The Experience Mindset: Changing the Way You Think About Growth
Tiffani Bova
Portfolio/Penguin (June 2023)

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert’s there are few.”  Shunryū Suzuki

Years ago when Southwest Airlines was more profitable and had greater cap value than all of its nine competitors COMBINED, its then chairman and CEO, Herb Kelleher, was asked how his airline accomplished that: “We take great care of our people, they take great care of our customers, and our customers take great care of our shareholders.”

The results of all major studies of what employees and customers consider to be most important to them reveal that feeling appreciated is ranked either first or second.

So, how to create employees and customers who are what Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell characterize as “evangelists”?

Tiffani Bova provides a thorough explanation in her book. She prepares leaders in almost any organization — whatever its size and nature may be — to “grow exponentially by improving both [relationships], balancing improvement in employee and customer experiences in tandem in order to leverage a mutually beneficial combination of the two…Ultimately, the Experience Mindset is about fully maximizing the leverage points between a strong employee experience and customer experience to create a virtuous cycle of momentum that leads to significantly better growth rates…By strategically pursuing an exceptional, balanced experience for ALL stakeholders, you achieve a sum greater than the parts, magnifying growth many times over.”

It is no coincidence that companies annually ranked among those most highly regarded and best to work for are also annually ranked among those most profitable with the greatest cap value. As Bova makes crystal clear, superior employee experience (EX) and superior customer experience (CX) are not separate but related. Rather, they are [begin italics] interdependent [end italics].

These are among the passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to indicate the scope of Bova’s coverage:

o Raising the CX Bar (Pages 3-6)
o The Characteristics of Superior CX (7-9)
o The CX Dilemma (12-14)
o Raising the EX Bar (21-24)
o The Characteristics of Superior EX (25-27)

o The Results of Employee Dissatisfaction and Disengagement (31-34)
o World-Class EX Drives Industry-Leading CX (43-46)
o The Tension: A Crisis of Prioritization (50-52)
o Diverging Views and Priorities of Executives (57-59)
o The Experience Mindset in Practice (68-71)

o It’s Personal (86-89)
o An Unlikely Partnership (95-97)
o Technology Transformation to Improve Processes (106-109)
o The Silo Effect (109-114)
o Design Thinking (114-118)

o The Connected and Integrated Workforce (133-136)
o Technology Is a Team Sport (138-140)
o Start with the Culture (145-150)
o The Five Key Elements (150-154)
o CX Metrics That Matter and  EX Metrics That Matter(173-179 and 180-188)

Bova makes excellent use of several reader-friendly devices that include “Chapter Takeaways” and “Conversation Starter Questions” at the end of nine of the ten chapters. I also commend her on her skillful use of mini-commentaries that examine real-world applications of The Experience Mindset. For example, “Third Time’s the Charm: Howard Schultz and Starbucks” (Pages 71-76) and “When Culture Goes Wrong: Volkswagen” (159-162)

High-impact business books are evidence-driven and share in different ways and to varying extent the most valuable lessons their author(s) learned from real companies in which their leaders faced major challenges and learned valuable lessons that are relevant to almost any company, whatever its size and nature may be.  Tiffani Bova offers an excellent example that approach. As you work your way through her book, pay special attention to what you learn from the experiences of leaders in these companies, listed in alpha order: Airbnb, Best Buy, Chipotle, Clearco, IBM, Pfizer, Ritz-Carlton, Southwest Airlines, Unilever, and Zappos.

In this context, Shunryū Suzuki offers this excellent advice: “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert’s there are few.” It would be a fool’s errand to attempt to apply all of these lessons to the given situation. But you can learn something of value from all of them.

Here are two concluding suggestions: Highlight key passages, and, keep a lined notebook near at hand while reading The Experience Mindset in which you record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines) and page references as well as your responses to the aforementioned “Conversation Starter Questions” and lessons you have learned. These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.