3 Voices needed for Successful Transformations

Successful Transformations need 3 distinct voices in the room from day one.

💡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫: This person wakes up thinking about user experience. They ask uncomfortable questions like "Will customers actually use this?" and "Are we solving the right problem?" They're your reality check against building something technically perfect but practically useless.

💡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐞: Your front-line champion. They understand the workarounds people have created, the tools that frustrate them daily, and the cultural barriers no process map will ever capture. Without this voice, you'll design solutions that look great on paper but create chaos on Monday morning.

💡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦: The pragmatist who understands your technical debt, integration nightmares, and actual constraints. Not the person who says "no" to everything—the person who says "here's what it will really take" and helps you navigate complexity without naive optimism.

Look at your next steering committee meeting. 

⚠️ Are all three voices represented? Not as an afterthought in a consultation exercise, but as core members with genuine influence?

If not, who can you invite?

The best transformations I've seen had the right voices in the room from the start of the project and were there when every decision needed to be made.