Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / Radhika Dutt on Leading Change through Radical Product Thinking (#019)

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Radhika Dutt on Leading Change through Radical Product Thinking (#019) · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: All of us, like no organization is perfect, and every organization I've come across has at least one of these diseases that are happening.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the first step in curing these diseases is to be able to talk about it, diagnose it, and then we can say, okay, now what needs changing?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: How do we fix this, right?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Without that dialogue, we'll never get better.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, welcome to a brand new episode of Contraminds.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, we are joined by Radika Dad.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Radika is an incredible entrepreneur and a product leader who has been involved in four acquisitions, two of which were companies that she founded.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: She advises organizations from high-tech startups to government agencies on building radical products that create a fundamental change.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Radhika is most recently the author of a brand new book called Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: She co-founded radical product thinking as a movement of leaders creative vision of change.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Over the course of our conversation, Radhika spoke to us about her journey, the power of setting the right product vision, and how to think about a nation as a product.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: She's currently advised about product thinking to the monetary authority of Singapore.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Singapore's financial regulatory center.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: She holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in electric engineering.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do check out the show notes for this episode to discover more details about Radika's latest book, how to download the radical product thinking toolkit, and a detailed list of references and topics we talk about.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So without further delay, here is the conversation with Radika.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hi Radhika, thanks a ton for joining us as a special guest in our podcast, and it's an absolute privilege to have you.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much for having me.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to start this conversation, uh Radhika, with uh normally you know you become an evangelist of a particular concept when you have a positive and a negative experience when you really go about doing something, and uh you are a product development evangelist.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: You really talk about uh product being the real difference to companies and how do you really design world-class products?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, where did this interest in product management start?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And can you tell us a little bit about where you really started feeling the need for this as a very critical aspect for organizations?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe I'll start a little bit with my background that shn that led me to this.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you know, my first startup uh was called Lobby 7, and I started this while we were still in our dorm rooms at MIT.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, in that first startup, um, we ran into a disease I now call hero syndrome, where you know, we had managed to raise funds and we felt like we were just killing it because, you know, we had after all raised funds, we felt like this was validation for what we were doing.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: We were just focused on scale and being big instead of really focusing on what's the problem that we're trying to solve.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and our vision was big as well back then, you know, our vision was revolutionizing wireless, right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I think back to the fact that that was more than 20 years ago.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and even to this day, I keep seeing the same set of product diseases.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Hero syndrome, for example, is just rampant in the startup space.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and what I realized is, you know, although we have all these new methodologies such as lean startup, we have agile, a lot of these methodologies still focus on, you know, just um how can we iterate fast?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: How can we harness the power of iteration to innovate faster?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that I realized was kind of the root cause of why a lot of products were going astray.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and in my background, you know, aside from startups, well, I've I've started and sold uh startups, um, I've worked in so many different industries from broadcast, media, entertainment, telecom, government, even, um, robotics, and so on.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that it's these same set of product diseases that were affecting every industry, every size of company.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the burning question for me in 2017 was you know, is it that some of us, these rare visionary leaders like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, that they know how to build world-changing products, and the rest of us are just doomed to finding our way through trial and error?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Or can we actually very systematically learn to build world-changing products?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, is does this have to be an innate skill or can we learn it?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's how radical product thinking started.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was um, you know, my attempt along with two ex-colleagues to work on a framework that really helped us systematically build world-changing products as opposed to just let's iterate and try what works on the market, which is kind of the mantra of innovation today.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so this is why we want to um, yeah, this is why like you know, radical product thinking came about.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: We started testing it with organizations, um and today it's become this global movement uh of leaders creating world-changing products.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me, uh, when you really talk about uh radic radical product thinking, uh how how have you affected the change?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And can you share with me some examples of say pre-radical product thinking versus post-radical product thinking?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Some examples that actually change the way companies really started looking at products and building them.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'll tell you one example which really illustrates why some of our current approaches don't work, right?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so there was an entrepreneur who came to me and uh he was telling me about his startup, Knack.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: And he'd founded this startup with the goal of spreading kindness in the world.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: He was inspired by the suspended coffee movement in Italy, uh, where you buy two coffees, one of which you consume, the second is paid forward for someone who could use a random act of kindness.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so he built Knack as a way of helping people spread what he called random acts of coffee.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: The idea was great.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know what he was seeing in terms of his numbers, his numbers were all looking fantastic.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: He had high NPS scores, um, he had a high number of daily users, people were driving great distances to uh go get these coffees, right?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: People were really engaging with this app and recommending it to friends.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: He had organic growth.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the nirvana of what we all look for, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, although his numbers were looking good, when I met Paul, he was just really unhappy with how things were going.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: What happened, it turned out, was everyone was going to the app to get free coffee.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: No one was actually using the app to spread kindness, right?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so what I talk about product diseases.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: His app had caught three product diseases.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: The first is obsessive sales disorder.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in companies, we often think our goal is to delight customers.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: And he was delighting customers by giving them what they want, right?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they wanted more free coffee, and he was even spending his own money to give them more free coffee.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that wasn't making a better product.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the second disease he had was hypermetricemia, which is where we're measuring and obsessed with metrics, right?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, except we're not maybe measuring the right things.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so all his numbers were looking good, except that it wasn't leading to a better product.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and these are just a couple of the diseases.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I met Paul, we said, okay, let's take a more radical approach.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the first thing in the radical product thinking approach is we have to think about our product as a mechanism for creating the change you want to see in the world.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: So Paul's um the change he wanted to see was spreading kindness in the world.