Applying design thinking to insights

Ryan Barry:

Hi, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Inside Insights, a podcast powered by Zappi. My name is Ryan and I'm joined as ever, by my co-host and friend, Patricia Montesdeoca. Patricia, hello, my friend. How are you doing today?

Patricia Montesdeoca:

Hey, Ryan. Good. Here, it's a nice sunny day on my side of the world. I'm over in Medford, near Boston. Where are you today?

Ryan:

I am home at my house in Northborough, Massachusetts. And just before this, I went for a lovely walk outside. A little cold, but I loved it. Good to get a bit of fresh air, people, if you're sitting on Zoom meetings all day. I had a Zoom heavy day and I had some outdoor time before this so, I'm in a good place. And I'm feeling the spirit of the holiday season. I've got the little kids running around, elf on the shelf, Christmas tree. I'm loving it. Something about having little kids makes holidays fun.

And my wife, Jill has really taken it to the next level with the things that the elf does, our elf. The truth about our elf is we got him well before we had kids. We got him when we were like 21 and his, we named him Samir. He's wonderful and he's been with us for a long time. And so now, one of us every night has to come up with something creative for the kids, but I'll make sure to post a few of the pictures.

It's a special episode today for two reasons. Reason number one, it's the grand finale of this season. Holy cow, we did it again. And tomorrow... Well, this is tomorrow in my world when I'm recording this. We're going to plan season four, which I'm psyched about. The second reason why this is a special episode is for those of you who listen frequently, you'll know that I typically do an interview and Patricia typically does an incredible job of summarizing the key takeaways. Today, we're going to switch our roles up. Ooh, baby. And I hope I don't mess it up. 

Patricia:

It'll be great.

Ryan:

You were very passionate about this guest. I know why, but tell everybody. Who are we talking to today and what are we going to talk about?

Patricia:

We are going to be talking with Bill Lunderman. One of the things that is important for you to know about him is that he is just amazing in everything he does. And he doesn't seem to be very boastful. He just kind of goes through life, doing amazing things and helping others become their amazing selves. And does it all through something he calls design thinking. What are you? "I'm a provocateur." He says. And he's the type of person that when I grow up, I want to be like Bill Lunderman.

Ryan:

I love it.

Patricia:

I know that you are going to enjoy the conversation. I'm looking forward to it. I think we are going to learn a lot about design thinking, about how to live a life rich with insights and how to do really cool things with those insights.

Ryan:

Let's do this.

[Music transition to interview]

Patricia:

Well, hello, everybody. I want to introduce you to a very good friend of mine. William Bill Lunderman. Hello.

Bill Lunderman:

How are you doing? Good to speak to you and because we have a little visual going, good to see you again.

Patricia:

Exactly the same, Bill and I have the privilege of being on Zoom while we're recording this. And we were just talking about the last time he and I just sat down to chat. And it was actually five years ago when we were lucky enough to get to go to Moscow together. I had never been to Moscow. You had been before a few times, hadn't you?

Bill:

Just once before, yes.

Patricia:

That was a fun trip…

Bill:

Yes.

Patricia:

... we ate so well, we drank so well and you almost enticed me to buy that gorgeous leather coat. Do you remember?

Bill:

Oh, yes, for sure. You should have bought that coat.

Patricia:

I should have bought that red leather coat. It was gorgeous. It was absolutely gorgeous, but it cost like a few months of my salary. So I think I'm glad I passed.

Bill:

Well, perhaps a few more glasses of vodka and maybe you could have been encouraged to buy it.

Patricia:

You're dangerous, Bill Lunderman, you're dangerous. Let me tell the people listening about who you are. Bill comes to us today, and he's going to be sharing with us his experiences with design thinking and how insights is influencing design thinking. But before I get to the work aspect, let's talk about a little bit of Bill's life and let you know him a little bit better. I mean, never really well, because you have to sit down in a few sittings to learn about his whole amazing life.

Bill:

Yeah.

Patricia:

But keeping you in his career in New York City, in design agencies, he worked with lots of different brands, alcohol, cosmetics, food, airlines, different things and then he moved into corporate. He became one of the first formal champions to elevate the role of design thinking in the business innovation world. So he was like a pioneer in that. And it's something that I'm very grateful for because I truly believe in design thinking. And he helped the whole entire marketing process. He also runs a masterclass for the basic principles of design in The New School, Parsons Paris. Now I practiced that quite a bit before we turned on the recorder. So I hope I said it right, Bill.

Bill:

Yeah, you did. It's fine.

Patricia:

And most recently, he has retired and moved to warmer clients, where I am here in 40-degree weather and he is in 70's. So I think that's... So, I am jealous of him. But he's also started to be a little bit more active in his hobby, which is photography.

