LOADING

Type to search

Featured Stories News

Are You SEEQ Curious?

James Warren August 01, 2026
251 Views 0 Comment

For years, we’ve shared what we are learning from stories about belonging, leadership, customer experience, employee experience and community experience — all focused on lessons learned from the work of building stronger brands, cultures and communities.

Now, that work is becoming even clearer.

What Do You SEEQ? is a question we ask leaders, partners, and ourselves: What are you seeing beneath the numbers? What are people experiencing? What matters most? And what becomes possible when we listen closely enough to act?

The name reflects where Share More Stories and SEEQ are headed: helping leaders turn lived experience – employee, customer, community and leadership experience – into clearer decisions, stronger action, and more meaningful impact.

We’re glad you’re here.


A Story About What Happens When Leaders Listen

A few years ago, one of our customers was going through a major period of change.

The people there cared deeply about the work. They believed in the mission. They were showing up for one another and for their customers. But the stories told us that many team members were also tired. Stretched. Uncertain about what was changing and what was expected of them.

The numbers showed that joy was down and stress was rising – and the stories helped leaders understand why. In those moments, people did not need another reminder to work harder. They needed clearer communication, more visible support, and space to feel heard.

As leaders responded, trust and stability began to return. And as the organization felt more supported, customers felt the difference, too.

Article content

When employees feel supported, customers feel the difference.

That is the kind of work we care about.

Not just gathering input. Helping leaders see what is happening beneath the surface, understand what matters, and make decisions that improve the experience for the employees, customers and communities who depend on them.


So… are you SEEQ curious?

There is a lot of noise right now. Like a WHOLE lot.

Experience platforms. Research companies. AI tools. Dashboards. Surveys. Customer feedback. Employee feedback. Social listening. Plenty of data. More analysis. And evem more ways to summarize what people are saying. Oh, and did we say more data?

And still, leaders are often left asking the same questions (at least the ones we talk to):

  1. What is really happening here?

  2. Why is it happening?

  3. What should we do differently?

That is where we are becoming clearer about the role SEEQ can play.

We are not building another survey tool, dashboard platform, or traditional consulting offer. We are building a human experience decision intelligence system that helps leaders understand what people are experiencing, why it matters, and what decisions can improve employee experience, customer experience, business outcomes – and ultimately, impact.

The work starts with stories, but it does not end there.

Stories help people share what they have lived through. They reveal context, emotion, meaning, and needs that are often hidden behind scores, categories, and assumptions. SEEQ helps turn those experiences into structured intelligence that leaders can use to make better decisions.

Article content

The same things that help people tell honest stories about their experiences can also help leaders face the truth of their cultures, brands, and impacts.

And what we’re realizing is that what we help SEEQ participants navigate – exploring their stories with authenticity, courage and curiosity – well, that applies 100% to the leaders we work with. Because they are navigating the truth of their culture, their brand and often their own leadership impact.

That is what we mean by being SEEQ Curious.

It is the willingness to look beneath the surface: ask better questions about what people are experiencing. Recognize where trust is growing or breaking down. Understand what people need. And do something useful with what we learn – actions, outcomes and impacts.


What We’re Learning About Where SEEQ Helps Most

As we continue to learn from customers, partners, and the market around us, we have gotten clearer about where SEEQ creates the most value.

The work matters most when leaders are facing a real decision: a growth moment, a trust challenge, a customer or employee experience gap, a brand question, a transformation effort, or a need to better understand the people they serve.

In those moments, they usually do not need more information for information’s sake. They need a clearer view of what people are experiencing, what may be driving the pattern, and what deserves attention next.

That is where SEEQ comes in: helping leaders see what they may have been missing and move forward with more confidence.


Learning in Public: Founder Mobility

One of the most important places we are learning right now is in Founder Mobility, a collaboration with Lighthouse Network.

Founder Mobility is helping us explore the deeper human experiences that make up the founder’s journey: entrepreneurship, mobility, ambition, identity, risk, access, support, and the decisions people make as they try to build something meaningful and scalable.

Too often, conversations about founders focus only on outcomes: capital raised, companies launched, jobs created, growth achieved.

Yes, those outcomes matter; but they do not tell the whole story.

Behind them – and before them – are countless moments of profound uncertainty, self-belief, isolation, resilience, pressure, and belonging. These moments reveal the search for the people and systems that can make it possible to keep moving forward. They also reveal the hidden challenges many founders face.

This work is helping Lighthouse and us better understand the conditions that support founders, the places where systems create friction or opportunity, and what mobility really requires from the perspective of people living it.

We are excited about learning in public through Founder Mobility, and we look forward to sharing more as the work continues.


What We’re Building: From Insight to Action

We are also continuing to improve the way people experience SEEQ.

Recent platform upgrades are making it easier for people to participate and share what they are experiencing. A simpler path to story sharing. Fewer unnecessary steps. Less friction between a person’s lived experience and an organization’s ability to learn from it.

Okay, sure, that may sound like a product update; but it’s also part of the method. Better decisions depend on better signals. Better signals depend on people being willing and able to share what is real.

We are also building clearer ways to help leaders move from insight to action: identifying hidden needs, mapping emotional journeys, understanding the moments that matter, developing leadership behavior playbooks, and clarifying the priorities that can make the greatest difference.

