Career Path Advice: 3 Steps in the Evolution of Becoming a CCO or CXO

In my Daily Dose video series, I explore the topics that chief customer officers must grapple with on a daily basis. Join me as I discuss what I’ve learned over the course of my 35-year career, so that you can more effectively do the work that needs to be done.

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the video below.

I want to talk about the evolution of your role, from where you are inside the company to a chief experience officer, or a chief customer officer. This is something I frequently talk to people on my podcast show about, and it’s come up quite regularly, which is how you create a career path to that role. There’s three things I want to talk to you about today.

1. Lead an Operation from the Inside, While Keeping the Customer in Mind

Number one: you really need to be inside the operation of a business and run a business if you want to ascend to that CEO role or the CXO role inside your business. This means leading an operation, but leading it from the point of view of the customer.

So as you drive your business model and your business operation, are the outcomes around customer goals? Are you able to prove that how you do your business inside your operation—whether it’s sales or service, or any other part of the operation—you are driving operational goals, company goals, and growth goals, because you’re letting customers achieve their goals?

Are you able to prove that how you do your business inside your operation drives goals, because you're letting customers achieve their goals? In this video, Jeanne Bliss shared 3 key elements of building a career path in #CX. #CCO #CXO Share on X

2. Collaboration is Key

Number two: are you a collaborative leader? Have you earned the right to the relationships inside the business, by not focusing only on your own silo, as you’re solving problems? But you have taken an expansive approach inside your operation and across your business, as you’ve identified and solved customer goals to be achieved?

3. Focus Your Work on Uniting the Organization

And then third, can you check your ego at the door? One of the things that we know fundamentally about leading this work: it’s about uniting the organization. It’s about establishing focus. It’s about helping the company build competencies so they can do the work. And then it’s about moving out of the way to give others the glory. Show that others own this work so that it becomes part of leadership excellence and enables your company to rise.