Solve problems that matter with Ben Pecotich

Intro

[00:00:00] Ben Pecotich: I generally ask people to think about what's the line that you personally won't cross. We all need to keep the lights on and pay the bills, but at what cost.

[00:00:09] Nirish Shakya: That's Ben Pecotich, author of the book Solve Problems that Matter. Ben is a human centered designer, coach and the founder of a social enterprise called Dynamic4 that's focused on design and innovation for happier communities. Ben is also on a mission to help change makers, make sustainable impact with their work whilst not sacrificing their own personal sustainability.

[00:00:33] In this episode, we start with happiness just as Ben does in his book. And in Ben's words, how success follows happiness and not the other way around. We also talk about how designers can align their own needs with their need to make an impact and why you should start with a 10 year vision and work backwards from there.

[00:00:55] Shivaun: This is the Design Feeling Podcast with your host Nirish Shakya. 

[00:01:08] Nirish Shakya: Hi, I'm Nirish Shakya, and I'm a designer, educator, and the host of my new podcast Design Feeling. Most of the time, you'll probably find me helping organisations put their customers first, or you might find me teaching design thinking and creative innovation, but I'm on a slightly different quest here - to explore the human behind the designer - who you are, what drives you, what frustrates you and why, and ultimately how you can bring more impact and meaning into your work.

[00:01:43] On this podcast, my expert guests, and I will be uncovering ways to increase your self-awareness, creative confidence and meaning.

Welcome

[00:01:54] Nirish Shakya: Ben Pecotich, welcome to Design Feeling.

[00:01:56] Ben Pecotich: Thanks for having me looking forward to having a chat.

[00:01:58] Nirish Shakya: Thank you so much for joining us. 

How Ben started a career in design

[00:01:59] so Ben, you are a designer and you are the coach and you are the founder of a social enterprise called Dynamic4. How did you become a designer? 

[00:02:10] Ben Pecotich: pure luck that I managed to luck into this, offer at, at a bank with no qualifications, no formal education in that space. no degree, I didn't go to university and, and jumping into, kind of the corporate world.

[00:02:25] But I'm endlessly curious. And so, a year after I started my corporate role, I actually started my first startup as well. So 93, I started in the corporate world in 94. I started my first startup, which was gangster snowboards, well designing and making our own snowboards. And, And that was a whole another thread and a whole bunch of fun and worked in banking, in the back office areas.

[00:02:52] And then into tech and design, got really lucky, my second role where it basically ended up in what was effectively an innovation lab around banking services, new banking products, and transaction services. and so ended up in this really awesome place where fair bit of freedom, exploring new ideas, creating new products, and got an education at sort of 1819 that you literally couldn't buy.

[00:03:16] So I was very lucky to sort of end up where I did and that progressed into more tech oriented things, service management and things sort of progressed from there. And then I moved back to Sydney briefly, in. 2000 for 18 months and then moved to London for seven years. So I was living in London for, from 2001 to 2008 and had a lot of fun there.

[00:03:38] I missed, missed the London days. It was good back then. and that's when I started my business now at dynamic four. So got, got to London in 2001. The job market had already crashed, nine 11 happened and I decided to start dynamic four and do my own thing rather than relying on recruitment agents, trying to find me something.

Saying 'yes' to opportunities

[00:03:58] Nirish Shakya: I mean that, that is such a fascinating story for your life, right? In terms of you've done so many things like looking back, were there any kind of, key moments in, in that timeline that helped shape, the direction of where you are now?

[00:04:15] Ben Pecotich: Lots of things. a lot of luck, a lot of meeting, really awesome people. And, but I think, one of the things around luck is saying, yes. So being curious and saying yes, and embracing different possibilities and opportunity, being willing to experiment, not being too rigid in how things need to be and just sort of going with the flow.

[00:04:33] I never planned things out. So everything was pretty much serendipitous and opportunity that came up that I'd say yes to, as opposed to positioning for the next thing. and I think that's kind of been, one moment after another of that throughout my life and, and career has just been out there having fun, being playful and letting stuff happen and saying,

[00:04:54] yes, Okay.

[00:04:56] Nirish Shakya: Yeah. Cuz, um, it's interesting. You mentioned that because, I'm reading a lot of, content online around, how to say no more. and now you're saying, where you are, where you're now, because of all the yeses you've said, could you pretty maybe like elaborate on that in terms of what you mean by these yeses and what were some of the yeses that you, you said that got you.

[00:05:16] Hmm.

[00:05:16] Ben Pecotich: Yeah. It's I, I find there's a really interesting tension between the research that shows that a key aspect of being lucky is saying yes, and then so much. Is also about saying no and being more focused and, just to bring it to the double diamond for the fun of it already, yes is divergent and explorative and you're out there discovering.

[00:05:42] but if you say yes to everything, then you just scatter and you, you don't have any focus and, and no traction made. So, saying yes is important, but at some point, and that's a divergent process, but at some point you have to converge and start narrowing the options and saying no to some things as well.

[00:05:58] and personally I find saying no very hard from a, I don't like to constrain my, um, curiosity and I don't like disappointing people. So , I find no a, a hard thing to do. but I've learned over the years, the importance of saying no as well, like finding the time of, Recognizing am I in a divergent phase and exploring and looking for next opportunity and then say yes, a lot.

[00:06:24] Ben Pecotich: and then at some point, simplifying, consolidating, converging, and starting to say, there's a quote. I think it's from, Dan silvers. If it's not a hell year, it's a no. And I've been trying to apply that principle more. I'm still not really good at it, but, saying no is, is important as well.

[00:06:43] Nirish Shakya: Yeah. Yeah, I was, I recently read, a book by Greg McEwen, I think, called essentialism. And, in that book, he talks about how, if you wanna be an essentialist who works on the most essential things in their life, you need to explore more first, right. To kind of find out what are some of the things that you have access to and then weed out the things that don't matter as much.

[00:07:07] So like you mentioned in the double diamond explore first and then narrow it down to the ones that really matter to you. Uh, and speaking of things that matter, you recently wrote a book called solving problems that matter. So what, what are some of the biggest problems that matter to Ben package?

