Engingeering Change with Radhika Dutt

3/16- FINAL- Radhika Dutt

Aicila: [00:00:00] Hi, welcome to Business As Unusual. I'm here today with Radika Debt, the author of Radical Product Thinking, the New Mindset for Innovating Smarter. This methodology that she introduced in her first book is now used in over 40 countries.

She's an entrepreneur, speaker, and product leader. She's been involved in several aspects of business and graduated from MIT an sb, which is a Bachelor of Sciences, but it's smart. They don't call it a BS, and Master's in Engineering and Electrical engineering. She also speaks nine languages. And so we are very delighted to have Radica here sharing what she has learned and discovered in her very wide ranging career and the different things that she's doing, and to share a little bit about the innovations and what she's doing that's unusual.

So welcome to the show.

Radhika Dutt: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Aicila: So I'm gonna dive right in. One of the things that, that Ika does is she helps companies rebuild their muscle for [00:01:00] experimentation. And in her work, she's seen that goals and targets are more effective when you're working on repetitive tasks, when there's a right way to do things. And right now we need more people that can solve complex problems.

And so she helps companies develop systems and create the conditions for their workers to solve those complex problems. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Radhika Dutt: Yeah, let's unpack that because there's so much to it, right? Because, um. What we have, uh, been ingrained with for a really long time is that the way you make progress is by setting goals and targets. That this is how you drive people. Um, and so, you know, if you just, uh, question that for a moment and say, wait a minute, why goals and targets, like how.

Why is that the thing? Why not something else? Like, why did we come up with goals and targets? We never stop, step back and question that, right? So when you look at that, what research shows is, you know, even though there are all these methodologies [00:02:00] over time that have always been the next, you know, big way of doing things.

First there was, uh, management by objectives. Then, um, there was OKRs. That Andy Grove, the legendary Intel CEO, created and instituted at Intel. Then, you know, Google used that because it was evangelized by billionaire vc. But in the meanwhile, somewhere between, you know, OKRs being used, there was also smart goals, which became the big thing in the eighties.

Right. Um. Goals have always pervaded corporate psyche since the 1940s, and it all started with Peter Drucker's. Management by objectives and everything else was basically repackaging and relabeling and selling it as, oh look, this is the best new way of doing goal setting. But if you go back to the basics, like why did goal setting take off in the 1940s when Peter Drucker came up with it, why was this revolutionary thing?

And it [00:03:00] was because Peter Drucker, the problem that he was solving was he was working with General Motors at the time, and the problem that they had was that they were trying to motivate assembly line workers. And if you think about the 1940s, there was little to no automation at the time. They were all working on repetitive tasks and what he found in that case goal setting works really well.

Like if Andy, uh, can install 40 tires, but Bob is doing 30 tires, right? Clearly Andy is a better performer. So you can set goals and manage people by those goals. What researchers have since found is that it actually turns out that yes, if you have a repetitive task like doing crunches, stuffing envelopes, yes, goal setting works well, but if you have a complex task where there's no single right answer, which is basically like executing on a strategy for a company, there isn't one [00:04:00] obvious right answer for how you achieve this when you have a complex problem like that.

Goals and targets actually backfire. What it leads to is that people don't really have this, um, or rather it discourages experimentation when you have goals and targets, and we can talk more about that. I'll pause there for a moment and I'd love to hear sort of what resonated for you and what you've seen.

Aicila: Something that you said, uh, before we started this show, back when we first talked about it, is that something I think is a really important part of this whole thing, is that what's already, what can be automated has largely been automated and, and I that, I think, and then also this idea that, you know, certain way, this idea about goals being sort of a religious thing. We take it on faith that this is how this works I, my experience is that when you are working to solve those more interesting problems or execute on a strategy, [00:05:00] that you have to be very flexible. You can have an idea about where you wanna go. However, if you don't attention to what's actually happening or how it's affecting people, then you can try and. Really force a square peg at a round hole to the detriment of everything you're trying to achieve. And so this really resonates with me in terms of what I've seen. The, the, that I feel like we run into is that that haven't fostered, like trust and communication really are challenged when they, when they have to let go and actually let people. Experiment because they are gonna, you know, waste time or, you know, fail at something because that's also part of it. You don't, you don't do, you don't hit it all when you're trying new things. And there has to be room for trust for that. And I feel like that's one of the barriers that I see. I'm curious if that's something you've observed or how, how you address that actually.

