Karen Hold talks about her new book, Design Thinking – The Innovator’s Journey

Be Customer Led with Karen Hold

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[00:00:00] Bill Staikos: Everybody welcome back to a week. A weekly show. Be Customer Led by the way we are live for the first time in almost a year. I am so excited to be live again. I just, it just, it’s just a different buzz to the show for me, at least. So I’m with my good friend, Karen Holt here. Karen wrote this amazing. You guys can see it here, experienced design, the innovator’s journey.

[00:00:23] We’re going to get into the details of the book, why she wrote it the motivation and just some different aspects. When I went through it as [00:00:30] someone who loves the practice of design thinking has seen the power of design thinking in changing organizations. This book is. Probably one of the best books I’ve read on the topic, frankly, and they’re incredibly useful tools inside the book as well, to help people, whether they’re new to design thinking or have been practicing it for years.

[00:00:50] Karen, welcome to show. So excited to have you on. Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. So I ask every guest whether live or prerecorded, I ask every guest to tell us their [00:01:00] journey and tell us yours. And what led you to writing the book? What was out there missing in the world for you?

[00:01:05] They were like, we need to do this. We need to put something like. Yeah.

[00:01:09] Karen Hold: So my journey is like two parallel paths. One is that I was part of the brand team on the Folgers coffee brand in the early nineties. When Starbucks was just a regional business in the Pacific Northwest. It’s hard to believe that was the case, but it was about $165 [00:01:30] million business in the Pacific Northwest.

[00:01:33] And I was on the Folgers brand, which was close to a billion dollar brand. And the younger members of our brand team thought that there was something to this Starbucks experience that we should be paying attention to. And we couldn’t get the attention of our senior executives because we were the big brand.

[00:01:51] But we did manage to send a bunch of executives out to Seattle. They went around to 25 different coffees. I came [00:02:00] home to Cincinnati, which were headquarters were and decided to do nothing. And the reason is that we were a very data-driven company. You relied on Nielsen, syndicated data, which measures clubs, store sales, grocery store, sales, mass merchant, convenience stores.

[00:02:17] And so in that dataset, Starbucks didn’t exist because their channels were. Other channels. And so we didn’t respond and, fast forward 30 years Starbucks is a [00:02:30] $24 billion business and Folgers is a $2 billion business, they generate 12 times economic impact that Folgers does.

[00:02:39] And, I laughed, I left after a year and my husband and I started our own company, but that experience has. I sat with me for a long time, because I couldn’t understand how we met. That opportunity. And what I realized now is that if we had an appetite for qualitative [00:03:00] data, we might have done some experimentation and been able to find this opportunity and leverage.

[00:03:09] For our own benefit, but we really didn’t value qualitative data as an opportunity to identify new solutions and also to solve our current problems. P and G is now P and G has, they’ve been a real driver of using design and and it’s [00:03:30] been very successful for the company, but at the time I was there that wasn’t there.

[00:03:35] Bill Staikos: So interesting to think about how much design has matured as a discipline and as a practice, the impact it’s had on customer experience, like big customer experience, right? Big C as well. Was there anything about the book as you were writing it or researching for. Any, whether it’s personal growth, any surprises, can you share a story about that?

[00:03:58] I’m always curious about the book writing [00:04:00] process and authors and how they may even mature perhaps through the

[00:04:03] Karen Hold: process. One of the reasons that one of the things that motivated me to write this book was really. To help the users of design thinking, figure out how to experience design more deeply, because we found that in working with a lot of innovators they had very different experiences and I couldn’t understand.

[00:04:28] Why some [00:04:30] people had this profound experience and it literally changed their life and even resulted in career pivots or career changes. And there were more obstacles in the way for other people who experienced the same. Th the same learning, the same hands-on practice, the same projects.

[00:04:47] And I knew that because I do a lot of personal reflection when I work with innovators. And so I would read their journals and, some, somebody would have. On a scale of one to 10, [00:05:00] somebody would have a 10 experience and somebody would have a three experience for the same week at the same activities and so forth.

