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Chris:
Hello, everyone. Chris Higgins here, producer of The CX Leader Podcast. You know, we here at Walker really enjoy producing this show. But we want to make sure we're delivering on what you, our listeners, need in regards to thought leadership and helpful advice on creating the best possible experience for your customers. So I'm going to do something that no podcast producer would dream of doing. I'm going to ask you to pause this episode. That's right. Pause this episode and go to cxleaderpodcast.com/feedback and complete a short survey that will help us learn how we can improve the show. Go on. That's cxleaderpodcast.com/feedback. I'll wait a second while you do that. All done? Great. Thank you. Now, I won't waste any more of your time. Let's get to the show.

Steve:
When's the last time someone told you that the best solution to a business problem was to go play with some toys? Yeah, that hadn't happened to me either, but maybe it should.

Sirte:
Play is the most fundamental mechanism how children learn. And it has been proven that if you learn things through play, you will not only learn them better and quicker, but you're also more much more likely to utilize them in the future. All of these newly acquired skills that you have.

Steve:
Changing the way you look at customer experience by learning how to play on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

Announcer:
The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.

Steve:
Hello, everyone. I'm Steve Walker, host of The CX Leader Podcast and I'm glad you're listening. As we like to say on this podcast, it's never been a better time to be a CX leader. And we explore the topics and themes to help leaders like you deliver amazing experiences for your customers. You know, my kids are now adults, so it's been a while since I've had toys in my home. But one particular toy that was and continues to be a popular choice for both parents and kids is LEGO®®. So named after the Danish phrase to "play well." LEGO® bricks and playsets are still a best selling product today. So you might be asking, Steve, what does this have to do with customer experience? Well, my guest is going to talk about that and how she utilizes the LEGO® Serious Play® method to build better customer experiences. My guest is Sirte Pihlaja, CEO and Customer Experience Optimizer for Shirute, a customer experience agency doing research and strategy. And we're going to discuss the unique way she helps CX leaders approach concepts like strategy, journey, mapping and design. Sirte, Welcome to The CX Leader Podcast.

Sirte:
Thank you, Steve. Happy to be here.

Steve:
Well, it's my pleasure and thank you for being a guest on the show. For some of my listeners that aren't as familiar with you. Could you just give us a little bit of your background and your story and how you came to be a CX Pro and been a little bit about your firm too?

Sirte:
Sure, I'd be glad to. So my name is Sirte Pihlaja. I come from the first customer experience agency in Finland and we are really I come from the happiest country on earth. Finland has been voted as the happiest country on earth for, I think for at least four times now in a row, maybe going strongly for the fifth one right now. So that's something that we really want to bring some of that happiness into the world. And that's why we created this agency about 12 years ago.

Steve:
And what was your background before you started your own firm? Well, what else did you do?

Sirte:
Thank you for asking that, Steve. My background is really in consultancy, so I used to work for the biggest consultancy companies such as Accenture and the biggest I.T. integrator here in the Nordic and European region. Nowadays, every and also before that, I was actually working as a journalist in the different sides of journalism. I really wanted as my childhood dream to become a foreign correspondent. I didn't get to do that, really. But I did do some studies in Paris, which led me to the first EU presidency that Finland held when we joined the EU. Yeah, and I was working at the Ministry of Education as head of finally as as head of communications and and PR helping her out.

Steve:
And then what was the transition? Where did you find your passion for CX?

Sirte:
I have been working in different areas of of CX really for over 25 years already, but they haven't always been referred to as CX, let's say. So I have a really long background already doing service design and all these different sales services since the beginning of the internet. Maybe almost.

Steve:
Yeah, great. We have a lot of different types of people that find their way into the CX. But I don't, I don't maybe I've talked to one or two other people that kind of came out of the journalism side of it, but you know, it is about communication. And so I think that's a very relevant background. So certainly in addition to all of the other things you've accomplished in your career, you've also been a great supporter and volunteer and been very involved in the CXPA, right?