Radhika Dutt: Yeah, and you know, here's the big illusion we [00:06:00] have. We think that if we set goals and targets, that people are going to achieve all of those, right? Or that's one illusion. So it's not that just because you're experimenting, et cetera, that you aren't going to hit those targets, but second. One thing we don't realize is when we set goals and targets, the incentives we create for someone is to show you teda, look, everything is working.

We've hit those numbers. Things are going great, right? Because everyone wants to look like a high performer. They want to show you the numbers that you want to see. Whereas what you really want as a leader is for someone to not just. Pick out the good numbers, and I don't even mean gaming, but you know, you want someone, not just to show you the positives in the business, but to also look at the quote unquote bad numbers and to play detective and say, oh, what's going on there?

You know, is that an opportunity? Is that a problem? That's the difference. That's what you really want. And so how [00:07:00] do you cultivate that? And you talk about, you know, the trust, um, and, and the flexibility that we need in the organization. What we really need is this mindset of puzzle setting and puzzle solving and the trust and accountability, et cetera.

Comes from how closely are you aligned and how closely are you communicating as you do this puzzle setting and puzzle solving. So let's actually take an example of how you would apply this, because I think, you know, that really makes this come to life. So let's talk about what I mean by puzzle setting.

So typically in a company, you might, let's take an example where you always have a target. Sales is one such example, right? Typically you might set a target and say, okay, we have to hit X million in sales by the end of this year. Now instead of just such a target, a puzzle setting. A puzzle setting mentality would mean [00:08:00] that you would say, okay, you know.

We want to get to X million by the end of this year. But here's the puzzle that I see ahead of me that I don't fully know how we're gonna solve yet. And the puzzle, I structure it into the three o's that I'm gonna, uh, share with my team to set the puzzle. So here are the three O's. The first o is the opportunity and the opportunity that I might see.

I, I'm gonna start with what is the problem? The problem is that, you know, we. Had a great growth trajectory in the last three years. In this last year. We've stalled and the opportunity is, uh, is that if we figure out why we're stalling, then we can get back to that growth trajectory and, and keep growing as a company.

So that's the opportunity. But there are lots of. Open questions. That's the second O. There are lots of open questions that I might genuinely not know the answers to in [00:09:00] terms of why are we stalling, right? Because to solve that puzzle, I have to understand why are we stalling? And so here are some open questions, things I don't know the answers to.

Maybe one, it's that maybe something is fundamentally changing in the market, that because of ai, it's affecting our business in ways that we did not expect even. So what's going on? The second thing might be maybe our growth trajectory was because we were selling to the early adopters. We knew how to do that well, but we don't know how to sell into the mass market.

So maybe that's the other open question that I genuinely don't know, is it that we're. Our message is not resonating for the mass market, or it might be a product issue, right? Maybe it's that our product was working for the early adopters, it's not working for the mass market. I don't know. And so the, these are open questions that you might talk about in a leadership team or you know, with your team.

If you're the leader. You might talk about this with your team. And then the final O is the objective. The objective is the [00:10:00] summary of this puzzle, which is, how can I solve this sales puzzle and these understand these open questions and address the problem at hand so that we can get back to that growth trajectory.

So now you see the difference, right between just setting apu, just setting a target, grow to X million versus now I have alignment with my team in terms of the puzzle. What is the puzzle at hand? I'll pause here. 'cause now we've talked about puzzle setting. Then we can talk about puzzle solving and that's where you get the accountability and communication so that you have structure for your team.