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so knack was gonna be his mechanism for creating that change.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was a mechanism of spreading kindness by starting with coffee.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so this meant that we had to start with a very clear vision.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, the vision that we had was um about, you know, this wasn't gonna try to change the world for everyone.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: This was very specifically for those people who go to coffee shops often, um, who are, you know, going to coffee shops to buy coffee, um, and who want to engage in this random act of kindness, right?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: So we had that vision, but then it it's important to have a strategy, because a strategy is how you translate a vision into a set of actionable steps.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we thought about, you know, why aren't people doing this?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: Why are they only getting coffee from this app?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: But why are they not giving coffee?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the main reason, the pain point, it turned out, was that people just weren't used to doing this.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: They, you know, they're a bit hesitant to try something that they've never done before.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: They've never given someone, bought a coffee for someone.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so that was the pain.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so, in terms of a solution, we had to devise a way to get them used to buying someone a coffee without having to pay for it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: They had to learn without having to pay for it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Paying for it was kind of the obstacle.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so, how could we deliver on the power of the solution?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Paul went and talked to brands to sponsor free coffees on this app, and that allowed us to uh devise a new feature.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Each person would get two free coffees from the brand, one of which you could consume, the second you had to gift, you could not consume it.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so now all of a sudden, these people were starting to give away free coffees, right?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so, uh, and by the way, we also the fourth element of strategy, which I didn't talk about, is um what is your business model?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Very often startups go like, oh, we'll figure out the business model after we get traction, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: But no, we said, okay, our business model was we're gonna get a percentage of the branding's uh brand sponsorship.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so going back to the feature, this enabled us to develop a feature where you get two coffees, one you consume, the other you must give.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And how we measured success was really derived from our strategy.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't about revenues and uh the number of people using the site, using our app, etc.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was about what is the percentage of people who are now spending their own money on giving um uh spreading this random act of coffee.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it turned out after we did this feature that initially it was zero percent, right?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: But after this one feature, without any optimization, 27% of people who got a free coffee and had to gift one, the way they learned to give coffee, 27% of those people were now spending their own money to do this random act of kindness.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So this is radical product thinking.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: When you think about your product as a mechanism for creating change, and then you very systematically translate it into a set of actionable steps.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can never arrive at this by just saying, oh, let's just try and see what works in the market, right?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that just leads to product diseases.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um, what we can do instead is if we want to build world-changing products, we can be very systematic in how we create change, and that's the essence of radical product thinking.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: That is that is awesome because one of my questions that I was going to follow up with is this entire notion that we're now in a culture where we're actually focusing a lot on iterations, and I think what happens is that becomes an endless loop of sorts.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh ultimately you also have given a name to it, you've called it the iteration epidemic, right?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh one of my the first question that I have for you, which I found very fascinating, is what made you come up with the notion of actually naming these product diseases?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, how does it affect the entire product development lifecycle?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, one of the things that I really wanted to happen is to get people to talk openly about these product diseases.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because you know, all of us, like no organization is perfect, and every organization I've come across has at least one of these diseases that are happening.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um the first step in curing these diseases is to be able to talk about it, diagnose it, and then we can say, okay, now what needs changing?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: How do we fix this, right?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Without that dialogue, we'll never get better.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so those disease names help us diagnose those diseases and talk openly about it because you know, I'm not talking about this from my high horse of saying, you know, others have caught it.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: These have been diseases, diseases that I've caught as well.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so this is why it's important to name it and start talking about it openly.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's a very Patrick Winston sort of an approach because he always says if you don't name it, you'll always be afraid of it.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I'm I'm getting my reference right.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: So my next question is I think one of the core fundamentals of being a product professional, at least in the in the framework of radical product thinking, is about setting the right product vision, right?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: So for the success of NAC and the way that it actually transformed and that actually changed behaviors for the better, the vision had to sort of be instilled not just in the team that is actually building the product, but also with the consumers that are actually utilizing the service, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, where do you see gaps and how should teams work to get these things right?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: So there is synchronicity between intention and output or outcomes.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think one of the fundamental issues in how we think about a vision today, and what we've learned about what a good vision is, um, is that we've learned, you know, a good vision has to be broad, aspirational.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, every VC will ask you, you know, what's your BHAG or your big hairy audacious goal?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And for years we've touted vision statements like uh, you know, to be number one or number two in every market, which was GE's vision statement, that that was, you know, visionary, right?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: In reality, those are the kind of vision statements that are the root cause of many of these diseases.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, a vision statement, when it's so broad, like anything fits under that vision.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's no longer acting like a North Star that points the way where you can hold up a feature against that vision and say, you know, should we do this or not?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes the answer should be no, we should not do this, right?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: A broad vision statement is like, yeah, let's just do it, you know.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um so the starting point is that we have to define our vision based on what is the problem that you want to see solved and why are we solving it, and how will you solve it?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I talk about it as the who, what, why, when, and how questions.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning, whose world are you trying to change, knowing that it's not everyone's world?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what does their world look like?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning, what exactly is their problem?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Why does that need changing?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning, why is the status quo absolutely unacceptable?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: And if it's not unacceptable, by the way, we have no business starting that uh that product.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then we can say, when will we know that we've arrived?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning, what does the world look like when we can hang up the mission accomplished banner?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally, this is where we can talk about our technology or product.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: This is finally where we say, how can we bring about this world?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so in the radical product thinking way, you know, instead of starting with a blank sheet of paper and trying to answer these questions and playing vision bingo for hours, uh, the idea is instead you start with uh fill-in-the-blank statement so that instead of focusing on the words and just wordsmithing, you can really just focus on answering these profound questions and you're not attached to the words, so that six months later, a year later, you can come back and review this vision statement and say, okay, what have we learned?