DESIGN THINKER PODCAST
Ep#17: Empathetic Exploration: A game-changer for creating what people really want
Empathetic Exploration, are you using this capability to deliver what customers really want? In this episode, Dr Dani and Designer Peter take a deep dive into understanding the specific way that design thinkers use empathy.
In this episode, you will be able to
- learn about the research that informs how design thinkers use empathy
- understand the importance of Empathetic Exploration when developing solutions
- know how to apply Empathetic Exploration in your work
- hear real-world examples of Empathetic Exploration in action
From improving patient care in hospitals to organizing your kitchen, Empathetic Exploration has practical and impactful implications for solving problems. Tune-in to discover how Empathetic Exploration can be a game-changer for you.
Empathetic Exploration, are you using this capability to deliver what customers really want? In this episode, Dr Dani and Designer Peter take a deep dive into understanding the specific way that design thinkers use empathy.
In this episode, you will be able to
- learn about the research that informs how design thinkers use empathy
- understand the importance of Empathetic Exploration when developing solutions
- know how to apply Empathetic Exploration in your work
- hear real-world examples of Empathetic Exploration in action
From improving patient care in hospitals to organizing your kitchen, Empathetic Exploration has practical and impactful implications for solving problems. Tune-in to discover how Empathetic Exploration can be a game-changer for you.
Welcome to the Design Thinker podcast, where we explore the theory and practice of design, hosted by me, dani, and.
Designer Peter:The Peaser.
Dr Dani:So what are we talking about today, Pete?
Designer Peter:Today, dani, we are talking about empathetic exploration. We talked about empathy and it's come up a few times, but we talked about it definitely in one or two of the episodes in season one. Somehow, adding two words together can change things slightly and describing something as empathetic exploration instead of simply empathy. For me, anyway, that second word, exploration gives a particular focus and brings a sense of certain things to mind, and it's almost like an To me. The phrase empathetic exploration not always the easiest to say, but it invites something out of me, if that's not taking things too far, but, yeah, what it's saying to me is it's inviting me to be curious in a way that's focused on another person or another group of people and what they're going through.
Dr Dani:Interesting that you said when you hear empathetic exploration, it invites you to something and it makes you curious The story behind empathetic exploration. So empathetic exploration is one of the six capabilities that emerged within the research when I was developing the Design Thinker profile. The reason that I labeled it empathetic exploration is all of the things that clustered in the data around empathy and how design thinkers use empathy. It was very much about an invitation to be a part of something, to belong to something. The way that played out in the real world is around coming to my world and see how I see this, coming to my community and experience what we're experiencing And a lot of the work that design thinkers do is around understanding perspectives so that when they're creating solutions, they're actually creating solutions from the perspective of those that are going to use it. So it's really interesting that those two words for you, that's what it resonated with, because that's the data behind the labeling of that capability.
Designer Peter:I'm obviously one of the people that fits into that data set, and those are very well-chosen words, danny. And then, from your experience, or having kind of uncovered and uncovered the data and kind of landed upon or chosen the labels, what does it mean to you?
Dr Dani:What does empathetic exploration mean to me?
Designer Peter:Yeah, or has it changed over time since you first kind of landed on that label or came across the data?
Dr Dani:So I started down my research on this topic back in 2014. I think when I really delved into empathy as one of the key capabilities of design thinkers would have been around 2015, after I did some observational research with design thinkers and or rather, designers. When I went into this, I had a very psychological or very clinical definition of empathy right, Like the very traditional view of what empathy is, And I collected the data. So I went through a very robust years of collecting data, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and then quantitatively and qualitatively again. When I got to the end of that, I landed on this idea of empathetic exploration that to do design work, it's empathy and exploration together. So that was the transition I had coming to the end of my PhD work going okay.
Dr Dani:Now I have a different definition of what empathy means in the context of design And I think since then it's been more of a validation of and, as researchers were. Even when we find something out, we're looking to constantly validate and revalidate, right. That's why I've been doing this research and it's continuing to be research. I do because, even though I found something, maybe I'll find something else or maybe I'll discover what I've found has changed. So I think at this stage I'm at that point where it's a revalidation for me.
Designer Peter:Okay, you got me curious, though about, and maybe we did talk about this before, but it was a while ago and maybe not everyone maybe our listeners hasn't caught up on seeds money yet. So the clinical, psychological definition of empathy remind us what that is.
Dr Dani:Clinical definition of empathy is someone's ability to correctly acknowledge emotional states of others. So my ability to if you call me up or I see you and your face is red and you're obviously angry, my ability to look at your face and go, oh, peter looks angry. or my ability to go, oh, that's Peter's normal face Not that you always look angry, by the way.
Designer Peter:Resting grumpy face is something I'm coming to terms with in my middle age.
Dr Dani:But that ability to recognize the emotional state of someone else. So that's the basic clinical definition of empathy.
Designer Peter:Okay, i quite like that. I like it a lot as a starting point. Okay, and the empathy, and adding that exploration while you're at the keyboard there, why don't we look up the definition of exploration?
Dr Dani:So the definition according to Google, the action of exploring an unfamiliar area, investigation, study, research, inspecting, probing, searching, thorough examination of a subject.
Designer Peter:That last sentence that really caught my attention. A thorough examination of a subject.
Dr Dani:And then I want to share this other definition. This is on an Oxford dictionaries, and they define it as the act of traveling through a place in order to find out about it or look for something within it.
Designer Peter:Okay, that's the winner there. Yeah, say that again.
Dr Dani:That's the act of traveling through a place in order to find out about it or look for something within it.
Designer Peter:Well, that did to my brain. There was, for some reason, my brain does kind of work in metaphors, or can work in metaphors and see here certain words or read certain words and then expand the potential meaning of that other word to place. When you said place, there will a place. When we're designing or using design thinking, we can sometimes talk about the design space, and that design space starts with a question and then kind of expand into what's the, what are people's needs or what is the current state. So empathetic exploration of the place, traveling through a place. Initially, for me that's like traveling through and exploring the question of what is currently happening in lots of different dimensions, whether it's kind of what's happening functionally in a situation that somebody's trying to do a job, or what's happening to them emotionally when they're trying to use a particular product or service.
Dr Dani:And I think place is an interesting word, right, because place can mean a physical location, but place can also be metaphorical, like when we think about, like headspace. it's a place, not one that is physical. It's not on Google Maps, but it's, you know, it exists. So I think that's an I like, i really like the word place and that definition, because it's yeah.
Designer Peter:It could be yeah, like yeah, i think we're saying the same thing. Or we could could be lots of different types of place and, in particular, you know, somebody said space. Here It's almost infinite definition of place. Okay, where does our conversation go next? usually, so we talked about what it is, where it came from, where it came from in particular, why is it important? or should we talk about how we might go about empathetically exploring or how we might go about empathetic exploration?
Dr Dani:I think we should switch it up this time and do how and then why.
Designer Peter:Okay.
Dr Dani:I know I'm going totally against Simon Sennig's advice. To start with the why. Well but we're design thinkers, we shake things up right.
Designer Peter:Yeah, it's not a rigid process to go step by step through So how do we apply empathetic exploration?
Dr Dani:Do you have some examples you want to share?
Designer Peter:I think you're taking that word exploration, and what it invites in me and brings to mind is going beyond talking to other people and going beyond you know, surveying them or asking them questions, actually spending time in their lives with them, kind of being alongside them as they are.
Designer Peter:Well, i've got my parents staying with me at the moment and it's interesting to an empathetic exploration lens on helping them do things generally with technology.
Designer Peter:So staying with them and helping them do something on an iPad that they've not done before, it's a step further than just helping them do the task, but also taking pausing internally and mentally to think about what must you like to be doing something like that for the first time? or give some other examples. Yeah, i guess that's the first thing that's come to mind. I'm sure other things will happen where the exploration side of things is just inviting and me going further than just having a conversation with somebody, but actually maybe I was going on an adventure or going on a journey with them. Maybe that's what my brain is telling me. Is that going on the journey with somebody? So from beginning to end? so as designers, you know defining the start and end point of the thing you're wanting to design from a journey point of view and then endeavouring to spend that whole journey with your customer, with your user, to understand what it's like for them at the moment.
Dr Dani:Kind of unpack the example with your parents and teaching them how to use technology.
Dr Dani:I think that what you said there was like sitting with them and the iPad and making that very tangible, because I think it's extremely, and I think most of us, once we get to a certain age and we can think, you know, there's this balancing act where now the child knows more about technology than the parent and it can be incredibly frustrating. Like I use my smart phone, why can't you The button's right there, just press it. But we forget what it's like to be a novice or to be a beginner with something. But I think when you sit down with them and you watch what they're doing and the frustration or the missteps that they're making, you understand why that simple thing that you think you can do, that simple thing that you think everybody should be able to do, why somebody's struggling with it, because you're sitting with them and you're watching it happen. So just an example from my work many, many, many years ago when I was a young analyst. you know, when you kind of start out in certain jobs, particularly consulting, like your first role is really to be the note-taker observe, you know and learn from the seniors in the room. This one example was around. they were trying to get a team of people within an organization to adopt a technology and it wasn't happening. And so there's all these people in a room trying to understand well, why isn't this technology being used? You would appreciate this about me, because I sometimes get to the point where I just can't keep my mouth shut. So it just literally blurted out well, have you asked them? Because to me it just seems so obvious like, why are we sitting here wasting all this time talking about a problem, but the people that are supposed to be using this thing that's not, aren't even in the room, and I think in hindsight it looks like a ridiculous example, but these are real things that happen in organizations.
Dr Dani:So, fast forward in my career, there was another client that I was working with similar type of thing. They were trying to move from paper-based processing of loans to digital processing of loans, and the challenge that they were having is that people were still doing all of their work on these paper loans and then typing it into the system, which was taking twice as long because they're double handling and they weren't putting it into the system to begin with. So what they were stuck with is, like, how do we get people to stop doing this on paper and doing this on here. So I just went down there and sat with them to see what they were doing, asked why they were doing it, and I pretty quickly worked out why they weren't putting things into the system and why they were doing it on paper and then moving it to the system.
Dr Dani:But the thing is that had I not gone down there and sat with them and just saw what their day was like, saw what they were dealing with, it would have never like there were so many things I learned about that. and it's not like they're just sitting there entering things, they're on the phone, they get interrupted, they have people coming in and the way that the system was set up didn't account for all of those things. Like it was a very time-based system so you had to do everything within a certain amount of time and then it would time out and then you'd lose all your work. But when they were designing this system, it was designed by a technology team based on some requirements on a sheet of paper and did not account for how these people actually did their jobs.
Designer Peter:Yeah, and by going and setting them up you start to understand how their work and how their jobs are actually done, rather in practice, rather than with any assumptions or any theory or textbook. So I imagine what? did you know anything about the work or the job beforehand, before you went and sat with them? Did you have any preconceived ideas about how it should be getting done or not?
Dr Dani:All I had was the perspective of the project team going well. the goal of this project was to move from paper to digital. We gave them the system, we gave them training and it's still not working. So that was the brief. And then I was asked well, how do we make this change? And that was also for a long, long time in organizations, this concept of managing change was almost an afterthought. Everything was technology driven and process and people. it was almost like technology, first we build the technology, then we change the process, then we figure out the process and then we change the people. And that's been the approach. And I think, when we look at it from a human-centered design, design thinking perspective, it almost needs to be the other way around You start with the people, you design the process and then technology becomes the enabler.
Designer Peter:Nice distinction And, yeah, what I guess what I was curious about was your prior knowledge, because of putting myself in the shoes of somebody who, well, I'd say they are involved in a change initiative And if they're, rather than being a designer that's been brought in to help out, similar to the way you are, maybe they're part of a team, so it's like I'm a team leader and I'm a team of people who are using, or who are going to start using, a new system.
Designer Peter:This thing of empathetic exploration is actually something that I, as a team leader, could adopt that mindset to figure out why, two weeks into that, the adoption of the new system is not going according to plan, or I could use it, but I would need to choose certain things as I sat down with my team to understand why they were or why not doing things in the new way, rather than the whole day. And I suppose what I'm angling at or getting at here is when we go about empathetic exploration, yeah, once again, try and be as curious as possible and as try and dial down the kind of judgmental ideas that are coming up in our heads, or preconceived ideas about why something's happening or what should be happening, what shouldn't be happening. That makes sense.
Dr Dani:So I think what you're hinting at here is the big A word assumptions.
Designer Peter:Assumptions. Oh, thanks for that comment. I don't know what's where to begin with. Hey, so don't sorry. So what about assumptions?
Dr Dani:When we become familiar with the situation. Well, as humans, we have assumptions. Assumptions aren't necessarily bad. We kind of need to operate on assumptions a lot of the time. I think, where we start to lose our way is that we forget we're operating on assumptions and we take assumptions to mean validated truth. So in this scenario that I was explaining, like everybody was so sure they had done everything they could and the problem sat with the team that wasn't adopting the technology right.
Dr Dani:So, from an assumption perspective, to like we did the training, we did the retraining, we gave them, you know, quick reference cards and we told them this and we told them that and we told them this change was coming, we told them to prepare for it. Like they had a whole checklist of things that they did And so when it wasn't working, the assumption was it's us, it's them, not us. That plays out in lots of different aspects of our lives. Like we might make an assumption that someone likes something or thinks a certain way And then, because of that assumption, we do it, we go down a course of action based on that assumption, but we never really go. Hey, this is what I think you want, is it?
Designer Peter:Yeah, that makes sense. I like framing that up as assumptions And, you know, if we think about embarking on empathetic exploration, then, yeah, what we're saying here is pay attention to even, you know, bring to the surface, articulate your assumptions, and so, the very least, you're aware of them.
Dr Dani:But I think that's what. That's what. So empathetic exploration does that in almost an organic way. Because, going back to the example of, like teaching your parents how to use the iPad right, your assumption there is hey, this is a very easy task to do. Why aren't you doing it Right? It's almost like you're blaming them. But then, when you sit down, with.
Designer Peter:I never sit down.
Dr Dani:You didn't explicitly say it, but what you're saying is if I can do this, then I'm assuming you can do it, and because you can't do it, the fault lies with you.
Designer Peter:Oh, okay, true, Okay, that's true. I accept that, yep.
Dr Dani:So if you go back to that example, it's you know that's an assumption that you're making. But then when you sit down next to them and you're seeing where the struggle is and how they're struggling, it's a whole different ballgame, right. And then what you're learning is actually this is easy for me, but it may not be easy for everybody else.
Designer Peter:It's a nice way of summarizing it. I'm trying to think of other examples of kind of deeper, maybe even longer term empathetic exploration.
Dr Dani:I have another example, and this is not a personal example, but it's something somebody shared with me 2000, something all the years seem to run together for me for some reason. We I did a study abroad thing as part of my MBA program in South Africa, And one of the things that we did is we visited a hospital, We visited a shanty town, And this whole thing was facilitated by a doctor who worked in the hospital and then in the community, And so he took us to the community where his patients lived and then also showed us the hospital and then kind of shared some of the challenges. And I thought the way he did this was quite brilliant because it really helped connect these two things that, ironically, we don't think of together. And his point was so somebody comes into hospital and they've got a cut on their leg. You clean it, you stitch it up and you tell them look, you've got to keep this clean, you've got to rinse it, whatever the thing is, You've got to take this antibiotic tablet at a specific time every day with water and food. They're going into an environment. Their home environment may not have running water, so keeping a wound clean isn't a practical thing for them. They may not same thing with drinking water. So there's all of these things that we assume and we give them directions, and then, a week later, the patient comes back and the wound is infected And the healthcare system's like, well, how hard is it?
Dr Dani:just keep this clean. And now they get some more antibiotics, they get some more creams. And then they're told well, keep it clean, and now put this ointment on it. Oh, by the way, you have to go to the pharmacy and pick this prescription up. Well, this person doesn't have a car and the pharmacy is a two hour walk for them. And they decide well, rather than me walking two miles, you know, on this painful leg, I'm just going to go home. And so seeing the environment that patients were living in really started to transform how he practiced medicine, And it led to him doing things differently and thinking about different treatment options, because he had such a deep understanding of the everyday lives of the people that were coming into his hospital.
Designer Peter:It's a great story, a great example, yeah, and that's really kind of getting into the literally the place or places that people were, you know places, and then the yeah, literally the problems people were encountering in those places and in those moments of their day to day life. Yeah, really, back to you earlier highlighting of assumptions that I guess that by going through that process, the doctor one by one kind of tested and corrected any assumptions that he and other, i guess the people in the health that made up and were part of the healthcare system had.
