FountainBlue's July 2025 Newsletter
Healer or Rainmaker? Why We Need Both
When I started FountainBlue 20 years ago, one of my mentors told me I had to choose: be a Healer or a Rainmaker. In a nutshell, the Healer helps individuals, teams, and organizations achieve clarity and alignment, while the Rainmaker drives growth, expansion, and results.
For years, I resisted choosing because both matter deeply. To me, they’ve always been inseparable.
Now I see it clearly: healing must come first. Without purpose and passion, growth isn’t sustainable. Without strategic clarity and intention, momentum quickly fades.
But healing alone isn’t enough to help companies, teams, or individuals truly stand out. Growth fueled by strategic intention creates lasting momentum. And when we deliver excellence across an ecosystem, we ignite a virtuous cycle—one that elevates everyone it touches.
This month, FountainBlue’s blog will explore both sides of that equation.
On the healing side, I share “Measuring Impact from the Top Down”—a framework for translating vision, mission, and values into OKRs, KPIs, and performance metrics that foster a true meritocracy and reduce internal politics.
On the rainmaking side, “The Journey of Customer Delight” explores how thoughtful strategy and coordinated collaboration can scale personalized, relationship-based processes that foster growth in both individuals and businesses.
I hope these reflections inspire your journey toward impact that’s both meaningful and measurable.
What are you doing to create healing and growth in your work?
Schedule a 15-minute call to share *your* best practices for healing a team and organization and then delighting the customer.
Measuring Impact from the Top-Down — Warning: Acronyms Ahead
Successful businesses don’t just happen—they’re built from the top down, starting with a bold, visionary foundation. A Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is at the core, driven by a meaningful mission and anchored by values that guide behavior and decision-making.
From this foundation—Vision, Mission, and Values (VMV)—leaders shape inspirational Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) that drive measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Together, these guide individual roles, responsibilities, and performance metrics.
It sounds simple in theory. In practice, the challenge lies in aligning, integrating, and executing these processes. The following questions are designed to provoke action and reflection at every organizational level.
Vision, Mission, and Values
What are our VMVs—and how do we align with them daily?
Are we evolving our mission in step with shifting markets and technologies?
How are customer insights helping shape and refine our VMV?
OKRs, KPIs, and Performance Metrics (PMs)
Are our OKRs aligned with our VMV? Are KPIs aligned with OKRs? Are performance metrics aligned with both?
Where do we see misalignment—and how do we fix it?
How tightly are performance goals connected to compensation, promotion, and recognition?
Training, Education, and Upskilling
Do our people have the tools, knowledge, and training to achieve their goals?
How are we actively upskilling and future-proofing our workforce?
Are we empowering our teams to develop strategic, customer-focused, empathetic, communication-forward soft skills that drive long-term success?
Regardless of your title or role, these questions are applicable:
Which of these questions can I help answer or influence?
What are the implications as the company evolves?
In a top-down strategy, everyone plays a part. The top may set the tone, but execution happens everywhere.
Request templates for integrating VMVs, OKRs, KPIs, and PMs.
Share how you make measurements from the bottom-up - from performance management to job descriptions, from KPIs through OKRs, in alignment with VMVs.
Tell us how this top-down business strategy is helping you navigate challenges and opportunities in an unpredictable world!
The Journey of Customer Delight
In today’s hyper-connected, customer-driven economy, delighting the customer is one of the most significant differentiators. It increases loyalty, drives revenue, enhances competitive advantage, strengthens the brand, boosts upsell potential—you name it.
More importantly, it creates a multiplier effect over time: compounding emotional connection, expanding lifetime value, reducing churn, building advocacy, and deepening trust.
So the real question isn’t whether to delight the customer, but how to do so well.
And the bonus question: how do we do it strategically?
The answer is: by combining technology, collaboration, and above all, authentic human connection.
Here are a few foundational practices to guide the way:
Leadership - Strategic Oversight
Map the customer journey with delight and loyalty in mind
Target and initiate high-impact customer engagements
Amplify delight through a multiplier effect
Prioritize relationships and results while growing the ecosystem and leveraging technology
Agilely update the strategy, the goals, the relationships, and the processes based on market and customer feedback
Management - Internal and External Collaboration
Align team members to key “moments that matter”
Leverage trends and data to co-plan products and services
Anticipate evolving goals and ecosystem needs
Activate stakeholders as co-creators of value
Execution - Scalable, Relationship-Based Processes and Interactions
Balance automation with a human touch to scale personalization
Customize strategies to address evolving customer needs
Anticipate and respond to preferences and behaviors
Make it an opportunity to co-create resilience, adaptability, and learning in the face of change
What types of strategic oversight will you provide to help enhance customer satisfaction?
How will you and the team build the ecosystem of partners to support your customers' success?
How will you and the team use technologies and processes to boost results and strengthen relationships?
Let’s build customer delight into your strategy from the inside out.
Sign up for a 15-minute no-obligation call by visiting http://calendly.com/fountainblue/customer.
Receive AI-generated articles about either the customer journey or measuring impact from the top down by booking a 15-minute consultation for $100.
Update on BloomQuest Learning
Inspiring Curiosity. Building Futures. Powering Science Education.
Thank you to everyone who provided input, ideas, connections, and strategies for FountainBlue’s BloomQuest Learning initiative!
Based on your input, we have more clarity on HOW BloomQuest Learning will deliver standards-aligned, high-impact online science education for California’s K–5 students across public, private, and homeschool settings.
Each grade-level program comprises 25 weekly lessons, designed to engage students through multiple learning modes. Every lesson features:
Rich instructional content, including storybooks and science-themed literature
Facilitated discussions that promote curiosity, inquiry, and collaborative thinking
Data, facts, and background knowledge that support critical thinking and problem-solving
Interactive project concepts that connect students, teachers, and families in community
Hands-on experiments, experiences, and activities that encourage discovery and engagement
Cross-curricular integration with language arts, mathematics, music, and the arts
All weekly science lessons include each element of the scientific process:
Mondays - Instruction, Research, and Questions
Tuesdays - Hypothesis, Coordination, and Planning
Wednesdays - Experiments, Investigations, and Data Collection
Thursdays - Data Analysis, Pattern Exploration, and Conclusions
Fridays - Reporting, Feedback, Additional Questions, and Thoughts
We are now looking for:
⏱️ TIME: Share your knowledge, creativity, and brilliance to help us design immersive, interactive, and experiential content.
🌟 TALENT: Contribute your time, enthusiasm, and passion to help train teachers, educators, and parents in delivering engaging, hands-on science instruction for K–5 students.
🤝 TEAMWORK: Lend your voice, ideas, and connections to help us build meaningful collaborations among families, schools, businesses, and community leaders.
💰 TREASURE: Provide sponsorship or financial support to help fund content development, educator training, instructional delivery, and essential materials.
🌍 Join a Movement That Matters
BloomQuest is not just a platform—it’s a purpose-driven community.
Together, we are empowering the next generation of science thinkers, leaders, and innovators—starting with today’s curious young minds.
Empower learning today—ignite the STEM workforce of tomorrow.
One learner. One lesson. One collaboration at a time.