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: What needs to change in this, if anything, right?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's a fundamentally new way of thinking about what a good vision is.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and that's the radical product thinking approach, so that we align a team on what problem we're solving, uh, and it shifts this mindset where the vision is just one person's to uh something where it's shared and shared between the team, but also you can share this with a customer, and they should be really agreeing that this is the problem that they want to see solved, and they agree with your solution.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: So uh one of the things that I uh I heard you talk, uh Radika, was this bringing this product vision alive.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: You gave a brilliant example of the Chevi versus the Tesla EV product, where you really talked about how the product vision was completely different and it reached where it is today, the Tesla where it reached today versus where Chevi is in the EV product vision was telling.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you talk to us about how the product vision really changed in the case of Tesla versus in the case of Chevy and how did you see that as a problem?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you know, I I talk about the difference between uh being vision-driven versus being iteration-led uh in the book and why we need to be vision-driven as opposed to being iteration-led.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, let me maybe start off by talking about what the fundamental difference is between the two approaches.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: If I think about a game of chess, right, if you're just focusing on optimizing for a few pieces that are under attack, uh you're you're not playing the long game.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: You're just finding the local maximum, and that's being iteration-led.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: In a business, you know, when we're thinking about, oh, competition is doing this, I'm gonna do this, um, or if you're thinking about kind of a few offerings that are under attack and you're being reactive in the market, or you're being short-term driven, thinking about, you know, oh, I have my quarterly earnings, etc., that uh for which I need to deliver certain results, and your innovation is all geared towards you know showing those uh investor results, all of that is being iteration-led so that we can continuously just make small improvements to deliver on the short term.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: When you're vision driven instead, right, if I look at the chess analogy, instead of focusing on just the local maximum, you're thinking about the global maximum, meaning you're thinking about the best chess moves across the entire board.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and to do that, you can't just be thinking, oh, I'll try a few things and see what my opponent does.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: You kind of need a starting plan for where you're going, and and you're starting to play chess in using that plan, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: You might change your strategy along the way, but like you have a plan.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you're very systematically translating that into action.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: What that results in in terms of a product is you're playing the long game and you're creating transformative change in the world through your product.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so the two examples that you talk about, Chevy Bold was definitely iteration-led, whereas Tesla's model three was vision-driven.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so if I look at, you know, kind of why I arrived at that, there was um a famous auto expert, Sandy Monroe, who took apart these cars to really evaluate them piece by piece.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and he had a really interesting analysis on these two cars.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he talked about the Chevy Bolt, you know, he said it's a good little car and that's good value, you know.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: But about the Chevy, uh about the Tesla Model 3, you know, he was just so excited.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: He said, this car is not inching up, it's revolutionary.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: So why does he say that?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at the Tesla Model 3, you know, he said that in his entire career he had heard about this HAL effect in engines, which makes it 40% faster.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: It turns out that Tesla Model 3 is the only engine among EVs that actually uses this Hall effect.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: And he took apart the components and he was like, you know, he looked at one component and he said he didn't even know how Tesla was manufacturing this component.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: And he's been in the auto industry all his life, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: Tesla had created fundamental change through this product that was just interestingly, immensely efficient, and it's driven by a vision.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Their vision was to build an affordable car that doesn't require the driver to compromise for going green.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: On the other hand, right, the Chevy, he when he opened it up, it looked very much like a traditional car, um, a gas car, except it was electric.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like there was nothing revolutionary about it.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was just a small incremental change.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so, you know, if if you talk about how the two did in terms of market and sales, the Chevy Bolt, you know, it did fine, but the Tesla was outselling the Mercedes Class C, uh, the BMW, um, I think Three Series plus the Audi A4 combined.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: So this is why, you know, we want to build vision-driven products as opposed to iteration-led so that we can play that long game.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: And until now, there hadn't been a methodology for how we can be more vision-driven.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: And without that, right, we keep defaulting to just being iteration-led.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but now with radical product thinking, my goal is to give every organization the ability to be vision driven so we can create such transformative products, and it's good for business.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of the uh questions, uh, the follow up questions that I have for what you just said, this is absolute common sense, right?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: To really say uh, you know, you need to have a vision thinking, uh vision driven.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking you need to really build groundbreaking uh you know products, build a uh compute compute completely revolutionary uh you know product if you really have to make an impact.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what stops organizations from really going this path?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: What have you seen as uh you know bottlenecks and challenges?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know it's interesting that you say that this is intuitive, right?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think when once we learn something, yes, it's intuitive.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um think about gravity.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Gravity feels intuitive to us, but there was one point where gravity was not intuitive.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think um you know when it comes to how do we how do we become vision-driven, um, some of the ideas they feel intuitive once we've heard about it.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: But until now, you know, like a vision was always this big grand thing.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, in fact, my own vision for my first startup was revolutionizing wireless.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like so, when we start with such a vision, right, what happens is it's it's almost like not having a vision at all.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Even though you have a vision statement, it's almost like not having a vision.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that means that in the absence of a vision, what truly takes over is your most urgent needs.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um so in the absence of a vision, all you can think about is the short-term survival needs, uh, whether it's your investor pressure in a large company, uh, in smaller startups, it's uh you know raising money and um it's always focused on the short-term.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's kind of where if you have a vision, like in the game of chess, if if you just don't have a vision for where you're going, you're always going to be just reacting to your opponent.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's the mode that we want to get out of uh and build a really clear vision for what's the change you want to bring.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, align teams on that so that we can um bring everyone with us on the journey and build better products.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think just to sort of take it up a little, just to take it up a notch, I think you also sort of extrapolated it at a different level when you said that if you think hard enough and if you think specifically enough, you can also think about a country as a product, right?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned Singapore about this uh with respect to this example.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, can you talk a little bit about what are the components of the country as a product and how do you get those things right?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're obviously involved with the Bank of Singapore, working with them, etc.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are your thoughts on that?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe I'll I'll share my story of uh so I lived in Singapore for two and a half years, and in fact, I came back in January this year.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'll I'll share my um how I even arrived at the fact that Singapore is built like a product.