Radhika Dutt: Stop Chasing Unicorns, Start Solving Puzzles

Tired of fluffy vision statements and endless metric chasing that never change how your team actually works? We sit down with product leader and author Radhika Dutt to trade slogans for substance and show how a clear, fill‑in‑the‑blank vision can align every decision you make. Radhika names the product diseases that quietly drain momentum—pivotitis and obsessive sales disorder—and then gives you practical ways to treat them by balancing long‑term vision with short‑term survival. The goal isn’t a prettier roadmap; it’s a shared understanding of who you serve, why it matters, the end state you want to create, and how your product gets you there.

We also unpack why OKRs so often reward theater over truth. Instead of ranking people and retrofitting numbers, Radhika’s OLA loop—Objectives, Hypotheses, Learnings, Adaptations—turns work into a continuous puzzle worth solving. You’ll hear how teams use three questions to move faster and smarter: how well did it work, what did we learn, what will we try next. This approach gave leaders “ears on the track,” doubled sales in a tough market, and cut churn by focusing on real customer puzzles instead of vanity targets.

From building a national platform with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to fighting “AI product slop,” we get candid about responsibility, culture, and what it takes to ship work you’re proud of. You’ll leave with a usable vision template, a decision model for avoiding vision debt, and a lightweight ritual for more honest measurement and sharper reviews. 

For more information and to engage with Radhika:

https://rdutt.com/

http://www.radicalproduct.com

radhika@radicalproduct.com

Chapters

• 0:03 Meet Radhika And Her Journey
• 2:19 Purpose, Responsibility, And Vision
• 5:21 Bullshit Visions And Real End States
• 9:07 Product Diseases And Pivotitis
• 12:39 Obsessive Sales Disorder And Vision Debt
• 17:08 The Fill‑In‑The‑Blank Vision Framework
• 21:10 Translating Vision Into Priorities
• 24:55 Beyond OKRs: Puzzle Setting Mindset
• 29:18 OLA Framework: Learnings And Adaptations
• 34:05 Driving Cultural Change Safely
• 38:25 Real‑World Wins: Singapore And Maritime
• 42:05 Writing Books And Publishing Realities
• 46:00 AI Product Slop And Responsibility
• 50:04 Habits, Reflection, And Personal Practices
• 54:10 Closing Thoughts And Listener Invite

Transcript

JD: 0:03

Hi listeners and welcome back to the JD's Journal podcast. Uh, always grateful to have you here. My guest today, Radika Dutt, is a product leader, entrepreneur, and an author of the book Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating, Innovating Smarter. Um, she holds engineering degrees with MIT, speaks nine languages, has worked worked across industries from telecom and media to robotics, consumer apps. Um, she's founded companies, led multiple acquisitions, and held senior roles in product strategy at organizations such as Avid Technology, Starnet Networks, which was later acquired by Cisco, and innovative startups like Likely. Today she advises startups, global companies, and government agencies, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore, um, on building vision-driven products. She also lectures on entrepreneurship and innovation and speaks internationally on product mindset and strategy. There's so much in that, Radika. Can you take some time, like uh help me make sure that I introduced you correctly?

Radhika: 1:09

Oh, uh, thank you. Uh yes. And uh I think the summary of the uh career path has basically been that I've never held two consecutive jobs in the same industry. Um, and and I think there was a recruiter who once told me, you really should consider focusing on one industry.

JD: 1:28

Oh, how boring. And I'd say, where's the fun in that? Yeah, that's right. No, I'm with you 100%. I think that's that's right. Um, we actually share that a little bit. I've been all over the place as well, but this nothing like this. This is quite amazing. Um, we're gonna learn a lot more about what you have done and what you do. I'm super keen to dig into that um and certainly super keen to get in the detail of your book. Um, but I always start, you know, I'm always curious what's the fuel in your engine? What is your purpose and what's the legacy that you wish to leave behind you?

Radhika: 1:59

Oh, uh and I just really love that question. Um when I look at what made me write the radical product thinking book, certainly I never ever thought I was going to be an author. Um English and writing was not my favorite subject in high school, nor at MIT. So what was the purpose behind it? Um it was that I'd learned from a lot of mistakes, uh, just so many mistakes throughout my career, where I now talk about it as product diseases. You know, they're product diseases that are so easy to catch. Um, and these are diseases like pivotitis, obsessive sales disorder, um, strategic swelling. Uh, I think even from the names, some of our listeners are gonna say, yep, but you know, been there, caught that.

JD: 2:50

Well, and we're gonna delve into that because I want to learn more about those as well. Some of them I'm familiar with, some of them are quite new and fresh to me. So I'm I'm super curious about your definitions of some of those.

Radhika: 3:00

I I'm uh I'm also But can I go back to just finishing that sentence about the purpose? Like the purpose was really that in addition to curing those diseases, the thing that drove me in radical product thinking, part three was all about responsibility. How can we build thoughtfully as opposed to carelessly? Right? I feel like a lot of the mindset that comes out of Silicon Valley has been just, you know, build things, throw things at the wall, see what sticks. We optimize for metrics, but we don't think about what is the change we're bringing to the world. We don't care about what is the change we've really created. And in saying that, yes, I am referring to things like Facebook, but even OpenAI, et cetera. I mean, you know, Sam Altman gave an interview to New York Times where he was asked, you know, what are your reflections? And he he said, not an exaggeration, his exact quote, oh, it's been so busy, I haven't had time to reflect. You know, this sort of careless building where we put things into the world without thinking about the responsibility that comes with it. What I wanted to do is write books for the people who care about what they build, who care about the legacy, and they have a path for how you can do better.

JD: 4:10

You know, the I I love that. And the irony of all of that, and I saw this in my experience too. And to some degree, I think agile was almost an excuse to do that, right? We moved away from having long-term plans with well-defined end games. Instead, we had these sprints where we kind of threw some stuff out there and then we we did the retrospectives and looked and see where it went. It was almost like perpetual experimentation, but without an end game that was well-defined often in that case. Um, and so I I I really relate to that in a great way. And it's actually quite funny. It's it's actually the reason why I asked the purpose question as well, is that I'm always curious to know do people know where they want to end this? And I'm always I think for me, the most uh epiphanous experience of that was reading Stephen Kovey's book and The Seven Habits. And one of the ones that he he said was to start beginning with the end in mind. And if you I don't know if you read that book, but if you recall, it's a funeral, and it's the funeral of the reader, and it kind of draws this consciousness about what are people saying about you at the very end. Um and I know that's dramatic, but I see it somewhat the same way is that when you start embarking on a product journey, do you have a really good, clear vision of what the endgame is supposed to look like and why it's important? Is does that correlate uh so much.

Radhika: 5:33

Uh I think, you know, one of the uh, and and maybe I don't look at it from that morbid angle of what would someone say at uh one's funeral, but it the the thought process is very much the same, which is, you know, where we've been taught that a good vision is aspirational, this big, hairy, audacious goal. I think that's bullshit. I think, you know, vision statements, and I wrote vision statements like this in my first startup. You know, our vision statement was revolutionizing wireless. I mean, seriously, what does that even mean, right? Um, but this is what we're taught to write uh at a recent company I worked at in 2017, you know, though the vision was reinventing warehousing. Uh, Boeing's vision is um to be the global enduring industrial champion in aerospace. You know, these are bullshit vision statements that basically mean anything goes. What you really need is, and and you describe it as what would someone say at one's funeral, but like to me, it is describing, you know, whose problem are you trying to change? What exactly is their problem? This third question, the why, is the biggest one. Why does that problem need to be solved? Because honestly, maybe it just doesn't. Maybe the world is just fine the way it is. Then you can finally answer what is the end state that you envision? And then finally, this is finally where you have earned the right to talk about your product, which is how will you bring about that change with your product? And if you can't answer these questions of first of all, why does the world need changing? You really shouldn't be building a product at all. And what happens is we build products without this sort of clarity of vision, without knowing what is that change you want to leave the world with. And we go build without reflection.

