The Experience of Others

You're sitting in a restaurant having a great time, in fact it's a wonderful evening.  You have a good round table with a bunch of friends, the food is fantastic, the service is excellent, the wine is flowing.  The next day you get an email from the restaurant owner asking to rate your visit and you give it 5 stars.  It was fantastic.

Mrs Restaurant Owner is very happy because her customer was deeply satisfied with the experience.  She also runs a good business so she made some money that night.  Overall, it was a success for everyone involved.  Fantastic guest experience, good business, everyone is happy.  Wonderful. Beautiful. Perfect.

Ah. Experience.  That's a troublesome thing you see because it's actually quite difficult to establish what precisely was it about the experience that was good.  Was it the conversation?  Was it the company?  Both of these things?  Or the food? Or the seating configuration?  In fact, it's all of these and much more.  Experience is an emergent phenomenon.  It's emerges from a set of relationships, objects and timing in a specific moment for a specific individual to feel, well, something.

Product managers of a website have the same challenge as a restaurant owner.  They need to create an emergent set of experiences that support the business objectives.  Those emergent experiences could be for example, ease of use, joy, engagement, desire, advocacy (telling others), typing in credit card numbers, or creating a profile.

A Product Manager is an experience engineer.

Creating something which is emergent is not easy.  It's bloody difficult.  If everybody could do what Apple have done with their products in the last 10 years they would have done, but they didn't.  If something is difficult to do, it's difficult for others to copy.  And creating emergent systems that create wonderful experiences is extremely difficult. It's part art and part science.

In this world of emergence first you need to understand the systems from which your experience will come from.  The restaurant owner looks at all the details, from hiring of chefs, their kitchen organisation, the staffing rotas, the buying of ingredients, the menu design and hundreds of other small details and tries to create repeatable patterns of success that result in emergent experiences that restaurant goers rave about.  It's difficult in a restaurant and it's difficult on a website.

This web of interrelated influences that creates the emergent behaviour is a 4D world.  It's like the web itself, connected nodes of influence that act like the synapses in our brain, triggers firing behaviour from one sphere to the next. The fourth dimension is of course time, because each customer interacts with your company several times in several ways in different states of mind at different locations.

A creative product manager will first try to understand the web of influences, understand the triggers and amplify the ones that work, as well as trying new things that could be new influences and triggers.  All the time, measuring the impact as best she can.

Here's the thing though, experience can never be fully measured.  It's indescribable, intangible.

I can try and explain to you how I felt thinking this through on my walk up Shaftesbury Avenue this morning, Run DMC pumping through my headphones, excited because I'd pulled together some thinking that I'd been dwelling on for weeks, rucksack on my back, thinking of my next ski touring trip.  I could try.  No-one can ever really feel that except me, at that time, in that place with my history, future and present before me.

You can measure many aspects of experience, many dimensions.  Snapshots. Like the restaurant rating from the delighted customer.  You cannot really feel the experience of others, but you need to do your damn best to try.

As a product manager you are dealing with millions of those experiences.  And furthermore, you are building an interface that your customer will experience using a team of other people.

Building great experiences for others, through others.  A tough, but rewarding challenge.

London to Paris by bike

Did you know that life expectancy if you're living rough on the streets of London is only 46 years old?

The Big Issue helps people to help themselves. By buying magazines for £1 and selling them for £2, vendors have a chance to make a living and a way off the street. I want to help The Big Issue help more homeless peole to help themselves.

So - I’ve signed up for the London to Paris bike ride 2011.

I’ll be cycling 230 miles over 3 days, 90 miles of which will be in one day, and it's all on behalf of The Big Issue Foundation.

The Big Issue Foundation is dedicated to the well being of Big Issue Vendors, working with over 2900 individuals across the UK. Their skilled staff work one to one with vendors, tackling issues ranging from health and accommodation through to money management and aspirations.

The Big Issue Foundation is about taking control, moving forward, gaining independence and rebuilding lives. They exist to enable vendors to continue on their journey away from homelessness.

You can help support me, and The Big Issue Foundation, by making a secure online donation.

Click on the link below:
http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=310397&Lang=en-CA

So far the tech-media community in London have helped me raise over £1000!  Please help push this amount higher.

Thanks for your support!