Why Ben wrote the book 'Solve Problems that Matter'

[00:07:26] Ben Pecotich: I think there's two lenses of this is the solve problems that matter to me. . But that's not why I wrote the book. really, I wrote the book around helping people work out how they solve problems that matter to them and the, the people and communities around them. So to start with the, what matters to me, a couple of the key things are, dynamic four, which I've mentioned our whole focus.

[00:07:50] Everything we do is around design and innovation for happier communities. So a couple of key elements, there are happiness is really important to me. and I want people to be happy, not as a, a fleeting sort of mood or moment, a trans transitory feeling, but, happiness in the way that Terra Dole talked about it, of being well and doing well.

Starting with happiness

[00:08:13] Nirish Shakya: I remember that from reading a book where I think you are, you are the first, design or business book that actually starts with a discussion on happiness and a breathing exercise, which I never actually read in a designer or business book before.

[00:08:27] Ben Pecotich: yeah. Chapter one mindset. and I, I thought that was, really important to start with one because, exploring social enterprise ideas and, and startup ideas, quite often, the founder wellbeing, the personal sustainability gets left behind, not talked about, and then some cases even taboo, thankfully it is becoming a much more common conversation, a more frequent conversation now.

[00:08:51] but that happiness is and happiness research. one of my favorite, happiness researchers is Sean ACOR and, the research have done around. We've been sort of conditioned and educated that. When we achieve this one thing, we'll just accomplish this one more thing and then I'll be happy.

[00:09:11] Ben Pecotich: And then he talks about us shifting the cognitive goal posts. We keep shifting them. So it's like we achieve that thing and we go, okay, now I'll achieve that next thing. Then I'll be happy. So he talks about, pushing happiness over the cognitive horizon and the research actually shows that it's the other way around success follows happiness.

[00:09:33] So if we can put the work in and he talks about as a work ethic, it's not a fluffy thing. It's as a whole bunch of happiness habits and mindset that we can do, around building that happiness and creating our own happiness and creating our own purpose. And then the research shows that, and that, and he did this research across a whole range of professions as well.

[00:09:54] Over 30% more successful when. In a positive minds and, and head space. So that happiness is, it feels good. It feels good to be happy. the people around us tend to enjoy our company more when we're in a positive mindset as well. but then we're also more successful. So, youto me that that happiness is key to so many things.

Preventing your cognitive goalpost of happiness from shifting

[00:10:17] Nirish Shakya: Cause it's, it's really interesting to mention that because, I guess, throughout my career, I thought, I'll be happier if I get that job or get that promotion or, work on that particular project. And then when you get there, you've got something else to look, look at.

[00:10:31] Right. and like, exactly

[00:10:32] Ben Pecotich: We keep shifting the goalpost

[00:10:34] Nirish Shakya: exactly. So what are, what would be some of your, biggest tips for not doing that and just, being happy in what you're doing right now.

[00:10:45] Ben Pecotich: as he says, well, I think it starts with the awareness of how important happiness is. and, and again, in that sense of not just a temporary mood, but something that we create for ourselves and also that it's healthy and we should experience the full range of human emotions. So you don't wanna be just, laughing and smiling all the time.

[00:11:07] We do need to experience all the things that's, that's part of what means

[00:11:11] Nirish Shakya: Just be happy. 

[00:11:12] Ben Pecotich: a good, healthy . Yeah. so we don't wanna be toxically happy and that positive toxicity, which is a thing, we, we do wanna be experiencing all the emotions, but looking after our mindset, being aware of what happiness actually is, what our, growth mindset looks like and feels like different things that trigger us outta that state.

[00:11:34] We've got so many more senses that scan for negative than we do for positive.

[00:11:40] So it's natural that we perceive threats a lot more than, we do positive things. And I know you're a big fan of meditation as well, but, breath work and meditation being, really useful and simple practices to then be able to start getting a little bit more distance from being in that fight flight or freeze cycle, which it's so easy to get caught up into.

[00:12:03] And, and this actually has addictive properties as well. 

Designing for happier communities

[00:12:05] Nirish Shakya: Let's go and go back to dynamic four. Right? You mentioned dynamic four there as, and you design and innovate for happier communities. What does, what does that mean? Hmm.

[00:12:13] Ben Pecotich: one of the main things that we focus on is,, helping design and build ideas and, and coach through ideas that will help contribute and create the conditions for people and, and communities to be happier because they're more empowered. They are more included and inclusive and they live in more sustainable ways.

[00:12:33] And. that then means that people have a higher quality of life. Our home, our planets is cleaner and a better place to live. So all of those elements then contribute to helping create the conditions for, happiness. And you can't make someone happy. Happiness is, our choice, our individual choice conditions help.

[00:12:55] but it's that up to each individual to be happy or not to be happy.

[00:12:59] Ben Pecotich: It's, it's actually a really challenging in terms of impact measurement or, outcome measurements of trying to work out what's, contributing factors. What are some of those longer term patterns? one of the pieces of data that I, and a annual report that I look to, and obviously this isn't claiming attribution for this.

[00:13:16] but there's the world happiness index, which comes out every year and, and looks sort of different elements and different geographies, how things are tracking, and, and people that we work with. So a lot of this is some of it's directly working with, communities, but a lot of it's around coaching leaders and founders, especially social enterprise founders, to solve problems that matter, do that more empathic and innovative ways. And then for them to measure their success, not just in terms of financial outcomes, but also creating positive change and outcomes for people, the planet and also looking after their own wellbeing while they're on that journey as well. 

[00:13:55] Ben Pecotich: But being financially successful is also a critical part of that mix.

[00:13:59] It's not like leaving the, the financial aspect behind that economic aspect is key to the people working on contributing to that change. But then also, economic participation and, and financial inclusion, financial literacy are, are key aspects for people and communities to be happier as well.

What inspired Ben to start Dynamic4

[00:14:17] Nirish Shakya: And what inspired you to start this,social enterprise and focus on, happiness for communities. Hmm. Why is that? Do you know?

