S1 E10 | Paradigm Shifts You Need to Become Truly Customer-Centric

You find those few critical dimensions that in a certain context are meaningful, and then you exploit those to help the people realize, wait, in this situation, when I'm struggling with these things, seeking this outcome, this small set of features and benefits is truly painful. But everything else isn't. And that's the value and the nuance of understanding the difference between, you know, job. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Welcome to the Circuit Breaker podcast where we challenge the status quo of innovation.

And new product development.

We'll talk about tools and skills and methodologies used to build better products and make you a better consumer. I'm Bob Mesta and I'm the co founder of the Rewired Group and I'm one of your co hosts and we're.

Joined by Greg Engel, who is my.

Co founder and the chief, Bob Interpreter. Join us now as we trip the circuit and give you time to reset, reorganize and recharge your brain to build better products.

All right, for today's episode, I'm struggling with this. We're recording this at the end of the week and I've had a number of sales calls this week and something keeps coming up that's been in my head and I wanted to have a conversation. And again today we have Bob and Matt with us. And the question is, or the struggle I'm having is there's a mindset that has to change when you start actually talking about doing jobs, be done from a truly customer demand, customer centric way. And people are struggling to not understand the concepts because I think they get the concepts but understand kind of what we're talking about when we talk about there needs to be a paradigm shift in your thinking or there needs to be a mindset change if you're really going to employ jobs to be done. So I want to kind of dive into that today. I want to kind of discuss that a little bit. And so the first question I have is, is from your perspective, and this is to both of you, what mindset does have to change if you're going to be truly customer centric or jobs to be unfocused?

That's we're jumping into the mud.

I told you I was struggling.

I know you're struggling, but there's several, I think. Matt, do you have a few?

I'm going to let you go first.

Of course you do. I think to me, one of the things, I think there's several mindset changes, but I think one of them is the moment that people realize that when I talk to consumers, they don't know what they want and they can't articulate it in their solution terms. And the fact is there is no survey I can do that is going to help me get statistically significant information to know what to build next. Because they don't know and to realize they don't know. I think part of this is to realize like at some point innovation is about learning. It's about actually understanding. It's about actually framing the unknowns to get to being known. And so part of this is to realize like most people if like, hey, I just talked to the consumer, we do some focus groups, we send out some surveys, we get these answers and we go build what's on the survey. If they have that mentality, they, they're not going to get jobs because they already think they know. They already think they're getting the requirements. Right.

I agree.

Anything to add? I mean, it's, it's, it's that, that, that to me is, is like at a baseline thing. So once they realize that the surveys that they have don't actually help them innovate and to be honest, they restrict them from innovating because it only helps people. They only can tell you what they already know as opposed to helping to build what's they don't know.

Correct.

Or, or, or I'll add this, or they ask in some idealized sense, absence of any, absence of any context.

Right?

Right. So they, they, they, people will say yes to things that they otherwise might not even have considered or say yes to or be able to action against when they're, when they're, the reality of their context is presented to them.

Right.

So yeah, that, that's, that's the other half of that discussion which is like people will say one thing but do another.

Correct.

And so all of a sudden you're kind of locked in this world where like if you actually think, if you still think that you can talk to customers, they can tell you what they want and you can go build it and do it. My thing is you don't need jobs. You're never going to.

It's for the people who have realized like that has, it's not working well. It's literally it worked for a period of time, but now it's just not good enough. And we need to actually understand more or deep, deeper. And it's that, that part I think the, the, the other, you know, the other part is to realize that they don't know. Right. It's so this, this gets back to this notion of like most people are running Innovation on hypothesis testing. Let's get in a room and form a hypothesis and then we're going to actually go generate, you know, a series of tests or experiments to, to prove our hypotheses, yes or no. And what I would say is that I grew up on the other side of the train tracks, where I always learned by doing and building and letting empirical data help me drive what I need to do. And so in a lot of cases, people are only testing what they know and they actually don't actually understand what they don't know. And so in a lot of cases, one of the things I learned very early in Japan was you're going to build things in a very different way that allows you to actually learn what you don't know. And so Instead of building one prototype, I'll build eight, I'll build 16 very, very different prototypes and I'll learn all the different failure modes. So to me, the other biases people have is like, it's this notion of like, I just build it and it'll be right and I know how to build it and there are no unknowns. And that what I would say in 35 years of experience of being in the innovation space is that most people have to acknowledge they don't know and that they have to spend more time not proving what they know, but trying to discover what they don't know. So those are the, those are, those are the two bigger ones that I would start with. Matt.

