Innovation isn’t a one-time event—it’s a muscle that needs consistent training, stretching, and strengthening. Just as someone training for a marathon or sculpting their physique follows a structured workout plan, leaders looking to cultivate innovativeness in their organizations must commit to a disciplined regimen.

At Stratascension, our Innovativeness Leadership Framework is designed to help leaders build cultures that foster continuous innovation. Based on our research, the two biggest factors influencing innovativeness are Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX).

This two-part series will serve as your “workout plan” to build your innovativeness muscles, offering practical tips and tactics to inject innovation into individuals and, ultimately, the culture of your organization.

Part 1: Training for CX—The Customer Experience Workout Plan

Think of Customer Experience (CX) as endurance training. The stronger your relationship with customers, the more resilient your business becomes. CX is about creating meaningful interactions, developing trust, and crafting experiences that set you apart from the competition. Here’s how you can train your CX muscles effectively.

1. Relationships Are Fundamental – Build Your Base Strength

Just like a strong core is essential for athletic performance, relationships form the foundation of CX. Without them, innovativeness is impossible.

✅ Tactic: Implement Relationship Mapping

Create a Customer Relationship Map to visualize key stakeholders, decision-makers, and influencers in your client’s world.
Identify gaps in engagement—who have you neglected? Who needs more personalized attention?

✅ Tactic: Treat Customer Interactions Like Progressive Overload

Just like increasing weights in a gym, gradually deepen customer engagement over time.
Move from transactional to transformational interactions by adding value at every touchpoint (insights, strategies, unexpected solutions).

🔹 Challenge: Are you dedicating time to strengthening customer relationships daily?

2. Trust Is the Adhesive – Strengthen Stability & Resilience

Trust is the connective tissue that holds CX together. Without it, your efforts will crumble under pressure.

✅ Tactic: Create a “Trust Score” for Clients

Assess transparency, responsiveness, and follow-through in customer interactions.
Ask customers directly: “On a scale of 1-10, how much do you trust us to deliver value?”

✅ Tactic: Reduce Customer Effort (The ‘Less Friction’ Protocol)

Identify friction points in your customer journey.
Streamline onboarding, support, and issue resolution using automation or clearer communication.

🔹 Challenge: What’s one process you can simplify today to strengthen customer trust?

3. Crafting the Customer Experience – Sculpt the Ultimate Customer Journey

Your CX needs to be intentional, like a well-structured training plan.

✅ Tactic: Use Design Thinking to Create Memorable Experiences

Conduct Customer Journey Mapping workshops to identify emotional highs and lows in your customer interactions.
Ask: Where can we surprise and delight customers in ways competitors don’t?

✅ Tactic: Offer Micro-Innovations (The “Small Wins” Approach)

CX innovativeness training isn’t just about big changes. Identify one small improvement to your customer experience every quarter and commit to testing it.

🔹 Challenge: What’s one change you can make today that would improve CX immediately?

4. Managing the Competition – Train for Agility & Adaptability

Just like an athlete needs to analyze their competition to stay ahead, your business must understand competitors’ strategies while finding your unique positioning.

✅ Tactic: Conduct Regular Competitor Benchmarks

Assign a “Competitive Intelligence Captain” on your team to track market shifts, pricing changes, and customer sentiment.
Use SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) quarterly to recalibrate your strategy.

✅ Tactic: Innovate on Experience, Not Just Product

Instead of just competing on features, differentiate on how customers feel when interacting with your brand.
Example: Disney doesn’t just sell theme park tickets—they sell magical experiences. How can you do the same?

🔹 Challenge: How will you make your customer experience impossible to copy?

🏆 CX Workout Wrap-Up:

Strengthen relationship muscles with intentional engagement.
Build trust endurance by removing friction points.
Sculpt a memorable customer journey with small, impactful changes.
Stay competitive by innovating on experience, not just product.

🚀 Ready to start your CX Innovativeness training?

Turn insights into action. Book a 1:1 Innovation Strategy Session with a Stratascension advisor and get a personalized roadmap to strengthen your CX, empower your team, and embed innovation into your culture—starting now.

👉 [Schedule Your Strategy Session Today »]

STRATASCENSION was founded on the notion that business is relational and growth is achieved through the deepening of all the micro connections between people, processes, tools, & performance. We want to help leaders enhance these connections and leverage them for transformation.

Employee Experience significantly influences Innovativeness

We are a Certified Partner with Predictive Index, the foremost leader in the Talent Optimization category. Our Innovativeness Leadership Framework combined with their platform and data offers clients an easy way to assess their culture and initiate innovativeness initiatives. Click here to schedule a chat to learn more.

Innovativeness Igniter Program

If you work with a team and you’d like to find out more about how Leadership Training can help you, then click here. Bring your energy and your questions, and we’ll bring the knowledge and expertise on innovation leadership principles that can help you and your team raise your Leadership Lid.

AUTOMATE TO BE GREAT!!

As a Keap Certified Partner, we leverage the power of automation to improve the innovativeness of consultants, speakers, coaches, trainers, and growth-minded entrepreneurs. Click here to learn more about adding this to your tech stack and get back time lost on those repetitive tasks.

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Building Your Innovativeness Muscles-Part 1: CX Innovativeness Training Program for Leaders