Innovation doesn’t start with an idea. It starts with a problem. Sometimes those problems are easy to observe and understand but, more often, those problems are multi-layered and nuanced. As a result, you need a multi-layered and nuanced approach to understanding them.
You need to have EPIC Conversations.
EPIC stands for Empathy, Perspective, Insights, and Connection. As my clients have experienced, conversations rooted in these elements consistently produce unexpected, actionable, and impactful insights capable of getting to the root of a problem and shining a light on the path to a solution (and meaningful business results).
EMPATHY for the people with whom you’re talking
According to Brene Brown, empathy is connecting to the emotion another person is experiencing without requiring us to have experienced the same situation.”
For example, I have a friend who struggles to stay focused and deliver on deadlines. I can empathize with her because, while I have no problem focusing or delivering on deadlines, I know what it’s like to struggle with something that other people think is easy.
Take the time to connect with people’s emotions, to understand not just what they’re feeling but also why they’re feeling that way and to connect with the experiences in your life and work that led you to feel that way, too.
See things from their PERSPECTIVE:
When we’re working on something – a project, a product, even a task – it gets a great deal of our time, attention, and energy. But it can lead us to over-estimate how important the work is to others.
Instead, ask people about the topic you’re interested in AND all the topics and activities around it. Take the time to understand where the things you care about fall into your customers’ priority list
For example, when I worked on developing and launching Swiffer, all I thought about was cleaning floors. One day, we had to decide whether to source the hair for the dirt that would be used in product demos from people, yaks, or wigs. We obsessed over this decision, debating which hair would “resonate” the most with consumers. Turns out, consumers didn’t spend a lot of time analyzing the hair in the demo dirt, they only cared that it was picked up immediately by Swiffer.
Be open to INSIGHTS
Most people use conversations to get confirmation that their ideas and recommendations are good ones. They’ll spend time explaining and convincing and very little time listening. And they definitely don’t like surprises.
This is wrong. The most successful and impactful conversations as those in which you are surprised, in which you get an unexpected piece of information and has an insight, an “a-ha!” moment.
Years ago, while conducting research with people who self-identified as environmentalists, my team spoke with a woman who had the most sustainable house I’d ever seen. Everything was reused, recycled, or composted and they generated most of their own power. But, in the garage was a huge yellow HUM-V. It would have been easy to dismiss it as an anomaly, until we asked about the contradiction and she explained that the reason she owned a HUM-V was the same reason she and her family lived such a sustainable lifestyle: her highest priority was keeping her kids safe. At home, that meant doing everything possible to help the planet, but on the roads, that meant driving around in a tank.
CONNECTwith the person you’re speaking with
It’s tempting to jump right into the conversation, to ask the questions that brought you together. But that’s like proposing on the first date – you’re not going to get the answer(s) you want.
The best conversations aren’t information transactions, they’re trust building exercises. Take time to get to know each other. Make small talk, talk about the traffic and the weather, share a bit about yourself and ask about them. Throughout the conversation, share a bit about yourself, commiserate over shared frustrations, and laugh at silly stories.
By sharing a bit about yourself, the person you’re talking to will share a bit of themselves, they’ll feel comfortable admitting to things that might not make sense, and to the feelings and rationalizations that drive their behaviors.
EPIC Conversations can happen with anyone anywhere from customers in focus group rooms to employees in conference rooms. You don’t need an executive mandate to have one, so have one today and let me know how it goes!
Originally published on February 10, 2020 on Forbes.com
My Mom was a nursery-school teacher. It was more than her profession, it was her gift. Long after my sister and I were grown and out of the house, my mom chose to spend her days with 4-year olds, teaching them everything from the ABCs to how to use the WC.
Like all moms, she was an innovator. She was constantly creating something different that had impact. Admittedly, sometimes “different” was just weird and “impact” wasn’t always ideal, but it’s only just recently that I’ve realized how much my mom (probably accidentally) role-modeled the traits of a world-class innovator.