JD: 7:27

Again, uh that's so much of what you just said resonates with what my experience uh over the years. I think that's so true. Uh, and it kind of brings me back to the miracle question. You know, if you've if you've achieved the goal, how will you know it? How what will be different tomorrow because of what you did? And I think that sometimes that question is the one that's not asked as well is you know, where will be the evidence that you've had the success that you plan to have at the very end of the journey?

Radhika: 7:53

Yeah, I think that's and you really hit on something. The way people interpret that, right, is well, what numbers must I show you so that I can tell you, yeah, we have achieved. But before you jump to numbers, you know, can you describe an end state? And what I mean by that is, you know, Facebook, for example, they say the end state was an open and connected world. Again, bullshit, because what exactly does open and connected mean? What does that look like? And I don't think anyone could have really described what that means, and which is why we see the mess that there that exists today, right? Um, instead, that end state is not just about achieving a certain set of numbers, it's really describing what the world looks like when that problem is solved.

JD: 8:41

Yeah, again, I I'm keeping it real. I love that. Look, you've had such a diverse set of experiences, roles, you know, in research and product development, business development, marketing. Now an author and clearly a speaker. Um how has that kind of dynamic experience um influenced the person you are today? How like how does that shape you today?

Radhika: 9:07

I think the biggest driver for me is um working with teams and shifting mindsets where I see that need for a shift. In radical product thinking, that first shift was really instead of the Silicon Valley mindset of let's just iterate, throw things at the wall and see what sticks, it's how can we systematically translate a very clear vision into our everyday actions and avoiding any break in the chain as we translate vision into action. And that is how we avoid those product diseases. And the second thing that I'm now starting to question, right, with the second book that I've started working on, is this mindset of goal setting. And when I talk about that, I think I'm basically doing something blasphemous, heretic. I am challenging one of those norms of society that goal setting is, you know, how we build businesses, how we achieve success. And basically I'm saying, well, actually, that doesn't work. Um and in my writing, speaking, etc., what I'm doing is looking at so many experiences that I've collected over time. For a long time, honestly, I couldn't articulate these problems. I was buying into a lot of um what other people say. Uh, you know, for example, when it comes to goals and OKRs, uh, OKRs meaning objectives and key results, this methodology for goal setting. Very often the common refrain goes, well, if OKRs aren't working for you, you are doing them wrong.

JD: 10:47

Yeah.

Radhika: 10:47

The problem lies with you. And for a long time I bought this, right? I kept thinking, okay, maybe the problems that I'm seeing with goal setting was just we're not doing it quite right. And it was only at a certain point in my career where I realized, okay, no, really, someone's gotta say that the emperor has no clothes. Um, and I think my work experience so far and writing books has made me realize that it's okay to question the norms. And some things are worth questioning because we haven't questioned them. No exaggeration, for 75 years.

JD: 11:20

Right. Well, I I think everything's worth questioning, but I think that's spot on. Uh, you know, we're still living in the industrial era transformation period, and and I I see it across the board. I see it how we approach education, project management, planning, goal setting. I think everything right now, we've still got so much uh change that's needed. So I'm I love that you're questioning things. I think that's fantastic. Um as you, you know, as you apply your thinking, you know, you just alluded to the book that you're working on, and I I don't want to steal your, you know, your what your your uh gold, I suppose, that'll come out of that. But what is the secret source?

Radhika: 12:00

So uh first of all, the book is about why goals and okay or targets don't work. We'll talk about that for a moment. But it's not just uh highlighting the problem, because I think there have been other instances where people have said, you know, goals and okay, there's a book called Tyranny of Metrics that talks about the problems. But then what is the solution? The solution to me is the most important part because I've tried this technique of talking to leaders about the downside of OKRs, and I can tell you it doesn't work. Because when you talk to them about how goals and OKRs have side effects and negative side effects, they'll say, Well, yeah, it's the devil I know. So what do you propose? And if I when I didn't have an answer to that, that conversation goes nowhere. And so the answer that I'm writing about is how we need to transition from goal setting to a mindset of puzzle setting and puzzle solving, and why that drives better business results.

JD: 12:57

Right. So the focus again is on impact, not a metric. And the thing that always drives me nuts with metrics, I've worked in organizations that have got scorecards with just ridiculous numbers of metrics. Um, my philosophy has always been, you know, that metrics have to be a byproduct of doing the job. Uh, they have to relate to the core goals or the vision of the organization, um, and they have to drive action. Yeah, those have always been my three golden rules. And when I look at metrics, it's always like if if you can't tell me the specific action that that metric or that that KPI is going to drive, dump it. Like if it's just there to satisfy an executive because they like the number, lose it. And I think you're kind of saying the same thing or similar things, yeah.

Radhika: 13:41

I love it. You know, it's so nice that you are flexible in that way as a manager, because a lot of people, what they tell me is when a company sets a target, the people who are really passionate will say, okay, fine. So this means I have to show you that I've hit this number. And then I so that's the bullshit work I have to do to show you this. But then I also have to do the real work in terms of the real stuff that actually I know is gonna make the difference. And so it's double work that really burns people out. So that is one approach. And then there's the second group of people who aren't as passionate. And what those people say is, oh, you know what? If it doesn't move in OKR, I'm not even gonna bother doing it. Right. And and and those people go like, oh yeah, OKRs, I love them. They give me a lot of clarity. If it doesn't move in OKR, let's not do it. But that's why we're missing out on so many opportunities.

JD: 14:33

You know, I it's like running two sets of books. I've seen it so often where I present the scorecard that the executive needs to see so they feel good about themselves. And then I've got the real data that's telling me how the how the system's actually working. And those two don't align at all. It's quite hilarious to watch, actually.

Radhika: 14:51

Oh my gosh, isn't that so true? And you know, this is something that Andy Grove, the legendary Intel CEO, he talked about in his book. And he talks about leaders of the last to know. Why is that? It's because you set a target and the incentive you create for everyone is that I'm going to show you exactly what you hope to see. Like I want to please you. It's not even malicious. I'm gonna it it focuses people on the good numbers to prove that an initiative is working, that whatever it is that they're trying is working. So they want to show you that. They're the high performers. And what you really want as a leader, the reality, you want the information from the ground, from the trenches. You want them to look at the bad numbers, not just tell you that. You also want them to play detective, notice those bad numbers and say, I wonder what's happening there. That muscle atrophies in goal-driven organizations.

JD: 15:43

You know, I worked for a CIO uh uh at Microsoft years ago, and he was a very scary guy. He was perceived to be a very scary guy for different reasons. But I loved his philosophy on this. When he first introduced the CIO scorecard, everybody trembled in their boots about this scorecard because the numbers were not good. If you if you had the real numbers, they were not good. Uh, and he got up one day and he said two things that were so profound that I love and I think correlate with what you're saying. And the first one was bad news must travel fast, was that he wanted that he wanted rapid visibility to what wasn't working well. And the other thing he said, which really was a was a mind-changing statement, was I love red on a scorecard because that's focus. Um, he's like, I love the green, the green's nice and whatever, but I love red on a scorecard because that tells me where I have to focus my time, my money, resources, and and where I have to develop plans. And I think that's that's such a powerful position for a leader at that level to take in an organization is bring me the red stuff. Bring me the red stuff because that's the stuff that I care about.

