The Customer Mission Podcast with Andrea Belk Olson

Andrea Belk Olson
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Do you truly have a customer-centric organization or do you simply say you do? Do you know how to identify unmet customer needs? Do you have a growth strategy driven by compelling differentiators? The Customer Mission Podcast shares best practices and insights on how to create customer-centric behaviors and mindsets to grow faster, be more competitive, and be more profitable.

  1. 44M AGO

    Why Culture Change Doesn’t Happen by Directive

    A few weeks ago, news broke that Target is rolling out a new in-store initiative, internally dubbed the “10-4” program: employees are expected to make eye contact, smile and say hello when a customer comes within 10 feet, and if the customer comes within 4 feet, the employee should ask if they need help or how their day is going. On the surface this seems like a sensible customer-service move. Walmart, Disney, and many major hotel chains implement this same guideline. But from the perspective of culture change, it's a cautionary tale.

    4 min

  2. NOV 6

    Why Alignment Isn’t About Words But Lenses

    Ask ten people in your organization what your company’s mission means, and you’ll likely get ten different answers. Some will recite it verbatim from the website. Others will paraphrase it into something more tactical. A few might shrug and say, “It’s what leadership cares about.” We interpret everything, from strategy to slogans, through our own filters. Our roles, experiences, incentives, and biases. When leaders assume that “communicating the mission and goals” is enough, they miss the crucial step—helping people see how that mission translates for them.

    3 min

  3. OCT 30

    Who’s Really in Charge of Strategic Innovation?

    Organizations love to put 'innovation' on a pedestal. It’s plastered across annual reports, exalted in company presentations, and woven into corporate values. But when it comes to actually executing strategic innovation (coming up with bold ideas AND turning them into a sustained competitive advantage) suddenly the room gets quiet. Everyone agrees it’s important. No one’s quite sure who owns it. So, who is in charge of strategic innovation? The CEO? The senior VPs? The departments executing initiatives on the ground? The truth is both simpler and more complicated: everyone and no one.

    4 min

  4. OCT 23

    Why Do You Ask That?

    A customer says something seemingly simple: “Do you offer this feature?” or “How fast is your delivery?” Our instinct is to answer. Quickly. Confidently. Because that’s what good service looks like, right? But when we rush to answer, we risk missing the real question — the one hidden beneath the surface. That’s where one deceptively simple phrase changes everything: “Why do you ask that?”

    3 min

  5. OCT 17

    Why Leaders Should Court Dissent, Not Agreement

    When corporate culture becomes a belief system rather than a guide, you’ve got a problem. Suddenly, everyone’s parroting the same language, dressing the same ideas in brand-approved buzzwords, and slowly losing the ability to think independently.

    3 min

  6. SEP 11

    Why Leaders Keep Lighting Fires They Can’t Control

    When leaders (yes, people like me) drop rapid-fire “must-do” ideas and expect everyone to scramble, we don’t get innovation. We get chaos. Multiply that by a few thousand employees and you’ve manufactured a system where big initiatives stall, priorities collide, and smart people start hedging their effort because nothing sticks long enough to matter.

    5 min

  7. AUG 21

    Why Organizations Stall and How to Get Them Moving Again

    I recently came across Helge Tennø’s piece, Why Do Organizations Get Stuck?, and one line jumped out at me: “When organizations get stuck it’s often because they are limiting the information they are making available to make decisions.” It’s painfully true. We often think “stuck” is about lack of resources or competitive pressure, but more often, it’s self-inflicted. We close ourselves off—sometimes without even realizing it.

    4 min

  8. AUG 14

    How I Learned Creative Problem Solving from a Pizza Guy and a Tube of Canadian Bacon

    Creativity doesn’t always require a whiteboard session, a futurist keynote, or a massive R&D budget. Sometimes, it starts with an appetite—and a willingness to ask an unconventional question.

    2 min
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Do you truly have a customer-centric organization or do you simply say you do? Do you know how to identify unmet customer needs? Do you have a growth strategy driven by compelling differentiators? The Customer Mission Podcast shares best practices and insights on how to create customer-centric behaviors and mindsets to grow faster, be more competitive, and be more profitable.

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