Philip Crosby shook up the business world in 1979 with this big idea:
Quality is Free…but it is not a gift
Crosby forever changed what people expect from manufactured goods. He did this by re-framing the cost-quality equation. Previously, corporate leaders assumed it would be prohibitively expensive to build quality into every toaster and automobile. This belief led to a norm of low expectations. Consumers bought junk and accepted product failure. They couldn’t imagine a different, far less costly way of doing things.
Building on the work of W. Edwards Deming (largely in collaboration with Japanese companies, who were first to grasp the quality equation), Crosby’s Quality is Free opus made it obvious that poor quality was ridiculously costly and enormously wasteful.
Today people expect products to be well-designed and durable, because quality standards are widely understood to minimize overall costs.
In an era of unsustainable health care expenditures, it’s time to extend this revelation beyond man-made objects to encompass quality of life in our man-made environment.
Accordingly, today we launch our rallying Cause health, to accelerate demand for design that enhances health and prosperity on a global scale.
We believe that tolerance for wildly expensive pathogenic places must fade into history – to become as dim in anyone’s memory as a broken, ugly Pre-Crosbian Era toaster.
Salient questions are an antidote for blind spots.
But how can we get in the habit of asking better questions?
.
Maybe someday in the future somebody will build a ?-shaped learning center to emphasize the value of asking better questions when making important decisions.
A major “aha!” occurred for me about 15 years ago as I began to absorb the decision-making research of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Their “loss aversion” theory focused on “people’s tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains.“
In 2002, Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work (with Tversky, who died in 1996) on cognitive biases.
The significance of Kahneman’s work is highlighted by Janice Gross Stein in this Globe and Mail review of his recent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow:
“It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Daniel Kahneman’s contribution to the understanding of the way we think and choose…Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of happiness and well-being.”
Understanding loss aversion and cognitive bias research is vital for innovators who seek to attract support for their ideas. In my view, it underlines the importance of asking investigative questions in every encounter with potential clients, as well as with current project stakeholders. Otherwise, we may hear what we want to hear, interpret meanings that mislead us, and frame our pitches in ways that intimidate our audience unnecessarily.
- Sharon VanderKaay
Designed as a catalyst for societal change, our winning concept for health promoting “centres of influence” in South Africa represents a cognitive leap
.
Some situations warrant a big leap in our thinking; we can’t always rely on minor improvements to society’s existing models.
For example, consider the cognitive leap it would take to abandon today’s unsustainable, illness-centric model of so-called health care. Such a leap would involve thinking far beyond today’s mantra of prevention, to instead achieve health-centric living. In other words, salutogenesis instead of pathogenenis.
How could a leap of this magnitude be made? What would cause people’s habits and priorities to change?
Chris Turner has analyzed notable leaps in recent history to determine common ingredients for success. In other words, he recognizes how the seemingly impossible can become inevitable. In his new book The Leap: How to Survive and Thrive in the Sustainable Economy, he presents these and other ideas for instigating big change:
- recast change as a liberating economic opportunity, rather than an extra burden
- create a new understanding of value and necessity (note that it took 5,000 years to put wheels on luggage)
- help people create conditions that make the most of their lives
From a Globe and Mail book review:
Any energy leap, Turner says, also has to involve the restoration of public places. After Copenhagen took the automobile off its streets and gave pedestrians the freedom to stroll or cycle in the 1970s, urban life became human again. The Danes understand that there is life between buildings and that livable cities nourish culture instead of machines. The mayors of Bogota and Medellin also discovered that the best way to fight crime and poverty was to ban the automobile.
-Sharon VanderKaay
Roger Martin has said, “…the best innovators recognize mysteries, and are brave enough to dive into them.”
If we compare the information-gathering modes of two legendary TV detectives, we can see the enduring qualities of Lt. Columbo‘s (1968-2003) conversational style. In contrast to the linear mode of Dragnet’s 1950’s era Sgt. Joe “Just the Facts Ma’am” Friday, Columbo took the scenic route to solving intricate mysteries.
Lt. Columbo’s path of investigation may not have been direct or conventional, but it enabled him to collect diverse bits of valuable insight. The resulting level of understanding led him to his trademark (Just one more thing!) zinger revelations.
By contrast, Sgt. Friday was a information collector who saw problems to be solved. His MO was to nail things down as soon as possible.
As architects we engage in working through mysteries, beyond merely solving problems. In recent years the nature our business has changed from simply designing for clients to designing with clients and their stakeholders. Planning decisions require insight regarding current issues as well as in-depth knowledge to assess future scenarios. There’s too much at stake for us to treat this as a mere data collection investigation or a linear problem-solving effort. Nor will we add much value by manipulating obvious pieces of a puzzle until they fit.
In order to solve mysteries we need to think together with various client groups. Fifteen years of engaging in Columbo-style planning sessions have convinced us that this is best way to help clients make sense of issues they have not fully explored, and to bring fresh options forward that would otherwise be missed.