So, Greg, if you're asking for like, those are manifestations of what I think you're asking for, which is if I'm, if I'm on the supply side and I'm charged with marketing, or I'm charged with commercialization or sales, or I'm charged with R and D and the development of a prototype, I'm operating from a certain set of incentive structures and metrics to which we are being held accountable at the most micro level and our strategic beliefs about what we want to accomplish. So we start operating and trying to find things that prove what we have will work.

And that bias is the supply side bias that what we have is a good idea. We just need to figure out how to tell the consumer about it, and we need to figure out how the consumer will value this as opposed to approaching it completely the opposite direction. Instead of looking at the world through the lens of what we do or what we have, we should be looking at the world from the consumer's perspective and figuring out what are they struggling with and why are they changing behavior and what are they trying to do differently in life and then figure out how our things fit into that. So one of the biases you have to be able to drop is you have to be able to say, well, we can't convince people, nor should we really be trying to convince people that our solution is the right solution. We should be understanding the situation they're in and helping them see how what our product or service can do for them in the context of their life and them convincing themselves and let them convince themselves. Right. So this idea that we can somehow convince people to buy if our brand is strong enough, one more feature, we put the right language out there, if we add the right feature, if we have this unique, that's one of the big paradigms that most businesses, most innovation teams, most marketing teams, most R and D teams are operating under that they would have to change to be able to fully utilize jobs.

So if I was, if I'm somebody that's, that's being charged with developing a product or a service or something and I have a feature or benefit that I can do and I say, well, I'm just going to keep developing this and I go interview customers, am I truly being customer centric at that point?

No, because you're asking them what they think about your product or your prototype or your concept and you're not asking them about their lives, their struggles, their context. So you're not trying to solve their problem, you're trying to solve your problem by convincing them to buy.

Yeah, I think the other side of that as well is the fact is that it's usually then manufactured context.

Yes.

So let me manufacture the situation that you're in and let me tell you so in this situation, when you're dire and this, what do you think of this? And it'd be like, oh my gosh, I love it. And what happens is, what we don't realize is that, you know, people have, we have to actually have this, reflect, reflect reality. And to be honest, the trade offs, this is, this is the other, I think the other biases that I think people have to kind of adopt when you start to think about jobs is that consumers make trade offs and we need to make trade offs and we need to be explicit about that. We don't need to put 10 pounds of crap into a five pound bag. And so part of this is to realize what are those essential things that really we have to make it, to make it awesome as opposed to what? We have to do everything well, which means we do nothing well and simply.

Adding More is going to. Going to satisfy them.

Yep.

And. And this is where I would say, in the last 15 years, I think we've. We've made a living at basically helping people stop features and build a product that is, if you will, in most cases, people say weren't complete, but it was. It literally just took off and went, yeah.

You find those few critical dimensions that, in a certain context, are meaningful, and then you exploit those to help the people realize, wait, in this situation, when I'm struggling with these things, seeking this outcome, this small set of features and benefits is truly painful, but everything else isn't. And that's the value and the nuance of understanding the difference between job. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Yep.

Yep. I think another one is the notion of the difference between what would cause somebody to buy versus what it's gonna cost somebody to use. And that people confuse this difference where they say, well, any sale is good sales. And what we would say is in. You know, we've worked with Intercom for a long time, but Des and I came up with a concept of what we call zombie revenue. How many people are paying for your product but not using it? Or they want to use it here, but they can't. And it's one of those things, you start to realize that just because people are buying it doesn't mean they're actually using it. And so to know the zombie revenue number is a really important thing. And to be honest, it's one of the tests we have when we're talking to people is like, so how many people are buying but not using? And they're like, I don't know. And it's like, okay, that will tell you actually a lot about kind of how to think about the demand side better.

