The skill or the will…

I read an interesting article recently from the Wall Street Journal. ‘You’re Next Boss Might Be More of a Coach Than a Dictator”.

Well, of course, I am not sure a lot of modern thinking leaders today would still be classed as dictators, although I am sure we can all still highlight more than a few with these traits, but the article is certainly in line with conversations we have been having for some time with HR Directors, CEOs COOs and CCOs who are thinking and talking more about their future leaders and asking what might be missing…

They may have the skill, but do they have the will?

Resilience, Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence (EQ and SQ) may have always been on the business agenda, but in recent months and years with the emotional health and wellbeing of our colleagues becoming increasingly prominent in our ongoing strategy and priorities more businesses are looking at their talent acquisition and development strategies to highlight and select for higher levels of EQ SQ and resilience.

Top 20 CX Stars

So incredibly proud that both myself and Hannah Louise Cox were nominated for and have now been listed in the Top 20 of the CX Stars 2021. This is the second year running we have both been featured across the Customer Experience community by leading publication Customer Experience Magazine.

Douglas Jackson were also one of only three businesses to have two entries to feature and alongside brands including Ipsos Mori, Forresters, Kantar, Octopus Energy, BT, Hitachi, HSBC, AkzoNobel, Microsoft, Medallia and many more.

Developing Extraordinary Talent and Great Leaders

‘If you had an incredibly high number of brilliant leaders in your business right now, what difference would it make to the culture, to the environment and to the results that your business were getting?’

This was just one of the questions asked by @Elke Edwards from Ivyhouse on our live event on Extraordinary Leadership for 2021 and beyond.

In this short two minute clip of Elkes’ introduction, she asks some searching questions:

Customer Director Report 2020

Is your Customer Experience where it needs to be?

Has your biggest competitor hired a Chief Customer Officer and you have little to no idea what the role means and how to best get value out of hiring one?

Are your Customer Service and/ or Customer Experience functions waning, or if we are honest, have they ever had the right tools to be effective anyway?

What if you are a technology company and are thinking about Customer Success and how having this function may help you and your business to perform better? But… you believe it to be a bit of a ‘buzzword’ and so haven’t yet made the investment…

We have something to help! Click here to download our Customer Director Report 2020 where you can find out the answers with regards to the above, and:

Merry Christmas and Christmas Opening 2020

Our Offices will close on Thursday 24th December at 12 noon and re-open on Monday 4th January 2021 at 9am.

During this time members of the team will be dialling in to collect messages and be able to access emails. 

If you are attending an interview, or, need to speak with any of the team urgently then you should already have all of your individual consultants personal contact details but if not, please call and leave a message on: 0345 620 9720 or email; mail@douglas-jackson.com and someone will get back to you. 

If your call and message is not urgent, a member of the team will be back in touch with you in the New Year.

We would like to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Safe, Happy New Year.

See you in 2021.

Planning Your Virtual Talent Acquisition Strategy?

If you are planning your virtual talent acquisition strategy, what will you do differently?

Whether you will be doing virtual, a mix of interactions, or socially distanced interviews.

Our free guide will help you avoid some of the top pitfalls for chasing away top talent and help you plan for a more successful outcome.

We have created an ebook on How to Create a Successful Virtual Hiring Strategy and are able to offer it to you for free.

In this helpful ‘How to’ guide you will learn:

– How to plan your virtual strategy

– How to attract and engage top tier talent

– How to manage the virtual hiring process

– What changes to make when virtually hiring

– How to avoid losing top talent to your competitors

– How to improve the success and retention of your new hires

Start learning how to develop a really successful hiring strategy, saving you time and money, helping you secure top talent

Claim Your Free Copy

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The UK National Contact Centre Conference 2020

This week I had the pleasure of attending the UK National Contact Centre Conference with the CCMA.

This is a long standing commitment and much anticipated event, always a highlight in the calendar as we make our way to the British Library for an informative, engaging day with a wide range of customer service and contact centre leaders and Directors.

This year, of course was a little different as the event moved to an online digital venue but the day did not disappoint and had as usual a great deal to offer.

Leigh Hopwood, CEO of the CCMA kicked us off and introduced our first speak Amy Cashman, CEO Insights Division UK and Ireland, Kantar.

I am always fascinated by the research, which for today was proven true across many of the day’s presentations.

