Why you should fall in love with the problem, not the solution

Ryan Barry:

Hello everybody and welcome to season four of Inside Insights, a podcast powered by Zappi. I am your host, Ryan and I'm joined as ever by my co-host Patricia Montesdeoca and our producer, Kelsey Sullivan. What's up ladies?

Patricia Montesdeoca:

Hey Ryan, how's it going?

Ryan:

It's great to see your lovely face. And I'm really, really excited for season four. It's going to be awesome and our first episode today is going to be money.

But I wanted to give you an opportunity to share some news from your side. You have been our co-host for a long time. You've been a colleague of mine for a long time and you still will be, but in a different light. So talk to everybody about what's going on with you.

Patricia:

Yeah. I made a life change last year, last quarter, but first I want to say hello, Kelsey. I'm so glad to see you on our podcast with us, instead of us having to behind the scenes say hello to you and send you love. But back to me, just for a second, I decided to come back to Columbia. I came back to live in Columbia. I am broadcasting from sunny and lovely Columbia. I am still with Zappi but in a different way. I no longer head up their customer transformation team. That lovely, lovely team that I set up and that is the best thing ever in the world, present company included. CT is the best. And I switched over to be a consultant. I opened my own, I hung my own shingle BGM, shameless plug and now I am a Strategic Insight Consultant but my best, most favorite customer has got to be Zappi so I'm a Zappi alumni consultant. Woohoo.

Ryan:

I love it. I'm really happy for you, Patricia, and I can't wait to visit you in Columbia, but we have this excuse to chat all the time.

Patricia:

Yes we do.

Ryan:

And season four is going to be just like the other three have been. We're going to keep raising the bar. We're going to keep bringing you folks tangible insights that you can use to make yourself better every day. This season we're going to be bringing in heads of insights, CMOs, consultants, ad agency executives and also featuring some of our very own experts around areas like how ad agencies can better engage in creative data, how advertising research works really well, what's going on with data quality and many other areas. So we're really, really excited, but today's interview is something that I'm really excited to bring to you. So today's interview is with Giles Jepson, who is the Chief Operating Officer at Been There Done That.

Former Chief Marketing Officer at Kraft Heinz Europe and Been There Done That, which Giles will explain in his own words, is a really fascinating business from where I sit. They really decoupled the agency of record model. They focus on strategy and idea execution and problem definition. I think one of the tensions that exists in the big ad agency world, and apologies if I'm offending any ad agency listeners, is you're selling the strategy so that you can sell the work and the work meaning the production, the media placement, the execution and I think that sometimes has a bias associated with it. So some of the things that Been There Done That do are really cool and it does rely on agility and consumer insights data, which obviously I'm passionate about. But today we're going to talk to Giles, who is somebody who I consider a friend.

I've known him for many, many years now. But we're going to talk to Giles about something that, by accident, he's consulting his customers on, which is the art of problem definition. I think in today's world, we use a lot of big words, businesses move really fast, we jump to solutions really quickly. Our companies spend lots of money on solutions, consultants, meetings but a lot of times we don't even know what problem we're solving. I think I've learned this lesson personally, as an executive. If you try to solve a problem without knowing what the problem is or you have a cross-functional group and everybody has a different articulation of what they're trying to solve for, you end up wasting time and money and so Giles today is going to take us through the framework that he uses, which obviously you can call Giles and he'll consult for you, but you can bring it right into your own business.

Should we just get into it, Patricia?

Patricia:

Yes. I'm looking forward to it because this is something that we all do. We just all want to jump into action and we need to stop and breathe for a second. So I'm looking forward to this.

Ryan:

Giles Jepson, my man, the COO of Been There Done That, good friend, good man and an advocate of the marketing industry. Thank you for taking the time today my friend.

Giles Jepson:

Ryan, great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Ryan:

It's good to see you. So Giles, I want to understand something. So you used to be the CMO at Kraft Heinz and now you're the COO at Been There Done That.

What led you to leave, kind of high profile, top of the food chain, corporate marketing role to start your own business besides the fact that you're a crazy entrepreneur?

I can relate to that by the way. But I guess, what were the things that you saw in that chair that led you to Been There Done That?

Giles:

I suppose my background has been a corporate background and pretty classic in the sense of Colgate-Palmolive, Lindt and Sprüngli and then through the marketing function. As always, a couple of years in sales, back into marketing, and then I always kind of had an ambition at some point in my life and career to either do something by myself or something or join a much smaller business and I actually went off and  did something called Sloan Masters at London Business School. And this was about 2008 thinking that, I know, I'll go there to meet some interesting people, build my network, find out what I don't know, which was a lot and I use that as a springboard to maybe go into much more start up space.

Ironically I came out of that course which I actually loved and then went straight into Heinz which was really not the, really not the...

Ryan:

That sort of wasn't the plan?

Giles:

It certainly wasn't the plan but I mean, at the time, I had been approached by Heinz pre that course actually, and I was quite intrigued because actually at the time it was going through a bit of a turnaround. I really respected the guy, he was at the time, the CEO of the UK business and he was building a new leadership team and all of that kind of stuff. So even though it was whatever it is, a billion pounds business in the UK, it felt like a turnaround. I wouldn't say a small business but it was kind of, it felt quite entrepreneurial so.

Ryan:

Mm-hmm.

Giles:

Long story short is I left there and went into Heinz and then became COO, went through various categories, became UK CMO and at that point 3G had bought the business. So I did that for four years and stayed for another four years as European CMO. And to be honest I actually loved it. 3G gets a bad rap and there's some horror stories at 3G but actually I think a lot of the work they did, certainly in the very early days of that takeover, that they actually made the right decisions and actually they made some decisions that are being talked about for years within Heinz but never because it was a publicly traded company, it never got done. They took it private, made some of those calls. And yeah, long story short, European CMO for four years.

