Most of you must have seen this image (or a version of it) in the last few years. I remember a lot of people sharing it or referring to it with almost a sense of pride and relief. It was almost as if the world had found a way to get the rewards without the work. I also remember using it about 2 years ago during my design thinking workshops. My objective was more about slowing down any wild imagination among participants, about creating business models without firm, underlying foundations.
Oddly, this would be the only section or slide that would find a small amount of resistance and counter-views. Apart from the losses Uber was amassing, there wasn’t much else to disprove it. Its valuation certainly fuzzied plain reasoning for many business folk.
And while the jury’s still out on the success or failure of Uber, I’ve been trying to see if there are any indicators in their drivers’ views.
On a recent Uber ride, the driver was telling me about their reducing margins. How Uber initially started with a very lucrative 15% (share of revenues Uber retained, leaving the rest for the driver partner). And how, with time, that share has increased to 20, 25, and now 28%. I also inquired about why I was often getting surge prices in the afternoons.
The driver explained that they prefer the mornings and evenings because of surge pricing. And since their revenue sharing is lower now, a lot of them go home to rest in the afternoons. A few afternoons ago, the app showed nearly half a dozen cars around me. Yet it took an hour of trying to get a confirmed booking. And the few drivers who cancelled, suspiciously called to ask where I was going, before cancelling. And recently, a few drivers have also asked how much I was being charged for the ride. Something never discussed before.
In an earlier post, I shared a story of another company before Uber, that perhaps did not have a good pulse on its different stakeholders. And how it eventually disappeared from this space in the face of Uber. By these recent signs, seems that if Uber doesn’t disrupt itself, someone soon enough might.
If you own, manage or work at a company, and are grappling with a complex challenge or are in need of innovation for growth, get in touch. More here.
And you might find my book, ‘Design the Future’ interesting. It demystifies the mindset of Design Thinking. Ebook’s on Amazon, and paperbacks at leading online bookstores including Amazon & Flipkart.
Google’s AdSense program let’s publishers or website owners have relevant ads show up when users visit those sites. Google earns revenues (via their Google Ads – previously AdWords platform) from businesses wanting those ads showing up to relevant customer groups. In turn, they pass on some of that revenue (based on ever-changing conditions!) to the site owners for using their space for displaying ads.
Google’s all-encompassing know-how of users and their searches and interests makes all this possible and seemingly co-exist well.
A few years back, I had applied for Google AdSense for my blog. Thankfully for me, they had replied with the inability to take me into the program. According to them, my blog covered a diverse range of topics – something not suited to their business model that prefers everything in buckets. Highly specific, highly siloed topics or themes. If only humans were that basic and simple.
While probably a lot of people are aware of the underlying problem with this, it seemed to get highlighted after a recent meeting with an old friend.
This friend was telling me about how he and a friend were keen on creating a blog that shared information around good health. And so, they collaborated and got working on it. One had a tech background, and handled site development and Google services they hoped to integrate and earn from. My friend, good with content, had already researched and created several articles around the theme of their still-being-developed site.
Then, apparently this June, Google altered their AdSense program, leading popular healthcare related sites and services to see a near 50% drop in web traffic to their sites. The result. These two friends have at least temporarily shelved the project.
Imagine people with keen interest or even a passion for certain fields or topics. And their humble hope to share their knowledge with the world, and to learn from it. To connect with like-minded people in other parts of the world. To interact and grow. And perhaps be remunerated for their effort, even if moderately. These people have now often been basing their decision to continue in that field or not, based on Google’s whims.
As a kid, I once heard of how in China, the government has a say in the profession you pursued. And it was independent of your educational background. I thought it was highly illogical.
Yet here we are. Unconsciously doing the same thing in accordance with the wishes of ever-changing algorithms of a for-profit company.
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If you own, manage or work at a company, and are grappling with a complex challenge or are in need of innovation for growth, get in touch. More here.
And you might find my book, ‘Design the Future’ interesting. It demystifies the mindset of Design Thinking. Ebook’s on Amazon, and paperbacks at leading online bookstores including Amazon & Flipkart.
This post about my 9-step version of the design thinking process has been long overdue. It is already explained in my book, ‘Design the Future’, but I also wanted to share it here for those interested.
The five-step Stanford design thinking process is arguably the most popular process out there. I have however, come across numerous different processes or versions. Ranging from the 15-step Darden process that I was taught, to oversimplifications and misleading three-step processes I have come across.
