Essential vs Unessential

I have started to wonder on “What moves me?” as a person. How do I decide if the product is great or inferior? Will this product sell or not? How to design the great UX? The answers do come after contemplation but often this is a lengthy process. You cannot innovate on demand. You can only get started on demand. You just try to figure out what will work and why it will work? During those times, what overtakes you is the pure love for what you do. You just forget everything. I even forget to sleep or have food, when I am immersed in solving a problem.

At times, I have found my own perceptions cloud the truth. A piece of truth which turns out to be so simple and obvious and I was over-complicating to state the obvious. When I find too many complexities, I relax and slow down. I do not let any complexity disturb me and I start to focus on “Why?” Why I am building this product? What are the key components of the product? Usually, I find myself working on something which was to be ignored from the beginning but since I have worked on it, so I now know it is Unessential. The process to figure out the unessential is so lengthy and cumbersome that it takes me days, weeks or months to figure out what is unessential and what is essential? There is no direct path, which will lead directly to the essential. Often to figure out the essential, I have to go through 95% of the stuff, which is unessential. Probably, at the end of it, you will gain an insight which is truly Essential to give the right direction to your product.

At the end of the day, it is about having faith in yourself and the process you are following, persistence, open-mindedness, peace of mind and clear consciousness. Sooner or later, breakthrough will come. Don’t give up, Don’t quit. Keep working, rest if you must but don’t quit.

PS: Some people may think I should use Non-essential to be grammatically correct. Do you remember the song ‘Unbreak my heart’, it  conveys the meaning clearly than ‘don’t break my heart’

Image Courtesy: Erin Hanson

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Transcript

How do you explain when things don’t go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions? For example: Why is Apple so innovative? Year after year, after year, after year, they’re more innovative than all their competition. And yet, they’re just a computer company. They’re just like everyone else. They have the same access to the same talent, the same agencies, the same consultants, the same media. Then why is it that they seem to have something different? Why is it that Martin Luther King led the Civil Rights Movement? He wasn’t the only man who suffered in a pre-civil rights America, and he certainly wasn’t the only great orator of the day. Why him? And why is it that the Wright brothers were able to figure out controlled, powered man flight when there were certainly other teams who were better qualified, better funded … and they didn’t achieve powered man flight, and the Wright brothers beat them to it. There’s something else at play here.

About three and a half years ago I made a discovery. And this discovery profoundly changed my view on how I thought the world worked, and it even profoundly changed the way in which I operate in it. As it turns out, there’s a pattern. As it turns out, all the great and inspiring leaders and organizations in the world — whether it’s Apple or Martin Luther King or the Wright brothers — they all think, act and communicate the exact same way. And it’s the complete opposite to everyone else. All I did was codify it, and it’s probably the world’s simplest idea. I call it the golden circle.

Why? How? What? This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren’t. Let me define the terms really quickly. Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do, 100 percent. Some know how they do it, whether you call it your differentiated value proposition or your proprietary process or your USP. But very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by “why” I don’t mean “to make a profit.” That’s a result. It’s always a result. By “why,” I mean: What’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care? Well, as a result, the way we think, the way we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in. It’s obvious. We go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired leaders and the inspired organizations — regardless of their size, regardless of their industry — all think, act and communicate from the inside out.

Let me give you an example. I use Apple because they’re easy to understand and everybody gets it. If Apple were like everyone else, a marketing message from them might sound like this: “We make great computers. They’re beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?” “Meh.” And that’s how most of us communicate. That’s how most marketing is done, that’s how most sales is done and that’s how most of us communicate interpersonally. We say what we do, we say how we’re different or how we’re better and we expect some sort of a behavior, a purchase, a vote, something like that. Here’s our new law firm: We have the best lawyers with the biggest clients, we always perform for our clients who do business with us. Here’s our new car: It gets great gas mileage, it has leather seats, buy our car. But it’s uninspiring.

Here’s how Apple actually communicates. “Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?” Totally different right? You’re ready to buy a computer from me. All I did was reverse the order of the information. What it proves to us is that people don’t buy what you do; people buy why you do it. People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.