Throughout that time I still have a burning ambition to go and do that start up thing that I thought I was going to do 10 years before. I've been doing the role for four years and more and more, I love marketing but I love business even more. I'm intrigued by business. I find it interesting.

And I just-

Ryan:

I'm the same way. I completely agree with that statement. Marketing is a part of business. I love that.

Giles:

Totally and there were so many disruptive models going, and a crazy big launch in the food business, so many disruptive start ups going on both within my direct sphere of influence within food but then more generally. So I'd always thought that I want to go back in there and really it was by pure serendipity I got introduced to the two co-founders of Been There Done That, Ed Rogers and Dave Alberts, and really with no reason other than these guys are super interesting, the idea is super interesting. Why don't you go meet them? In essence I was target market for the model.

Ryan:

True

Giles:

I can talk about the model but the business made all the sense to me in terms of a business model and the disruptive business model. Long story short, I'm really keen to get into something high growth, disruptive, both in terms of something I could add value to but probably even more importantly, I could learn from. And that was really important. I could learn an awful lot and long story short I ended up investing in the business and joining Dave and Ed.

And this is about four years ago and the business is now 25 people strong, growing very quickly. London office, New York office, working with some world’s great brands but still trying to figure it out, to be honest with you. Flying the plane and building the plane but it's good. Yeah so, really for me it was a natural extension of my career and jumping into something that I've always had an ambition to but it was the right time, right place.

Ryan:

I love still trying to figure, still figuring it out. I was having this conversation with one of my partners the other day. If there is ever a day where we think we've figured it out, we're probably going to become extinct shortly after that. Even if you're in a billion dollar turnover business, there's a degree of iteration.

Before I ask you about Been There Done That, what are some of the things you thought 3G did really well?

Obviously without disclosing anything, but some of their principles that you were like, you know what they're actually on to something, cause you're right and they do get a bad rap.

I've personally never worked in one of their businesses so I'd love to know from you, what were some of the levers that they pulled that were good?

Giles:

I think some of their principles make… a lot of what they do is common sense and sounds as though common sense is in short supply some of the time.

Ryan:

Yeah, good point man.

Giles:

So they make quick decisions. They got information even it was incomplete and they made decisions, and that is worth a lot. Arguably they could make those decisions because they are taking the company private, but to be fair, they are making some big decisions. Even for a private company. And they move quickly.

I think they challenge convention, in the sense of, they challenge convention around what type of person could do what type of role. I think that went to the extreme where it didn't work so you're kind of getting rid of some very senior, experienced talent or actually a guy or girl with an MBA. Can't fill that void no matter how smart they are. Experience does matter.

Ryan:

Right, right.

Giles:

In some cases. But to be fair, there was a level of challenge around that. Even got the dreaded word ZBB. They brought that in but again, from a common sense perspective, it makes all the sense. You hear someone like Mark Ritson talk about it all the time. It does make sense, you build your plan, you build your strategy, and then you go, I know what do I need and you go build your budget from the ground up and you then just roll it over.

And there was an awful lot of, I wouldn't say there was fat to that business but inefficiency and putting resource behind the right things where it can make a difference and get the best out of it, made all the sense. But again, things got taken too extreme but I think there's some general business principles that made sense and I think the reality on Kraft Heinz is, or Heinz as it was, is a food business is a very different animal to an ABI which, in effect, you're in one category.

I can't go multiple brands but you're in one category, in beer, and food is very different, food is very local, very cultural. Numerous categories, numerous brands, it was a much more complex business but some of their general principles made sense.

Ryan:

Particularly common sense. I like that one. It's something, maybe they forgot that one at one point.

I think quick decisions and zero based budgeting. We can talk about both but quick decisions, I mean, it's one of the things that I worry about as companies, I can't believe I'm going to say this on this podcast. As companies become more data driven, do they become crippled by data perfection? In other words, I can't go until I know it's going to work and it's like, that's not really the point. It's to make an informed decision.

I was just saying this to somebody on our team today. How many decisions that we make are actually irrevocable? Just make it and iterate, you're going to get it wrong on some level anyway. And you know what, zero based budgeting gets a bad rap too, man.

Giles:

You know they could have CEO at the time when I worked for Lindt and Sprüngli, you know the Swiss chocolate business. The CEO there, when I asked him what he did, he basically said my job is just to make decisions and you know what? Some of them, most of them might be wrong and some of them will be right but what's most important is I make decisions, figure out if they're right or wrong, if they're wrong, you basically make a decision very quickly to either alter or evolve it or whatever and I think that is absolutely true. You know, I think and you see it and I'm sure you see it with your clients and I'm seeing it a lot more now on being on the other side with Been There Done That. Especially now, people always talk about agile and you know, responsive but reality is and my god it takes weeks and months to make a decision about doing a project or-

Ryan:

Right.

Giles:

Signing off a brief, it's crazy. It's you know, you just can't, you're not agile, you're not responsive, you don't make those decisions. I think that is a big, particularly for the big incumbent businesses, that is a huge thing to figure out.

Ryan:

Yeah. Reduce the amount, reduce the amount of layers of approval, bureaucracy. You're gonna get it wrong on some level right? Then you can just iterate.

I think one of the reasons why entrepreneurs, small businesses, have an advantage because they have nothing to lose and that I think that culturally, big business…

It's something I know a lot of companies are trying to do. I always get a kick out of the tension with zero base budgeting too because, even I'll bring is some folks here to Zappi that have kind of bigger company backgrounds and they'll ask me questions like, whose budget is this coming from? And I always am like, I don't know, who cares. Do we need to do it? Great, let's do it.

