Freedom, Inc_ - Brian M. Carney [124]
Kelley himself uses Socratic wisdom when he consults with his employees about his decisions—just as Jeff Westphal and other liberating leaders do. Yet the wisdom Kelley used in building and maintaining IDEO’s culture went further. Socratic wisdom captures only part of what philosophers and psychologists today consider wisdom. We mentioned in the previous chapter the notion of wisdom as “excellence in judgment in matters of life combining personal and common good.” That last aspect originated in ancient Greece, when Plato and Aristotle tied wisdom to happiness and the good life: “A man of practical wisdom [is] able to deliberate well about …what sorts of things conduce to the good life.”8 This wisdom, sometimes referred to as Aristotelian wisdom, was also Kelley’s cultural design focus: “Big companies…only have units to measure dollars. They didn’t have any units to measure heart; social, emotional health …. This company is a reaction to [that] because it wasn’t human.” What he wanted instead was “a fantastic place to work, where you feel self-gratified”—or, in plain English, “have fun.”
Kelley thought that a wise person should know not only how “to deliberate well” about things that “conduce to the good life,” but also “how to construct a pattern that, given the human situation, is likely to lead to a good life,”9 as some contemporary philosophers have suggested. He knew how to construct and maintain these patterns—IDEO’s culture—that led employees to the “good life.” But unlike Aristotle, his thinking was not simply analytical. Real wisdom takes holistic and dialectical thinking, and Kelley found his nonanalytical approach in IDEO’s methodology of “creative design.” This method has more in common with Socrates’ dialogues than Aristotle’s treatises.
First, a project’s designers meet to share all they know about the product (or service).10 Next, they split into small groups to observe consumers’ real-life experiences with the current versions of the product. Back at IDEO, they share all they’ve learned and then brainstorm ideas for what a new product might look like. That done, every project member votes on all the ideas, which are posted on the walls, looking for those that are feasible and “cool.” From there, the products enter a rapid prototyping phase, and mock-ups are presented to the client and other designers. As feedback is collected, improved prototypes are built and presented again, and so on until the product is perfected.
IDEO used this methodology to design hundreds of products, from Apple’s mouse to a mechanical killer whale for the film Free Willy to P&G’s squeeze toothpaste tube to, more recently, the Swiffer. It has also used this process to design services. IDEO, for example, redesigned AT&T’s mMode wireless-data service—which led to a doubling of the membership in one year. The firm also designed the lingerie shopping experience for Warnaco Intimate Apparel, which had been seeing its sales in department stores brutalized by its rival Victoria’s Secret.11
The methodology’s power lies in preventing the participants from becoming analytical. It achieves this, first, by forcing designers into the field to immerse and observe—like anthropologists—how people actually work, play, and live. These are things that would go unnoticed or get buried in an analytical marketing research study or focus groups, but which are essential to intuitively grasping the consumer’s real-life experience. Then, the methodology forces designers to come up with a very large quantity of ideas, including “crazy” ones, because brainstorming delays critique and analysis. Finally, after the initial selection, designers try out the surviving concepts with “cheap and dirty” prototypes. These are, in turn, presented and discussed with clients and colleagues because—as Socrates knew—one person’s, or team’s, knowledge is always limited. “Prototypes should command only as much time, effort, and investment as are needed to generate