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How You and Your Leaders Can Emerge Stronger and More Successful

If you are like many of the customer and employee focused business leaders and HR Directors we are talking to, resilience and the ability to attract and develop resilient leaders is critical at this time.

We have been speaking with a number of business leaders, CEO’s, CCO’s, COO’s, and HR Directors about the resilience of their leadership team.

Having resilient leaders at the moment is critical for you to achieve success, to make money, save money, lead your teams and colleagues.

What if you do not feel you have enough resilience in your leadership team?

Maybe you are asking how do I recruit for resilience?

How do I measure resilience in our leadership team?

Returning to the office…Covid Recovery for business…

If you are like many customer led business leaders you will be considering getting at least some of your team back to the office in the coming weeks, or months.

Are you thinking about the key considerations for getting your team back to the office?

As we knew this subject was something a number of leaders were considering and asking about in our Customer Director Network, a virtual collaboration platform where Customer Service Directors, Customer Experience Directors, COO’s and CCO’s come to share and collaborate with their peers on challenges and opportunities, Executive Search Consultant Hannah Louise Cox organised a video interview with Customer Experience Director at Vanarama Dan Eddie on ‘getting your people back to the office successfully’.

Click on the image which will take you to the full video.

Basketball, Burgers and Resilient Leadership.

Resilience and resilient leadership.

In the last few weeks I have watched both The Last Dance on Netflix and The Founder on Amazon.

Basketball and Burgers, two seemingly unrelated subjects, neither of which I am particularly keen on, yet I found both riveting.

The Last Dance, for those of you have not seen it is centred around the Chicago Bulls and the team in 1997, Michael Jordan and the team allowed a film crew to follow them as they went for their sixth NBA title in eight seasons. 

Digital Online Innovation For The Digital Experience Awards 2020

It was a pleasure, again, to be involved in this years’ #UKDXAwards .

It wasn’t until I received my logos and badges from the Awards International team that I realised I’ve judged at 11 of these awards now across the series! I always come away from these events having realised plenty of value from me being involved; from the insight and knowledge gained first hand by learning different businesses innovations, to also learning best practise and excellence in the use of technology and people engagement, and it is always a joy to see how passionate people are about their work, their people, and their organisations! The events are always so upbeat and uplifting. Very enjoyable!

Searching For Excellence and Geisha Recruiters???

I was recently lucky enough to visit Japan, a fascinating country with a diverse, rich and unique culture, much in contrast to the West.  I was particularly drawn to the tradition and history of Japan; the Geisha, the Samurai, the wonder of the bamboo forests, the might of Mount Fuji but I was also struck by how they strive for perfection and how they master their profession and or art.

Whether it be the fact that all their trains are on time.  They have the most 3* Michelin restaurants in the world. The lack of rubbish, or that a Maiko (Geisha apprentice), will train for 5 years to achieve the status of Geiko.  During this time, they will have no access to a TV, Facebook, or any other technology.  They receive no wage.  It is hard to imagine that such young women, Maiko are typically aged between 14 and 17, volunteer for this, mainly due to a sense of honour, to preserve and maintain such traditions. This apprenticeship and service to a trade is not unique, a Sushi Chef will also generally serve as an apprentice for 5 years, working with a master itamae before they are given their first job, preparation of the sushi rice and so it continues across professions. 

Is Customer Experience Really Dead?

This is a subject that I have been pondering on for a long while, and it is a subject that seems to really be at the forefront now in the face of our global crisis.

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There is so much talk around what ‘Customer Experience’ means exactly. What actually does make up a Customer Experience leader? Is there need for ‘Customer Experience’ leadership or should all members of a leadership team embrace the customer and therefore drive customer centric values across each and every business function? As an industry, is this something that we are doing effectively?

The New Customer and Employee Landscape

What a few months, outside of the movies, I don’t think the majority of us could have ever planned or thought the country would be in lockdown, or in the grip of pandemic as we are.

On the whole, we have coped admirably well, everyone is trying to be upbeat, positive, kinder, more helpful, but the future is likely to look and be very different to the past, especially across the customer, employee and contact landscape.

As we look beyond lockdown and a gradual return to work, of sorts, what sort of change are we likely to see in the world of customer led organisations, customer experience, employee engagement and contact centres:

Remote working

Emergency Measures and The Future

I have had the pleasure of talking to some great senior managers across different industries throughout the UK over the last week.

Having listened to several individuals and teams which have been implementing ‘emergency measures’ across their customer functions driven because of Covid-19, there have been many inspirational stories.