Gina: Absolutely. Nate Brown: stuff and not just be pulling from the stuff that people said about us on Reddit. Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: But like that's hard. Like that's hard to to achieve some of that today. So in in this particular case, I was able to get the organization addicted to customer curiosity. What what is our customer actually thinking about? Where are they stuck today? What is it that we do as a guide that makes them be unstuck? And then we we bring them to this alternate reality of their definition of success and we bring them there in ways that nobody else can. What does that journey look like? What challenges do they have? How is that journey going to morph in the next two years in in their sector, in their industry? But like when people become addicted. to the way that the customer thinks and acts and behaves and lives their life, and then puts themselves in that context instead of the other way around, wonderful things start to happen. Gina: I love that. What's what's next for for CX Accelerator and for for you know Experience Nate? You just mentioned an article you're publishing. Nate Brown: Hopefully. Yeah. Gina: What's what's coming up next for you guys? Nate Brown: That's a great question, Gita. let's so we we have next the next big thing that we're doing through the nonprofit of CX Accelerator is our international CX Day event on October 6th. And I'm so excited to launch that. We did we did a mini version of this last year and we had a blast and we helped a lot of people through that event. It is a celebration and it is an equipping day all about growing CX professionals on their career journey. So would love to have folks to participate in that. It's gonna be live in Nashville with a true simulcast capability. So you can you can sign in from anywhere and and truly participate in that day. so yeah that that's the next big thing on the side of the nonprofit. For me personally, I'm not sure Gina. I I'm just kind of figuring stuff out as I go here. I'm having a blast creating content and and trying to to just trying to elevate this conversation all around. You know, CCW was so exciting, right? I mean I felt like Gina: It was Nate Brown: And this is my own interpretation, but I felt like kind of last year and even the year before, there was this like addiction to go implement AI and race. There was like this fever pitch urgency and race, but it wasn't an intelligent race. Gina: Mm-hmm. Nate Brown: and and this year the conversation was different. It it felt more mature. People were asking better questions. People weren't thinking about, you know, just shoving in technology. People were thinking and and also not as addicted to the efficiency idea. How do we cut costs? How can we save Gina: Yes. Nate Brown: a bunch of money? It's like, no, we will we want to be efficient and we wanna be not just efficient even in terms of cutting costs inside the business, but like we want to be efficient on behalf of the customer to save them time and energy in the resolution cycle. And then it's beyond, it's like, and how do we truly elevate the experience as part of Gina: Absolutely. And the one thing that I loved about it this year too, and and I've seen that trend kind of starting and gaining more momentum, but the focus on the internal customers, so the employee experience too. I've really noticed that that is Nate Brown: Yes. Good. Gina: more people are caring. And I think they have to because as AI handles those simpler questions, and then the burnout's gonna become a lot more of a real issue and an Nate Brown: Yeah. Gina: impact to centers. And but it was really encouraging to me to see that. N not take front and center, but it was definitely more prevalent in conversations that we were having, you know? And and it was great to see. Nate Brown: Yeah. Agree. Refreshing. I I came out that show refreshed and encouraged, and and that did not Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: happen last year. Gina: Yeah. exhausted but refreshed. Yeah. Nate Brown: True, good point. Gina: Nate is there anything you'd like the audience to know that I haven't asked you yet? Nate Brown: my gosh, there's so there's so many things that that run through my the best Gina: No, there's so many. Nate Brown: breed of dog is the golden doodle. I mean I I don't care what everybody everybody calls it like the COVID dog. Like everybody went and got a golden doodle. They're just the Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: best dogs. I I do controversial take here. Gina: Okay. Nate Brown: we buy we buy raw milk from a dude in the Costco parking lot. and I I Gina: Love. Nate Brown: I am a supporter of this and I just I I think big big milk has been lying to us for some time. and so I I think raw milk is is worth assessing for you in your health journey. That that would