In my interactions with managers, business leaders and even students, I found that while many were familiar with the Stanford or some other design thinking process, they did not quite understand it well enough. For instance, ‘empathy’ came across to them as something that is ‘just done’. Similar to how many people assume hearing is the same as listening. And seeing empathy as a step in the process gave many the impression that like a switch, it had to be turned on and then off, as one moved to the next step.
So, in an effort to simplify the design thinking process so more people may use it, I created my own version of the design thinking process based on my understanding of design thinking and experiences practicing it. I took the Stanford model, and hopefully improved it.
You need to remember that any design thinking process is a broad guideline. It is not like a military obstacle course that one must complete in a defined sequence. You might find yourself looping through a few steps multiple times. Or in some cases, depending on what the information or insight presents, you might find yourself back at the beginning; starting again with renewed understanding of the challenge.
Sherlock Holmes, in the series ‘Elementary,’ once tells Watson, “The danger with rule books, Watson, is that they offer the illusion that leading a moral life is a simple undertaking, that the world exists in black and white. Welcome to the grays.”
At least when it comes to areas such as creativity and drawing inspiration, remember there can never be stringent rules or guidelines.
My 9-step version of the design thinking process:
My 9 Step version of the Design Thinking Process
Of the nine steps in the process, the first three are more underlying criteria than steps. Criteria that are critical to improving the chances of success on a project. Those three criteria are Humility, Empathy, and Intention. While these might seem obvious to the point of sounding stupid, they are often the most ignored aspects to a design-led process. More on that as we understand each step better.
After that come the more common steps of most design thinking processes.
They are: Define – Empathize with Intent – Redefine – Ideate – Prototype – Test
Let’s look at the nine steps more closely:
Humility – The quality of having a modest or low view of one’s importance. Its relevance springs from the simple signal versus noise perspective. Our objectives as design thinkers is to maximize our understanding of user experiences and needs. Of those we want to innovate for, or whose problems or challenges we want to solve. That is the signal that is of utmost importance to us for innovating for them. Our views, opinions, and biases are the noise.
The moment you can bring yourself down to the level of a beginner or a learner, you put yourself in the backseat, and that’s when the end user or final beneficiary of your innovation will come into the limelight of your focus. Remember to start with humility.
Empathy – The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Putting yourself in a live user-setting and observing and/ or interacting with users to get a better sense of what a problem or future opportunity might mean to them, how they deal with it, and so on. In conjunction with humility, it offers a good environment to capture user information.
Unlike what some methods might state, empathy (and humility as well as
the next step, intention) are not steps in themselves. They should not be
traits that you turn on and off depending on which stage of the design thinking
process you are. It is also why, along with the intent, I have placed them at
the base of the six-step process, to signify how the three traits always need
to be ‘ON.’
Without being in a constant state of empathy, no real innovation is possible. And that will be the difference between a real design thinker or team creating an exceptional change, and people simply practicing it as a flavour of the times.
Intention – An intention is the larger thought and nudge to action for a change, that brings you to employ the design thinking process. You might wonder what the difference is, between humility, empathy, and intent.
As a business leader, humility will always help you spot customer or employee or other stakeholder needs and concerns. Empathy will let you better understand those needs and concerns. To get to the root causes of it. You might still choose not to do anything about it, because you don’t have the intention to. Contrarily, if you have the intention, but lack humility and empathy, it would mean that your objective or goal is not the right one.
Equipped with humility and empathy, but in the absence of any intent, a
business leader will always spot improvement areas in his or her business. All
they need then is to choose their intention – i.e., determine the direction of
their effort, and get working on it.
Define – Here, we put the problem statement or
opportunity statement in words. It is a starting point of sorts, to the primary
design thinking process. Before interacting with user groups, this is a step
where we broadly express what we think the problem or opportunity area might be.
It could be how a client has described a problem, or, if we are helping a
friend or industry colleague, it could be their description of the issue.
One key thing to remember with defining a problem or opportunity is to
make it sound positive, irrespective of how grave or pointless the situation
might seem. A lot of companies are prone to defining/ framing what hurts first.
Their definition ends up being a problem statement which sounds grim. The
disadvantage of doing this is that when you invite people to think of ideas,
even as part of a brainstorming exercise, a grim-sounding problem statement
stifles the thinking, and will hugely limit the number and quality of views
that you receive.
