How to Use Neuroscience in Marketing & HR - Prince Ghuman

In this episode, Prince Ghuman and I are going to discuss a topic that may be relatively new to what HR and more broadly other leaders can learn from the marketing function-the neuroscience of marketing. This is such a cool topic to discuss! 
 
 From Prince:

“There are opportunities for advancement and experiential learning opportunities and chance to be involved in certain projects or to have access to certain meetings or different discussions. There are lots of ways to create value inside of organizations. And there are lots of different ways to incent people to drive performance.”

➡️ What is memory science?

➡️ What drew Prince to neuromarketing, to begin with?

➡️ The role of neuroscience in extracting the most amount of performance from individuals and teams in service to a broader organizational goal.

➡️ How we as a society view work and the context in which we view it.

 Prince Ghuman

Prince Ghuman started his first company as an undergrad at the University of California at San Diego. He went on to be the founding head of marketing at BAP, one of the first digital automotive platforms and current leader in the automotive e-commerce space. 

Most recently, he held dual roles as the US Director of Consumer Marketing and the Global Director of B2B Marketing for OFX. He was named one of the Shakers and Movers by the San Francisco Chronicle. He is a professor of neuro-marketing at Hult Int'l Business School, speaker at TEDx, and a contributor at Forbes. 

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Matt Burns

Matt Burns is an award-winning executive, social entrepreneur & speaker. He believes in the power of community, simplicity & technology.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Guest: [00:00:00] What are these inadvertent things that we're doing with HR and our people in our culture that we create when they walk in and out of your door? There's no reason why you should not [00:00:10] treat an office as a retail establishment and designed to optimize for all instincts as the police walk out

[00:00:20] Matt: [00:00:28] everyone. It's Matt here for another episode. [00:00:30] Thinking inside the box, the show where each week we tackle the most complex issues related to work and culture. If you're interested in checking out our other content, you can find us at Vento, [00:00:40] hr.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. In today's episode, I chat with Prince group author of blind sight, a TEDx speaker, Forbes, contributor, and [00:00:50] professor of neuro marketing and entrepreneurship at the Holton international school of business.

He's also the founder and CEO of pop neuro. An organization that teaches other organizations how [00:01:00] to apply neuroscience to their business. And their goal is pretty awesome to equip organizations with an ethical brain-based perspective through [00:01:10] neuro marketing, bootcamps and certification courses. Prince started his first company as an undergrad at the university of California in San Diego.

He went on to be the founding [00:01:20] head of marketing at bap, one of the first digital automotive platforms and current leader in the automotive e-commerce space. Most recently he held dual roles as the U S director of [00:01:30] consumer marketing and the global director of B2B marketing for OFX. He was named one of the shakers and movers by the San Francisco Chronicle.

And we had an amazing [00:01:40] conversation. It's it's rare that I get a chance to speak with somebody with such an interesting background. And I'll be honest. One of the benefits of having your own podcast is that you [00:01:50] can find people that have super interesting backgrounds and have compelling conversations. So I had big expectations when I saw Prince was on my schedule and [00:02:00] spoiler alert.

It was an awesome conversation. Uh, we talked a lot about what HR and more broadly other leaders can learn from the marketing function. And the neuroscience of [00:02:10] marketing. We talk about memory science itself, which in and of itself was cool topic that I hadn't spent much time considering before this. And I will going forward.

[00:02:20] And his book Blindsight written alongside dr. Matt Johnson, himself, a holder of a PhD in cognitive psychology shares. The fascinating role that neuroscience [00:02:30] plays in our ever evolving consumer lives. Without further ado, Prince Gruman. We have started to record because I am have been excited for this conversation [00:02:40] since it landed into my calendar.

How are you sir? 

Guest: [00:02:42] Good. All right, Matt. 

Matt: [00:02:43] I am doing well. Um, I'm want to get into this chat and I also want you to walk us 

through a bit about your [00:02:50] background. So why don't we do that first and then we'll get right into our conversation. 

Guest: [00:02:52] Sure thing. My name is Prince cumin and I'm a neuro marketer. Uh, I currently teach neuro marketing at halt.

