What changes when ‘good’ shifts?
What did your clients value five years ago that they now take for granted?
The client who used to be grateful that you delivered fast and efficiently, now expects you to think along. The buyer who looked at price and specs, wants to know how you truly help their organisation move forward. The relationship that was transactional, asks for partnership.
Three lines at once
Does this resonate? In conversations with leaders and professionals — and in research with entrepreneurs and consumers — we see the same pattern emerging. Client expectations and needs shift along three lines, simultaneously.
From efficiency to caring. Clients seek help with questions they don’t yet have clear answers to. They want more than fast handling. They want someone who takes the time. Who helps ask the right questions and make better choices.
From deliver to serve. Value emerges at the client’s end. In use. In what they can do with it. The question shifts from “what do I deliver?” to “what does it make possible?”
From standardization to relatedness. You speak from expertise. The client from what’s happening. Clients expect you to understand their context — and respond to it.
Three shifts, simultaneously. Each touches on the same question: what does it actually mean to be good at what you do? And more importantly — does your answer still connect with what clients are looking for?
The tension
Meanwhile, operations don’t stop. Meeting KPIs. Improving processes. Assuring quality. These are the success factors of efficiency, standardization and delivery. For many organisations, this is the foundation of success.
But the world of caring, relatedness and serving requires something different. And that world is increasingly becoming reality. More complex. More uncertain. Faster. This raises questions where familiar answers no longer always fit.
It’s a pattern that plays out more broadly. In research I conducted this year with Fred de Jong, we saw it reflected among entrepreneurs: they worry about continuity and financial security. But over 60% never discuss these risks with their advisor. What entrepreneurs seek doesn’t always connect with what advisors offer.
The tension isn’t in whether you’re doing well. The tension is in what “well” means.
Where is the space?
Think back to a moment when you truly made a difference. Not by delivering faster or being cheaper. By asking a question that took the conversation in a different direction. By seeing a pattern the client hadn’t seen yet.
Those moments sit at the intersection of expertise and curiosity. Mastering your craft and genuinely wanting to understand what’s happening with the client. That combination opens space.
Some organisations respond to the shift with more processes. More tightly defined propositions. Sharper SLAs. That helps — up to a point.
Other organisations notice that the real opportunities lie in the conversation itself. In the space to discover together with the client what’s actually needed. In the willingness to adapt your approach to what you learn along the way.
That requires the ability to keep developing while simultaneously excelling at what you do now. A different type of change than improving a process or implementing a new system. It requires something of how you view your role. Of how you define value.
Three questions
It happens gradually. You don’t notice it immediately. A question that sounds slightly different. A conversation that lands less well than you were used to. A client searching for something you can’t immediately name.
Until one day you look back and see how much has shifted.
Which clients do you recognise this shift with?
When do you notice your familiar answers connecting less well?
Which client would you like to look further with than the current assignment?
In our workshop Navigating Shifting Expectations we create space to explore this — together with leadership teams. We discover patterns in how expectations shift, where meaningful impact emerges, and what becomes possible when you see your work through a different lens.