Sirte:
Yes, I have, actually. It was one of the founding members for the CXPA back in the day and in 2013 when CXPA had their first day, we also started our activities here in Finland. So the CX day Finland was born then, and I've been leading the activities ever since as the head of the CXPA Finland network and that is really something I'm very passionate about. So in 2020 when Corona hit everybody, we decided to go global in the sense that we had, I think, ten plus countries who joined us CXPA Finland and we did together the CX day for the first time. So we got all the all the different CX rockstars joining us because they wanted to join the effort to help everybody around the world get to hear these nice stories and important lessons from all over the world. So we had both guests and participants and speakers from all the different corners of the world.

Steve:
Yeah, we've we've collaborated a lot with the CXPA through the years on our podcast. And I think here at Walker we have 14 or 15 CCXPs now, and I've been around the business a long time and for so many years we talked about having a professional designation and and by golly, it took the CXPA to do that. So congratulations and thank you for your efforts on that.

Sirte:
Thank you. I think I was one of the first CCXPs in in Europe to get getting those credentials. So I'm really happy to see that how how it's going forward. Moving forward now we're doing the CX masterclasses and with Ian Golding to help people to really learn the CX framework and what whatever is needed for gaining your CCXP credentials. And I think that the more we have of these people with accreditation, the more it puts the CX as a profession into the foreground in businesses. So it is a really important thing to do.

Steve:
That's why we say on The CX Leader Podcast, it's never been a better time to be a CX leader thanks to people like you.

Sirte:
That's right.

Steve:
Talk to me a little bit about how this thing started with LEGO® and how did business people and LEGO® bricks come together?

Sirte:
Well, LEGO® Serious Play® is a methodology. That LEGO® group, the LEGO® Group, commissioned from two university professors, both victors, and Johann Rose, who came up with the methodology. There's about 30 different theories. That is, it is founded on the most well-known of which is the flow. And basically they created that methodology because LEGO® was on the brink of bankruptcy and they needed to change their direction. They needed to change their strategy, and they needed to do this very soon. And then they come up came up with this methodology that helped them not only to change their course, but also they realized very, very soon in the game that, you know, they're saying, what is that culture? It's strategy for breakfast. So they realized that they needed to do something on the cultural side of things as well. So the first application was about real time strategy. But the two next following applications of LEGO® Serious Play® were about real time identity. So both on the individual employee level and on the team level to build on a culture that would then enforce the strategy and make it happen in the real, real life. And then a fourth application was created, which is called the Real Time Strategy for the Beast, which is a funny name if you think of it. But really it is meant for times, very much like the ones that we are living in right now, where there is a total turmoil. There's lots of things changing. It's almost, let's say, chaotic on the on the business environment that's at some levels. This was in the 1990s at the turn of the millennium, LEGO® decided that this LEGO® Serious Play® was not something that they wanted to invest in, and it was not their kind of core business line. They are still doing the LEGO® Serious Play® the kits for it, but they are still staying on that side and they have open source the methodology. And after that, serious proponents of LEGO® Serious Play® facilitators who had been certified in their methodology have created their own applications on top of legacy and methodology. And and we created the show to CX play.

Steve:
Yeah. So you were the you were the first one to connect this concept with CX?

Sirte:
That's correct. And we have been working on it ever since because it's really a different way of creating not just CX, but also I like to call it building better people experiences because we are also working on the employee experiences side of things and partner side of things. So not just CX.

Steve:
So the concept back to the academic work is that we can learn a lot by, by play, right? That we ought to make things fun. And if you do it with a purpose, with an intention, then you can actually not only have fun, but you can actually learn some new habits and some new traits and come up with some creative solutions, particularly in chaotic times. Is that is that a fair assessment?

Sirte:
Definitely. I mean, you know, play is the most fundamental mechanism. How how children learn about everything, about their cognitive skills, about themselves, about how they go about their friends, about how to communicate about their relationships, all of that. And it has been proven that if you learn things through play, you will not only learn them better and quicker, but you're also more much more likely to utilize them in the future. All of these newly acquired skills that you have.

