by Annette Franz | Sep 2, 2026 | core values, culture, employee experience, leadership, teamwork, Uncategorized
I originally wrote this post for Contact Center Pipeline. It appeared on their site in September 2025. Every company has a culture, whether it’s the one you design or the one you allow. But in many organizations, there are actually two: the mission culture, i.e., what...
by Annette Franz | Jul 22, 2026 | culture, customer experience, employee experience, leadership, learning, Uncategorized
Most leaders believe they’re listening – and learning. They run surveys, host a town hall or two, do the occasional Gemba walk. Then they step back, review the data, and declare themselves “informed.” But they’re not; they’re sampling. And sampling...
by Annette Franz | Jul 15, 2026 | alignment, culture, customer experience, employee experience, golden thread, leadership, outcomes, strategy, systems thinking, Uncategorized
This is the fourth in a series on the Golden Thread and your systems. If you haven’t read Where the Golden Thread Breaks Most Often or Strategy Is a System, Not a Statement or Customers Don’t Experience Your Intentions. They Experience Your Systems. it’s worth...
by Annette Franz | Jul 8, 2026 | business outcomes, culture, customer experience, employee experience, golden thread, leadership, systems thinking, Uncategorized
This is the third in a series on the Golden Thread and your systems. If you haven’t read Where the Golden Thread Breaks Most Often or Strategy Is a System, Not a Statement, it’s worth starting there. We’ve established that the Golden Thread breaks when what leaders...
by Annette Franz | Jul 1, 2026 | culture, customer experience, employee experience, golden thread, leadership, strategy, Uncategorized
“Be customer-centric.” “Put employees first.” “Create a great experience.” Leaders say these things. They mean them. And then they wonder why nothing actually changes. Back in 2015, I wrote an article called “Be Positive” Is Not a...
by Annette Franz | Jun 24, 2026 | culture, first principles thinking, golden thread, outcome tracing, outcomes, Uncategorized
Most organizations solve problems by analogy, as Elon Musk and others would say. Here’s what that looks like: outcomes go sideways so someone benchmarks a competitor, imports a “best practice,” or hires a consultant to install a framework that worked somewhere...
