Customer Experience Is a Team Sport — and Leadership Needs to Lace Up

Delivering a great customer experience isn’t so different.

We’re smack in the middle of the Stanley Cup Playoffs — and if you know hockey, you know this: the Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy in sports to win. It takes grit, resilience, and a team that shows up for each other every single shift. Talent helps, but without chemistry, communication, and trust, even the best players won’t make it past the first round. Delivering a great customer experience isn’t so different.

At Compugen, we’re lucky to have an incredible roster. But for too long, we’ve been playing more like a collection of skilled individuals than a cohesive team. We’ve been operating in silos — and in CX, silos are the penalty box. They isolate people, break down communication, and stop us from seeing the full ice. That’s why we’re making a cultural shift. Not just to improve collaboration, but to rally everyone around the same goal: delivering consistently great outcomes for our customers.

And like any good team, we’re starting from the top. I’m not interested in leading from the press box. I’m lacing up, getting on the ice, and showing our people what it looks like to play for each other — and for our clients.

Building a Culture That Skates in Sync

Siloed teams aren’t a Compugen problem — they’re an everywhere problem. Most organizations don’t set out to create them, but structures, KPIs, and well-intentioned habits often put people in their own zones. And when everyone’s tracking their own stats, the customer experience suffers.

Steve Yzerman averaged 109.2 points over 82 games in the first 13 years of his career in Detroit but never won.

That’s why we’ve started regrouping our service teams around shared goals. It’s a mindset shift. When you know you’re part of a larger play — not just executing your shift — everything changes. The early feedback has been incredibly positive. People want to work together. They just need the space and encouragement to do it.

Back to Yzeman. In 1996, he stopped focusing on his own stats and became a more complete player. The Red Wings won three Stanley Cups over the next six seasons — Yzerman averaged 79.5 points per 82 games played.

Real cultural change means more than town halls and slide decks. It means stepping into the tough moments and modeling what “team-first” looks like. For me, that’s getting directly involved when things go sideways. We had a quarterly business review with one of our clients where a number of concerns surfaced. Instead of dumping the puck in and going for a shift change, I got in the meeting, worked with the customer to identify what mattered most, and helped our team build a phased improvement plan. We focused on progress over perfection. The customer saw results quickly, and our team saw what it means to show up with urgency and accountability.

These aren’t one-off moments. They’re how you shift behavior.

Everyone Plays for the Customer

We often say “CX is everyone’s job,” but do our systems reflect that? Too often, we evaluate people in isolation — personal KPIs, individual output — and we lose sight of the full customer journey. That disconnect shows up in the details: missed handoffs, misaligned priorities, and inconsistent experiences.

We’re working to change that by coaching our teams to think bigger than their function. The question isn’t just “did I do my part?” It’s “did we help the customer move forward?” That shift invites more collaboration, more initiative, and more pride in shared outcomes.

It also means encouraging improvement ideas from anywhere. Some of our best process fixes haven’t come from leaders — they’ve come from people deep in the work, spotting gaps and flagging opportunities others couldn’t see. That’s what happens when you make space for proactive thinking.

And yes, attention to detail matters. It's not flashy, but it’s often the difference between a good experience and a forgettable one. Details are where trust lives — and trust is the true currency of CX.

Hybrid Teams, Real Connection

Of course, all of this gets harder when you’re not in the same room. Hybrid work is here to stay, and it can make breaking down silos feel even more complex. You can’t just count on hallway conversations to carry culture.

So, we build in time for connection. Regional town halls. In-person ops meetings. High- value collaboration days. These aren’t “nice to haves” — they’re intentional plays to reinforce team alignment. Because even the best players need time to practice together.

And when people feel connected — to each other, to the mission, to the customer — they start to think and act like a team. That’s when everything clicks.

It Starts with Leadership

If there’s one piece of advice, I’d give to another executive trying to unify their teams around CX, it’s this: start by caring. Not as a tagline — as a principle. Care enough to listen. Care enough to ask questions. Care enough to step in when things are messy. It sounds simple, but it’s hard. It takes focus, patience, and a willingness to lead by example.

Culture doesn’t shift on its own. Silos don’t dissolve by accident. And customers can always tell when a team is out of sync.

But they also notice when things work — when people care, when teams collaborate, and when outcomes align with what matters to them. That’s what we’re building at Compugen. One shift at a time.

Because in the end, every team needs its own version of the Stanley Cup. For us, it's not a silver trophy — it's the loyalty and trust of the customers we serve. It's knowing that when the game is on the line, our people aren't just doing their jobs — they're playing for each other, and for something bigger than themselves.

That's the real win. And just like in the playoffs, it’s not about shortcuts or solo efforts. It's about showing up, shift after shift, with the mindset that great teams — and great outcomes — are built one pass, one play, and one customer at a time.

Let’s Keep this Conversation Going.

At Compugen, we believe in building customer experiences that deliver real value — and it starts with how we lead. If you’re rethinking how your teams work together to support your clients, we’d love to share ideas.