On the contrary, if you turn your problem statement into an opportunity
statement, people ideating will be in a positive mindset, and be more attuned
to think of creative ideas. Try to notice the difference of mindsets the
following two statements evoke. Read them more than once if necessary:
A Problem Statement: “How can we drastically reduce our after-sales
service related expenses?”
An Opportunity Statement: “How can we redefine our service arm to be more relevant to customer needs, while not proving expensive for us?”
As Abraham Maslow once said, “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Defining a challenge too negatively and very precisely might give you solutions that just create more problems of their own.
Empathize with intent – This is the fun phase, where you spend time
observing actual users in their natural surroundings. See how they consume a
product or service. How they interact. And you must do this in the subtlest way
possible, even when you are interviewing or interacting with them. Especially
if the process is delicate or embarrassing for the end-user, or if the user is
introverted or are in some way intimidated by you and your team’s presence.
One important thing to remember in this phase is to be subjective with the empathy, but objective with what they share with you. If you have a subjective mindset when trying to find learnings, you might tend to get lost in a problem. And depending on the type of assignment, it might leave you either in disbelief, or maybe even depressed or an emotional wreck, depending on the kind of problem you are working to solve, as users expose you to severe difficulties or bitter experiences.
Instead, empathize with users as they walk you through their journey, experiences, feelings, and thoughts. But look at it from behind a glass wall when taking notes or drawing inspiration or conclusions from it. That way, your focus is not diverted by problems but instead stays focused on noting down those problems and possible thoughts, reasons, etc., that might spring to mind. The focus will help you then work towards getting rid of the problem, as opposed to being overwhelmed by it.
Redefine – After gathering user insights, we revisit our original definition with what we have learned. After enough information has been collected in the earlier stage, the team debriefs. The information is shared amongst team members without contaminating it with their inferences. That way, each member gets a clear sense of how things presently are.
Often, when tasked with solving a problem for someone, even when we have little or no information to go with, we are eager to get started with identifying potential solutions right-away. You might have seen this tendency in yourself and others (I tend to, from time to time), where someone mentions a problem, and without stopping to understand more, you start rattling possible causes or solutions.
That happens when we go with our definition of someone else’s problem. Which is why, after an initial definition, once we get a better understanding of it from actual people facing the problem (in the ’empathize with intent’ stage), we redefine the challenge more accurately, based on what we have learnt.
Ideate – This is the stage where designers would take the information they have gathered and use it as inputs that they put through a choice of design thinking tools. Tools including the brainstorming or versions of it, to contra-logic, worst-idea, brain-writing, trigger questions, changing perspectives, etc., and then use anchors, forced combinations and connections to come up with numerous ideas. The more ideas, the better, and the crazier the ideas; even better!
Prototype – Prototyping an innovative solution is akin to shaping a solution using two pairs of hands – your design team’s, and your users’. In the previous stage, you would have identified some potential ideas and possible directions regarding a solution. This is where you need end users to help you figure out what works for them, and what does not.
The objective of this stage is to be able to move rapidly towards a final solution, with minimum investment (as far as possible) on experiments towards refining potential solutions. The moment each prototype becomes too expensive and complicated, there is a tendency to either convince yourself and your team that it is a great solution (because of the effort that went into it. It is a cognitive bias called the IKEA effect).
Another possibility is that if you encounter a roadblock at this stage, your team or the top management might get easily demotivated and consider it a colossal failure, solely because your team spent a fortune building a prototype that user groups did not like or approve of.
Instead, make the most basic and low-cost but effective prototypes possible. Use anything from sheets of paper for story-boarding, to card paper or cardboard, Styrofoam and other craft supplies to work toward a final solution. Your objective with each prototype, is to test no more than one factor or variable you need clarity on. Test too many criteria, and the learning becomes unclear.
At workshops I conduct, I sometimes take my old letterheads for participants to use for discussions, sketching, or to make things out of.
It is only when everyone finds using anything lying around them as potential material for prototypes, is when prototyping will become far more prevalent. The same goes for ideating. If the materials you use are too fancy, you or your team might use it as an excuse to delay prototyping, or even ideating.
Which is also why, while a lot of design thinking workshops use post-its and put up pictures of it, few participants continue to use post-its to implement some of the tools they learnt. Because buying post-its is expensive and sometimes inconvenient. If you can’t make do with stuff already at your desk or around, the action gets delayed till you buy those supplies. Take this from someone who uses toothpaste or soap to write on the bathroom wall so that a potential idea does not disappear with the flowing water.