The genius of stealth prototyping
In an effort to save a bit of money, I spent the summer before business school living with my parents. One day, while folding the laundry (it took less than 20 minutes!), I found one of my Dad’s white athletic tube socks. But it wasn’t like the other white athletic tube socks. This one had three circles drawn on the bottom of it in what appeared to be black Sharpie.
“Mom, what’s up with this sock?”
“Oh, I needed a ghost puppet for school so I just used one of your dad’s socks.”
When my dad got home from work, I showed him the sock and asked if he had noticed the black circles on the foot. He had not.
Ghost Puppet Prototype
Let me be very clear about what happened here:
In OCTOBER, my mom needed a ghost puppet for a Halloween lesson at nursery school
In OCTOBER, she took ONE of my dad’s socks and drew a “face” on it. Then, after using it as a puppet, threw it in the wash, refolded it with its mate, and put it back in my dad’s sock drawer
In JULY, my dad put on a pair of white tube socks (probably to go golfing) without realizing that one of them had a face on it
Proof that if you use what you’ve got to do what you need to do, management will be none the wiser.
The infectious nature of optimism
My Mom was raised by a Marine and while she went easier on us on a day-to-day basis, her standards were Marine-high when it came to weekend chores and Spring Cleaning. For example, when my sister’s boyfriend (now husband) came to visit for the first time, my Mom had me spend several hours laying on my stomach with a pair of tiny sewing scissors, trimming the entry-way rug to ensure all of its fibers were exactly the same length.
Every Saturday when we were growing up, immediately after rattling off a long list of chores to a chorus of groans and eye rolls, Mom would reassure us that “If we all work together, it will only take 20 minutes.”
We always knew it would take infinitely longer than 20 minutes. There is no way four people can clean an entire house up to Marine code standards in 20 minutes. It’s simply not possible. But despite this fact, we always hoped that this time, this time, it would only take 20 minutes.
It never took only 20 minutes. Never. But we always hoped it would.
The life-changing power of empathy
Children were drawn to my Mom. She was like the Pied Piper. Whenever we were in public, children would gravitate to her, walk beside her, wave to her. She connected with them in a way that defied explanation. So, when she passed away suddenly, it was not surprising that there were nearly as many children at her wake as there were adults.
But it was one little girl who passed on to me my mom’s final lesson.
As my dad, sister, and I shook hands, hugged, and thanked people for coming, I noticed a young girl, maybe 6 or 8 years old, standing along a wall sobbing uncontrollably. In a week filled with inconsolable people, she was the most inconsolable I’d seen. So I stepped out of line to talk to her.
I knelt in front of her and asked what was wrong (yes, it’s a stupid question but cut me some slack, I definitely did not inherit my mom’s “good with kids” gene).
“Your mom changed my life. When I was in her class, I didn’t have any friends and my parents were going to pull me out of school. But your mom heard me singing one day and she came over to sing with me. We sang together every day after that. She gave me to confidence to talk to the other kids. And now I’m still in school and I have friends and I even sing in the choir.”
My mom couldn’t sing. She was a terrible singer and she knew it (side note: I did inherit my mom’s “can’t carry a tune in a bucket” gene). But she saw a little girl in need of a friend so instead of worrying about how silly she would sound, she joined that little girl in singing a song. And, in doing so, changed a little girl’s life.
Our last family photo — Fenway Park, 2005, Indians vs. Red Sox
To all the Moms in my life and all the Moms in yours, Happy Mother’s Day. Thank you for all that you have done for us and taught us. You are many many things, brilliant world-class innovation OGs is just one.
A few weeks ago, my 5-year old niece and I spent the afternoon together at a paint-your-own-pottery place. My niece was adamant that she wanted to paint something for her dad and immediately zoned in on a piece — a 3D poop emoji.
Remembering my sister’s parenting advice, I started with a question, “Why do you want to paint that for Daddy?”
Her response was simple enough, “Because it’s chocolate.”
I could have easily left it at that.
But I didn’t.
“Ok….why don’t you paint the pegasus for Daddy instead?”
She looked up at me with her big brown eyes, “Why?”
“Ummm, well, I just think it’s better.”