[00:03:00] International business school. And I am the author of Blindsight. The history has been marketing and startup related, uh, going from the [00:03:10] classic, uh, you know, working on a startup with a ponytail all the way up to working for a publicly traded company as the head of marketing. So, uh, I've sort of, uh, HR has [00:03:20] been.

Ingrained in me while going through, uh, organizations of different sizes. And, uh, and yeah, I'm looking forward to talking to you a bit more about neuroscience marketing and how to [00:03:30] apply both of those things to HR. 

Matt: [00:03:31] Yeah, to me, I've been talking a lot about the last, I don't know, three years on social media and I have the proof I haven't taken down those awful videos that I shot three 

years [00:03:40] ago, talking.

Those were marketing and HR actually. Inside voice outside, voice, all that stuff. What drew you to the neuro marketing to begin with? I'm just curious about kind of your path [00:03:50] and what drew you to that line of work. 

Guest: [00:03:51] Yeah, absolutely. I, uh, so I've always been, uh, curious about psychology going back to when I was a kid and, [00:04:00] um, and just, bye bye bye.

Right place. Right time type of story. I, the first half of my career was. Working for startups. And with that comes a [00:04:10] lot of flexibility to test stuff. And one of the things I was able to test, I would go out and read it. He'd pop psych books or abstracts of, of research on that psychology [00:04:20] neuroscience. And then try to turn that into an application, uh, and then go test it immediately.

Uh, at whichever startup was, I was, I was at at the time. So. That's sort of been my, [00:04:30] my, my, uh, part of my DNA is applying psychology to my job, uh, partially out of necessity and partially out of interest and yeah. 

Matt: [00:04:39] Yeah. It's, [00:04:40] I feel the same way about my job, which is why I asked the question. Um, it's, you know, the reason I I've.

And this is just, you know, from my vantage point, I look at the two [00:04:50] professions and I, I know that they're different. I know that marketing is a profit generating function and a profit center. And most companies in HR is a cost center. And most companies, [00:05:00] uh, I know that one is used strategic and one is viewed administrative.

And yet I see so much commonality in terms of what they're asked to do in the context of organizations and the skills that are [00:05:10] required to have success politically. I mean, three things. The first one is that both professions. Are required to, you know, at least an internal, was it demonstrating their [00:05:20] performance or worth to compel some sort of action or behavior or decision from somebody without having any real authority over them?

So that's something that both professions are tasked [00:05:30] with. Marketers have to brand and message and communicate and insight, and then, you know, encourage people to take actions. And HR is much the same way. Both of them require the segmentation of audiences [00:05:40] to understand that you're dealing with different cohorts of people and therefore they need different treatments.

And I don't mean treatments in the sense of they need preferential treatment. So they need to be treated. With inequity, but [00:05:50] certain people who are five years into their professional career and people who are five years from the end of the professional career, have different wants and needs in the workspace and HR professionals like marketers [00:06:00] need to consider those implications in making decisions for company wide programs.

Right. And then the last thing is that, um, it's frankly, the use of [00:06:10] which is now becoming increasingly more important to HR, but has been critical in marketing for 30 years is the use of data and the application of data to inform [00:06:20] insights and trends, and to be able to predict trends potentially in the future with historical information and be intentional about blending your qualitative gut instinct experience with actual [00:06:30] data that will measure the efficacy of your actions.

And the impact that you're having and then be able to help you refine it so that you can have greater impact going forward. And I want to think about the professions. I think about [00:06:40] those two things being in common. I think marketing is probably 20 years ahead of HR in terms of its professionalization, but largely owed to the fact that it was a profit center, not a cost center, as I mentioned.

So I [00:06:50] mentioned that long ramble just to suggest that I too. I've always been fascinated by the human psychology and the psychology of decision, making the psychology of leaders and trying [00:07:00] to, in a lot of ways, coming at this from a performance angle, we'll try to extract the most amount of performance from individuals and teams in service to a broader organizational goal.