[00:14:24] Ben Pecotich: Fairness and, inclusion is a, is a key thing that, really matters to me and, and drives me if I see any, injustice either towards me or to others.

[00:14:35] it really hits me very intensely. And, you know, I would need to sit on the couch and have that psycho analyzed, but , it's, it's a very deep motivator. and the actual source of it, other than being, I think, a relatively universal sort of human driver, why I happen to experience it so intensely, I have not had that analyzed it's a thread I might not wanna pull

What is a social enterprise?

[00:15:06] Nirish Shakya: you mentioned that, dynamic four is a social enterprise. So what is a social enterprise to you?

[00:15:12] Ben Pecotich: like you're trying to start an argument. So social enterprise definitions are not universally agreed. but there are two. I'd say pretty universally agreed principles of what a social enterprise is. and actually before I say those two, I think it's helpful to think about social enterprise as something that we do rather than something we are.

[00:15:34] So if we turn it more into a verb rather than noun, then it helps take away some of the definitional challenges cuz uh, away to start a robust conversation with any group of social entrepreneurs is to get them to start, debating the definition of what social enterprise is. But the two principles that do tend to be, pretty universally agreed is that the business and are intentionally use the word business there.

[00:15:58] it exists to, deliver on a very clearly articulated, purpose around a social environmental purpose. And so it's very much around demonstrable intent. The intent absolutely does matter. And then the second element is that. business models. Trade is the means to then deliver on that purpose.

[00:16:19] Ben Pecotich: So very clear purpose and do business to deliver on it. there are some other elements that come into definitions at times, but those two are generally, pretty universally accepted and, and pretty much the basis, which means that, a startup straight commercial startup, if actually wants to be purpose driven and focus on the purpose.

[00:16:38] Then that can potentially be a social enterprise and be doing a social enterprise, a, notfor profit or a charity that wants to start a, social enterprise product of service that they're gonna sell and receive revenue for that product of service. That's them doing a social enterprise, the whole, entity, the whole organization might not turn into a social enterprise as definitionally, but they're doing a social enterprise as a way to, and often as a way to diversify revenue streams and have some earned income.

[00:17:07] It's a space. I, I do a lot of work in working with notfor profits to help explore different social enterprise ideas and, and go through an innovation process and the human center design process to, to do that.

[00:17:19] Nirish Shakya: that definitely, makes it a lot clearer for me in terms of, the intention seems to be the, the key thing here. Right? What is your, the intention of your business? So, for example, let's say, can someone like, delivery say they're a social enterprise, cuz they're delivering food to societies.

[00:17:34] Ben Pecotich: So they could say that they are, who, who would agree might vary. and, and it is, it's actually a really interesting question, where some of those boundaries are drawn, are they static? And they do change over time and, or have so far. And that, that is where certification and peak bodies, which then do worry about the definition and assessing.

[00:17:56] Different organizations against the criteria do start becoming more important as well. so, I'm not theor of who's doing a social enterprise or not, but Deliveroo, I've not seen any clear social, environmental purpose as being the driving reason of why they're running their business.

[00:18:12] they definitely got the trade part, I would need to be convinced on the purpose side of things and how that flows through the business model, how it drives decisions, to be able to say, I'd agree with that one.

Aligning your needs with your work as a designer

[00:18:24] Nirish Shakya: Great. I think one thing that I, a lot of, designers, are aware of is, social needs and opportunities to, help out with those needs. But at the same time, a lot of designers are also, employed in a full-time job, working for a company,and that company might be working on some, something totally different.

[00:18:44] how do you think designers can start to align their own kind of been a personal need to make an impact, at a societal level,

[00:18:51] Ben Pecotich: it's a really important question with so many layers to it. when I'm having a chat with, emerging young designers or people career switching into design, especially human sand design. One of the things I encourage 'em to think about is, and, what they care about and what their values are.

[00:19:07] And normally, as part of that process, there'll be some things that they are really committed to. And I generally ask people to think about what's the line that you personally won't cross. We all need 

[00:19:19] to keep the lights on and pay the bills, but at what cost and I know there's a, a fair bit of privilege in that statement.

[00:19:27] but we all have choices. and, When you know, you start getting opportunities and you go, okay, I'll just.

[00:19:34] Ben Pecotich: Say, yes, I, I said, I'd never do this, but okay. I'll just do it. so it's looking for the things that, don't violate your own value system. And then over time, hopefully progressing to be able to do more things where you can earn a good living, but doing things that are completely aligned with your valley system. 

[00:19:51] and, and as designers, we've got massive ethical responsibility as well, which has become sort of over the last decade, a, a mainstream conversation within the human sand design community and UX communities around, if every designer stopped making harmful products, it would make a massive difference.

[00:20:09] They wouldn't, they wouldn't get made

[00:20:10] Nirish Shakya: Hmm.

[00:20:11] so it's actually up to each of us to, be the change that we wanna see and actively work against that it's we have to, we have to do better than just be aspirational about.

What to do if you're not seeing the impact you want in your job

[00:20:20] Nirish Shakya: and that's Another thing I wanted to ask. I also hear from a lot of, designers, who are, working for a company in a job where they don't see the kind of impact that they want to make and they're frustrated. what, what advice would you give to them?

[00:20:38] Ben Pecotich: I think it starts with that self awareness. being able to work out what you do care about, what you've got to bring the types of environments, and context that you like to work in, the people that you like to work with, the problems you like to work on. If you can at least start building up the self-awareness and, and build that picture for yourself, then you can start looking for things that match that.

[00:21:01] And sometimes that's already internally, and it's just a matter of having a conversation with leadership or, another leader in a different part of the organization This is what I really care about. This is what I've got to bring. What have you got for me? and sometimes that leads to, I don't have anything for you, but they might know somebody that does, or they keep your mind for when something comes up.

[00:21:22] So it's, it's kind of being able to activate when, when we get that clarity around what we do want, what we do care about, then we start noticing opportunities as well. We start noticing things that fit what we're looking for, as opposed to it all being sort of ambiguous and fuzzy. And it's, I don't love what I'm doing, but I wouldn't know what good looks like if it came along.