Test – Once you’ve completed the prototyping phase, you
move on to testing. The significant difference between the two is that while
prototyping was far greyer and also, the prototypes were far less expensive but
required a slight stretch of the imagination by the user, the testing phase is
that much more advanced, as it is that very close to the final product or
service.
And unlike checking one feature at a time in the prototyping phase, here
you are testing the product or service in its entirety, towards ironing out any
features or poor service extensions that exist, by letting your users directly
interact with the solution.
The first rule to keep in mind in the testing phase too is that your
product or service is not final or finalized yet! There would still be some
assumptions that your team would need to test. For instance, it is one thing to
prototype with sketches or storyboards or even pretend mobile interfaces. Quite
another to have end users interact with your store layout or theme park or
mobile application.
Which is why we have the testing phase, where your team would help build
almost-final solutions to test them in the hands of a closed group of
stakeholders. It is great to have a select list of people who will evaluate your
creation. That increases the focus and feedback capturing. And what you will be
testing, are any assumptions that were earlier not tested, or that sprung up
along the way with the increase in clarity.
It isn’t possible to overstate the amount of valuable, even critical
insights that can be gained in the testing phase.
Testing is followed by eventually launching the product, service or
change – once all assumptions and user hesitations have been factored in.
After you’ve gained more realistic insights from real users who
interacted with your prototypes and brought you very close to a final solution
that you by way of prototypes and then running exercises with them in the
testing phase, you are finally onto an almost ready and well-refined answer.
Ideally, even after launch, the journey should be looked at like it is the making of a TV series. You’ve launched season 1 or 2, and it is doing well. But you need to check-in now and then as to how viewers are reacting and engaging with it. The bigger question in your mind always is, is there enough traction to demand a season 3, and if yes, would there be any significant changes needed (replacing actors, etc.) or is the show no longer relevant to its audiences. In which case, you then need to figure out what next. That way you are not going in blind with season 3, to later find out it lost its audience midway through the previous season itself.
One should remember that there is no perfect product, service, experience or solution to user needs or problems. And there are no runaway results promised by design thinking, the way some firms guarantee the ability to create viral videos. But yes, you always have a far greater chance of arriving at a product or service that people want or need by using design thinking, than by merely guessing or troubleshooting your way through.
Not the kind where you are loyal to a company or brand or product line and refuse to buy anything else.But truly revere a company because of their values.
A few weeks ago, I was at the Indian Hotels company to meet a senior gentleman there. Unlike other companies, where either an assistant or the receptionist or a peon might walk you to a meeting room, this person came to the lobby to receive me.
I’m not particularly good with small talk, and almost always jump right to the point. However, I started this meeting differently. I told this person about a story a close friend’s son had shared recently. It went like this.
Many years ago, when my friend’s son was in school, the school bus would drop him off at Kemps Corner. They lived up Altamount Road, quite a steep walk up. Especially for this stocky boy with a big schoolbag, huffing his way up the road. And every once in a way, a Mercedes car would pull up, an old gentleman sitting in the back, would offer to drop him to his building. This boy would sit in front, next to the driver.
The old gentleman would ask some questions about how he liked school, etc. One evening, this boy decided to mention to his family at dinner, that he had been occasionally getting dropped home by a complete stranger. As he narrated the story and described the old gentleman, his granny smiled and said, “that man is J. R. D. Tata!”
For the uninitiated, Mr. J. R. D. Tata is arguably one of the greatest Indian businesspersons.
What’s more, when this boy grew up and shared this story on social media, it turned out that other people who lived in the area had similar stories of their own. It seemed that success didn’t create a divide between Mr. Tata and others, but rather, Mr. Tata chose to use his success to help those around in whichever way he could.
This gentleman at the Taj Group was thrilled to hear this story, but not completely surprised. I guess the values infused into the group are so strong, it’s not something they would struggle to believe.
Rewinding a bit to a little before this meeting of mine…. I reached the Indian Hotels office a little early. Restless as always, I was walking around, admiring the picturesque view of Bombay from the window beside the reception area. I then noticed pillar-like structures just behind where the receptionists stood. There were seven on one side, six on the other. And each one had a name and number etched in. I had a faint idea about what they were. But just to confirm, I walked up and asked the receptionist about them.
And indeed, they were in memory of their brave employees they lost during the 2008 terrorist attack. The last pillar on the right just had a name on it. ‘Lucy’, and no date. Turned out it was a pet of theirs, which was always outside the hotel.