be another, yeah. from another Gina: I love that. I will look into it. Awesome. Nate Brown: and from a more relevant perspective to what we're talking about, I I would just say, you know, this is a great moment to establish curiosity towards the customer, towards each other. You know, go go refresh yourself on radical candor. you know, if you feel like you're getting stuck, you gotta earn momentum. And to earn momentum, you got to earn trust first. So go back and look at your five dysfunctions of a team. You know, look, look and see Gina: Uh-huh. Nate Brown: where some of those barriers to your trust are. because I just feel like, you know, there's this addiction to transformation, but these leaders are there's a storm. There's this storm brewing in terms of there's all these really heavy, sad variables out there, people losing their jobs and societal unrest and. AI unknown quantities and like all this stuff. And instead of people like earning trust and and locking people in towards meaningful activities, they're sending people out in the storm with a jet ski. What are you doing? Like don't Gina: It's a that's a great analogy. And you know, don't you find too, Nate, that that there's a generation that's now in the workforce that has dealt with the COVID, they're much more technically savvy, they're less able to like conversation and real life interaction hasn't been a thing for them a lot. And so Nate Brown: yeah. Gina: as leaders, we need to adapt how we lead now. Like How we lead is changing so much because of who's now in the workforce. Right? Yeah. Nate Brown: I mean the way we're leading is not working. Like I I got blown away by the the Edelman Trust Barometer Report, which is a well-established thing. And it's saying that we are in a leadership crisis unlike anything we've ever seen. And the the the quadrant of trust that we have towards leadership right now ha has never been lower, both organizationally, societally. Like just in general, the way that we think about respect and trust leaders, it is not in a good spot. We Gina: Not happening. Nate Brown: gotta change something, Gina. So it's it's like, okay, stop sending the people out in jet skis saying, Go use AI, go do this. You know, it's like, no, we gotta lock people into a seaworthy vessel that that is stamped with the meaningful mission and stamped with good peer to peer relationships and you know, trust, you know, is earning that trust through the these things that we know. We know them intrinsically, we know them. through through lessons that we've learned, you know, as as we've grown up and just experienced life, but then we forget them in the workplace and we don't, we don't put people on the seaworthy vessel. But Gina: Yeah. Nate Brown: when you when you get them in there, when you earn that trust, then it's time to hit that throttle to eleven and go somewhere. Take your customers somewhere. You gotta innovate. You can't stay in that that state of status quo. You can't get stuck in inertia right now because you will lose market share. You will get leapfrogged. Gina: Yeah, absolutely. Nate, to wrap things up, I've always been a fan of James Lipton. And so to end the podcast we do a little bit of rapid fire. that Nate Brown: Whoa. Okay. Gina: I know but flash from the past, you can tell my age by that. Nate Brown: Yeah. Gina: what noise or sound do you love? Nate Brown: I like the noise of pumping gas. I don't know, it's just I like it. Gina: And what noise or sound do you hate? Nate Brown: I have a I was just said something really mean about my daughter. I okay, I'm gonna say I'm gonna say this. My daughter's gonna hate this. Her gerbils are the loudest little rodents. I mean, I I've thought there was an intruder in our home before because the gerbil was making so much noise over in her room. So I I'm not a fan of the gerbil noise. Gina: And what profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Nate Brown: e easy. I would I would live on a cruise ship. I would be the the MC guy. I would be a a pickleball Gina: Yes. Nate Brown: instructor, and I would have a Beach Boys cover band called The Good Vibrations. That's that's all I want to do right now. Gina: my God, I love it. I love it. That's so phenomenal. And I know Nate, we're gonna include the link for CX Accelerator with this Nate Brown: Awesome. Gina: when we release it, as well as as experience Nate, so that people can can look into that. I I could chat with you for hours. I just want to say thank you so much for coming on. It has been an Nate Brown: good. Gina: absolute pleasure. And thanks for all that you do to help further people in our community. Nate Brown: Well thank you, Gina. And thanks to all the folks who contribute to CX Accelerator. It is a volunteer effort. And and thank you, Gina, for everything that you're doing. You're awesome. Gina: Awesome. Thank you.