Journal—

Musings & Observations

I’ve written for The Atlantic, Huffington Post, Forbes, Warwick and my mom.

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Bobby George 6/5/23 Bobby George 6/5/23

The Importance of Principles

Editorial note: This article is part of an ongoing series of essays on my experience building products. It contains thoughts on design, innovation, and technology; lessons on culture, principles and community; and ideas to improve strategies, processes, and wellbeing. It’s written with an entrepreneurial spirit, an ethos of openness, and a willingness and desire to drive and make social impact. Hard lessons make easy stories, and these are some of my personal accounts.

Over the years, I’ve come to develop a flavorsome appreciation for the importance of principles: their construction, personification and expression.

Principles, at their fullest, are essentially a set of foundational rules that can be readily utilized to help solve problems and make decisions. I think, when used thoughtfully, they can be rigorous, exacting tools, and teach us many things.

Here are a few things I have learned:

From a product perspective— and this can also be applied to a company or organization— it’s become increasingly clear that principles are important, not only for the powers of their a) abstract systematization of ideals, but also, for their full-bodied, b) concrete ability to put thought into action.

Apple is a wonderful use case, perhaps the single clearest instance where a principle, in this case, “simplicity”, became so deeply ingrained in the culture and design of the organization, that it changed the ethos and expectations of the entire world par excellence.

As Steve Jobs reflected,

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Consumers have become so accustomed to the design principle of “simplicity” that it categorically seeps into life.

At their best, then, these two movements, one theoretical and the other more practical, are, in nature, one and the same— coupling ambitious, far-reaching ideas that strive to innovate, with the more salty, immediately within reach, action-oriented necessities that drive impact.

When products get out of sorts, so to speak, or become disconnected, it’s often because they lose focus. They lose touch with their principles and obsessions or rely too heavily on this influence or that— with principles fading out of view. They teeter-totter to pure abstraction or practicality, slowly losing the art and craft of what differentiated their product in the first place.

In the dance to make beautiful products, balance remains crucial.

Principles can personify, and even embody principles, practices, and operational philosophies. It’s a powerful movement of thought: principles encapsulated in the ethos-making of the product and in the ethos of the product itself. An entire lifecycle is realized in a single motion.

Principles look princely as pixels.

Alongside the product, principles can inspire communities, which can become vociferous advocates. When the power of every voice is harnessed within the product, these communities can take on and assume special forms and functions. Perhaps more than anything, however, principles can rally teams. I mean, really bring teams together in rich and unexpected ways.

When the community, product and team align around a shared set of principles, everything starts to hum.

I think it’s important to note, straight from the outset, that not every organization has a set of principles. It’s also clear, more circuitously, that even if an organization has a set of principles, not everyone thinks about them in the same way. Every organization is unique, with a different set of challenges. And, to be sure, regardless of size or industry, this is part of the conviviality of principles: they can take on a life of their own.

Organizations are social configurations and principles are but one component of a much broader ecosystem. Which is to say, principles can shoulder multiple functions at varying stages of a company or even within individual teams. In many respects, principles are the backbone.

First things, first, as they say.

Principles can be yardsticks, excellent instruments by which to measure success and evaluate progress. They can be essential in helping to weather the unexpected or in finding indiscriminate ways to come to terms with the present. Principles can help navigate the new and, perhaps invariably, the best principles are as fixed as they are adaptable.

If ever there were a paradox of principles it would be here: an-exact yet rigorous.

Whether constructed right away, in the midst of building a company, or even in retrospect, principles can have an important role to play:

data-driven teams can formulate objectives and key results with these considerations in mind;
product marketing teams can fashion stories and focus their efforts on expressions of principles;
founders, from inception, can point to principles as landmarks to navigate against an ocean of opportunities.

Amidst an impassioned team, or a passionate problem, principles can serve as a dispassionate bellwether. They can act as guideposts to make decisions, providing a consistent framework by which to include everyone in the process. In short, principles can help to ensure sound decision-making, and faster, more reliable and democratic product-making.