[00:21:45] and then in a really, practical, kind of recruitment perspective, the more clarity you've got around that, that makes it a lot easier to market yourself. And when you're having conversation with recruiters or directly with organizations, you can go, this is who I am. This is what I really love.

[00:22:00] Ben Pecotich: This is what I care about. And this is what I've got to bring. And ideally even being on the front foot there and going, looking for different organizations that match what you're looking for and just start having conversations with them. I think it's also really important that not to expect all of this to happen in one step, it might be progress and it might take time.

[00:22:20] And the stepping stones involved, it's not like flip, flip a switch and job done. and we live and work and experience adaptive systems and dynamic systems are always changing. So just because something's awesome. One day doesn't mean it's gonna stay that way. So being adaptable and being able to go explore.

[00:22:41] but having that self awareness, I think is a, is a really key step in that process

Starting with your 10-year vision

[00:22:46] and I can definitely see from the book that I, that you've written, which I've got in my hands right now. in terms of like some of those, self awareness activities, for example, one of the things that you've, mentioned here is around, what is, what is it, what is your 10 year vision?

[00:22:59] Nirish Shakya: Like, what is it that you would want to achieve, in 10 years time, and then you bring it back down to three years and then one year plan and then 90 day plan, which you, take, read us through in this. how did you come ACC come about this, way of, approaching problems that you

[00:23:15] Ben Pecotich: In. So in terms of some of that, vision setting and, and then active planning to help make it happen, especially in the social impact space and, social, environmental impact. We're often working on really complex challenges and systemic problems and, and helping contribute to systemic change so that they're not things that happen, in 90 days.

[00:23:36] But. they tend to be, systems change tend to talk seven, 10 years plus in terms of it's, a long time horizon. So some clarity and, and, and doing a little bit of vision setting and, and casting forward a bit of what's that change that really wanna see in the world, what's it look like?

[00:23:52] What's it feel like, and sort of being able to get some edges around what that vision state that we're working towards actually looks and feels like and contextualizing as well. So, one thing I've found a lot with,kind of the B a G the big hair audacious goal of, that 10 year future state.

[00:24:10] Nirish Shakya: B ha I've been heard

[00:24:12] Ben Pecotich: You haven't heard B a G. So it's, the big, hairy, audacious goal. and quite often when you're sort of vision setting, it kind of feels to me, a lot of those activities tend to be quite, surface level. And it's sort of just noting down a couple of things at a very sort of factual utility type level.

[00:24:32] And for me personally, that's never felt real. And so when I, start looking at kind of. The change I wanna contribute to over the next 10 years, I go through sort of a process of trying to contextualize it and making it real and, and put some measures and shapes around it. so I tend to start with, You know, what's the year, how old will I be? What's my family situation, where am I living? What sort of things am I doing? and then start layering the detail of what are some of the macro trends to see, how do I see them playing out over the next 10 years? So starting to put a bit of flavor to it, as opposed to it just being, I hope that there's a 10% less, poverty or, something like that actually, what's it look and feel like for, somebody that's working on that challenge and then also the people experiencing that challenge now.

[00:25:20] So, and then, if you leave it out there, nothing happens. we, we can't, deal with that and can't break that down into action. So then breaking that down. So if we want, want that to be the case over 10 years, and it's a quote from bill gates of, we tend to underestimate what we can do in 10 years and overestimate what we can do in one year.

[00:25:40] So if we, go pretty bold with the tenure view, just a chance we might get there or help contribute to that happening, 

[00:25:47] Nirish Shakya: So, what you're saying is, you, we should be aiming really high in terms of, I, what we can do achieve in 10 years time.

[00:25:56] Ben Pecotich: I think definitely being bold. It's, it's definitely a stretch and it's also not something that we can do by ourselves. So, especially at that impact level, from a theory of change or logic model, point of view, that's long term, 10 years, Very complex already dealing with dynamic adaptive challenges so we can contribute to that.

[00:26:22] But you know, the great thing happens. We can't go. Yep. that was all me. I did that, we can, we can be part of, the process and contribute to that positive change. but to know what that is and the role we are gonna play in helping contribute to that change is when then breaking it down into the shorter time horizons and then, okay, what do I do today?

[00:26:45] how do I actually get this done and make it happen? and for those that cascade of, of thinking and planning to flow down and, and stay cohesive rather than it being got this long term goal, and then I'm gonna work on something that's completely unrelated and, and not even a stepping stone to get to towards that long term change that I wanna contribute to.

Ben's favourite frameworks from his book

[00:27:05] Nirish Shakya: What are some of your most favorite frameworks or tools from, from your book?

[00:27:09] I think, well, my favorite shape is the double diamond so, the, the design double diamond, I, I think is just a piece of beautiful design self, just abstract, so well, any problem solving or design process? so. Everything I do all the, all the leadership programs that I run and, master classes and, innovation sprints.

[00:27:32] Ben Pecotich: I line up everything pretty much against the double diamond as a way to go and explore and make sense of get to an understanding of the real, problem to solve after I've already immersed in the people, the problems they experience at the context, they experience it in definitely spending time on that problem, diamond and then, start going into the solution diamond after that and not falling in love with the first idea we came up with when we started, but actually going through another divergent process and what are all the different ways we might solve for that problem that we've now got real sharp clarity on based on meaningful empathy, insight, and evidence.

[00:28:10] How do we now go solve that problem? and then the old three circle. Lenses the three circles. So the desirable viable and feasible. That's, uh, another, really simple mental model, which I find so critical to the whole process. so a combination of the double diamond, three lenses, very, uh, stereotypical design thinking, human sand design shapes.

[00:28:32] but the power I find is in the simplicity. They, they fit pretty much any context. whereas other tools or models are quite often more specific to a specific use or a specific context. they're a couple which I find, universal for everything. So that'd have to be my favorites.

Theory of change

[00:28:50] Nirish Shakya: also like the theory of change that you've, um, written about in, in, in, in your book as well, in terms of how it basically brings together the, the problem, what you wanna do about it, the activities, the output, the outcome and the impact. I've tried using the theory of change in some of my projects, but I don't think I've been able to do it well.