Dr Dani:And I think that's also. I think that's also a great example of like really understanding the lives of who you serve. So in all of our work we have a customer right And we have to understand that customer beyond the product or service that they use Cause to them. They don't buy that product or service and use it in isolation. They buy that service or product and use it within the context of their life. So you know, let's say you're in the business of selling shampoo.
Dr Dani:As a customer, i don't just go buy the shampoo, like that shampoo comes home with me, it sits in my shower. You know I use it in conjunction with other products And maybe I'm not the only one that uses that shampoo, maybe it's, you know, a shampoo that everybody in my family uses, so that I act of going and buying that one thing from the store and now has an impact on, you know, four or five other people, depending on who. You know how big the household is. But until you get down to understanding who are the people that are using your products and services and am I really serving them the way that they need to be, am I really meeting their needs? And that's the power of empathetic exploration.
Designer Peter:I like that. A lot of things are coming to mind for me. One is and maybe we'll come back to this, but the word exploration for me certainly countries up kind of feelings or potential of, i mean maybe adventure and stepping into the unknown, and that kind of came to life a little bit in the Oxford definition. you're going into a place that's unknown. you know, part of maybe allure or even joy of exploration and adventure is unknown, and is that a sense of either fear or anticipation, at least of, yeah, kind of maybe facing your fears? Yeah, i wondered if I had any thoughts on so you know, maybe the reason that's in this is in commonplace, like empathetic exploration, let's face it just isn't a common thing that lots of people in lots of organizations go about doing as a default. And is that because of a certain fear of the exploration aspect of it? or are people, are we worried collectively about what we might find out or what we might uncover, or maybe even just how it's going to make us feel?
Dr Dani:I think it's all of those things.
Designer Peter:Okay.
Dr Dani:I think historically, we've been programmed to be right, right, like we've been programmed to know the answers. We've been programmed to come across as we know the answers. And the further you get in your career, the higher you go up the organization or the hierarchy, the more that expectation is prevalent, and that's something that's been ingrained since there was industry, right, the assumption has always been my leader will know more than me, which means the person that is my leader now has the pressure of I've got it at the very least come across as I know more. So there is a fear of so then if you go well, let's go talk to customers to see what they want or what their needs are, then it's a bit of a vulnerability, right. So why don't you know what customers want? You're supposed to be the one that knows everything. I'm obviously embellishing the way I'm saying this to illustrate a point, but these are biases that we have in our minds or in how our brain works.
Dr Dani:You know somebody's in a position of authority there because they know more. So I think we have been programmed to not be vulnerable about what we don't know, or being vulnerable about I don't know this, but I'm curious. I don't know this, but I want to learn it. That's still a relatively new like. I do think that's changing And I have seen leaders that have been very open about. I don't have all the answers, but it's still not the norm And I think we'll have a long way to go before it is the norm.
Dr Dani:I also think it's an emotion thing. again, coming back to the history of industry, and I remember very, very early in my career, these things about like there's no place for emotion in the corporate world, these kinds of we need to check our emotions out at the door. Even in my and this was before I studied anything like behavioral science, right Before we knew as much as we know about neuroscience I would just sit there and go. I mean, like what do you perform some sort of lobotomy that leaves your leaves, that part of your brain? Like, do I get a locker to put that? no, put my amygdala in And then I put it back in at the end of the, you know, at the end of the day. So I think there's still this fear of emotions not being appropriate in our work environments And so this idea of empathy and going out and talking to people and hearing their stories, and you know it can be very confronting.
Designer Peter:Yes, almost, you know, it's kind of exactly where I was from. My mind was that, maybe to kind of play around with your amygdala in a locker when you walk through the office door, and it's a funny analogy actually. But there is something in that playful idea that actually, when we're when we are empathetically exploring or we're being designers or design thinkers and we're embarking on empathetic exploration, i think, certainly for me, you know, i do, i do, i do, i do, i do, i do, i do, i do need to anticipate the, i guess, the emotional or the emotions I will experience by embarking on empathetic exploration, because if, by definition, if you're empathizing, then you're starting to sense and understand other people as well, definitely emotions and other aspects of their lives. So what are you know? for me, anyway, i need to prepare myself in anticipation of that. I need to be, you know, as well as being really curious and putting aside any assumptions, and be willing to be, you know, be proved wrong about some things I might believe.
