Latest / Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson / How Radical Product Thinking Turns Vision Into Daily Action with Radhika Dutt

Transcript

How Radical Product Thinking Turns Vision Into Daily Action with Radhika Dutt · Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is where ideas spark, connections grow, and collaborations fuse success.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Tune in for inspiring stories, expert insights, and game-changing conversations.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Let's build, connect, and thrive together.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, collaboration is the key to success.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, welcome to the ReadySet Collaborate Podcast with Wanda Pearson, where collaboration is the key to success.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is a Powerhouse and Innovative Leadership Radica Dut.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is that say it right?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ducks.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that author of Radical Product Thinking, the new mindset for innovating smarter.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, Rackler, say hello to the audience.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, everyone.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited to be here, Wanda.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm excited that you reached out to me.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's about educating and empowering people and letting people know what you do and how you can help them as far as going forward.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of things, I always say collaboration is the key to success, right?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let me read your bio and let's get this party started.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Radical Dut is the author of Radical Product Thinking, the new mindset for innovating smarter, which has been translated into Chinese and Japanese.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: The mythology she introduced in her first book is now used in over 40 countries.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: She is an entrepreneur, speaker, and product leader who has participated in five acquisitions, two of which were companies that she founded.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: She actually advisor of she's actually the advisor, currently the advisor of product thinking of the monetary author of Singapore's central bank and financial regulator, and does consulting and training for organizations ranging from high-tech startups to multinationals on building radical products that create a fundamental change.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love that Radica because, you know, me coming from corporate anyway, we'll get into that.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about that here.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So Radica has built products in a wide range of industries, including broadcast, media, and entertainment, telecom, advertising, technology, government, consumer apps, robotics, and even you say even wine?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 2:19
  unknown: Okay.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to have a glass of that right now.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Even wine.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: She graduated from MIT with an SB and M-N-E-N-G in electrical engineering, speaks nine language.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is awesome.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Radical is now working on her second book.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's about why goals and targets backfire, what actually works.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So this is very impressive, Radica.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I really love this, but you got me on the wine.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: I guess the theme in my career has been that I've never held two consecutive jobs in the same industry.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think Wanda, where you chose focus and a corporate role for a really long time in one industry, mine has been all over the place, in every possible industry and all the way from government to startups to multinationals.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it kept it kept things spun up.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it does.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: It enhances your what you can teach everyone.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you said you speak nine languages.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me the nine languages that you speak, please.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's aside from English, it's Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese, Afrikaans, which are spoken in South Africa, and then Hindi, Tamil, and Marathi, which are three different Indian languages, even with different scripts.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's impressive.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's great because then you can understand what people are talking about as you want to get forward.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to translate it because you already speak it, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: It is fun sometimes when you can listen in our conversation and then you can spring in saying, and people say are shocked.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So where are you from originally?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm from India, and I lived there till I was 12, and then we moved to South Africa and we moved there right after apartheid laws were abolished in 1991.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we lived there till 95.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: I lived there till 95 when the first democratic elections happened.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then I came here to the US for undergrad.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, South Africa during its momentous days.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know because I can hear the accent.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love the accent that you only because I because my my VA is actually from South Africa.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So she's just in South Africa.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've had her for over five years now.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the accents that you have, even London, all these places all coming together.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I had to say, where are you from originally?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know you live in Boston.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I just like to make people guess you're just lucky I didn't play that game with you today.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I would have caught it because you do sound like this fact.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so fascinating.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're one of the rare people.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely, definitely.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to ask that question.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So your book, Radical Product Thinking, challenges the traditional approach to innovation.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: What inspired you to create this new mindset?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: So what I was seeing was product diseases.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And what do I mean by product diseases?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to mention a few, and I think our listeners, it's going to resonate for them.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: One example is the product disease pivotitis, of where you keep pivoting from one shiny idea to the next.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Another example is obsessive sales disorder.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: This is where it's a disease I've contributed to too, which is basically your salesperson says to you with this glimmer in their eye, if you just add this one custom feature, we can win this multi-million dollar deal.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that sounds really tempting.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: So we say, Yeah, let's go for it.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: And pretty soon all of your roadmap is driven by everything you have to make good on.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: And another example of a product disease is strategic swelling, where your product is trying to do everything for everyone.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: It'll make coffee if you just ask nicely.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so these are product diseases that I'd caught.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a point where, through my experience, I had learned to avoid these product diseases.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: But then I was watching other people catch these diseases.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: And what led me to write radical product thinking was this burning question are we all doomed to just learning from failures and trial and error how to build great products?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Or is there a systematic step-by-step process that we can guide people through so that we can build those world-changing products and avoid product diseases?