Radical Outcomes summary

In a recent interview, Bill Gates reminisced about the hopes he'd had when he founded Microsoft over three decades ago. He’d dreamed, he said, of the impact his new software could have, and fantasized about a future with a computer in every home. 

Notice that Gates’s vision was to put a computer on every desk, not simply to make a lot of computers. Right from the beginning, he was focused on outcomes rather than process. 

Putting a new piece of technology to work in your business isn’t as simple as opening the box when it arrives. To integrate it into your working practices, you’ll have to train your staff on how to use it. And to do this effectively, it helps to know a little about how we, as humans, can best learn new tasks.

All too often, your audience are introduced to new pieces of technology during a mammoth week-long training session that overloads them with knowledge. Then, after this huge information dump, staff are told to make the new tool a cornerstone of their work.

So how can you design a learning experience for your staff that’s both effective and enjoyable? When most people consider ways of passing information on to their colleagues, they immediately think of a PowerPoint presentation. 

But is PowerPoint really the best method to get people learning? Evidence suggests it’s not.

When it comes to providing great customer experiences, some businesses are getting it right and other companies are failing – and disappearing completely as a result. Fortunately, there are shining examples out there of businesses who make designing great customer experiences their first priority.

Take Netflix, which started out as a mail-order DVD company. With their arrival, movie enthusiasts no longer had to leave the comfort of their own homes. Then, when DVDs fell out of favor, Netflix changed up their customer experience again, this time offering an effortless streaming service that lets users scroll through all their latest content.

We all know good architecture when we see it. Whether a state-of-the-art sports stadium or an elegant museum, great architecture typically has a clear purpose, an artful simplicity and the ability to adapt itself to different uses. To achieve radically better outcomes, your business also needs purpose-built, simple and adaptable architecture. 

However, we’re not talking about the kind of architecture that’s made of bricks and mortar; “architecture” also means any kind of total structure or framework, whether physical or abstract, within which other systems sit. It also refers to how all these different systems fit together in the overall structure. It’s this definition of architecture that’s relevant to your business, because great business architecture enables you to achieve your outcomes.

Some products seem perfect. Just think of the last great Pixar film you saw, with its breathtaking visuals, stellar voice actors and spot-on jokes. Or consider the last time you ordered something from Amazon and how smooth the experience was, all the way from browsing their easy-to-use platform to the product being delivered to your door. 

Nonetheless, it’s important to remember that all of these seemingly perfect products and services were created by humans. And in fact, if you looked behind the scenes, you’d see a lot of very human mistakes, failures and messiness.