Radhika: 16:51

Yeah, you know, what you just described, there is there's so much nuance to it, right? There are very, very, very few companies and leaders where I've seen that level of psychological safety where they invite the bad news, first of all, and they say, Yeah, show me the red. And the second piece of this is even when you say, show me the red, and by the way, this is going to be extremely uh exacerbated with the new generation. In the new generation, nobody is used to getting anything less than an A grade. Uh and what happens is anything that looks red is downright scary. Um, there have been professors at MIT, this wasn't the case in my day, but there have been professors that I talk to now at MIT, and they say, you know, we're not allowed to give people uh B's anymore. Like basically, they've been told several times, you know, if you don't give kids an A these days, you're going to get into trouble. You know, this is the kind of level of stress and pressure that students are under to show performance, achievement, et cetera, to be able to succeed in the world, right? Um, but but that sort of a mindset definitely translates into the corporate world too. Those high performers don't like seeing red. So now let's talk about this puzzle-based mindset for a moment, right? Imagine you're solving a Rubik's Cube. When you're making that first attempt and it doesn't work, you don't think, oh, that's a red, you know? You don't think that's a failure. Now I'm gonna have to learn from it and adapt. Like the mindset of, oh, there's a failure and I have to adapt doesn't come to mind. You're just like, oh yeah, that didn't work. Okay, moving on, like I learned this, okay, then I'm gonna try this now. I have to get this piece here, right? Like, you just sort of don't ruminate on it in a bad sense. You take learnings, you adapt, and then you try your next thing, right? So this mindset of puzzle setting and puzzle solving is so much more naturally healthy as opposed to having to create this artificial thing of it's okay to show me red. It is okay to talk about failures in the company. You know, there's this whole book from Amy Edmondson about the right kind of wrong uh acceptance of failure, blah, blah. But when you step back for a moment, why are we even talking about failures? The whole mindset of puzzle setting, puzzle solving, you don't even think of failures. You just learn, adapt. That's just part of it.

JD: 19:23

There's no failure, only feedback, right? I mean, I love that quote. Uh, it's it's awesome. By the way, why do we walk? I mean, how do we walk? We we walk because we stood up, we fell over, we got out again, and we and we try it again. I mean, it's fundamental to how we grow as individuals. I again, I it it's really scary for me what you talk about because I do think you know, we are creating this everybody wins, every everything's a success uh culture. Uh and uh and that's harmful. I think it's quite dangerous for us to be in a world where we start to delude ourselves in that way. Uh, we need to have the courage and and the enthusiasm and the curiosity uh to invite failure. That's where we learn, you know. And I think the company that I just left recently thankfully had a culture that does embrace failure and builds whole mechanisms around the notion of failure. The one counter to that, and I have a fridge magnet that I talk about pretty much on every episode, um, that that says always make new mistakes, you know, which is that whole sense of don't do the same dumb thing twice, you know, learn from it and change, but evolve, but certainly don't be afraid of failure. I want to move on a little bit. Oh, go ahead.

Radhika: 20:32

Sorry, and and to to reiterate that, right, in the puzzle solving part, it's like if you've tried this before, don't retry the same thing. Like every attempt should be smarter, more intelligent. It has to be more informed by the past stuff that you've tried. Um, so I agree with all of that, but you know, you also don't have to be afraid of falling over, exactly like you said. That's just how we grow.

JD: 20:56

Yeah, exactly. Uh, and thank goodness for for falling over. Hopefully, you don't break anything too bad. But yes, it's important, no question about it. Look, I again, you know, we at the opening we talked about product diseases, and I'm I'm so curious uh about that. And as I did my research for this episode, and I was kind of looking into this, I came across featuritis, build traps, shiny object syndrome, cargo cult product, product development, vanity metric disease, perfection paralysis, insight. I mean, it was just went on and on. Um so give us a sense of those and and also what are the most common ones that you see?

Radhika: 21:33

So in the book, I talk about seven product diseases, seven most common ones. I feel like even when it comes to product diseases, let's not overload ourselves with such a long list where, you know, even diagnosis goes just way too long, right? So here are some of the most common ones. Um I mentioned hero syndrome uh at the beginning, and hero syndrome happens when we're chasing being big, scaling, without really thinking about what is the problem we're solving, right? That's where big vision statements like hero, uh, sorry, like uh revolutionizing wireless, reinventing warehousing, that's where hero syndrome comes from. Let's talk about a few others. Pivotitis is one of my favorite ones. Um, there was a company where I was the VP of marketing, and you know, we were at the time setting out to be the next visa. And we pivoted from that because we said, you know what, that's way too complicated because there you have to acquire both merchants and you have to acquire consumers, too complicated. So let's pivot. We became a loyalty solutions provider to merchants. And you know, we tried that for a bit and we said, oh, you know what, that's a really crowded market. So about a month later, we became a credit solutions company for merchants. And you know, as the VP of marketing, it there came a point after all these pivots where I was like, okay, I don't even know what I'm asking people to sign up for on the website anymore, right? Um, so pivotitus is where we keep pivoting from one shiny idea to the next. And it's like whiplash for the team. And I want to pause there and say, this doesn't mean I'm saying, don't ever pivot. Of course you have to pivot. But you have two to three pivots before you run out of money or momentum. So how will you use that wisely?

JD: 23:20

Well, and your customers then don't know who you are or what you are either, right? So I think that I've seen similar things too. And I think what it does is it absolutely undermines the confidence and direction of the internal teams. And I can't imagine what it does to marketing teams. Um, but also, you know, as a customer, watching a company constantly change what their mission is, uh, it's it really starts to deride their value proposition as well, surely.

Radhika: 23:47

Yeah, exactly. Um, so let's talk about a couple of more diseases. Another one is obsessive sales disorder. You know, this is one that I've contributed to. If you've been in a B2B company, you've experienced this, right? Where a salesperson says to you, you know, if you just add this one custom feature, we can win this mega million dollar deal. And you say, Oh yeah, let's do it. And and very soon your entire roadmap is driven by everything you have to make good on, right?

JD: 24:17

Yeah. And did the deal come through, by the way? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Yeah, toss a coin. That's a matter of luck, and depending on what it is. Oh, I've got to be. But we definitely got stuck with the features. I've absolutely heard the sales team say, look, this is the deal, cruncher. You've got to get this one done. If you get this done, it's all gonna come and magic's gonna happen. There'll be unicorns and rainbows, and of course, you invest the time and effort, and well, the customer decide to go in a different direction. Um, yes, no. Yeah, they've done that. So yeah, sorry, go on. No, I was just gonna say, so how do you identify that? Like, how do you like obviously organizations are juggling the the what they consider to be course corrections because they're concerned about their end game, but they don't want to be you know radically pivoting all the time. How do you balance that?

Radhika: 25:10

Yeah, so let's talk about pivotitis and obsessive uh sales disorder for a moment. And what are some cures to that? When it comes to pivotitis, the core reason you keep pivoting like this is because you started off with one vision and all of a sudden a new shiny idea came along, and you let this vision go and you've moved on to this next idea, right? But very often the reason that happens is because you have a vision that is so broad that it's not acting like a filter. And so, you know, when you have an everything goes vision, today we're doing this, tomorrow we're doing that. It all falls under the same vision. Whereas if you recognize that you have only two to three pivots before you run out of money or momentum, then you'll take pivoting with gravitas. What do I mean by pivoting with gravitas? When you have a vision statement, and I'm gonna read the radical product thinking version of a vision statement, which is a fill-in-the-blank statement, and it gives you all the details of what is it you're solving for, right? But when you have a detailed vision like this, you avoid pivotitis because at any point I can point to this any element of the vision and I'll say, you know, this is what we discovered in the last month. We're wrong about this. And this is why we want to change this part and to test it out, this is what we're going to try. Now, you know, it's not whiplash for the team. We're all aligned on what is this difference? And now we're pivoting with gravitas, right? And sometimes just that alone, that level of first of all, defining your vision helps you start off with the right solution, right? Or um it gives you a stake in the ground where at that very early stage, you know, instead of building a whole product and then saying, oh, whoops, we have to pivot, you might actually discover much earlier, just through prototypes, et cetera, that you have to pivot. Shall I share the radical vision statement? But I'll pause there. I'd love your thoughts on pivotitis.

JD: 27:11

No, I again, I think what I'm hearing you say, and I agree with you, is that the the vision becomes the guardrails, becomes the north star. So you can course correct within the guardrails, but you don't lose sight of where the end game is. So really what you're doing is somewhat more micro, if you like, adjustments to the to the strategy as opposed to radical adjustment. I think the other thing that I've seen, and I'm sure you have as well, is often those pivot conversations occur in a senior meeting room that doesn't include the folks who are actually doing the work. And what the folks who are actually writing the code or developing the products see is a note or an email or a communications that says, go through, make these changes. But the the narrative behind that decision, like the whole uh rationale and logic behind that decision and the shift in the goal isn't articulated.