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what radical product thinking is about, to offer the step-by-step approach.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love that because I can relate to everything you're saying.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because I work I work with marketing reps in corporate.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, let's put this in there.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the customer, but everything you're saying, I can relate to, being for so long.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for explaining that.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: What do you call it?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Pivotitis?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you have?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea of pivoting because you have to pivot to another way.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's not gonna sell.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So let's try this way.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not to say that you shouldn't pivot.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's pivoting is important.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that you have to pivot with gravitas because if you keep pivoting, your team feels whiplashed where you're switching from one idea to another.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: When you pivot with gravitas, you have clarity of what exactly is our vision, a detailed vision.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: So people understand what is the problem we're setting out to solve.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: And when you pivot, there has to be clarity on what did we learn?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Where did we go wrong?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: What are we going to try next?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Why are we trying that next?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: When you have this level of clarity, then you bring everyone with you on the journey as you pivot.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's how you don't catch pivotitis.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love it how you just explained that.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: It makes perfectly sense.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you often say innovation should start with a clear vision, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do leaders begin defining that vision effectively?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I love this question.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's close to my heart because what we've been taught is writing these big fluffy vision statements like empowering the world to express themselves and thereby creating progress for humanity.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's what does that even mean?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's the vision for Snapchat.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: But honestly, creating progress for humanity by expressing yourself, like that could be a fashion brand, it could be a sticker company, it could be a dance studio, it could be anything, right?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Anything goes when you have these big fluffy visions.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: Being the leader in blah, blah, like again, fluffy vision that doesn't tell your team, what do I do to be the leader in blah?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so a good vision is something that defines a lot of the answers around whose problem are you addressing?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: What is their problem?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Why does that problem need to be addressed?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because honestly, maybe it doesn't.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Then we can answer what is the end status you envision it.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally, this is finally where you've earned the right to talk about your product, is how will your product bring it about?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so here's an example of a radical vision statement.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is the fill-in-the-blank statement in the vision uh in the radical product thinking book, written for the wine startup that I told you about.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Here it goes.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Today, when amateur wine drinkers want to find wines that they're likely to like and learn about wine, they have to find attractive-looking wine labels or find wines that are on sale.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: This is unacceptable because it leads to so many disappointments, and it's hard to learn about wine in this way.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: We envision a world where finding wines you like is as easy as finding movies you like on Netflix.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: We're bringing about this world through a recommendations algorithm that matches wines to your personal taste and an operational setup that delivers these wines to your door.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good one.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because I actually did find a wine.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I never heard of chocolate wine.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: You ever heard of chocolate wine?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love it now.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Chocolate wine.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you think about it, it has a lot of alcohol.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I said, wow, this is really interesting.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like I'm drinking chocolate milk.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you got to be very careful that you're not drinking a chocolate milk.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so chocolate wine that they actually have out there now.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm part of a wine wine club, and we taste different wines.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: But no, I love how you you put that in perspective here.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, like one thing you get out of that whole vision statement is I hadn't told you anything about the wine startup.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: All you knew was that it was about wine.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: But hopefully, after that vision statement, you knew exactly what problem we were solving and why.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the level of detail that your vision needs to have to be a good vision, so that it acts like a filter.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes you need to be able to ask, should I do this or not?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And when you look at the vision, it says, no, don't do it.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: And when you have these broad, floppy vision statements like contributing to human progress, then anything goes.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not a good filter.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: That really makes sense.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of us do write that vision statement.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: When we open up, we have our websites.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is your vision?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to do?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually what I do.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I coaching, I coach and consult people about their vision.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: What do you encounter?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to be when you grow up?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's the vision that you're putting out there.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that's great.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: So many entrepreneurs chase quick wins, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: How can they balance short-term success with long-term purpose?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love this question because even when you have a really clear vision, you have to balance that against the short-term business needs.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is where, as a leader, by the way, you realize that you have this intuition that you've built for how do you balance long-term against short-term.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: And what I call it is the yin and yang of long-term versus short term, but for your team, you can make this yin and yang very explicit on an X and a Y axis.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: So your Y axis, is this good for the vision or not?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the X-axis, is this good for survival or not?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: So survival is the short term and the vision is the long term.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so things that are good for vision and survival, those are the easy decisions.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: But if you always just stick to the easy decisions, then sometimes you're still being myopic.