Principles can be a lovely tonic to the messiness of creation.

The hard work of principles is at least two-fold. First, the development of principles, taking the time to slow down, think about them carefully, and craft how they relate to the mission of the company. And, secondly, the continual constitution of how they inform culture, roadmap, and, the experience of the product. Essentially, where they manifest and persist, and, equally, where cracks form around their sturdiness.

How principles are constructed, the hardscrabble efforts of getting together, organizing ideas, and putting everything down on paper, depends on the organization. How these principles are carried on becomes a task in itself. Both are inextricably tied to a steadfast, sinewy culture. These two operations are absolutely quintessential to the successful implementation and execution of principles.

As a general rule, I believe there’s undeniable value in the exercise of codifying principles. It serves as a mechanism by which to have meaningful conversations. Perhaps this goes without saying. Principles themselves may not be seen as product differentiators, at least on the face of it, but how they are lived and incorporated can be, creating expectations, and serving to embody the values of a company, as in the case of simplicity with Apple.

When used appropriately, principles can be co-conspirators in making products. Not only in making the product, but also in inspiring the team, and, ultimately, growing the company. How principles are utilized, and where they are expressed, is where the discrepancy often manifests, as the personification or embodiment can take on many different forms.

My favorite example comes from Herman Miller, one of the first “design-driven organizations” and a leader in thinking about how principles can inform their products.

Their four guiding principles are clear and concise. They are literally designed in a way that allows creativity to take shape, customers to be heard, and teams to be supported and inspired in their journey to innovate with customers.

Trust
Stewardship
Equity
Innovation

The ability to create a framework that lets things happen, that allows growth within constraints, that serves the users by providing products and services which improve the quality of life and culture, all the while fostering a spirit of innovation an art.

Having a clear and aspirational purpose, something emblazoned in the stars and actively realized in the daily tasks is essential. With mission-alignment anything is possible and everyone can rally around and be relayed by these North Stars.

Principles should guide and inform the path, yet never hinder, serving as strongly held opinions, guideposts that can be updated. The establishment of principles, of collective participation, is often as important as the principles themselves, and these types of expressions can be articulated in a number of different ways, all of which should be exemplified.

As a personal exercise, I created a set of operational principles for myself. These are my work-in-progress principles.

Bobby George 5/5/23 Bobby George 5/5/23

The Importance of Community

Photo of Samuel Mensah-Bonsu at Flip Fest in New Orleans.

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I think an important distinction requires articulation in today’s product-making landscape: Products aren’t always built for communities, they can be actively built with communities.

In many respects, the old adage of Henry Ford, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses,” has been usurped by more robust, community-driven approaches.

Our tools for engagement have become much more sophisticated, and, on the consumer side of things, our expectations of products have become so much higher.

A new model has emerged in which product-making begins with the community.

Everyone who builds products talks about achieving product-market fit, working to foster customer obsessions to develop key insights that directly inform the product roadmap, through quantitative and qualitative measures.

Community is absolutely integral to these processes, and there are techniques, examples, and approaches that highlight these efforts.

There are hundreds of stories of entrepreneurs, founders, and individual members, often constructed as team-building or organizational exercises, immersing themselves into the consciousness of their communities:

the founder of a food delivery service makes personal runs to understand the entire end-to-end product experience and make recommendations
an educational entrepreneur immerses themselves at the back of the room at a conference to talk with teachers and truly listen to their pain points
a healthcare start-up hosts a working session to discover complications from physicians and patients in the relevant problem space

While this process assumes many forms, and just as many names — as every audience is different, as are their respective needs — at its core, the mission is always the same: to actively listen to the community, and develop product solutions that address those needs, providing real and lasting value.

