The Questioning Mindset Part-2
How change is not the only constant, yet it can keep things spiced up, be it businesses or relationships.
My mom is someone who believes that you should constantly change the way things are. During my schooling days, I used to come back to find her experimenting something new in the kitchen, even if her efforts went south at times. Her menus constantly changed — of course, you can attribute that to her being Indian, they always make a thousand variants of even the most common dish like Dal or Sambar. She had this constant thirst to learn and do something new and different. She was filling all old dairies with recipes from TV shows, magazines and master chef of aunts and grannies. It didn’t stop there — she rearranged furniture, changed flowers, planted new blooms in the garden, even bought different vegetables from the market — sometimes bizarre tasting and looking. They say that the element of surprise and suspense keeps anything interesting — be it businesses or relationships.
I personally love people who don’t settle for the status quo, who are constantly thinking about what can be changed - of course for the better. There are many examples around the world from different industries.
The latest trend in restaurants around the world is their changing menus. There is no set menu. The chefs improvise their menu for the day based on the products they are able to procure. The customers are going crazy over this phenomenon, every time there is this excitement about what is there and it makes for an interesting Insta feed too. This is also supporting the farm to table locally sourced movement — another trend that is catching on. The chefs are prepared to improvise based what becomes available to them — be it fish or vegetables or mushrooms.
Facebook has a way of experimenting with new features and UIs quite often. As someone who has been on Facebook for over a decade, there have something now and then that gets me looking twice. The few memorable ones are the video montage they create to celebrate your friendship with a person, then the balloon and party poppers that fly over when you congratulate someone in a comment, the new flavour of likes they introduced, the trending videos, the marketplace, but what seems to be the most interesting addition is their events feature — personally love it both as a host and an attendee.
So what is constant if we keep on changing things, will there be no space for familiarity and stability. Taking inspiration back from my mom — she too, had some constants in her menu, which were our favourites. I would like to label them are the core recipes — the ones you remember when you think of mom’s cooking — and she also stuck to her cooking style and cuisine — which was pure vegetarian and authentically South Indian. So when you keep the core and change the peripheral things, things become interesting.
For a more humanized example, Kajol and Ajay Devgn were on Koffee with Karan, and he asked them “How did you guys make your relationship last for nearly 20 years despite being polar opposites?” — and Kajol said that “Karan we are on the same page when it comes to the most important things — family, priorities, and principles”.
When businesses change their core values we begin to hate them just as much as when people change their core values or principles. If Zappos or Nordstrom are known for their customer service, they are doing excellently well too, that sort of becomes their core and what they are known for, these are things that customer will never want to see change. But definitely, they might appreciate a new way of arranging racks, a better promotion, a new collection, a festive outlook, etc.,
In today’s questioning mindset we are setting out to ask the question — What can be changed? This simple question has led to so many a process improvements, and sometimes even breakthrough innovations in many industries. The other way of interpreting this question is — Can this be done any other way — which is a really powerful way to challenge assumptions. Assumptions hinder creativity and innovation.
Key takeaways on using this type of questioning…
Aim to subtract, not just add: Usually adding something new is seen as change, to me subtracting something unnecessary or getting rid of something cumbersome is also a great way to change. Aim to alter or subtract what is no longer relevant or needed.
Change should have less switching cost (financially and emotionally): Your aim is to spice things up or to create an element of surprise, not to throw the customer of their balance. As people of habit, and routines, humans don’t appreciate a drastic change in how they get their job done. Change what is palpable to the human mind.
Does this sort of question apply to your business — how do you think you can use this to make your life and that of your customers interesting.
If you are thinking about altogether new ways to take your business idea to market then get back to the basics with the question format 5W 1H.
