I heard a quote recently from Tony Xu, the CEO of DoorDash:
“What we’ve delivered for a customer yesterday probably isn’t good enough for what we will deliver for them today.”
It’s not about failure. Xu isn’t saying we got it wrong. He’s pointing to something more subtle that applies not only to tech companies like DoorDash, but to every business in every industry. Regional banks. Manufacturers. Educators. Consultants. Entrepreneurs. Even nonprofit leaders. No one is exempt.
It’s tempting to believe that what worked before will keep working. After all, if it’s not broken, why fix it? That quiet assumption that if we keep doing what we’ve always done, success will follow.
But that mindset is quietly dangerous. The world isn’t that simple.
Customers don’t live in yesterday. They live in the now. They’re comparing their experience with us not just to our competitors, but to the best parts of every interaction they’ve had today.
They’re comparing our website to their grocery buying app. Our onboarding process to a streaming service subscription they love. Our customer service calls to the help they received (or didn’t) from their cell phone company.
We’re not being compared to the bank down the road or the business across the street. We’re being measured against the most seamless, most helpful, most human-centered experience our customers have ever had.
That’s a very high bar. It’s unfair…and they don’t care.
It’s easy to forget their perspective from inside our organizations. We become focused on the big system conversion we’re managing, the vendor issue we’re troubleshooting, the reorganization plans we’re working on this quarter, or the new regulatory review that’s keeping us up at night.
These are real and important things. But the customer doesn’t see them, nor should they.
They’re living in their own world, with their own challenges and needs. They’re asking, quietly and constantly, “Are you making this easier, or harder, for me?”
They’re rightfully selfish in that way.
Some important questions to consider:
–What are my customers or team members quietly expecting that I haven’t noticed yet?
–What have I continued doing because it worked before, even though the market has changed?
–What future am I preparing for? The one I’ve known in the past, or the one that’s unfolding in a new direction?
–Am I making excuses that only make sense inside our organization?
I don’t think leadership is about chasing every trend. But I do believe it’s about staying awake. Staying open. Listening for what’s emerging and not just reacting to what someone else has made clear.
The fact that something worked yesterday doesn’t make it sacred. It makes it a foundation. And foundations are meant to be built upon…not celebrated as finished.
If we truly care about the people we serve, we’ll stay curious about how to serve them better. Because they’re not standing still. Their lives are shifting. Our job isn’t to cling (desperately) to relevance. It’s to keep earning it.
So, we never stop building. We keep asking the hard questions. We stay close to our customers so we can hear what they’re not saying yet. And we must choose to meet tomorrow’s expectations before they arrive at our doorstep.
Yesterday’s work mattered. It carried us here. But it’s today’s effort—and our willingness to keep stretching—that will decide if we’re still invited to serve tomorrow.
As Shunryu Suzuki once said, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.”
It’s great to be an expert in our field. But sometimes, a beginner’s mindset is exactly what we need to see things from the most important perspective. Our current and future customers’ perspective.
Photo by Bayu Syaits on Unsplash – I love the imagery of these two climbers at the top of a mountain. They may take a short rest to celebrate their achievement, but that next peak is already in their sights.
Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership 