Читать книгу Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All - David Kelley - Страница 22

Albert Bandura used the process of guided mastery—a series of small successes—to help people gain courage and overcome deep-seated phobias. What would have been nearly impossible to accomplish in one giant leap became manageable in small steps, with the guidance of someone knowledgeable in the field. In a similar way, we use a step-by-step progression to help people discover and experience the tools and methodologies of design thinking, gradually increasing the level of challenge to help individuals transcend the fear of failure that blocks their best ideas. These small successes are intrinsically rewarding and help people to go on to the next level.

In our classes and workshops, we first ask people to work through quick design challenges, whether it’s to redesign the gift-giving experience or to rethink their daily commute. We may jump in with some help or a small nudge, but mostly we let them figure out solutions themselves. Building confidence through experience encourages more creative action in the future, which further bolsters confidence. For this reason, we frequently ask students and team members to complete multiple quick design projects rather than one big project, to maximize the number of learning cycles.

At the d.school, one of the goals of getting people to work together on a project is to help them practice new skills and challenge themselves—and most likely experience failure as a result. We believe the lessons learned from failures may make us smarter—even stronger. But that doesn’t make failure any more fun. So most of us naturally try to avoid failure at all costs. Failure is hard, even painful. As Stanford professor Bob Sutton and IDEO partner Diego Rodriguez often say at the d.school, “Failure sucks, but instructs.”

The inescapable link between failure and innovation is a lesson you can learn only through doing. We give students a chance to fail as soon as possible, in order to maximize the learning time that follows. Instead of long lectures followed by exercises, most of our classes at the d.school give students a little instruction up front and then get them working on a project or a challenge. We follow up in debriefs to reflect on what succeeded—and what can be learned from things that didn’t work.

“Many d.school classes demand that student teams keep pushing the limits of possibility until they face-plant,” says IDEO partner and consulting associate professor Chris Flink. “The personal resilience, courage, and humility born of a healthy failure form a priceless piece of their education and growth.”

Facing failure in order to wipe away the fear is something understood intuitively by our friend John “Cass” Cassidy, lifelong innovator and creator of Klutz Press. In his book Juggling for the Complete Klutz, Cass didn’t start us out juggling two balls, or even one. He began with something more basic: “The Drop.” Step one is simply to throw all three balls in the air and let them drop. Then repeat. In learning to juggle, the angst comes from failure—from having the ball fall to the floor. So with step one, Cass aims to numb aspiring jugglers to that. Having the ball fall to the floor becomes more normal than the ball not falling to the floor. After we address our fear of failure, juggling becomes a lot easier. The two of us were skeptical at first, but with the help of his simple approach, we really did learn to juggle.

Fear of failure holds us back from learning all sorts of new skills, from taking on risks, and from tackling new challenges. Creative confidence asks that we overcome that fear. You know you are going to drop the ball, make mistakes, and go in a wrong direction or two. But you come to accept that it’s part of learning. And in doing so, you are able to remain confident that you are moving forward despite the setbacks.

OVERCOMING FEAR OF CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS

We know from experience that our students often have a fear of venturing out onto the turf of customers and users in attempts to gain empathy with them. At the d.school, lecturer Caroline O’Connor and managing director Sarah Stein Greenberg have helped many students move past that fear, one step at a time. Here are a few ways of gaining empathy that they suggest, adapted for use in a business context. The techniques on the list start out easy and become increasingly challenging.

1. BE A “FLY ON THE WALL” IN AN ONLINE FORUM. Pay attention as potential customers share feedback, air their grievances, and ask questions. You’re not looking for evaluations of features or cost; you’re searching for pain points and latent needs among the people on the forum.

2. TRY YOUR OWN CUSTOMER SERVICE. Go through the experience of interacting with customer service, pretending to be a customer. Notice how your problem is handled, and how you feel along the way. Try mapping out the individual steps in the process and then graph the ups and downs of your mood or satisfaction.

3. TALK WITH UNEXPECTED EXPERTS. What does the receptionist have to say about your firm’s customer experience? If you’re in health care, talk to a medical assistant rather than a doctor. If you make a physical product, ask a repair person to tell you about what goes wrong with it.

4. PLAY DETECTIVE IN PURSUIT OF INSIGHT. Take some reading material and a pair of headphones to a retail space or an industry conference (or, if your customers are internal, an area where people tend to gather). Observe people’s behavior, and try to figure out what is going on. How are they interacting with your product or service? What can you glean from their body language that indicates their level of engagement or interest?

5. INTERVIEW SOME CUSTOMERS. Think of a few open-ended questions about your product or service. Go to a place where your customers spend time, and find someone you are comfortable approaching. Tell them you’d like to ask a few questions. If the person refuses, no problem, just try someone else. Eventually you’ll find someone who’s willing—even dying—to talk to you. Press for more detail with every question. Ask “Why?” and “Can you tell me more about that?”—even if you think you already know the answer. Sometimes their responses will surprise you and point you toward new opportunities.