It's not like your team is off, you know, in the playground and like, oh, you know, come back when you're done playing.

Aicila: Yeah, when it's, and I feel like that's something I see as someone who works with often smaller businesses and solopreneurs, is finding that balance between, um, over involvement, micromanagement, and abdication. And learning how to create that tension where you are involved enough that you're providing [00:11:00] guidance and support while also giving your team enough room to figure things out, determine.

Question, all of that kind of stuff. And that tension, I think is hard, whether you're a large company or a single operator because it's, it, it, it's not there. It's not a checklist. It's

Radhika Dutt: Hmm.

Aicila: bit of a, you really have to be in relationship with what you're doing and the people you're working with.

Radhika Dutt: Hmm. I really love this. Uh, and you're so right. Sometimes we, uh, conflate delegation with abdication, um, and delegation might mean okay, achieve this target by, uh, this date, right? And what you've abdicated is maybe your team needs a little bit more handholding than that. Um, you know. You might just set a target, like for example, you might say increase user engagement by 10% by the end of this year.

Uh, and your team might achieve that user engagement target, but it might not necessarily [00:12:00] translate into, you know, whether it's revenues or even a better user experience.

Aicila: Yeah, I'm, I'm guessing, I'm curious about the puzzle, um, what it, you said

Radhika Dutt: Solving.

Aicila: I'm guess what you, I, I'm guessing the puzzle solving might approach some ways of addressing that or creating that balance between the tension a little bit better. So I'd love to hear you explain how that would show up

Radhika Dutt: Yeah, perfect. Let's talk about puzzle solving. The framework, um, I, I call, uh, for puzzle solving is Ola, OHLA. It rolls off the tongue. Um, and the OHLA stands for observe hypothesize. Learn, adapt, right? So we've set the puzzle. The first letter O observe is for, you know, you've set this puzzle, you have to go observe how are the pieces moving of this puzzle so that you know what is the first attempt that I want to make.

Now we talked about the [00:13:00] sales, uh, various aspects of the sales, uh, puzzle, right? And what might be going on. I might have to go observe a little bit and see what is it, you know, is it that, uh, I might look at competitors and say, you know, is there market share dipping? Also, because of ai, I discover, oh, it's not really only we are suffering.

Okay, so maybe it's not about market conditions. So in that case. Is it about product or is it about, uh, sales? Maybe it's both. I still don't know. So maybe there is a sales piece of the puzzle and a product piece of the puzzle. So now let's solve the sales piece of the puzzle. And I'm working with my head of sales.

So here's now the three steps of, well, the three subsequent steps after observe, right? So observers. The first, let's talk about hypothesize, learn, adapt, and there are three questions as I make my first attempt. 'cause now I've observed, I see what's going on. I'm seeing that maybe our sales message is not resonating for the mass [00:14:00] market.

It was resonating for early adopters. We're not getting as many meetings in this bigger. Okay, so now I've observed that I have a hypothesis. I'm gonna learn from this. I'm gonna adapt. So what's my hypothesis? Maybe my first attempt is that I'm gonna say, you know what? If we try a different messaging, let's see if we can try different messaging and see if it works with a mass market.

And as I try this attempt, I'm gonna ask three questions for the hypothesize, the learn adapt. The first question is, how well did that work? 'cause you're testing a hypothesis and I'm inviting the good and the bad. I wanna know how well did it work, right? And this is a very different mindset from goals.

Goals asks you did it, did you or didn't you achieve it? Right? Whereas my question is not binary. I'm inviting the good and the bad. Tell me how well did it work. Now I might look at the answer to this after this experiment and say, aha. Okay, this new [00:15:00] messages, um, messaging is working better. I am now starting to get mess, uh, meetings with these decision makers, so it's working much better.

