We’ve all heard about the classic business tragedies: Kodak clinging to film while the world went digital. Blockbuster laughing off a young Reed Hastings, who offered to sell them a struggling start-up called Netflix. The cost of ignoring change... Extinction!
But have you heard the Zoom story?
Before Zoom became a household name during Covid, Eric Yuan was a lead engineer at Cisco, working on WebEx - their flagship video conferencing product.
Day after day, Yuan listened to frustrated customers, fighting hard to champion their voices – complaints about clunky interfaces, unstable connections, and a general sense that no one at the company was truly listening.
But the culture at the time prized stability over improvement - or indeed, true innovation.
‘Good enough’ was considered good enough. Improvement was seen as risky.
Burning feedback from customers was simply filed away… for "later".
Frustrated and disheartened, Yuan made a decision that would change the world of communication forever - he left.
In 2011, he founded Zoom with one simple, powerful idea: make the customer experience effortless, intuitive and joyful.
No gimmicks. No bureaucracy. Just a relentless obsession with making it easy for people to connect.
The rest is history!
Today, Zoom is synonymous with connection. And Cisco? Well, they’re still doing fine - but they missed the chance and opportunity to be the name in global video communication.
Your products and services should be loved by your customers - not merely tolerated, because they either have no choice, or it’s too hard to disentangle from your service and find another provider.
The lesson here is sharp and clear: When customers speak, listen - really listen - or risk becoming a cautionary tale.
It’s easy to get caught up in our day-to-day busyness - the status quo, the deadlines, and the processes.
But out there, beyond all the internal noise, are the people we are meant to serve.
They are speaking to us every day.
Wishing you a wonderful week - listening and adapting to your customers.
Richard Dore
Co-CEO - Director of Partnerships
Proteus Leadership
How To Lead And Embrace Transformational Change
Change has changed! We are now living in a time of rapid growth and chaos, full of distractions and major disruptions. Change management is dead and is often associated with negative baggage and past failures. By embracing transformational change, we are compelled to move forward to an exciting future, leaving behind old thinking and behaviours, whilst staying relevant to future success.
This workshop will give participants the concepts, templates, skills and confidence to go beyond traditional change models to stay relevant. Leaders will also learn how to focus on getting their teams to embrace change as a cultural norm, while also creating a learning culture with an agile approach to leading, absorbing and accepting change.
Half-Day Virtual Workshop: 16 July
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