Once upon a time in Soho

I was having lunch with a friend in a lovely vegetarian café in Soho this week and we were talking about work.  He and I work in different companies, different jobs, but we share an interest in how the world works and a desire to learn.

He said, 'The bit I don’t get, is how to get my point across to the decision makers.  I can blind them with logic, I can build a great presentation….'

He was struggling with what so many of us struggle with, influencing others.  A few moments later we went back to the topic and I said, 'So, what other ways are there do you think to get a point across?'  He started thinking out loud and after a few sentences he started getting warmer when he said, 'metaphor'.

I find that most people use a, rational approach, a deductive logical approach to solving problems and indentifying opportunities.  Think it through, understand cause and effect, then put a solution together.  The trouble is if you want others to adopt your solution, telling them so in a rational way doesn’t have the impact and influence.

How to get your point across?

I said to my friend, 'You could tell a story.  Stories capture attention because we’ve been wired for tens of thousands of years to communicate using stories'.  (For example, Jesus told parables, he didn’t  state a moral code as such – he explained what  people living that code did).  I went on, 'it may be that you had a vivid conversation with a customer about your product and this validates the conclusion you came to using data and logic.  If you tell the story first, then provide supporting data, you’ll have way more impact'.

(Of course – be sure to tell stories that support your rational conclusions, not the other way around.  Anecdote is not data.  Fool others, but don’t fool yourself – be sure the data supports the anecdote).

We continued our conversation and discussed the presentation methods and sales techniques that really work.  Logic featured as back up, not a leading strategy.  Other than stories, we identified using imagery, analogies and experiences. 

It’s no co-incidence that I started writing this blog post as a story.  I was hoping it  would capture your attention better than it would if I just started out with explaining how to get a point across.  Well did it?

Remember – we have two brains.  A logical one and an emotional one.  The emotional  one always wins the battle for influence and the triggers you can use  (stories, images, experience, patterns) are very different to the way in which you came up with the solution (logic, analysis, reasoning).

So, by all means solve a problem.  To get others to act on your solution figure out how you can tell a story.

My friend and I will be meeting up in another month.  Maybe I’ll bring you back another story.

The Smart Arse Rule

You hear people talk about 'working smart'.  They might say, it's good to work hard, but it's better to work smart.  And then some people insist you can work hard and smart.  Oh yeah - and be a parent, husband/wife, healthy, happy, blah blah.  Hmmmm.


All of this falls under a conversation in the pub around 'work-life balance'.  


Here's the thing.  Nothing comes for free in life. If you want results, it requires hard work.  In fast moving growth businesses, getting results from putting in a 9-5 day is extremely difficult, almost impossible.  Personally I've always wanted to do more in life than work, so I've tried to do that, with moderate success.  It gets quite challenging if I'm honest with 4 (lovely) kids aged 2 to 6, a job in a tech start-up and commuting in London.  


I don't claim to have balance as such.  Nor do I aspire to.  Instead I get by and I'm pretty productive at work and have a life outside of work.  Rather than describe it as a work-life balance I'd call it 'surviving on the edge of chaos'.  To survive, I have a simple rule that I apply when trying to balance the week.  It's called the 'smart arse' rule.


Before I explain the 'smart arse' rule and how I've used it, let's touch again on balance.  Balancing what?  What you want to get out of life is different to me - so this is a really personal thing.  For me I need the following; first of all, look after my health.  Keep fit, get enough sleep, eat well.  If I can do that, everything else follows.  Next, pay attention to and look after my family.  Maybe that should come first, but to be honest if I'm a grumpy unfit and sleep deprived shell I can't do it very well. So they go hand in hand.  And looking after my family means being with them. There's a time requirement,  I can't do it on 2 hours a week.  It's a big commitment.  Part of that involves chores, admin, sorting stuff out and running a household with my wife.  Stuff like doing the washing up, moving he lawn, sorting out the car insurance.  Blah. And actually spending time with my kids not doing chores.  Then there's work.  I am ambitious.  I want to succeed.   Not so that I can rule the world, rather it's really so that I can live life with a purpose and have a sense of achievement in having pushed myself to be the best I can be.  What else?  A need to learn, to absorb knowledge, to master skills and to teach others those skills.  Distil and synthesise thoughts, concepts and continuously chase the answers to big questions.


Just how to survive these chaotic ambitions?  


