How Lego and Others Turned to Anthropology
A decade ago, Lego’s plastic brick empire was starting to crumble. Half a century after patenting its click-fit system, the Danish toy company reported heavy losses and gave a sign of the depth of its troubles: the grandson of the founder relinquished his place as chief executive to a McKinsey consultant.
In setting out to turn round the business, the new boss inevitably turned to outside advice. Unusually, though, he embedded anthropologist researchers into families in US and German cities for months, taking photos, compiling diaries, talking to parents and spending time shopping and playing with children.
The result was to help reverse Lego’s decline by ceasing its diversification away from its classic nerdy brick-building: a trend driven by the erroneous assumption that its customers no longer had time to play, and that the advent of electronic “plug and play” games meant they wanted instant gratification.
To the contrary, the researchers – known as “anthros” by the company – discovered that many children still had plenty of free time, that they enjoyed difficult problems and that they often behaved differently when unsupervised.
The approach, according to Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel Rasmussen, founding partners of ReD associates, a consultancy that applies the human sciences in business, demonstrated the value of what they call “sensemaking”.
In their book The Moment of Clarity, they argue that companies need to pull back from the narrowly focused and generalised approach of questionnaires and spreadsheets, and apply softer skills to understand customers. “The hard sciences involving mathematics and universal laws tell us the way things are,” they write. “This tendency is so common, we often disregard . . . the way things are experienced in culture.”
In other words, conventional market research to identify perceptions and desires does not always equate to what people ultimately buy and why. For example, a man may focus on the technical performance of a new music system but ultimately purchase a different one because of the “wife acceptance factor” at home.
The authors describe the experiences of one of their own consultants who finally gained insights into a Chinese man’s perceptions of modernisation only on a fourth visit, once the two of them had built up confidence and travelled together from his own old family apartment to the different environment of a new flat he had bought for his son. This tactic is no great revelation to a journalist, though no doubt insufficiently applied in business.
The book is a good place to start for those who want a readable overview of 20th-century social theorists and of the potential applications of their ideas. But its shortcomings are twofold. First, the authors provide insufficiently detailed description of their own to illustrate what counter-intuitive insights were gained from their (and others’) sensemaking. For instance, they gushingly profile Intel’s in-house anthropologist Genevieve Bell but do not explain the practical insights she has brought to the chipmaker. Of course, such coyness might whet peoples’ appetite to hire their own ethnographic services.
Second, while they toss in some high-level (and often banal) general management advice, they fail to demonstrate the link or relative contribution of their own methods to corporate success. When studying business turnarounds, many factors are at work and correlation is not causation.
Vocabulary:
starting to crumble – beginning to fail, weaken, or fall apart completely, “After years of poor management and falling sales, the retail empire was starting to crumble.”
turn round the business – to make a failing, unsuccessful, or unprofitable company successful and stable again, “The board hired an experienced executive to help turn round the business before the end of the fiscal year.”
instant gratification – the immediate satisfaction, reward, or pleasure gained from getting something right away without having to wait, “Video games and streaming services are designed to give modern consumers instant gratification.”
To the contrary – a phrase used to show that the opposite of what was just mentioned or assumed is actually true, “Many expected the new restaurant to fail; to the contrary, it became the most popular spot in town.”
gained insights into – obtained a deep, clear, or accurate understanding of a complicated issue, situation, or group of people, “By living with local families, the researchers gained insights into their daily spending habits.”
no great revelation – a piece of information or a fact that is not surprising, shocking, or groundbreaking, “It was no great revelation to find out that employees work better when they feel appreciated.”
shortcomings are twofold – the weaknesses, flaws, or negative points of something consist of two specific parts, “The new project’s shortcomings are twofold: it completely lacks funding and it has a very unrealistic deadline.”
counter-intuitive insights – ideas, facts, or pieces of understanding that go completely against what common sense or expected logic would dictate, “The market data provided several counter-intuitive insights, showing that raising the product price actually increased consumer demand.”
whet peoples’ appetite – to increase or stimulate someone’s interest in, curiosity about, or desire for something, “The short, action-packed movie trailer was just enough to whet peoples’ appetite for the full film.”
correlation is not causation – a logical phrase emphasizing that just because two events or trends happen at the same time does not mean that one automatically caused the other to happen, “While umbrella sales and traffic accidents both increase on rainy days, correlation is not causation.”