The goal is not about helping organizations hear more – it is to help them hear better! To help them understand more clearly, decide more confidently, and act more intentionally.

→ Check out one of our open-to-the-public projects and share your story about the experience of belonging.


The SEEQ Method: From Stories to Decision Intelligence in Travel

Stories are the entry point. Decision-ready understanding is the outcome. In between is a journey that leaders must take if they truly want to improve EX and CX. They have to get vulnerable enough to listen.

This is the work of turning lived experience into a clearer view of what is happening, why it is happening, and what leaders can do next.


A Quick Case Study: St. Michael’s Episcopal School

St. Michael’s Episcopal School wanted to strengthen its connection with current families while attracting new ones. The school is known for academic excellence and cherished traditions, while also navigating an important question: how to honor its Episcopal foundation and distinctive community experience while meeting the expectations of today’s diverse and dynamic families.

Through stories shared by parents, alumni, faculty, and board members, SEEQ helped identify the emotional drivers and characteristics shaping the St. Michael’s experience. The work surfaced themes of belonging, tradition, and holistic growth, while also identifying opportunities to strengthen inclusivity and representation. Those insights informed messaging frameworks centered on joy, connection, and academic excellence, along with recommendations for amplifying diverse voices, balancing tradition with innovation, and strengthening a unified brand identity.

St. Michael’s is now integrating those insights into its communications and outreach, helping more families, students, faculty, and alumni experience the connection and purpose that have long defined the school.

Again, this is the kind of impact we seek to have: helping organizations understand what makes their experience meaningful, where it needs to evolve, and how to act without losing what people value most.


SEEQ Method: From Storytelling to Strategic Impact

That belief is not new for us. It is where this work began: with the realization that stories can help leaders see their brands, customers, and communities differently.

And that matters most in places where people’s experiences are often reduced to categories, transactions, or checklists.


What Caregiving Has Taught Us

Our published work on aging and caregiving has reinforced a related truth.

People are not only navigating services, care plans, treatment decisions, or logistics. They are also navigating identity shifts, grief, fear, guilt, love, exhaustion, uncertainty, and the need to feel recognized.

Caregivers often need more than information. They need clarity, trust, emotional validation, and guidance that feels human.

Article content

Older adults often evaluate the quality of an experience through moments that traditional systems overlook: whether someone remembered their name, whether they felt welcomed, whether a staff member made them feel seen, or whether a service helped them hold onto a sense of self.

That has direct implications for brand strategy, product design, experience management, communications, and frontline behavior.

It is why we believe leaders have to move beyond categories, scores, and assumptions. They have to understand the emotional journey people are actually living.

Explore the Aging and Caregiving Case Study

Our founder, James Warren, recently had the chance to discuss some of these lessons on the JoyMed podcast, including why caregiving cannot be understood only as a healthcare or logistics problem. We’ll drop the link to the episode as soon as it’s available!

In the meantime, if you’re a working caregiver of an adult, we invite you to share your experience here in the Working Caregiver Project.


More Learning With Leaders

Across recent and current partnerships and projects, we’ve learned alongside leaders who are navigating consumer experience, community trust, member and care journeys, changing expectations, transformations and growth, and complex human-centered decisions.

The details differ, but the underlying need is consistent: leaders came to us seeking a more grounded understanding of what people are actually experiencing before they could decide what to do next.

They needed to know where people feel connected and where they feel overlooked. Where confidence is building and where frustration is beginning to grow. What people value, need, think and feel — and what gets in the way.

This is the work of helping leaders see the human meaning underneath the operational, financial, and strategic decisions in front of them.

@Andy Sitison, our CTO, unpacks this beautifully in his YouTube series, “Sit on SEEQ.”


State of Belonging: What We Learned, and What Comes Next

Last but certainly not least!

Earlier this year, we shared findings from the SEEQ State of Belonging work: more than 4,000 moments of human experience and more than 160,000 individual emotional scores exploring what belonging feels like, what happens when it is absent, and what leaders can do to strengthen connection.

The core learning remains clear.

Belonging is not simply a cultural aspiration. It is a measurable emotional condition that affects employee experience, customer experience, trust, participation, loyalty, community connection, and organizational resilience.

The work also reinforced something practical. People tend to experience belonging when leaders create clarity during uncertainty, ask for input and act on it, show appreciation, create psychological safety, and follow through consistently.

Download the State of Belonging Report

We are also planning the next State of Belonging conversation, with current partners and members of the SEEQ community joining us to talk about what they are learning in real time. More details and a save-the-date are coming soon!


What Do You SEEQ?

So that’s a wrap on our mega-update — but as for the work? We’re just getting started — and here’s how you can join in!

We are continuing to collect stories from leaders about belonging, connection, leadership, and the experiences that shaped how they show up today.

What do you SEEQ when you think about the people, moments, and relationships that helped you feel seen, supported, challenged, or changed? Or the times when you wanted to create a more connected employee or customer experience – but couldn’t?

Share your story as part of the State of Belonging project for leaders.

Thanks for being part of this journey so far. We look forward to continuing to learn, build, and ask better questions with you.

What do you SEEQ?


Ready to satisfy your SEEQ curiosity?

DM or book a meeting with James Warren.

DM Andy Sitison.

Tags:

You Might also Like

Want to see what we're building? Check out our new website