Building products requires building product consciousness. This necessarily requires involvement from the community (and, a team mindset). Sometimes it’s just as important to listen, to have your community know that you are taking their feedback seriously, as it is to respond, and build a new set of feature requests.

Communities can become modes of prioritization.

One example of building product consciousness for product-makers that has always resonated so deeply with me is the idea of establishing internal mechanisms to generate awareness through community feedback. These examples don’t always have to be active — they can also be passive ways to highlight and develop a broader understanding and develop empathy for the community.

Here are a few examples:

Start a communications channel where community feedback is collected
Empower cross-functional teams to spend time talking with customers
Have multi-disciplinary teams field support tickets on a regular basis
Kickstart each product meeting with a single piece of community feedback
Dedicate an all-hands to listing community feedback

Over time, these types of practices can help to shore up a community-driven approach to thinking about product-making. While these methods can feel a bit mystical, or perhaps even irrelevant to the current work at hand, it’s a process that can be refined and improved, which doesn’t need to discount the magic.

Communities are magical.

In talking with a community leader in the product-making space, I was captivated by the idea she articulated of a user journey. She described, in remarkable detail, how she envisions her role as taking a concerned user, someone who submits a support ticket, and pro-actively turning them into an advocate for the product.

By listening to the needs of the individual, addressing their concerns, she empowers them with an opportunity to become a spokesperson for the product, sometimes even by sharing their story back to the community.

Finding a way to empathize with the individual amplifies the power of the product.

I think it’s important to note that a single piece of feedback from the community has the power to change everything, and this should never be discounted, only ever amplified.

Amplifying the community creates the conditions in which every voice can be heard, and recognizes that diverse perspectives lead to better product-making.

Another example, perhaps as an extension of the above, is to consider incorporating community advocates into your process, whether by hiring individuals as part of your team, listening to the community, or establishing regular meetings with members of the community. Finding a way to keep your pulse on the needs of the community builds product empathy.

Here are six thoughts to consider regarding the importance of community:

Listen to the community and incorporate feedback in a way that makes sense for your organization.
Transparency in product-making can lead to greater product clarity, storytelling, and support from the community.
Community can serve as a mode of product prioritization, with the right type of procedures.
Amplify and advocate for the community, by listening, understanding, and ultimately working to solve their problems with them.
Never underestimated the power of a single user; that single user can move mountains.
It’s important to be flexible and adaptable, but also principled; approach community with empathy and empowerment.

One of my absolute favorite examples comes from Herman Miller, perhaps one of the first design driven organizations, in which the founder listed the “twelve evils” that were preventing growth in the furniture industry.

No 10: “No contact with users of the product.”

These are a few of my considerations on the importance of community in the product-making space. I’d love to hear from you.

Bobby George 5/4/23 Bobby George 5/4/23

The Importance of Storytelling

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The fabric of a story is woven together by many disparate threads, each as important as the other. Design, product and community are intertwined from the start. How this is told becomes the importance of storytelling.

If I were to wager a definition of storytelling in the product-making space, it’d involve the creation of an ongoing conversation with an engaged community. The driving-force of the story is the evolution it maintains, in a cohesive, dynamic, persistent fashion.

If a product is going to have impact, it needs to solve a problem. However, to solve a problem, outside of intuition, it requires that product-makers actively listen to and incorporate feedback from the community. Naturally, this process can take on many different forms, but, at its core, participation must be encouraged.

The challenge, then, becomes developing appropriate procedures, relevant to audience and culture, that creates this type of ecosystem: ways to solicit feedback, prioritize requests, and share updates, etc. This is precisely where the art of storytelling comes into play: learning how to create a safe space to be transparent with the community, and providing clear and actionable ways for the community to provide feedback.

Every voice must be offered the opportunity to share their perspective, and no voice should be underestimated.

With successful product experiences, stories must be continuously told to the point where there is no separation between internal and external, and only one truth continuously articulates and expresses itself.