This explains why every single person in this room is perfectly comfortable buying a computer from Apple. But we’re also perfectly comfortable buying an MP3 player from Apple, or a phone from Apple, or a DVR from Apple. But, as I said before, Apple’s just a computer company. There’s nothing that distinguishes them structurally from any of their competitors. Their competitors are all equally qualified to make all of these products. In fact, they tried. A few years ago, Gateway came out with flat screen TVs. They’re eminently qualified to make flat screen TVs. They’ve been making flat screen monitors for years. Nobody bought one. Dell came out with MP3 players and PDAs, and they make great quality products, and they can make perfectly well-designed products — and nobody bought one. In fact, talking about it now, we can’t even imagine buying an MP3 player from Dell. Why would you buy an MP3 player from a computer company? But we do it every day. People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe. Here’s the best part:

None of what I’m telling you is my opinion. It’s all grounded in the tenets of biology. Not psychology, biology. If you look at a cross-section of the human brain, looking from the top down, what you see is the human brain is actually broken into three major components that correlate perfectly with the golden circle. Our newest brain, our Homo sapien brain, our neocortex, corresponds with the “what” level. The neocortex is responsible for all of our rational and analytical thought and language. The middle two sections make up our limbic brains, and our limbic brains are responsible for all of our feelings, like trust and loyalty. It’s also responsible for all human behavior, all decision-making, and it has no capacity for language.

In other words, when we communicate from the outside in, yes, people can understand vast amounts of complicated information like features and benefits and facts and figures. It just doesn’t drive behavior. When we can communicate from the inside out, we’re talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior, and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things we say and do. This is where gut decisions come from. You know, sometimes you can give somebody all the facts and figures, and they say, “I know what all the facts and details say, but it just doesn’t feel right.” Why would we use that verb, it doesn’t “feel” right? Because the part of the brain that controls decision-making doesn’t control language. And the best we can muster up is, “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.” Or sometimes you say you’re leading with your heart, or you’re leading with your soul. Well, I hate to break it to you, those aren’t other body parts controlling your behavior. It’s all happening here in your limbic brain, the part of the brain that controls decision-making and not language.

But if you don’t know why you do what you do, and people respond to why you do what you do, then how will you ever get people to vote for you, or buy something from you, or, more importantly, be loyal and want to be a part of what it is that you do. Again, the goal is not just to sell to people who need what you have; the goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe. The goal is not just to hire people who need a job; it’s to hire people who believe what you believe. I always say that, you know, if you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money, but if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears. And nowhere else is there a better example of this than with the Wright brothers.

Most people don’t know about Samuel Pierpont Langley. And back in the early 20th century, the pursuit of powered man flight was like the dot com of the day. Everybody was trying it. And Samuel Pierpont Langley had, what we assume, to be the recipe for success. I mean, even now, you ask people, “Why did your product or why did your company fail?” and people always give you the same permutation of the same three things: under-capitalized, the wrong people, bad market conditions. It’s always the same three things, so let’s explore that. Samuel Pierpont Langley was given 50,000 dollars by the War Department to figure out this flying machine. Money was no problem. He held a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian and was extremely well-connected; he knew all the big minds of the day. He hired the best minds money could find and the market conditions were fantastic. The New York Times followed him around everywhere, and everyone was rooting for Langley. Then how come we’ve never heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley?

A few hundred miles away in Dayton Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, they had none of what we consider to be the recipe for success. They had no money; they paid for their dream with the proceeds from their bicycle shop; not a single person on the Wright brothers’ team had a college education, not even Orville or Wilbur; and The New York Times followed them around nowhere. The difference was, Orville and Wilbur were driven by a cause, by a purpose, by a belief. They believed that if they could figure out this flying machine, it’ll change the course of the world. Samuel Pierpont Langley was different. He wanted to be rich, and he wanted to be famous. He was in pursuit of the result. He was in pursuit of the riches. And lo and behold, look what happened. The people who believed in the Wright brothers’ dream worked with them with blood and sweat and tears. The others just worked for the paycheck. And they tell stories of how every time the Wright brothers went out, they would have to take five sets of parts, because that’s how many times they would crash before they came in for supper.

And, eventually, on December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers took flight, and no one was there to even experience it. We found out about it a few days later. And further proof that Langley was motivated by the wrong thing: The day the Wright brothers took flight, he quit. He could have said, “That’s an amazing discovery, guys, and I will improve upon your technology,” but he didn’t. He wasn’t first, he didn’t get rich, he didn’t get famous so he quit.

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And if you talk about what you believe, you will attract those who believe what you believe. But why is it important to attract those who believe what you believe? Something called the law of diffusion of innovation, and if you don’t know the law, you definitely know the terminology. The first two and a half percent of our population are our innovators. The next 13 and a half percent of our population are our early adopters. The next 34 percent are your early majority, your late majority and your laggards. The only reason these people buy touch tone phones is because you can’t buy rotary phones anymore.

(Laughter)

We all sit at various places at various times on this scale, but what the law of diffusion of innovation tells us is that if you want mass-market success or mass-market acceptance of an idea, you cannot have it until you achieve this tipping point between 15 and 18 percent market penetration, and then the system tips. And I love asking businesses, “What’s your conversion on new business?” And they love to tell you, “Oh, it’s about 10 percent,” proudly. Well, you can trip over 10 percent of the customers. We all have about 10 percent who just “get it.” That’s how we describe them, right? That’s like that gut feeling, “Oh, they just get it.” The problem is: How do you find the ones that get it before you’re doing business with them versus the ones who don’t get it? So it’s this here, this little gap that you have to close, as Jeffrey Moore calls it, “Crossing the Chasm” — because, you see, the early majority will not try something until someone else has tried it first. And these guys, the innovators and the early adopters, they’re comfortable making those gut decisions. They’re more comfortable making those intuitive decisions that are driven by what they believe about the world and not just what product is available.

These are the people who stood in line for six hours to buy an iPhone when they first came out, when you could have just walked into the store the next week and bought one off the shelf. These are the people who spent 40,000 dollars on flat screen TVs when they first came out, even though the technology was substandard. And, by the way, they didn’t do it because the technology was so great; they did it for themselves. It’s because they wanted to be first. People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it and what you do simply proves what you believe. In fact, people will do the things that prove what they believe. The reason that person bought the iPhone in the first six hours, stood in line for six hours, was because of what they believed about the world, and how they wanted everybody to see them: They were first. People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.

So let me give you a famous example, a famous failure and a famous success of the law of diffusion of innovation. First, the famous failure. It’s a commercial example. As we said before, a second ago, the recipe for success is money and the right people and the right market conditions, right? You should have success then. Look at TiVo. From the time TiVo came out about eight or nine years ago to this current day, they are the single highest-quality product on the market, hands down, there is no dispute. They were extremely well-funded. Market conditions were fantastic. I mean, we use TiVo as verb. I TiVo stuff on my piece of junk Time Warner DVR all the time.

But TiVo’s a commercial failure. They’ve never made money. And when they went IPO, their stock was at about 30 or 40 dollars and then plummeted, and it’s never traded above 10. In fact, I don’t think it’s even traded above six, except for a couple of little spikes. Because you see, when TiVo launched their product they told us all what they had. They said, “We have a product that pauses live TV, skips commercials, rewinds live TV and memorizes your viewing habits without you even asking.” And the cynical majority said, “We don’t believe you. We don’t need it. We don’t like it. You’re scaring us.” What if they had said, “If you’re the kind of person who likes to have total control over every aspect of your life, boy, do we have a product for you. It pauses live TV, skips commercials, memorizes your viewing habits, etc., etc.” People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it, and what you do simply serves as the proof of what you believe.

Now let me give you a successful example of the law of diffusion of innovation. In the summer of 1963, 250,000 people showed up on the mall in Washington to hear Dr. King speak. They sent out no invitations, and there was no website to check the date. How do you do that? Well, Dr. King wasn’t the only man in America who was a great orator. He wasn’t the only man in America who suffered in a pre-civil rights America. In fact, some of his ideas were bad. But he had a gift. He didn’t go around telling people what needed to change in America. He went around and told people what he believed. “I believe, I believe, I believe,” he told people. And people who believed what he believed took his cause, and they made it their own, and they told people. And some of those people created structures to get the word out to even more people. And lo and behold, 250,000 people showed up on the right day at the right time to hear him speak.

How many of them showed up for him? Zero. They showed up for themselves. It’s what they believed about America that got them to travel in a bus for eight hours to stand in the sun in Washington in the middle of August. It’s what they believed, and it wasn’t about black versus white: 25 percent of the audience was white. Dr. King believed that there are two types of laws in this world: those that are made by a higher authority and those that are made by man. And not until all the laws that are made by man are consistent with the laws that are made by the higher authority will we live in a just world. It just so happened that the Civil Rights Movement was the perfect thing to help him bring his cause to life. We followed, not for him, but for ourselves. And, by the way, he gave the “I have a dream” speech, not the “I have a plan” speech.

(Laughter)

Listen to politicians now, with their comprehensive 12-point plans. They’re not inspiring anybody. Because there are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority, but those who lead inspire us. Whether they’re individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it’s those who start with “why” that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html?quote=710

Creativity and Schools

I have always wondered why kids are always running after maths, science, english in school. This video is right on the point that our education system is largely the byproduct of the industrial revolution, which took place in the beginning of 19th century. Now, almost all people have degrees and have similar kind of educational background. The degree is no longer a distinction, which allows industry to select best candidates. Even the top schools like Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, IIT groom the best talent in their respective fields but they can graduate only less than 1% of people. How about the rest 99%? Even after getting good jobs, how many people are actually creative, how many find answers to original problems? Remember John Nash, the original problem solver from Princeton or CV Raman from India.