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the first day when I arrived in Singapore, uh, this was in 2018, we had to go get our work, um our employment passed, the the card, the work permit to be able to work there.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, my kids had been up since 2 a.m.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: We were jet lagged, uh, and I'm thinking, oh my god, this is gonna be a disaster when I arrive at this government office to get my work permit.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, we arrived there, and I'm so pleasantly surprised because you know, their waiting area is so pleasant and so uh calming, like any therapist's office, you know.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then someone came up, we had checked in, someone comes to us and says, Are you being helped?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: We're like, Yes, am I in the wrong place in a government office?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna be asked if I'm being helped.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um then I start looking around on the walls, and you know, it um there are all these signs about how you know we want to create a great customer experience, uh, that we want to give you certainty in the process.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, wow, I'm being called a customer?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, where am I?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so the process was just so amazing.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: In the span of 30 minutes, you know, we were done and out the door.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my kids, even though they were jet lagged, there was a cozy kids' corner where they could hang out, uh, in terms of giving you certainty and making the process easier.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know how most government offices expect you to arrive with photos being taken?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's not hard for them to take a picture.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, in this government office, they took a picture and even showed it to me, saying, Is this okay?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: Would you like me to retake it?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it was just amazing.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, what was the reason behind this, right?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it turned out that their vision is to attract uh talent in Singapore.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and as a result, they really wanted to make it really easy and a friendly experience to get your work permit.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that their whole solution was designed with that vision in mind.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so after having this experience, I was just so, I don't know, flabbergasted, stupefied by how they were doing this.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: I started doing research on Singapore, and it turned out that the entire country is designed like a product from their moment of existence.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: So most people don't realize this, but Singapore came out of being a failed merger with Malaysia.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, nobody thought that the country would actually survive.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Even the first prime minister in his first press conference, you know, he got emotional saying, all my life I thought Singapore's place in the world was with Malaysia.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that was because Singapore doesn't have any natural resources except for the port, even though drinking water comes from Malaysia.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: And if you think about like where Singapore is today is an economic powerhouse, it's driven by a very clear vision.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: The first prime minister had the vision that he wanted to create a better life for Singaporeans.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: That was the change he wanted to bring about.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: His product was Singapore, and he talked about it as a first-world oasis in a third world region.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: He talked about it as a platform where businesses can come in and explore uh the Asian region.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was the vision.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: He had a strategy.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't just going to be like uh flippantly carried out and iterated on, right?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so the strategy was um, well, what do businesses need in such an oasis?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if businesses are coming from the West, it needed to be really easy to communicate for these businesses.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: So they made English the business language.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: That was the solution.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: But let's think about countries uh which have gone into civil war when you have ethnic diversity and you pick one language over others, right?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they'd learned from that.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And they weren't just going to pick a language.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um there are three, sorry, there are four officially recognized languages that are taught in schools, which is Chinese, Tamil, Malay, and English.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: English just happened to be the business language, but they respect all of these mother tongue languages.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so everything was very systematically engineered to bring about the change that they wanted and build Singapore like a product.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what really uh amazes me.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: It made me realize that anything can be your product, no matter what we're doing, whether it's in government, uh, nonprofits, um, businesses, startups, no matter what you're doing, even if you're freelancing as a contractor, you have a product and we can create change very systematically.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we now are in a very interesting time where uh I think if you look at the past, they would always say that every company that grows large enough becomes a bank eventually.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: That used to be uh the tone of the time, so to speak, right?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you made a very interesting proclamation of sorts where you have basically said that all companies today are product companies, and if they are, they will eventually end up becoming a product company.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when you are in a traditional services company, for example, how do you really get them to adopt product thinking?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you actually what are some what are some fundamental principles to actually start thinking about product when you're actually making that jump?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's a really interesting question.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think for every company, I think we need a clear picture of what's the change you're trying to bring about.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: So even if you're a services company, what is your vision for the change you want to see for your client?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a services company in Mexico, they do a lot of uh outsourcing for AI.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they were one of the first people who found radical product thinking organically.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: This was back in 2017, and they they came up to us at a conference and were sharing how they were using this.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so the way the services company was using radical product thinking is you know, they realized that their clients would come to them and say, Okay, we want all of this.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, even they didn't realize, so what is your vision?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: What are we trying to do here?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so they worked on the vision statement with the client, they built a strategy, and that meant that the developers could do a better job because they understood the client so much better, had an intuition for what they were trying to achieve in the market, etc.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: But all of that, right, even the application of radical product thinking started with a pain point and a vision for what are we trying to do?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: Their vision was to service their clients better, make their team part of the client so that this team really understands what the trying what the client is trying to do.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh and they can they can make a truly valuable contribution.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, driven by that vision and uh the the strategy was then to apply radical product thinking with each of these clients.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I think similarly, right, no matter what we're doing in terms of um our company and and what we're which industry we're in, uh we can always start by, you know, what are we trying to solve, whether it's for clients or our customers, what are we trying to solve and how can we solve that better?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and that's where we can, once you have this vision and strategy, you can translate that into a set of decisions and how you're gonna bring that about.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the follow-up question, Radika, that I have is uh normally when you really have a vision like this, uh the product teams have a disconnected view of the product, right?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that's a real challenge that many companies face because there are fragmented teams or distributed teams working across multiple offices, and uh literally to get them to have a connected thinking itself is a challenge, and uh, how do you go about getting them to have a connected thinking and not have a disconnected view of a product?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you really want to build a world-changing product using radical product thinking, the fact that the disconnected view needs to be broken.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you really uh recommend uh the methodology and tactics to get this done?