In flow! My cycling coach taught me why focusing on total experience yields power.
Be in flow with the bike; focus on what's happening now & next.
This week, my cycling coach taught me how to choose the right gear by feeling. First, he said, don't look down on the gears. The more he asked me not to look, the more curious I became.
He introduced me to the concept of Total Integration. How do my core, feet, and heart feel the ride's smoothness?
I struggled at first because I was looking for some external factors. As I pay close attention to the subtle changes of the hills, I play with various gear combinations to get a feel for the ride. It calls for mindfulness. It felt like I was constantly doing a body scan exercise. Forty-five minutes in, I no longer need to ask if I should shift the front or rear gear.
It feels like being in flow, like riding a bike on the hill. Everything is in sync—your legs, the power, and the gear selection.
Then, as soon as I noticed the hill got a bit steeper, my gut told my arm to shift to the easier gear, and my heart jumped more energy to keep my legs going with the same cadence. It's micro-adjusting, but I become more integrated with the bike. That's how I gained 1% more power.
I then asked myself why this Total Integration framework reminded me of customer experience.
The goal is to focus on the total experience. Every part must be in sync for the customer to experience a smooth ride. I focused on the end-to-end customer experience. Think about Disneyworld. It's the dedicated balance of:
Engineering
Guest experience
Marketing
Analytics
Operations
Support
Strategy
Do we need 1% power? It might involve more than marketing and pumping out more campaigns. Otherwise, it’s like peddling fast downhill with the wrong gear.
It requires the gut, in this case, an analytics-driven operator, to guide what gears to change. What goes well? What are the customers struggling with? Does the guest experience need more help? By focusing on the total integration, what problems do we need to solve? What experiments can we run to smoothen the experience?
When it's in flow, the customer feels that it's in flow.
How do you like to feel your bike?
See you next week.