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TLF Gems Newsletter August 2024
Your monthly CX and insight newsletter from TLF Research
The intellect studies individual parts; intuition looks at the whole.
Soetsu Yanagi
I think there are two key skills you need when it comes to making good decisions: probabilistic thinking and systems thinking.
These are core concepts that enable you to navigate complexity and uncertainty, see the bigger picture, and deal effectively with surprises when they (inevitably) show up.
They're probably the best antidote to the tendency that organisations have to allow their decisions to be driven by short-term, simple, numbers (like cost) rather than long-term, complex, numbers (like customer lifetime value).
Often what looks like management by fact is really just management by metric, which is a subtle but incredibly important difference.
Thanks for reading,
Stephen
Here are 7 things we think are worth your time this month
Which Generation Did Covid Hit Hardest?
Interesting bit of research from Trajectory - before you read on have a little think about how you'd answer the question. Most people think Gen Z were worst affected, but Millenials are more likely to think that they were. I'm not sure quite what to do with this insight, but it feels like a useful nugget to tuck away in your memory! "For a generation that came of age during the global financial crisis in 2007-08, it's also just the latest 'once in a lifetime crisis' they've experienced in their (relatively) young lives."
Second Order Thinking
This is a good discussion of 'second order thinking' (thinking about the long term and systemic impacts of decisions to mitigate unintended consequences). It's hard to exaggerate how important this idea is for CX change programmes and business decision-making in general. "In a world of increasing complexity, the ability to anticipate potential outcomes and unintended consequences can be the difference between success and failure."
Gov.uk Style Guide
I love a style guide, and there's lots of good advice on writing clearly and accessibly in this one from Government Digital Services. Most organisations could noticeably improve customer journeys by making relatively small changes to wording and UX. The "Times" and "Words to avoid" sections are particularly good. "Midnight is the first minute of the day, not the last. You should consider using '11:59pm' to avoid confusion about a single, specific time."
Clean Language Questions
Good article about a concept I've recently come across - "clean language". It's an idea from therapy that is popular in coaching, but it has clear relevance for research (especially qualitative research) as well. Very thought provoking about the influence that the questions we ask has on the answers we receive, and why being grammatically correct is less important than we might think. "When they first hear Clean Language questions being asked, lots of people worry about the fact that the questions do not sound grammatically correct. It’s true, they don’t. They can sound quite odd at first. But the funny thing is that if you are on the receiving end of the questions, they seem to make perfect sense."
Digital Dr Doolittle
By far the most interesting AI-based conversation I've heard this month, this episode of Chris Morgan's 'The Wild' podcast expands out from its fascinating subject to consider the ethics of AI more widely, the impact of exponential technology, and the need for regulation. "When we invent a new technology, we invent a new responsibility."
No Feedback Sandwich
This blog is aimed at teachers, but it's relevant for anyone who has to give feedback. Lots of us have probably been advised to use the "feedback sandwich" to take the sting out of criticism, but it's probably not really a good idea and there are better ways. "Even though the Feedback Sandwich is a simple and time-efficient method, it may not be the most effective for boosting progress..."
What I'm Reading: Atomic Habits
This is our current TLF book club read, and it's one I've been meaning to get round to for ages (and yes, I do appreciate the irony of that). This is a book about building a system to stop your bad habits and encourage good ones. It's often seen as a personal productivity book, but I think it has at least as much to teach organisations about the realities of change. "...the framework I offer is an integrated model of the cognitive and behavioral sciences. I believe it is one of the first models of human behavior to accurately account for both the influence of external stimuli and internal emotions on our habits."
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Book Review
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A CX Research Reading List
We're often asked for recommendations on books about research and insight. Here are 12 that we think are great (and yes, we wrote 2 of them!).