leadership
Curiosity-Led Execution (5-minute read)
Most organizations don’t struggle because they lack solutions—they struggle because they misdiagnose problems. A structured, curiosity-led approach accelerates alignment, reduces rework, and leads to solutions that actually stick.
My Starting Point
I was not a fan of consultants when I first started working with them. Most were arrogant, had limited focus, and viewed problems or goals in isolation. I later learned that the same could be said for salespeople, executives, and more. It had less to do with the role but was more evident when people presented themselves as experts.
Switching to consulting was a tough sell. When I finally accepted a position, I expected to learn proven methodologies from seasoned experts. The lessons learned were not always what I had anticipated.
Many of the senior consultants I worked with had been highly successful early in their careers. But over time, that success calcified into rigid frameworks and default approaches. They weren’t completely wrong—but they weren’t adaptable or as effective as they could have been, either.
It reminded me of the old metaphor: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
At one point, I seriously questioned whether consulting was the right fit for me.
Then I stepped back and looked at the best consultants I had worked with—the ones clients trusted and consistently delivered outcomes. I asked a simple question:
What do they do differently?
The answer wasn’t just expertise. It was curiosity, combined with the desire to deliver a positive experience that delivers tangible positive outcomes.
From Depth to Insight
Early in my career, I went deep—sometimes excessively so.
I read dozens of manuals for a relational database system, cover to cover, just to understand how it worked. Then I spent years, while traveling, going through its source code, trying to understand why it worked the way it did.
That effort paid off. I became recognized as an expert for that product, which opened the door to many challenging and exciting consulting engagements.
But it also revealed a limitation: Depth alone doesn’t scale.
What scaled was the mindset that I developed with it:
- Looking beyond surface-level symptoms.
- Viewing problems from a systemic perspective. Understanding how systems interact (not just how they function).
- Asking how and why decisions were made, not just what decisions were made.
I learned to read between the lines—technically and organizationally. To understand not just systems, but the people and processes behind them.
That context is powerful, but difficult to extract—especially quickly.
The Breakthrough: Structured Curiosity
What ultimately worked wasn’t just knowledge. It was a repeatable approach built on three elements:
- Establish credibility
Demonstrate enough expertise early to build confidence. - Lead with curiosity
Ask thoughtful, relevant questions that show genuine interest—not interrogation. - Close the loop
Articulate your understanding back to stakeholders to confirm, refine, or challenge it.
This creates a feedback loop:
Curiosity → Insight → Validation → Alignment
That loop is where trust—and progress—happens.
A Practical Tactic: The “Columbo Technique”
One of the most effective tools I’ve used is commonly called the Columbo Technique.
The idea is simple: Lower defenses by creating psychological safety—and a sense of control.
Instead of pushing for answers, you:
- Ask informed questions
- Make partial observations
- Then, intentionally leave a gap
Something like:
“I might be missing something, but I’m not fully connecting how X impacts Y…”
This does two things:
- Signals humility (reducing resistance)
- Invites correction (which reveals deeper truth)
People tend to open up—not because they’re forced to, but because they want to contribute. They feel safe because you are focused on understanding the situation and solving the problem, and not pointing fingers or assigning blame.
And once that happens, you get access to what actually matters: the “why” behind the “what.”
Applying This in the Real World
This approach works across consulting, sales, and leadership—but only if applied deliberately.
Here’s how to operationalize it:
1. Start Broad Before Going Deep
Don’t jump to solutions. Map the landscape first:
- Stakeholders
- Systems
- Constraints
- History
2. Use Their Language
Mirror terminology and examples. It builds alignment faster than forcing your own framework.
3. Validate Early and Often
Don’t wait until the end to present conclusions. Share evolving understanding:
- “Here’s what I think I’m seeing…”
- “Does this match your experience?”
- “Can you help me identify reasons why this might not work?”
4. Balance Confidence with Curiosity
Too much confidence shuts people down.
Too much curiosity erodes credibility.
The balance is where influence lives.