It is happening to the products we create as well. Product managers successfully emulate the success of great products into their own products without devising an original solution. Has anyone cared to ask why Facebook feeds is so successful? or why Pinterest visual format of feeds is so successful? How many product managers have discovered truly original idea, a truly unique one?

At the end of the day, it is not about failure or success, it is about proceeding in right direction. It is about joy of work, joy of creativity, joy of learning, joy of discovery, joy of creating something truly original, truly unique.

Future of Cars- Fiat Mio

Few months ago, I read about creation of fiat mio, the concept car created by fiat through crowdsourcing. The result is amazing. A beautiful car which is going to change the way we know cars today. Watch the video above to visualize the future of cars. Don’t try to understand the language (it is portuguese). I am going to write lot more on crowdsourcing and new ways to work in coming months. Stay tuned!

How Beauty Feels?

I was awestruck after watching this video. In few minutes, I got a clear understanding of what the beauty is? It will find a way into the products I design.

What is an education?

Education is not a collection of facts, it is not intelligence either, which tells you how to apply the knowledge. Education is finding the way, when confronted with life’s challenges. Education is the light which shows the way when there is a darkness all around. Education is not literacy, which enables you to read books. Education is the understanding of life, how the world works. The most important Education is the knowledge of how you (yourself) work?

Unfortunately, most schools only teach literacy, which enables you to pass exams and to an extent read, explore and discover ideas of famous thinkers. Schools don’t teach you to innovate, they don’t teach you how to find the way in life when you are stuck. Then why do we go school to receive education? We don’t go to schools for literacy, we go to schools for getting challenged, for thinking beyond our limitations when we are posed with tough problem. In that way, we receive education. Schools don’t last with us for a lifetime, education does.

In everyday, we get a chance daily to solve problems, get challenged, find solutions, go beyond our comfortable limits. The challenges comes in various forms: to someone who is trying to code a new feature the challenge is how to write the code effectively so that it integrates well into the system and problem gets solved accurately using minimal resources, to a struggling mother, the challenge is how to make her a 7 years daughter more responsible. Each day, each one us receives an education in a school called life, whether we choose to accept the challenges of life or not depends on how willing we are to learn, to get challenged and persistent in face of uncertainty. Education is not simply applying solutions where the problem is already defined, it is defining the problem and finding the solution to a new problem, each day.

Education is a way of life. It is an inspiration to live, a guiding force, which propels us towards success. So, are you a literate or educated?

Courage!

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Are we courageous enough to take risk with our products?
Does fear of failure continuously haunt us to create anything new?
Can we produce a truly original idea and stand with it when no one else is there with us?
Are we a fearless product manager?

Think, but most importantly ACT!

The wrong way to interview a product manager

Recently, I gave interviews for a product manager and I realized most of the heads of organizations don’t understand what is going to the role of a product manager. I am not going to provide full disclosure here but only the wrong way in which a product manager is interviewed in internet or mobile company in India.

Once, you clear the HR, Tech round, then phone interview happens and once you clear that, you have face to face meeting at company’s office.

All goes fine till here. Now, from here onward blunder starts.

The organization heads don’t know that ‘product manager marketing’ and ‘product manager development’ are two different roles. In tech companies, Product manager – development roles are in demand, however, department heads seem to confuse these roles. During interview, Interviewers expect the product manager to have a deep understanding of the user of their domains, which is fine as long as people from competition apply to their company. In most of the cases, they will end up in interviewing someone who is not from competition but has good exposure to other domains. So, their focus should be on how this person understands the products, what are his previous achievements and can this person deliver the results? Instead, what they ask – we are trying to build feature X, what’s your take on this? Product Manager, who is from another domain answers this question to best of his abilities, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t understand users from other domains unless he has developed products for them and understood the user needs closely. At the best, the answer given at this point of time is full of assumptions. It can be right of wrong.

The right question should be this one – We have Y set of users with these characteristics/demographics/life styles and developing feature X, why do you think this feature will be best suited for this set of users?

Next, they want instant solutions to their products. Interviewer may ask you, what could be the new product/feature for us? Again, you give the answer based on your experience. It could be right or wrong. They hardly test, what you already know about your domain and your methodology to come up with solutions, the innovations you can bring.

Though, my point is not to criticize anyone for their hiring skills but the point is, why test a candidate for the newer areas? Why not test the candidate for the areas where he/she is good and give some challenging assignment around that? Won’t that help evaluation better?