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Speaker: So you've done incredible
research, real stories from real people.

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And your boss leans over and looks at
you and says, but what's the ROI of that?

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Jerry?

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Today I want to talk to you
about what to do when your

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leaders only think in numbers.

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Welcome to this is eight CD folks.

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I'm Jerry Scullion, and this is your
daily dose of human-centered design.

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Let's get into it.

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I try to keep these
episodes under five minutes.

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Intentionally.

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'cause I know we're all busy.

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The world is, you know, getting a
little bit more crazier by the day.

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But I, I want to try and give you
something to kind of lean into, to

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try and help inform that change.

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This is one of the most common challenges
I hear from designers and change makers.

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You know, working with a
leader who lives and breathes

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spreadsheets, KPIs, OKRs, ROI.

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Everything needs a number attached to
it or it does not exist in their world.

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And honestly, I have a lot
of empathy for that person.

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They are not really being difficult.

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They were trained this way.

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They were rewarded this way.

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Their entire career has reinforced
the idea that if you can't measure

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it, it really doesn't matter.

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They don't get anything
else at the end of the day.

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For doing anything different.

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They just want to make sure that
they're gonna bump those numbers.

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So when you walk in talking about
empathy or lived experience or

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qualitative insight, you are speaking
a language that does not register.

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It is not that they disagree with you
folks, it is that they're literally do not

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have a category for what you're saying.

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They just don't have it in the toolkit.

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So here is what.

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I have seen work, and first of all,
stop asking them to care about empathy.

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I know that sounds really
counterintuitive, but start with what

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empathy saves, not what empathy means.

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Connect your research findings to
the metrics that they already track.

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Reduction in complaints, call
volume, rework costs, time to

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resolution, et cetera, et cetera.

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Even cost per transaction
or cost to serve.

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If your research has really uncovered
that users are confused by a

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particular step in a service, do not
present it that users are frustrated.

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Present it as this step generates 40% of
our inbound calls, and each call costs

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the organizations 12 Euro to handle same
insight, but just a different framing.

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And that framing is something
that they can actually act on.

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Second, learn their language before
you expect them to learn yours.

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Sit in their meetings, read their reports,
and understand what they're measured on.

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And when you can map your findings
to their world, everything changes.

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And third, remember that this
leader is not your enemy.

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They are actually your best translator
once you have won them over.

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Because when a metrics driven
leader starts putting design

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outcomes into numbers, everyone
else in the organization listens.

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They carry the credibility that
you as a designer might not

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have just yet in that context.

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Just yet, the goal is to not make them
care about design the way that we do.

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The goal is to make design visible in
the language that they already trust.

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Now I wrote about the five
leadership types that you'll

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encounter in the newsletter.

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The metrics leader is just one of them,
and the link is in the show notes if you

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want to learn more about the other four.

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And that's it for today.

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If you found it useful, share it
with someone who needs to hear it.

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And if you're not subscribed to a
newsletter, go over and check out that

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brand spanking new website at www dot.

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This is hcd.com

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and I'll talk to you tomorrow.