5. Optimize for Adoption, Not Perfection
The best solution is the one that gets implemented and sustained—not the one that looks best on paper.
A great example of this is at a large insurance company, where I led a successful 18-month redesign and implementation of a common Risk Management System used across three distinct businesses.
Before I came, they spent two years and several million dollars with a Big 5 Consulting company. The output was several 3” binders filled with specifications, definitions, and design documents. It was amazing, but wasn’t implementable. I have seen that far too often on consulting engagements.
A section in the middle of this post describes what happened with that project.
Make It Repeatable with the CLEAR Framework
This is a simple, reusable model that can help anyone new to a company or role.
The C.L.E.A.R. Framework
C — Credibility
- Establish baseline trust quickly.
- Demonstrate you “speak their language.”
L — Learn
- Map systems, stakeholders, constraints, and history.
- Ask high-quality, layered questions.
E — Expose
- Surface gaps, contradictions, hidden dependencies.
- Use techniques like the “Columbo Method.”
A — Align
- Play back understanding.
- Build shared clarity before prescribing.
R — Recommend
- Deliver solutions optimized for adoption and results, not elegance alone.
Why This Matters
When you lead with curiosity, you move faster—not slower.
You avoid rework.
You uncover hidden constraints early.
You gain stakeholder alignment before decisions are locked in.
And occasionally, you can help solve problems that have existed for years—in a matter of weeks—because you’re solving the right problem.
If this sounds interesting and you would like to discuss it further or seek out assistance, contact me here.
What is Customer Success?
In most companies, it is a department or a team. I would argue that it should be foundational in a company’s culture. Companies need to focus on providing products and services that solve critical business problems for their clientele. Failing to do that will ultimately lead to the death of products and ultimately corporate decline.
In a quarterly executive meeting a decade or so ago, the head of the Support organization stated this team was the most important. The head of Engineering then stated that her team was the most important. I chimed in and stated, “Without Sales, nothing happens, but ultimately, if all teams are not focused on the same objective, like a tripod, then all teams will ultimately fail.” Our CEO agreed with me, and that was the end of the discussion.
You could also argue that Marketing and Services should be included, and I would agree, since it goes back to all teams being focused on a singular, overarching goal.
In a previous post about creating Customers for Life, I wrote about a tactical implementation to address customer churn, which is the byproduct of failure in one or more areas. This was a wakeup call for me, as we were very focused on the success of our largest accounts and most productive channel partners – totaling 70% of our revenue, but we took the other “less valuable” accounts for granted. The lesson learned was that 30% of $62M is a large number, and by applying the same techniques to those accounts, we increased organic growth while minimizing churn.
Why Customer Success Teams Struggle
- Lack of Ownership: They do not own the accounts and often lack the motivation and accountability for the health and success of each customer.
- Stay Reactive: They are reactive rather than proactive advocates for customers.
- Lack of Resources: They are spread too thin and lack the capacity to actively engage with all but a few customers.
- Enter Too Late: They are not introduced early in the sales process, which is a great way to demonstrate commitment to the prospect’s success if they select you as a vendor.
- Stay Low in the Org Chart: They do not develop relationships beyond a small operational team, limiting executive visibility and expansion potential.
- Ad Hoc in Nature: They lack formal processes, including detailed documentation, that help ensure consistency and continuity over time.
How to Position Your Team for the Win
- SWOT: Review your strengths and weaknesses. Why do companies buy from you? (or, what are you really selling?) What are you known for? What do people like and appreciate? Where do you fall short? (opportunities for others) Accentuate the positive and focus on improvements where needed.
- We often received feedback from customers that when they called our support team, their problem was often solved on the initial call. With other vendors, it often required going through 2-3 people to get to someone knowledgeable who could help. We promoted this when selling and reinforced the importance of maintaining this positive image to our internal teams.
- We also received feedback that some of our technical features were lagging behind the competition, so my team and I helped identify the most critical features, then worked with Engineering to prioritize them and focus on bringing in new customers who needed them. It was a win-win.