Bill:

Yes it's a creative outlet, that's basically what it is. When you are a creative person, you start to just think about, well, oh, this would be wonderful. And we just, I'm not going to say we're finished with it, but during the pandemic, we all had a little bit of extra time on our hands. And when the creative juices start to flow, you just think of many different things that you want to do and you could do. So I followed again a passion that gave me some time and surprisingly, I was very lucky to get a show in a gallery.

Patricia:

I can't believe I missed that, I wish I'd been there. That was amazing, when did you do that?

Bill:

Well, it's interesting because with photography in today's world, everyone's a photographer because you have your smartphone or those devices and you take pictures. And my photography, I have been developing over my, I'm going to say 40 plus years or whatever of travel. And it was basically just different places I had gone. So I called the show Postcards because people don't know what postcards are.

Patricia:

Well, no, because they don't do them anymore, they do emails and Snapchat. 

Bill:

Absolutely that. So it was postcards and different places, a lot of street art, things like that. Not just things that you can Google if you want to see, I don't know, the Great Wall of China, you can Google it. Well, my postcards were, oh, guess what? There's some graffiti on the Great Wall or there's whatever. So a lot of things like that.

Patricia:

Nice. I'm sure everybody asks you this, but I can't help but do it. What is your favorite spot so far?

Bill:

Oh my.

Patricia:

I knew you would say... I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I had to ask.

Bill:

It's interesting because of the places to visit or places to live. Places to live, I love Paris, I love and adore the south of France. So that for sure and Australia, probably is one of my favorites along with... See, I'm getting ready to go down a list because I'm thinking Thailand. Oh, the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand are just wonderful. I could go on and on, so let's not do it.

Patricia:

I'm just getting more and more jealous as we go. Now, let me go back into your career. You and I have done this before and I'm sure we'll get to do it again. Just talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right?

Bill:

That's true.

Patricia:

I want to ask you today for our listeners, I want to ask you about your career and I want to get information that will help them in their career. Now, just to focus us back, one of the things that we like to do in the Inside Insights podcast, right? I host with my co-host Ryan Barry, who we both work at Zappi. We try to get information and nuggets of knowledge, of advice, of experience from people who've been there, who've done that. The people that are in insights or that work with insights can take to the office on Monday morning and actually apply, not just go get a master's degree or go... No, something that I can change on Monday morning.

And so, we found the way to do this and to help people in their careers, to talk to people who've been there and done that, but who also understand the value of synthesizing, the value of sharing, and who are not wanting to hold onto it. So thinking about that, I want to ask, you talking in your bio about moving from being in the design agencies and then across many different categories, and then moving into corporate, which is such a different world. You and I worked together when we were at Colgate, I was there for 16. How many years were you there for?

Bill:

12. No, I'm sorry, 10,10 years at Colgate. Yes.

Patricia:

We're at a similar time. What prompted you to move from the agency to a corporate?

Bill:

Let's see. I'm going to say that the corporate world called me. It wasn't me basically saying, "Oh, the next thing I'm going to do is go into corporate." It was wonderful working in studios because when you're working in studios, you get an opportunity to do so many different things. During those days, we're going back a few years. This is back in the '70s, people were still smoking cigarettes so tobacco was a great thing. And the amount of design work that you could do on tobacco, alcohol, liquor during the holiday seasons, there were always different themes and things. And then working in cosmetics because I did a lot of work for Faberge. So designing fragrance bottles and things like that. I think that may have been what was the, I'll call it the glide ramp that moved me into corporate because, and I'll try to make this story really, really short.

One night I was at a friend's studio and just socializing, and we were drinking. And my friend said to me, "Over at Revlon, there's an opening and perhaps you should take a look at it." And I said, "Absolutely not, I'm not interested in working for any corporation." And I'm going to say, weeks later, I got a phone call from someone at Revlon who asked me to come in for an interview. And of course, very Bohemian, no socks, things like that, nothing that would fit in a corporate setting.

I was sure that they were not interested in me because I started off with this very cavalier attitude and what have you. And the next thing that I know, I was asked to have a meeting with Charles Revson. And he was launching a new fragrance, a new idea, a new concept for women, the freedom for women and it was called Charlie. And he wanted someone to take this brand and who would sort of be a rebel. And that was it. 

Patricia:

Absolutely you, totally you.

Bill:

Yeah.

Patricia:

So you talk about design thinking. And most of what I know about design thinking was started by you planting seeds in my head, which I appreciate. If you think about working in an agency and working for the corporation, be it Revlon or Colgate where we work together, how does design thinking change in between those two? Is it the same? Is it different?

Bill:

No, it's something that you must take with you all the time and design thinking is extremely simple when you think about it. In terms of the number one, designers. Designers are problem solvers. You ask us for something and we deliver a solution. I guess the design thinking portion of it is really... If you want to deliver a solution for someone, you need to understand what that person or persons' needs are. And in order to do that, it's almost like that old saying of, "Walk a mile in my shoes," or "Spend a day in my life." And that's basically nothing but empathy, understanding the empathy of your target, of your consumer, of who it is that you are really trying to deliver something for. So I think of design thinking as nothing more than just empathy, being able to humanize. It's one of the principles that I talk about with design and I basically have these four principles.