And I feel like for whatever reason 3G's brand being on top of zero based budgeting has made negative associations with it but to your point it seems like common sense.

Giles:

I think the interesting about zero based budgeting is if you follow it through to it's conclusion, arguably, budgets should be going up. Because in effect what you're doing is starting with a blank sheet of paper and saying, what do I need to budget to deliver this strategy to achieve these results?

Ryan:

Yeah

Giles:

So there's no, there's not a necessary implication that every time the budget goes down. Now whether that logical conclusion actually manifests itself is a different debate because are budgets being made more efficient or cut under the guise of ZBB? And they probably are, most of the time, on a pure basis, that's not zero based budgeting.

Ryan:

Yeah. You know what it reminds me of? So we've got an unlimited vacation policy, right? And I get many a skeptic employee saying, you're just doing this so you don't have to pay out vacation days. And I'm like, well no actually, we actually encourage people to take vacation.

But it is like if you do something to disguise some other objective you can see why people think that like. Right? It's really interesting. All right.

Enough about 3G. Let's talk about Been There Done That. I want to give a shout out to somebody who actually got a shout out on this podcast from somebody else. Tim Warner introduced you, myself, and Dave Alberts about four years ago. I love you guys. I'm so happy I met you and I'm thankful for Tim for introducing us and I love you as a human but I think what you've done with Been There Done That is nothing short of fascinating.

I was saying this to you before we hit record. You're the first, quote unquote, supplier I've had on this podcast. Damn good reason.

Tell the people what you're trying to solve with Been There Done That and then we can get into the topic of the day.

Giles:

So fundamentally what we are trying to solve is giving marketers access to the very best creative, strategic talent at speed. That's basically it. But it's more, there's more nuance to it. At the heart of Been There Done That is a community of about two hundred of some of the world's best chief strategy officers, chief creative officers, innovation specialists.

And that group is a virtual community across 25 markets. So that is the kind of heartland of Been There Done That but beyond that, what we've, and we're still developing but what we've developed is a sprint-based approach to basically harness that collective group and apply the expertise to particular marketing problems. And we've kind of codified and productized what we do, so we work across creative platforms, campaign ideas, big brand ideas, brand purpose, innovation. We’ve extended that to experience strategy. And each project lasts circa 4-5 weeks and we define this kind of, and really kind of evolve this methodology to really define the problem. 

We then select the three most relevant community members to work on that for 48 hours. They come back with a suite of three ideas each. So nine ideas from within a week of the brief being signed off and then that gets curated and presented back to the client and then depending on what the final deliverable is, it gets synthesized or evolved. So fundamentally, as I said in the beginning, it's about getting access to top talent to solve problems, and in particular, marketing problems. When I was, like I said in the beginning, when I was in my previous life, I found that very difficult to access.

My experience of, I work with some very really good agencies but I, my experience was, it was a very slow process. My access to top talent was probably maybe in the pitch.

Ryan:

Isn't that funny?

Giles:

And whether it's two, three months down the line I got given what was perceived as the answer. And I think what was underpinning this business and to be honest with you, I didn't really appreciate it when I first met David, Ed or even when I joined the business.

I think, we've seen this more and more as the business has evolved. I think there's two fundamental concepts that underpin the way in which you work which is super important. One is we spend a lot of time defining the problem. And that, I'm sure we’ll talk more about that, and it's particularly important, obviously, for insight and insight group and they way in which you plug into Zappi.

That is super important. For obvious and less obvious reasons. And we spent a lot of time on that. Number one and then number two is there is an underpinning concept around the way work which is around divergent thinking. So, defining the problem space and then filling that problem space with a range of thinking that makes sure that it's on brief but that thinking tries to solve that problem from different angles. So in effect, you are filling the problem space with different ideas and different solutions so you're maximizing your chances of success, you're really utilizing cognitive diversity and then you then converge, you then synthesize, you get feedback.

And what did we do when this experience strategy or greater strategy or other types of work, those are really underpinning concepts of this business. It's really defining and reframing or framing the problem and then utilizing top talent to refill that problem space with a range of solutions.

Ryan:

So we'll spend a lot of time talking about problem definition today because it's something that I think plagues companies of all sizes, not just big companies. But before we get there, I think one of the problems I hear from our customers a lot, upstream, is that the creative brief was wrong, and I always ask why?

And I hear a lot of stuff. We don't know what we are actually trying to solve, it was done in a rush, we weren't aligned. But there's also this other thing which is, right now the strategy and the thinking is coupled in with selling the work.

Giles:

Yep.

Ryan:

And that's plagued, I think that's plagued the advertising… and I'm not gonna make any friends at WPP or Omnicom or anything that are listening to this. I'm sure I have the total of zero of their listeners but anyways, I think the agency of record model got turned on its head because you can't think big, or what did you say? In a cognitively diverse way, if you have to fit into the box of the CMO's biases but what you've essentially done is decoupled the problem, the creativity, from the execution. And I think it's fascinating, so by having a clear problem, you could have two strategy people, from two different walks of life, with two completely different lines of thinking, who've never met the customer by the way, coming up with off the wall never been thought of disruptive ideas.

And then you plug it into a system, an ecosystem, an insights ecosystem. It's one of the reasons why I think Been There Done That is such an interesting connection point into the research ecosystem. If we get a problem defined idea out of a Been There Done That community, I can tell you it's going to break the damn norm and it's going to be something you can build on a lot more than some kind of, oh we've always done it this way, type of thinking. And I think it's something obviously our businesses are of trying to kind of connect because there is quite a bit of opportunity to bring better briefs into the ecosystem because, guess what? If you have a better brief, you understand the problem better, you will probably sell more shit and make better ads.

