"All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Tolstoy's opening line from Anna Karenina describes a fundamental truth that extends far beyond 19th-century Russian families.
The principle states that success requires getting many things right simultaneously, while failure can result from any one, single flaw.
This perfectly captures the challenge I see many organisations face when designing CX programs to deliver the desired outcomes in the business case.
A successful CX program needs multiple conditions working together:
Executive sponsorship, customer insights, clear journey understanding, operational alignment, measurement frameworks, governance structures, and cultural commitment.
Miss any one of these, and the program will stall regardless of how well you execute everything els, and I see this pattern repeatedly.
An organisation invests heavily in customer insights but lacks executive support to implement findings.
Another builds sophisticated measurement but has no systematic method to understand what customers actually need over time, or can't align operations to deliver on their expectations.
Each fails in its own way, but the underlying pattern is identical: one missing ingredient undermines everything else.
The implication isn't perfection. It's recognising which conditions are truly necessary versus just beneficial.
Not every CX program needs the same ingredients, but each program needs its own complete set tailored to its strategic context and ambitions.
The question is ... Do you have all the necessary conditions for this work to succeed, and where are you vulnerable?
Understanding and addressing your gaps matters more than elevating the things you are doing well.
What's your organisation's Anna Karenina vulnerability?
The one missing condition that could undermine everything else you're building?