[00:29:09] Could you maybe give us a quick primer on what is the theory of change and how do you actually use it?

[00:29:15] Ben Pecotich: So theory change is also very useful, and in a wide variety of context as well. So technically at a technical level, there's a difference between a theory of change and a logic model. So a logic model is a way to then, articulate kind of your thinking from a, a theory of change, a theory of change itself.

[00:29:33] Tends to be much more like a systems map. So looking at all the things going on and causality and incentives and levers in the systems, different actors, what they care about, what their motivations are. So thinking about the system, and then if we do this within the system, then this will happen. So it's a if then type logic and that's where it flows out quite nicely to the logic model, which is, those steps that you sort of talked about.

[00:30:02] So being clear on the impact or the change that we wanna see and that, that vision state, so the impact that we wanna contribute to, it's useful to then know the problem. So why is that, that thing that we wanna see that change, that we wanna see, why is that not reality today? What are the barriers?

[00:30:19] What are the, causes of that, to that problem? So getting below just the basic problems, but also down into root cause river possible as well. And then

[00:30:29] from there. 

[00:30:30] Nirish Shakya: model, is it?

[00:30:32] Ben Pecotich: Yeah, technically that's a logic model. Often, often the terms are used interchangeably, but, for any systems people and any social impact people, they, they might be going, technical difference.

[00:30:41] So just for clarity, but they are often in, in everyday use, they are often used, interchangeably, the logic model owner, broader, theory of change. but yeah, the then having, once we've got clarity on that change, that we wanna see the problem and the root cause of that problem, then we can start putting together our theory of, well, if we do these things then, and we do enough of them over time, these positive outcomes will happen.

[00:31:08] And we're designing for positive outcomes, but that's our theory. that's our theory as we

[00:31:15] step 

[00:31:15] Nirish Shakya: called a theory of change. Okay.

[00:31:17] Ben Pecotich: Exactly. So if, if we do this, then this positive thing will happen and that change, that positive change will happen over time. And cumulatively, collectively those, the outputs of our activities will contribute to these outcomes over a sort of short, medium term and over even longer term, then they start contributing to these other positive, changes and impacts.

[00:31:38] and that's where impact measurement sort of your question earlier around outcomes. And how do you know that's where impact measurement across that theory of change then comes in and often plays a nice role to go, okay, activities measures that tends to be all your productivity measures and performance measures and that kind of thing.

[00:32:01] organizations tend to be better at that than anything else, outputs, what's the things that we've actually produced. Again, that's easier to do because it's more short term and, it's tends to be quite tangible things. And then when it gets really tricky is because it takes longer. It's in the complex adaptive systems is outcomes.

[00:32:22] Ben Pecotich: So how do we actually measure that? That outcome happens, especially if we're talking about things like happiness and,better quality of life, which are probably more at the impact end of things, but what what's the middle step there? And what are the things that we might be able to identify and measure in

Difference between outcome and impact

[00:32:39] Nirish Shakya: Ben, what's the difference between an outcome and an.

[00:32:44] Ben Pecotich: partly scale. And partly time I'd say so outcomes tend to be talking probably the three to five year period, and some versions of the model have short term outcomes and medium term outcomes and sometimes even longer term outcomes. and then impact is more the cumulative version of that over time, or the contributing to that bigger change over time, which we, we tend to be talking seven, 10 plus years at that impact.

[00:33:13] Level of things, but, the model that that framework can be used at different scales and it can be used, sometimes it's called pro program logic. So it can be used just on a program specific program. Sometimes it's done at the whole organization level. Sometimes it's done at the whole sort of ecosystem level.

[00:33:31] so it can play different roles. but it's really just a useful framework to articulate your thinking and treating it as a theory, as a hypothesis to test, as opposed to fact . and just having that clarity around where we're trying to get to what are we gonna do, and especially with, early stage social, social enterprise ideas.

[00:33:51] Ben Pecotich: You might have an idea and you go and start, testing that, and you have a theory if we do these things and it will contribute to these, these create these outputs and contribute to these outcomes and impact over time and you start doing it and it doesn't head in that direction that you hoped.

[00:34:05] And that's where having at least some level of measurements and lead indicators to go, yep. This is working, do more of that, or this is not working. in fact, it might even be creating harm, stop doing that. this needs to change. so it becomes a framework to test your thinking, rather than it being like this absolute static thing that, is fact that's very much a hypothesis.

[00:34:30] Nirish Shakya: And we'll, put links to, all these, frameworks and that and tools we're talking about, in the show notes. So if you're listening to this right now, you don't have a pen and paper. Don't worry. You can just pull out a phone and go to the show notes and we'll have all the links, in terms of, the theory of change, the logic model, double diamond, everything that we talk about will be there as well.

[00:34:50] Ben Pecotich: awesome.

Ben's experience of writing the book

[00:34:51] so, Ben, how was your experience of writing the book?

[00:34:54] Ben Pecotich: It was great. It was, the steepest learning curve I've been on in recent memory. it took me about a year from making the decision to write through, to, the final version or not final version version 1.0, being published, and about 10 months from, for, for the soft launch. So that was my 2021 project.

[00:35:17] And the writing itself was actually mostly really enjoyable doing all the, the visual design and layouts. I found that pretty enjoyable for the most part as well.

[00:35:27] Nirish Shakya: yourself?

[00:35:28] Ben Pecotich: yeah. 

[00:35:30] Yep. So. 

[00:35:31] Nirish Shakya: It's beautiful that he designed.

[00:35:33] Ben Pecotich: Ah, thanks mate. Yep. That's that's all, all my visual design and the graphics other than any sort of, creative commons, models that are in there, the, all the other graphics and stuff, my work as well.

[00:35:45] So, yeah, it was the writing and design part of it, mostly enjoyable. and I wasn't starting from zero either, so it was very much based on our, incubator program for early stage social enterprise ideas, called jet pack that we've been running since 2014, and a bunch of leadership programs that I run and that kind of thing.