Giles:

Thank you.

Ryan:

Novel concept.

Giles:

You're right, we don't execute and so we're not feeding a machine. We're not coming with bias, we're not trying to sell the TV or whatever it might be. All we're trying to do is define the problem and find the best solution to that particular problem.

Giles:

So you're absolutely right, we're not, there is no inherent bias in the system. That bias is gone. Our community is anonymous and the beauty in the community for the community is you're getting them to provide pure thinking. They're not trying to pre think their boss or pre think the account they're after or pre think what the client thinks they want.

We are asking them to give pure thoughts and thinking to that particular problem. They get, you know we pay them whatever all right, the only thing that matters is that response is on brief. And as I said, you're trying to fill the problem space.

So that is really, really important so you're absolutely right. The other beauty of that whole thing is you want fresh thinking, right? You want fresh thinking but you also want thinking from people who have Been There Done That and you want people who are experienced, that have wisdom, have seen stuff. Sometimes our clients go, do you know what? I don't want anybody whose ever worked on my category, because I just want a fresh perspective.

Ryan:

Right.

Giles:

But you can have, you know a client can have three CSO level type thinkers. I mean, you'd be amazed by whose in our community… or CCO's working on the smallest brand to the biggest brand. Right? That will never happen in any other thing. So you’re dead right. There is a lot of these kind of community based models popping up. What I have to say about Been There Done That is the communities, it's super important and we curate that community and we don't, we make sure the demand and supply matches.

But actually the critical thing for Been There Done That beyond the quality of the community is the methodology by which you then work the problem. You identify the relevant community members to work on the problem, the way in which you curate the work, there's a lot of nuance to then harness that community, which is super important.

Getting back to your other point about, as you said, we got introduced by Tim, who I work with. Good mate of mine at Colgate, and then we got introduced. But the reason why we kind of got connected and it really, his vision at the very beginning of this was obviously through Ada and creating the insight ecosystem of really agile quick system, but what was particularly interesting was having this kind of strategic creative community to be able to plug in to that system and to Zappi specifically, whether it's uncovering certain insights and bouncing into creative strategic community quickly to get thinking. To then go back into this kind of platform to then stress test those ideas and then bounce it out again.

You can move incredibly quickly between testing and thinking and strategic or creativity and you bounce incredibly quickly. And that was, to be fair to Tim, that was his original vision. That's how we met.

Ryan:

Yeah.

Giles:

And it makes all the sense in the world.

Ryan:

It really does and I think it's all centered from, if you have the problem right and the thinking is off the wall, the insights tool is there to amplify the thinking versus grade the homework. I think so often, insights gets this rap of homework grading because of how it's utilized. And look I've been on record saying legacy tools, legacy insight systems suck. I still think that. But they're also a victim of the process in some ways. You go to test an ad when you've already decided you are doing it, you've already decided on the celebrity, you've decided on the territory.

Who cares what the research says at that point? It's not grounded in a problem or a customer truth and I think that's one of the reasons why I'm very passionate about your work, is it starts from the problem and then it makes the rest of the stuff about how great can you make the thinking? Not about, is the thinking good? Is this going to work? Can we get it to market in time? Etc.

I want to talk to you about problem definition. I would say to you, I'm recently converted on this topic. Not to say I was never converted before but the vocabulary of “fall in love with the problem not the solution” is probably something that I've put into my day to day work personally, say two years ago.

It takes more time up front from what I've seen, but when you get a group of smart people to understand a problem, the solutions are easy as hell. 

I'd love you to take us through problem definition in your world and how you go about getting people with egos and bonuses and everything else on the line to actually work through First Principles Thinking to get to a problem, and I think for all of you listening, this is a technique that obviously Giles earns a living on getting companies to do, but you can start to bring this thinking into the types of meetings you're having with your stakeholders to challenge people to think problem first and then the rest gets easier.

But Giles, educate us a little bit on kind of how you folks go about getting to the problem which is obviously the key foundation of all the great work that you do.

Giles:

Sure. Before I jump into that, in my previous life, I was probably as bad as anyone. You know, within the client-side, brand-side business, people do not value thinking time, people value action and solution mode and particularly I think different companies vary within that but fundamentally it's about delivery. It's about solving and finding solutions, it's not about taking the time to really think through what you're trying to do.

Arguably to some degree that's not valued, certainly not explicitly and the other thing that happens in those businesses is, well there is a number of things that happen, a couple of things would be, people are always seem to be trying to second guess either their boss or their boss's boss or the CEO. So are you really thinking through for first principles what needs to be solved? A lot of the time it's about trying to manage upwards.

But then the other part of that is there is an awful lot of time where, in essence, people either implicitly or probably very explicitly, and when I say people I'm talking again, senior leaders within businesses, are giving the solutions and then it's almost down to the individual to figure out, okay that's the solution, how do I kind of almost work back from that to post-rationalize and develop the strategy?

Ryan:

Yeah.

Giles:

And I hold my hands up probably. In previous lives to do that, I think that's…

Ryan:

I think I'm guilty of doing it too.

Giles:

Yeah and it's just a cultural thing within these businesses. So when, coming onto Been There Done That, huge kudos to Nikki Crumpton who's our CSO, because she really drove this. First and foremost, initially we were talking about writing briefs right?

And actually, over time, through running all these different types of projects, what ultimately can I say that, fundamentally yes, an output is about getting to a brief but it's actually about really getting to define what is the problem we're trying to solve and then coming out of that would be then the brief.

