Catalyst on: Impact

Wide-ranging conversations explored how greater diversity of minds brings a more holistic perspective, a more thorough knowledge of the audience and richer, more interesting innovation. The first step is building a genuine understanding of what diversity means and, if sweeping change is unrealistic, taking incremental action - from shaping a shared language around diversity to assimilating customer viewpoints and a realistic approach to changing generational needs. Lastly, measuring impact can be helpful: it proves the value creation that comes from designing this way.

Diversity can be difficult. But it will benefit your business to make a start.

Thinking of diversity as an extremely broad spectrum helps put the audience back in focus by reminding us that every customer is an individual. But diversity has another effect: innovation.

According to Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas, “Group wisdom emerges whenever information is dispersed among different minds”, with an holistic, inclusive perspective supporting more varied thinking. Our roundtable agreed.

Everyone felt it critical to recognise the full variety of what diversity means - physical, neurological, gender-based, opinion-based, racial, cultural, economic and beyond.

For global companies, this consistent inclusiveness is "key but very difficult” to achieve (with the example given of sponsoring Pride in one place while same-sex relationships are outlawed in another). Biases can be cultural as well as personal.

Accessibility and inclusion can be dismissed within organisations as a design & comms job , rather than the basis of lasting culture shift. Even hiring targets can be a tricky tool to wield, with some in our group flagging that these might lead to negative hiring strategies. However, "auditing your recruitment is a great and low impact place to start”. And reporting and benchmarking your statistics can lead to the accountability that’s essential for change.

It’s no easier for smaller companies. With low turnover at the traditionally white, male owner/Board level, the task may be to nurture diversity at the level below, with upward mobility ideally factored in. And while the move to remote working has enabled hiring outside the local demographic, this can also “be an inhibitor for certain disabilities and needs”.

The main take-away was honest intention: “Just keep trying to do the right thing”.

“Honesty is important when it comes to diversity and inclusion. It's OK not to be perfect now, but making a start is the main thing.”

Inclusive collaboration opens the door to innovation.

"We bake in our own biases in the drive to hit other people's targets.”

"It's hard to spot the things you're overlooking while you're immersed in the work.”

“Biases are biases - they are by definition hard to spot.”

It’s clear that diversity is frequently neglected in the rush to get things done.

But it’s diversity that helps us explore our challenges without bias, and grasp the perspectives of our audience. And thinking of idiosyncratic needs leads us to more interesting solutions. (To put it another way: “Solve for the margin, then extend to the many”.)

To build a shared understanding from the exec team down, create a consistent language around diversity. That can be applied to inclusive design principles, established before projects begin. And to an overt, shared aim - because “innovation must be rooted in vision and mission to create impact”.

Bring in customers as soon as you can. One attendee mentioned they’d only just started speaking to customers one-to-one after 15 years - “not atypical in my industry”. Another described their team of an average age of 30 designing pensions for people aged 60+. Speaking to customers sooner, more collaboratively, and more often, means that biases and assumptions can be tackled before they grow.

Create theatre around the development work. Bring people into the process. Get everything on the wall and invite other teams in - especially ‘non-designers’. More and different brain power is good: it means healthy dissent and fresh ideas.

But also get design teams involved early. "Designers are not just the people who colour in; they are strategic. They can design propositions as well as they can websites.” Armed with a case study of work, your team can educate the company on the benefits of the process.

“Any great innovation needs diversity of thought and inclusive design thinking.”

Designing for new generations isn’t just more of the same.

In businesses (such as FS) where the audience is primarily older, designing for the next generation can be a hard sell. But these are the future customers of the brand. And the question is both how they differ from what you’re used to, and how they are alike. 

In other words: to future-proof your product, should you diversify your thinking?

Our participants thought so. In one person’s example, "Gender is a big issue - even our terminology has bias. Why is the acronym for the next generation of wealth [the male name] HENRY?"

We discussed how “brands should be thinking attitudinally - in terms of psychographics, not demographics”. What are younger audiences’ attitudes and expectations through this lens? It’s a rich vein to mine as a starting point.

"It has to be about selling a future customer - not an untapped customer."

When it comes to improving impact, measurement makes the difference.

Impact can mean a lot of different things: from environmental and social responsibility, to product accessibility, to workforce diversity and inclusion. Despite its real-world relevance, it can be difficult to address impact in ways that are not just conceptual, but also practical.

Attendees discussed the challenges of adjusting work for more positive impact. "It's hard to make the business case for a new impactful project, because often we don’t see the benefits until afterwards.” This can be compounded when the brief is to make improvements rather than embarking on a project from scratch.

Designing for impact means stakeholders may have to be challenged on legacy ways of working - “and to be fair to them, they have a duty to keep the company profitable”. But better traceability and ROI measurement seems to be one mitigation - and it also “helps a lot if you understand and can leverage funding cycles”.

In turn, we agreed that reviewing the measurements of success themselves - and making them consistent between new and potential projects - is a key part of creating impact-linked incentives. "We have a long-term value creation framework which allows us to assess projects for impact and prioritise, adjust or drop them.”

“In large organisations there can be a huge delta between what we say and what we do. It's important to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.”

Driving Sustainable & Inclusive Innovation | Chin Ru Foo

Founder of Crew & Riot and riot and previous Global Innovation Director at William Grant & Sons, Chin Ru Foo spoke about sustainable and inclusive innovation, highlighting the dangers of excluding consumers beyond the target market when designing for your brand, product and service, due to a lack of understanding.

Discussing sustainability in business, Chin Ru shared examples and tips from her experience in the drinks industry, including her successful launch of circular drinks reusing discarded ingredients. In a rallying call for better inclusivity, she showcased examples from brand, design, product and marketing initiatives that fail to be inclusive, accessible and diverse, contrasting those with best-in-class examples.

Recommended reads:

Mismatch | Kat Holmes

Rebel Ideas | Matthew Syed

Invisible Women | Caroline Criado-Perez

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