What I learned from Peeling Potatoes

I was tasked with potato duty for Thanksgiving this year. My wife is an incredible cook and wisely keeps me at arm’s length in the kitchen when guests are coming over (My family thinks I am famous because I was screened for the TV show Worst Cooks in America). We hosted 28 people for Thanksgiving which required pealing 20 pounds of potatoes.?

This was a great job for someone who is always trying to find the most productive way of doing things. As I began peeling the potatoes, I realized the peeler did an incredible job. It was a product developed more than 75 years ago by Alfred Neweczerzal, but very little has changed from the original design. Any company/person that is product-oriented, can take lessons from the potato peeler.?

Here are three lessons that came to mind as I skinned the 20 pounds of potatoes yesterday:

1. People who use the product have the best solutions. This seems obvious, but many companies do not solicit customer feedback or conduct focus groups. Managers and engineers need to get out of the office and talk with customers.?They must go into the environment in which the product is being used and “peel the potatoes”. It serves nobody any good to guess what attributes can define a product.? You need to live it and understand it to develop a remarkable solution. I was taught this at the Ross School of Business (#Go Blue!) by Venkat Ramaswamy who teaches concepts of Co-Creation.
2. Simpler is Better.??When finding solutions to everyday problems or complex issues, finding a simple solution should always be the goal. Steve Jobs reminds me of this with his famous quote “When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solution you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.”
3. Find product inspiration locally - - not just from big companies.??It’s easy to study Apple, 3M, and Google for innovative product solutions. However, I argue that there is inspiration all around us. In Cleveland, we have people and companies that drive innovation every day and create and develop incredible products. Tom Lix started Cleveland Whiskey and focused on solving the issue of the long process of creating bourbons. His innovative process speeds up the aging time without compromising the quality. I also was inspired by a young Case graduate who sought to solve the pothole problem with a simple non-Newtonian solution.? I was so inspired by his innovative thinking, that I ended up hiring Nicholas Barron at Feedall. Lastly, if you do product development, you most likely know Mike Belsito who is the Co-Founder of Product Collective and Co-Organizer of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference. I met Mike while evaluating a business concept around the cremation industry. Mike founded a company called e-funeral and is an inspiring Cleveland entrepreneur.

So as you have your mashed potatoes this holiday season, think about the innovative products such as the potato peeler that have made this meal possible. Look for inspiration around you to continue to drive product innovations that move our lives forward.