The Gut Check
By Sara Cantor Aye, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Greater Good Studio
We founded Greater Good Studio out of a strong desire to align our work with our values. We knew we wanted to make a positive impact on the world. But exactly what kind of positive impact? And just how would our work align with our values? In the beginning, we had no idea. So as we took on new clients, we relied on our gut feelings a lot.
Fortunately we were pretty good at listening to our own intuition. We’d banked hard on our guts just by striking out on our own, with the idea to create a social impact design firm. But eventually we saw that this case-by-case approach to accepting projects wasn’t going to work forever, and it certainly wasn’t going to scale as we added to our team.
So, we decided to formalize our feelings.
We call it “the Gut Check.” And for us, although it sounds like a contradiction, it’s transformed how we make hard choices about what projects we do, and what clients we choose.
(Scroll down for the full set of questions!)
Where the Gut Check began
Personally, I love organic food. Everyone deserves healthy produce that doesn’t wreck the planet. So when an organic farm contacted us with a potential project, we had to learn more. George visited on a beautiful sunny day, excited to be out of the city and on a lush farm, learning from very nice people about the latest in microgreens. But when we talked it over afterward, something felt… off.
It wasn’t the company itself — everyone we met was so lovely, and we truly do believe in organic farming. Instead, it was more about where that food ended up. The farm’s customers were some of the most elite restaurants in the world. Those microgreens would land on some very pricey plates.
So, next logical question: What’s wrong with that? Organic produce is still good for society.
We had four team members at the time — George, Annemarie, Mark and me — and our conversations circled around and around. Organic food is important, and the farm provides much-needed work to laborers…
Finally, though, we simply had to go with our guts. And our guts said: Greater Good needs to focus on clients who serve the most marginalized members of our society. Even if it means giving up cool projects that align with other things we believe in, like organic food.
Looking back, that’s the moment when we started defining — and following — a shared moral compass.
Deciding how to decide
These forks in the road appeared again and again. Not long after turning down that project, we said no to a business school professor who was designing an app to help other professors — which did sound genuinely useful. But although universities are nonprofit institutions, and professors work hard, again, we decided to focus on more underserved corners of society.
After facing enough of these crossroads, we made a decision to formalize deciding. The Gut Check, as we affectionately named it, is still about tapping our gut feelings, intuitions, and hunches. Now, though, we don’t reinvent our criteria every single time.
We keep the format really simple, just an online survey that’s in front of each of us when we’re vetting a new client or project. It’s almost 50 questions long (so far), and each question is based on our values and experiences around what works for us and what matters most.
A few examples:
- Does this client serve a marginalized or underserved population?
- Is human-centered design the right approach?
- Is there an opportunity for innovation? What is their tolerance for trying something new?
The person with the client relationship answers these questions, and then we bring it to the full team to discuss.
One other thing to keep in mind: it’s a living document. The Gut Check should be continuously filtering out the clients who are not right. We’ve been adding questions to ours as we go.
Trying matters
Of course, the Gut Check isn’t a rigorous and quantitative science, and we definitely know that. In fact, most of the time it’s based on a few meetings with a potential client and some online stalking. It doesn’t dictate every choice we make, because there’s never a guarantee that a project will be right for us.
But we have to at least try.
For us, the Gut Check is a tool that helps guide our work, keeping us pointed in the right direction. And we believe in it so much that we urge you to try out your own version. It may seem like choosing your clients and projects is a luxury beyond reach, but I think you’ll find that once you start doing this, it puts you in a position of strength. We felt surprisingly empowered the first time we turned down a project, and now we try to do so on a regular basis.
Nothing feels better than saying “no” to work that you don’t believe in.
So write down who you want to work with and who you don’t want to work with. Choose what you will and won’t do. Don’t just follow your gut, formalize it. It’ll make the journey easier, and bring your whole team along for the ride.
The Greater Good Studio Gut Check (as of Feb 27, 2019)
Section 1: Introduction
- Name & website of the client organization(s)
- Name of the client contact(s)
- What is the project? What problem does the client need to solve, or what questions does the client need to answer? (generally speaking)
- What is our rough idea for how we might approach this project?
- What is the estimated budget range? (Our best guess)
- When would it start, and how long would it be? (Our best guess)
- Have we done any projects like this? In what ways are they similar?
- Is there an RFP or other documentation from the client?
Section 2: Impact & Responsibility
- Does this client serve a marginalized population based on race, gender, age, income, ability or sexual orientation? (1 to 5 scale)
- Who are the end users of this project? (This may include people either inside or outside the organization)
- How desired is this project from the perspective of the end users? (1 to 5 scale)
- What do we know so far about what the end users want?
- How likely is this project to have a positive impact on the end users? (1 to 5 scale)
- What type(s) of positive impact might come about as a result of our work?
- How clearly is the client working towards equity? (1 to 5 scale)
- What is the client’s mission, and how does it relate to social equity?
- What do we know about how this project is being funded?
- Is human-centered design the right approach for this engagement? (1 to 5 scale)
- Why is HCD right or wrong here?
- How likely is this project to lead to negative consequences? (1 to 5 scale)
- What might be the negative consequences that could arise from this project? (e.g. our work is a cover for an org to continue oppression in other forms)
Section 3: Client Relationship
- How much does the client seem like they’ll value our work? (1 to 5 scale)
- What are our clues (if any) that they’ll value our work?
- Given what we know so far, how much do we respect the client team? (1 to 5 scale)
- What (if anything) has the client team done to earn our respect?
- How interested are they in building their own capacity for HCD? (1 to 5 scale)
- What (if anything) do they want to learn from us?
- Red flag: do we sense any internal or external pressure to work together? (1 to 5 scale)
- If present, what is the source of the pressure to work with us?
Section 4: GGS Capacity
- Do we have staff that are ideal for this project, or can we recruit quality contractors in the time we have? (1 to 5 scale)
- What roles does the project need? (Including contractors)
- Does the start time align with the project team’s availability, or is the timing flexible? (1 to 5 scale)
- How might we make ourselves available?
- What’s the risk of this project blowing up in scope? (1 to 5 scale)
- What might we do at this stage to mitigate for the risk of scope creep?
Section 5: Client Capacity
- How likely is this work to be implemented? (1 to 5 scale)
- What are our clues that the client can (or cannot) execute?
- How open-minded is the client about what might come out of our work together? (1 to 5 scale)
- What does the client think the solution might be?
- How impactful do we feel the client organization already is? (1 to 5 scale)
- What impact is the client organization making in the world? Can we find any press, positive or negative, to support their claims?
Section 6: Growth as a Firm
- How new and intellectually challenging will this project be for us? (1 to 5 scale)
- What new areas of expertise might we gain through this project?
Section 7: Business Value
- How likely is this project to become a case study on our website? (1 to 5 scale)
- What are the deliverables we might share? (In a case study, in a newsletter, or in PR)
- Might this project lead to future work? (1 to 5 scale)
- What are our clues that the client might need us again? What are our clues that the client could influence others to work with us? (Or not)
Section 8: Summary
- Top reasons to say yes
- Top reasons to say no