Once a community is bought-in to the product, and understands how it can directly benefit their life, magical things can begin to happen.

Here are five key takeaways of the importance of storytelling:

Product-making and design-making co-originate with story-telling: successful products have clear and relatable stories.
Developing procedures to create with the community is the art and science of storytelling, and no voice should fail to be heard.
The story you tell others is the story you should personify as part of your culture and relationship with community.
Transparency creates opportunities for greater speed, clarity, and participation. Obfuscation creates confusion.
Build a product consciousness through actively listening to everyone, and never underestimate the power of a single voice.

If product-making transpires in relationship to a community, storytelling is the truth-telling, or the ability to maintain an ongoing conversation.

At the intersection of design, product and community exists the potential to enact radical transformations that can yield significant changes. This is the importance of storytelling.

Bobby George 4/15/23 Bobby George 4/15/23

The Importance of Culture

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Learning how to create your own culture, one that makes sense for your organization and community, is extremely important to the health and wellness of the team, and, ultimately the success of your company. In many ways, I believe the type of culture you create sets the tone for everything that is to come or not.

There are hundreds of accounts that extol the virtues of building, maintaining and growing a culture. While every culture contains similar themes, and intentionality or purpose may or may not play a role, each is often distinct in their origin, incorporation, and expression.

If I were to attempt a working definition of culture, it’d include these broad outlines: the creation of a type of environment where the ability to participate in the mission comes naturally and the people who partake in the space feel inspired, challenged and supported.

It goes without saying that there can be difficulties in growing a company and that certain obstacles will present themselves at different stages of growth. But, invariably, the strength of a healthy culture exists in its ability to stretch itself to accommodate the highs and lows, and provide consistency amidst a shifting landscape.

There are no ready-made, one-size fits all prescriptions for how to create culture. It’s part of what can make a company so special. Each organization is completely different, and necessarily so. It’s part of the beauty of culture. It’s also part of the messiness.

Here are a few insights I’d consider in establishing a framework for culture:

Create a safe, welcoming, hospitable space, with absolutely zero tolerance for abusive personalities. There’s room for everyone, except the egocentric.
Endorse a culture that promotes learning, sharing discoveries, and values the power of collaboration.
Cross-disciplinarian approaches empower everyone to share their passions, interests, and talents, and, often inspire radically new approaches.
Healthy communication circulates proactively when it is unobstructed by hierarchies.
Hierarchies often disenfranchise teams and paralyze individuals, especially as it comes to supporting an ability to make decisions.
Seek out knowledge from everyone, working to create a shared sense of vocabulary and participate in the vision and mission of the organization.
If the space has safely been constructed, learn how to be vulnerable with yourself, your team, and with your community.
Be transparent, thereby enabling everyone to actively participate in the decision-making, and proactively be thinking about the problem-space implicitly and explicitly.
Celebrate mistakes with rigor, taking every opportunity to share these discoveries and build a cultural consciousness.
Actively solicit feedback from everyone, and encourage healthy conversations.
Promote experimentation and an attitude of openness that eradicates fear, blame, and complacency.
Collaboration is the journey-making of the stars; and diversity in collaboration ensures that every voice is heard.
False positivity breeds negativity, distrust and resentment; authenticity doesn’t need to be stated, only lived.

At the end of the day, I believe culture comes down to expectations: What kind of environment you want to build, how willing and committed you are to nurturing and maintaining that culture, and when and where you will be willing to compromise and adapt to changing needs and requests / when you will stand firm.

While it’s not easy to readily articulate the characteristics of a successful culture, and we must all push ourselves to more clearly define and demarcate the composition of these spaces, it is abundantly clear that the joys of healthy cultures are absolutely palpable to experience. On top of that, it’s also readily apparent that when a company has a successful culture, this sense of delight and happiness can be clearly translated into the product and experience.

Culture can take on so many forms. Find what works for you. These are are a few of my personal takeaways. What lessons have you learned?