Joe Friday was an apt character for the 1950’s environment of Cold War, conformity and fascination with machines. By contrast, the Columbo series was conceived when the developed world was just beginning to hear the term “tree hugger.” Since then, the industrial economy has slowly moved toward a greater appreciation for nature, creativity and roads less traveled. But we’re still coping with the environmental degradation that was the norm during Joe Friday’s anti-conversation era. Part of our job as designers is to accelerate environmental regeneration.
Enduring Columbo-inspired principles that underlie our creative process can be summarized by these Pitfalls to Avoid:
1. Not asking enough questions (“just one more thing” can make all the difference when unlocking a case…or a site plan’s greater potential)
2. Accepting false limitations (maybe the body found in the pool was moved from a neighbor’s bathtub…and maybe there’s another way to generate the necessary revenue for your project)
3. Misled by unexamined basic assumptions (don’t rule out the police chief who is heading the investigation…and maybe you will change your mind about a “no way” planning scenario)
4. Jumping to conclusions (if there are no fingerprints on the gun, try dusting the bullets…and don’t settle for the obvious design solution)
5. The trap of either/ or thinking (it’s possible that the victim both drowned and suffered a concussion…there are many ways to combine and redefine your planning strategy)
Unlike problem-oriented LAPD investigators back at the station, Columbo knew he was dealing with mysteries. As Roger Martin observed in an interview, with Vern Burkhardt at IdeaConnection Ltd., “Dealing with mysteries is one of the hardest things to do. You don’t know what to pay attention to. You don’t know where to start. That’s the tricky thing. When you’ve got a heuristic, you know where to start, and what to do. With a mystery you don’t know where to start so it takes a lot of bravery to dive in and try to figure out what’s going on.”
With Columbo as a model, we can summon the courage to face mysteries and end up with the right answer – not merely an answer.
-Sharon VanderKaay
Farrow Partnership’s design for a Health Promoting Lifestyle Centre in rural South Africa
.
Where in the world are we most likely to find a radically progressive way to reduce the burden of disease? Will we find it in countries that endlessly debate minor changes to their sclerotic, unsustainable health care systems? Or should we instead look to South Africa for fresh thinking, a country which has every reason to make a giant leap to an entirely new “health-causing” model?
The term “salutogenic” may not be familiar to many, but it offers a powerful, optimistic way to think about massive problems – ranging from chronic illness to low productivity to violence – that plague societies everywhere.
Salutogenic is the opposite of pathogenic, a term widely recognized and defined as “disease causing.”
The fact that many people understand the term “pathogenic” but few have even heard of “salutogenic” speaks volumes about where we find ourselves today as a society.
“We have 8,000 known causes of disease, and maybe only 80 known causes of health,” observes Dr. Alan Dilani who is director of the International Academy for Design and Health, based in Stockholm.
The government of South Africa recognizes the value of building facilities that rigorously apply salutogenic principles to planning, programs and aesthetics. Our design for Health Promoting Lifestyle Centres represents a departure from conventional facility models which focus narrowly on downstream causes of ill-health and disease prevention. (click on chart below for an overview of this contrast)
The potential of this new model to dramatically reduce the human and financial costs of illness is enormous.
There is growing recognition that health is an economic and human rights issue. Ill-health prevents a population from realizing its full potential. Watch this space for updates as our team, which includes Ngonyama Okpanum & Associates and Clark Nexsen, moves this innovative idea to salutogenic reality.
- Sharon VanderKaay
Throughout the industrial age, tips on time management – essentially, how to pack more productive activities into each work day – were perennially popular.
Only in recent years have we seen a major shift in emphasis from merely “being productive” to the bigger question: Why squeeze more activities into a day unless we’re sure that all of those tasks need to be done in the first place?
And thus “lean management” was born – aimed at rooting out time-eating bureaucracy and wasteful work. Instead of doing more stuff more efficiently, the idea is to look upstream so we can eliminate low value tasks and bad management practices.
NOW COMES THE EVEN BIGGER QUESTION: Is it enough to minimize time wasted, or should we also obsess about how we expend and renew our energy? In the context of causing innovation to happen, burnout and depression at work are not only health issues, they lead to lost business opportunities. In other words, we may somehow find the time to be creative, but we must also possess the energy for innovation.
In a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article, “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time,” Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy examine costs, causes and remedies for today’s human “energy crisis.” They recommend practices for renewing four dimensions of personal energy: physical energy, emotional energy, mental energy and spiritual energy.
This month’s HBR addresses ways of working that rob us of time via “Lean Knowledge Work.” Ideally, recovered time could be directed toward innovation. As well in this issue, the highly-regarded Rosabeth Moss Kanter observes, some of the greatest harm in organizations today is being caused by “callousness about people’s time.”
Management theorists and workers on the ground are still in the early days of understanding the relationship between time, energy and innovation. This is a fruitful area of study that deserves special attention. Perhaps as an alternative to Master of Business Administration, future students will be able to pursue an inspiring Master of Business Vitality degree.
- Sharon VanderKaay
“Breakthrough in the Shower” by Sean Stanwick
.
Anyone who is waiting for a predictable process for breakthrough innovation (similar to TQM or BPR) may find the illustration above instructive.