[00:05:06] I couldn’t understand what that was. And so we had the opportunity at Darden because I wrote this book with my good friend, Jean Luca. Who’s a professor at dark. We had the opportunity to work with students in her class and use the disc profile as a way to understand different behaviors and different mindsets.

[00:05:27] And I was really surprised at what we [00:05:30] were seeing as notional experience in working with. W there was actually a very statistically significant pattern in the way that different disc profiles reacted and responded to innovation. And so that was it. It was a surprise and it wasn’t a surprise because that was my experience working with innovators.

[00:05:53] But to see that statistical signal. Was a pretty big

[00:05:57] Bill Staikos: surprise. We were Joe. So [00:06:00] folks who are listening in now don’t know this, but we were joking before behind the show. And I love the fact that you’re using desk at Freddie Mac. We use desk, that platform has come a long way, really great program and in a way to get to know your peers and and colleagues but the dry.

[00:06:14] As one of the profiles maybe isn’t as in tune with design thinking or sees the benefits right off the bat. I personally experienced this at a prior life where a clearly a driver in the room before even going into the [00:06:30] session was like arms crossed. Why am I spending my time here? I’ve got the answer.

[00:06:34] We don’t need to spend two days in a design thinking workshop, blah, blah, blah comes out the other end. Wow. That was actually really helpful. I was fascinated by the quick turnaround and complete turnaround, frankly of that individual. Just given the work. I’m curious, just in your research is the driver, one of the folks that you do focus on, cause you have the profile in the book, you talk about things and you actually have a comment from a [00:07:00] driver in the book.

[00:07:00] And it just, I laughed when I read it because I was like, oh my gosh, I think they said that exact thing. Do all drivers say the same thing, right? Like it was just very funny.

[00:07:09] Karen Hold: I know. So drivers, gosh, I love driving. Because they have a passion for getting things done, right? Drivers or the people on a team who everyone relies on the team to get things done.

[00:07:23] But that creates an interesting tension when they have to suddenly sit [00:07:30] and rest in ambiguity in order to better understand a problem before they solve it. And controlling that need for closure is really hard for a driver to do because they’re rewarded professionally for getting things done. And their whole professional identity is around being a problem.

[00:07:51] So asking someone like a driver to sit in a problem and wait for other people who move at a much slower rate than they do [00:08:00] is really scratchy and really uncomfortable. But what we hope is that by articulating that pointed it out, we can let both individual innovators know this is the experience that you’re going to have.

[00:08:13] And it’s okay. And also to let facilitators or people who are supporting innovators, go through the process. This is to be expected. And here’s what facilitator, here’s what drivers need in that moment.

[00:08:27] Bill Staikos: Very cool. By the way, we have a comment from [00:08:30] a colleague Gary Ellis. Totally agree with Karen’s comment about qualitative data.

[00:08:34] If you folks are online, if we can’t see you. So like comment, ask a question, we’ll try and bring it into the show. Why don’t you start off the book you and your coauthors start off the book by. Saying something that really struck a chord with me. And I’m going to read it here. You start off by saying that the transformational power of design thinking lies, not in what it encourages us to do, but in who it encourages us to become, [00:09:00] what did you mean by that?

[00:09:01] And who more importantly, maybe even who do you hope readers will become through design thinking or maybe become through reading this book? Yeah.

[00:09:09] Karen Hold: So again we wanted to offer people a way to deepen their experience with design thinking because there are a set of activities that we all do, we may call them different things.

[00:09:22] But there’s a set of activities immersing ourselves into data generating insights. Coming up with design [00:09:30] criteria, brainstorming, prototyping, and then doing experimentation. But what we wanted to articulate was that hind the scenes, there are a set of mindset shifts and a set of behaviors that accompany those activities that when I’m done well Creates this shift in people’s experiences so that they actually become someone new in the [00:10:00] process.

[00:10:00] And it is that becoming that we think is critical to creating new designs and creating new solutions. Because unless you can set aside your own personal biases and step into. The shoes of someone else and give them the benefit of the doubt of having a set of experiences that may be different from your own.