Steve:
Yeah, I mean, I can tell you that as somebody who's getting pretty old in my life, one of the most enjoyable things to do is to learn, learn new things, and to pursue things that are of interest to me, whether they have any application or not. I think we'd all like to go back and be students at some level. And another thing that kind of strikes me, as you know, most young children are very excited about learning. And then somehow somewhere along the way, it's not cool to want to learn things. And yet learning and growing is really kind of the most human part of us, and particularly in the CX space where we have to adapt and we have to change and we can't control all aspects of it. So talk to me a little bit about how you apply it to a CX… maybe even give me an example, if you could, of of how the process works.

Sirte:
Well, I would first want to maybe go back to what you just said, that I don't think it's about it being uncool to learn things. It's more that the school system that we're all put through is something that makes us unlearn creativity. So I don't think that there are people who are either born creative or that they're not born creative, but rather everybody has that that five year old inside of them. And we just need to use creative methods such as LEGO® Serious Play®. But it could be anything else that that is considered a creative methodology to unlock that creativity that we have for the benefit of the business and ourselves.

Steve:
Yeah, that was kind of my point too, is somehow along the way, the school kind of takes the joy of learning out, and so we want to put that back in, so…

Sirte:
Unfortunately it does. Yes. But to come back to your to your follow up question about how we then take up this LEGO® Serious Play® sessions, is that, first of all, it's not called it cannot be called LEGO® Serious Play® if you don't do a skills building session in the beginning of your workshop. So what it means is that we are doing this extremely easy exercises with people who are attending, where we are helping them to understand how to play with the LEGO®, how to create or create those metaphors. What is a metaphor? How to tell stories about your models that you're creating, how to share your different viewpoints with others. And that's where kind of learning a totally new language in that. That's how I usually start my workshops is by saying that I'm going to teach you a new language during this time and people are looking at me that what she's talking about? But when they finished after the session, they understand what I meant by it because it's something that is really coming from your backbone and through your hands. You're talking through your hands when you're doing LEGO® Serious Play®. So you don't have that kind of barrier of of language. So you could be doing it with anybody and everybody.

Steve:
So give me an example. Like, do you do like journey mapping or or something like that where you give them a bunch of LEGO® pieces and take me through that process a little more?

Sirte:
Sure, sure. Well, after the after the skills building part of the session, what we do is that the facilitator always has the different challenges that we have been thinking of, that this is the this is what we need to have as the outcomes. And then we're addressing those things through these challenges. And everybody gets to to build their own models of LEGO® bricks. And then when everybody's done their their kind of response to that challenge, they get to through storytelling, tell about their point of view and through their model. They kind of depict the world as they see it or as they imagine it, let's say, because there's a lot of innovation happening at the same time.

Steve:
So would you use like an example of like a contact center or customer service or…

Sirte:
Well, for instance, what we've done actually in employee experience with one of the biggest media companies in Europe is that we they had a few, let's say IT related departments merged together and they needed to create a culture that would then fit all of these new persons and their backgrounds. And we had we organized a big session with about 100 people attending that session where they were all sharing their models and their thoughts and views on how they wanted to play their culture, what kind of background they had. They could tell about their backgrounds through these LEGO® models and things that they appreciated in their previous jobs or their previous department cultures. And then they were discussing on on how to put all of that goodness into into good use, let's say, because the the next step after after the individual model sharing is when you're doing a common model and you share. So there's never like wrong answers or right answers as such. Everybody's view counts and they're put into a common model. So everybody gets to discuss different viewpoints through that model. And then what we do is, is that we put in what we call agents. So agents, they might be people and persons as as maybe the term might think draw you to think, but it could be also resources, budget, laws, I don't know, competition, all things that affect this model as a whole.