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes you have to invest in the vision.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's where it's good for the long-term vision, but it's not good for the short-term survival.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: So an example of that is if you're focusing on, let's say, training, if you're focusing on taking some time to refactor your code and fix some technical debt, then you're investing in the vision.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: And the opposite of investing in the vision quadrant is what I call the vision debt quadrant.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: This is the quadrant that's good for short-term survival.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, maybe it's going to help you win that mega million dollar deal, but it's not good for the long-term vision because it requires building custom features that's not scalable.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's vision debt.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: So remember some of those product diseases we talked about, like obsessive sales disorder.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: When you take on a lot of vision debt, then you catch obsessive sales disorder.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so to answer your question, how do you balance long-term versus short-term?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's really looking at the opportunities and the initiatives and how are you balancing these quadrants, right?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you just take on mostly easy decisions, you have to consider maybe I should also be investing in the vision.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you find yourself doing a lot of vision debt, you have to consider maybe you honestly need that to survive if you're a bootstrap startup.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe you could consider how am I going to invest in the vision?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: How would I move upwards to that easy decisions quadrant?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Only you know what is right for your business, because you know what is the right trade-off in terms of vision versus survival.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: But what is important is to align the whole team on how you're balancing the two so that you can scale as a leader and collaborate better.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because even when you're not there in that meeting, maybe you're away on vacation, maybe you know, you just want to scale as a leader and not be in every meeting.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: But when you have communicated to your team how to balance that vision versus survival, you know that if you're not in that meeting, that people are still going to think like you do on that vision versus survival and make the kinds of decisions you would have.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great thing.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we the next question is about you talk about turning vision into reality through deliberate innovation.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can you explain how radical product thinking helps organizations do that?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a way of very systematically translating that vision into everyday actions.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so we talked so far about having that detailed vision for your team, right?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: So basically, the way I like to talk about this in construction analogy is, you know, when you have fluffy vision statements like revolutionizing wireless, which was, by the way, a mistake I made in my first startup.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: That was our vision statement, where I still don't know what that meant, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: When you have a vision statement like that, it's like telling your team, I want the biggest, baddest house.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas when you have a detailed vision like what I described, it's like giving your team a blueprint so they know what to construct.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Then you translate that into a detailed strategy that helps you define who are the personas I'm going after?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Who needs, who has the pain where they need my product?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: What is that problem that I'm addressing for them?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Then you can answer how is my product solving that problem for them?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: Then how is the underlying technology or the engine that is helping address those solutions?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally, how do I translate that into a business model, into sales channels, et cetera?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a comprehensive strategy.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then you can translate those, that vision and strategy into priorities, thinking about how am I balancing vision versus survival, which we just talked about.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally, you can translate all of this into agile or lean execution and measurement.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And this is, by the way, where that next book is coming in.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: How do you measure what actually matters?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of setting goals, figuring out puzzles that are getting in the way and overcoming those obstacles by figuring out those puzzles.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And how do you do puzzle setting and puzzle solving?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: So we can talk about that afterwards.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: But the point of radical product thinking is it's a framework that guides you through each of these steps so that you can very systematically translate your vision for change into everyday actions so that you can engineer the change you want to bring about.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to talk about collaboration.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: So collaboration, collaboration plays a role in innovation, right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So how can teams stay aligned with visions or priorities that are different?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you how's it different with the visions and the priorities that are different from everything that goes on in corporate?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And there are two pieces of this, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: The first one is the alignment on the vision itself.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And very often, and if you're in the corporate world, and maybe you're in a position of power, maybe you're not.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: If you're not in a position of power in the corporate world, going at this from the angle of we need to talk about our vision, we need more clarity, might be a very difficult word.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's going to be like, who are you to question vision?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're when you're not in a position of leadership, that is a tough sell.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: So the way I approach this sometimes is by starting on the vision versus survival quadrant, if I want to push back on a feature or an initiative, I draw it up on the vision versus survival and say, I feel like maybe we're taking on vision debt.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Here's why I say this is vision debt.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it triggers the conversation.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, are we aligned on the vision?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Are we aligned on survival?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that triggers conversations.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then you can have in your back pocket ready, maybe we're not aligned on the vision.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I understand of our vision together.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you can talk about that.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that sparks the conversation, maybe with leadership, saying, oh, I actually thought about the vision in this way.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: So this way you're not arguing just my opinion versus yours.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's more collaborative discussions.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's how you can have those more collaborative discussions.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the second thing I'll say in terms of what really destroys collaboration in an organization is targets.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Goals and targets destroy collaboration.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: Why do I say that?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because often one team might have certain targets they're chasing, another team has a different set of targets.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: How often has it happened where one team needs help from the other team and they say, guys, I can't help you right now.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: We're working on our targets.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: I see this in sales.