As people are listening to this podcast and they're taking evaluation of their own biases or their own work.

What are some skill sets that people need to have in order to do jobs to be done?

I'll start, Matt, you chime in. One is just unpacking, being curious, and being able to actually make sure you understand what people mean by the words that they use. And what I feel is that it's almost like for every 10,000 words, somebody says, most people don't understand 5% of what they mean. And so it's that aspect of being able to slow down the conversation. It's about actually understanding their life, understanding kind of what are the things that are the triggers, Understanding kind of what are the measures. How do they know that they're making progress and so part of this is the devil's in those details, but it's the aspect of one is just making sure you're unpacking. When somebody says, oh, God, I love this. Why do you love this? It's like, oh, I love this feature. Well, why do you love the feature? You got to keep digging past it, like, what can you do with it that you couldn't do before? And so part of it is that whole notion of unpacking is a really big skill that, you know, to be honest, I don't really care if you're doing jobs or not. Unpacking is one of those things that, like, you can't walk in the door here and not be prepared to unpack or at least, you know, there's no way to say, like, anything remotely.

I like it.

Yeah. Oh, God, I love it.

I want it.

Yeah. This is where we end up having two hour debates around that kind of stuff.

Why do you want it, man?

That's right. That's right.

And just to add to that, and this is one of the things I think people don't get when we say the term unpacking and we throw around those phrases of, you need to dig deeper. The goal, although it's not always possible, is to unpack language that someone is using down to as concrete as you can get in their life. So we want actions and metrics that are meaningful to them. And that's how you get when you start getting down to someone saying, I love this because it enabled me to do this and I evaluated the success or failure of that using this metric. You've unpacked it enough and it's not always possible to get there, but that should be your goal.

Well, the other part is that sometimes people can't articulate what they want, but they can articulate what they don't want. And so, for example, they can talk about it being easy and then they'll say, well, I just want it to be simple so I can remember it. Well, tell me what hard is. Like, well, there's 15 steps in this thing. I don't need 15 steps. And so sometimes the metric is the opposite of what it is, but the reality is to know where the threshold where it becomes too hard. So anything more than 10 steps is probably too hard.

To bring this back to your question, Greg, then the bias that people would have to get rid of to be able to use jobs, and this goes partially to what Bob already said, which is thinking they understand what someone means.

Just by the word. I know what that word Means therefore I understand what that person is trying to do, and that's where the gap occurs.

So I think what you both are actually hinting around is listening skills.

A hundred percent active listening would be the. That's the packed version of that. Is active listening. Oh, I actively listen to people.

And what. So I heard unpacking is one of those skills in listening. What are others?

I think, and this is. This might be a stretch, so you guys have to stop me here. But I think about. When we're having conversations, we think about, as people talk about it, fitting into their lives as almost like a system. Is this an outcome they want? Is this an input that they have? Is this a trigger? There's a way in which to categorize the things that they're saying so we can actually see cause and effect. And so the other thing is like, we'll listen to a conversation and go like, okay, wait a second, I'm confused. I don't know. You. You talk about trust as essential to this process. Is trust an output of this process? Or is trust actually an input to the process to make the process work? And most people just look at you go like, well, we all want trust. I'm like, yeah, but where is trust being made? How is trust being made? How is trial trust being made? And is it. Is it a prerequisite to get to this step, or is it not a prerequisite to get to the step? And how do we know that we have trust?

And how. How is what I define trust as? Is. Is it the same as what you define trust as?

Exactly.

Right.

And so this is. This is where the emotional, social, and functional p.

Have to actually kind of come together to be executed so you can actually cause those things to happen. And so it's not only just active listening, it's active listening with that filter of being able to see what are they really talking about when they're saying these words. Right. So those are the two big skills that I think about. You could say it's all one, because that's active listening.

Right. Well, I think we all shudder at the word active listening because it means so many different things to so many different people. So we're actually trying to define what is listening from rewired perspective. Yep. And what I've heard so far is unpacking and systems thinking. Are two pieces of listening rewired style?