Fresh insight depends on favorable ingredients and conditions – more like improvising with a recipe than a formula. By contrast, incremental improvements in the design of products and services suit predictable steps and outcomes.
What are some conditions that spawn eureka moments? What is the recipe?
There’s a lot we can learn about how innovation happens by paying attention to everyday situations. For example, my colleague Sean captured his recent insight in the shower by the illustration above; Tye Farrow reports he has new ideas while gardening; I rely on walking to work for fresh perspective.
What do these three activities – showering, gardening and walking – have in common?:
- SUSPENSION of MULTI-TASKING: they allow us to clear our heads
- PERMISSION to WANDER: escape from self-imposed pressure of conflicting priorities
- SPACE to WONDER: they give us the choice to think of nothing
We will be delving further into recipe/cooking/innovation/design similarities in future posts.
- Sharon VanderKaay
Tight or loose management – which is the best way for firms to thrive in a chaotic business world?
Wrong question…old school question.
Instead of a tight or loose?* either/or question, we should be asking: Which aspects of our business require us to adhere to rules, and where do we need room to move within boundaries?
To begin this conversation, we must examine our assumptions about the true nature of work today.
Let’s list some of the givens of our current business environment (along with how we need to respond):
- it is unpredictable (therefore we must create a flexible way forward)
- it depends on messy human relationships (so we need to nurture cooperative interactions)
- it depends on discretionary effort (so it’s vital to understand what motivates people to do their best work)
- there’s a yearning for meaningful work (so it’s vital to define the firm’s purpose, as well as each project’s purpose beyond meeting schedule, budget and scope)
When tight management is applied to the wrong aspects of the business, initiative and progress are stifled. Likewise, misapplied loose management results in wasted time and effort. “Loose” does not mean sloppy, haphazard and uncaring. In any case, striving for a uniformly tight mechanical system of management goes against human nature and leads to endless frustration.
Let the conversation begin! Which aspects of your business are tight-appropriate and in what ways do you need more room to move?
- Sharon VanderKaay
* I first encountered the concept of tight/loose management in Tom Peters’ and Robert H. Waterman Jr.’s 1982 book, In Search of Excellence – and yet we still wrestle with this issue.
- Imagine a spa for the brain…designed to spark your synapses
What have you done for your brain lately?
Health spas have been around for generations, some evolving into highly sophisticated places that focus on rejuvenating our bodies.
In a knowledge-based economy it makes sense to consider where and how our best ideas happen so we can design places that rejuvenate our brains. And anyone concerned with the aging mind should become aware of the kinds of places that nurture – as well as those that kill – neural connections.
Consider the shower, for example. How often have we suddenly become aware of a better way forward when we’ve allowed our minds to wander without distractions? How much does the water help in this process? What other ingredients go into our epiphanies?
What are some of the social situations and physical settings that prompt ah-ha moments?
Now consider the reality of most conference hotels from the perspective of nurturing brain waves. Typically, these places are brain-numbing knowledge deserts. How different might hotels be if we applied lessons learned from the design of knowledge-intensive workplaces? Such as open kitchen gathering spaces, attractive serendipitous meeting areas and natural clustered seating for conversation. Heck, we might even consider an updated, neuro-friendly, amorphous version of the 1950-70′s conversation pit (with universal accessibility, of course).
Studies that link neuroscience and design offer clues as to qualities that might make up the brain-friendly hotel of the future. The AIA’s Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture’s mission is to “…promote and advance knowledge that links neuroscience research to a growing understanding of human responses to the built environment.”
Carlton architecture director Marco Frascari has pointed out that it is common to create places devoted to shopping, entertainment and worship – why is it so rare to find places for better thinking? And why not a hotel that is designed with our neurons in mind?
- Sharon VanderKaay
Ross Dawson coined the term “black-box consulting” to describe low value consultant-client transactions in his book, Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships. When I first read Dawson’s contrast between isolation and co-creation consulting models over ten years ago, his views struck me as the way of the future for anyone who is in the business of offering advice—including doctors, designers, real estate agents and tech consultants.
Now I am even more convinced of how important it is for clients and consultants to wrestle with questions and options together.
Black-box consulting happens when neither client nor consultant emerges from the assignment any wiser. Essentially, the client receives an outcome without meaningful participation in the process. Dawson says that this opaque model turns the service into a commodity because there is no shared knowledge-creating experience which leads to better decisions. Moreover, the black-box yields no learning, no ah-ha moments, no growth and no transformation.
Which also means that black-box engagements prevent any chance to think through fresh possibilities together. Black-box relationships are about minimal interaction, avoidance of risk and low personal commitment–the opposite of what’s required for innovation.
So clients and consultants do themselves a disservice when they rely on third-party selection processes and impersonal working relationships, which limit their ability to create value together.
Dawson’s book presents a framework for clearly seeing why transactional advice-dispensing models lead to competition driven by price rather than value, as well as doing things the same old way.
Here is an interview with Dawson on the evolution of professional services.
- Sharon VanderKaay
-
Contributors
-
Farrow Partnership
-
Sean Stanwick
-
Sharon Vanderkaay
-
Tye Farrow
-