Sirte:
And then. Based on those agents and the relationships that emerge in the common model, we can then start playing around the common model and we put scenarios in. So for instance, for this media company at a different workshop, what we did with them was that we started putting like for instance, these scenarios that what would happen if, say, your print plant would go down here and then what would happen? Or then if COVID would happen, we didn't know about that at that point. But because the idea there is that you do like easy things, scenarios that that actually it is really easy for you to imagine that this might really happen in the near future and then things that would explode your whole business and you do all those scenarios in between and then you have played around that model, all that might happen and always adding things that that sounds even more outrageous in a way.

Steve:
Yeah.

Sirte:
Then you might end up with seeing what will actually happen in the future and have plans how to proceed if that should happen. So we come up with the simple guiding principles based on that.

Steve:
Yeah. So in this scenario you're describing, you're really trying to define what what would be maybe an ideal culture and how you would respond to various things that would occur given a more ideal culture. And I see how it could be very collaborative. So I like the exercise and I think I personally would have a lot of fun doing this. But I got to believe that there are some people who come to these workshops and they just go, I'm not going to do that.

Sirte:
Well, we do have skeptics and I do appreciate them being there, and I understand why they are because, you know, this is a child's play. I don't I don't want to participate or anything. But we usually say to those people that, please have a look. You can sit by the by the sidelines. And if you feel later on that you want to join us, then you're very welcome. But please don't make the atmosphere or the attitudes go down because you are your self not interested in it, but never has it happened to me that they wouldn't have joined when they when they had been looking at it for for a time. Because, you know, people when they say that everybody else is having fun and I'm losing losing all the fun because I'm, you know…

Steve:
Yeah…

Sirte:
…not letting go of myself. And that's the whole point of doing LEGO® Serious Play®, is to go in, get into that flow state of mind where you're not thinking about the things that are kind of restricting from you, from doing things, but rather you launch yourselves. And that's not not just once or twice that has happened to me that during or after a workshop, somebody came to me selling, telling that I've never given so much out of myself or the other time when we had, you know, in a workshop, we had somebody come to tell me that, Hey, I didn't know that the person who's been sitting next to me for 20 years is so clever because they've never uttered a single word during our relationship.

Sirte:
So it builds team performance at the same time. And the relationships are really respectively with the people within that team. And I've had everybody from different domains, like the one person once in one of the I had after a keynote speech at the conference where we did a small demo session of LEGO® Serious Play® and I had a funeral contractor. And they said after after that that I was so skeptic about it. And then when we finished, where can we do this again like that, he was really, really into it. So it doesn't matter what domain you're coming from. And we are actually doing a lot for banks and financial institutions and, well, let's say companies that you wouldn't consider to be playful as such. But actually when they find that possibility to be kind of launched themselves to do something totally different, they are totally sold for it.

Steve:
I'm relating to this as I'm learning more about it. And I think all of us that do some sort of facilitation or workshops, there's always skeptics in the audience and sometimes it's a little more passive aggressive, I guess. But when you put the LEGO® out there and say, this is how we're going to do this, I think you almost call the question immediately. So I love it. I think it sounds like a very powerful way to kind of get people out of their comfort zone. And as you mentioned in your one story, they're like, I didn't know this person was ever that clever after 20 years. Well, that, you know, you have to get into those kind of scenarios. And that's what's so beautiful about this.

Sirte:
When you hear when you hear those testimonials, it's really makes me almost want to cry because I feel that I have changed that that company somehow I have been able to give them something totally on top of what we were doing, which was like something in CX, but rather making those relationships matter.

Steve:
Yeah, it's it reminds me of one of my kind of my favorite sayings, and I should be able to attribute this to somebody, but I don't remember who who I heard it from. But the best quality of leaders is that they get people to do stuff that maybe even they thought they couldn't do by bringing them and showing them their own potential.

Steve:
My guest on the podcast this week is Sirte Pihlaja. She is the CEO and customer experience optimizer for her own firm Shirute, where she does CX consulting and research and strategy. The first agency to do this in Finland and also an innovator in the world of LEGO® Serious Play®. Talk a little bit more about specific, out-of-the-box innovations that you've seen come out of some of your CX workshops. And just to give our our listeners some of the ideas of some of the things that they might be able to accomplish with this.