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm chasing my targets.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: I can't help you right now.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: It leads to this erosion of collaboration because different teams are chasing these targets.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: So to this, people say, well, that just means you need to align your targets better.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: But it's not practical.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: What I find is that a mindset of puzzle setting and puzzle solving drives better collaboration.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of just setting targets, let's define what is the puzzle we're solving together.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll give you a quick example if that's helpful.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: When you're talking about sales, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: A sales target might be hit X million by the end of this year, and each person is a lone wolf chasing their target.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas a puzzle might be sales grew in the last three years.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: They've plateaued in this last year.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: What might be going on?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the puzzle requires asking tough questions.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Is it that something has fundamentally changed in the market?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe AI has brought about some changes that we haven't adapted to.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's that we knew how to sell to the early adopter.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: We haven't figured out how to sell to the mass market.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: How do we address the messaging for the mass market?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that's setting the puzzle.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: How do we solve these open questions so that we can get back to that growth trajectory?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: And now you can create collaborative learning by asking three questions as you solve puzzles, which is how well did it work?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: So whatever experiment, I'm going to try out new messaging.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: How well did it work?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: What did we learn?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: This is where we can say, oh, maybe this new messaging is getting us decision maker meetings.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that's working.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: We learned that we're getting meetings.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we learned that, oh, maybe there's one other group that we haven't been talking to that influences this decision maker.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: We need to be talking to them.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so the last question is, what will you try next?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is where we ask the question if I give you a magic wand, what will you ask for?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe this is where I'm going to create a webinar to talk to this group we've never been talking to before.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: So by doing puzzle setting and puzzle solving, we improve collaborative learning and working together.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you've applied your framework across industries, right?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Can you share a story of how a transwomen organization's approach to innovation?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: So there is a company I've been working with in the last two years.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: And when I started, they used to use targets for everything.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: They had targets for sales, for product teams, uh, and various metrics that product teams had to achieve on their product, like user engagement, time spent on site, blah, blah.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: We shifted from that to a mindset of puzzle setting and puzzle solving.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: So the puzzle was we're seeing that only this group of users is using the product.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's these tech savvy users.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the puzzle was, why aren't the tech averse users using it?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what happens often in companies is you would look at this question and you would jump to the solution.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: You'd go, okay, I'm gonna look at the data, I'm gonna be data driven, ta-da.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: I see the data is saying that everyone is complaining about filtering.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Let's look at all of this customer feedback.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna improve filtering, jump to the solution, ta-da.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: We instead decided to set the puzzle in a deeper way.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Is filtering the problem?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: Is it that do tech averse users work in the same way?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: How do they work?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: What do they do?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: How do they work differently from who's using our product today?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: We went and asked these questions and we looked, watched customers using our product.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Then came puzzle solving.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: We tried, once we understood the workflow, we could then try experiments.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: And we tried an experiment, right?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: We tried the workflow, we built that into a prototype.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: We also built a lot of automation into the workflow.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we asked the three questions.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: How well did it work?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't work.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Fascinating.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: So the workflow worked.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: People like the workflow, but they didn't like the automation.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you would go, I don't understand.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: Why not?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because these are tech averse people.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: If I automate things for them, wouldn't they like it?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: So the next question what did we learn?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: We figured out that these tech averse people, they actually don't like magic.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: They don't like that everything felt like magic.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: They don't trust magic.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: What they wanted was control.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: So the third question, what will we do next?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: So what we decided was we would keep the workflow.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: And instead of adding automation, we guide them through each step so they feel in control.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we gave them this user interface that guides them step by step.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this is how, you know, we kept setting and solving puzzles.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: And by doing that, we went from sales that had stalled in 2023 to doubling sales in 2024 and again doubling in 2025.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: This is how you can drive real results for your business as opposed to just setting targets.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense with that.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we're winding down, I can talk to you forever because you've really given some great information here.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, how can individuals, not just companies, use radical product thinking to live and work with more purpose?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: This, I love this question.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: One story that I write about in the book is that of Claudette Colvin.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: And Claudette Colvin, for those of us who might not have heard her name, she was one of the first people to ever get arrested for defying bus segregation uh rules in Montgomery, Alabama.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this was nine months before Rosa Parks, by the way.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: She refused to give up her seat.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's such a powerful story.