Analytic Wisdom from Master Oogway
Inspiration for applying analytic principals to customer behavior
The third installment of Kung Fu Panda will soon be in theaters. If I read the trailers correctly, Po has now become the master. The plot will focus on his struggle to train the next generation. This leaves Shifu with some big shoes to fill as he now assumes the role originally filled by Master Oogway.
Master Oogway, as you may recall, appeared in the first film. He is credited as the founder of Kung Fu and the master who trained Shifu. More importantly, at least for the story line, he was the one who declared Po to be the prophesied Dragon Warrior. Oogway is effectively Confucius or Lao Tzu, if either had been an animated cartoon turtle. As such, we can look to his sayings for similar sorts of wisdom.
In this article, I will use a few of Master Oogway’s scenes to talk about techniques for analyzing customer behavior. Human behavior in general often defies scientific conventions. For all the power of the Scientific Method, it was defined during a time when most research focused on the physical sciences, not the behavioral ones.
Dealing with uncertainty and change
One of the first places where the physical and behavioral sciences diverge is in the presence of change and uncertainty. Newton’s apples never paused in mid-plummet to consider their place in the world. But people are often quite irrational. Collective wisdom claims that on the average this won’t be true, but any study of the stock market will assure you that irrational behavior can be found in large populations, too.
Master Oogway offers two points of wisdom for dealing with uncertainty and change during his conversation with Po. First, be direct and do not water down the data you are given. Second, put more emphasis on the present.
To start, Po is upset with his performance during the days training. He offers Master Oogway his thoughts and observations on the day. A less skilled observer would be inclined to mollify the panda’s laments about the day. He might offer reassurance or excuses. This is a trap. People tend to personify inanimate objects, over complicating their behavior. If you layer further speculation on top of human behavior, you will only obscure the real answers.
Next, Oogway attempts to help Po see through his uncertainty. Po, like many analysts, seems distracted by the happenings of the past and a need to forecast the future. But human behavior changes, the past is a wonderful analogy for the present and the future, but no more. Some times you just need to focus on the here an now.
Yesterday Is History, Tomorrow Is a Mystery, but Today Is a Gift. That Is Why It Is Called the Present.
Dealing with control and perceptions
The next hurdle in applying things like the scientific method and experimental design to human behavior, is the struggle to develop clear perceptions and recognize that all control groups are imperfect. This reality has created immense frustration among the analyst community.
Humans, even animals and especially talking ones, are very bad at being part of a control. In medical trials, we change our behavior just because we know we are part of a test. This is called the placebo effect. Even when we try to hide the experiment from the participants, they often have an uncanny ability to screw things up.
Humans suffer from participation bias, confirmation bias, perception bias, and a host of other oddities. They also have a nasty habit of talking… often to each other. This can lead to sharing, a believe we are special (because none of our friends received that offer), or that we are being exclude (because our friend got the offer and we didn’t).
My friend, the panda will never fulfill his destiny, nor you yours, until you let go of the illusion of control.
Master Oogway offers the best advice to deal with this situation. Remember that control is an illusion. Yes, as Shifu notes, we can create some control. But unlike chemistry or physics, the control will never be perfect.
Even if we achieve a strong test result, we should be careful. Oogway’s final scene reminds us that human behavior often changes. The changes and lifts that we measure may disappear right before our eyes and only because their time has passed.
