Doing something the best way possible is 10X better than doing something in just a good way
Example 1: Opportunity cost thinking vs ROI thinking
Example 2: Customer empathy vs widening options
Why do most teams that understand their customers still fail at creating winning products?
They fail to translate that understanding into the right product.
Why?
Chiefly, because they make a long series of average choices.
They choose between 2 or 3 obvious options but remain oblivious to the other 10 options that were available to them, with just a little more thought & creativity.
Do this repeatedly, over the hundreds to thousands of choices that a product team ends up making, and you get an average product and pedestrian positioning of said product.
So what do they do next?
Talk to the customer. Talk more to the customer. Go on a customer listening tour. Fixate on the customer. Answer support tickets to build more empathy. etc. etc.
All good things, but none of these things will solve the real problem: inadequate creativity, which stems first from a lack of appreciation of the role of creativity in product work.
This is why most teams out there are forever stuck on the treadmill of “doing all the right things” but still not winning in the market.
The takeaway:
You need to understand that you cannot consistently build winning products in your career without translating customer insight into the exactly right product, UX, and positioning. And creativity will provide you the greatest alpha there.
So, embrace the importance of creativity and thoughtfully inculcate it within your product team.
The difference between stated preferences (what people say) and revealed preferences (what people do)