So that's how well it's working. Now I move to the second question. Uh. The second question is, what have I learned? So I'm getting more meetings. Don't just quote me a statistic that now you know I'm getting 5%, 10% more meetings. What are you learning? What are you learning from those meetings? And maybe the answer to this, right, is I'm seeing that I'm getting the meeting with a decision maker, but we're not yet closing the deals.

Our sales cycle is still really long. So we're getting meetings, but we're not closing. What am I learning? And it's not closing because it turns out that in the mass market, there's another group that the decision maker needs to get buy-in from. In the early adopter, you know, that was a smaller company, you know, and we were getting that adoption really quickly.

There wasn't this extra group that they had to get buy-in from. So this is the new learning. [00:16:00] Now comes question number three. Question number three is based on the first two questions, meaning based on how well it worked and what have you learned, what will you try next? So in this case, I'm gonna say, aha.

You know, now that I know I have to target this extra group, I'm gonna try two things. One, maybe I'm going to adapt my. Sales approach that I'm gonna create webinars to now talk to this new group. We've traditionally never talked to. Two, maybe I'm gonna create white papers and other material that the decision maker can also forward to this other group so that hopefully they can.

Uh, you know, get buy-in faster using these materials. And now you can see these are my adaptations and this almost sets up the next pu next puzzle solving cycle, right? Because I'm gonna try this out and I can ask the same three questions. How well did that work? What have I learned? What will I try next?

Right? So this is puzzle setting and puzzle solving. Both put together and as I'm solving what [00:17:00] we talked about, that trust, flexibility, accountability comes from having those meetings and me as a leader, getting a good sense from the salesperson or the head of sales and seeing how well is this going?

Right? I get a good sense and we can course correct and adapt together.

Aicila: Yeah. When I, I point something out that I think is really important,

Radhika Dutt: Hmm.

Aicila: Is you have to learn to know your team. You have to know your people and understand them and be able to actually and genuinely be able to work with them as opposed to some unrealistic version of how things are gonna go.

And, and it. I feel like that personal piece, once again, the, the companies and the groups that I've worked with that really prioritize that do so much better. Even if they spend a half an hour chatting or whatever, they find the ways to get to know. And some of it's intentional. Like when I used to run teams, I was really [00:18:00] aware of these are my introverts.

So you know, I let them know what was happening before the meeting. And then after the meeting I'd say, let's go for a walk. Because I knew that in the meeting they were not gonna necessarily pipe up as much, but I wanted their input and that was the best way to get it. And it maybe took an extra 40 minutes of my time, but it meant I always got the best quality information from the whole group so that I could really make an informed decision or guide things in the way it was helpful as opposed to letting the, you know, person who was wonderful and had great ideas dominate the input because it, it was set up for them to be the most comfortable.

Radhika Dutt: I love that. Um, and I think to your point, right, that you have to get to know your team and their capabilities. I think each person on your team has a different level. Of knowledge, skills, and experience. And when you use this framework of those three questions of how well did it work, what have I learned, what will I try next, you know, you could use this [00:19:00] even in a one-on-one setting with a team member.

And as there. Working on solving a puzzle. When they tell you the answers to How well did it work? What have I learned? What will I try next? You're getting a sense of how good are they at solving the puzzle? Maybe they don't have the necessary knowledge because they're new to the company and new to the business, but you know, they have the skills and experience, or you're seeing that.

They don't quite have the experience and so you're get having to guide them or maybe they have all three the knowledge, skills and experience, and in which case, right, in terms of this, uh, spectrum of how much can you delegate to them versus, you know, how, uh, hands-on do you need to be someone who is solving the puzzle at a brilliant speed?

You know, I'm gonna be really hands off and say, you know. You really got this, come back to me and let's stay aligned. Tell me what you need. You know, whatever obstacles I need to solve, someone who needs [00:20:00] more handholding. You know, I want to meet with them on a very, very like maybe weekly basis, maybe even more often than that, so that I'm really guiding them through this.