Patricia:

Tell us about those. Tell us about those please.

Bill:

Well, the first one is to disrupt. This can work from anything from CPG, or I should I say, consumer product goods, or in any consumer thing. What you want to do is you want to attract attention. You want to be able to create an entry. So that can be done in many, many different ways, but not only do you want to create attention and intrigue, but you also want to be able to provoke a reaction. And it's the type of thing where if you can disrupt, then you can provoke a reaction and it comes in many different forms.

I won't try to go through all of these, but sometimes it's the absence of color or the absence of shape. Imagine a fragrance counter where you have many different fragrances in the bottles that are usually all of these different shapes and all types of forms and everything. And then you'll find something like the Chanel bottle, which is nothing but a straight rectangle.

Patricia:

Yep.

Bill:

And because it's in the middle of circles and things with flares coming off the side, it disrupts. So there are many different ways to do that.

Patricia:

Okay.

Bill:

Okay, the second principle that I like to use is to simplify, because again, we want to be able to talk to people. So what you do is you establish a communication hierarchy, a way of navigating to understand things. You're trying to, if I have gotten your attention, now I need to be able to talk to you. And I can't talk to you if I'm going to make it too much. So you want to be able to do things simplified. And at the base of this is, you need to give consumers credit for their own intelligence. At Campbell Soup, when I was looking at a package one day and it was one of the little tins or cans of soup.

And I'm looking at the directions because some of the legal people said, "Whoa, we've got to add some new copy or something to this," but I looked at the directions and the first line in the directions is, "Open the can." Now that is absolutely not giving consumers any credit for intelligence. Do I just go and buy this can and sit it there and think something is going to happen before I can consume it? So simple little things like that, just, okay. I can save a whole line of copy by just allowing the consumer to be intelligent.

The next one in terms of these principles is to engage. Now, this is when you start to put yourself into a situation where you're building relationships. So you want to engage, you engage on an emotional level. If I'm saying, "All right, now, I have your attention, make me want you." So whatever it is that I'm doing, make me want you. So I've got to engage the consumer. So that would be the next principle.

And then the last one, which I think really starts to get into the insights is to humanize and develop a connection with your consumer, build a relationship, be empathetic, empathize, understand who that person is, what their wants and needs are. So that's when you start to move the world of insights, especially around the engage and humanize portion. So that's how I have used these four basic principles. I have stood in corporate boardrooms and said to people that if we can do all four of these, we have a hit. If we can do three out of the four, we are going to make a profit. If we can do at least two out of the four, we are going to be competitive with all of our products in the category. So it's a very simple I guess, four-piece principles, disrupt, simplify, engage, humanize.

Patricia:

Amazing, amazing, amazing. I've forgotten, I've been in the boardroom and you've said that if we do it all four, et cetera, et cetera. And then you say, if we do two, we'll be competitive, right? And invariably, somebody asks you, "If we only have to do one, which is the one you'd want us to do?" I don't remember your answer. I know that people have asked you that and I remember just looking at them and thinking, "You fool, didn't you hear that he wants us to do all four," but what is your answer when somebody asks you, if I only have to do one, if I can only do one, which one should I do?

Bill:

Actually, it's going to depend on what it is and you're trying to, and I guess I have to use the word sell.

Patricia:

Okay.

Bill:

It depends on that. To me, I always start with empathy because it's as simple as there's something that I always like to think of when answering this. It's not as a company, you're not making for your consumers or your customers but what you're doing is you are trying to find customers for what you make.

Patricia:

Yes.

Bill:

So I'm going to make this for you, but it's not just because this is what I make. I want this to be what you want. So always try to do it, not just customers for what you make. Oh, and I'll give you another really quick example.

Patricia:

Okay.

Bill:

Campbells, known for soup. We were trying to open up a market in China. Seems very simple. I went there, we did market research, all of the different things looking around. And I came back and I said, "I don't think that we are ready for this market." And the chairman said to me, "You are out of your mind because what do they do in China for breakfast?" I said, "They have soup." He said, "Well, what do they have for dinner?" They have soup. And he said, "Well, what are we, don't we make soup?" And I said, "Yes, we do." But that was the issue because we made the soup, not the, I will call it the housewife. She had to make the soup.

So, the idea was…That was an insult to give me something pre-made. So, what we were trying to do is, we were trying to just get customers for what we made as opposed to making for our customers. So, as we understood that, we realized that the way to enter the market is through different things where, okay, women are beginning to work more in this particular market, let's make it easier for her or whoever is making the meal.