She scrunched her nose as she usually does when she doesn’t understand something, looked back at the poop emoji, and then silently picked up the Pegasus and took it over to our table.
With a sigh of relief — I knew my sister would be none to happy with me explaining the poop emoji — I thought the issue was resolved. I was wrong.
An hour later, as we stood hand-in-hand on the sidewalk waiting for her dad to come pick us up, my niece asked, “Aunt Robyn, why didn’t you want me to paint the chocolate for Daddy?”
Crap (pun somewhat intended). I have to do this. I have to be honest and explain this, and I am going to be in SO much trouble when we get home.
“Well, darling, that’s not chocolate. It’s poop.”
She scrunched up her nose, pursed her lips, gave a quick nod, and continued staring out into the parking lot.
Later that night, I confessed the moment to her parents. They burst out laughing.
“That would have been hilarious!” my brother-in-law proclaimed.
“Why didn’t you just let her paint it? It’s not poop to her” my sister sighed.
That thought literally never occurred to me. It never crossed my mind that letting her paint what she thought was chocolate would result in a heart-felt (and amusing) gift to her dad of a rainbow (her favorite color at the moment and thus what everything gets painted) poop emoji to display in his office.
Instead, I thought I was saving her from embarrassment by correcting how she saw something so that her understanding was in-line with the status quo.
I’ve felt horrible about this since it happened but the experience, the ease with which it happened and the smug self-righteousness I felt about “saving” her, taught me a very important lesson about why creativity and innovation are so often killed in organizations.
For the first time, I could understand and empathize with every Dr. No I’ve ever encountered. You know who I’m writing about, the person in your organization who, whenever a new idea pops up, says, “No, we can’t do that because…
…that’s not how it’s done in our company/industry”
…we tried that back in 19XX and it didn’t work.”
…the bosses will never approve it.”
…now is not the right time.”
…it’s took risky/expensive.”
…you’ll get fired if it doesn’t work and I don’t want that to happen to you.”
My whole career, I’ve hated Dr. No and used him/her as motivation to innovate. I would focus all my energy on finding a way to prove them wrong by doing something new AND making sure that new thing was wildly successful.
What I thought I was saving everyone from
But, in that pottery shop, I was Dr. No and I didn’t realize it. In fact, I felt proud of myself.
I felt proud because I was acting out of love. I wanted to protect someone who is innocent and precious. I wanted to spare her the embarrassment and shame that I thought would surely result from giving her dad a rainbow-colored piece of poop pottery.
And maybe that is where other Dr. No’s are coming from. Maybe the are saying “No” as a way to protect you and/or the company. Maybe they tried to do what you’re suggesting and they are still smarting from the pain of it not working out. Maybe they are trying to spare you the embarrassment and shame of pursuing the proverbial corporate rainbow-colored poop pottery.
And no matter how often you try to explain that the new idea is chocolate and not poop, they won’t hear you. Because they are anchored in a status quo reality that demands things be seen in one, and only one, way.
And in that moment you, the innovator, has a choice. You can scrunch your nose and move on to something safer or you can defiantly insist on painting that poop, confident that it will become a rainbow work of art that is treasured by the people that matter the most.
And, hopefully, you can have a bit of compassion for Dr. No who is simply trying to help you because she loves you.
EPILOGUE
A few weeks after the poop pottery incident, my sister told me that my niece asked to send a text message to her dad. My niece’s text messages are entirely comprised of emojis and after a few seconds of tapping out flowers and suns and rainbows, my niece’s finger stopped, hovering briefly over the screen.
“What’s wrong, honey?” my sister asked
“Do you know what this is?” my niece responded, pointing to the poop emoji
“What do you think it is?”
“Aunt Robyn said it’s poop…”
“Well, a lot of people think that’s what it is. but your Daddy told me that he read an article that it was originally designed to be chocolate ice cream on top of an ice cream cone. So you can think of it that way too.” (my sister swears this is a true story).
“Ok. Then it’s chocolate ice cream!” my niece exclaimed before adding at least a dozen chocolate ice creams to her text