[00:36:05] So there's a lot of, material there and the sequencing was pretty much sorted because it's a 90 day program. but then. Going into the detail. And then probably one of the challenges from a writing perspective was trying to that, what I'm, what I'm aiming for with the book is that the reader feels like I'm working alongside them.

[00:36:26] I'm there sharing them on helping them succeed, helping challenge their thinking. and, but, working alongside, which is very much the, the model I work in terms of coaching clients. So it was a case of trying to think about, thousands of hours of coaching conversations, working with founders and leaders and trying to distill some of the key aspects of that into the written form.

[00:36:50] the advantage being when I'm in a coaching mode, having direct conversations with people, I've got all the context and I can see the feedback and I can see what's landing and what's not landing and asking the questions and getting the information. so trying to abstract that into a version that's of applies in, hopefully.

[00:37:08] Ben Pecotich: Most situations yeah, distilling thousands of hours of coaching conversations into a written form. That was an interesting challenge as well. where the biggest challenge was actually learning all the self-publishing, side of things. So what the different constraints were different, distribution channels, all of that side of things was, was much more challenging than the actual writing of, and, and also doing promotion.

[00:37:31] in 20 years of dynamic four, never done any paid marketing and haven't done any traditional marketing, and I've probably done more sort of some form of promotion over the last year with the book then, I've done the rest of dynamic four put together, which is not my happy place, so I don't enjoy the promotion side of things.

What Ben would do differently next time he writes a book

[00:37:50] Nirish Shakya: so if you had to write your second book, how would your approach be different? This. 

[00:37:57] Ben Pecotich: yeah, it's an interesting one. I've. I'm I'm possibly falling into the sunk cost fallacy situation on this one, but I've, I invested so much time over, over 50%. Well, over 50% of the time, of that I spent on the book was in self-publishing research and in promotion, it was less than 50% was actually writing and designing the book.

[00:38:18] so potentially falling into sun cost fella here, but I felt I've invested so much time learning a bunch of that, that I actually will need to write a second book to make use of that knowledge hard, hard 

[00:38:33] Nirish Shakya: if you could maybe,tell us, what sunk cost fallacy means for our listeners. So

[00:38:38] sunk cost fallacy is something that we all do all the time where we go, well, I've already invested this much, so I may as well invest more good money after bad is a, a simpler way of saying it. But, Very much to the bottom sometimes. So it's not a good cognitive bias to, uh, to have meant much of the time.

[00:38:57] Ben Pecotich: So , and sometimes even awareness that you might be doing, it might not even stop you as I'm pretty much saying right now. but in terms of things I do differently, a couple of things, one is that I would probably, write most of the book as blog posts and publish as I go. which is the approach a few pretty well known authors do.

[00:39:19] the reason I 

[00:39:19] Nirish Shakya: What's the benefit of doing that?

[00:39:22] Ben Pecotich: For me, and the reason I'd probably do that. And I, I thought about doing it for this book and, I was advised not to do that. So I tried to follow the advice so I didn't do that, but the reason I think I'd do that next time is I need a little bit of a tighter feedback loop and a shorter term gratification of doing the work, getting it out there, doing the next piece, getting it out there.

[00:39:48] I, even though it was, only, well, well, under a year for most of the content that I wrote, Not getting it out into the world. doesn't feel good for me. I need a, I need a shorter turn around than that. So, and I think there's lots of other advantages in terms of being able to road test more of the content in that form.

[00:40:04] and then, package a version of it up, not, not just straight blog posts, but package a version of that up, into a book. so that's probably the approach that I'd take next time. another one that's I've, I've thought about as a kind of weird advice, but, and it wasn't actually advice. One of my favorite authors, wrote a book of essays about, and, and sort of off cuts and things that hit the cutting room floor of a bunch of his novels.

[00:40:29] Nirish Shakya: Who's who's the name? What's the name of the author?

[00:40:32] Douglas Copelands. Douglas Copeland famous for generation X, micro surfs. They're probably a couple of the most famous of his books. he unwillingly became kind of the spokesperson for slack of culture and generation X, in the sort of eighties and nineties. but his, his work, I love his work.

[00:40:51] Ben Pecotich: I love the way he sort of tells stories and his take on things. But this book I read was kind of a book of essays rather than one of his straight novels. And I read it, just before I made the decision to write my book. And in it, he talks about that when he's writing a book, he doesn't read anyone else's work cause he doesn't want unwillingly or unknowingly some another author's voice and tone to start influencing his writing.

[00:41:21] which I think probably with hindsight. Makes more sense writing fiction cuz you know, a, another voice could come through more. with hindsight, I don't think it, uh, would've impacted me and I, I sort of felt like I stopped some of that creative. I almost had this, uh, feeling of maybe I've only got certain amount of writing and, and creativity in me, so I better cut down some of my other activities and just channel it into the writing the book.

[00:41:48] whereas I think I should have just kept reading fiction and kept writing other stuff. and not sort of tried to channel it as much. not that I think it had any specific detrimental, effect on the book, but I think it would've made the year more enjoyable. and, and one of the biggest practical things and anyone else that's thinking about writing a book, I had no idea how many words or pages there are in a book or of the kind of book that I had a sense that it would be.

[00:42:17] Ben Pecotich: So I thought it was, and I read this other book how to write a book that doesn't suck, which had a lot of really good advice in it. and in that book, he talks a lot about, kind of writing a series of books, which, maybe I didn't, maybe that's the context for the advice he gave, but he was talking about writing books of sort of 10 to 15,000 words.

[00:42:37] And I kind of in my head had, yeah, that's easy. I can, I churn out 2000 word blog posts, pretty easy that won't take me long to write and. My first full draft or not even a draft, actually my first detailed outline was already over 10,000 words and that was without getting down into the detail. so then I realized that, actually I was writing a 80,000 word 350 page book.

[00:43:03] not a 10,000 word book and my timeline would, need to change to accommodate that rather than being a three month exercise. It's gonna be a 12 month exercise. So know how many words roughly you think you're gonna write the comparative book, get a sense. And there's a couple of good websites where you can look up and put in theb and it'll tell you how many pages and how many words and average reading time, how long it will take someone to read that information.