The two stories were truly humbling. Even just a few more companies with the kind of humility, respect and values that the Tata Group of companies has, could truly transform the business ecosystem.
Perhaps it therefore comes as no surprise that the brave Taj employees did not try to escape during the attack. On the contrary, many of them displayed superhuman courage and presence of mind to do the unimaginable. The kitchen staff formed human shields as their guests tried to get out.
No amount of rules, threats, salary packages or incentives can get someone to do that. It is something much more. And has to come from within, but only when the ecosystem is right. It’s something very human. Something the world needs more of.
Common problems startups face – A Design thinking outlook
I have been directly associated with startups since 2006. That’s when I started my career as a member of a venture capital investment team. All the way to my recent years consulting them and young businesses, I have heard a multitude of problems that startups face. Problems that can largely be categorized under two main causes.
The first one of course, being investments. The second, being the lack of traction, or growth in business.
With regard the problem of funds, you could further break it up in to funds you must have, and funds that are good to have.
Literally all of us are, more often than not, influenced by awe-inspiring startup stories. About those startups in the world that seem to be on a blistering growth path. With people and funds literally queuing up for an opportunity to invest in them.
Watched the movie ‘The Incredible Hulk’? The Hulk and the Abomination in that are like those few startups that receive disproportionately high amounts of funding.
Everyone is not like them. And even in their case, of the two, only Hulk was relatively stable with the superpower. The Abomination, as the name goes, became that way because of his lust for super-strength to beat the Hulk.
Similarly, even if all startups could be funded like that, or like Uber and PayTM and Zomato and others have been, there is no guarantee they will succeed. Because making a business stable takes managing a lot more variables than merely the investment one.
Which brings us back to the other alternative – funds you must have.
This is the basic minimum investment that you would need to get your startup rolling. It isn’t too tough to calculate it. Just make sure you have sufficient buffer. And keep checking those levels so you don’t realize it’s bad only once you’re broke. The advantage of this mindset, is that even if external investments never come, your startup will be built on a solid foundation and a sound business model. That, as opposed to one of hyper-experimenting, as is sometimes the case with super-funded startups. Take the case of TinyOwl hiring and almost immediately firing hundreds of enthusiastic freshers back in the day. Or Ola paying USD 31.7 million for FoodPanda a year and a half ago, only to fire a lot of the staff and suspend its operations recently.
While such news pieces might be good to hear, they are often not something to be proud of.
A bootstrapped startup will have its share of proud moments too. And they will be far more grounded and not the kind that could be easily taken away, unlike the case with some over-funded ventures.
Now let’s look at the other main problem area of startups. The lack of traction or growth.
In my book, Design the Future, I mention what is to me, a wonderful example from both an investment angle and a strategic one that depended solely on the understanding of customer needs.
One portfolio company whose growth my boss and I used to oversee, was in the car rental space. Around 2009, it was on its way to be the largest player in India, right on the heels of Meru. Meru was then leading the pack in terms of size of fleet.
However, what was interesting, was that Meru’s business had been built largely on debt. Ours had been built on equity. Which meant we were profitable sooner, and could scale much faster. Meru had just turned profitable around 2009-10, if I remember correctly.
And back then, our portfolio company was already onto the model of partnered fleet. That is what Uber is all about now. Our company was collaborating with small tourist vehicle operators to add their fleet and drivers to their own, in a revenue-sharing model.
Now think about this. A company founded in 2006, which was already employing a model that we in recent times popularly know of as Uber, what as of today, has a market capitalization of USD 69 Billion! And Uber was founded only in March of 2009 (conceptualized in 2008).
So what prevented our portfolio company from being the one valued at USD 69 billion?
In hindsight, a lack of better understanding of the stakeholders in the ecosystem, is my guess.
Our portfolio company and other players back then were perhaps used to a certain customer price level and profitability that they enjoyed in a tried-and-tested pan-India market.
However, perhaps we failed to see that we could considerably reduce the margins and incentivize the partner ecosystem, in an effort to gain massive scale.
And with customers, it is only in very select areas that if we offer something at a lower price, they won’t take it. But certainly not with transport.
So, Uber carpeted several countries with the initial attractive pricing, and more than encouraging partner revenue-sharing and incentives.
And companies like ours, that didn’t think huge enough, shrunk into insignificance in that particular space at least, which they had ruled for some years till then.