So, instead of giving them a can of soup, pour it into a pot and heat it up, what we did is, we came up with ways to make it easier. So, if it took you 45 minutes to an hour to prepare that meal, we are going to give you a methodology with our products that will allow you to make that same meal in 20 minutes, 30 minutes.

Patricia:

That's fantastic.

Bill:

So, it was more, I'm making for the customer now as opposed to taking the customer for what I make.

Patricia:

So, I'm going to go off script for a second, and I know you'll forgive me because I know you'll love this topic. When you went to China, when you and I went to Moscow, we were on hunting expeditions. I know you've taken many of these expeditions. I know how you and I prepared before going to Moscow, but tell me a little bit about how you prepared for your expedition to China or when you took on the challenge of Charlie with Revlon. How did you develop that relationship? Because I want people to understand how they should ferment, foster, enable, encourage their relationship with their graphic design team...

Bill:

Sure. I would say, and I'm going to keep going back to this thing of empathy. Practice empathy, not just say, oh, I have it, but practice it. And when I say practice it, that means care enough to make an impact. So, you really have to do that. Go in and have a clear sense of change. There are ways to think differently, so having a clear sense of change is one of the ways of thinking differently. Ask the right questions. And just watch what people do, don't just believe what they tell you.

Patricia:

Oh, I love it.

Bill:

Those are the kinds of things where you can make that happen. Going into a home in China and having a conversation and having someone say to you, if you give me that product, it tastes good. So, now they've tasted and it's like, oh, that soup's good, but it wasn't made at home. So, there's a deep sense of tradition that we were trying to change and you can't change that, but you can think of how, let's start to move this so that it works. And that means that what you want to do is, you want to innovate and create at the edges of the market.

Patricia:

Give our listeners an example of that, before you go on, pardon the interruption, but give us an example of what you mean by the edges of the market. That's really important. Unpack that a little bit.

Bill:

Because if I only had the idea of developing a product just because this is what I make, and this is what we are going to offer you, but if I start to think about the edges of the market, the tradition is the edge of the market. So, how can I do something that fits within the tradition of the culture? So, you see how you pull the empathy back in, you say, all right, that's where I can do that. I want to do something that has an intangible value, the fact that, and we'll keep this on the soup thing, but that I can offer a new market or a consumer who's getting into a different way of living. Their lifestyle is changing. There's no longer just being a housewife.

I am actually a working person. I'm a contributor to the household, whether it's a family or not, but how do I do that? So, I can now reach that person on an emotional point of difference, which is, you're going to help save me some time. So, that's on the edge of that.

Patricia:

I like it.

Bill:

The idea of saving time, I'm not selling soup anymore, what I'm selling you are your, I'm selling you your time back. I'm going to give you something that allows you to do that.

Patricia:

That's amazing. All right. Wow. Masterclass. Speaking of masterclass, I want to go there for a little while. I know that you've been sharing your time and teaching in different places. 

I'd love to hear a little bit about your experience teaching, because I know that you work with people on both ends of the spectrum, very, very early in your career as in when you're teaching and people like me who are not so early in their career, right?

Bill:

Right.

Patricia:

And I'd love to hear the examples that you give because at the end of the day, as you very correctly put it, it's the four principles, and that's how you're teaching something simple and you're disrupting, you're following your own advice actually with your four design principles. What have they brought to you? As in, I know that students teach more, what examples have they brought or what are questions that they're asking? I know that you have some really cool examples of what they ask and how they make the class more interesting for you. Tell us about how students see design principles?

Bill:

Well, let's see, let me sort of set up the class first-

Patricia:

Please.

Bill:

... because the course is, it's a curriculum that I developed and we would do it once a year in Paris. It was for either professionals who have graduated, it was for students who were working on their masters or their second degree, not for undergraduates, okay? Because this course, the way that the curriculum was designed or built was for someone who has a real issue and how do we move that? So, it was a little bit about leadership and understanding how you manage things, because these are people who either had a business, are getting ready to graduate or move to the next level in their professional careers. And what I would do or what the course was about was taking a look at what they understood as what I call traditional leadership.

So, you have traditional leadership on one side, let's call it the left side, because I usually break things down in left and right brain so, traditional leadership being on the left side of the brain and creative leadership being on the right side, and those things do not have to be in conflict with each other. So, the question was, how do you do that? Well, creative leadership is more interactive, where traditional leadership, it's like, okay, I own the company, I'm the last one who has the say, but if you're interactive, now you're going to practice leadership in a different way.

So, simple little things like that where traditional leadership, they're usually concerned with being right, the CEO has to be right, but creative leadership, it's more concerned with being real. I want to connect with my target, at the end of the day, that's what it's about. You can improvise when it's appropriate in creative leadership as opposed to traditional leadership where it will say to you, follow the manual, this is the way that we've always done it. And I know at Colgate, I had a lot of issues because there was much more traditional leadership in place there, and I'm coming from that creative side. Speaking of which, creative leadership loves to learn from mistakes.