So we just seen, I've seen it, and I've seen it from both sides. People are very very bad at defining the problem they are trying to solve for the reasons I've stated but also just people are just not good at it. They just don't spend the time and a lot of the time they are probably defining the wrong problem.

Ryan:

Well you know why, it takes time and thought, and it's, I'll give you a quick example. I'm hiring a chief product officer, right? I instinctively know it's what I need to do but when I sat down to write what problems is this going to solve, it took me 90 minutes, but I could tell you something. At the end of that 90 minutes, I know exactly what we're looking for because it took like, and I partnered with Steve and Steve's our CEO. To really like, do you agree with these problem statements? Like it made the whole thing easier, but it doesn't move at first as fast, but I can tell you I'm going to have a lot less waste now on my process. 

Giles:

So we felt that this is hugely valuable thing, also the way in which we work, and I mean the same for any agency. It would be the same for you guys, these insights. Is, if a brief is crap, you're going to get crap out. Right? And particularly when the process… the way we work, the speed in which we work and the fact that even though we have got some amazing people in our community, they only have 48 hours to work on the set of solutions or ideas.

So that brief has got to be super sharp. It's got to be super sharp. Which means that the problem has to be really sharp as well, so on the back of that, Nikki built and devised, it's very simple, but a very simple framework and we now run a two to three hour, what we call a problem definition session. Run by Nikki, plus others. And that's really important because that level of experience is really important.

And we built a framework called SOLVE. It's a very simple framework. It's about the Situation, it's about the Obstacles, it's about the Landscape. Consumer landscape in particular, and actually a lot of the time that is the area which really a lot of the brands don't really have insight on, strangely.

Ryan:

Really?

Giles:

V is the Viewpoint, of looking through the lens of the brand and going how can I look at, I mean maybe reframe this problem from the viewpoint of the brand? And then what we call the End Frame. So how do you express that problem in a really pithy succinct way? So we use a framework called solve, it's super simple. In effect, what we are trying to do is define the problem to solve.

So that process both in terms of it, just a simple framework, but having a two to three hour session, for us, allows us to get a super sharp brief. But actually, what we found is, people have described it as a therapy session. So brand teams really use that session, yes to get to a brief but ultimately to really figure out, yes what the problem is but, but the beauty as well is and again, we talked about alignment, is that is a great vehicle to get disparate stakeholders into that session to align on the problem. Right? Because again, if you go down the pipe and you get, whether it’s comms work or whether it's innovation ideas, or whether it's… whatever it is.

A lot of the time, there's discussion or disharmony around the work partly because people don't even align to what the problem to solve is, right? So there's two pieces to this process, one is the problem to define the problem, get it super sharp but that is a great vehicle to get alignment amongst key stakeholders. Number one. Further down the pipe when you get a range of work back, that is also a very good vehicle to get a range of stakeholders to start looking at the work and getting alignment.

So yeah, so in terms of problem definition, it's about taking time out. It's not about taking weeks out, it's, you're talking two or three hours.

Ryan:

Two or three hours?

Giles:

To see the framework run by someone who is experienced. But the value is immense. The value is absolutely huge, and again, we didn't necessarily see that three or four years ago but in the last couple of years as we've run more, and more, and more of these, it's become apparent that even just how valuable that session is. Even to the degree now where we're selling what we call stand alone problem definition sessions. Because there is so much value in just brand teams taking time out and really, really reexamining that particular issue.

Ryan:

That's fascinating. And also much applicability, it's not just for innovation or marketing, I mean, it's business strategy…

Giles:

Within the world of Zappi and  the insights world and again we've had conversations with a number of insights people. They would say we have marketers coming to us and they're asking us the wrong question. Right? They're coming to us saying this is what you guys, I want, I needed some research around this particular area. And what's happening is, it's the wrong question and actually a lot of the time they're coming with a preconceived idea of what the solution is or what the answer is and they just want to get some justification on some numbers or some sound bites or whatever it might be to justify what they think the solution is.

And we talked to a number of insight teams and they're saying, look we're wasting money, we're going down cul-de-sacs. We're wasting time. And we'll come on to it, and actually this was the genesis actually of, we've actually built problem definition course off the back of that particular insight actually, which was around, just getting marketeers to ask the right question which in effect is to honor the problem but…

Ryan:

Yeah and it's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is I think you could you know a lot of the stuff I talk about on this podcast is centered around elevating the impact insights has but it does assume that marketing goes on the journey with them and this isn’t an insights versus marketing thing.

I just thinks it's a function of the behaviors around understanding the consumer needs to make the consumer's voice or the problem centralize the strategy and the thinking and the ideas and too often it's Bain said we should so we are..., we're not fast so we will..., we need to be in this territory because our competitor is..., and it's like well, what are you really trying to solve?

And it shows up, I mean folks, I just invite you to watch ads on TV. You'll spot the bad briefs. They're not hard. And some person at a big agency and some brand director put their heart and soul in that and Millward Brown and Ipsos  probably made a shit ton of money copy testing it but it didn't help. Right? So and then that's not a function of any of those people being wrong. It's what were they actually trying to solve in the first place, you know?

Giles:

I think another piece we see quite a lot is as we go through those problem definition sessions, it is increasingly clear a lot of the time that that brand team does not have the insight they need to either help really define that problem or certainly to solve a problem. And that shows up a lot.

A lot of these businesses have, you could argue, way too much continuous and they have a lot of the what, they have a lot of Nielsen, IRI, Kantar, whatever it might be and that's not a lot of the why. You know? Increasingly it's not a lot of the why and you get into these problem definition sessions and you can, which is great, you kind of exposes what… do you really understand the consumer or what the need is or what's going on in that consumer landscape and I think a lot of the time it feels like there is an awful lot of data as you say and insight but is it really relevant, useful insight that is going to really help unlock a particular problem or unlock a particular opportunity?

