My experience with Amazon—how a bad product can lead to a good experience
My experience with Amazon—how a bad product can lead to a good experience
A poor product performance needn’t dent your net promoter score. In fact, if you react appropriately, it may enhance it. Last week I purchased a window mount for a GPS device via Amazon. The product arrived in good condition and functioned effectively for a few hours. It then fell from the window having suffered a catastrophic failure; a rip in the rubber grommet resulted in the suction pad no longer sucking. This ensured a modicum of inconvenience as I was guided through the back roads of New Jersey with the GPS held in place by Blu-Tack—well consultants do have to be resourceful.
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Simon Luntfeedback loops, voice of the customerComment
The Mathematics of Self-Belief
The Mathematics of Self-Belief
I am always taken aback by the unprompted readiness of successful leaders to identity others whom they admire and have acted as a source of aspiration. When these venerated have been accessible, (that is, neither dead (Jobs) nor remote (Mandela)), I have conducted a short research interview. Reviewing the data recently, a pattern linking these nominees emerged. They all have an abundance of self-belief.
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Simon LuntComment
Where do you start? The end or the beginning?
Where do you start? The end or the beginning?
I was asked yesterday to summarise my approach to strategy how it compares to that of others. Using the graphic above I explained about the two extremes of the strategy generation spectrum and the placement of my approach. By far the common strategy approach commences with construction of an idealised future proceeded by reverse engineered a plan laying out a path to the 'broad sunlight uplands.'
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StrategySimon LuntstrategyComment
Rugby: the new MBA strategy module?
Rugby: the new MBA strategy module?
I was recently invited to be part of a small international group of strategy and leadership consultants whose aim was to construct a scalable, naturalised method of strategy generation. That is, a strategy method that makes use of the way humans think and act and hence should be accessible. However, any method should also exploit computing technology to ease data gathering and analysis—making the best of carbon and silicon as it were.
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Simon LuntComment
Does your strategy method build muscle or bend spoons?
Does your strategy method build muscle or bend spoons?
It is always good to present your research findings to an experienced and expert group, particularly if the material is set to challenge their current thinking. Robust debate is an excellent method for material development; but the dialectic dines best on meaty issues and in the absence of frail personalities. I’d been asked by the CEO of a financial services retail unit to critique the approach to strategy taken by his strategy planning group. Such an assignment often takes on the air of a “tell me which of my children is the ugliest?” inquisition. However you address it, you know it will end in tears.
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Simon LuntGOSH, leadership, strategy Comment
Will you break the gain line this week?
Will you break the gain line this week?
The Six Nations Rugby Championship ended in Europe this weekend past. Natural order was restored with Wales beating England to win the Championship—again. This is the second year in a row where Wales have been winners. It is always good for smaller adjacent nations to be superior to their larger neighbours in at least one aspect of physical, culture or economic endeavour. It provides balance in their mutual dependency, and diminishes the need to display ‘small-man’ aggression.
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Simon Luntculture, leadershipComment
Who benefits from your dissatisfaction?
Who benefits from your dissatisfaction?

I participated in privately sponsored symposium over the Easter Weekend. The 50 participants were brought together to address the topic, “the Challenges of being a Leader in the C21st.” The headily diverse group of executives from the private and public sector ensured the topic was whacked, pulled, pummelled and prodded from a variety of perspectives. During the panel discussion at the end of the day, I was asked whether, in my experience, one positive attribute of leadership stood above all others.

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Simon Luntculture, leadership Comment
I want more stories like this, and fewer stories like that: part I
I want more stories like this, and fewer stories like that: part I
I want to enter the world of narrative research obliquely. In this short note we avoid the theory and go straight to practice. We apply the tools for interpreting narrative research immediately on an important topic—your health. We'll get to strategy and leadership in due course. But first, let's concentrate on getting you stronger, faster and leaner.
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Simon LuntCustomer R&D, Narrative, leadershipComment
How wealthy are you?
How wealthy are you?
For reasons still to be understood, the wrist-watch industry refuses to die. In fact, the business is doing more than ticking over. Movement, be it mechanical or quartz, continues to be youthfully energetic. The global watch grew by nearly 20% in 2010, and is expected to be reach $45bn in value by 2017. Exports of Swiss watches reached $21bn in the first 11 months of 2012 (source:WSJ) But despite the increasing ability to pay for more expensive watches, the ability to decide what we do with our time is decreasing. More money in the absence of discretion over how we use our time is, in fact, value destruction. How can we address this?
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Simon LuntComment
Me. Retire? Never!
Me. Retire? Never!
It is 5:30 am. The sky is gun-metal grey and the humid air drapes heavily over the hilly, densely-wooded country of Northern Ontario. It’s the wrong day to be wearing black nylon. The ‘breathable fabric’ promise on the label fails to deliver. Jason P. is about to put this executive team through their paces. It is the second day of the strategy retreat, and during the next hour we will walk or run through a review of yesterday’s discussion. By the time we reached the finish line, big decisions had been made.
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Simon Lunt Comment
Making our whole life bloom: 3 components of leadership
Making our whole life bloom: 3 components of leadership
My best clients make a big difference quickly—with resultant improvement in the business performance and the capability of their organisation. This segment of clients share 3 characteristics. They are: 1. Desire improvement. Whether the motivation is positive or negative, they are dissatisfied by the status quo. 2. Have passion for the topic. Whether its their organisation, the industry, or their profession, they love what they are doing; and this gives them the motivation to tolerate the bumps and collisions that happen on the journey 3. "Recruit the best to deliver the best." They select the team who are the best available in their respective fields; employees, suppliers, colleagues.
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Simon Lunt Comment
More signal, less noise: the quest for differentiation
More signal, less noise: the quest for differentiation

For the next few weeks, a restored Abbaye in the Dordogne is acting temporary HQ for the Riot Point. We are bringing certain projects to a close, and commencing others.

Constant renewal based on past successes (and tolerated failures) is a constant theme, all fuelled, of course, by a motivation to provide value to others and while receiving improvements in self. And we’re making progress. The beams emanating from the library in the photo above reflect the brilliance of some of the new material!

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Simon Luntbranding, strategy Comments
Are you living off your interest?
Are you living off your interest?
Now, it may not be obvious from the snapshot, but the two ‘cats’ in the picture revolutionised the Jazz scene (which was THE scene) in the 1950’s. The first large wave of Jewish émigrés to flee Nazi Germany arrived in the USA and, according to data from the US patent office, drove up invention rates by 33%. The primary areas of innovation were chemistry, physics and aeronautics. But despite their sapient, bookish, dress and demeanour, Francis Wolff and Alfred Lion did not patent a novel route for synthesising haloanthraquinones, or indeed anything remotely of technological significance. They did, though, change the face of music through their record label, Blue Note records. Their tale is a successful conflation of interests.
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Simon LuntFear, leadership, talentComment
In praise of the 2-hour lunch
In praise of the 2-hour lunch
There’s a line that can be drawn from Calais in the North-West to Athens in the South-East which neatly divides to contrasting cultures. Excepting Switzerland, it is not unusual for a communal lunch to extend to two hours in these southern cultures. Now I realise that some will suggest that line also demonstrates an inverse correlation between economic health and lunchtime length, but you have to look at the bigger picture in which the time line conceived stretches to millennia rather than decades.
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Simon LuntComment