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: I interviewed her for Radical Product Thinking.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I actually have a book, uh a picture of her holding the radical product thinking book, which is so meaningful for me.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: The story that I want to share about how individuals can use this is even whether or not you use this at work, but you can use this at work too, but you can think about how you're constantly balancing your vision against survival, right?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can have a North Star in terms of your vision and think about survival.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: And in the case of Claudette Colvin, right, if you think about her decision to not give up her seat, yeah, she was investing in the vision, right?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because it was good for the long-term vision, but it wasn't helpful for her short-term survival.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: And when I interviewed her, she said even that decision was a spur-of-the-moment decision.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: What truly showed her investment in the vision was her being a key plaintiff in that landmark Supreme Court case where she gave her testimony, her fiery testimony that decided, that led to the Supreme Court decision of abolishing bus segregation laws.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: That was truly her investment and her vision.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I asked her what was her vision.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: And she said that she wanted a world where everyone could share the same American dream.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: She was tired of all these grown-ups talking about that dream, but not doing anything about it.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what led her to investing in that vision.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: That story is so powerful for me, and I think it's so inspiring for us all to think about how do we balance vision versus survival?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: And we can apply this in our everyday lives.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I never heard of it before.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's good to know.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm definitely going to get your book.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, what advice would you give small business owners, creators, or even community leaders who want to think more radically about their products or services?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: So the first thing I'd say is you can get the free toolkit from the Radical Product Thinking website.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's the toolkit for radical product thinking where I talked about this vision, this approach to doing vision versus survival, et cetera.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you can also, from the same website, get the toolkit for puzzle setting and puzzle solving.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's called the OHL's Toolkit, and I'll send a link for that too.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: So our listeners can use all of those things.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: They're also very welcome to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: So as you apply these approaches, you're welcome to reach out.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to hear your experiences.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: You can get the Radical Product Thinking Toolkit.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, you can get the Radical Product Thinking book as well.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's on Amazon and in bookstores around you.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: And lastly, I'm working on this second book about why goals and targets don't work and how puzzle setting and puzzle solving works better.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: So as you use this framework for puzzle setting, puzzle solving, you're welcome to reach out to me and share your story.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it might just make it into the book as a case study.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: So one last question here.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: If listeners could take just one step this week toward becoming more radical thinking, what would it be?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: The first thing I'd say is just think about how you're balancing vision versus survival.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: No matter where you are on the corporate ladder, an individual contributor or the CEO, think about how you're balancing vision versus survival.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: And as you think about the initiatives or tasks that you're working on, whether it's good for the long-term vision and how it balances survival, whether it's good for survival or not, it'll give you a sense of where you're spending time and it'll help you feel for yourself whether, you know, it's making work soul sucking or energizing for you.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: What you'll notice is sometimes when you're taking on vision debt, the more vision debt you take on, it feels like you're deviating from the shared sense of purpose.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it becomes soul sucking when you're just piling on vision debt.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're investing in the vision, you'll see how that makes you feel.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: But also, if you have to fight in your company to invest in the vision, that might also be a source for a lot of stress and soul suckingness for you.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: So take some time just to think about where these initiatives that you're working on, where it lies, and it'll give us, give you a sense of how you're balancing things for yourself, what's energizing or not for you.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that makes work so much less soul sucking, more motivating and energizing for you.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: And you it'll also help you communicate better as a leader to be able to spread your influence and balance better long-term versus short term.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one step you can do right away.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you sharing that.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now tell us what you got going on and tell us how people can get in touch with you.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have it in the show notes.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna send me that link.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be in the show notes.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us how people can get in touch with you.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: So that's on LinkedIn.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Reach out to me on LinkedIn.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Just message me.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very easy to find there.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll share a link to my profile so people can reach out.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, yeah, also I like to work with companies for both speaking as well as consulting, training as well.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they're welcome to reach out to me with those opportunities as well.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, awesome.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: What a powerful and thoughtful, provoking conversation with Radica.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing your insights and showing us how radical product thinking helps leaders and innovators build their, build with purpose and not just passion.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I can see your passion in what you do, girl.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's just really, and I love it because I have the same kind of passion with what I do here.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: I can really tell.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if you'd like to learn more about or grab a copy of her book, visit radicalproduct thinking.com or follow Radical Dutch on LinkedIn and other platforms.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna have that in a Show notes as well.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: So this episode of ReadySet Collaborate with Wanda Pearson reminds us that when we align our vision with purpose, collaboration becomes a force that changes the world.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, I'm your host, Wanda Pearson.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Keep innovating, keep collaborating, and keep walking boldly in purpose.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Radica, for being on this show.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me, Wanda.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: That wraps up another episode of Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you found inspiration and valuable insights to help you build meaningful connections and successful collaborations.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to subscribe, share, and stay tuned for more great discussions.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, keep collaborating and making an impact.