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, one of the first things that I usually do with teams is you know, the vision that we create, it's not just by one leader.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so yes, the leader has to kind of think through the who, what, why, when, how questions and write this vision statement I talked about.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: But as a whole product team, the value in this is doing it together as a group exercise so that everyone is aligned, no matter kind of where you are in the world and remote, etc., um, if you the the first thing to start with is a shared vision for what are we trying to do together.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so doing this group exercise and having each person fill out this vision statement and then talk about it so that you know we can all understand how each person thinks differently about the vision, where they're where we're aligned and where we're misaligned, that is the first step so that we can arrive at this shared vision.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: We can remove all those misalignments no matter where we are.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's after that first step, right?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: What's important is to actually have this vision feature in our everyday decisions.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: What often happens in organizations is you know, we write a vision statement and then it gets filed away for posterity, and our decisions don't seem to feature anything related to that vision or strategy, right?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: And we need to change that.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: So the way we can bring our vision into our work every single day is by using vision versus survival in this X and Y axis.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because intuitively, what we're doing as leaders is we're always training off the long term against the short term.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: So let's make those trade-offs really explicit so that there's no disconnect across the entire team on how do we make decisions.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: And this also, by the way, empowers teams.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: What often happens is our organizations are so hierarchical.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: Vignes, you were mentioning how every organization becomes a bank when it becomes big enough, right?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but how can you avoid that?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's by getting people to make decisions, but especially in larger organizations, um, how do you make sure that everyone's not just making their own decision and you know you kind of lose control of this ship?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so this vision versus survival is a good way of empowering people, but yet giving them an intuition for what's the right thing to do.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so once you define your vision and that's your x-axis, survival is basically what is your most urgent short-term risk to survival?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it could be financial risk, or maybe it's stakeholder risk, like for instance, you know, if you might get fired because your boss disagrees with how your product is doing, um, that may be, you know, your biggest survival risk.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so pick what is your biggest risk.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: And now, you know, when you have this X and Y axis, what's good for vision and survival, that's of course ideal.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the easy decisions we can make.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, harder decisions are when it's good for the vision, but it's not helping you survive in the short term.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the one example of this would be if you have to go refactor code for three months or you have to invest in a new product when your current product is a cash cow, you're investing in the vision.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: The opposite of investing in the vision is when you take on vision debt.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is where it's good for short term, but it's bad for your vision.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: When you encounter obsessive sales disorder because you know you're working on custom features to win a deal, it's helpful in the short term, but it's not good for your long-term vision.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where you're taking on vision debt.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so by talking about these quadrants, and every time there's a new opportunity, whether it's a sales opportunity or a new feature that you're building, a new product or a strategic initiative, you can plot it on this X and Y axis and share that with your team and say, you know, we're going to do this because it's ideal.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, this is hard for us, but we are going to invest in the vision.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but to invest in this vision, maybe we need to take on a little bit of vision debt.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: This is why we're doing it.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: That sort of alignment on sharing rationale and intuition for how we're making decisions is the most important thing a leader can do for their team because now, you know, instead of micromanaging teams, you're able to convey to them that intuition so that when you're not in that meeting, people are making the right decision.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic, Radhika.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of the concepts you talk about uh is vision as a source code, right?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: I really love that uh, you know, terminology of yours uh where you say it's not about a nice pithy statement, but think of vision as a source code.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let it be as uh you know uh as difficult as possible, let it be lengthy, let people understand it.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: So talk to me about vision as a source code.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, very often we think about visions, uh, we confuse vision with taglines, uh, and we think that a vision has to be memorable and therefore the short tagline.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: The reality is, you know, it can be an essay, um, which is kind of the radical product thinking approach, you know, when you answer the who, what, why, when, how questions, right?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and I'll share kind of what the radical product thinking fill-in-the-blank statement sounds like in a moment.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: But by making this the source code, um, when you think about this as the source code, the reality is this is what your product team needs to be able to build uh the product.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_02: They need that source code.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: Your marketing team can compile this build, create a clean build, and that's what they publish to the website, right?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the pithy statement you can share with customers who are passing by.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: But your team to be able to make decisions uh and know, like in a heated argument, are we being true to the vision?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's the source code that they need on the wall so they can really understand are we solving, are we still you know working on solving this problem?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: Are we on the right track to create the world that we envision together?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, fantastic.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you also talk about another terminology, which is uh, you know, uh vision statements as APIs, right?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: I really loved that idea because uh you talked about uh functional teams having their own vision, but they serve almost like an API to the larger vision.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just elaborate on that idea?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and maybe this is where I'll share what the radical vision statement sounds like.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, this is what the vision would sound like for a startup that I founded in 2011 and sold in 2014.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: Today, when amateur wine drinkers want to find wines that they're likely to like, they have to pick attractive-looking wine bottles or find wines that are on promotion.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: This is unacceptable because it leads to so many just disappointments and it's hard to learn about wine this way.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: We envision a world where finding wines you like is as easy as finding movies you like on Netflix.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: We're bringing about this world through a recommendations algorithm that matches wines to your taste and an operational setup that delivers these wines to your door.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the thing is, right, I had not told you anything about my startup at all, but at the end of this vision statement, you knew exactly what we were doing and why we were doing it.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so, vision is an API is the idea that every product team uses the same format to write their vision statement.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: And this way, in a very quick glance across the entire organization, you have a very clear picture of what each team is doing, you know, where there may be some overlap and where it's the things are very different.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're able to rationalize rationalize your portfolio, your product portfolio, by looking at these different vision statements.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and these vision statements can kind of cascade where you know every product leader may have, let's say, two or three different products under them.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: You kind of make sure that these products are aligned by making sure that the same vision statement format is used across them.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: And similarly, in a really large company, you continue to go upwards like this till you reach the top of the organization, right?