Designer Peter:Yeah, i also need to anticipate, you know, if I'm in, in, in anticipate, picking up on maybe negative emotions is where my mind is going. What's right? So you know, what sort of things can people do to prepare themselves to. Again. You know, using the exploration as a metaphor, when you go off on an expedition, you go exploring. You've got, you know, a checklist of things that you should have with you as the essentials. So we know, we've come up with assumptions as something to be aware of. What else do people need in their, in their kit bag, in their backpack, and especially when? when it comes to anticipating and dealing with emotions?
Dr Dani:I think first thing is we have to, we have to understand and accept that, as humans, emotions are our first response to everything. So this comes up in Daniel Kahneman's work System One Systems Who Thinking the analogy around the elephant and the rider. So if you think about System One Systems Who Thinking, what Kahneman's work shows is that 95% of our day to day existence happens in System One, which is highly emotional, quick acting. So it goes very much against our historical belief that humans are very rational beings. We're not. So I think the first step is acknowledging that, that we are very emotional beings. But that doesn't mean that we have the right to just go flailing our emotions any which way we like. right, that's probably acceptable till you're about, maybe the age of four, but after that there are social norms that you know we have social norms.
Dr Dani:Yes, helpful social norms about regulating our emotions. So I think first step is recognizing you know, system One and System Two and the role that emotions play in our everyday existence. And then the second one is really self-awareness about our emotions and owning it right. Yeah, you know, you might be in a situation where somebody shares something with you and it's very upsetting, but own it, label it, and then you have to get curious about it, right? And this is where I think hiding our emotions can get us into trouble. Like if somebody says something there's nothing wrong with going. No, that's really upsetting for me to hear I'm having a reaction to what you're saying And then also following that up with I need to have a think about what that means and why I'm having this reaction. But I'm sharing with you, i'm having this reaction And I think that's really about viewing our emotions as a fact, like this is something that's happening to me. It's not a judgment, it's a fact. It's a fact, it's something that's happening.
Designer Peter:Okay, Yeah, I like that. So we've got our assumptions. We've got assumptions, we've got being curious, we've got anticipating, acknowledging our own emotions as we go about empathetically exploring. Here's the other story that came to mind when we were talking earlier. It's one that somebody else shared with me.
Designer Peter:It's just like the second or third hand, and it's about a design project that was going on from, I think it was a serial company And I believe it was a serial company based in New Zealand and exporting to, again, i think, china And the serial company realised that their sales weren't as high as expected in China, so they were selling the product and they weren't having as much success as their initial research suggested they would. So they did the sensible thing and went to China And they sat in people's houses because, as you were saying, with the shampoo you buy the serial and the shampoo in the supermarket but you take it home and you use it. And they sat in people's kitchens and talked to them about serial to understand more about, obviously, the reading of what they thought about the serial, how they felt about the serial, what they're enjoying it. And I think they started to notice that the serial, their serial, was always on people's either worktops or bench tops or on the tables and not in the cupboard. And it was only when they got people to open their cupboards and show them what else was in the cupboard, if they had any other breakfast here, they noticed that actually the shelves, the spacing of the shelves in most people's kitchens appeared to be lower than it typically is in New Zealand And their light bulb boom was there that they realised that most people weren't buying the serial because their box wouldn't fit in their cupboards.
Designer Peter:They couldn't store it away very easily. So I think that's a great story of lots of things like discovering there's a problem, getting curious about it, going to where the problem is actually occurring and then scratching the surface below what is immediately in front of you And then having this fantastic insight. But what I'm wondering is that revealed, i guess, what I think of as a kind of a functional insight that the underlying cause of people not buying the serial was is not going to fit in my cupboard. The question of my mind is do you think that is that empathetic exploration, or is it simply being curious and part of a research project? Does it fit into our definition of like empathetic exploration?
Dr Dani:I guess I'm curious as to why you're asking that question actually.