Putting investments and a better understanding of the stakeholder ecosystem together, it is not necessary that every business and every idea has to be Uber-sized!
You can as well remain small, exclusive and yet thriving in a small or select few areas or geographies, if that is your business vision. Or, as is the case with Uber, you can be the most recognized brand in ground transport.
What is most important, is to first decide where on that spectrum you want to be. Then you need to find out (not in meeting rooms, but by spending time with stakeholders), what their likes and dislikes are. What drives them, what their profit expectations are? And how flexible are they on pricing; or, is there a better way you can offer them what you do? Something that might completely be poles apart from how you offer it right now.
Scenarios in the startup ecosystem are limitless. And so are the possibilities.
Originally written for NODD app and posted here: link
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If you own, manage or work at a company, and are grappling with a complex challenge or are in need of innovation for growth, get in touch. More here.
And you might find my book, ‘Design the Future’ interesting. It demystifies the mindset of Design Thinking. Ebook’s on Amazon, and paperbacks at leading online bookstores including Amazon & Flipkart.
What comes to mind when you think of possible consequences of bad design? Of a badly designed product or service? You might think the product generates less revenues. Or a rise in the number of product returns, and unhappy, angry or disappointed customers. Right?
But what about death? Of animals? Or worse, death of children?
In my book, I discussed IKEA‘s water dispensers for pets that were resulting in pet deaths. Why did that happen? Possibly because wizards on the IKEA product design team were lazy enough to use stuffed animals instead of real ones to test their design.
Think that’s bad? Enter IKEA (again!).
This time, for their dressers (a chest of drawers). Around 2016 and 2017, about 8 children (hopefully not more) died, thanks to IKEA dressers. The dressers designed in such a way, that when young children would open them and perhaps lean on to the drawer, they would tip over, crushing or badly injuring the kid.
The company had to recall over 29 million dressers! It recently launched a new line of dressers that had finally solved the ‘tipping over’ problem by preventing more than one drawer from being left open at a time.
Now, what is worse than a poorly designed product?
When the company cuts corners, misleads, and denies they have a bad or flawed product.
That is where American toy manufacturing giant Mattel‘s subsidiary company Fisher-Price comes in. In 2009, Fisher-Price launched a product that would be a runaway success – their Rock-n-Play inclined sleeper for babies.
Fisher-Price sold over 4.7 million of their inclined sleepers to parents, who probably thought it to be a boon to take away the agony of putting their baby to sleep. Based on some information about how children sleep better when held at an angle, they built the Rock-n-Play.
Instead of first conducting clinical research to validate the design, all Fisher-Price did was consult one family physician in all. One!
Eight years after its launch, following a lawsuit, Fisher-Price consulted a paediatrician about their product for the first time. Because of the lawsuit. The result of this callous approach to the design of a product for none other than infants, who require constant attention and utmost care, was the unfortunate death of over 35 babies!
One argument is that countries like the US don’t rely enough on regulators to endure product safety. And you might agree, especially in the case of smaller companies perhaps replicating a successful product.
But that can never be the excuse even for a moment for a now 89-year old company, Fisher-Price. The gross negligence in research, design and development of a product that could present potential risk of death.
Never stop when you think you’ve found what looks like a perfect solution. Especially when lives might depend on it.
We live in strange times. And in interesting and amusing times.
A recent article I read, spoke about how most automotive manufacturers are misleading (or are confused themselves), when they claim to offer autonomous driving features in their vehicles.
Their mindset seems hugely flawed, if not shocking. Article here
Don Norman could have a field day ripping this mindset apart.
I have heard numerous stories since when I was a teen. Of people falling off to sleep while driving to or from work in the US. It never made sense to me. However, in the years since, I have seen and personally known fatigue while driving.
I worked in Pune in the manufacturing sector for a year and half. Work largely involved workday trips to relatively far off industrial sectors and every other weekend trips back home, I was mostly driving alone.
Then there were outstation trips, where I would leave early one morning, pick up one or two colleagues, and drive to another city, attend meetings at companies spread across a large industrial sector. The next few days would involve more meetings all day, before either driving back to Pune. Or driving to the next city for an encore. In all, over 33,000 km in under 18 months.
What auto manufacturers apparently offer with autonomous driving, is different versions of driving systems that take care of driving for you. It could be identifying and staying within lanes, measuring vehicular distance and safe braking, and using GPS to drive you to your destination.