Not afraid to make them, but loves to learn from the mistakes where I'm going to say that traditional leadership will say to you, oh, avoid mistakes, because that's the way that it is. Here's something else to think about. If you think of an organization as delivering music, okay? So, you have an orchestra, orchestras have a maestro and then they have the people who are following the music, they're playing the music, and the maestro is telling them when to come in, when to do this. Well, traditional leadership, that's where you are. But a creative leadership perhaps is more like a jazz ensemble where I'm still delivering the music.

Oh yeah. We have a piece of sheet music, but when it's time for the drummer to do his solo, or when the, I don't know, the horns need to do theirs, but it all comes together, and I even love the word ensemble, as opposed to orchestra. Orchestra is something where suddenly, it's sort of mandated, this way and I mean, the word is orchestrate, means move it, do it this way. The jazz ensemble flows, the music is great. So, if you think of it that way, suddenly, what you have is, you have a community that's in conversation, not just fighting with each other. You have a community that is open to critique, open to unlimited critiques, as opposed to open to limited feedback. So, that's the way that I would structure the class.

So, now when you come with whatever your particular concern is in your business, or what have you, we could work through it now because we realized, okay, this is not going to be just a one way conversation, this is going to be interactive. We're going to be open. It's going to be an open system, not a closed system. And we know this idea of risk, because everyone in business always... You avoid risk. Now, you are prepared to be a risk bearer, understanding things so that way, you can learn, you can grow, and now you're going to make it work for you. So, it's that type of thing. I guess the next thing would be to try to give you some examples of these things but-

Patricia:

You could if you have one.

Bill:

Okay. Let's see. Because when you say design, everyone wants to think about, oh, this is some creative thing. So, there was a young man who had a business, a financial business in London who came to take the course. And he came with a very interesting challenge. His challenge was, I'm a financial person so, don't look for me to draw or give you some creative things, what I want to do is, I want to remain a small entity, but I want to compete with the larger companies, and that will be to my satisfaction. I don't want to become a global organization, I want to do the best for my clients, but my clients who feel that they should go to Goldman Sachs or Fidelity or someone like that, I want them to come to me.

Patricia:

Okay.

Bill:

So, that was our challenge. And for me, it was one where I'm like, "Oh my, I'm not sure, but let's take a look." So, as we started to go through this, we were looking at this in terms of design thinking. So, where's the empathy, I care about my clients, but when my competition has years and years of experience, when Goldman Sachs comes in and says, well, we've been in this business for whatever number of years or we have offices all over the world. And if you really want to look, here's our track record and we can get you data on all of these things. So, that's sort of difficult for, let's say a small company of two to five people to go up against. So, what we did is we started to look at different things.

We started to look at simple things that sometimes you don't think about and you don't realize what they are. But if you look at major purchases or things that you care about like insurance. The face of an insurance company is Snoopy, a gecko.

Patricia:

Yes.

Bill:

I mean, it's all of these different things. It's Mickey Mouse. Because what's happening is, consumers, the insight is that you don't believe that Snoopy would tell you a lie, but here you are getting ready to make a major decision and you're listening to a cartoon character.

Patricia:

Yes.

Bill:

So, we took that kind of insight and brought it in because of course, being a smaller organization, one day we're having a conversation and he... This was what I advised my mother to buy, and suddenly it's like, bingo, you would not tell a lie to your mother. I wouldn't lie to my mother. So, let's use that same attitude, that amount of empathy, with your clients.

Patricia:

I love it.

Bill:

So, it's like, let's become personal. So, number one, if his client calls, there's never a situation where they hold on, I can't talk to you right now, there was always a live voice, someone talked to them. So, suddenly, it's like, when I advise you, when we are having a conversation, we're going to have a face to face conversation, and I'm not going to lie to you because you're like my mother, I wouldn't lie to my mother. So, this young man, he called me a couple of years later and he explained to me how this system was working so well for him. He said he has this one client, it's an older lady, she's a large investor and she will call and no matter what he's doing, if he's in a meeting he'll say, "Okay."

Usually it's like a three or four minute conversation. He'll take the call, "What is it that you'd like to do today, Mrs. Smith?" "Well, I want to talk about this." And he goes, "Well, when would you like to do that, Mrs. Smith?" "Well, how about today?" He said, "At what time." He would call an Uber, go and pick her up, bring her to his office, sit with her for a few minutes and in 15 minutes, he would have worked out everything and sent her back in her Uber. Now, how personal, it's like, I'm never too busy for you. We are always going to have an eye to eye conversation, face to face, me looking in your eyes, and you looking in my eyes, I'm going to give you some advice. If you are happy, then you go on.

