People First, Outcomes Always: Bryan Belmont’s Blueprint for Leadership in the AI Era

Omid Razavi

May 8, 2025

Insights from the CSS Next forum, May 8, 2025 by Omid Razavi

This premier session marked the launch of CSS Next, a new monthly online forum by SuccessLab spotlighting visionary leaders in Customer Service and Support. Designed to spark candid dialogue and share real-world strategies, CSS Next brings together executives shaping the future of customer experience—one transformation at a time.

In this inaugural event, Bryan Belmont, recently retired as Corporate Vice President of Customer Service and Support at Microsoft, shared a deeply insightful and inspiring perspective on modern leadership - anchored not in technology, but in trust, culture, and people. Rather than emphasizing technology alone, Bryan urged attendees to lead with trust, prioritize culture, and center transformation around people. Drawing from more than two decades of experience leading one of the world’s largest support organizations, he delivered hard-earned lessons and practical strategies that remain essential in today’s fast-moving, AI-enabled business environment.

“True leadership is not about making yourself indispensable. It’s about making the people around you better.”

In a session packed with reflection, candor, and actionable wisdom, Bryan offered five (plus one) leadership lessons that span decades of experience leading one of the largest support organizations in tech—15,000+ employees and 25,000+ delivery partners worldwide. His talk resonated deeply with the CSS community, offering practical, human-centered strategies for leading with integrity and clarity in an era increasingly defined by digital transformation.

Bryan’s 5+1 Leadership Principles

1. Put People First

Bryan began with what he called the “most important and sometimes most overlooked principle”—putting people first. While many in customer service reflexively adopt a “customer first” mindset, Bryan argued that sustainable customer success actually begins with employees. Engaged, motivated team members are the ones who deliver exceptional experiences.

In the Customer Service and Support organization that Bryan led at Microsoft, this philosophy became institutionalized:

The first and most enduring of the team’s five core leadership principles was: “We take care of our employees so they can take care of our customers.”

A senior leader was explicitly appointed to focus on employee experience, ensuring that internal tools, process changes, and AI rollouts improved, not burdened, frontline staff.

Delivery partners were not treated as outsiders, but as equal contributors and “trusted partners,” fully invested in the same mission.

“We made employee care our first leadership principle—and we reviewed it at every offsite and staff meeting to ensure that decisions we made and actions we took were aligned with that intent.”

Bryan noted that this commitment to employee care translated directly into stronger customer loyalty and higher customer and employee satisfaction scores.

2. Create a Culture of Truth-Seeking

Bryan emphasized the importance of creating an environment where truth can surface. Leaders often underestimate how much information is filtered before it reaches them. Without honest feedback from the front lines, problems fester.

To foster this culture:

Bryan modeled vulnerability and openness by sharing his own mistakes in leadership forums.

He welcomed critical feedback—even when it was difficult to hear—and publicly acknowledged it.

Microsoft teams were encouraged to “embrace the red,” meaning they didn’t hide problems in performance dashboards but brought them forward with transparency and urgency.

“You can’t solve problems you don’t hear about. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you’ve stopped leading them.” — Colin Powell

This principle built trust and ensured the team could address risks before escalating.

3. Be Outcome-Focused, Not Activity-Driven

One of Bryan’s most memorable lessons was the distinction between effort and outcomes. He warned leaders not to confuse being busy with being effective.

He shared a candid story: his PMO team diligently worked on a cross-functional initiative to improve customer handoffs for more than a year. Despite intense activity, the customer experience wasn’t improving. After pressing pause and running a three-day workshop, the team discovered they didn’t even agree on the problem.

“Hard work doesn’t guarantee results. Effort without impact is a distraction.”

Bryan advised leaders to:

Regularly step back and ask: “Are we solving the whole problem?”

Challenge their teams to justify whether current initiatives will achieve the intended result, not just meet project milestones.

Avoid getting trapped in momentum, where projects continue simply because they’ve already started.