Radhika: 28:02

Yeah, I I so agree. So here's one way to avoid exactly what you talked about, John. Um, so the vision statement in the radical product thinking format is this fill-in-the-blank statement. So I'm going to read it for this wine startup that I had. Today, when amateur wine drinkers want to find wines that they're likely to like and learn about wine, they have to find attractive-looking wine labels or find wines that are on sale. This is unacceptable because it leads to so many disappointments in this way. And it's hard to learn about wine like this. We envision a world where finding wines you like is as easy as finding movies you like on Netflix. We are bringing about this world through a recommendations algorithm that matches wines to your taste and an operational setup that delivers these wines to your door.

JD: 28:56

I I couldn't love that more. Uh, I gotta craft that. And and the reason I love it so much is because you know, you've started with the customer. You've started with who are we serving here and why? What are we trying to do there? Um, and and then you're kind of shaping it into a set of problems, and then and then what you want to achieve to to uh address those problems. And and what I, you know, when I envision when you say that, what I envision is a new employee starting, you know, well into the whole program and reading that and immediately understanding what this organization's about and what success looks like. And so that to me is incredibly powerful. It takes me back to Simon Senec's start with why, uh, which I also think is quite powerful for the same reason, and that is that everybody in the organization may not understand the intricacies of each element of the product and the technology and so forth, but they all know why they're there.

Radhika: 29:53

And I love what you said, you know, this is exactly the power of the radical vision statement that I hadn't told you anything about my startup, and yet, you Hopefully you knew exactly what we were doing and why. You know, it gets you to focus. So, for example, you know, you heard me say today when amateur wine drinkers, it meant, you know, those words sound easy today, but it took a lot of thought, you know. So basically what we arrived at was if you think of wine drinking on a scale of one to ten, where one is a complete novice, ten is a winemaker level knowledge, we were targeting people who were from a two to six. And why were we being very particular about that? Because, you know, we had actually initially thought we could do this for everyone. We had to then learn from our mistakes, right? And shift our vision a little bit. And we realized that the people who are from a six to ten are a little too snubbish. They feel like, you know, what can your algorithm teach me that I don't know about wine? And so we had to focus on the amateur wine drinker. This is what I mean by a pivot, right? Like you might have hypotheses and ideas of what problem you want to solve. You might learn something, and then, you know, hopefully you learn this in the smallest possible prototype and test, and then you might adapt your vision. But going back to what you said about Simon Sinek, right? And the start with why, I love the ideas behind Simon Sinek's start with why. What I heard a lot of people say to me was, you know, I we went into the boardroom, into our offsite, and we or or with in one of these meetings where we were talking about our vision, we tried this whole exercise of start with why with a starting with a blank sheet of paper. But you know, like what you end up with is very much what you started with in an exercise like that when you start with a blank sheet of paper. What happens is you get stuck with the wordsmithing and the words. And which is why this fill-in-the-blank statement makes sure, you know, don't fall in love with your own words. Just fill in the blanks, don't focus on wordsmithing. You know, six months later, you if you've not fallen in love with the words, it's a good thing because you will come back to this and go, like, oh yeah, that turned out to be bullshit. You know, we're gonna change that. Here's what we learned. It's important to be willing to change those ideas, and having a fill-in-the-blank statement makes you detached enough that you're willing to change that.

JD: 32:18

I I'm grinning from ear to ear because I have been in multi-week work uh work groups defining a mission statement. And it staggers me that we've gone through, I don't know, countless hours trying to shape a mission statement and then still not being still not liking it, and also still never reading it. Um, I love that. I think it's really, really good. Uh I think that what you're doing is you're providing a framework uh that that accelerates the process and gives it far more meaning uh than what you're putting together. Um again, I think that's quite powerful. Just that in itself, I think, is going to go a long way. Would it be fair to say that going back to a little bit to the product diseases piece, um that many companies, maybe most companies, don't realize that they're suffering through these product diseases? You know, what questions should they be asking themselves?

Radhika: 33:08

You know, anyone who is uh the worker bee and doing uh building the product, right, they're probably experiencing the product diseases. So if you read through any of these product diseases, you'll instantly say, oh yeah, we got that, right? And uh this is why I think it's so important for us as leaders to really talk to our um to talk to the people who working with us, working for us, and be able to say, you know, let's have an open conversation. These product diseases are so common, there's no shame in admitting that we've caught these product diseases. Let's talk about what we can do to overcome them.

JD: 33:50

Well, and and I did a an episode a little while ago about uh employee engagement and and management by walking around, which is something I really, really love. Um, and and so maybe one of the takeaways here for leaders in organizations is to again be present, present in the areas where your folks are working, but also to ask the right questions to see if you can identify if these issues do exist. Because often they won't filter up the chain, right? To your point, it's typically the people at the coalface who are doing the job who know that we've got an issue with scope or uh creep or we've got an issue with with pivotitis or whatever it happens to be, but the leadership may not be sensitive to that. They might think it's all hunky dory, right?

Radhika: 34:30

Exactly. Let's talk about obsessive sales disorder for a moment, right? Because this is one of those instances when leadership will not realize, most likely, how the ground team is experiencing it. So, what happens with obsessive sales disorder and how do you avoid it, right? Um, this is one that is near and dear to my heart because I've contributed to this disease. What happens is, you know, obsessive sales disorder is the disease we catch when we make trade-offs that prioritize short-term survival over the long-term vision. So let's think about uh this on a two by two axis. As a leader, you're always thinking about the balance between the long-term versus the short-term, the yin and yang of long-term versus short-term. And through your years of experience, most likely you have this intuition for what is that right balance. And this is why, by the way, we make decisions in the boardroom. And then, you know, we just expect like, why aren't you getting what I just told you? Right? This is the decision. Why doesn't it seem obvious to you? But it's because we have this intuition for what is the right balance between long-term versus short term. And so uh let's make this explicit for our team, right? So if I now that we know what a good vision looks like, that's the y-axis. So that's your long term. So is this good for the vision or not? And then the short term is your x-axis. Is this helpful for survival or not?

JD: 35:55

Yep.

Radhika: 35:56

And the quadrants that emerge are basically if it's good for vision and for survival, those are the easy decisions. But if you're always doing just easy decisions, you're being myopic. Sometimes you have to invest in the vision. And that means, right, that it's good for the long-term vision, but maybe it's not great for short-term survival. Examples of this would be you're refactoring code because you know you need to fix technical debt. Maybe it is training that you need to invest in. You might be taking some time to do user research. So it's not resulting in features tomorrow, but it's really important for the long-term vision. And the opposite of investing in the vision is vision debt. This is where you're taking on that custom feature, which is great for survival that you know it's gonna win you this mega deal, but it's long, uh, but it's bad for the long-term vision. And if you take on too much vision debt, that's obsessive sales disorder. What happens often, that's the example you talked about. We think we're taking on vision debt because they're definitely gonna buy from us, you know, if you just add this custom feature. And it ends up migrating to the danger quadrant because you build that feature and the customer didn't buy, so it wasn't great for short-term survival and it was bad for vision. That's the danger quadrant.

JD: 37:17

And it may have alienated other customers, right?

Radhika: 37:20

Right. And so to avoid obsessive sales disorder, one of the conversations we need to have within our teams is, you know, when we talk about whether it's sales opportunities or new features, etc., how are you balancing those quadrants? Right? Sometimes if you realize you're mostly in the vision debt quadrant, as a leader, you can start to recognize that maybe this is a sign of obsessive sales disorder. But you might not recognize it as vision debt, because if your vision is so broad, let's say your vision is being the leader in aerospace. Anything goes, everything starts to look like it's a vision fit. At that point, everything looks like you're either investing in the vision or it's an easy decision, right? And if everything is starting to look like that, you have to really question am I being honest about what the vision is? Like, do we have a detailed enough vision?

JD: 38:15

Well, you have no guide rails then, right? Everything, everything is in or out because there's not enough definition to it. Um, yeah, that's very dangerous. And and and frankly, as you say that, gosh, I can remember so many mission statements and vision statements that are like that, that are so amorphous, it couldn't possibly guide me in terms of decision making. Uh it it really is. That's fascinating to me. So kind of bringing it back, um when we think about uh radical product thinking, like what is that in a nutshell? How would if I gave you kind of 30 seconds to tell me what that is, what is it and what makes it so radical?