- Be Proactive: It is often possible to anticipate problems or make improvements based on your understanding of the customer and their history. Being part of the solution means that you don’t wait for the next problem to engage.
- When I had my consulting company, we provided managed services for several large companies. We had proprietary monitoring tools that would report conditions that often led to outages if unchecked. We would address the issue and inform the customer once it was resolved. Our monthly summary report listed the likely outages avoided, the average duration of similar outages, and the cost avoided (based on the hourly cost of downtime). Key people saw our value at least monthly, so when it came time to renew our service, the process was fast and painless.
- Become the Internal Liaison: The customer success team should serve as the main conduit for information. Introduce your Services or Engineering teams to the customer early. This doesn’t just solve problems; it uncovers new opportunities to provide value (and sell additional services) that position the customer for even greater success. Engagement and a sense of partnership go a long way.
- I will often introduce the Services team when problems or needs arise. Their expertise and insights can be very valuable, often leading to services that position the customer for even greater success.
- Go Above and Beyond: People remember that. Teams begin to rely on you. And Executives begin to see your company and products as critical to their success. This creates long-term value for your company.
- Focus on the Future: Ask your customers, “How can we help with your upcoming initiatives and projects?” This is a great way to learn what they will be working on, to show your interest in their success, and to identify how your company and products can help them achieve it.
These are things that have been very successful for me when I was leading two large global regions, when I was a top Account Executive at a company with a small customer success team, and as a Consultant. I set expectations, led by example, and they began doing much more of what I expected from the customer success team. We started seeing improvements in the first 30 days.
While leadership doesn’t have to come from designated leaders, cultural changes usually require the commitment, involvement, and support of the organization’s top executives. Every person has the potential to make a positive impact on a company’s direction and success.
When the customer wins and views you as a key partner, you don’t have to worry about churn.
Lessons Learned from GTM Consulting
For the past two years, I have performed part-time, contract go-to-market consulting. My wife had a surgery that had gone wrong 18 months ago, so I needed something that would allow me to take care of her, stay sharp, earn money, and help companies grow.
Most of the work was with small to midsize companies, but the problems and needs mirrored what I have encountered at larger companies. The main difference is that large companies tend to look to software to address problems. In contrast, smaller companies lack the budget for what they view as an unproven solution that increases complexity.
Here are my Top 5 findings:
- GTM plans are often developed at the highest levels, often in isolation, without market testing and validation.
- Sales teams are pitted against one another, rather than working together to help everyone achieve more (i.e., “A rising tide lifts all boats.”)
- Sales teams are focused on selling features rather than solving business problems.
- CRMs are not consistently used and often reflect idealized fiction rather than reality.
- Sales management and teams are not leveraging AI to help focus their efforts.
Here are the related Lessons Learned:
- Identifying common business problems and describing how your product or service solves them should be the foundation of the plan. Perform market analysis. How do companies describe those problems? Their terminology, often found in job ads, can help create effective messaging that resonates. Work to become the natural fit for what your prospects are seeking.
- Individual contributors get paid to win, but sales management needs to create incentives for collaborative efforts that lead to wins.
- For one company, I convinced them to implement a 2% SPIV (like a SPIFF, but team-focused) for every team member who actively contributed to team improvement. SPIV payments were quarterly, and there was a running total so the team could see the fund growth. Initial indications of a positive impact are good.
- Another benefit of collaboration is that it helps teams focus on approaches that work due to ongoing testing and refinement. Collaboration also helps teams focus on a more accurate ICP (ideal customer profile). Sales management can then feed their findings back to Marketing to improve and tailor their efforts.
- Selling is a byproduct of problem-solving. You can’t solve problems if you don’t know what they are. Every interaction with a prospect should focus on gathering information, building trust and relationships, and leveraging prior interactions to demonstrate that your solution will solve their problem and ease their pain.
- CRMs often either lack information or are full of wishful thinking. They focus on activities, and not progress and next steps. Using MEDDIC/MEDPICC as a foundation for reporting is a much better start. Sales managers need to independently validate the information to ensure their teams are being upfront and honest. Trust, coaching, and collaboration work together for the win.