4. Be Intentional with Metrics

Metrics can be powerful—but dangerous—if misunderstood or misapplied. Bryan pointed out that well-intended metrics can drive the wrong behavior.

At one point, his organization set a goal to reduce the average time to resolution for support tickets. The metric improved quickly, but not for the right reasons. Agents were closing tickets prematurely to meet targets, leaving customers frustrated.

“People do exactly what they think you value.”

Bryan urged leaders to:

Align metrics with real customer outcomes, not internal efficiency.

Consider unintended consequences when designing incentive systems.

Some metrics are valuable for measuring the business's performance. Still, they should not necessarily be directly used as goals or targets at the individual level, particularly at the frontline.

5. Transformation is a People Problem, Not a Tech Problem

Despite access to some of the world’s most advanced technologies, Bryan consistently saw that the most challenging part of transformation wasn’t the tools—it was getting people to adopt them. AI was no exception.

Many employees resisted new systems, not because they lacked potential, but because of poor communication, fear of change, or unclear benefits. To address this, Bryan’s team focused on:

Change leadership, not just project management

Clear communication about how AI would change roles (not eliminate them)

Listening at every level, to understand and remove friction points

“Change doesn’t fail because of bad tech. It fails because people resist it.”

+1. Sometimes, People Are the Fastest Path

In an era where automation is the go-to solution, Bryan reminded leaders not to overlook the power of simple, human-driven fixes.

He shared a telling example: after a year of waiting for a system-generated SLA alerting tool, Bryan asked the people responsible for managing Critical Support Cases to simply email him when a case went past its deadline. Within three days, the team had a working process—no systems, no delays.

"Sometimes the fastest way to solve a problem isn’t to automate it, but to empower people to act."

AI: From Hype to Human-Centered Implementation

As the discussion turned to AI, Bryan invited me to share what I’ve been hearing from the industry and the CSS community. I appreciated the opportunity to reflect on how the conversation around AI has shifted in just the past few years.

Early on, much of the interest in AI was driven by curiosity and FOMO—leaders wanted to be seen exploring the latest innovations, but few had a clear plan. Today, it’s different. Executives are under real pressure. Boards are asking for AI strategies. Budgets are being approved faster for AI pilots than for adding much-needed headcount. But with that momentum comes new tension. Here’s what I’m consistently hearing from CSS leaders, and some of these I’m sure resonate with Bryan and other leaders’ experiences:

They’re expected to deliver quick wins, but adoption challenges slow results.

Teams are reluctant to trust AI, especially when initial experiences have been inconsistent or unclear.

Change management is underestimated; AI is treated as a tech rollout, not a people transformation.

The most successful efforts are those where AI augments human capability, not replaces it.

Leaders need to be explicit about how roles will evolve, so teams don’t fill the silence with fear.

“You can bring in the best technology,” I noted, “but if your teams aren’t bought in or prepared to use it, it’s going to be a failed project.” Not surprised that in many organizations, AI is hitting a wall—not because the tools aren’t good, but because the trust and clarity needed to embrace them aren’t there yet.

Bryan responded with complete alignment, reinforcing that trust is the critical success factor. He shared how some frontline engineers were hesitant to engage with Copilot even at Microsoft. Despite early wins with tasks like summarization, adoption lagged until they focused more on empathy, clarity, and helping people visualize their future alongside AI, not after it.

“We had to stop assuming people would naturally come along for the ride,” Bryan said. “We had to meet them where they were—and walk with them.”

He emphasized that leadership in the age of AI isn’t about pushing technology—it’s about earning buy-in, creating safe spaces to learn, and helping teams build confidence through early wins.

“This wasn’t just a skills gap,” Bryan said. “It was a trust gap.”

Bryan emphasized that fundamental AI transformation requires clarity, empathy, and honesty. Bryan’s team invested in helping employees visualize the future of their roles, showing how agents could evolve into knowledge architects or copilots managing virtual agents, rather than being displaced.

“Technology doesn’t transform companies—people do,” Bryan reminded the audience. “And it’s our job as leaders to help our teams confidently walk that path.”

