Sarah Judd Welch on people-driven innovation

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Sarah Judd Welch is CEO of Sharehold, a people-driven innovation agency, and started one of the first community agencies when the concept of community in tech was just getting started. Sarah and Lauren talk about:

• The need for creating a new set of competencies and capabilities and value systems that allow businesses to serve their customers better.
• How your customers goals can serve as really effective metrics
• Why Net Promoter Score (NPS) is limited in measuring the success of community
• Why systems design is so important for serving your community and customers.
• Why research and other methods of listening to customers is critical skillset for organizations moving forward
• How design research helps you identify whether you’re focusing on the right opportunities and identify the worthy mountains to climb in business
• Reframing the presence of conflict as an opportunity for progress

Recommended Resources

• Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World by Dr. Viveck Murphy
• Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging by Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles Vogl
• Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
• Brene Brown

Select Highlights:

• “The capacity to listen to customers, I think that’s probably one of the most fundamental skills a company can develop in 2020 for a competitive advantage.”
• “That in order for there to be a relationship between an organization and its quote-on-quote customer, there had to be a transaction, and I felt there was a missed opportunity. We should able to provide value that is mutual and reciprocal rather than transactional. And I saw this to be true in my work in technology as well. I saw the power of bringing people together and treating people well and solving their problems as a purpose of the business.”
• “The role of a business in society is to serve people, therefore you need to be solving the problems of people. And the people who you serve are core stakeholders in your business and that fundamentally drove what my work is today.”
• “The idea of a super engaged community, true relationship-driven business is no longer up for debate. The ROI has been proven, and now we’re able to play at a significantly higher level of new value creation.”
• “The work that you do to support your team also supports your customers and vice versa. These are reciprocal mirrored relationships is that you need to be able to do both well.”
• “Conflict can be very powerful. In fact, one could argue that progress is not possible without conflict. You need to work through the conflict to progress forward and develop better solutions, and that’s part of the reason why diversity is such a powerful asset in any team.”