Sirte:
Well, we have been doing all kinds of different, different formats. Let's say that it has been we can use it for persona creation, for instance. We did that with some group that they were just like creating personas for for their CX things. Then then more on the level of of understanding these different kinds of relationships that are going on in within the company, trying to figure out on the on the company level if there is a structural change going on. So when people are organizing themselves differently, we have been helping with that also when and that's going on that both the team and individual levels, because there's always on both levels, there's stuff to be to be addressed, let's say. Then going all the way through doing these scenarios and understanding the futures to come, which is I think, something that is very important, that during this kind of times that you stop in your tracks and don't just keep on doing what you have been doing all the time since the beginning of the world, but try to try to see where should we be going now, because LEGO® Serious Play® is an let's play, let's say play in general. It's really for innovating new solutions for the new challenges that we are facing. So we should really, really put it into into practice and use those possibilities that it gives us to to imagine new things that that we might want to deal with in the future. Also prototyping different phases of, of of service design. Finally, I know about Cirque du Soleil, the circus company. They are actually doing customer interviews, customer research through LEGO® Serious Play®. So they put their whole circus stage on there and they talk about things with their customers through the LEGO® setting. So you could use it for whatever. It's more a question of of imagination.

Steve:
Yeah. I mean, that really is kind of the job of the CX pro really, is to create a better future and get people to think outside the box and innovate kind of from where they're at and how they could make things better.

Sirte:
And sometimes you might just it might just happen so that you find your customer inside the box and you can pull them outside and and kind of be be there for them.

Steve:
Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what we want to do is as consultancies, you know, again, help our clients even envision something that maybe they hadn't seen before. Sirte you talked a lot about various ways that you facilitate LEGO® Serious Play® for innovation and improving the CX experience. I guess in this environment today, we don't always get the opportunity to get together. So is this something that you can do virtually? Can you do it in an online or a virtual setting?

Sirte:
Yes, very much so. So like everybody, we had to come up with ways of putting LEGO® into the into play in the virtual world as well. So we have been doing workshops also in in in the online setting. The way it changes the game is that of course, everybody is sitting in front of their cameras and they are showing their their models in front of the cameras. And there's a lot of technical that comes into play. But the kind of essence of LEGO® Serious Play® is still the same. And what we do is that we just deliver those LEGO® bricks to their homes or their home offices wherever they want to play with them. So it really doesn't depend on whether you're going doing virtually or not.

Steve:
Is there like an app out there where you can you can play LEGO® virtually, actually.

Sirte:
For LEGO® Serious Play® specifically, we're just using the same same thing, cameras and Zooms and and teams that everybody else is doing. But on on top of that, we are then utilizing murals and mirrors and those things to put those models into place and then start and shuffle them together when we do the common model. So that's really the only different part of what we are commonly used to doing in in a live setting.

Steve:
Does every participant get the exact same set of LEGO®?

Sirte:
That would depend on the case. If yes, if it is us who's delivering the LEGO® for them. But there are times when, for instance, some somebody decides to join. And they haven't been delivered the LEGO® set because they decided on a late notice or something so they can come up with their own, you know, go through there.

Steve:
Grab their kids stuff.

Sirte:
Yeah, basically, that's totally possible. So there are there are specific LEGO® that you can use bricks for LEGO® Serious Play®, but you could play with any. So I know of of other LEGO® Serious Play® facilitators who have had their participants even do stuff with books or paper clips or whatnot. Yeah. So it's all part of the game being creative.

Steve:
I love it. Sirte this is the time where I ask every guest to give us their take home value. It's kind of one of the things we do here on the show is we we try to leave our listeners with your best tip, something very practical that they could take back and they could apply to what they're doing with their own program today and make it better. So Sirte, please give us your take home value today for this podcast.