Designer Peter:Okay, maybe because for me, empathy brings to mind firstly relating to somebody or some situation from an emotional point of view, a feeling point of view, And when I listen to that story, even tell it back, initially, what I'm sort of picturing, in my mind at least, it's simply that you know it's like a logical box, does not fit in space And therefore people aren't going to buy it. You know, even describing having everything about my own kitchen, the way the kitchen is kind of kept to maintain, and having things in the wrong place, whether that's because they don't fit in a cupboard or other reasons. So it's the words sticking in my back, in my throat, is triggering emotional reaction. So maybe you've led me to seeing things differently there, danny.
Dr Dani:That was intentional.
Dr Dani:The thing is that your question the reason I did my little flippy thing with the question you asked me is that your question is that really empathy is actually part of your own assumption system around how you're labeling empathy.
Dr Dani:I think you were labeling empathy, as you know, like I think you, when you think about empathy it's like the super high emotional kind of thing. But what you're missing is that those day to day moments have emotions assigned to them, right. What you kind of miss when you were telling the story is that as a New Zealand cereal maker, i've made this product based on my understanding of what kitchens are like. But when I went to China, i got a whole different perspective that kitchens aren't designed this way everywhere in the world And there is an emotional attachment to that. So this is why when I say where emotional beings and emotions are in everything we say and do, just because it's not this overtly happy or sad or thing, it still has an attachment to something emotional to us, most of us. The way we set up our kitchens go back to the way we experience kitchens in our childhood.
Designer Peter:Okay, nice, all right. So definitely, i think this is forming my takeaway from today's conversation. Thank you, i'm glad I asked that question. You've helped me see things, see a particular story in a different way, and added a different, another layer to it. So yeah, i guess the reason for telling that question was you know what we're doing? where does empathetic exploration begin and end? And I suppose, as with all of these things, it's a mindset rather than a so do we choose to do? you can see, you can explore anything in an empathetic way.
Dr Dani:Because the other way. So when you told that story, what you told is the story of people going into people's homes and observing what they were doing they noticed the cereal on the table, not in the cupboard. So there's this there's lots of observations happening and a lot of question asking and kind of about shutting up and letting it in, because the other way that they could, you know, they could have shown up in people's homes and done that completely differently. Right, they could have just shown up for the survey and asked a bunch of questions, or or they could have showed up and said why aren't you eating our cereal? Or, you know, shown up and talked about all the great benefits of their cereal and why. That, you know, almost like a sales pitch. So just because they showed up doesn't mean that they were being empathetic explorers Yeah, but the way that story was framed, you can tell the difference that you know. They were observing, they were listening, they were asking questions, they were absorbing what was happening.
Designer Peter:Yeah, nice. Well, i'm glad, I glad I shared that story And I'm now aware of you than I do now Because, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly Just, i think that's a really great way of putting it, danny that they could have gone exploring but not empathetically in lots of different ways, and you've just described three or four of them that are pretty common for people to embark on, and they would. They may not have uncovered that amazing insight, cool.
Dr Dani:And I think that also illustrates the practicality of empathy, because I think, when I think there's a lot of views that empathy is a nice to have, but it's not. It has very practical applications to help us solve very real problems.
Designer Peter:Again, i like those, your choice of words, your practical applications to solve real problems. I was going to say it's not a nice to have, it's an essential. Well, you know it's an essential if you want to be able to solve practical problems, and with real solutions. Okay, so actually that's a really nice segue into um Simon Sinek. He'll be giving us a panel back. We're starting to talk about why now, why empathetic exploration.
Dr Dani:Why empathetic exploration? I have a couple of views on that, but I'll start with one and then give you a chance to respond. So empathy is one of the unique things about us being human. It's, it's the enabler of us being able to understand each other. And you know, humans are very social beings. We were never designed to be isolated and alone. So empathy is very much the core enabler of our experience being human. Now, i relate to you, you relate to me, i think in the modern world that has become more and more eroded in lots of ways. Coming back to empathy, like us, so I think empathy is the core thing we always have to come back to, to remember who we are and how we need to exist in the world And, and I think it's very much functional to our survival from a mental well-being perspective, from an emotional well-being perspective, but even just a survival perspective, as long as we are in the business of creating things for other humans, empathy has to be at the core of how we do things.