[00:43:28] I wish I had on day one, which I didn't have until about day 90.

[00:43:32] Nirish Shakya: So kind of, begin with the end in mind pretty much.

[00:43:35] Ben Pecotich: And, and there's, uh,swings roundabouts there because if I knew maybe I wouldn't have started, which is, relates very much to social enterprise ideas and startups as well. If we, if we actually really knew what were in for as much as, we try to do our research and make an informed decision, if we really knew far fewer startups and social enterprises would actually start, it's

Balancing our need to make sustainable impact with personal sustainability

[00:43:59] so Ben, you are very big on balancing, our need to make, sustainable impact in the world with personal sustainability. How do you balance that in your own life?

[00:44:14] Ben Pecotich: an interesting one. And without being too semantic, I'm not sure balance is the right word. There's a, there's a sense that there's a trade off there. and I think it's probably healthier to look at that sort of, how do we make it one thing. So rather than having something that's negative on one side and trying to balance that out with a positive on the other, how might we as a design challenge as we design our own lives, how might we work out how to bring this together?

[00:44:44] As one cohesive thing, something that we really care about, we really value. We know that matters to us and to the people around us, something the world really needs the value that we've got to bring something that we are really good at and something that we can actually get paid for as. which is, you might have spotted there that that's Ike guy that full, full circle ven, and I, I do find that a useful model to kind of think through these things.

[00:45:08] It doesn't give any magic answers. It's not like you, you do an Ike guy and that the center is, your meaningful being and your

[00:45:15] Nirish Shakya: It's basically four circles that, so what, what, what are those, what are those four circles again?

[00:45:21] Ben Pecotich: So something that you really care about, something that you love as, as the first one, something that you are awesome at, no, what are you really good at? What can you be paid to do? And what does a world really need?

[00:45:32] Nirish Shakya: And then you 

[00:45:33] bring those 

[00:45:33] Ben Pecotich: pretty useful perspectives and yeah. Looking for an intersect of those four things.

[00:45:38] and the Ichigo model has,where that intersect is that's your purpose or reason for being, And, as you think through those four elements, there's nothing that magically appears in the middle it's, but it does start highlighting and, and sort of relates back to what we're talking about earlier with self-awareness, as you start sort of thinking through these things, building up that self-awareness building up the empathy, then, we start singing ingredients.

[00:46:05] Ben Pecotich: And when we actually write, write it down in some form, rather than just running around in our heads, , that act of journaling it out or writing it down and trapping it on paper, it changes it shape. It gives it different meaning you can refer back to over time. and it just gets it out of the noise of our head where quite often these things go around the circles, but nothing's actually resolved when you actually write it down, you can actually see here's the moving parts.

[00:46:30] Here's the ingredients. What if I then bought these aspects together? and as. something about that, setting a general intent and direction without making it a rigid plan, but going through that process, you start setting an intention and then you start becoming more aware of different opportunities and looking for it.

[00:46:48] and before you know it with work, , you start to find those opportunities or create them for yourself. and I think that's a, to all of these things often with purpose and with happiness, with meaning there's often the language around it is to find it, or it's gonna be revealed to you in some way.

[00:47:09] and a lot of the research actually shows that the positive way to approach that is actually let's go create it. Let's create our own happiness, create our purpose, our meaning, and. Creating it once, because as we talked about things, aren't static, we need to keep recreating as we go through our life and it'll be different, even what makes us happy or what happiness looks like for us, what our purpose is, will change at different stages of our life as well.

[00:47:36] Ben Pecotich: So, it's not like this one, true meaning and purpose and job done. we need to be out there continuing to improve and, and creating our own purpose and happiness.

[00:47:48] Nirish Shakya: Hmm. So it's a lot more amorphous, than we think it is where, we might think of our journey as this, when a one straight line with like dots in the middles scattered throughout the line. But it's probably a lot more, a lot messier than that.

[00:48:03] Ben Pecotich: Life is definitely messy. And sometimes that doesn't feel very good because we don't tend to like ambiguity and uncertainty that that does cause a level of stress and anxiety. but being able to embrace that and have, and, and this is where in any given situation, I find human center design, and the double diamond as a way to articulate a design process, just so powerful.

[00:48:25] Cuz you can use that as your anchor of going, where am I at? And, and literally. Designing your life so, where am I at? Am I, understand what challenges and problems I've got, how I'm feeling about it. Have I, done the work on myself in terms of understanding who I am, building empathy and compassion and self care for myself, what different context am my experiencing those things in.

[00:48:46] And then, getting to a point of making sense of that and finding some meaning, some sense making, and then okay, with that information, what am I gonna do differently? How do I now go explore different possibilities to what to solve for that need that I have. and then, the usual process then of converging and prototyping and testing and another phrase while we're on this that I really love.

[00:49:10] and I think it speaks to a whole mindset, including, designing our lives of prototype, like we wrote, but then test like you're wrong. we need to take a position. We can't just leave everything up in the air and ambiguous we'd actually need to for own mental health and, and to actually solve real problems that matter.

[00:49:28] we need to take a position on the available E evidence and insight, and then the solutions that we come up with, the ideas that we come up with, make them real, tangible. How do we work out? What it looks like, what it feels like, prototype it, but then don't go out and try and seek confirmation of why we are right.

[00:49:45] Ben Pecotich: And why our thinking's right. Use a scientific method as an approach to go. I know I'm wrong. At least in places. How do attest my thinking. Where am I wrong? Why am I wrong using that information to continually iterate? I think it's a positive sign. It seems to get treated as a sign of a weak character or, not being intellectually sound to change your mind.

[00:50:09] But I actually view if, if I'm not changing my mind, if people, I know aren't changing their mind about things, we're not learning, I think it's a, a sign of a healthy, view of the world to actually be changing your mind on a pretty regular basis. And if that's not happening, why are you not getting new information?

