The Four Lenses of Innovation: A Power Tool for Creative Thinking

Do customers really

KNOW WHAT THEY WANT?

More and more companies are learning to engage their customers in the innovation process. Pulte Homes, for example, the largest homebuilding company in the United States, has spent thousands of hours talking to homeowners about the kind of floorplan that best suits the way they live. Working with focus groups who were invited to walk through and comment on a number of physical prototypes, Pulte was able to use all the feedback to create new, consumer-inspired designs. These include completely novel solutions for various areas of the home, such as a dedicated drop-off point at the entrance for bags and shoes, and a special space for kids to do their homework right next to the kitchen. Pulte likes to say that its homes are “Built from the idea up.”

However, innovating from the customer backward doesn’t just mean “listening to the voice of the customer.” Of course it can be helpful to conduct market research, get customers to fill in a questionnaire, or run focus-group sessions. But merely asking customers what they want or need doesn’t always yield the most inspiring or unique customer insights. Why not? In an interview with BusinessWeek in May 1998, Steve Jobs remarked: “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”¹⁰¹

As we learned earlier in this book, all of us have a set of established patterns in our minds that give us a preconceived and very narrow understanding ...