Radhika: 38:54

It's a systematic step-by-step process for building a vision, a strategy, translating it into priorities, execution and measurement, and even a culture. So it's basically a step-by-step process to translate vision into everyday action. And why is it radical? Because, you know, it's moving from these big, hairy, audacious goal sort of visions, these bullshit vision statements, to something that is very um crystal clear to the whole team. It aligns the whole team on the problem, why it needs to be solved, the end state, and how you're gonna bring this about. It's a very different way of writing a vision statement. It's radical because, you know, people say to me, this sounds more like an essay than a vision statement. You know, doesn't your vision need to be short and sweet? And that's where I say, you know, we're confusing a tagline and a vision. You don't need your team to memorize your words for your vision, right? What you want your team is to internalize the vision so that if you ask them, they don't try to recall from memory and go, like, oh, wait, wait, wait, let me remember what is my vision again? It's more like they're telling you something that is so heartfelt. Like every time I say this vision statement that I describe for the wine startup, my words might be slightly different. You know, I describe a vision statement for an ad tech company I had. The words might be slightly different, you know, but the details, the answers are exactly the same. That's what's important. So that's what's radical. It's this way of translating vision strategy. We haven't even talked about that. But this way of prioritization, right, that is radical too. Vision versus survival, thinking about how you balance investing in the vision, um, the easy decisions versus vision debt. Like instead, the way I see prioritization done, it's usually a magic spreadsheet that tells you feature this feature is number 25 on the list, and this other feature is number 120. Right. And you ask anyone, why is this 120? Well, it's because the spreadsheet says so. But at that point, your influence is limited to whoever is seeing that magic spreadsheet and whatever is in that magic spreadsheet. Instead, what you want as a leader, as a product manager, whatever you your role is, you want people to know exactly how you trade off the long term and the short term so that people will think like you, that you've spread your influence so that people are in a meeting, you can't make it that day, but you know that they're going to make decisions in exactly the way that's aligned with your thinking about vision debt versus investing in the vision. Then you know like you're you're a good leader.

JD: 41:40

Uh again, it's like so relatable. And the I've seen the worst of that, I've seen the best of that too. And I again, I worked in an organization uh many years ago where the leader had defined the vision, strategies, and tactics at a level and communicated the entire organization. And the rule was that 80% of the things that you took on had to be aligned to the strategy, 20% didn't align to strategy, and he would stop you in the corridor and say, Hey, what are you working on? Is that on strategy or off strategy? And he could ask anybody what the three he only had three strategic imperatives, and he could ask anybody at any level of organization what are the three strategic imperatives and how is what you're working on relating to that. It was so powerful because everybody knew what they were doing and why it mattered. Um, and I find that incredibly rare in organizations today, and I think that's what you're describing.

Radhika: 42:35

So true. And I think what happens today in organizations is we're very often just so focused on OKRs, right? And chasing those numbers. It's more like there are, you know, many so many such metrics that we're working on chasing. And then the question is, you know, uh, it's more like I'm gonna judge you at the end of the year, at the end of the quarter, whatever it is, to see have you or haven't you hit those numbers, right? And we often sort of in chasing those numbers, we're sort of missing that internal drive of, I know why I'm doing this. I know this is what uh this is the purpose behind it.

JD: 43:15

No, I mean it's you okay is gonna drive my salary increase, my promotion, and and that's what I'm conscious of, particularly in my performance period. That's that's I'm telling the story that you need to hear so that I get my pay rise and I get my promotion, no question about it. And I again I see that so commonly in organizations, and it drives entirely the wrong behavior, uh, completely wrong behavior.

Radhika: 43:39

Oh, I so agree with you. And to this, you know, there are often OKR experts who give simplistic answers. They say, oh, well, the answer to that is easy. Just divorce compensation from OKRs. And, you know, to which, yeah, I roll my eyes that too, because I feel like you can say that all you want, but you know, it's not necessarily about even compensation at the end of this bonus or bonus cycle. It's more that you want to look like a high performer. The incentive you're creating for people is to seem like that high performer so that it's tied to your long-term career trajectory. Everyone is great with, you know, not the instant gratification, but the long play, right? Like you can't divorce OKRs from that. And that's where OKRs drive the wrong incentives.

JD: 44:27

Well, and it's bullshit because any leader in any organization that uses a ranking system uh in their review process, which many organizations do, they're gonna default back to OKRs because it's what they've got in terms of how they can do their stack ranking of performance, right? It's all they've got.

Radhika: 44:43

Oh my, you know, you brought up ranking. Let's talk about how against this ranking system I am just for a moment. I can't help but rant on this. So why am I so against rankings? You know, if we just ask ourselves a few whys, why are we so keen on ranking people? Right? If you very honestly answer that, the reality is you want to know if there is a layoff, who is the bottom 10%, bottom 5% that you have to lay off, right? That is the only reason you really want to rank people because otherwise, I know how well someone is performing. Uh, you know, I can get a true sense of that. And I'll talk about this mindset shift from puzzle setting, from goal setting to puzzles and puzzle setting and puzzle solving, and how that truly helps you understand people, uh their skill set and sort of how good they are at what they're doing, right? But what happens is we are so focused on wanting to evaluate people, rank them so I know who to lay off. This is like planning for worst-case scenario all the time. It's like saying, you know, I'm planning for a vacation, John, but you know what? The way I'm packing for this trip is I'm packing for a hospital stay. It's like, why? It's at odds, right? Like I should be packing for having fun or like for a business trip or whatever the purpose of that is. And yes, there is some contingency planning you do, but that's not the main uh main thing that you do. What research shows is that the more people feel evaluated, the less likely they are to take your feedback. How often have we seen that? You know, when we um have performance reviews and just think about how many times, like when we're giving someone feedback and saying, you know, I think you could do this better. Here's something I really like and how you do this, but maybe this part, there's room for growth. But you know, the moment people feel like you're gonna, you're, I'm on that cusp. You might rank me a four or a five. Like I'm going to defend my case and say, okay, John, you're just misinterpreting that last one. You know, on Wednesday, that's not what happened. You know, you just came in at the wrong moment.

JD: 47:08

You're welcome to rant on the topic. I dedicated an entire episode recently on the topic, uh, starting from Jack Welsh's vitality curve, which he introduced a GE, which by the way, GE threw out eventually, as did Microsoft and Ford, um, right through to a company that I talk about on the on the podcast that doesn't fire employees for performance ever, always works with employees because they've they're all about psychological safety and and about creating an environment where people take intelligent risks and so forth. Um but I I've worked for multiple organizations that not only have been preparing you know for layoffs, but actually have inherent goals that they have to fire a percentage of their organization every year to meet a target. The process is horrible and ineffective, um, and and it just undermines trust uh of the employees, it undermines confidence in the employees. So you can rant all you like. I never stop on this one. Um we we've talked about OKRs uh and the challenges with OKRs. You talk about OHLs or objectives, hypotheses, and learnings. Can you elaborate on what that is?