The 'smart arse' rule


About one or two decades ago I worked in a ski resort as an overseas operations manager for an upmarket ski chalet tour operator.  I was in charge of everything overseas, which for our company meant 38 chalets in 6 resorts in 3 countries, about 80 staff, 2 childcare centres, 6 vehicles.  Logistics, staff management, procurement, contracting, transfer days, troubleshooting.  Working in a ski resort sounds like fun, and it can be, but you have to work smart.  Really smart.  And the way I did this was to have a smart arse rule.


Ask yourself this question - what is the one thing that means more to you than work?


Everyone has something.  Even if you're the most driven workaholic entrepreneur, there's always something.


Next - block out your diary with when you will do this activity.


Then - work around this self-imposed rule.  If you do this, you're a smart arse and you have a smart arse rule. 


In the ski resort, my smart arse rule was this; go skiing at least 3 times a week, 4 times if all goes well.  This was broken down into; all day on one day off a week, then 3 afternoons (from 12 to 4) on the day before transfer day (which was often a 18 hour work day), the day after transfer day and one other day depending on my schedule.  This sounds like a lot, but even with that I worked about 60 hours a week.  I would start at 8am, finish up at 9pm and only go out in the evenings every now and then so as to keep my sleep quota.  As far as I was concerned the reason I was busting my gut in a stressful job in the Alps was so that I could go skiing.  Without the skiing, the very reason for being there was gone.  Skiing was (and still is) my passion.  


A real life example of the smart arse rule for city life would be if you are a parent and state that you want to see your kids at bedtime at least every other evening.  You allow yourself to work late on some nights if you need to but you block your diary to get home in good time on other nights.  Or - you are a football fan and buy tickets to your team's home matches.  Or - as a hard working couple, you make a date that Monday evening is movie night.  Or - as a martial arts enthusiast you dedicate 3 sessions a week to your passion at certain set times each week.


The important thing is to actually ask yourself what is the one thing more important than work.  Then - put these things in the diary up front and commit to them.  It could be a simple mental rule rather than a physical diary entry, but until you get this working for you, commit in writing.


The smart arse rule works because it forces you to work smart.  You might need to break out your laptop on the train, come in to the office early or schedule an evening conference call to fit everything in, but by committing to yourself first, you actually make it possible to work smart.  Then, if you work hard, that's a bonus too, but at least you'll be doing it for a reason.


Without the smart arse rule, how would you know if you are working smart?  By forcing yourself to work around self-imposed limitations, you develop skills over time to become effective in delivering your work commitment and at the same time - as a bonus - you reward yourself.


It is possible to work hard and smart.  You just need to be a smart arse. Get yourself a smart arse rule.

If You Knew You Couldn't Fail, What Would You Do?

Have you ever seen a baby learning to walk?  Of course you have.  Now, tell me how they do it.

I'm lucky to have four kids.  I didn't teach them to walk.  They didn't teach each other.  They just got up and had a go.  First of all they started to figure out how to pull themselves up to stand against the furniture.  Then they made one or two steps.  A few weeks later and they were walking.


We all first learnt by trial and error.  


Later in childhood, we start to learn from others.  We are taught.  We go to school.  It's quite amazing to have my eldest daughter read a book to me.  She's six.  6 months ago she couldn't read.


We are taught.


There's a third phase.  Once we know how things work, we can go figure things out for ourselves.  Some kids spend hours playing tennis, some spend hours programming, others spend hours and hours making things.  Some of these kids will become the best in the world at what they do.  Literally the best in the world.  In this phase we practice.  We seek guidance, we practice some more.  We put hours and hours in.  We make mistakes and learn from them.  We practice some more.


We are self-taught and we practice.


But then - we become adults.  Some people continue with trial and error (It's called 'learning on the job' in the business world.  Some are taught (it's called 'training' in the business world).  Some practice, work long hard hours, push themselves and become the best in the world at what they do.  I'm not sure what we call these people, but I admire them.


I am more thirsty for knowledge now than I have ever been in my life.  The more I learn the more I realise there is to learn.  And I want to be the best in the world at what I do.  Why?  It's simple.  There's very little in life that beats the feeling that you get when you say 'today I did what I do best!'


Today I will do what I do best.  Will you?


