When the term ‘lol’ emerged many people (including myself!) mistakenly thought it was 'lots of love' rather than 'laugh out loud'.

Perhaps given the events of last week since Brexit, it could have a new meaning; ‘lol’ - lack of leadership.

Can you imagine any reputable company acting in the way our mainstream political classes have over the last few weeks, and continuing to survive in a competitive market?

The failure to listen and convert a tsunami of data and feedback from their customer base (i.e. voters) into sensible insight led them to miss the voice of customer which was expressed in an 'unexpected outcome'.

This omission resulted in the absence of any Plan B, (can you think of any organisation without a contingency plan?) leading to the chaos we are now witnessing, causing untold misery to many whose businesses and livelihoods depend on greater certainty.

Against this backdrop I've been encouraged by the true leadership shown by many of the organisations I've met this week, in what has turned out to be one of the busiest in the CCA calendar, a welcome relief from the 24/7 news onslaught!

My week began with a wee treat, the annual celebration of the success of Standards in Industry at Westminster, hosted by BSI and UKAS. There was an unsettled atmosphere as the date was, after all, the Monday after the Friday vote, but speaker after speaker spoke of the need for calm, resilience, presence, adaptability and a look onwards and upwards rather than wallowing in gloom; true displays of leadership. Indeed the point was well made that circumstances highlighted some opportunities hitherto unexplored, given the UK's longstanding leading role in this area.

Vodafone one of CCA’s Platinum members announced its £15m investment in enhanced customer service this week; another display of leadership; acknowledging serious issues, listening and dealing with them. 

CCA attended a financial services event in Edinburgh on Tuesday, where many of our banking and insurance members were present. The atmosphere was wary but inquisitive, and it was encouraging to hear the CEO of Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE) make a plea for all organisations to redouble their efforts to face the customer rather than retreat during challenging times; in other words think customer first and don't falter with plans to progress with digital transformation which benefits customer and colleague alike.

The mobile operator Three chose the peaceful and beautiful location of Dumfries House in Burns’ Ayrshire country to host their management summit, looking at the future of service in a mobile environment. I was privileged to deliver a session for them, again witnessing a determination and drive to succeed in a fast moving and always on international marketplace.

Finally we hosted our Digital Transformation Workshop at the beautiful Etihad centre at Manchester Airport, attended by 30 leading household names in public and private sector.

Fantastic insights from Sky and Cyara on their drive to constant improvement using customer experience testing methods followed up by a presentation from digital agency AD where Steve Plummer focused on the opportunities digital offers to embrace millennial capabilities to truly transform culture in our organisations. A quote from Steve’s slides sums up the week I think – “If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together.”