Guest: [00:07:08] I agree. Um, [00:07:10] I think, uh, I think one thing that's pivotal here is, is, is, is, uh, at the very core, how do you define marketing? And I think in answering that question, we can easily scaffold over to HR [00:07:20] and, and how I define marketing. At the very core marketing is trading value, right? You've got a seller with a widget telling, selling you something [00:07:30] and you as a buyer have money to acquire.

And that's of course old school, right? Like the old school very much, um, one for one exchange. But of course you fast forward to [00:07:40] today and that trading value has evolved right. The way. Uh, sellers provide value is much more than just a widget that they sell to you. Right? It's a, it's [00:07:50] all the experience tied around it.

Similarly, buyers provide value in other ways, besides just giving you money to purchase your product, right. There's word of [00:08:00] mouth there's there's referrals. There's way to tweet about stuff, all that. 

Matt: [00:08:04] Right. 

Guest: [00:08:05] So. Let's see if you, and I can try to apply the trading value [00:08:10] internally, because what does HR, if not marketing applied internally, think about it.

Trading value and think about who the seller is when it comes to HR, who the buyer is when it comes to HR, when it comes [00:08:20] to trading value, right? Like the old school way is yet the company gives you money and that's their way of providing a value. And you would give them hours of work in return, but.

That's not the [00:08:30] case anymore. It's much, there's much. There are many other ways for both the company and the employee to provide value to each other in a mutually beneficial way. 

Matt: [00:08:38] Yeah, absolutely [00:08:40] correct. And there is many mechanisms to do that. Um, and the mechanisms aren't limited to dollars and cents.

There are opportunities for advancement and experiential learning opportunities and chance to be [00:08:50] involved in certain projects or to have access to certain meetings or different discussions. There's, there's lots of ways to create value inside of organizations. And there's lots of different ways to incent people to, to drive [00:09:00] performance.

And I think, you know, the idea of, of blending psychology, if, if we're trying to understand people in the workplace and in an HR context, and we're trying [00:09:10] to understand. Uh, consumers in a marketplace as a marketer, it would stand to reason that you're looking to drive some sort of performance that you're drying to.

[00:09:20] You use some form of measurement, but also better understand what some of the factors that drive certain behaviors and attributes are. And that's why I get really geeked out about people signs in particular, [00:09:30] because we can draw insights of. We know how certain teams react when paired with certain leaders or when put in certain situations, in certain circumstances, we know how certain [00:09:40] teams perform when they have this, you know, certain resources versus other resources.

And I would assume with marketing as much the same thing you're using the data, the science to really help [00:09:50] you pinpoint maybe a more strategic or more intentional action with your question. 

Guest: [00:09:54] No, absolutely. I think, uh, I think one of the ways. That we talk about in the book a [00:10:00] bit, and then it comes down to, um, optimize it from memory, right?

So, uh, really it's the application of memory, Murray science to marketing. And let's [00:10:10] try to walk that over to HR. So one of the things that has been really popular as a trend in market over the last few years has been experiential marketing. Right? You see pop up [00:10:20] restaurants, you see Adidas doing a popup, and it's supposed to blend this, this, this element of surprise and novelty with.

A connection to the brand. Right. Um, and one of [00:10:30] the things that we talked about in blind sight is let's bookmark that and let's really think about what is memory, right? How do you optimize to be memorable? Right [00:10:40] and the way to do it. And yeah, this has been, uh, uncovered through Daniel economy's research on, uh, on memory it's called the peak end effect.

And to summarize the research, [00:10:50] we remember too, when it comes to an experience, remember the peak of the experience and the end are our brain heavily weighs those two things. So now let's go back to what we [00:11:00] bookmarked an experience or an event that you create. And now think about. How is your workplace optimizing for peak end effect?

How was your Christmas party [00:11:10] optimizing for the peak end effect? What is the last thing people remember when they leave your office day to day? And you start thinking about the different ways you can apply peak end effect to HR. And I think you'll come up with some really [00:11:20] cool ideas and that's 100% neuroscience space.

Matt: [00:11:22] Absolutely. It's anchored in the science and it makes me wonder why we don't use the approach more frequently. 

