How Can We Do Ideation Better
One Man’s Ceiling, Another Man’s Floor
In Early January, I began to read Dan Ariely’s “Predictably Irrational”. The book takes us through the journey of human decision-making and helps us understand it through a behavioural science perspective. Furthermore, the book talks about various irrationalities and how they unknowingly define our lives. As an exercise, whenever I was introduced to a new diagnostic label in the book, I tried to tie it down to my life experiences or stories around me. A lot of times I could instantly relate to an irrational behaviour, like:
- Out of three options, why is the middle one always more attractive? (Decoy effect)
- Why is free stuff just so hard to turn away? (Zero Price Effect)
- Why do we like to eat from a more crowded restaurant? (Herding)
- Why we overvalue what we have (Endowment effect)
Many stories and decisions popped in my mind, as I carried out the exercise. What resonated with me the most is how Endowment Effect can hinder our design process.
What Is Endowment Effect?
The Endowment Effect is the tendency of humans to value items more highly when they own them than if they did not. In 2018, during one of our assignments in college, my classmate wove a cotton scarf on a handloom. The more hours she put into weaving the Cupro, the more ownership she felt towards the scarf. The pride of ownership was almost inversely proportional to the ease with which she was weaving (Endowment Effect).
She began to assume that other people would see the product with the same emotions, feelings and hard work as she did.
When the time came for her to sell it, she was disappointed because nobody matched the price she had in mind (One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor). As I read the Predictably Irrational further, a couple of the experiments carried out mentioned that the nature of ownership can be almost anything from a car, violin, a cat or even a basketball- we value it more than other people do. This got me thinking,
Is ownership limited to material things that we have spent time or money on? Or are we equally possessive about our ideas too?
About Ideas, Opinions & Ownership
In my opinion (and Dan Ariely’s), ownership can also apply to viewpoints and ideas, whether it is about which political party we support, our favourite sport or an idea we have during an ideation session — we love them way more than we rationally should.
But, what happens if we stick to our ideas and try to prove there is nothing brighter than it with every piece of evidence we can find (Confirmation bias)? In my experience, we are letting go of the growth mindset, we’re letting go of the learner inside us that wants to gain more knowledge about other people’s ideas, opinions and everything else in the world because we just can’t let go of the ideas we own. What are we left with then? An ideology/mindset — rigid and unyielding. There’s probably nothing wrong with that, until we are in the process of inventing an idea, selling a product or ideating to innovate for our users.
Doing Ideation Better (Pre-Ownership Stage)
There is no known cure for the ills of ownership — Dan Ariely
Dan talks about ownership shifting our perspective. It’s obviously not the easiest thing to move back to a pre-ownership state. Pre-ownerships always seem like a loss — a loss we can’t abide by (Loss Aversion).
Here’s what I have learnt we can do to cure ourselves of the ills of ownership and do ideation better:
- Become a Non-Owner: Let’s avoid opportunities to add our identity to an idea. View all transactions related to ideas, objects, opinions or even pieces of art we have created as if you do not own them. For example, if you’ve brought an idea into a brainstorming session, treat it as an idea brought up by members of the team instead of owning it personally. This might help you form opinions in a neutral manner. We might be able to see flaws in our own way of thinking.
- Opportunity Cost: Understanding the worth of a product or an idea will help us understand its actual worth. We talked about my friend from college earlier, who worked hard on the scarf and quoted a high price point when she had to sell it. The price was higher than the market price. What happened next? She ended up not selling the scarf she worked so hard on. It’s important to keep in mind what the market price of an idea or a product is, keeping our personal attachments and ownership aside. To avoid opportunity cost, can we get an objective third party to set a price point?
- Avoid equating time to price: When we spend 2 days brewing an idea in our brains or spend 5 hours building the Ikea shelf we just purchased we tend to overvalue it irrationally. We need to stop comparing the time taken to complete a task to how much the task is worth. This can help us detach from the sense of ownership that might arise during the process. Instead, can we create a rapid prototype to test for desirability and price point before investing time and effort?
…..
After reading the book I reflected on my own irrational behaviours and biases and thought about a world where I could replace them with rational ones. While it’s a long (perhaps not linear) journey I realized what’s important is to invite and welcome feedback. That’s what the book did for me. Here are a couple of questions I was left with after reading the book:
- What are some of the irrational patterns that govern my life?
- What makes rational thinking depart from my system?
- What are some irrational patterns around the people around me?
- What can I do to replace these irrational patterns with rational ones?
Here’s a link to buy the book in India :)