Yes.

Are there other.

Yeah, I would say, and this is a. A really complicated one that I'm going to. I'm going to say this word and we're all going to know what we mean by this, but the public won't. And that's the idea of robustness. We, we actually evaluate whether something someone says is noise or a signal or control m and whether they have control over it or they don't. And that's a really weird concept for the external people external to rewire it. But internally we're using that to determine is what they're saying even meaningful? Is what they're saying worth pursuing and unpacking or not?

And that skill.

It takes a lot of practice.

It's signal versus noise. Right, Signal versus noise. And it's this aspect of being able to understand.

So the way Taguchi would always tell me about it is any system we're building has a finite set of control factors, but has an infinite set of noise factors. And so part of it is, how are we going to be able to sift the wheat from the chaff and understand what are the essential things? And Greg, the words you use always, all the time is what's the intent? And that word, intent is very, very, I'll say, precious for us here. And that understanding kind of intent is not one word, but there's a set of words and it's a set of mechanisms of context and progress and outcomes. It's that all those things that actually get to kind of what's their intent of what they want to do. And so those are words that I think really help people understand. Once they kind of understand how to listen better, they can see it through systems thinking and then they can actually understand and get to the intent of. And what's interesting is I feel like when we're interviewing people, they'll want to talk about the product and we'll literally go like, I don't really want to talk about the product. I want to talk about why do you like that feature in the product and what can it help you do that you can't do now? And so part of this is it's very frustrating for some people who are so used to doing research around the product that they don't actually understand. What we're really trying to do is define the hole we're trying to fit in.

Not the solution we're trying to actually give to them. Because once we see the hole or the problem or have a really a 360 or 720 degree view of what they're trying to do, actually making the product is easy.

It's easier.

Easier. You're right. Thank you. Thank you for that.

And one add to that Greg is the product. This is another bias people are going to have to get rid of. Their solution is not the job.

Their solution does the job.

Their solution satisfies a job or does not satisfy a job, but it is not the job.

The job is the tool to which I get my job to be done.

That's right.

So we have to really. We debate that all the time here because Bob said the word. Well, it does a job, but does it really do the job or are you doing the job and it just helps you do the job? It helps you do the job. It's something we argue about all the time here. And it's.

I'm not as precise around that.

That's part of the. But. So if the big three in rewired listening is unpacking systems, systems thinking and signal to noise is the best way I can describe that one. Tell me a little bit from each of your perspectives, what is the goal of unpacking? Why is that important to do? Why are we doing it? And I think we've covered it, but I just want to kind of wrap it up in a bow.

Mine is really the focus on getting from what I call abstract to concrete. I want to be able to get down to when they say easy, what are the five things I got to do so they'll say easy or when I understand kind of where they're trying to go and why they can't go there, what are the things I need to eliminate or enable? And so it's taking the very abstract words of easy and fun and fast and convenient and refreshing and all that kind of stuff and breaking it down into its components to understand how do we. How do we build it? One and two is how do we actually make sure that we're clear on what they mean by it as opposed to our definition of what they mean by it.

So it gives us their intent and their measures.

And their measures. That's the other part is their measures of progress. Because at some point, trying to understand what people say and what they do, it's the real measure of how do they know that they've made progress.

And Matt, how do we know when we're done unpacking?

You should almost assume you're not ever done unpacking. You should assume that whatever answer you have, the language is insufficiently unpacked. That should be your assumption.

Yeah. I always think about it as we try to unpack to the edge of articulation where, like, at some point, I have no other words. And what that does is that says okay, now we gotta do benchmarking and that's where we've, we've got a whole product line around or service line around, helping people take and put, put them in context, put them in the job and then actually have them look at a set of products through hiring fire criteria and use the same similar techniques to help us actually get to very tangible design criteria for what the product has to do.

I often tell teams we're going to unpack to exhaustion.

Well, that's, that's a given like, you know, well, and by the way, a good exhaustion, not a bad one.

A good exhaustion. And, and, but for consumers as well, though.

I mean that for consumers as well.

