A White Space for Human Innovation

Aviad S. co-authored this article.

We were recently at a conference for Chief Experience Officers, organized by Customer Management Practice , where we both got to share two subjects with our peers: "How to go from an Idea to a Proof of Concept" and "How Beauty Influences Innovation". We were both gratified by the reception from our peers to the ideas we shared.?

An industry colleague, Jennifer Daniele , from Prudential Financial, shared the story of Johnny the Bagger, a young man with down syndrome, who radically transformed customer engagement in a grocery store he worked in.? This story is well documented in the book "The Simple Truths of Service: Inspired by Johnny the Bagger" by Barbara Glanz and Ken Blanchard.

?While the video and the book details are in their links (above), the story in a nutshell is a simple one. The grocery store manager, and a consultant, empower the store employees to do small things that make the lives of the customers better. They were told to put their fingerprint on an action that would make the customers want to come back.?

?Johnny takes this to heart and then creates small snippets called "thought for the day" that he would write out the day before, on small strips of paper, and slip into the grocery bags he was bagging for the customers. Soon the lines for Johnny's counter began to increase as folks wanted Johnny's "thought".?

Adding more people to other counters didn't solve the problem, as more people still chose the time "investment" in Johnny's line despite the convenience of checking out faster at other counters. Customers who shopped once a week, now came more often, just to get one of Johnny's thoughts.

Johnny increased customer engagement at the store. There is no other way to describe it.

But the store and its leadership are also to be commended for creating a "white space" where Johnny felt safe to operate in, and use his gifts and abilities, to put his fingerprint in to invest in the lives of the customers he was serving. The store's culture allowed Johnny to operate creatively in that culture. As we come to the end of the story, we learn how effective it was when humans are released into their potential for understanding and caring for the customer.

?There are also some key ideas that we observe in this story:

• Simple ideas can lead to valuable learning and achieve great results.? A recent Deloitte study on Tech Trends for 2023 suggested that interactions that push towards simplicity are a trend that we need to be aware of.
• Data is not intelligence. We may know a lot about our customers, but when we put ourselves into the shoes of the customer, our human spirit's desire for understanding and relationship, combined with latent creativity can produce phenomenal results. The idea Johnny implemented is one that is borne from within him
• Creativity is a universal capacity. We have often not given everyone in our teams, the freedom for it to be released. Sadly, many businesses have some folks who are entrusted to be the creators and others to be the worker bees. It is time for us to stop ignoring the latent potential of people, especially those who are working on the front line.

We, and our peers, in the world of digital innovation and transformation, are often obsessed with customer engagement, as customer engagement is foremost in our minds. Our typical engagement process usually begins with the identification of a problem, and then solving it through the creation of a hypothesis, making assumptions, and testing and experimentation through a proof of concept.? However, Johnny's story opens up another feeder for innovation in customer engagement that is not, often, talked about. Using empathy (and beauty) as the starter for engaging customers.? We are not suggesting an either/or proposition, but a both/and.

?Realizing how "white spaces" can create feeders into sandboxes that test hypotheses and ideas, and create proofs of concept, here are some questions for innovators to consider:

1. How could companies create and listen for what might come out of the white space?
2. How do we create "open" areas for innovation hypothesis to develop and be established?
3. How do we create a culture of listening so that the creativity captured in the white space might be tested and proven in ways that can improve brand-customer engagement?
4. How do we generate hypotheses that can be validated and address desirability, viability, and feasibility?
5. How can one both learn and influence the innovation process through the creation of quick wins?

We hope to delve deeper into these questions in the days to come, but we would love to hear your thoughts.

PS We have also published this on Medium (https://medium.com/@phillipose/a-white-space-for-human-innovation-3bcf0e0b4a8)