Most organisations don’t experience breakdowns all at once.
They experience small misalignments that accumulate quietly over time.
Nothing is obviously wrong. Systems are up. Services are delivered. Dashboards suggest stability. Yet conversations take longer than they should. Escalations feel repetitive rather than urgent. Teams revisit the same issues without quite agreeing on what changed.
This is usually described as a measurement problem or a communication issue. In practice, it’s something simpler and harder to see: an experience gap.
Where the gap begins to form
Experience gaps don’t appear because leaders stop paying attention. They appear because attention is drawn to what is easiest to measure.
Service levels, tickets, response times, satisfaction scores — all useful in isolation. But none of them show how work actually feels as it moves across tools, teams, and moments. They capture outputs, not experience.
Over time, this creates a subtle mismatch. What looks acceptable on paper doesn’t fully reflect how technology is landing day to day. People adapt locally. Workarounds form. Friction becomes normalised because it doesn’t register as failure.
That’s when escalation starts to change character. It becomes less about urgency and more about uncertainty.
How quiet friction surfaces
When experience gaps persist, they tend to surface indirectly.
Issues reappear under different labels. Conversations circle without settling. Leaders sense that effort is being spent without corresponding progress, but the reason remains unclear. Each signal on its own feels manageable. Together, they point to something unresolved.
This is often described as a “DEX problem” or a metrics gap. But the pattern isn’t about the absence of data. It’s about experience not being visible in a shared way.
Without that shared view, teams interpret signals differently. What feels significant to one group feels marginal to another. Alignment weakens not through disagreement, but through fragmentation.
What becomes clear when experience is seen together
When lived experience is surfaced broadly and without interpretation, the picture begins to settle.
Some sources of friction stand out quickly. Others fade once they’re seen in context. Escalations become easier to understand because they’re no longer isolated events; they’re part of a pattern that has been forming quietly.
This doesn’t lead to more measurement. It leads to better judgment.
Leaders can see which issues genuinely require attention and which can safely wait. Teams stop compensating for uncertainty and start working from the same understanding. The energy previously spent reconciling different views is released.
That’s when escalation becomes the exception again, not the default.
When gaps close, pressure eases
Experience gaps don’t close through tighter controls or more granular metrics. They close when reality is seen clearly enough that interpretation falls away.
Once experience is shared, decisions become proportionate. Focus settles. Work moves forward without needing constant reinforcement.
Nothing dramatic changes.
But things stop rubbing.
Quiet friction gives way to steadier flow.
And decisions begin to hold, not because they’re defended, but because they’re grounded.
When reality is clear, decisions feel lighter.