True. And that brings us to the. One of the other paradigms that they've really got to shift is they have to be uncomfortable with a little bit of uncertainty and a little bit of an admission that they don't have the answer. They're not going to have the silver bullet. And you said that earlier. But they, that's kind of like they truly are seeking when they do this work. They're seeking the answer and there's not one answer. There's lots of different answers that we can evaluate using this thought, this methodology.

That's right. I think that's one of the other biases is that there is an answer and what we would say is no, there's multiple answers. There's always multiple ways to do something.

All right, so I'm getting the wrap up sign from the producer, but I'm going to put both of you on the spot before I do that.

Thanks, Jay.

Which is.

If those are the big three and what would be the big three of the anti rewired listening and I'll throw one out there first so you understand my question I haven't thought.

About this is like just flip my head upside down.

The anti rewired listening is writing verbatims. Oh, just writing what people said.

I started that way, by the way, way back in the day.

Right. That's anti listening because yes, you're listening, but you're actually not listening to what people say and why they said it and how they said it and all those different things that we really want to get to. So that's the first one for me.

I just got stuck to my stomach.

You said that like I get the nails of the chalkboard thing.

Oh, oh. Do I have one of what would be the anti.

Anti.

Anti. Well, it's self evident. It's not really a good one. But I would say that this belief that Our brand is what causes people to buy and that brand is a cause instead of an effect.

So every time someone says I like to use X brand, everybody writes it down and says well see they like the brand. This is our brand is the reason they buy.

Correct.

That would be an anti listening thing that was happening.

That's an anti listening thing. And it's also an anti.

Philosophical thing. Like if, if you come to, to rewire it into jobs to be done as a, as a methodology and you say well it's all about our brand, then you probably don't want, if you work with us, you're not going to like what you hear.

Well, the brand is just like any other system. There's, there's components to it and things that, that. But it's, it's usually and I can't think of any case where it's never the cause.

It's never the cause.

It's always a set of conditions and a set of outcomes that the brand will fit into. And it's just like the product. It's something that you can design to help people have confidence or have an understanding or transmit knowledge in some way or form. But the reality is it's not, it's not the reason.

Well, and all those things you said, the confidence, the knowledge that comes through the experience of consumption and it living up to the expectations of the job that you hired it to do. And once it's done that successfully then the brand has meaning and it might even have value to the consumer. But it's not the cause. If your brand all of a sudden fails to deliver or meet the expectations of the consumer in a job, the brand dies.

The brand is just in a.

So I'd like to thank you both for that short answer. I just love the short answer. Bob, I put you in the worst spot, which is the last spot on this one because we took so, so.

My last one is focus groups. Like if you're, if you, if you like the whole notion of focus groups and having people react to product in group, it's, it's from where we sit the fact this is, it's one of those things that I'm not sure anything useful comes from focus groups anymore. Like it's one of those things that we've been doing for a long time and we get a lot of verbatims and all that other stuff but it's like such group think. It doesn't actually help you people understand how it fits into the lives and everybody. Then almost it might inspire people or aspire people to do things, but it doesn't actually cause people to do things. And so you start to realize like how almost like comical a focus group is. Like, it's just like, you know, I'd rather put a needle deep into my eye than go to a focus group.

So as we close down this episode, in keeping with tradition, I want to leave everybody with like a final thought or a thing to do. And that thing today is I want you to think about how you're doing consumer research and I want you to think about interviews that you're doing. Because everybody has consumer interviews. No matter what methodology they're using, they're doing some sort of that. And I want you to think about, are you truly listening for the metrics of how people are are measuring your product or service or the job that they're getting done? Are you thinking about the systems that you have to employ or the consumers employing to get them done? And then also you're listening to the ways people are saying things and really unpacking those things. So if you answered no to those questions that that's not what you're doing, then you might be struggling to find a new way to do. And by all means, I think Jobs is a great way to do it. Self promoting to say that, but I think jobs is a great way to do that. So if you're struggling with those things, reach out. But first do the postmortem for yourself of when you're doing those interviews. Are you truly listening for the things that will help you develop, help you sell and help you market? Because that's what we're really trying to help people do.

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