- AI is not a panacea, but it is very effective for research, market validation, prospecting, and meeting preparation. Going in prepared builds respect and credibility, saves time, and lets you quickly qualify prospects in or out. There may be a nurturing program for some of the prospects qualified out for immediate deals, but your time is valuable, and you will go hungry chasing deals you can’t close.
So, what are your thoughts? Have you seen some of these problems yourself? How did you handle them? Let me know in the comments below.
And if you are looking for a Consultant to help your business grow or someone who can add immediate value to your team, then contact me.
The Power of Storytelling
The discussion of data and goals in business is very common. Unfortunately, it is so common that it becomes routine. There is no heart, no excitement, and, generally, a lack of real motivation that limits the likelihood of success.
Stories evoke emotions, and emotions often trump logic when it comes to getting buy-in and creating excitement. Stories also help with visualization, and visualizing success is proven to enhance goal achievement. That leads to mutual success. Just think about the power of TED Talks to help with the understanding and retention of ideas.
Steve Jobs realized that people are drawn to engaging stories that evoke emotion. He created relatable scenarios that helped people understand the benefits of a technologically advanced solution without having to dive deep into the technology. He spoke about things that were fun, exciting, and useful. He was visionary, but just as important, he was able to share that vision and create demand. Relatability and engagement, when done right, create an emotional attachment that drives action.
When my team and I were selling a leading-edge vector analytics database years ago, our Marketing team and other experts wanted us to focus on what later became known as “speeds and feeds.” Our product was more advanced than the competitors’, but our message was undifferentiated. That is not a good place to start when your competitors are larger and better known.
I created a weekly webinar that we called “Why Fast Matters.” We started by discussing common issues around the complexity and inflexibility of Star Schemas, Fact Tables, pre-aggregation, specialized hardware, and more. The focus was on agility that created a tangible business advantage while saving money. One of the stories I would tell was around a beautiful, multi-layered cake. It is a thing of beauty, taking a lot of time and skill to create. It was also fragile and expensive.
The story concluded like this:
“Now, picture yourself taking a bite of that amazing cake with your eyes closed. Think about how rich, flavorful, and amazing it is. Then someone hands you a fork, and you take another bite. It is just as amazing. You open your eyes and see a plated piece of the amazing layer cake alongside a cupcake. They were both delicious, and with your eyes closed, the results were the same. But one was complex and fragile, and the other was simple, quick, and inexpensive. There is a time and place for each, but when you are betting your success on an outcome, do you really care how you get there?”
We closed with a brief explanation of the technology, real-life proof points, and a call to action to prove its effectiveness in their environment using their data. The close helped demonstrate that this was not just a made-up story, but rather, something that could become their own success story. This was a straightforward approach to getting people to try something they might never have considered otherwise.
Essentially, you are shifting the audience’s mindset from how something gets done (means objective) to what matters and why it needs to be done (fundamental objective). People tend to have preconceived ideas about how the solution should work, often based on what they are familiar with. Once the audience begins to visualize a desirable outcome, they become more open to different approaches.
I have successfully used these approaches with more complex products, such as an advanced Kubernetes platform, object databases, a multi-platform data integration product, and the world’s first commercial JDBC driver. It is also an effective way to motivate teams. Create a vision of the successful execution of a plan, how good it feels to achieve your goals, and what it could mean for each person—an area they develop as their minds elaborate and personalize the story.
Some of the most effective and engaging people that I have known are skillful storytellers. Not everything has to be a story, but when leveraged at the right time, it can mean the difference between moving closer to your goal and being just one of many ideas or solutions.
You may not be the next Steve Jobs (I’m certainly not), but you could easily stand out from your peers and competition. Share your story in the comments below!
Getting your Piece of the PIE
Whether you are selling, consulting, or managing, there is a foundational approach that has consistently helped me succeed. I call it PIE – an acronym that stands for Perspective, Insight, and Experience. When applied effectively, these three elements provide a robust framework for solving problems, winning clients, and leading teams to remarkable outcomes.
