“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”While Abraham Lincoln may have never actually said this, the point remains valuable: planning and preparation are the keys to successful action. When it comes to developing brand strategies and leading cross-functional teams, I firmly believe that the most effective solutions are a direct result of time spent defining and structuring the problems standing in our customers’ way. Only once we know exactly what it is we’re solving for and how we’ll measure success, can we create the customer-first solutions that will lead us to long term success. More often than not, these problems arise when there is a disconnect between customers’ needs and the brand’s experience. By investigating this friction, we can identify the specific ways our experience is failing to enable our customers’ desired outcomes. From there, we can ideate, design, test, and iterate our way to frictionless experiences for our customers that help them accomplish their goals, and drive business performance.