Respected entrepreneur wrote about a new project they’re working on. Surprised to find smack in the core of ‘here’s the problem we’re solving for: customers want to do x because of y or z‘ – this assumption that customers’ reasons for wanting to do this thing are binary – their reason is either this or that.  I’m one of these customers, in fact; my J Alfred Prufrock response:

And turning toward the window, say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

Now of course the post from this entrepreneur may have been short by necessity, leaving out the research that went into it. And my thought here is not ‘hey even the big guns misfire, so keep at it young grasshopper’. No, my thought was ‘how do we, as product managers and user-experience designers, step away from ourselves and our own perspective, our being enamored of the cool idea, and pay attention to people? Particularly people who might not seem all that interesting or have goals that don’t seem worthwhile or have a style of communicating we find off-putting?

We know it’s unwise to include every single perspective in determining what to build. But which perspectives do we include and discard – are the marginal-seeming, humdrum, boring perspectives worth an extra listen because, like astronomical dark matter, they make up so large a part of the universe? I think yes, they merit a listen. As Goethe tells us:

“It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.”

Years ago I heard a former military officer describe how he started his day getting briefed by non-officer staff. Many of them were not skilled at presenting. But I never forgot what he said about the value of hearing them out:

“If I only listen to myself then I only hear what I already know”