I think that work or that session or that defining the problem is really useful in that…

Ryan:

It helps, it helps illuminate the why and I do think you're right, like there's so much what data.

Giles:

Yeah.

Ryan:

From idea through ad optimization or experience optimization, whatever side of the coin you're on. Why data is so key. Like why do people do what they do? I mean, not something my business does but there's a lot of great companies, Streetbees comes to mind or QualSights or a few others where you can actually go and say I saw you do that. Why'd you do it? And actually understand people and that feeds a problem brief and it's the same if you have a clear problem and a clear brief when you do testing, it's learning, it's not testing anymore.

Giles:

Yeah. Exactly.

Ryan:

You keep learning more about why, why did that celebrity not engage, or that positioning statement come off? How could you make it better?

Ryan:

So all right, so other than call you, to have you run a sprint which I'm sure a bunch of people will. Few pieces of advice around if you’re a company who hasn't fallen in love with the problem yet. Where to go and get started? So objectivity, obviously you bring it to each strategy officer and to facilitate which is key but what are some other pieces of advice that spring to mind.

Giles:

Yeah, great with a phone call but I think it actually starts at home and again we've built this training course but actually, what's interesting, is there's a chapter within this training course and we should really rather growth mindset, right? it's not about spending money and it's not about necessarily phoning up an agency or phoning up anybody else. I think it starts at home, which is around the way in which people think and the way in which people approach work and to some degree their life, right? I mean.

Ryan:

Mm-hmm.

Giles:

Matthew Syed, is a writer I follow quite a lot and he had a great book called Rebel Ideas. He talks a lot about growth mindset and he cites Microsoft as a great example as a business that's really kind of taken growth mindset on and is really trying to transform that business.

But there's this thing around a fixed versus growth mindset, so I think for me, number one is curiosity. Being curious, I mean, reading stuff, being curious in different areas, keep examining, keep asking why. It's a very simple thing but there's a lot of, Matthew Syed calls people either know-it-alls, or learn-it-alls, and you want to be a learn-it-all.

Ryan:

Yes.

Giles:

And there's a lot of know-it-alls. But learn-it-alls are the ones who are really going to make a difference and are really kind of humble enough to get out there. And I think that is fundamental to problem definition because ultimately you want to keep challenging, you want to keep understanding, you want to keep asking why, you want to keep learning, you want to keep examining.

So surely you can go and outsource and phone up people but you want to build a team as an individual, but then as a team, you want to build a team who learn a lot. And those are the people who are going to change the world. That's, those people.

Elon Musk, he gave back to First Principle Thinking, he's a learn-it-all. How can I do x-y-z? How can I get a reusable rocket built? These are learn-it-alls. These are not people coming with a preconceived solution. And so I think it starts there. That's the easiest place to start, building networks, building, collaborating.

There's a concept around second brain and how what is the set of resources or people that can really just keep fueling an individual’s brain to make, to collect data or insight or information that enables people to connect them and create new patterns.

And so again I think that growth mindset is a really important part of how people should then approach work and business and life. But that is so important of defining problems because if you don't have that open mindset, you're not going to get to define the problem because you think you know what the answer is, right?

Ryan:

Yeah

Giles:

And I think they're the very best people and I think that is a culture, that is a culture, that is behavior, that is recruitment, that is... and I think that's so important, you know, that's so important. So it starts there, sure you can go and find agencies and run problem definitions but I think that is the foundational building block for these kind of businesses but I think within insight, within marketing, within anything right?

Ryan:

Within anything, I think. I mean, I have a six year old son as you know and he is the most curious person on the planet and unbeknownst to me I bought him a sign that said “stay curious” when he was a little baby. You could see how parents and society beat the curiosity out of people.

I was reading something that Elon Musk put out and his point was, first principles thinking isn't just for rocket scientists, which he has taught himself how to be mind you, from breaking down the thinking, but a lot of times it's beaten out of us.

And so I can see it, like an example of you at home, your son or daughter asks you a question that you perceive to be something that they don't need to know or you just want to, them to, because I said so.

Well that slowly starts to beat the curiosity out of somebody right? And so, and then you know, a lot of the businesses we all support and work in are using assembly line principles to manage knowledge work in a completely unprecedented, unpredictable time. It doesn't always work, like the supply chain used to spit out the answer and so I think a lot of the governing principles are wrong.

Giles:

Yeah.

Ryan:

Because we've done it this way, we do it that way is bullshit and so for those of you who are like “Giles, that sounds good but I wouldn't know where to start.” Start by identifying what you don't know and be okay with that shit. I mean I don't know a lot and every time I don't know something, I'll tell you something. I love to ask why? Or what do you mean? Or could you tell me more about that? Because you get smarter.

Giles:

Totally.

Ryan:

Yeah I think it's such an important, I mean everything you just said, plus one. It's not just for selling more cookies though like. For the world folks, we've got to ask more questions, we've got to be more curious because these solutions in today's world or these problems in today's world, they're not novel any longer.

Giles:

Yeah totally agree. I think that was principle behind Zappi, when you guys started and still going. You know you almost kind of start from First Principles and go what could the word of insight and how we learn and test what could that look like?

And I think it's incredibly disruptive. I was at a thing last week and Martin Sorell was presenting. But he was obviously talking about S4 and he was obviously talking up his narrative around S4 but he was interesting in the sense of, yeah he said his clients and the clients he wants to work with, the way he described it was, are the ones who look up to the sky.