[00:50:26] Are you closed to new information? what's stopping you. And why are you stuck in that? way old patterns are thinking.

[00:50:33] Nirish Shakya: Yeah. And I've, I've, I've, I've found it difficult to say I'm wrong in a lot of, my old projects because, I've, I haven't had the humility, to, say I'm wrong or I could be wrong, or the courage to be wrong.

[00:50:45] Ben Pecotich: And, and there's definitely individual aspects and we need to take ownership for our own individual aspects of it, but there's also the environment and the psychological safety of the environments. When, when it's an environment where it's not okay to be wrong, and failure. Especially little left failure, is not just a natural part of learning that things don't always go, as we hope if, if there's, if there's an environment where people are attacking and criticizing that and that psychological safety isn't there, and you don't feel safe to be vulnerable, you can't have innovation and progress without being vulnerable.

[00:51:18] so, there's, we have to take accountability and work on our own individual aspect of it. But, that includes helping create environments that are safer and encourage vulnerability and being able to change our mind to get things wrong. and to, with the intent being to learn and grow from that, as opposed to it being, that's fine.

[00:51:38] Ben Pecotich: We got it wrong. Once job done. You're done.

Ben's last message for humanity

[00:51:42] so Ben, imagine that it's your last day at earth and someone comes up to you with a tiny piece of paper and a pen and asks you to write down your last message or last few words that we will put up on a massive billboard for everyone in the world to see. What would you write down in the tiny piece of paper on your last day on earth?

[00:52:07] Ben Pecotich: My last day on earth, I guess it would probably be, it would have to include the way I've been signing off my emails since the late nineties, 

[00:52:16] which is have fun. That tends to be my. My final is have fun. I think that's really important. Have fun, be playful, be kind to others and to ourselves and to keep going out there and creating our purpose and happiness.

Recap

[00:52:32] so Ben, I'm just gonna do a quick little, review of what I've learned from our conversation. So, I think one of the first things that, you started off with was the value of saying yes, especially when you're in that first diamond, when you're exploring, say yes to as many things as possible, because it's a way for us to explore, what's out there for us to, do and, and think about, and then once you've explored a lot of those things with your yeses, then, be strict with the no's as well, so that you can say no to the things that don't matter and focus on the things that do matter.

[00:53:07] we also talked about how important is it is to consciously embed happiness, into the present moment, because as you said, success does follow happiness and not the way other way around, And also again, this comes time and again, in terms of value of, writing down things that you care about, and what are your values so that you can draw a clear line in the sand that not in the sand, a clear line on, on a rock, maybe that you don't wanna cross.

[00:53:37] Nirish Shakya: Right. 

[00:53:37] Ben Pecotich: Send send might be a good one. 

[00:53:39] Nirish Shakya: actually you're right. Sand is more iterative so yeah, draw out on the sand that you don't wanna cross, and that line might change and move, but, you need to know where that line is. but rather than just, having thoughts floating around in your, in your heads And also starting with, what's the change that you wanna see in the world. And like Ben said, and like it's written in the book, start with your 10 year vision of what you wanna achieve. And then, then go back to, what can you achieve in three years and then one year, and then have your 90 day plan as well.

[00:54:13] of all. 

[00:54:13] Ben Pecotich: and

[00:54:13] I think that's another area where iteration is really important. So all of these things, they're not one step thinks it's not like you do it once you have the answers, they're locked in, it's that constant iteration and refinement and reflection. That, is important to all the

[00:54:31] Nirish Shakya: absolutely, and I think that kind of comes back to having those, um, tighter feedback loops that you mentioned. And I think having those shorter iteration cycles kind of also satisfied, satisfies our need for those, shorter,quicker gratification that we so, seek as human beings.

[00:54:49] And what I found really powerful about something you said was around, how might we, not see, our need to make impact in our personal sustainability as in a two different ends of a, of a fulcrum, but how do we bring them together? using things like the Ekka so that we are, working on things that not just make impact, in external world, but also give us a lot of, joy and meaning in our internal world as well.

[00:55:18] and again, using the double diamond on ourselves design our own life. and one of the, the mindsets that I'm definitely gonna take. On board moving forwards is prototype like you're right. And test like you're wrong. so I've been to so many user testing sessions where, I've been, gone in to prove that I'm right to my clients.

[00:55:41] Nirish Shakya: And I think that's such a counterproductive mindset to have when you are in a testing, your it ideas, any, any your products, because you are there to find out what's wrong with it, right? So that you are de-risking, your ideas and your approach as early as possible. and I think it ultimately boils down to, one crucial thing you mentioned, which is, we're all here to have fun and enjoy each moment.

[00:56:04] So enjoy it. Be playful, rather than, worrying about, what you're trying to do or whether you will be able to do it. 

Finding Ben online

[00:56:12] Nirish Shakya: So Ben, how, how can people find you online after this, episode?

[00:56:18] Ben Pecotich: the best place to go is dynamic four.com. find everything there and to connect always up for a chat. So, on LinkedIn, I'm the only Ben package. So pretty easy to find.

[00:56:31] Nirish Shakya: Amazing. I learned so much from. Chatting with you over the last an hour. and I hope you've enjoyed the conversation as well. And thank you so much for joining us again in the Design Feeling Podcast. And I hopefully will see you soon again in either Sydney or maybe in London or somewhere else in the

[00:56:50] Ben Pecotich: Awesome. Thanks for having me. It's been great to have a chat and we are definitely long overdue a catch up in real life. So one or another, I hope that happens sooner than later.

Outro

[00:56:59] Nirish Shakya: Thank you so much for joining us for this chat. Don't forget to grab yourself a copy of Ben's new book, Solve Problems that Matter. It's a great read for designers or anyone who wants to start their own social enterprise. And check out the show notes on your podcasting app for a special promo code and a link for Design Feeling listeners that'll take 20 Australian dollars off the price.

[00:57:21] If you are enjoying listening to the Design Feeling Podcast, please do consider leaving an honest review on Apple Podcasts. It'll really help get this podcast out to more people. And please do share the podcast with a Design Thinking friend who could benefit from these conversations. See you next time.