You would assume you could completely disconnect and do your thing, as your car takes you places. However, auto manufacturers still expect you to be as alert as if you were driving, in case a sudden manual intervention is needed.
That expectation of theirs is absurd at best.
Humans are either engaged or not. Or as my Statistics professor would often quote the popular idiom, ‘she’s either pregnant or not, there is no somewhat pregnant’.
If you have someone drive a car, you can hope they are awake and alert. And yet there’s no guarantee, proof being the numerous accidents that occur due to distracted driving.
But the moment you are not driving, your brain switches off, or switches to something else. Unless you are a professional rally car navigator, or in the armed forces.
On most long distance drives, be it with friends, family or work colleagues, the person in the passenger seat eventually nods off, and I’m almost certain it is not because of the company.
So, expecting someone not to drive, but have the alertness and rapid response times of someone who is, is asking for a lot!
The biggest reason for this expectation is not so much the flaws or limitations in technology, but rather in human ability and our disposition. Many autonomous vehicle accidents are due to unanticipated human errors – be it pedestrians or other human-driven vehicles.
So the effort should be on improving that unpredictability in erratic human driving, before rolling out technology that could potentially cause fatal harm to customers who come with a very different expectation of the technology than what the manufacturer offers them.
Look at the quality revolution and process improvement. They took industry by storm several decades ago. And their impact on our machines and automated processes is unquestionable. But are we humans more efficient today, or are we far more distracted and poor managers of our time than we were? Phones, entertainment and noise to blame.
Maybe manufacturers are explaining the gaps in tech to customers before the purchase. Maybe even spelling out the risks and precautions to them. But there’s only so much you can change human behaviour in short periods of time.
And finally, it was amusing how this potentially life-threatening flaw got reported. The article was titled, “..a UX risk!” Why dilute a crucial message? It’s a f@€k!^¢ risk to life! Far more than a risk to the customer experience. Can’t have a bad experience if you’re dead. Why not highlight that?
If you own, manage or work at a company, and are grappling with a complex challenge or are in need of innovation for growth, get in touch. More here.
And you might find my book, ‘Design the Future’ interesting. It demystifies the mindset of Design Thinking. Ebook’s on Amazon, and paperbacks at leading online bookstores including Amazon & Flipkart.
One of the fundamental ingredients of an impactful innovation or successful design thinking exercise, is empathy. The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Often, in our enthusiasm to create something someone (a customer segment, employees, or even society), or to solve a problem for them, we tend to knowingly or unknowingly speed up the process. We skip the part of trying to understand the problem or the cause of it. Or the unexpressed need. We create, and we expect (or at least hope for) delight from those receiving our innovations or solutions.
This simple image I came across online gives great context to our urgency to solve problems or innovate. An infant is too young to realize or even see clearly, the flaw in this. If a simple flaw like this could be missed by most of us, what else might we be missing? How little effort are we taking to look at business innovation or problem-solving from the right ‘context’?
Small efforts in understanding customer needs, go a long way. Apart from feeling appreciated and important, customers help us get closer to innovative solutions they are willing to pay for. The least we can do is look at their needs and problems from their perspective.
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If you run or manage a business, and innovation, strategy, problem-solving, customer experience or ideation are areas of interest, there are a few ways I can help. More about it here.
My book, ‘Design the Future’ is available as an Ebook on Amazon & Kobo, and as paperbacks across leading online bookstores including Amazon &Flipkart. Look forward to your review on Amazon once you’ve read it.
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Dr. John Virapen on the Greed of Pharmaceutical Companies
Sometimes when you think about one particular country or another, and admire it for a great government, a transparent press, a robust healthcare ecosystem, and so on. Or when you believe the doctor when he tells you your child has an attention-deficit disorder, as he or she prescribes medication for it. Or when the little discomfort you went to the doctor with, suddenly transformed into something lethal-sounding. And urgently needing surgery. Let’s not always be so trusting and naive.
Here’s a talk by ex-Director of pharmaceutical major Eli Lilly. The global company ranks 132nd on the Fortune 500 list, with a 2017 topline of USD 22.87 billion. Late ex-director of the company, Dr. John Virapen, worked over 35 years in the pharmaceutical industry, climbing from a sales executive to becoming director. And as he climbed the corporate ladder, he realized, and even participated in the dirt his company was involved in. Bribing governments and media houses, the pharma industry is in a dirty loop to make people sick and then treat them.
