Sparking Strategic Innovation…with Emotion
Some of the major changes we experience in culture, business and policy (like changes in education, marketing, social justice, healthcare, etc.) are due to innovative research and strategic decisions. But, what Matter–Mind Studio observes is the shifts that have the most profound impact on people are the ones that prioritize the emotional side of the human experience. To pause on what that is and how it happens, we’ve assembled a small series of case studies. Each of the three cases identifies a specific problem and illustrates how valuable it is to use emotion-centered strategies to address them. The case studies are at various scales and range from a large industry-scale shift, a program scale change, to an intimate shift in personal behavior.
Matter–Mind Studio has decoded the way shifts like these happen and developed a robust set of tools and research methods to apply these kinds of emotion-centered shifts in practice.
An Industry-Scale Shift
Case Study A: Palliative Care / Healthcare Industry + Psychology
The Status Quo
Before the 1960s, the way doctors thought about dying was focused on extending life. As an effort to be in service of families who need to hold on to loved ones, they conducted tests and gave treatments to give patients another week, another day, another hour. It’s still something many healthcare professionals practice today.
The Problem
According to a poll conducted by Purple Strategies in 2015, 24 percent–nearly 1 in 4 Americans– say they or a family member has experienced excessive or unwanted medical treatment. Unfortunately, prolonging a dying patient’s life (despite using innovative technology and evidence-based treatments) is not always in the best interest of the patients. It neglects the emotional care patients and loved ones really need. What the patient and their families need as human beings is different from what is physiologically possible with healthcare treatments.
The Strategic Pivot: Emotion
The major pivot in the way we treat the dying process was prompted by a new emotion-centered discovery. In 1969, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss psychiatrist wrote about her Five Stage Model in her book, On Death and Dying. Here, she made a compelling case that introduced the idea of a “good death”–something new and unconventional in western culture. Her model was made popular and slowly began affecting the way doctors and healthcare institutions as a whole thought about the process of dying. Soon, a space in healthcare was carved out for Kubler-Ross’s care-focused model and ideas about dying. Her values were adopted by health care practices around the world including the United States. By 1974, the first American hospice opened. By 1978, a U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare declared hospice care a “proper subject of federal support.” In 1986, Congress made the Medicare Hospice Benefit permanent. Today, the field of end-of-life care isn’t without its challenges but is continuing its efforts to develop. Dying with the support of the best end-of-life care services is made to be experienced not only as a technical experience but an overwhelmingly emotional and holistic one.
For a glimpse into one instance of hospice care today, read A Tender Hand in the Presence of Death, a recent New Yorker article.
A Program-Scale Shift
Case Study B: Art is Therapy at Rijksmuseum / Cultural Institution + Philosophy
The Status Quo
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines museums as …institutions that preserve and interpret the material evidence of the human race, human activity, and the natural world. Museum exhibits are typically designed by content specialists and exhibition designers who categorize the exhibition pieces by time period, style, artist, or location of origin. Each placard posted next the each piece or set of pieces gives the viewer the title, artist, materials, and other contextual information. Your average visitors’ experience looking at a piece and its accompanying placard ranges from: “Wow, what’s the story behind this?” to “I don’t get this piece.”, and “This really isn’t doing it for me.”
The Problem
The visitor experience is too often neglected. While the charge museums have to preserve material evidence across time is well-established and museums have an influence on culture and politics, the track record of serving the visitor-exhibit relationship is much, much weaker. While some major exhibits are so well-curated and publicized that they draw millions of visitors from around the world each year, the planning around the experience of a visitor once they’re standing in front of the pieces underserves the potential impact the art pieces might have on a person’s life.