Sirte:
Hmm. I think that the most thing, important thing about creativity and business and seeing business through a playful lens is to really rewire your brain, to be more creative and let loose in in some ways. And there's actually what happened to me this year was that we were on a skiing trip with my, my, my family, and we started to talk about different kinds of people in in the slopes. And I was doing I do snowboarding with my right foot in front, whereas everybody else does it with their left foot in the front. So I'm being called goofy for that.

Steve:
Yeah, goofy footer.

Sirte:
Goofy footer.

Steve:
And I think that's what they call surfers that do it the other way. They call them goofy footers, right?

Sirte:
Yeah. So that got me into thinking, really. And I started this interesting experiment that I decided to go go reverse for a whole week and, you know, rethink things. And the easiest way of doing this was to start doing everything that I do because I'm right handed. So I did everything on my left hand, left hand that I used, you know, brushing my teeth and, you know, everything, writing with my left hand. And I did that at least for for one week. And it really got me to thinking that, you know, I'm not ambidextrous by no means I'm more like, what do you call them? Like cross dominant. But I do jump and kick my kick the ball with I can do it with both, both my legs and so on. But it was really a nice and interesting experiment because not only was I looking at things totally differently when where I realized that if you're doing this differently, but I also think that you could take this into the business world, that you start thinking about things not in the way that you're used to, even not from the business side of things or not even from the customer side of things, but think are thinking about whether or not there are some kind of other points of view that you might be looking at. So we all know that, for instance, in the Asian culture, people are thinking about things a little bit differently than than we are. So taking a step back from what we are doing everyday in our everyday lives and, you know, going left hand first, that that's really the it is very hard, but you have to get out of your comfort zone and unlock that creativity. And that's definitely something you can do, you know, tomorrow, even today to go left handed. And that explains a lot to you about how you could do things differently.

Steve:
Yeah, I think that's a that's a great tip.

Sirte:
Yeah. Just start thinking out of the box, because sometimes that's the only thing you need to do to excel in life.

Steve:
Hey, my guest on the podcast this week has been Sirte Pihlaja. She's the CEO and customer experience optimizer for her own firm, Shirute. Hey, Sirte, if people wanted to continue the conversation, how might they find you? Either your website or LinkedIn or…

Sirte:
Yes, I'm on LinkedIn. Of course, that's the best way of getting in touch with me. If you're interested in hearing more about CX Play, we have a website that cxplay.fi and of course my company's website is shirute.fi/en if you want to go to the English site for directly to understand it better.

Steve:
Sirte you also have a book out, right?

Sirte:
Yes, It's called CX 2. And it's a book that we wrote in collaboration with about 20 plus CX professionals from all over the world. And that book is actually a global bestseller in and I think that it's a very good book in all of its chapters. My chapter is about LEGO® Serious Play®, actually the role of play in business. But then I'm taking LEGO® Serious Play® as an example of that creative approach. We also wrote CX 3, where I'm writing, I'm writing about how to create a playful and customer centric culture. So either of these books you might want to pick up.

Steve:
Yes, we've actually. Had some of the other authors on the podcast, and we're big fans of the CXPA and and so congratulations on on your success there. And I can't wait to get a hold of it. Read the chapter on Serious Play®. Sirte, thank you again for being such a great guest on the podcast and best of luck to you for all of your endeavors.

Sirte:
Thank you. It was my pleasure. Steve.

Steve:
If you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or about how Walker can help your businesses customer experience, feel free to email me at podcast@walkerinfo.com. Remember to give The CX Leader Podcast a rating through your podcast service and give us a review. Your feedback will help us improve the show and deliver the best possible value to you, our listener. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com to subscribe to the show, find all our previous episodes, podcast series and contact information. You can drop us a note, let us know how we're doing, or suggest a topic for a future show. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We're an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XCM success. You can read more about us at Walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening. And remember, it's a great time to be a CX leader. So get out of your comfort zone. Take a new creative look at the way you're doing things in your CX program. Thank you for listening and we'll see you again next time.

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