[00:10:26] It is impossible to create something new [00:10:30] because we’re when to our own rightness

[00:10:34] Bill Staikos: that’s really, oh, man, I love that. So let’s get a little bit more into the book based on that comment. So you lay out early. Six steps or phases in this journey of doing, experiencing, becoming help our listeners.

[00:10:48] Maybe understand that journey a little bit and maybe talk to a couple of the six steps that kind of make that up.

[00:10:54] Karen Hold: Yeah. Does the there phases more than steps because they [00:11:00] are. They are the behind the scenes experiences that are happening that produce those profound changes in the innovators who use it.

[00:11:10] So for instance, in immersion, which is the first stage around gathering data we’re not talking about doing a couple ethnographic interviews. Because doing a couple ethnographic interviews done really superficially doesn’t lead to an experience of our work and [00:11:30] right. Immersion really sets the stage for the user of design thinking to shift their perspective and to engage their emotion.

[00:11:40] And it helps them. C and care about new possibilities that really sets the path for the rest of the cycle. Likewise, in in sense-making we’re gathering the data that allows people to transform lots of [00:12:00] data points into new knowledge. I feel that emotional commitment that’s really necessary for coming up with new ways.

[00:12:10] Bill Staikos: Very cool. One of the things that I love you have a plan, minimal viable product or MVP in the book you call it MVC or minimum viable competencies as part of this effort, or process or mindset so to speak or even as part of that transformation. So there are immersion sense-making you just talk to them, alignment, emergence, [00:12:30] imagining and learning, and action.

[00:12:31] Why did you have to set these up early? Why didn’t you. Why didn’t you maybe set them up later in the book? I was just curious, like, why upfront did you say these are critical competencies and you bring in great examples of each one of them? Why so early in the book and even in, it was it’s in the introduction chapter, essentially the first couple of,

[00:12:48] Karen Hold: yeah.

[00:12:49] We we talked about that a lot. Of course we wrote chapter by chapter. So we wrote those chapters after we wrote the individual chapters and [00:13:00] we felt. As we were reading the book, we needed to provide some wayfinding for the experience that we were trying to set up. And we thought that we needed to introduce that at the beginning of the book so that so the reader could understand the transformational journey that we were hoping to articulate.

[00:13:24] For them that would happen and would unfold over time. And so we thought it was really [00:13:30] important by the way that diagram was. That was really hard. I’m

[00:13:34] Bill Staikos: sure I’m sure. And you bring a NVCs back later in the book, which is really important to bring, give them more context as well. I want to get into that in a little bit as well, but the layout of the book is really interesting.

[00:13:45] You’ve got after the intro, you’ve got four kind of broad phases chapters within that, one of the ones. One of the favorite, actually, this is my favorite part of the book. Actually it is that different strokes for different folks and that’s where you just bring in desk and the different personas.

[00:13:59] It was [00:14:00] really interesting for me just because I was able to really connect that with my past experience. And you got into each persona, like w why was it, why is it that important for design thinkers or teams leading designers? Or employing this mindset more broadly as a company. Why is it important to understand the different personas?

[00:14:23] Particularly as you have them in the room and they’re all working towards a common goal or vision or outcome.

[00:14:28] Karen Hold: Yeah, so we thought it was [00:14:30] really important to lay out the array of animators that were going to be in a room, working on a project and. And if you’re not seeing these different innovator types, then maybe you don’t have the diversity on the team that you need.

[00:14:47] Because a lot of people who are attracted to the front end of design don’t know, necessarily enjoy working with people who are really great on the backend of design, people who are really good at tests.[00:15:00] Have a really hard time with the front end of design. But if you only invite people to problem solving or to innovation that are really good at the front end, then your idea might sit on the shelf and never get implemented because you don’t have the people who are really good at testing those ideas and finding out what has to be true for those ideas to be really good ideas, engaged and a part of the.

[00:15:24] So we wanted to lay out the different array of innovators that are in the [00:15:30] room or shouldn’t be in the room. We think also we wanted to articulate just how fragile the environment is for innovation because 75% of the innovators that we laid out, right? Three out of four of those different innovator profiles start out really anxious, nervous, and, stress out.

