The Problem Statement is a list of opportunities seen in many companies that when identified and properly addressed can have tremendous positive impact on the customer experience and the business.  

We view the terms problems and opportunities interchangeably.  None of these problems were intentional by anyone.  The real question is do we have the passion and courage to address them or is hubris and fear prevent us from looking or acknowledging.  

Each of these opportunities below have specific stories from real experiences.  The only common theme in each of these opportunities is that people did not feel there was a problem or a better way until we started framing the right questions, letting people know it is not personal and giving people the courage to act.             

• Misaligned compensation plans, incentives and contests that result in entitlement or conflict
  and confusion in the system. 
• Targets and goals that are off the mark or misunderstood.
• Absence of coaching that bring specific, deliberate and relevant learning and skills. 
• Formal training is developed without a real understanding of the discipline of sales, not incorporating actual win/lose or service scenarios, missing some of the most important groups and is an event at the expense of being reenforced daily into the actual work.  
• Continuously looking outside versus developing from within the leadership and management bench for the longer term sustainability of the company. 
• Internal systems that require the business to work around them versus being an enabler for the business.
• Organizational structures that present friction and do not align from a flow, learning and customer outcome perspective. 
• Sales people that are programmed to be tellers versus sellers and miss the emotional drivers.
• Service people that are inhibited to delivering better service more effectively and efficiently.
• No clear differentiation of the products and services that are relevant, simple
  and easy to digest.  The obsession of features and benefits is hurting most sales efforts.   
• No legendary stories from an employee or customer experience
• Poor design and integrity of reporting and analytics
• Not understanding the most powerful lessons proven by modern psychology for buyers, customers and employees.   
• Barriers unintentionally created between departments that limit the potential of the organization and present a very disconnected experience for customers and employees.   
• Processes that are broken by not understanding the true inputs and outputs of the work for employees, limited controls and processes built in silos that are in direct conflict with each other and the desired overall outcomes. 
• Channels that are designed and rewarded that unintentionally compete against each other or confuse customers. 
• Hubris at different levels of the organization.  There does not appear to be the "productive paranoia" that Andy Grove and Jim Collins talk about in their books.
• Wasting time and money on technology that actually inhibits the alignment of critical activities, outcome and purpose.
• Right people in the wrong roles.  
• Focus on culture without a clear and actionable definition of what it is and what is is not.
• Looking inside-out instead of outside-in for the organization.  What we think is right for the customer is actually upsetting them.  
• The love of smoke jumping and fighting fires at the expense of fire prevention. 
• Replicating brute force at the expense of learning and working smarter.
• Forcing customer experiences to be transactional instead of solution and relationship driven.
• Using prior success as a reason not to ask and seek a better way
• Employees using job descriptions more for what they will not do because of focus on activity and incentives at expense of defined outcomes and experiences from the customers experience   .
• Employees seeking special projects to offset the grind and perceived lack of growth with their day job.
• Product teams not having an unvarnished and actionable