The ones who are looking up, progressive, challenging convention, and really kind of going how can I kind of create a future or create in his case, an ecosystem or whatever it might be that is, that solves what I need to solve? As opposed to the people who are looking down at their feet saying this is why it can't be done or this, it won't work for this. And I think that's actually right and we talk about valley people and mountain people as the same analogy.

But I think that mindset increasingly, particularly now with the pace of change, the level of disruption, the options that people have got to build different types of businesses or work in different ecosystems because I think these ecosystems are super interesting. It's so compelling and so interesting and you want people looking up at the sky and really the heart of that really is this growth mindset, right?

Ryan:

Yeah well like I was reading this thing, Simon Sinek talking about infinite games.

Giles:

Yeah.

Ryan:

Business doesn't play by any rules.

Giles:

Yeah.

Ryan:

You and I could just decide tomorrow to have a spin off both of our business that's directly competitive and be like, what the hell just happened? Our customers could just decide tomorrow they're done doing, they're done working with us. Our best employee could quit this second.

It's just too fast. And you know, there is an irony in the Martin Sorell story. So I heard him give a keynote, I actually didn't know this but I had COVID when I heard him give the keynote. He was not there so I didn't infect him but he was talking about, he couldn't do what he wanted to do as the founder and CEO of WPP and he's built what a 300 million dollar business in 18 months?

Giles:

True.

Ryan:

Because he had a clear problem in his last chair that he couldn't solve.

Giles:

Yeah

Ryan:

Because of bureaucracy so I think for you leaders on the phone, you board of directors on the phone, you shareholders on the phone, don't let short term thinking prevent your people from looking at the sky to see where the problems actually are.

Giles:

Absolutely.

Ryan:

Giles you've said it all mate. This was really fun. You know, I have to tell our audience when we hit record I told you I was exhausted and I didn't have any energy, and I was excited that it was you that I was interviewing because you bring me energy, and you delivered my friend, so thank you.

Giles:

Thank you.

Ryan:

And to all of our listeners, get at Giles, he's on LinkedIn you can go to BeenThereDoneThat.co I believe?

Giles:

Yeah. That's correct.

Ryan:

And learn more, these guys are really shaking up the strategy game by falling in love with problems and helping you fall in love with problems. Giles, thank you very much mate for investing the time and I'll see you for a beer soon.

Giles:

Absolutely, thanks Ryan.

Ryan:

All right. I really enjoyed that conversation with Giles and it reminded me that he's somebody who I used to meet with in London all the time and have a cheeky beer with. This whole pandemic has gotten in the way of that. 

Patricia, season four kickoff, what did you learn from Giles today?

Patricia:

You know, Giles is just amazing, but there's one thing that you, when you introduced him before the interview, that you forgot to say, and he said it at the beginning, I'm going to kick off my summary with that. Giles Jepson is a person who loves and advocates for marketing. That's the first thing that you need to know. The second thing that you need to know is that he loves business more, which is the best combination of everything. So he's got the insights, he's got the marketing, he's got the business. So let me just tell you how it all comes together. As you know, he used to be Kraft Heinz, et cetera, et cetera. But now he's Been There Done That. What is Been There Done That, you ask in the summary. It's a carefully curated community of about 200 of the world's best chief strategy officers, chief creative officers, innovative specialists across 25 markets.

Each of these people is trying to give marketers across the world, the very best of their talent. Now why has BTDT, Been There Done That, so successful? Four reasons. Number one, It's a creative process. It provides fresh and pure thinking to a problem, there's no bias, there's no competition. They all work together. The time is spent focusing on, as you just said before the interview, defining the problem and the space the problem lies in. They use divergent thinking and they make sure that the proposed solutions are on brief and holistic. So we're talking about focused and broad at the same time, which sounds like it's impossible but as you just heard, it's not. 

Now these are all specialists in their field with over 20 years of experience, each of them, but this is important. They all ask for feedback. They iterate on their ideas. They optimize all this before they finalize. So they're not ego driven. They know that they all work better when they work together. Giles talked about the framework that this is all part of the redundancy framed within. It's called Solve, S-O-L-V-E. It's a problem definition framework that takes about a two or three hour session to actually conduct. Now S is situation, making sure that you know everything about the situation, where it lies. Number two, always obstacles. What can make this go wrong? Let's do that before we start. Number three, what's the landscape? That's the third one, which is the L. The fourth one is the viewpoints. What are the different viewpoints? That's the holistic aspect.

And the fifth one E, is end frame. Express the problem. How are you going to express the problem in itself, because if you can express them that means you know it. Now, number three in why BTDT is so successful, it's a quick turnaround. Now everybody wants all this experience, but everybody wants it now. They don't want to wait around for it. So they present nine ideas to the problem that they just solved, in that two to three hour session, in one week. And these are reviewed, synthesized, devolved and then finalized as I said. And number four, the output, as I said, is holistic. It's a brief that really defines the problem to be solved from every angle they can think of. The solutions are from, as you heard the very best talent that we have. It's a quick pace and it's a better informed strategy. Now, some of you may be saying, oh, that's interesting but I don't have the time or the money or I just don't want to go to a consultant.

I don't want to go to Been There Done That. Giles is so generous that he shared the formula with us. So there are seven action points that you can do to get started on this problem solving situation earlier, now, by yourselves. Now, number one, ask yourself this question, these questions. How does your team think? How do they approach problems? How do they approach work and life in general? Do they have a growth mindset? As in, are they always thinking about growing themselves at work, in business and their own personal selves in life? It's the first one. Number two, instead of being know-it-alls, which sometimes when we were in school, like, oh, you're such a know-it-all. Well, let's not do that anymore. Let's be learn-it-alls. What does that mean? Always ask why, examine, be curious. Don't preconceive any solutions. 