Radhika: 48:18

Yeah, so that sounds a bit dry, OHLs. And by the way, now I call it OLA, which is easier to roll off your tongue. It's OHLA, where the A stands for adaptations. So it's objectives, hypotheses, learnings, adaptations. And um, this was my own adaptation after having uh um shared this in so many conferences and workshops. But Ola is basically a framework to shift our thinking from goal setting to this mindset of puzzle setting and puzzle solving. And uh let's start with this first question. Like, why even puzzles, right? And this is where we were talking earlier about um this whole idea of puzzles, is where, you know, we don't keep thinking about failures, how we just learn and adapt. But when we talk about um uh, here's an example of how you can use this in practice, right? Let's use a simple example and something that is dominated by targets today. And we'll so sales is such an example. Typically, you would set an OKR like, you know, we want to grow the business, and your key result might be achieve X million by the end of the year. In the Ola approach with puzzles, here's the puzzle I would set. So the puzzle might be, you know, we want to get to X million by the end of this year, but here's the problem we've seen that sales grew over the last three years and it plateaued in the last year. So that's the observation. There are some open questions around this, things we genuinely don't know answers to. Is it that something has shifted in the market? You know, maybe it's an AI effect that is not obvious and we're still figuring out like why is sales plateauing? Then there might be a question that maybe we are really good at selling to the early adopter, and maybe our messaging is just not landing with the mass market. Maybe it's that you know we were uh building a product that really worked well for the early adopter, but our product doesn't really meet the needs of the mass market. So these might be some open questions, and the puzzle, the objective of this puzzle is to figure out this puzzle so that we can then get back to that growth trajectory. So now you've set this puzzle. Now comes, and the objective is how you set the puzzle. The hypotheses learning's adaptations is how you solve the puzzle. This means asking three questions. So the first question is how well did it work? So this is your first attempt, and you're gonna try it out. How well did it work? In the sales example, this means maybe I tried out this new messaging. And great, I'm now starting to get those meetings with decision makers in the mass market. So, how well is it working? It's working really well getting those meetings. Second question What did we learn? This is where I say, don't just spit out numbers. It's not just, you know, I don't want to know numbers of pipelines, meetings, et cetera, you're having great, use those numbers, but tell me the story. And this is where the story might be. Okay, we're having these meetings, but it turns out there's, you know, within the decision maker, there's a new group too that they have to get on board. We've traditionally never talked to this group. They're not on board. So that's the learning. Now comes the third question, which is based on how well it worked and what you learned. What will you try next? And this is where maybe what we're gonna try is, you know, we can do a webinar so that we can finally start talking to this group. Maybe we'll also create some material that is super easily forwardable to this secondary decision maker, um, and that might speed up this process. And by the way, you notice that this is now unlocking the next puzzle because now, you know, that I'll try out these things and now I'll go back to how well did it work? What have I learned? What will I try next? So this is how we constantly never get complacent because we keep setting puzzles and solving puzzles.

JD: 52:36

So I I love I love the uh the model, I really do. I think it's great, and it encourages the curiosity behind the scenes, it encourages you to understand uh organically what's happening that's that's driving the positive or negative impact on the on the KPI or the okay. Um and I assume there's an element of celebration or recognition for the learning and the adaptation, not not just fixated on the revenue, but also the evolution in terms of thinking and engagement model and so forth. Um this feels like cultural change. It feels like you're you actually have to change the the mindset of the organization, all layers. And so I'm I'm like, what advice do you have? Because cultural change is the hardest thing you'll ever do in my experience. It is so hard to shift culture. Uh, and it seems like it's harder the further up the stack you go in the in the leadership of the organization as well. So, what advice do you have for somebody who's embarking on this type of cultural shift?

Radhika: 53:40

Let me share both my learnings and adaptations, what worked and did not work.

JD: 53:45

Okay.

Radhika: 53:46

So, what did not work? My first attempt at this was I tried talking to the CEO, for example, to say, you know, here's why goals and OKRs don't work. Let's drop OKRs, right? Did not work. Why? The fear is twofold. One, that when I bring in puzzle setting and puzzle solving, you know, does this mean that I'm setting my team, uh sending my team off to the playground, you know, come back when you're done playing around? Basically, am I losing rigor and uh effort? Are they just sort of playing around now without thinking about metrics? And now hopefully, you know that we are super diligent about metrics. It's just we're not just looking at metrics and regurgitating them. We're using them to really talk through what have we learned. In fact, if anything, it is harder work because you have to figure out what are you learning from all that data from those metrics. The second big fear from leaders is I'm gonna lose control and I don't have the ability to course correct, which is uh because, you know, does the team know how to solve puzzles? So at least the devil I knew was the OKRs. Now you're gonna set them on this puzzle setting, puzzle solving. Are they good at this? And, you know, will I lose control that I today feel like I have, whether or not I have control. I feel like I have control with OKR. So the answer to this, like what has worked? What has worked is that I introduce this to product teams directly. So basically sharing with leaders that look, we're gonna work on this puzzle setting, puzzle solving. I'm not asking you to abandon OKRs, but here's what I need you to do, which is just don't kill psychological safety, don't shoot the messenger. And so then I started introducing this approach to the product team. And I asked them to share with me from the product data, like talk to me about how well did it work, what have you learned, what are you going to try next, about whatever features you're introducing, right? And so in the safety of our team, we started to openly talk in this way. And as the team, you know, we need a little bit of this muscle memory that we had to build up, right? So just in two rounds of going through this, you know, they were really good at this, right? And so now we could start to show leaders these insights. So we started presenting at the Monthly Business Review using this information. How well did it work? What have we learned? What will we try next? You know, we started talking about the puzzle we were solving. And it drove more insightful conversations. And as the leaders started to see that, you know, we started getting more leeway. What I loved is one leader uh he said, I feel like OHLs or OLA, it gave me ears on the track, and measurement became more actionable. Whereas OKRs, they were like the view from the rear view mirror, but there's not much I can do. Either we hit targets or we don't, but it's the rear view mirror. And I love this visual, right?

JD: 56:49

No, I again I went with we talked about this. You know, I I can remember being in so many business meetings where sales leaders were told fix the sales numbers. You need you need to fix the sales numbers, like you need to sell more product. But there wasn't a lot of conversation about how to sell more product, it was just fix the problem, right? That like get your job done and so forth. Um, you know, you it it it feels to me like you're developing a new competency in people, and so you you know, and and and so the approach is like start small, choose one small business unit or one small focus, use this, uh learn from it, apply it, and start to build that competency, and then use that as a proof point to expand on that. Yeah, and that exactly makes so much sense. Yeah, uh that's really logical.

Radhika: 57:37

And the other thing is that as a leader, this starts to give you a real sense of who can I delegate to? Because when you're a leader, right, different people have different levels of skills, knowledge, competency. And as you see, you know, people's answers to how well did it work, what have I learned, what will I try next, you start to see how capable they really are. Like I've worked with people from Google and Amazon, and I realize how much this muscle has truly atrophied in people in these big companies. You know, they might be very data-driven, but it's a very superficial level of being data-driven. Often what I've seen is, you know, they're they're optimizing those numbers, but I'm not seeing that depth sometimes. Like, what is that data actually telling you? And there are other people who might be very junior, they might not have those big names on their resumes, but they're darn good at giving me those answers where I'm like, oh wow, that's really deep thinking. I like what you're planning next. I hadn't thought of that, right? And now you know who you can delegate how much to.

JD: 58:41

You got to get them before they've had the corporate lobotomy, right? That's the key.

Radhika: 58:47

I love that, right? Exactly. But also, you know, you can then rebuild some of that skill set. Yeah. This is the piece where I feel like, you know, as a leader, we're so focused on performance evaluations. This is how you can do performance development, where you see what level of skills, knowledge, experience someone has. Now I know how much hand holds hand holding to give this person versus this other person.

JD: 59:11

Well, you're not only creating the competency, but you're giving them permission. And I think that's sometimes that's the missing piece, right? Is that we're not going to do all that that you're kind of artsy fartsy stuff. We're not going to do all that kind of holistic stuff. Just sell more product, right? Um, and and you're you're kind of shifting that mindset to say, no, it does like you do need to understand what's behind the numbers. Knowing the numbers isn't good enough, you need to know what's going on behind that. You know, Bezos used to talk about the fact that you've got the metrics and you've got the anecdotes, and they are equally important. That that he was always talking about the fact when you think about things like customer satisfaction or product quality, yes, you need to have the numbers, but you need to really listen to the anecdotes. What are people saying? What's the what's the emotion behind the number? And I think that's what you're pulling out here.

Radhika: 59:58

Yeah, and it's not even. Even in that one survey, it's really talking to your customers. Because the surveys, by the way, like I really don't customer, I don't like customer satisfaction surveys because those things, you know, very often you're gonna pull out reviews from only customers who are really pissed off. Um, what you really need is a pulse on the market, a pulse on your customers, you know, uh this sense of exactly where are your customers at in terms of their sentiment, what they're saying, and capturing those anecdotes too, like you're saying.