And it's a very simple, personal way of doing business. And he talks about how successful that has been for him, where other clients, they'll call Goldman or, and I probably shouldn't just pick on him, but call a large investment company. First of all, it takes 10 or 15 minutes just to get through to an individual, then at which point, sometimes you never talk to anyone, you never get a chance to do a face to face meeting. So, everything is transactional, where this becomes personal.

Patricia:

I love it. So, you took that gentleman who would never have... I would never have imagined that a finance entrepreneur would've taken the design thinking class and you did the four principles, you made him disrupt. I mean, that action was very disruptive and definitely provoked a reaction. He respected the consumer in the way that was appropriate for him. You made them want him in an emotional manner, and he-

Bill:

Exactly.

Patricia:

And he did all this. You helped him do this all by under him and understanding his consumer.

Bill:

Exactly.

Patricia:

Fantastic. Well, I have one more question. I know that we're really close on time, but I'm going to push it and I'm going to ask you one more question, and this is your fault because you said the word advice, and I always ask for advice. If you were to talk to somebody that was earlier in career, and whether they're an insights person or a strategist or whatever they decide to do, whether they're in marketing or insights or research, but insights is important to them, what advice would you give them to start taking these four principles and being able to apply them in that way that you so easily did for something that was so totally out of the box? What advice would you give them to get started on these four principles?

Bill:

Well, let's see. I would say to them, think about things in terms of not being transactional.

Patricia:

Okay.

Bill:

We are talking insights now, so insight should be something where you take in everything that's around you. And when I say that, it's because suddenly what you're doing is, you're establishing a relationship. So, therefore, everything that's around you, don't just be quantitative in terms of, okay, here's what the numbers say. Or here's what the experience has been in the past. Don't be afraid to create on those edges. That would be one of the things that I would say, because often within business, what we try to do is we try to do what's tried and true, what has been done before. So, I would push on that portion of it. You know what, I'm going to read a quote. From a professor of mine, see if I can find it on my computer real fast.

I had the privilege of studying under Buckminster Fuller. And one of the things that Buckminster Fuller would always say to us, and I'm going to read it so that I get it correct. He says, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality, to change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." So, I would say, that's what you want to be able to do. Oh, this has been working well, this is what they've taught me, but how can I move this to the next level? So, that's how you do it. And with design thinking, you do this through spontaneous and intuitive situations, through insights and organic, in depth understanding, thinking outside the box, but questioning.

Questioning things where often everyone's being very analytical and they're seeking answers and what you want to do is, you want to question, you want to come up with these things. So, that would be one of the ways I would want to start thinking about it.

Patricia:

Wow. That was beautiful. Thank you very much, Bill.

Bill:

You're welcome.

Patricia:

I hope to see you again so we can talk. Oh, food stuff and cocktail stuff and photography stuff, and the artwork on your wall and travels and how you and your lovely, lovely wife are doing in Florida, but that will have to be for another day. Thank you very much for your time. We really appreciate it. And good luck to you for everything.

Bill:

Very good. Thank you very much. And good luck with all of this, and hopefully it has been helpful.

[Music transition to takeaways]

Patricia:

What did you think? That was so much fun talking to Bill. He and I, as you heard, worked together for a while, while we were at Colgate, and then we lost contact. And it was just so nice talking to him. What did you think?

Ryan:

I learned a lot and I really enjoyed the conversation. So I have nine takeaways that I would like to share.

Patricia:

Go for it, Ryan Barry. 

Ryan:

What I wanted to say, that I just really appreciated his energy as a human. I thought he was warm, and humble and he just came across as a man who is very comfortable in his own skin, also comfortable knowing what he doesn't know. And it's great to see humble, great people succeed in life. Obviously, he had a lucrative corporate and agency career, but that reads to me, like a man who is happy and comfortable in his own skin. That's incredible.

Patricia::

A little piece of trivia before we hear your nine takeaways. He came to work at Colgate after he'd already decided to retire from his previous job. And Colgate begged him and he's like, "Okay, let's go learn something." And so he was there purely because he wanted to be there and we all benefited from that.

Ryan:

Yeah. And I think that, that is something that our younger listeners, I think can associate with, because I think in today's society, particularly if you're young in your career, you're taught, do what motivates you, do what inspires you, do what calls you. And I think Bill is really ahead of his time. So he would fit in the baby boomer classification and Bill is everything that you would say isn't a baby boomer, in terms of I have a job, I put my head down, I work, I save, that sort of stereotypical bit.

Bill was way ahead of his time, I think. And the reason why, I think what you say resonates, it segues nicely into my first point, something in what he said really resonated with me about everybody today, being able to be creative and being able to create things. He didn't say it in those exact words, but just the skills and the curiosity is something that we all actually have. And as you know, I'm a father of young kids and they're just fuming and have so much curiosity in them. And I think we have to be careful not to take that away from people because I personally, am of the view that creators of the future, whether that's in real life or the metaverse, we'll figure it out. But I think creators can solve a lot of problems and so that's point one.