Over the years, I’ve taught this methodology to my teams, and it’s been a critical driver of their success. While I usually reserve it for a small circle, I believe it’s time to share it more broadly.
As an aside, years ago, I wrote a post about some of the negative aspects of the “reckless” application of PIE.
Perspective – Broaden Your View to Stand Out:
To truly differentiate yourself in any field, you need to develop a broad and informed perspective. This involves understanding the larger environment in which you operate: the market, competitive landscape, customer needs, technological advances, and regulatory shifts. A dynamic perspective evolves as you gain new experiences and encounter different approaches to solving similar problems across other businesses or industries.
This requires a broad understanding of the environment, market, competitive landscape, legal and technological changes, and more. It also grows and changes as you experience new and different things—especially when different approaches to similar problems are taken. It is how you start to stand out in the eyes of your prospects, customers, and team.
Earlier in my career, I taught technical courses. Two or three people usually stood out. At least one wanted to prove they were better and smarter, and usually, one discussed strange approaches to solving problems. When digging into those strange approaches, you would often identify something creative and brilliant coming from a different perspective on the problem. Curiosity and a desire to improve drive innovation.
In business, perspective becomes your differentiator. When you can see things from a broader, more holistic viewpoint, you position yourself as someone who can offer more than just solutions—you offer foresight, adaptability, and creativity. You become the lighthouse that guides your clients around tricky situations and to a better destination.
How to Apply This:
- Stay informed about industry trends, not just within your niche but across related sectors.
- Engage with diverse thinkers, challenge your assumptions, and be open to unconventional ideas.
- Regularly reassess your strategies in light of new information or shifts in the business environment.
Here is a post that discusses perspective as the starting point.
Insight – The Power of Seeing What Others Don’t:
Insight is one of the most valuable assets you can bring to any business interaction. Too often, people are trapped by existing tools, processes, and perceived constraints. Insight allows you to pierce through these limitations and identify opportunities for improvement that others miss.
Here’s where perspective plays a role in insight: the broader your view, the better your ability to generate actionable insights that can transform a business. My most successful deals and projects were not won because I followed the status quo—they were won because I brought fresh ideas to the table. By reframing the problem and presenting a path to a better solution, I created value that competitors cannot match.
How to Apply This:
- Question assumptions and typical approaches. Ask yourself, “Is this really the best way to solve the problem?”
- Look for inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and areas of waste in processes. These are often hidden opportunities for innovation.
- When engaging with clients or teams, offer insights that reframe their challenges and provide a path to improved outcomes by initially focusing on the “what” instead of the “how.”
Here’s a post that delves deeper into insightfulness.
Experience – The Foundation of Wisdom and Credibility:
Experience is the foundation that supports both perspective and insight. It’s the repository of lessons learned—both successes and failures—that shape your approach to problem-solving and innovation. The more varied and in-depth your experience, the better equipped you are to offer valuable insights and strategies.
Consulting, in particular, is fertile ground for gaining diverse experience. By working with multiple clients across industries, you gain exposure to a wide array of challenges and solutions. In sales, this experience translates into powerful stories that illustrate your ability to help clients achieve better outcomes. The more experience you accumulate, the more confident you’ll become in your ability to deliver meaningful results through transferable competence (taking skills and lessons learned from one domain and applying them to another).
How to Apply This:
- Reflect on your past experiences—what worked, what didn’t, and why. Use these lessons to guide future decisions.
- Build case studies from your experiences to demonstrate your expertise and credibility when engaging with clients or stakeholders.
- Continuously seek out new challenges that stretch your capabilities and expand your knowledge base.
As Albert Einstein wisely said, “The only source of knowledge is experience. You need experience to gain wisdom.” But it’s not just about accumulating experiences—it’s about leveraging them. Your past successes build confidence in your abilities, while your failures provide invaluable lessons that help you avoid costly mistakes in the future.
Where Ideas, Experiences, and Lessons Learned Intersect 