Designer Peter:So fundamental building block and empathy. Having empathy is like a word I used just a moment ago essential is there's no get away from being having to be empathetic. And then, what about the exploration aspect? Why? why to exploring?
Dr Dani:Because it's particularly in the modern world. I think it's very, very easy to be in our bubble, like you think about your day to day, right, like think about who you're engaging with, who you see, where you go, and it's probably a very limited scope compared to the grand scheme of the world. If we're only exposed to our environment, our people that we have chosen to place in our lives, then our world view or the lens with which we see the world is very, very, very limited. So that means the solutions that we're creating or the way that we're solving problems is going to be very limited to that tiny little lens. So exploration is really about going beyond those, beyond the bubble.
Dr Dani:In a COVID friendly post, covid, Because the more that we can go beyond our bubble, the more that we see other people's experiences. So I go back to the doctor that used to go to the neighborhoods that his patients were in my story about going and sitting with the loan processes to see what their day to day life was like. The team that you talked about that went to the homes in China. If you don't do those things, you have no idea what other people's worlds are like, and that limits what you, that limits the impact that you can have through your work.
Designer Peter:Yeah, i like all of that. I'm going to add to that Exploring. Building on that, going beyond your bubble, it's maybe also going beyond the obvious. So exploring conjures up in my mind, in this context at least, asking more than one question and investigating that question in more than one way. So it's not just going and sitting in somebody's house, it's falling them around the supermarket, for example.
Dr Dani:In a non-creepy stalking way.
Designer Peter:Yeah, of course. Likewise sitting next to that breakfast and enjoying breakfast with them to see what part does the CEO actually play in their breakfast meal and their breakfast ritual. You know it's many activities to investigate, yeah, i guess several questions to therefore get lots of different perspectives on a situation. For me, anyway, that's the why around using that term exploration And you know almost the exploration by definition means uncertainty and you're seeking certainty. And in my mind, again, that means potentially meandering path rather than a straight line A to B along the road that's already being laid down. That's the why of exploration. Are we ready to talk about what it means for us and what our takeaways are?
Dr Dani:Yep, we can do that, yeah. So what are you taking away from today?
Designer Peter:Well, I'm definitely taking away a new perspective on the serial story for sure. So thank you for that And a nice kind of maybe wiping the dust off. My empathy Lend is my empathy spectacles. So definitely that, I think just a nice reminder that you're definitely that exploration words and nice reminder to kind of go broad, wide and deep when you're starting to build empathy. For How about you?
Dr Dani:You've kind of sparked a new curiosity in me And you asked me earlier, you know has my view of empathetic exploration changed? I think this conversation. I want to try to dig up more examples and continue to validate is this definition? does this continue to be valid or not? The irony of helping people understand empathetic exploration is having the stories about empathetic exploration. So my curiosity that I'm walking away with is like if we have more of those examples and we talk about those examples more, then does that help make this the norm?
Designer Peter:Well, that's a great term And kind of go toward, isn't it? Yeah, it becomes a, it becomes a norm, just something people do. We wouldn't have to, and maybe we wouldn't have to talk about it in season three.
Dr Dani:No, we can't. We can go remember those days when we have to.
Designer Peter:Well, speaking of remembering those days, that one of my takeaways and something I'm going to do, actually, is send you really sparked my curiosity by talking about our kitchen design preferences Let's put it that way based on our childhood and kitchen experiences. I'm going to kind of scratch the surface of that one and get. I enjoy understanding how spaces determine or influence our behavior and our emotions, so I'm going to use this as a stepping off point into kitchen designs.
Designer Peter:Yeah, so thank you for that. Who would have thought that we'd start with empathetic, empathetic exploration and I'd be going off?
Dr Dani:And now you're off on your own exploration. Nice.
Designer Peter:Nice.
Dr Dani:See, we do. We do eat our own dog food, as they say.
Designer Peter:Yeah, i'd like to think so. All right, but we're about in the. in the kitchen is the dog food bowl, and why does it change from culture to culture? to some people find it more acceptable, like I imagine, that some people would have dogs in their in their kitchens full stop. Anyway, i'll be telling you, maybe not in the podcast, but what I find out.
Dr Dani:Let me know. Thanks for listening everyone.
Designer Peter:Hi everyone.