[00:15:50] About the front end of design and that is normal and typical and to be expected. So if 75% of the people beginning, the [00:16:00] process are going to have a hard time. You have to be really intentional and strategic about how you’re going to create the environment for ideas to emerge. Otherwise, they’re either going to bail out or they’re going to get kicked off, or they’re just going to say peace out.

[00:16:19] I’m done, this is too scratchy for me and I’m not creative. That’s the worst outcome, right? Is someone saying. This is uncomfortable. So I must not [00:16:30] be creative and there’s no place for me in innovation. And so we wanted to really lay that out. We also, I’m so glad that you liked the dialogue that we created.

[00:16:42] Bill Staikos: Yeah. I thought that was just brilliant. It’s made it very real,

[00:16:45] Karen Hold: right. And we wanted to model the conversations that we think. Could happen or might happen when you engage with these different array of innovators so that you have words to [00:17:00] respond when you get pushback. And also just know, like we’ve been there, done that.

[00:17:06] We’ve seen this is to be expected. It’s no big deal. Here’s the language you can use. Here are the tips that you can use to help get them back on track. It’s going to be okay.

[00:17:16] Bill Staikos: Yeah. And sometimes those comments in the room and they don’t, drivers don’t do cause they’re bad. People are. It’s a great it’s a great persona in so many different cases, but sometimes like those comments that they will literally just say out in the middle of the [00:17:30] room really can just completely knocked the entire session office access.

[00:17:33] So having a tool. And the prep that goes into those sessions too, is equally important. But having a toolkit to be able to respond in the moment is so super important and get people back on track. Not even those who were saying, Hey, this isn’t, I shouldn’t be here. I don’t feel comfortable.

[00:17:49] I don’t feel like I belong. I’m not creative and I’m not innovative, but even in those cases, Things can be derailed outside of that, even just by, by one comment. Yeah, just

[00:17:59] Karen Hold: [00:18:00] introducing rules for engagement, like turn-taking so that the loudest person on the team or the loudest person in the room isn’t dominating the conversation.

[00:18:11] So simple rules and simple tips to help.

[00:18:15] Bill Staikos: I’ve been in a room where a driver said, where there was a D ideas on the wall. And the driver literally said to 20 people in a room, that idea will never work, take it down. And everyone was like, oh my gosh, what happened? It was the most awful thing.

[00:18:28] Equally [00:18:30] important in the book you call it the destination. And when I first saw that, I was like, okay, here’s where you’re, you’ve got output, you’ve got something you’re, doing different testing, even though you covered that in another part of the book, what I love about the deaths destinations, you have both personal and organizational development planning as the basis for the chapters in that kind of section.

[00:18:51] And you included you, you and your co author included evaluation models for both personal and organizational, which I. [00:19:00] I think are so incredibly important. I don’t know if a lot of organizations or individuals do enough of that, but how did you come up with those evaluation models and what is your hope also for individuals to use them?

[00:19:13] Do you see the organizational evaluation happening annually? Semi-annually do you do it when you feel like the organization is at different inflection points? Tell us a little bit about those two models and maybe how to best put them into.

[00:19:25] Karen Hold: Yeah. So they came up, it was actually one of the last things that we did [00:19:30] because when we got to the end of the book, we’re like, okay, the reader has just read all of this and what do we want them to do?

[00:19:39] So on a personal level, on an individual level, we felt like we owed it to the reader to put a plan in action. So that personal development plan is a really simple tool. We have a PDF version if your listeners want to have a copy of it, but it’s a really simple tool and only includes a couple of things.

[00:19:59] [00:20:00] But it sets up. The opportunity to move from your current state to a better state, to a better place. And that requires some, self-reflection some self-awareness about where I am now and where I want to go next. And then it gives you an opportunity to think about, what are the projects in my job that might be able to help me do that?

[00:20:25] Who are the people that are experts in this, that I. [00:20:30] Maybe able to talk to in my network or in my network’s network. And what are the things, what are the books I’m going to read? What are the videos that I might watch to help get better at that? So the PDP plan is really simple. But we feel like it gives you a plan of action.