And, you know, in, in the span of even a few such meetings, you will see how much more scaffolding and, uh, development you are helping them through by giving them the structure.

Aicila: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense and seems really, it would be incredibly helpful and also helpful to give them a structure to, to identify how to develop that skill in themselves. so here's a slightly different question. What advice would you give your 18-year-old self.

Radhika Dutt: Um. Wow. So, you know, I think my biggest learning in my career has been that you have to be curious and ask a lot of questions, right? Um, where. Uh, ask questions, [00:21:00] meaning you are doing that out of genuine openness because you feel like you don't understand why something is the right way to do something,

Aicila: Hmm.

Radhika Dutt: and you're sort of questioning that and you're questioning that.

Not in a bull, in a China shop sort of way. Not disrupting for the sake of it, but it's really very. Thoughtfully, deliberately asking questions, understanding the status quo, and then deciding very deliberately whether you agree with the status quo and that this is the right way to do things, or you're willing to challenge what you see is broken.

Right? Um, I think why I would tell my 18-year-old self this is, I remember early in my career, uh, you know, I was 20. One, uh, 22 when I started my first startup, this was right out of our dorm rooms at MIT. You know, I was starting it with four other co-founders, um, and three of whom were men who had so much [00:22:00] arrogance and hubris.

And they were so confident in sort of, this is how you build a business, how you scale, you know, uh, it wasn't a focus on what is the problem we're solving, but just this focus on going big and scaling right. And there was so much that didn't quite sit right with me at the time, but, you know, I thought, wow, they seem so confident.

They must know. Uh, they must, they must know what they're doing, right? Uh, and, and you know, a lot of what you see. Later in my career, even my willingness to challenge something so fundamental, like goal setting, which is taken as, as gospel in the corporate world, it comes from having seen that it doesn't work.

You know, being very deliberate, not just creating disruption for the sake of it, but doing enough research, um, experimenting with alternatives, seeing what works really well, and then having, uh, a very clear alternative. Uh, for what [00:23:00] do you do instead? And, you know, this is after having tested it and found that I was able to work with businesses double their revenue two years in a row by taking this puzzle setting, puzzle, solving approach as opposed to goal setting.

And now I know this works. Like that sort of confidence, you know, is what I needed to, or, or I guess the sort of life lesson is what I needed to teach my 18-year-old self.

Aicila: Yeah. That's awesome. Writing a book and forging a path that is challenging to sort of conventional wisdom. It's not a, it's not a weekend endeavor. You know, there's, there's a certain amount of effort that goes into it.

It what motivated that? Was there a moment or an experience where you sort of realized, oh, wait a minute, that this is, I need to commit more of myself to, to, to creating opportunities for people to understand this or access to these, under these ideas that. I see, but aren't out here yet.

Radhika Dutt: Yeah, for me, my first book too was driven by this [00:24:00] clarity of vision, and I'll share the, the clarity of vision in both cases. The first book that is published and the second that I'm working on, um, for the first book, the problem statement was that, you know, I'd been working with so many companies and. I kept seeing the same set of product diseases.

Um, and in fact, like these are product diseases that I had caught myself earlier in the, in my career. You know, I talked about my first startup where we were just focused on going big scaling. I call that product disease hero syndrome, but there are other examples that are gonna. Resonate for our listeners.

Um, one example of another product disease is one I call Pitis, uh, which is where you're pivoting from one shiny object to the next, right? Always in, in just chasing the next thing. That sounds great or, um, that, that, you know, even maybe your CEO says, oh yeah, we should be doing this, right. Um, another such [00:25:00] example is, um, uh, strategic swelling.

Where you're trying to do everything for everyone. You know, your product will even make coffee if you just ask nicely. Uh, so these are the kinds of product diseases that I had caught too early in my career, but I was seeing other companies catch them. And the burning question for me is, are we all doomed to learning from failure or is there a systematic, uh, approach that anyone could use to.

