Maybe it starts somewhere else
I keep bumping into the same tension in conversations about services. There's the daily reality — serving clients, hitting targets, keeping the organization running. And then there's this growing sense that something is shifting. Clients are asking for something different, the landscape is moving, and what passed for 'good' yesterday doesn't quite cut it anymore.
The conversation usually turns to change pretty quickly. What program should we launch, how do we bring people along, how do we make this work? Fair questions, all of them. But I've started to think there's a step that comes first — one that's less about the how and more about the what for.
Three perspectives keep showing up in my work, and they help me see what's actually going on more clearly.
Sustainable impact
What societal value does your service create beyond revenue?
Tracking client satisfaction and financial performance makes sense — it tells you how you're doing. But it doesn't tell you much about what your services actually mean in the lives of the people and organizations you serve. Who has access to what you offer — and who's left out?
The difference, I find, often comes down to the question an organization asks itself. An insurer asking how to build financial resilience sees the work differently than one focused on selling policies. An accountant trying to help entrepreneurs grow asks different questions than one producing annual reports. Same profession — different starting point.
Human-centered value creation
Are you designing services around what you can deliver, or around what people are trying to accomplish in their lives?
This one fascinates me. There's a real difference between designing services for people and designing services with people. The first feels familiar. The second is harder — and more meaningful.
Value shows up in use, in the context of someone's life — the client is always a co-creator of that value. That's a fundamentally different starting point than "we design it, they receive it." And honestly, most organizations I talk to are doing both, with the balance slowly shifting. That alone is worth a conversation with your team.
Where in your organization do the people you serve have real agency? And do you actually know what "value" means to them — beyond the service itself?
Intelligence-driven use of technology
Where does technology deepen human connection — and where does it erode it?
AI, platforms, and data are reshaping what services can do — everyone feels that by now. But the question I keep coming back to is subtler: where does technology free people up to do what only humans can — show empathy, read context, make ethical calls — and where does it quietly replace the very moments that matter most?
Every service provider is making that choice, whether they realize it or not: technology as a way to speed up what you already do, or as an enabler of what you haven't done yet.
Where the perspectives meet
What keeps striking me is that these three perspectives don't live in isolation. It's where they overlap that things get interesting.
Sustainable impact and human-centeredness together — that's where you find your vision, what your organization is really for. Human-centeredness and intelligence together — that's where you find your positioning, what sets you apart. Intelligence and sustainable impact together — that's where you find your relevance, why you matter.
An invitation
I use these three perspectives as a discovery canvas in sessions with service provider teams. We explore which one feels most pressing, where the tensions sit, and what concrete experiment could come out of it. What keeps surprising me: teams usually know right away which perspective creates the most friction — and that's almost always where the energy is too.
If you held these three perspectives up to your own organization: where would you feel the most tension? And where the most room?
Curious where your organization stands? Our Service Evolution Reflection Tool helps you take an honest look at where you are and where the room is (10 minutes).