The second point and links to his general vibe is how authentically him he is and he's unapologetic about it. And I think it's important as a leadership lesson to be yourself, but he also really linked authenticity to design led thinking, you have to be real with people. I think many of us and Patricia, you and I talked about this a lot when you were first leaving big corporate America to come to Zappi where, sometimes you forget who you are in the most authentic sense, in your work self, because you've never had the opportunity to be yourself. Bill never gave a shit. Bill was just always himself. I could speak from experience, the day I started being myself was a good day for my career, too. So it's a lesson you all need to have.

Patricia:

I don't think it was... We were chatting before the interview when I started recording. He went to a job interview once, wearing a completely non corporate outfit, a very ethnic outfit. And he was wearing sandals and no socks. He was almost barefooted. And it's like, this is who I am. Take it or leave it. I love that.

Ryan:

Take it or leave it. For sure. All right. So I'll get into some of the design-led takeaways that I had. And this is obviously a big topic and a lot of our customers are trying to solve it. And it's incredible how much of a dependency being a design led innovation has on knowing your customer and the culture that they operate in. So the first is you have to understand a person's needs and their problems before you can even remotely attempt to design new things. I think he used the word wonderful, which I appreciated.

The second takeaway is when you're innovating and when you're putting out a design into the world, you need to get a reaction. You need to invoke some emotion to get their attention, whether that's on a shelf or in today's trend, on a digital shelf where algorithms are side placement, not plano-grams and shopper teams. And that's a really interesting change, the fact that my wife hasn't stepped foot in a grocery store in 18 months means she doesn't just walk by Pepsi end caps, right? So she has to go out and look for Doritos, if that's what she wants. Getting a reaction, getting attention is really, really important, particularly in a world where algorithms pick up your behavior and all of a sudden you're inundated with choice.

I've already told you my backpack story. I never bought a backpack because I've looked up backpacks and seen 6,000 backpacks and didn't end up getting one. So once you've gotten their attention, simplification. And this was my favorite point he made, I think. Actually, there were two points that I really liked, but doing something simple that speaks to a person in their stride, in their words is really freaking hard to do. But simplicity matters in communication.

And one of the ways and tactics, I think Bill did a really nice job of articulating was that I've got your attention, now I need to speak to you in your words, in your world about your thing. And I think that if you speak simply and you speak to somebody like a human, that connection point is there. But it becomes easier to simplify because you're not falling in love with 60,000 claims or using marketing speak because marketing speak, no one wants to read marketing speak, as much as I'm a marketer and sometimes I'm guilty of using marketing speak.

The next one, and it links to understanding someone's needs and problems. But the next takeaway I had was you have to start with empathy and an understanding of culture. I thought his story about his debate with the Campbell Soup Company's CEO or president, whoever it was, was fascinating because the executive was like, "They eat soup! Sell soup!" And Bill's point was, "I know, but how do they eat soup? And how do we actually avoid not alienating people?" And what I loved about that was he thought about how to bring an innovation into that, that didn't alienate in that case, the housewives in China, who made the soup and all the meals and that's super creative, right? It wasn't saying, no, we can't make money in this space, Mr. Executive, who's dead set on doing it. It was, "If we try to do the same thing we're doing in America here, we will be alienated from their culture and we won't be welcome back."

And I think particularly, because a lot of us sit in a location that is removed from our customers. And what I mean by that is you could sit in New York City and be trying to represent a German consumer. You could be sitting in Iowa and trying to represent an inner city, Hispanic community. And if you don't get out of your shit and get into their world, don't be surprised when they don't welcome you into their house.

I think again, he was talking to you about... He's obviously teaching now, and he seems really passionate about it. And I love that he's teaching a design class, but he spends a lot of the time talking about leadership. And the principle of leadership is empathy, first. And leading with empathy allows you to do a lot more. And I know empathy is the buzzword of the year, but it's one buzzword that I'm not in a rush to get rid of. I think more empathy, not less, is a good thing. And understanding first where somebody else is coming from is a good thing.

Patricia:

Exactly. I mean, as marketers and as salespeople, we have to start there. None of us can be successful. I'm an insights person. I'm an insights geek and we're all marketers and salespeople in our day to day lives, as well as in our jobs, we have to think about who we're talking to, and why we're talking to them and why they should care before we can even have a hope or a prayer that they're going to actually listen or want to talk back.

Ryan:

Yeah, exactly. And so his second point about creative leadership is I think the way he coined it, goes back to my first takeaway, empathy and authenticity. He used the phrase, "You have to be real." You should always be real, but particularly if you're creative and take an old game and turn it into a new game, you have to be real. And I think it dovetails nicely into my next point, which is he's genuinely not afraid to fail. He strikes me as a man who stepped in a lot of proverbial piles of shit and he's not scared of that. What he has no patience for is the same thing I have no patience for. And so I wish someday to have tea, or a whiskey or whatever with Bill or just a conversation, we don't have to have a drink. He is unwilling to accept not learning from failure, which I really appreciate.

