Customer experience teams don’t fall short because they lack passion, technology or data. They fall short because, when progress stalls, they default to the wrong questions. Not foolish questions. Not lazy ones. Familiar ones. Comfortable ones. The kind that keep CX safely stuck in analysis mode while the real drivers — power, priorities, incentives and behavior — remain untouched. If CX feels bogged down in your organization, you’ve likely asked at least a few of the questions below. They signal a broken Golden Thread: the gap between what leaders claim to value, how work actually happens and what customers ultimately experience. Let’s be direct about what these questions really mean, how we ended up here, why it matters and what truly repairs what’s broken. 1. “Are we tracking the right metrics?” What it really means: We’re hoping measurement will make up for a lack of action, or that a shiny new dashboard will do the work leadership refuses to do. How we got here: CX earned its seat at the table by proving its worth with metrics. Over time, dashboards started to replace decisions. Measurement became the job. Why it matters: Metrics don’t change behavior. Incentives do. Priorities do. Trade-offs do. Decisions do. How to fix it: If incentives, priorities and trade-offs stay the same, new metrics only deliver newer forms of disappointment. Pinpoint three concrete decisions that must shift based on customer insight. If none of them change, stop measuring until leadership is prepared to act. 2. “Do we need another survey?” What it really means: Let’s go back to customers with more questions instead of acting on…