With your permission dear reader, I would like to to use this blog to share a great personal source of inspiration. Have you ever heard of the School of Life?If not, they’re an organisation devoted to developing emotional intelligence in everyday people (among other things). Maybe you’ve done a course with them, or maybe you’ve come across one of their short, sharp videos on varied subjects such as ‘Work-life balance’ or ‘Why design matters’ or even ‘How to start having sex again’ (yep, it’s there, we checked)  … If you haven’t heard of them don’t worry, it’s not too full-on or serious; everything carried out by the School Of Life is presented in a light and intelligent mix of knowledge, life lessons, infographics, humour and much more.

If you’re interested just go check it out here, it is very insightful for both work and life.

Anyway, let’s move on to one of their books: ‘The Book of Life’. It’s where you can find the ideas that The School of Life believes in. Next to chapters such as Capitalism, Self, Relationships and Culture, the book also spends a chapter on Work. And in the session on ‘pleasures of work’ the topic ‘Innovation, Empathy and Introspection is discussed. It starts like this:

“When companies think about innovating new products and services, they know that the task before them is to find out what their customers are really looking for. How do you discover this? Generally, companies do one very plausible, but in fact very problematic thing. They go and ask the customer. However, strangely, if you really want to know what your customer wants, the last thing you should do is to go out and ask them. And for a simple reason: they won’t know.”

My first thought was “hey great, this is about my work!”

Reading on, my second thought was: “oh nooo! One of my heroes (founder and philosopher Alain de Botton) doesn’t believe in the value of my work?”

Despite this brutal blow to my psyche, I bravely continued reading on anyway. And I must admit that he has a fair point. And it actually does fit the way we use research and set-up the different phases for our innovation projects.

The chapter explains why the greatest ideas can’t be found in data samples or interviews or focus groups: simply because consumers cannot provide you with the answers they themselves do not know.

Instead, the chapter explains that one of the most overlooked tools for innovation is in fact: empathy. It is the ability to place yourself in the shoes of others (even those ‘far away’ from who you are) where the truly great ideas stem from. This requires the somewhat elusive ability of being able to really get into the minds of other people.

Unfortunately this chapter does not then link that concept of empathy back to the start of the chapter and what my work is all about; research… those data samples, interviews and workshops.

So I will do that myself for my dear friend Mr de Botton.

I agree that your target will not directly provide you with all the answers in most cases. Nevertheless research is a fabulous gateway to knowledge and insights about your target, which we (market researchers, marcom people, strategists, etc.) absolutely need for that required empathy; building great insights and an in-depth understanding of the target. Only from there, by being able to step into the shoes of the target, can we start to develop great ideas and innovations. If needed, we at BrandHook do this with the help of other experts and/or thought leaders (who’s skills in empathy should obviously be great and which we then fuel with insights and knowledge about the target) but I don’t like to brag so I won’t mention it.

By writing this blog I guess I have just rewritten the ending of this chapter. I hope Alain de Botton is ok with it and that this still fits with his outlook on life and work. But even if he’s not, hopefully he can understand where I’m coming from.