JD: 1:00:34

Well, and the problem with surveys, too, also is it is it's generally the your most recent experience. Um, the more useful question is when you think of this product or this company, what what comes into your mind? But that takes dialogue. You can't put a number on that, which is why the anecdote's so important is that if you give me just a number to give you a rating on out of five or ten, I'm gonna think about the last interaction I have with you and I'm gonna poke that one. But if you ask me, you know, what what words come to mind when you think about this company? What are the things that you feel good about? What do you don't feel good about? Uh that's when I start to get the meaning behind that, and that's the power uh that comes in. Do you have um a real-world example of the adoption of RPT that's resulted in a significantly different outcome?

Radhika: 1:01:25

Um, so by the way, this Ola is the new book. It's not radical product thinking, but we can talk about both. No, no, but but I'll give both examples. Um, one shift that we made um was using um radical product thinking at the monetary authority of Singapore. Um, and that has been super satisfying to see. Uh, just an entire platform built from scratch, you know, to be able to get all financial um institutions in Singapore, you know, when they apply for licenses, etc., being able to interact through one platform. And, you know, we started this a couple of years ago, just rebuilding it from scratch and using this mindset of radical product thinking and that transformation, that digital transformation that Monetary Authority of Singapore has been driven using radical product thinking. So that's been wonderfully satisfying to see. And the other real world example, um, there are a few at the moment that I've been tracking, but one that I've personally been involved with has been in the maritime industry. And the real world uh results there are that sales had stalled in 2023 when they were using OKRs. You know, they hit some OKRs, didn't, but fundamentally, like there wasn't a real movement in the market. And by using this puzzle setting and puzzle solving, we went about it systematically and we doubled sales in 2024, again in 2025, and we reduced customer churn from 26% to 4%.

JD: 1:02:54

That's remarkable. That's incredible. Um, on the Singapore example, I'm not surprised at all. I lived in Singapore for three years. What a privilege that was. Uh, and as governments go, I've never seen governments who are so focused on customer experience, operational efficiency, you know, precision. That this like they're incredibly slick as government agencies. They're still government agencies, but uh if I compare them with any other six countries, other five countries I've lived in, Singapore stands out as a country where they are constantly questioning and challenging and driving improvements. So it doesn't surprise me at all uh the work that you're doing being adopted so positively there.

Radhika: 1:03:37

You know, it's one country. I I wrote about it in radical product thinking, but truly, even in founding Singapore, uh the founder Li Kwan Yu, you know, the first prime minister, he talked about Singapore like a product. He said, we want to produce a first world oasis in a third world region. You know, this is how he talked about it. All these words like produce, etc., like he had product thinking, and it's still to date, like that way of thinking is instilled in Singapore. It's the only country I know that has plans that go all the way to like 2050, and they achieve those plans. You know, Singapore, when it started, they were dependent on Malaysia for all of their drinking water. Today, I think they're at 70% and they're on track for being completely independent for drinking water, which is amazing, right? Like it's all this long-term planning.

JD: 1:04:30

That's accurate, and they do. The way that they govern is they they it's not unusual at all for them to have 15, 20, 25-year plans. Um, and I know there's some plans in play right now to address the power issue that they have, for instance, which is a massive challenge. Uh, no, Iraq, remarkable government. Unfortunately, most of the countries I've lived in, the governments have visions that go forward three to four years. Basically, the term of government is as far as their strategies go. Um, uh, and uh and it's quite different.

Radhika: 1:04:56

But I have to say, even in New Zealand, I've been so impressed with uh leadership for a long time. I feel you're really lucky to be uh in that region of the world. You know, it's just it's one of these things where I'm in the US at the moment, um, and I will admit I'm very envious of you.

JD: 1:05:15

The Kiwis do very well. Yes, I I I agree with you. They have their challenges, but of course, I think I think there's some truth to that. Let's talk about your your experience in authoring. So, you know, radical product thinking was your first, I think, your first experience as being an author, uh, and now your second book, which is on the way, which we'll definitely talk about. Um but uh how was the experience? You know, what did you learn through that experience of being an author?

Radhika: 1:05:41

Um so one thing I have found is that self-publishing is very different from going through a traditional publisher. And I will say that having done it once before and having gone through a traditional publisher, I absolutely wanted to do take that path again. Uh, I'm very much of a perfectionist where I really wanted radical product thinking to come out exactly the way I wanted it to. I wanted it to be a window to my soul. Um, and you know, it meant writing, rewriting and writing and rewriting so many times I absolutely lost count. But the end product was something I was really happy with. And, you know, now as I work on the second book, I am very much in this process. As I work with my agent, you know, I'm in the process of writing, rewriting. I will admit it is frustrating and sometimes demoralizing, but I am so glad I'm going through that because I know it leads to a better product where I framed it in a way where it's not just about the concepts, but framing it in a way where it's really digestible and can be quickly grasped by people and resonates for people, right? Um, and so from that perspective, I absolutely would do traditional publishing um again. And it's very different from self-publishing, where if I were self-publishing, I would have finished writing it by now. But I know that I wouldn't have been as picky about all of it.

JD: 1:06:58

Right. Yeah. So that the out the the end product is a is a better product, is what I'm hearing. Uh, but it there's a lot more work involved.

Radhika: 1:07:06

There is. And I will say that, you know, I am saddened by the state of traditional publishing at the moment. There's been so much consolidation, and there are very few publishers, uh, so which also means that there are not enough voices being heard. Like, how many uh business books do you know written by women, business books that have been bestsellers, right? Like uh self-help, yeah, sure. Um psychology, sure, but not business books.

JD: 1:07:38

Yeah, not not the real stuff. Sorry, I didn't mean that. Um, like I I agree with you. I think that that that that's an issue. Uh, I started writing a book about 10 years ago. One day I'll get back and finish it. We'll get there. But I'm I'm envious of you getting through the process and now embarking on a second book. Um, so let's talk about this.

Radhika: 1:07:58

I will say it was tough. I told my kids when the first book came out, if I ever utter the words I want to write another book, just tell me no.

JD: 1:08:05

Stop me. Stop me, stop me. Yeah, yeah. Didn't work. So tell us about the second book. What yeah, what I I know it's about um, you know, having these strictly enforced goals and metrics, crushing creativity and innovation, and and really that that shift there. But give us the give us the kind of elevator pitch on the new book.

Radhika: 1:08:26

Yeah, and so and I think that's a perfect note to also end on, which is that um the book is going to be about why goals and OKRs don't work, but how you can use Ola to shift to this mindset of puzzle setting, puzzle solving, how you can bring this into the organization effectively. Um, and on that note, you know, for all of our listeners, um, you can download the free Ola Toolkit. And I'll share with you the link to that in show notes. Um and so you can download this Ola toolkit, use it, and send me a ping on LinkedIn, reach out to me, tell me about your experiences. Because as I write the book at the moment, you know, you're welcome to share your experiences, and it might just make it into the book as a case study.

JD: 1:09:12

Well, and let's emphasize that point. So when you and I got together for the first conversation about this podcast episode, the thing that you made very clear was that a big part of your mission is about connecting people, it's about getting people talking and connecting with you, but connecting with each other. And so I'm gonna double underline what you just said uh in terms of reaching out, sharing your experiences, asking questions and engaging with Radhika. I think it's a golden opportunity to learn from her experiences. So please, you know, take advantage of that. Um and I and I love the notion of the connected learning and experiential sharing. I think it's incredibly powerful. Um I want to hit a couple of questions for you before I let you go. Um, uh, this has been such a great conversation. Um, artificial intelligence. I always ask about artificial intelligence. It's such an interesting topic. Um how do you use it today? And are you optimistic or pessimistic or nervous about AI? How do you think about it?

