The Customer Mission Podcast with Andrea Belk Olson

The Wall Street Journal declared in a recent article this week that companies are “desperately seeking storytellers.” According to LinkedIn job posting data, the use of storyteller as a job title has doubled in the past year. Organizations from Big Tech to nonprofits are rebranding communications roles and layering on flashy titles like Head of Storytelling or Director of Narrative. At first glance, this feels right. We’ve all felt the pressure to cut through the noise, humanize our brands, and connect emotionally with audiences. But this framing treats storytelling like a function you can hire for, rather than a capability every leader and every team must cultivate.

Most executives don’t mean to hijack meetings. They’re trying to inspire, clarify, or share that one story from 1998 they swear still applies. But somewhere between “You know,..." and minute 17 of the monologue, the meeting quietly dies inside. Pontification isn’t leadership. It’s just very expensive noise. (And I've been guilty of it myself.)Organizations don’t suffer from a lack of ideas from the top. They suffer from a lack of space for ideas from everyone else.

We love policies. They make us feel organized, controlled, protected. A neat little rule for every possible scenario. A safety net for when things go wrong. Nothing says “we’re serious about this” like a brand-new procedure wrapped in a 12-step flowchart.But every policy you create is a policy you must police. And policing policies is work —often far more work than the thing the policy was trying to prevent.

A friend and former CEO of KONE America once shared a piece of advice that I’ve carried with me ever since:“Take your first six months on the job to understand how the company operates, how it really makes money, and what is actually working. Only after that should you start changing things. And then, do it very carefully.”It’s deceptively simple guidance, especially in a world that rewards fast action and visible disruption. But underneath that advice sits an uncomfortable truth many leaders avoid:The greatest risk organizations face isn’t failing to fix problems. It’s underinvesting in what already works.

A few weeks ago, news broke that Target is rolling out a new in-store initiative, internally dubbed the “10-4” program: employees are expected to make eye contact, smile and say hello when a customer comes within 10 feet, and if the customer comes within 4 feet, the employee should ask if they need help or how their day is going. On the surface this seems like a sensible customer-service move. Walmart, Disney, and many major hotel chains implement this same guideline. But from the perspective of culture change, it's a cautionary tale.

Ask ten people in your organization what your company’s mission means, and you’ll likely get ten different answers. Some will recite it verbatim from the website. Others will paraphrase it into something more tactical. A few might shrug and say, “It’s what leadership cares about.”We interpret everything, from strategy to slogans, through our own filters. Our roles, experiences, incentives, and biases. When leaders assume that “communicating the mission and goals” is enough, they miss the crucial step—helping people see how that mission translates for them.

Organizations love to put 'innovation' on a pedestal. It’s plastered across annual reports, exalted in company presentations, and woven into corporate values. But when it comes to actually executing strategic innovation (coming up with bold ideas AND turning them into a sustained competitive advantage) suddenly the room gets quiet. Everyone agrees it’s important. No one’s quite sure who owns it.So, who is in charge of strategic innovation? The CEO? The senior VPs? The departments executing initiatives on the ground? The truth is both simpler and more complicated: everyone and no one.

A customer says something seemingly simple: “Do you offer this feature?” or “How fast is your delivery?” Our instinct is to answer. Quickly. Confidently. Because that’s what good service looks like, right?But when we rush to answer, we risk missing the real question — the one hidden beneath the surface. That’s where one deceptively simple phrase changes everything: “Why do you ask that?”

When corporate culture becomes a belief system rather than a guide, you’ve got a problem. Suddenly, everyone’s parroting the same language, dressing the same ideas in brand-approved buzzwords, and slowly losing the ability to think independently.

When leaders (yes, people like me) drop rapid-fire “must-do” ideas and expect everyone to scramble, we don’t get innovation. We get chaos. Multiply that by a few thousand employees and you’ve manufactured a system where big initiatives stall, priorities collide, and smart people start hedging their effort because nothing sticks long enough to matter.