Audience Q&A Highlights

Q1: How do you balance recognizing employee effort when outcomes aren’t there yet?

Deepak pointed out a common leadership challenge: employees often work hard and expect that effort to be rewarded, but sometimes, the results don’t follow. “How do you handle that?” he asked, " especially when financial rewards need to tie back to outcomes?”

Bryan acknowledged the difficulty: “This is a hard one. I’ve struggled with it too. Recognizing effort is important—but if we want to grow the business and serve customers better, we must be clear that outcomes matter most.”

He emphasized the need for clarity before the work begins. One solution his team adopted was running strategy alignment workshops to define success upfront, not just in terms of activity milestones, but shared understanding of the desired outcomes.

“We discovered that people thought they were aligned—until we unpacked it. When we got everyone in the room, we realized we didn’t even agree on the definition of the problem, let alone the result we were chasing.”

The takeaway? Recognize effort, but invest early in defining success. Without alignment, even the most diligent work can fall short.

Q2: How do you create a truth-telling culture when the broader organization doesn’t reward it?

Sumati posed a bold and relatable question: "How can you encourage truth-telling in your team when the rest of the company culture may not support it, and when those who speak up risk being sidelined?"

Bryan responded with deep empathy and realism, “You can’t always change the culture above you. But you can control the culture in your own organization.”

He spoke about modeling vulnerability and rewarding candor within his team. He shared how he would openly talk about his own mistakes, admit when a strategy wasn’t working, and invite honest feedback—even when it was critical of him.

“If someone told me I said the wrong thing, I’d thank them and show that I took it seriously. That’s how you build psychological safety. That’s how you make people believe their voice matters.”

He also acknowledged that truth-telling upward is risky in some cultures. Leaders must be aware of those risks, but they can start small, build internal trust, and shift the tone across their organization over time.

Q3: What’s the role of succession planning when it may actually put you at risk?

Stephan shared a personal concern: “We’re told to train people to take our jobs—but what if that makes us expendable?”

Bryan appreciated the honesty of the question and didn’t offer a canned response. “It’s a real tension. I won’t pretend there aren’t cases where that happens. I’ve seen it too.”

However, he emphasized that preparing your team to lead—even if it creates risk—is part of legacy-building leadership. “I always believed true leadership is about improving others, even if they surpass you. That’s how your impact lasts beyond your role.”

He shared that when he retired from Microsoft, one of his direct reports stepped into his role—a sign, he said, that his leadership strategy had worked.

“You can’t control everything. But if you’ve trained someone to succeed, and they do—that’s a win for the organization. And ultimately, a reflection of your leadership.”

Q4: What is the role of Supportability at Microsoft, and can other companies replicate it?

Mark asked about the Supportability function, a dedicated team that bridges product engineering and support to improve the customer experience. Could this model work elsewhere?

Bryan was unequivocal: “Absolutely. I’m helping another company stand up that exact model right now.” He explained that Supportability is crucial in closing the loop between support insights and product design, especially in a cloud-first world where software and service are deeply intertwined.

A key to success? Hiring someone who speaks both languages. Bryan shared that one breakthrough came when he hired a former engineer to lead the Supportability team. That leader earned the trust of product teams and shifted the conversation from “support nagging engineering” to a collaborative partnership.

Final Thought

“Technology doesn’t transform companies—people do.”

Bryan Belmont’s message to the CSS Next community is both timeless and timely. As AI reshapes customer service and support, the leaders who succeed will be those who center people, measure what matters, and embrace truth, not just transformation.

About the author: Omid Razavi is the founder of SuccessLab and a global advocate for Customer Success, Service, and Support leadership. He has led executive forums and workshops across North America, Europe, and Asia, helping organizations align AI innovation with post-sales strategy and organizational design. Through SuccessLab and as host of the CCO Online and CSS Next virtual forums, he amplifies the voice of post-sales leaders, shaping strategic narratives and championing their critical role in driving customer value and long-term growth.

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