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: But this approach really means that across the whole organization, everyone has a clear picture of who's working on what.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the other challenge uh that I see, and uh you've really brought that out in this book, you've just not looked at uh you know the developed world, but you've looked at companies from the developing world, right?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, I saw some very interesting examples of uh you know uh companies from Asia really uh you know applying this uh radical product thinking, and those examples were brilliant.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: Can you really talk to me about a couple of them where you really found it absolutely inspirational in the way they you know did this radical product thinking and put them into uh you know action?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so thank you for bringing that up because it was really near and dear to my heart.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: One of the problems that I see is you know, all the business books that are out there, um, they're really focused on the Silicon Valley view of the world.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and honestly, it's this white male privileged view of what a good product is, and we really need to change that.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: We need a global perspective on what does it mean to build world-changing products?
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because honestly, when we have just this Silicon Valley-centric world view, uh, we're not building products that are good for everyone.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's just, you know, a select few.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we can we can do this differently.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: We can build products that make um that work for all as opposed to just a select few.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to bring in this global perspective, and one of the examples, the the highlight of my examples is the example of Lijit.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so what's interesting about Lidjut is uh you know they own 60% market share in Papar.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: They um and this is and the rest of the market share is really fragmented between so many players, they really dominate the market.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they have over$220 million in revenue uh annual, and it's owned by 45,000 women who are all equal partners in this organization.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so what's amazing to me is that this is really driven by a vision.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: And the way it Lyd started was it was uh seven women who wanted to earn a dignified living, they didn't want to be dependent on their husbands, they wanted to be able to contribute to household spending and educate their kids, but they just didn't have uh the literacy and the education to be able to go get a job.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so they didn't want to take charity, they really wanted to do something, and they felt like the only skill that they had was cooking.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so these seven women started making puppers and uh they rolled puppers on the top of the terrace, and they decided that they would split profits and losses equally amongst the seven of them.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so the first day they went and sold these papers, and it actually, you know, shopkeepers bought them and gave them orders for more.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so soon they these seven women became 25 women, then they became 300, and they no longer fit on the terrace.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: But what is amazing to me is that that model where we're all equal partners that the seven founders started, they kept that same model.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't choose to go the get rich quick scheme of then you know creating automation and factories and just employing women.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: All of these women were equal partners and they continue to grow that model.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: And to this day, um, Lijit has 45,000 women who are all equal partners.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, if you think about just how amazing that is, the fact that if if you think about a law firm, can you imagine, regardless of seniority, everyone splitting profits equally?
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's mind-blowing, right?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so, how does Lijet do this?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's because it's a very clear vision that Lijet has.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that vision was to give women financial independence.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was about the fact that uh this was never going to be a charity, and these women deeply believe in it.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: But they also had a strategy, right?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the strategy was that the women they needed to work from home.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: They could not, like they had to be the main caregivers in this society that they lived in.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um they could not leave home for long.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so their entire operational model at Lydget accommodates that.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so these women are taken by buses to the center, they pick up their dough, go back home, roll it, come back the next day with the rolled papers, get paid, pick up new dough, and then the cycle repeats, right?
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um all of this, you know, their business model to be able to pay these women every day, they don't take credit, nor do they give credit.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like their entire business model is very systematically designed to be able to give these women financially and financial independence and empower them.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that's why it was just so meaningful to me.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, you can't have this organization of 45,000.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, Lidit is known for its quality, right?
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and if you think about the fact that these women are rolling puppets at home, that could be such a disaster in terms of quality.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: But that vision for why this is so important, why this model is important, is so you know important to every single woman rolling puppets that they are uh very picky about quality themselves.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's why Lyd's business model actually works.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so yes, that's why it was so important to me to share this example of women being visionaries.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: We only think of people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs being visionaries.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_02: We need to expand that view.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I mean, just just to walk, just go along the same lines.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's an entire section of your book to discuss ideas related to ethics in product management.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not something uh one comes across as standard fair in the world of product management books.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so my questions are two-part of.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the first part is why did you decide to write about the role of ethics in product management?
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's about digital pollution, etc.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: And secondly, what's the response to it been?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm really interested to know that.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I didn't catch the second question, but I'll answer the first one first, but I'd love to hear the second one one more time.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so why did I want to include this view?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: What I realized at some point when we build products is that as a product manager, uh, our role is very much like a doctor.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: So a doctor looks at a patient and says, I see you have a problem, take this prescription and you know, come back to me.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: The doctor doesn't say, take this prescription and good luck, you know, whatever happens to you afterwards, you know, Godspeed kind of thing, right?