The Strategic Pivot: Emotion
A major pivot in exhibition design was spurred by a new emotion-based philosophy. Artists are known to create their works to express a state of being, be it desire, fragility, guilt, etc. By clinically reorganizing each art piece by artist, time period, and style, exhibit curators–intentionally or not–bury the emotionally resonant message the piece is originally founded in. The emotional intention of the piece is not only happens to be what is most accessible to viewers, but is also the most compelling. Alain de Botton, philosopher and writer; John Armstrong, philosopher and art historian; and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam collaborated to create the Art is Therapy exhibit in spring and summer of 2014. The exceptional exhibit turned the exhibit design model on its head by aiming to shift viewers’ attention on their own emotional well-being. Each room in the exhibit was reorganized and dedicated to an emotion rather than organized by style or period of the pieces. The Art is Therapy exhibit was part of a large-scale reorganization and revamping of the Rijksmuseum which led to a record of nearly 2.5 million visitors by the end of the year. A visitor at this exhibit at Rijksmuseum not only has factual information about the piece but is also accompanied by how they can interpret the meaning of the art piece in relationship to their own life.
For more on Alain de Botton, the book, Art is Therapy, and the philosophy behind Art is Therapy, see these resources.
An Individual-Scale Shift
Case Study C: WOOP by Dr. Gabriele Oettingen / Goal-Setting + Behavioral Science
The Status Quo
In the world of goal-setting–including people scanning the self-help aisle and leaders of management practices–the emphasis is on setting specific, measurable goals as a way to effectively achieve something. For example, SMART criteria is a technique and an acronym used as a guide for achieving goals. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. Other popular goal-setting methods swear by ‘positive thinking’.
The Problem
Despite these developments, the rate of success for achieving goals is very low. Only 8% of people achieve their New Years Resolutions. Many behavioral scientists and economists attribute successful goal-attainment to your ability to learn from failures and effectively iterate on that goal. The problem is when looking back and reflecting on failed plans in past, people commonly attribute their failure to external factors. People blame things like time or other people. For example, “My wish is to have an additional $300 in my savings this month, but I wasn’t able to save enough because I didn’t have enough time.”, or “I couldn’t finish my homework because my brother kept interrupting me.”
The Strategic Pivot: Emotion
A significant shift in the world of goal-setting was prompted by a new emotion-based finding. Dr. Gabriele Oettingen is a professor based at New York University and University of Hamburg who over twenty years of research, developed a scientific strategy for fulfilling wishes that compete with other standard techniques. Her method, called WOOP or MCII, uniquely emphasizes identifying an internal obstacle rather than an external one. An internal obstacle is something within you that stands in the way of achieving your goal. Dr. Oettingen’s technique is exceptional because it recognizes that the process of obtaining goals is a messy and emotional one. Accordingly, she’s tailored a technique that incorporates these qualities. The process of defining a goal shifts from blaming things around you and making a highly tactical plan for looking within: “Wish: I wish to save an additional $300 in my savings this month. Outcome: I will feel relieved and able to take a long weekend out of town. Obstacle (Internal): I feel disconnected from my goal. Plan: If I feel disconnected, then I will remember the way dad used to work hard to save for our family trips.” This WOOP method has yielded substantial results in the contexts of health, academics, and in people’s personal lives–a significant improvement on the success rate of New Year’s Resolutions.
For a closer look at Dr. Gabriele Oettingen’s work see her website, WOOPmylife.org
These three case studies are examples of how valuing emotions and taking action accordingly have caused a major shift in the way things are done. Consequently, it improves the quality of the experience they produce. An entire industry can be transformed through the process of translating psychological theory into practice. A program can be improved by adopting a philosophy that highlights the significance of emotion. Personal behaviors can be changed by designing new habits for self-reflection. Important emotion-centered shifts are made possible precisely because leaders in forward-thinking organizations and companies reach across the confining boundaries set by their fields.
At MMS, we’ve thoughtfully decoded the attitude and approach behind strategic shifts like these and turned them into a unique consulting service that’s flexible and cross-disciplinary. All of our research tools and design methods are a response to questions like, “How do I shed light on these kinds of emotion-centered blind spots in my own work?”, and “How do I turn them into new strategies and practical solutions?”
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