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Example of listening first
Listen first. Then build small.
For example... here's the New York Times on an MIT workshop that develops solutions for "the bottom billion" (emphasis mine):
Paul Polak, a psychiatrist turned entrepreneur, who develops simple solutions for the problems of the poor ... something of a guru to the design revolution movement, railed against conventional charity and insisted that the route to prosperity lies in inventions that improve lives but mesh with existing lifestyles.
He laid out the principles of development from the bottom up, including the importance of first listening and watching, then following the old dictum “small is beautiful” with another, equally important one: “cheap is beautiful.”
The goal, he said, should be to improve a million lives, and to make technologies that can be sold and bought in increments — like a drip-irrigating system that can expand as a farmer’s income rises.
It's obvious why a nonprofit should evaluate its constituents' needs before spending donors' money. Actions that "improve lives" and "mesh with existing lifestyles" can only come from understanding how people live in the first place.
Why should business be any different? And yet many companies still, to this day, spend their resources without any meaningful research into their customers' lives or needs. (Which makes an attractive opportunity for the companies that do "listen first" to customers...)
I just got back from visiting smallholder farmers in South Asia and Africa and I can tell you that very few organizations are doing the initial listening. The current grant system does not promote that type of investigation -- and because the grant's success is based on how many of the grant criteria are checked off, there is little reason to do the type of listening described during the project.
One more thing: when an organization supplies a service, it's difficult to remember to treat the person being helped as a customer. The result is that people supplying services may look down on the person being helped.
Thanks for the article, Mark.
==Thane
Good advice
The reason might lie in the size.
As organizations grow they tend to forget the basic reason for their existence and one you lose this sight, it is not difficult to do 100 different things which don't result in anything particular.