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Storytelling. Steve Jobs wasn’t the first to talk about, or practice it. Nor was he the first one to focus on the customer and build differentiation. Function and form. And he wasn’t the first to capture customer personalities, traits and passions in their marketing and communication, instead of just reading a dull list of product features. but he is probably the most famous or identified storyteller ever.
Storytelling predates writing. Its earliest forms were expressed orally, accompanied by expressions and gestures.
The world has come a long way since Jobs’ famous 1997 address and introduction to the ‘Think Different’ campaign. We increasingly appreciate being told stories. By companies and their advertisers, by friends and colleagues, and gurus – be it religious or management. We prefer stories to reading out technical specifications and product features, or trying to grasp complex situations or concepts.
And not surprisingly so. We are emotional beings after all, not logic machines. We give priority to emotions over even compelling factual information and the most compelling of logic. Unfortunately for us, not all those stories we believe, spring from a clean motive.
Companies, politicians and a lot of people in-between have become professionals at storytelling. And when the motive is not backed by good intentions, all it takes, is finding out the audience’s buttons. Accordingly, out comes a relevant, sometimes conveniently modified story that has the resultant effect.
Companies are spending progressively higher on marketing and image and positioning of products. Lesser and lesser on the product itself, let alone the customer experience. Same goes for services. And politicians.
Hype, buzzwords and deception. Many businesses have become like the average movie. No plot, cast includes famous or artificially created superstars or not. But a ton of money kept for promotion. Create enough hype, cash out with a good profit in 1 week, and move onto the next shoddy project. The same words that once formed a bridge between great products and services to customers by way of storytelling, have now been degraded to spinning yarn to maximize revenues while the going’s still good.
To show you the power of words, here’s a “story” from the early years of my consulting practice days. Each project I choose to work on is holy to me. And I don’t normally dilute my views when speaking to a client, since it is the future of their business that is at stake. I am equally critical about evaluating my own work. However, on occasion, as a fun experiment, I’d send out feedback questionnaires at the end of assignments to clients. Requesting feedback on their view of the quality of the work done.
Now for the fun of it, if I wanted scores in a particular range, say between 4-5, I would word the question in a particular way. Similarly, if I wanted ratings for a particular question in the range of 2-3, all that was needed was framing the question differently. All it took was a few words to nudge someone in a particular way. What it showed, was that simple words can influence what should ideally be the unbiased feedback of a client.
A tiny part of my mission through my consulting practice, is to try to prevent clients from falling into such traps by either wrongly reading their customer perceptions, or by unintentionally or otherwise adding their biases to their customer feedback. Or even to their assessment of their own performance. Even though I used to send such questionnaires for the heck of it, I could see how client feedback would be influenced by the words. Now since I do not disclose client names as policy, or come out with any client satisfaction statistics reports, there is no way I could leverage such feedback even if I was the kind that would. But there are many companies that can and do.
Let’s say the unbiased review of a product is average. However, with the right words, ratings can be pushed above average. This would reflect back on feedback statistics, in turn generating more trust and revenues. The cycle goes on.
Storytelling and anecdotes serve the purpose of almost instantly explaining even more complex concepts or situations. However, recipients of these stories often tend to take the story and the correlation at face-value. And they possibly even cement their impressions and views about a situation. What they should do instead, is use a combination of listening and sufficient questioning. Only then should they form their own views on the matter.
What happens when you only listen to a story without thinking much about it? The story always comes from a fellow human. And humans are a complex being full of custom biases. What’s worse, you never know when someone’s running an agenda of their own. Which means their selection of stories will depict only one side of a story. And stories tweaked enough to evoke the right emotions for the naive mind to believe easily.
As a result, country leaders can convince their people to go to war against a country for no logical reason. Hey, the story sounded compelling enough. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but it happens eventually. And people who have who have lived for generations with neighbours of a different faith suddenly suspicious of them. They begin to believe people they have never met. They believe biased stories, and marginalize generations worth of trust as a result.
From a business point of view, storytelling is an integral part of a successful business. But not without an even greater underlying foundation of offerings. Storytelling is only a bridge, not a destination. Companies should not be working on becoming increasingly manipulative towards their customers. They should be working on becoming increasingly transparent to them.
Below is a great talk by Mohammed Qahtani about the power of words.
Many of us can Think Different. Why not try to Be Different Too?
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Look forward to your views. And if you liked this post, do follow or subscribe to my blog (top right of the page) for similar topics that encourage reflection and discussion. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
