“Pothole” by Dean Shareski licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
The most consistent challenge of my career: what are the most important actions I can take right now to benefit my customer/team/user? The challenge of fixing potholes offers a useful illustration of how to answer the question.
With thousands of miles of roads in a typical city, no city government can prioritize fixing potholes effectively. In a conference presentation I attended recently, Eric Clark from SpringML highlighted an intriguing aspect of this by asking the audience for a show of hands: how many people have encountered a pothole in the last week? Almost every hand went up. How many had reported a pothole – ever? Less than 1% of the hands went up.
Locals have the knowledge of where the potholes are, but city officials who can solve the problem can’t access the knowledge.
So Eric’s team mounted a camera on a streetsweeper and built a computer algorithm to identify and categorize potholes to be repaired.
But for many situations, knowledge doesn’t lend itself to collecting automated images and developing an algorithm to prioritize a fix. In managing and retaining a large team, or building a web application with the features users will care about, or finding the right prospect to buy a product, there is no automated algorithm.
The default position is to create a solution and priority by making assumptions, but such a top down approach can be wildly off the mark.
Instead, meet with people you serve on a regular basis in casual, 1:1 meetings. The purpose of these meetings is to access the local knowledge – find the potholes they haven’t reported to you. If you are a data analyst, meet with the people who use your reports. If you are sales person, meet with a customer or someone you aren’t actively selling to to get feedback. If you are an HR director, meet with 5 employees chosen at random.
Leaders face a reality that “knowledge potholes” are everywhere, so how do we prioritize our energy and efforts to find them?
Without a way to access local knowledge, we:
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Implement solutions with a lukewarm reception that don’t “scratch the itch of our customers”
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Choose engagement initiatives to build culture that don’t really matter to employees
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Sell to the wrong prospects and close fewer deals
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Create reports for leadership that don’t get used
This plays out in busineses large and small, as well as government and non-profits.
Methods such as “Management While Walking Around,” Jobs to Be Done, and Customer Discovery all point to a better way. I heartily recommend diving deep into each of those methods. But you can start quickly, and efficiently.
Meet with people you serve on a regular basis in casual, 1:1 meetings.
The purpose of these meetings is to access the local knowledge – find the potholes they haven’t reported to you. If you are a data analyst, meet with the people who use your reports. If you are sales person, meet with a customer or someone you aren’t actively selling to to get feedback. If you are an HR director, meet with 5 employees chosen at random.
And in your meeting with them, focus on asking open ended questions. Tiago Forte touts open ended questions as a path towards genius, and provides a compelling example from physicist Richard Feynman and his penchant for contemplating a list of 12 favorite problems.
For an unknown reason, I am most naturally inclined to ask yes/no questions (e.g., “do you like working here?”). But the insights I get from that are pretty thin. It takes a bit of practice, but here are a few shortcuts:
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To what extent do you believe XYZ?
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If you could change anything about XYZ, what would it be?
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How valuable is XYZ? What is more important?
My effectiveness at making an impact on people around me depends on my ability to utilize their own experience, to fill a pothole that they actually care about. Tapping into the local knowledge of the people I am trying to help paves the way in making a difference for them.