(You can also view us on Spotify or listen to it on Apple Podcasts. )
In our latest Trailblazers Vodcast, we were thrilled to welcome Betsy Westhafer, CEO of The Congruity Group, who shared her invaluable insights on strategic customer engagement, leadership alignment, and the critical role of lightness in today’s business landscape.
With decades of experience in cultivating executive-level customer connections, Betsy’s expertise spans customer advisory boards, roundtables, and high-level strategic dialogues.
Here, we dive into our top three takeaways from Betsy’s conversation on creating deeper relationships, strengthening team alignment, and fostering an environment that balances business intensity with a dose of fun.
Takeaway 1: Aligning Leadership Teams to Spot Blind Spots Early
One of the most impactful aspects of Betsy’s work is helping leadership teams recognize their own blind spots before they create friction in customer relationships. Even when a team feels they’re “totally aligned,” Betsy and her team often uncovers gaps in perspective or understanding that can lead to miscommunication or confusion. These misalignments aren’t unusual. In fact, they’re a natural consequence of being so deeply immersed in daily operations. By addressing these blind spots proactively, Betsy ensures her clients present a unified, credible front when engaging with key customers, setting the foundation for trust and strategic growth.
Leadership Tip:
Regularly schedule alignment sessions with your team to discuss goals, challenges, and individual insights. During these meetings, make space for each team member to share unique perspectives and look for any subtle differences in viewpoints. Acknowledging these early allows teams to bridge gaps before engaging with customers.
Make it FUN:
Turn these alignment sessions into “Alignment Olympics”! Have each team member represent different customer “personas” and role-play scenarios where alignment might falter. Award “medals” for honesty, collaboration, and insightful questions. It’s a lighthearted way to practice unity and turn these sessions into something enjoyable.
Takeaway 2: Prioritizing Emotional Intelligence and Connection in Customer Engagement
Today the importance of connection often gets overlooked in the drive for results. Betsy emphasized that customers, especially at the executive level, are just as human as the rest of us. They have goals, fears, and a desire for work-life balance that goes beyond the business exchange. Betsy’s approach is to cultivate deeper customer relationships by engaging in value-driven conversations—focusing not just on product features but on the personal impact her client’s solutions can have. This level of engagement wins trust AND reinforces a customer’s emotional commitment to the brand. Something we ALL want!
Leadership Tip:
To build emotional intelligence, encourage your team to ask deeper, value-centered questions when engaging with customers. Have them go beyond technical concerns and explore what truly matters to each customer in their roles. This helps build rapport, trust, and insight into customer motivations that go far beyond standard engagement. A great one to try? “If we could solve one challenge that would make the biggest difference in your work and your life outside of work, what would it be?”
Make it FUN:
Launch a “Customer Persona Game” where team members create hypothetical customer personas that reflect real customer desires, like improved work-life balance or job security. During meetings, team members can role-play these personas to keep interactions fresh, creative, and centered on customer needs.
Takeaway 3: Infusing Fun and Lightness to Counteract the “Heaviness” of Business
With the intense demands of today’s business world, Betsy recognizes the need to infuse lightness and fun into work environments. She described the current atmosphere as “heavy,” noting that it’s easy for teams to feel weighed down by challenges, deadlines, and the general pressures of modern life. Bringing levity to the workplace doesn’t mean overlooking the seriousness of business - rather, it provides a way to recharge, reduce stress, and foster creativity. By integrating fun into her work culture, Betsy finds that teams are more resilient, innovative, and cohesive—qualities that ultimately benefit both the company and its clients.
Leadership Tip:
Encourage your team to take regular “creativity breaks” where they can recharge and share something uplifting, funny, or inspiring. These short breaks can refresh perspectives, alleviate stress, and add a sense of camaraderie to the workplace. A fun idea? Draw a squiggle on a white board and ask your team to add a squiggle until the "picture" comes into focus - one squiggle or line at a time. You can do this on Zoom or Teams with a plug-in for a white board or mind map area.
Make it FUN:
Start a “Feel Good Fridays” tradition, where each team member shares a positive or funny story from their week—whether work-related or personal. It’s a simple way to end the week on a high note, build connection, and relieve stress. You can even start a slack, teams or internal IM chat channel for this!
AND....We've Got A Bright Future with The Congruity Group!
Partnering with Betsy and The Congruity Group is a powerful collaboration, combining their expertise in Customer Advisory Boards with our focus on fostering innovation, emotional intelligence, and team adaptability. The Congruity Group excels at helping companies build lasting relationships through strategic customer engagement, using Customer Advisory Boards and executive-level dialogues to uncover deep insights and strengthen customer connections. At ExperienceYes, we bring a unique approach to supercharging teams with skills in flexibility, collaboration, and influence, turning soft skills into measurable results.
Together, we’re excited to support companies in building not only stronger client relationships but also resilient, high-performing teams that thrive through connection, alignment, and creativity.
The Congruity Group was founded in 2015 and is based in Dayton, Ohio. They specialize in strategic customer engagement programs for B2B organizations. Services include Customer Advisory Boards, Ideation Labs, Industry Think Tanks, and In-Depth Customer Interviews, all designed to validate corporate strategies and strengthen client relationships.
The company has been recognized for its ethical business practices, receiving both the Regional and International Torch Awards for Ethics and Integrity.
The Congruity Group's team comprises professionals with expertise in strategic alignment, external customer focus, market knowledge, and change management. Their mission is to help organizations achieve alignment through strategic conversations that yield valuable insights, enabling better strategic decisions and fostering predictable growth.
_________________________
ExperienceYes is not just in the business of learning and development – we're in the business of team transformation. Imagine a world where we don't just fix teams; we supercharge them.
Through our cutting-edge Team Workshops and Business Relationship IQ program, we turbocharge soft skills into hard results. Picture skyrocketing sales figures, clients delighting customers like never before, and teams achieving feats of innovation and peak performance.
How do we do it? By training teams to nurture an Improv Mindset for agile thinking, boost Emotional Intelligence for unparalleled client relationships, and refine Empathy and Influence to turn every interaction into a game-changer.
Join us in rewriting the playbook on team success. Let's elevate your team to new heights where excellence isn't just a goal – it's the new normal. Together, we'll build a future where every team thrives, every client succeeds, and every innovation sets the world on fire. Contact us if you want to know more!
Kommentare