[00:20:48] To move forward and you can fill one out for each phase that we articulate. So you could put like six different PDP plans together or just, create one, just like work on one thing [00:21:00] that you want to get better at the assessment itself was really based on our MBC. So all of those individual elements are the individual elements that are a part of the NBC’s that we laid out in the rest of the book.

[00:21:13] So it took us the whole book. Create the case for the science behind those NBCs and those behavior shifts that we think are really important. Why they matter what makes it really hard to do so [00:21:30] that we could let people know, yeah, this is hard work. This is not easy stuff. It’s not easy stuff. But if you want to get better, these are the ways that you can do.

[00:21:40] And then at the organizational level, we thought it was really important to help leaders understand where their organizations are so that they can maybe bring the skills in that they need. We think there’s a lot of power and understanding like how different teams and different [00:22:00] departments evaluate themselves because teams that are required to do.

[00:22:04] Testing or evaluate ideas that have no testing expertise could probably benefit from some new skills and some new talents

[00:22:16] Bill Staikos: and the organizational assessment too. It could almost act as a scorecard for how, as a business you’re evolving, applying design thinking more broadly, the impact that can have on your customers, on your employees, other stakeholders, [00:22:30] whether that’s partner vendors, whether that’s.

[00:22:34] Investors, whatever that is. So I really love that. And Hey, I want to ask you one last question. You’ve got a busy day. What, where do you get your inspiration from? I ask all guests that I’m personally inspired by that question always by the answers I get, but I’m curious to hear where you get your inspiration.

[00:22:50] Karen Hold: Yeah, I I get my student, I get my inspiration from my students. So I teach I’m a visiting professor at Ecole de Paul and Paris [00:23:00] and Casa Blanca. And my students are from south America, Africa, India, Asia, Europe. They have extraordinary personal experiences. They live in extraordinary places.

[00:23:14] Colleagues students from Syria who had to go into the war zone in order to attend class just incredible. So I’m very inspired by my students and and their energy and youth. I think it’s important to surround [00:23:30] yourself with young people. I have an 18 year old daughter. So I really I re I’m very intentional about surrounding myself with young people.

[00:23:38] I’m inspired by technology. My dad took me to Frederick, Maryland spent an hour away from where I live when the first I’m dating myself here, but the first Lisa computer came out and it was this really special occasion. And I felt you know what? I was going to Mecca to go see, because it [00:24:00] was the only Lisa and 200 mile radius or something.

[00:24:03] And. And so I am astounded by the creativity, the talent the passion of technologists who create amazing technology. I just got finished working on a challenge around flying cars and I hope that’s not me.

[00:24:24] Bill Staikos: Here we go, Hey, we’re live folks. It’s going to happen. It’s gonna happen.

[00:24:28] Karen Hold: Around this flying car [00:24:30] challenge.

[00:24:30] Yeah. And I thought when we started this challenge that flying cars were going to be, a decade or more off. And I’m now convinced that we will all be flying around and flying cars, within the next seven to nine years, which is astounding to me.

[00:24:46] Bill Staikos: I’m really one of the, so I’m really inspired by technology as well.

[00:24:49] One of the, given Facebook’s announcement yesterday, but one of the things that I’m really trying to research and understand better as the Metta versus impact on customer experience and what that will mean. I know we’re 10, 15 years off [00:25:00] on that probably certainly need 60 technology and.

[00:25:03] Yeah. Other things for, to really make that a reality for many or all. But I’m curious really to understand that more and what the impact might be. All right, Karen, this has been a great conversation. Someone come into the D just bought the book. You can buy the book on Amazon. So you got one, one new reader outside of me, and I know a lot of people are buying the book experiencing design the innovators.

[00:25:24] Fantastic book. Super easy read, great examples to put into [00:25:30] practice right away published by Columbia business school, which is awesome. And it’s been just fun to get to know you and to have you on the show as well. Thanks so much for being on with us. Thanks so

[00:25:38] Karen Hold: much.

[00:25:40] Bill Staikos: All right, everybody.

[00:25:41] Another great show. Love doing the live stuff. Hopefully you guys got some great learning out of this. I’m sure you did. Karen hold author of experience design the innovator’s journey. We’re out.