Imagine a team where every person can say that.  Can you imagine what that team would be able to achieve?  It would be extraordinary.  World beating.  In fact just writing this makes my hairs stand on end - it really is something special.  It's like watching the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race and seeing the winners win.  It's awesome.  


The thing about great teams is, 1 plus 1 equals 3.  The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.  Only it's not guaranteed.  Sometimes two egotistical geniuses equal less than two because they haven't figured how to collaborate well.


So - on a practical note then, how do we build great teams where every person does what they do best and on top of that build a winning team?  


How do we make that team possible?


Here, I think are the 5 main ingredients;


1. Allow people to make mistakes.  


If we make more mistakes, we learn more.  I'm not saying that we should aim to fail.  Rather we should always be 'doing'.  Doing something means you have the opportunity to learn.  If you don't do anything you won't make any mistakes, but then again you won't learn anything.  This is the thinking behind the phrase 'fail faster'.  It's not that you should aim to fail - instead, you should 'do more faster' - because that's how you'll learn.


Fear holds us back though.  We are afraid to make mistakes in case it's not seen as successful by our peers and egos.


My wife and I were talking the other day about why she is successful at what she does.  She does business development for a recruitment firm and she needs to figure out how to book meetings with HR Managers and then persuade them to use her firm's services.  She said that you can't book meetings without making phone calls, so she has to be very persistent to keep calling until she gets the meeting.  She will keep calling way long after other people have given up.  Most people fear the rejection, whereas she doesn't.  


Her motto is "if you knew you wouldn't fail, what would you do?"  Great advice indeed.


So - as a manager, I will always say to my team, 'make decisions and do stuff.  Better to do lots and be right 95% of the time than to do a little and be right 100% of the time'.  You'll learn faster and so will I.




2. Trust your colleagues and help them to learn from their mistakes


You can only truly build a successful team if there is true openness.   I need to be open with my intentions, emotions and reasoning.  By doing so, my colleagues can help me identify what I'm doing well and what I can do better and I will learn faster.  If I do this though I am opening myself up.  I am doing exactly the opposite of what most people do in business.  It needs mutual trust, respect and willing - and it needs to start at the top.




3. Design learning structures


A great example of this is how we used to run our software development cycles in one of my previous companies.  We planned our work in two week cycles.  This was pretty effective in terms of getting things done.  The important ingredient I think that actually made it successful was that after every cycle ('sprint') we set up a 'retrospective meeting'.  This was a simple meeting where we simply asked, 'what went well, what didn't go so well and how will we in future do more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff?'  Doing this systematically requires a regular meeting slot in the diary, an agenda and a habit.  It requires structure.


Good teams consciously create these structures to become learning teams.




4. Hire people that can handle this culture


This is critical.  If you believe that you want to build world class winning teams you need to hire accordingly.  Sure you need talent and experience.  I say they're over-rated.


Just because someone has knowledge and ingredients to make a great cake it doesn't mean that they will.  And just because someone was motivated to bake great cakes in the past doesn't mean that they will do so again in a different kitchen.


What really matters is
- does this person know how to apply themselves to a challenge?
- is this person willing to open themselves up and be fully transparent with their emotions, reasoning and intentions?
- are they able to give feedback to others in a helpful way?
- are they thirsty to be the best in the world at something?  




5. Go with the flow


You cannot tell people what motivates them.  In my experience, people do best what they are interested in, not necessarily what they are good at.  I might be quite good at filing and organising paperwork, it doesn't mean I'm interested in it.  Give me a reason to be interested in it or find me something to do that I am interested in and I will do it well.  Really well.


So - as people develop in your team, find opportunities for them and help them where possible to grow in your organisation to do what they do best.   Build the team around the capabilities you have and seek out new team members to fill the gaps if they exist (and make sure you follow the points in point 4).


To conclude


Great parent allow their children to make mistakes, they teach them all they can, and they give them wings to fly and pursue their own dreams.  


In a team, we must think of ourselves as parents of each other.


And every day, if we strive to be the best we can be in what we do we'll need to push ourselves to the limit and make a few mistakes. It's the mistakes that lead us to truth.


Benjamin Franklin once wrote, 


'Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries.  Truth is uniform and narrow; it does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified'


Fail faster. Act like a child and a parent at the same time. Be the best in the world at something every day.