Engineer world, changing products really, um, systematically, right? Like step by step. Uh, and that's why my first book is about this approach, this I call it rad. So the first book, the title is Radical Product Thinking. And it offers a framework on how do you systematically translate a vision for change?

That is a very detailed vision. That's a problem that you wanna see solved. Uh, who has this problem? You know, what is the [00:26:00] problem? How are you going to solve it with your product? Why does it need to be solved? Because maybe it doesn't, right? And then how do you translate that into action very systematically?

So that's the first book. And similarly, there's a very. Clear vision for the second one, which is that I've seen goals and targets backfire, and I've seen puzzle setting and puzzle solving work so well here. But you know, people need a methodology for how do you very systematically set a puzzle clearly to align teams and then how do you turbocharge the puzzle solving so that this feels so much more effective than goals and targets.

Aicila: Yeah. Wow. That's fantastic. I'm, I'll have to read it. I'm excited. Uh, when does it come out? Do you know?

Radhika Dutt: Uh, so the second book that I'm working on, it's Work in Progress, um, like I think probably, you know, end of 2027 is probably

Aicila: You are

Radhika Dutt: of what I'm targeting.

Aicila: long. Oh my gosh.

Radhika Dutt: takes a really long time.

Aicila: Oh my goodness. Well, in the meantime, [00:27:00] uh. I if people, I mean, I'm sure folks wanna get more connected to you. I know you have a LinkedIn, do you have a newsletter? What's the best way for people to follow you? Get in touch, learn more about what you're up to.

Radhika Dutt: Yeah. So first of all, people can get the radical product thinking book. Uh, it's on Amazon and in bookstores around you. And that really gives you the systematic approach for translating vision into everyday activities. Um, and that's the. Book that's now being used in over 40 countries and creating world changing products.

People can also reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love hearing from people on how they're creating change. Um, and the third thing is you can also download this free OLA toolkit for puzzle setting and puzzle solving. And I'll share with you a link for show notes, um, so that people can get that. And in fact.

What I'd encourage our listeners to do is, as you use this toolkit, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I would love to hear about how you're using puzzle setting and puzzle solving, and as I write the book, your case study might just make it [00:28:00] into the book.

Aicila: Ooh, that's an incentive. So, hey folks,

Radhika Dutt: I.

Aicila: to have you back on and when you, you know, when you're closer to talk about like, what's happening and, and how things are going and what you've learned from people. So

Radhika Dutt: I would love that, and it's been such a wonderful conversation, so I look forward to our next one.

Aicila: Me too, and it's so great. Thank you. Is there anything that you wanna say or share that we didn't get to for today?

Radhika Dutt: Um, I think the, the biggest takeaway that I might share is. You know, we can engineer the change that we want in the world very systematically, right? Uh, and what I mean by any product, like whether you're a solopreneur and you know, your product might even be your freelancing that you're doing. Um, maybe you're a graphics designer and.

That might be your product. And the change you're creating in the world is through your product. You might be doing activism or [00:29:00] volunteering to create a certain change that could be your product. Even parenting can be your product in the world because you're creating change in the world through the kids that you launch in the world, right?

And so whatever your product is, you can engineer the change very systematically. And. You know, the whole framework that I talk about in radical product thinking, it contains this very, uh, clear approach that is fill in the blank statements. Uh, it's about, you know, quadrants that help you visualize how you translate vision into action.

It's a lot of these things that make it so intuitive, uh, but also it helps you bring a whole team with you on the journey. Um, so, uh, this is where I would encourage, you know, people to look at this. As a way of engineering change, no matter enough what your field is in terms of producing change.

Aicila: Sounds fantastic. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today.

Radhika Dutt: Thanks so much for having me [00:30:00] on.

Speaker: Thank you for tuning into business as unusual, remember, in this ever evolving world of modern business, it's not about fitting in.

It's about standing out. See you next time. Stay curious, stay innovative, and always keep it unusual.