You've heard this tangent, because we've worked together for a long time, but I want to step in new piles of shit. I don't want to step on ones we already know exist. And so that doesn't mean not making mistakes, it actually is the opposite. Be bold, take chances. And I imagine he has a high hit rate of success because he's grounded in empathy, and keeping it real and understanding people. But you have to test those assumptions,

Patricia:

But he fails too, he does. And okay, move on.

Ryan:

Yeah, exactly. So my last takeaway brings us back to consumer insights. Insights is about taking everything that is around you to create the connection with communities through empathy and an understanding of them. Let me tell you why this is my final takeaway and why I loved it so much. I believe this is what the insights departments should be doing all god, damn day. They should not be spending their time worried about tactical research that could be disseminated to the people closest to the problems. I'm telling you, Patricia, the best insights departments in the next 10 years are going to be the ones to understand all of the signals, their quant, their qual, their social listening, their deep ethno work, their IDIs with people in their homes, their understanding of the shopper journey.

They can take all of that information and simply distill it down to create strategies that connect with culture that ultimately drive P and L growth for companies. Bill's got it. If Bill was starting his career today, he'd be running shit very quickly because that man was... It must have been so fun for you to watch that man work 10 years ago when it was still super rich in hierarchy, because I'm the boss I say so. That dude was ahead of his time and I'm so thankful that we finished the season with Bill's wisdom.

Patricia:

Yeah. I mean, this is a guy who had it clear, from the beginning. And the company was smart enough to hire him, even though he didn't fit the mold, because he doesn't fit any mold. He only has Bill Lunderman's mold and he keeps changing it.

Ryan:

Love it.

Patricia:

I enjoyed working with him as a customer internally, because he knew exactly what he wanted and what he didn't want, which is almost as important. And he knew what to do with it when we found it for him. He knew how to interpret the results. He didn't take them to be gospel truth. He took them as a point of information, one more point of information and put it to his connected learning. And he had his map in his head and he saw it all. It was so much fun. Traveling with him was fun. It was just a personal experience. It was great.

Ryan:

You should have bought more things when you were shopping with him. You mentioned-

Patricia:

I should have. That red leather jacket, I'm so sad about it but-

Ryan:

You should still get it. That was wonderful. And I think what you just say there, also resonates, right? The signals we get from people allow us to understand them. I say this about Zappi, it's not our customer's job to figure out how to make Zappi work. When the reason we exist is because of the way the industry was working. So if you're defining a new game, you have to understand the old game so that you can lead your community to the next thing that they need. And that's where I always get this tension of people thinking Steve jobs or Henry Ford were anti-consumer insights. That's absolutely not what they were. They were saying, if I just ask them what they want, they'll tell me a faster version of what they're doing, but if I understand them, then I can give them what they need. And I think Bill obviously, had mastered that in his career.

Patricia:

Yeah.

Ryan:

Great way to end the season. I want to give a shout out to our crew. Patricia and I... I would say I have the easiest job on this podcast because I think of cool people to talk to and I talk to them. Patricia, you do an awesome job distilling these insights for everybody who listens. And Kelsey, Katie, Ariel, Judith, Emma, I can't thank you all enough for the great work you do to produce the show, to disseminate the learnings of the show in different formats so that if people don't like podcasts, they can read, they can digest an ebook. There's other ways that you can consume this information. We're going to be back with season four. We're going to take a little break right now, aren't we, Patricia?

Patricia:

Yes. Before we take a little break, I want to say thank you and a big shout out to all the people who came, and gave us their time, and their experience and their wisdom. Sharing is what's going to make this all better, bigger, bolder. It's just, I'm so grateful to them every time.

Ryan:

Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And the level of openness we have is fantastic. If you've followed all 25 episodes, I hope that you've picked up at least 25 insights that are helping you be better at work but we're going to be back for more. And I also can't thank all of you who take the time to listen to this production enough. The truth is I would probably have fun doing this if you didn't listen, but it's pretty cool to get texts, and emails and LinkedIn messages being like, "Oh, I learned so much from that episode." So thank you all, for doing that.

I would just like to end by wishing all of you a wonderful holiday season, whatever you celebrate. And I hope you have time to take a break, to take a breather, to reflect and to get ready for 2022. I know that there's this arbitrary turn of the year, which is quite weird and random, if you really think about it, but I always do use this time personally, as a time to take stock of things and figure out what are my intentions going into the new year.

It's going to be wild. Can you imagine, we're already about to be in 2022? Holy, shit.

Patricia:

Very cool. Wow.

Ryan:

Thank you, everybody. Happy holidays. And we will be back for season four, just on the other side.

And if you’d like to learn more about how to apply design thinking to your work, read our blog.