Number three, create this culture in your company. You can create it yourself, build the network, start collaborating, start aligning. Look for inspiration instead of excuses, create the future. A future ecosystem that can help you solve these needs and more importantly than all for this step three, identify what you don't know. Usually we start by, myself included, what do we know? Let's start by listing the opposite. Let's pull a negative on this and just do the black space. What don't we know? I love that one. Now, step four in how you're going to do this on your own in your company. Improve your problem definition process. Again, start where you didn't start before, define what you're trying to solve, align all your stakeholders on that, on what you're trying to solve. Leverage that Solve framework that we were just gifted by Giles and then, I love this one, fall in love with the problem.

Most of us are just so in love with our solution that we're just so happy because we're going to solve the world's problems, end world hunger, save the whales. No, let's fall in love with a problem first so then we can go. 

Number five, apply first principles of thinking to defining the problems. Now I'll have to, a little disclaimer. I had to go back in and figure out and relearn what first principles of thinking were. So just if you don't know what those are, don't worry about it, but it's all about breaking problems down to their most basic elements. Build the argument from there, from the basic pieces. Don't try to solve everything, slice it so that you know and bring this type of thinking into your stakeholder meetings so that you can challenge other people to think about the problems first, not the mega problem but the pieces of problem that build up the big problem.

Number six, move faster. Don't get stuck in solving and analyzing, just move faster, make quick decisions. Because if you make these decisions that iterate then you can move faster because as we all know, if we actually are honest with ourselves, most decisions are not irrevocable. I think it's death and taxes that are the only things we can't change, everything else is changeable. Meet Joe Black, old movie. Love it still. Now, if your decision is wrong, you're going to be able to quickly evolve it or change it or improve it. So, that's going to be fine. Now, all this reduces the approval layers and reduces bureaucracy because nobody loves bureaucracy and nobody loves layers and layers. 

Now the last step of things that you're going to do in your company on your own is change a current process in general and you're going to do that by avoiding hot topics. Now hot topics, is the problem well understood? Ask yourself that. Put your hand on your heart. Do you really think this is true? Are there any preconceived solutions already there? Are people listening to reply or are they listening to understand? Do you need a justification for an action or do you actually need the results of what you're analyzing? Because if you just need justification, why are you doing all this? Are you sure you're listening to the consumer's voice? Not after but to build the solution. And in order to have all that, do you have a deep insight into your consumer? Do you know how they live and they breathe, how they work, what they want? 

Those are the seven steps that Giles suggests that we can all do in our own companies to get started on this problem situation. That was really cool. And I have bonus.

Ryan:

Great job breaking it down. Great job breaking it down.

Patricia:

I have bonus content. Go ahead.

Ryan:

Let's hear it. I want to hear it. I just wish I heard that, I wish I understood the benefits of problem definition a lot earlier in my life, frankly.

Patricia:

Oh my goodness. Yes.

Ryan:

Save me so much time.

Patricia:

And so much, not only time but heartache. How many meetings I've been in myself where we're arguing about the different solutions and we don't stop and say, wait, which of these actually solves the problem that we haven't had? Oh wait, maybe we don't know what the problem is or what the consumer say? Oh my goodness. We would've learned, we would've been so much better.

Ryan:

For sure. All right.

Patricia:

Now for the bonus content.

Ryan:

All right, let's hear your bonus content, my friend.

Patricia:

Now you asked him something at the beginning, but I saved it for last. You said, tell us what 3G did right. I thought, oh, that's a nice little tidbit that Ryan asked there. That's interesting. So I saved that for last. So he said, because you know how we always know the bad things about companies.

Ryan:

Yeah. True.

Patricia:

Let's talk about the good thing. Yeah and I love the good thing. So 3G pros, they've got seven. Seven seems to be my number today. They used common sense. Now you said something that was really important and I had to giggle a little bit by myself. Most of us don't use very much common sense. Common sense is sometimes very lacking in life, especially in business. Number two, they challenged conventions. They did not take the status quo. They wanted to see what they, they pushed, they poked, they did all that.

Number three, they decided to put resources behind the right things. Number four, they knew what needed doing. They actually looked at the problem, which is why this all ties together. They figured out their problem. Number five, they built their budget from the ground up, not from the top down. We talked a lot about zero based budgeting in the interview but just putting things, basics, calling it like it is, a spade, a spade. They put the budget from ground up. Number six, they made big decisions. Even with incomplete information, they didn't have time to wait so they just went with it. And this all meant that they moved much faster. So those are the pros of 3G.

Ryan:

See that and they get a bad rap but there is some really good thinking in there.

Patricia:

Yes, there is.

Ryan:

We more or less do bottom up, zero based budgeting and ever since we've done it, our business results have been much better. So yeah, we'll stay on a positive note. 

So episode one, Giles Jepson, I hope you enjoyed it. Bring the problem definition framework into your business. You will really thank Giles for it and your customers will thank you and so will your shareholders. 

We have some incredible episodes coming up in season four, whether it's the Head of Insights from Heineken, the Head of Insights from Colgate, the CMO at Gong. There's so many other conversations that Patricia and I are just so excited to bring to you. So make sure that you tell your friends and that you tune in. 

This season we are going to be bringing a new format to Inside Insights. We'll continue to be live on Spotify, podcasts, our website, anywhere where podcasts are available. But the team here has got me a bunch of fancy video equipment and so we are also going to be launching, and really excited about it, we're also going to be launching a YouTube channel. So please do subscribe so that you can help us spread the word. And if you enjoy watching video better, you can see our lovely faces every two weeks. If not AirPods, AirPhones, whatever, still work. We're going to be still keeping it real with the podcast.

Patricia:

I think we're going to keep it real always.