Radhika: 1:10:09

Oof, uh that's a big one. Um my the biggest danger that I see with AI is the danger that we create what I call AI product slop. AI product slop is like uh, you know how we're all familiar with AI generated content. We can read it and recognize and go yuck. Um, but similarly, AI product slop is basically quickly created mediocrity where you vibe code stuff, but not just that, it's AI-generated UI, UX, content, etc., to quickly produce products that in the long term create user fatigue and bad consequences for society. What I fear is that we're on track for creating so much AI product slop that we're drowning in AI product slop and we accept mediocrity. And the one example I'll give you is Coca-Cola last year got a lot of backlash for releasing their video ads, which I really looked forward to. They released AI-generated ads and there was a ton of backlash. And you know what Coca-Cola did this year? Generated more AI ads.

JD: 1:11:19

Yes. And more backslash on more back feedback on that as well, negative feedback. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, agreed.

Radhika: 1:11:26

And their CMO just proudly said, well, you know what? It saved us a lot of money. We can this way uh create ads in one month as opposed to having to plan a year ahead. But you know, what this is indicative of is companies just saying, you know what, we're okay with putting out there just slop. And you know what, our users will just make do with it. But this is the issue that what I fear is a sea of AI product slop where there's no incentive for any company to do all that much better because the bar is so low. If I just do this much better, it's it's fine. And yet, you know, when everything is like this, consumers are paying for crap. Um, and but you don't really have a choice. This whole free market idea that, you know, well, you can vote with your dollar, yeah, it breaks down when everyone is putting out AI product slop. Uh, this is the danger I see. But I don't want to end on that note. The the power that you have as a listener is you have the power to do something differently. You know, you don't have to abdicate your differentiation over AI. You can take this approach of taking responsibility for what we put out there. You vote with your labor for the world that you want to create. You can be thoughtful about what you put out there.

JD: 1:12:47

I I'm 100% in line with you. Uh, I mean, I love AI. I use it every day. This podcast wouldn't exist largely because it uh it does a lot of the work, the kind of low value, repetitive work uh that that uh I need. But I do think I'm hoping I'm optimistic that we will get to a point of differentiation, you know, almost like uh, you know, uh a printed picture versus a hand painted picture. We we will differentiate those things which are uh authentically real from those things which are generated artificially. I'm hoping that's where we get to. I'm nervous too. I'm a photographer and I follow a lot of photography sites, and the level of slop in terms of imagery that is that is AI generated is ramping up dramatically at the moment, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to work out when you first see these things, whether they're real or AI, and that scares me a lot. You know, I I I do hope we get to a point where it's legally required that that you tag something or you have a branding on something that shows you that it's AI generated versus being an authentic work. Um, and then there's the derivative piece of AI, which it's the nature of AI is it's it's only taking other people's content and using that to generate new content, which means that you know plagiarism uh is is rife at this point in time. And they don't know how to fix it, they actually don't know technically how to fix it.

Radhika: 1:14:12

Yeah, exactly. Uh but I think you know, in terms of again how we can use AI, I agree with you. It does make a lot of work faster. The one um thing for us to be really cognizant of is we have to really own and not abdicate this part to AI where we have to own reflection, the experimentation, learning, adaptation. Is it ask ourselves, is this creating the change that I want to create in the world? You know, is it aligned with our vision, or am I just throwing out there more vision debt?

JD: 1:14:43

I I think that's a great way to think about it. It becomes an ethical conversation more than a technology conversation. I think that's right, uh the right approach. All right, last couple of questions for you. If you could only read or listen to one book for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

Radhika: 1:14:58

Oh, just one book. At the moment, there are too many that I'm trying to read. So uh this is a really hard question for me to to answer. Um how about I take this as if there's one book everyone has to read?

JD: 1:15:17

Okay.

Radhika: 1:15:20

Um one such book for me would be um Edward Snowden's Permanent Record. We all take privacy for granted, or what we say is, well, you know, I have nothing to hide. Privacy is not just something that is um it's not just it's irresponsible of us, honestly, to say that I have nothing to hide. If we have nothing to hide, well, just make all of your emails public. If you would not do that, you know, then it's not true that none of us have nothing to hide. Privacy is a matter of responsibility.

JD: 1:16:02

The one of the large companies I used to work for had internally the Wall Street Journal rule or the New York Times rule around you know communications. And they always say, you know, if if what you just wrote in the email or whatever you wouldn't be happy being published in the New York Times, then go back and rethink it. And I think that that's an interesting approach there. That's a great book uh to call out. I haven't, and I'm gonna put it on my list. That's uh that's a good one. I remember the story of Snowden very well, but I'd never read the book. So that's a that's a great lead. Is there a ritual, a hack, or a habit that you've adopted that's had a significant change on your effectiveness or efficiency?

Radhika: 1:16:44

Meditation. Yeah, I think that has been super helpful for me. I think it's changed my uh uh my feeling of being in touch with myself, um, but also uh the sense of calm uh in being able to work through things.

JD: 1:17:02

Uh this may then be a great lead into the next question I'm gonna ask you. And I'm gonna ask you a two-part question. Um, the first part is when you have to do the hard stuff, you know, you've got to have a tough meeting or conversation, you've got to do uh come overcome a big challenge or whatever. How do you evoke your superpowers? Where do you go to get your energy?

Radhika: 1:17:23

I would say when I know there's a tough meeting coming up, I actually do meditate for a little bit before that.

JD: 1:17:30

Yeah, yeah. And I I I'm aligned with you. I use a simple model called Hakalau, which is super quick and super useful. It's basically breathing and focus, and it's incredibly powerful. Um, yep, I'm I'm aligned with you on that. So let's flip that. Um, what's your kryptonite? What takes the energy out of you and how do you overcome it?

Radhika: 1:17:49

Um one thing that um I realized uh is something that I've been doing for a long time, but I'm working on changing that. Um, I I call it, you know, being the emotional support dog. Um very often, you know, in just personal relationships or friendships, I was realizing that it was draining for me because I was often being the emotional support dog. This is something that I've learned about myself, that just because I'm good at it and just because I have so much empathy doesn't mean I should do it. I'm now more deliberate about when I want to offer that versus uh when I need to conserve my energy.

JD: 1:18:33

And for all the rescuers out there, which I'm one as well, I'll take that to heart. I think that's really good advice is to question yourself if that. Okay, my very last question for you, Radika. Um uh is there a quote, uh, maybe from somebody famous or some of you know, or even your own, that you go back to, something that really is is super meaningful for you.

Radhika: 1:18:58

This quote is something I came across this year. I love it. It says, We don't learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience. Isn't that amazing? We don't learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience. And the thing is, how often do we leave time for reflection?

JD: 1:19:20

Uh never.

Radhika: 1:19:23

Especially in the corporate world, right? Like there's just no time for reflection. We just constantly are moving to the next thing. Uh, but I found that to be really powerful. It just really emphasizes why it's important to step back. Even these questions of how well did it work? What have you learned? What will you try next? It's reflection that really helps you learn and adapt.

JD: 1:19:43

Uh again, I I I really relate to that. And you know, I I talk about curiosity on this podcast all the time. Uh, I'm a big believer in curiosity. And and to me, I'm gonna paraphrase paraphrase a little bit the quote, because I think it's not the event, it's the it's the meaning behind the event. Uh, or it's not the interaction, it's the meaning behind the interaction. And and you've got to have that time and curiosity to be willing to explore that. You know, what why did that go the way that it went, or why did that person react the way that they reacted? Uh, what was going on behind the scenes? And if you could do that, I think there's there's great learning that can happen. So yeah, that's a great quote. Thank you. Well, this has been fabulous. Uh, I feel like I could spend the entire day talking to you, to be honest with you, because I think what you're doing is so incredibly fascinating. I can't wait for your new book to come out. Uh, and we'll we'll keep uh the listeners uh posting with that. Um I will get that link from you uh for the downloadable, and I'll also include link to your website and your uh and your radicalproduct.com uh site as well. And uh yeah. Um thank you so much uh for making time to be on the podcast again. I think for the listeners, there's been so much good value in this. Uh and listeners, I do encourage you to take advantage of the offer uh that Radica made in terms of engaging with her. Um I'll get the notes out shortly. Uh listeners, whatever whatever you're doing, wherever you are, I hope you're living your your fullest life. Um and please, above all, be good to each other. Talk to you soon.