Category Archives: Take Shape

The 4-to-1 Ratio

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Diagram of human brain showing surface gyri an...
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We have a 4:1 input to output ratio on our head — why is it so hard to use them in this proportion?

Seeing and Hearing are art forms. Really Seeing and really Hearing are anyway. The act of observation. The art of listening. Even when we listen we are watching – what is the body language? what are the facial expressions? I read somewhere (I’ll look for it) that we pick-up on 200+ non-verbal signals when we are talking to someone. Even pupil dilation is saying something to us that we learn over time. If we are observant.

It is hard to do because it goes against our culture.

We live in a talk, write, speak, hear me, HEAR ME culture. Look at what I’m doing – making a blog post kinda criticizing the very thing I’m doing. The tools are readily available and basically free, so we are writing, posting and publishing our little hearts out. But it’s not just that our culutre has become celebrity (even micro-celebrity) focused, I think it is human nature to want to be heard, to be validated by our peers and superiors, and to be accepted into the club. Who doesn’t want to be thought of well? But our constant need to speak (in all it’s forms) is causing us to miss out on the rewards of observation, reflection and thought. And doing those three will make your speaking immensely more valuable.

Being observant means being outwardly passive but inwardly alert, curious and probing.

Paco Underhill talks about his observations of people shopping in Why We Buy and The Call of the Mall. Malcolm Gladwell is a master of observation in his reporting. Seth Godin observes the world of marketing (and business broadly) in his blog and book. It is the insights gained during patient listening, intellectually probing, and careful observing even the slightest details that allow these men to write about human nature in such unique ways. Yes, they have a craft at writing, but they have a craft at observing as well.

How do we develop the craft of Seeing and Hearing?

  1. Be quiet(er). Try the 4:1 ratio out (two eyes + two ears = 4 inputs). Next time you are in a conversation or a meeting, See & Hear 4 minutes for each minute you speak.
  2. Be present. It is easy to let our minds wonder about while someone else is doing something. Watched the airline attendant do the safety demonstration lately? Try to next time, and see what you can discern about him or her just by observing.
  3. Ask questions. Get good at this. We have a practice in our family called “highlights.” Each night (that we eat dinner together) everybody in the family gives their highlights from the day. We each do our best to give full attention, not interrupt, and then we each have to ask a question about the highlight.

Yes, that last point sounds a bit like parenting, but try it out. Take a week, or a day if that is too daunting, and make yourself ask a question of everyone who tells you something. Not everything mind you. If your spouse asks you to run to the store, then I would not suggest asking “why?” Perhaps a “can I do anything else while I’m out” instead.

No, this is for conversations…oh, you’ll know the right ones. Just try it out. Let me know how it goes.

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How Ideas Take Shape

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Ideas do not come into the world fully formed. They take shape. This drawing is a model for bringing ideas to life. It is based on the acronym for Shape — See, Hear, Ask, Play, Engage. I used to hate acronyms until I studied the word. It is Greek and literally means the “tip of the word.” Some of the original acronyms were Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, RADAR and LASER. So, those are cool words.

Here’s how the model works:

1. See & Hear. Observation and listening are key elements in idea hunting. They are the primary activities — not talking. We want to ask questions and we aren’t very good at it and our questions introduce bias. So, just watch and listen. When I worked at Saatchi, we would take executives shopping for their products in stores and just watch them. Many couldn’t find their own products on the shelf.

Anthropologists have been watching people in their cultures for years. It’s a great way to learn that I discovered firsthand. Before I was married, I worked at a greeting card company in product development. I got an assignment to create baby products. You know, first year books, calendar, etc. So, I invited all the Mom’s I knew to a meeting, and asked them to bring their baby books. It was a revelation. Watching them look through the books and listening to them tell stories to the other women. I realized that these books were a measure of motherhood, and it shaped our development of a whole suite of tools for mom’s to capture those early years. But I got those insights by seeing and hearing.

2. Ask & Play. These are the first and second activities. First you have to Ask, but not with your mouth. Ask with your eyes – watch intently, observe. Ask with your ears by listening to conversations and hearing what people are really saying. Like those mom’s telling me about a baby book, but really telling me about their desire to remember and mark milestones in their child’s lives and lacking both the tools and time to do so.

After you Ask, you Play. This is the creative part of the exercise, and it should not feel like work. If it does, then you are doing it work. Work and stress are flow killers and constrict ideas. I’ve got a great tool for ideation called Deconstruction. I’ll share it in another post.

3. Engage your idea with the world. Get feedback (n:1) from lots of people. How do they like it? Watch (see) them use it. Listen (hear) them talk about it as they use it. Insight. Insight. Insight. Harvest these learnings and go back into the Ask or Play phase again. Iterate until you are ready to Engage again. Then repeat until you have a winner — and your idea has taken shape.

The diagram is a matrix with See & Hear on the Y-Axis and Ask & Play on the X-Axis. This makes 4 distinct activities: Two in the Ask mode, and two in the Play mode. Only then do you engage your audience. Repeat as needed. It’s a total of 6 steps. To recap the process:

  1. See/Ask phase. Watch and observe.
  2. Hear/Ask phase. Listen and learn.
  3. See/Play phase. Work out the pattern.
  4. Hear/Play phase. Talk out ideas.
  5. Engage phase. Get it out into the world.
  6. Repeat. As needed.

We’ll spend time on this in other posts looking at how to execute these phases — best practices, etc.