Do The Experiment - Getting Over The Resistance To ‘Try Something Out’

Some years ago, I remember having a long conversation with a leader within one of our larger clients. We were talking about their new and still-in-development technologically powered service.

Though we saw eye-to-eye on many issues, one key sticking point has continued to stay in memory in all the years that followed.

And it is experiments.

I won’t unpack the entire domain area, but this person was interested in trying to help people make better financial decisions. It’s enough to say they’d found what they thought were a few key obstacles. And though they were an established player in the domain, they had some pretty interesting ideas about how they were going to solve those problems.

We’d come in late to the party; helping them with user research, experience and service design; comfortably in our wheelhouse. There was a large team already in place, with quite a few activities, technologies-in-construction, working groups and other moving parts.

This stakeholder and I had been talking about the work they’d done so far, and the general strategy around piloting and go-to-market. So far, you might think it seemed like a normal encounter. What was interesting in this specific conversation was an impasse in thinking that we both arrived at, rather suddenly.

I’d been listening to the piloting strategy; plotting out in my head the many cycles of work to come. Doing the math, it seemed to me they’d be in a pre-release technology and service pilot for a year and maybe longer.

I was surprised, and it showed.

I knew the client had a minor lead on the technology and approach, at least in-country. But it was no means a lock. Others, overseas, were venturing down the same paths and already ahead.

Perhaps feeling a little defensive, the stakeholder asked me what I might do differently.

With little forethought, I said, “You should just do an experiment.”

They looked at me, a little google-eyed.

So I clarified, “You sound like you’re making a bunch of assumptions, some of which may end up being very costly. It seems to me, the fastest way to verify some of these assumptions would be to do an experiment.”

I could see them processing the idea.

It wasn’t proving as engaging an idea as it had sounded in my head. And I couldn’t figure out why.

Until they asked their next question. “But to experiment with this we’d need to…” they paused, considered and finished, “…actually sell the service.”

“So sell it,” I countered. It was an idea I and a few of the team had been kicking around. Instead of being totally confined to the more laboratory-like confines of the workshop spaces, testing facilities and other more sterile corporate environments, we were considering the value of taking the service out on tour. Going out on the road. Down to the street. Putting it through its paces. Whatever metaphor you prefer.

They opened their mouth, as if to rebut.

I cut in, “Yes, you’d need credentials, a space, payment facilities and the like.”

Keep in mind, the discussions my colleagues and I had been having, about this extended experiment, had been rather thorough.

I continued, “Then you’d know. You’d really know that you were solving the right problems, by seeing how people really getting your services were being benefited.” I paused and added, “An experiment, but a high-fidelity one.”

Now I’ll grant you. There are rather grand experiments like the one I was proposing. And there are small experiments; Alexander Graham Bell calling his assistant on the nascent telephone technology from next door.

Either way, there’s this strange impulse that both individuals and groups, at the coalface of innovation, seem to develop. A desire to know, to have control over an outcome, before they’ve tried something new.

Perhaps it’s the inherent incentives-conflict between those that look after the money, with a conservative lens and those that seek larger risks and rewards.

But that’s just the thing.

The experiment I was proposing, to this erstwhile stakeholder, while costly, was dwarfed by the overall budget of the program at large.

They went on their way, head spinning with the logistics of such an enterprise; clearly not at all convinced by my logic.

I pondered the contradiction.

So much desire to succeed and a willingness to spend such enormous sums. While being so unwilling to carry out a much smaller experiment.

There is the inherent dilemma. Which I propose is more inherently emotional, psychological and cultural than it is practical.

To this day, I keep reminding myself of that moment. And keep urging myself, when I stall before acting, to just do an experiment, and try something out. Whether the experiments I run have the formalisms of the lab, or are just an experimental sketch on a sheet of paper; it’s the impetus that counts.

To this day, I still wonder what we might have learned.

So my advice is... work through the resistance, fear and perceived obstacles and do the experiment.

References

Image: https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101446372-img