Sense & Response: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously
Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
Harvard Business Review Press (2017)

How to engage in a two-way conversation with your market that will drive substantial value

To what does the title of this book refer? Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden introduce a mindset and a methodology that will enable business leaders to use  high-impact technologies to maximize the potential value of a continuous feedback loop.  Doing so will enable almost any organization — whatever its size and nature may be — to achieve these strategic objectives, best viewed as “five key principles”:

o Create two-way conversations with its market (i.e. customers)
o Focus on the outcomes (i.e. destination, then determine how to get there)
o Embrace continuous change and continuous processes (i.e. observe, evaluate, react, adjust)
o Create collaboration (i.e. between and among those involved)
o Create a learning culture (i.e. learn, understand, share)

The aforementioned “high-impact technologies” include artificial intelligence (AI); sensors and the Internet of Things (IOT); autonomous machines (robots, cobots, drones, and self-driving vehicles); distributed leaders and blockchains; virtual, augmented, and mixed reality; and connecting everything and everyone such as 5G networks and satellite constellations.

The Sense and Respond mindset/methodology requires effective leadership initiative at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise. Hence the importance of communication, cooperation, and collaboration in order to sustain what I would characterize as high-speed incrementalism. Those with direct and frequent contact with customers are especially important “assets” in an organizational intelligence system.

I really like the direct, one-on-one approach that Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden take when sharing material with their reader. For example, at the outset: “”Legtus know what you think. Let us know how this approach works in your organization, for your team, and for your products and services. We’d love to hear from you.” They provide their email addresses.

Then when concluding, “We hope you’ll take this book as a call to arms. We want you to pick one or two of the methods you’ve seen here and try them at your workplace…You can always reach us at [again, email addresses provided]. Please get in touch, and good luck!”

I presume to suggest What should be obvious: The value of the material in this book will be determined almost entirely by how carefully you absorb and digest it, then how effectively you apply whichever portions of it are most relevant to your own situation. I wish you great success in the months to come.