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can't, as a doctor, not take responsibility for what happens to your patient.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: You think about their well-being.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas when we build products, what we're doing, uh, it's actually very similar to a doctor.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: We're saying, you know, I see you have a problem, I'm prescribing my product so it fixes your problem.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: But think about Facebook and pretty much every other company.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: What we end up saying is, well, once you use my product, good luck, Godspeed, whatever happens to you, you know, it's it's your problem, right?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: And we just cannot do that.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, our role as doctors or product doctors, we're really prescribing something to people who have a certain problem.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: We're fixing it with our product, we're affecting people's lives, and that's the piece that we often forget.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: We affect people's lives, and with that superpower of building those successful products comes responsibility.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so what led me to write about it is the fact that you know, over the last decade, what I keep seeing is what I call digital pollution, where our products, as they become successful, we're creating collateral damage to society.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and just like industrial pollution, that was the byproduct of uh you know growth in the industry that was carefree.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what we're seeing is this carefree growth in the digital era is leading to digital pollution.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so, my goal with that chapter on digital pollution in the book is giving us a framework to really understand how our products are creating digital pollution.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, for instance, you know, in environmental pollution, we had to first learn about like how are we polluting the environment?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't really understand air pollution and soil pollution and water pollution, etc.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: We kind of had to identify it first to be able to start dealing with it.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: So, similarly, my goal was to create this framework to be able to understand how we're polluting digitally and the collateral damage we are creating.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I identified five types of digital pollution.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um the five types are right, the first is we're increasing inequality in the world through our products.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, whether it's through business models, um, for example, the gig economy, uh, it really reduces the security that employees have.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they bear more of the risk that things go badly in your business and they're bearing all the risk that they don't have any jobs anymore, right?
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: So we create inequality through that.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: We also create inequality through the algorithms that we have that favor some people over others, like Google, for instance.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at uh women and what jobs they see, they're not the higher paid jobs compared to what what ads they would, what job ads they would show men, for example.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um the second type of digital pollution is the attention hijacking.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: The fact that you know your attention is the one finite resource in the world, and every company is vying for that attention, and that means that we're not able to really give our attention to anything.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: Everything gets reduced to a sound bite as opposed to having nuance.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and that means that you know when we don't absorb nuance, we don't um we aren't able to make this it's very easy to manipulate people uh with sound bites as opposed to nuance.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: Think about how we went to the Iraq War.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: There were sound bites about how Saddam Hussein was, you know, a madman and uh and had weapons of mass destruction.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: Those were all just sound bites instead of a nuanced picture of what was really happening, right?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um so this attention hijacking is a problem.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, another big area is the erosion of privacy.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: There is no democracy without privacy.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we cannot, because you know, erosion of privacy affects free speech.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and without free speech, we don't have democracy.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh another one is the misinformation, where it's easy to get information, uh, but it's hard to gain knowledge, where you no matter how much you're doing fact searching, it's hard to tell what's fact and what's fiction.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then the last one is ideological polarization, uh, which is a lot of what we're seeing today in every country, right?
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so these five types of pollution are really the most important ones where we're eroding the fabric of society through this collateral damage.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: And we have to be honest about how we're contributing to these types of pollution so that we can start to embrace the responsibility that comes with building successful products.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so much gets me to my second part of this question, which is this is a highly opinionated section because it deals largely with going against the grain of what uh traditional product thinking across large organizations and startups based out of uh the United States and Europe largely uh functioned with as the way they think.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so my question is, what's the response been like to these set of opinions that you actually dedicated an entire section to in your book?
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting you asked me that.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: It has been very polarizing.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'll tell you one story which I've not told anyone.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: There was someone who had whom I had asked um to write the foreword of my book.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this is someone in Silicon Valley and uh uh part of that ecosystem, right?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: And uh originally this person had said yes, that they would write the foreword.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: But once they read about this digital pollution and kind of how I'm calling out the collateral damage our products are creating, this person backed out.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: And my editor told me that in her entire career she had never seen that happen, where someone says yes to writing the foreword and then backs out.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um and honestly, like I am very glad that that happened.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I think the book is um is it is is written with a vision, um, and this was the right vision.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'm absolutely not regretful of that at all.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: But you're right that this challenges our thinking and our very often what I hear is well, there was no place for digital pollution and Hippocratic oh, the product in this book.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: It really should be a separate book.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that, you know, building successful products, that's what we should be focusing on.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um I my opinion and why I feel like ethics and um and digital pollution is an important part, is that right now our view of business as you know having the only goal of uh pursuing profits is truly mistaken.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: What we think is business is about pursuing profits, charities are about you know doing good in the world.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: Don't mix those two.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: The reality is, right, businesses touch many more lives than charities do.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: We affect many more lives than charities do.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and our societies are becoming worse off.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like the new generation no longer thinks that technology and companies building products, etc., uh, that it is creating progress in the world.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of the people that I talk to actually in this new generation, they actually say, you know, I don't want to have a kid in this world.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like I feel like uh it's not fair to bring a child into this world.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that is a profound shift for me.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like growing up, I always saw business and technology and uh all of these things as creating progress in the world, and that has profoundly changed with this new generation.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I feel like the way we can build our businesses is be profitable, but also be vision-driven so that we don't create unabated digital pollution.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that there is a place for charities, it's an important place.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but this the the vision of creating a world that works for all can't be left to charities, uh, that businesses have an important role in that.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's awesome.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I think we have another nine minutes to go, ten minutes to go.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we can proceed to the next section, which is we have something like a rapid fire round.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to see.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a couple of questions lined up for you, and we're really excited to hear what your thoughts are on these questions that we have uh written.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so my first question to you, the uh to uh you, Radhika, is uh what are some of the books that have uh influenced you or influenced you on your thinking?
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_02: Ah um okay, well, get ready for if I give you my reading list, you're also gonna need a stiff drink afterwards.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, here it goes, right?
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um the first one uh that was uh deeply meaningful to me was Edward Snowden's read.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's called Permanent Record.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it talks about you know um how a lot of the mass surveillance tools work and kind of why that is a problem for democracy.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, another book is a fiction book, which is Corey Doctrot's Attack Surface, which talks about the same, but in the fiction model.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the funny thing is, I read Cory Doctorow's book first and thought, oh my god, this is scary.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: Then I read Edward Snowden's and thought, well, this is not fiction, this is all real.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so yeah, brace for that.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, another book that I read that I highly recommend is something called The Tyranny of Merit.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it really opened my eyes to the fact that, you know, we all think about meritocracy as the ideal society, that a meritocratic society is a good one.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: It turns out, and this uh professor of philosophy from Harvard proves out why a meritocratic society is not necessarily a good one.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um and maybe one last book that I'll share that really influenced me is the Invisible Women.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it talks about how the entire world is really designed uh for men, uh, and uh and it gives this through examples from seat belts to you know how cities are designed.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's a fascinating read that really helps us understand the importance of thinking about how we should design for everyone and the importance of diversities on diversity on teams so that we can design a better world that works for all.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I have a question for you, Radhika.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: What does the word uh successful mean to you?
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm so glad you asked that question.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think you know, I've really worked on my definition of success.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and in this book, like I feel like I'm applying some of those definitions myself.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, success to me, uh, first of all, when it comes to a product, um, is about are we creating the change we intended in the world?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and the the example of NAC that I was talking about at the very beginning of our call, you know, to me, you know, NAC was successful only if it was creating that change of spreading kindness.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what we ended up measuring.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, you know, for me, success is changing how we build products, like um creating a more vision-driven approach uh to create meaningful change in the world.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: The book was, you know, written in this vision-driven way, applying radical product thinking myself.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_02: How I measure success is um whether people are able to use this approach to create change in whatever area that they're doing it.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not measuring success, you know, on any other financial terms.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and what I'm truly uh feeling rewarded by is the fact that there are so many people who have reached out to me talking about how they're now applying radical product thinking uh to create change um in various areas in the world.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so Radhika, my next question to you is uh if you could invite uh four people for your dream dinner, who would they be and why?
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, for a dream dinner, um well, I think if I uh that's a hard one to answer.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um see, I think for me a dream dinner is with the closest friends and family.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so um, yes, uh it would be uh with my family, and so that's already three people.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh but but okay, maybe outside of that uh it would be some of my best friends.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_00: What are the five or six things that you would recommend an 18-year-old studying at an university today?
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, interesting.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one of the things I would say is, you know, we focus so much on just grades and how well we're doing.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_02: The reality is grades just don't matter.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_02: And don't tell your parents I said that.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_02: But but uh the reality is what really matters is what you've learned, being resourceful, really taking initiative, um, and learning because you love learning.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that's hard sometimes, uh, but this movie Three Idiots really captured it for me.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh, and I feel like we just need to to at least for ourselves think about learning as something that makes us better humans um and and learn for the sake of the love of learning.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so my question is uh what's the best piece of advice anyone's ever given you?
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, um I think okay, the best piece of advice I've gotten is a mentor once said to me that, you know, every four years you should look back on yourself from four years ago and feel completely embarrassed.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the other piece of it was that you know, the faster you learn, um, the shorter that time frame becomes.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll say that, you know, about every six months I look back at myself and feel completely embarrassed about all that I didn't know.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I feel like that's a good thing.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, before I got this advice, I think it's very easy to be perfectionist and always think about the mistakes that you've made.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and this really made me feel like, well, I've learned so much.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what is something you believe that nobody else agrees with you on?
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: Huh, that nobody else agrees with me on.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um I uh well, that's a hard one.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody else agrees with me on.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know that there's something that absolutely no one disagrees with me.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's brilliant.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: Looks like uh, you know, uh you have a whole host of uh uh, you know, uh things that people agree with you on, which itself is a rare thing, so that's brilliant.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it's kind of like the the thing on gravity, right?
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like I feel like I'm uh you can't really disagree with being vision driven.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, Radhika, thank you so much for being on Contraminds, and here's my final question to you.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, who is someone whom you would like to see as a guest on Contraminds?
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, uh someone who I think is incredibly vision-driven, and I talk about him in the book, um, is uh the head of the monetary authority, Ravi Menon.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think you know, he thinks about finance in a way that is very unique in this world.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he wants to create, uh he wants to make finance a force for good.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I thought that that was truly that that blew my mind, you know.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like we talk about um how this changes people's ideas, but you know, I honestly never thought of thought finance could be a force for good.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: So listening to him, uh it really opened my eyes to that possibility.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Radhika.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for your time.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was absolutely brilliant, and uh uh really uh I didn't realize that uh we spent about an hour talking about uh radical product thinking and some of your uh deeper insights around our rapid fire questions.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks a lot for that, also.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks so much for having me on.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_02: This was such a pleasure.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: I really enjoyed our conversation.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and the book, by the way, it's going to be available in India.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be published by Penguin Random House.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Radical Product Thinking, the New Mindset for Innovating Smarter.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and people can free, feel free to also reach out to me on LinkedIn.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and one last thing is you can also download the free toolkit.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, a lot of the elements that I talked about, they're in the free toolkit on radicalproduct.com.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to add the link to all those things on our show notes wherever we're going to publish.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much, Black.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to this episode.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: For selected links and detailed show notes.com slash.