Guest: [00:11:29] It's getting [00:11:30] there. I mean, look, it marketers know about experiential marketing, but they don't really know about memory science quite yet. Right. The big brands always want the Coca-Cola's and the Google's of the world.

They know a lot more because [00:11:40] they have staff, uh, you know, they have neuroscientists and marketers and neuro marketers on staff. So they're, they're figuring this stuff out, but nonetheless marketing is arguably fiveish years behind on truly, [00:11:50] truly applying behavioral sciences, um, or at least having that be part of the core.

So you said to yourself, HR is 15, 20 years behind. Well, It doesn't have to be right. Like 

[00:12:00] the, the answers are out there, you know, peak end effect, learn about memory making and memory recall and see how you can apply it to your, to your workspace, to your works retail design, right? [00:12:10] Like it baffles me so many companies still have a time clock and that's how you check out.

So your final, your end in that peak end is checking out time clock, not. [00:12:20] You know, a piece of candy or bottled water or something to small little difference. And these aren't just ideas. We're throwing up on this, on this call. This is exactly how when [00:12:30] Apple went into retail, the thought about designing retail.

When you think about the difference you feel in a, when you're leaving best buy versus Apple. Right or Costco or [00:12:40] Fry's electronics if we're on the West coast, right? One of those makes you feel a little more comfortable and you remember just being able to walk in and walk out of Apple and then walking out of best buy [00:12:50] you're like you almost feel as if you're testing me, if I'm a thief or not, and that's sort of your subconscious final touchpoint.

As you walk out of a best buy, you have to show a receipt, make sure you're not a thief and you walk out. [00:13:00] What are these inadvertent things that we're doing with HR and our people in our culture that we create when they walk in and out of your door? There's no reason why you should not treat an office as a retail establishment and designed [00:13:10] to optimize for all these things.

As employees walk out the door, 

Matt: [00:13:13] we're having this conversation myself and a good friend, Madison Campbell earlier, and we were talking about just the dissonance between [00:13:20] payment behavior and what we know to be true with science. And a lot of it is tied up in. Old thinking that was institutional and instance  [00:13:30] through years and years of leadership training and passed down from generation and, and, you know, Nurtured and people and probably rightfully so when it was began, [00:13:40] because we were in, of course in the industrial economy and things were very, they are now.

Um, but yet today, even though we knew know that the rate of change has accelerated, even though we are aware [00:13:50] that we're now in a digital economy, no longer an industrial economy, we still are, are leaning on these tired paradigms. If you will, around leadership that don't [00:14:00] draw a clear link between. Uh, you know, to your point, yes, the psychology of performance and individual's performance.

And I've talked a lot about the connection [00:14:10] between intrinsic motivation and discretionary effort, and that we should invest our efforts in creating an environment for people to thrive and have success, then try and beat them with a stick and [00:14:20] to being working faster. But it doesn't work. It does, it has declining returns over time.

Um, you know, it just, it, we have to move past these tired mechanisms of, well, this is the way I came up [00:14:30] through the ranks and therefore, this is the way everyone else has to experience it as well. 

Guest: [00:14:33] That's you're right. That's a matter of culture, right? That's a matter of culture that we, you, me and people who can't 10 years before us, [00:14:40] they inherited from the previous 50 years.

Right. But. Here's one of the things that we're seeing change. We're seeing a adoption because guess [00:14:50] what? The way you manage millennials is not how you manage the generation before. The way you manage gen Z is not how you manage the, and. The way these new [00:15:00] generations want to work up a is different from the way you worked out.

So now there's an objective reason to manage them properly or also efficiency and, and work output goes down not to mention [00:15:10] all the toxicity that might create internally. Right? So not just about generation, right. Uh, conflict. Uh, it's really about understanding what makes now the two [00:15:20] thirds of American workforce tick, right?

Millennials and gen Z is over two thirds of the workforce. And to truly understand that, you know, it's one thing to say, look, this generation is cancelled culture [00:15:30] heavy. Well, that's, that's the outside tactic what's happening internally and internally I posit is a different way of expressing [00:15:40] empathy. And, and we talk a lot about empathy in blind sight, but one of the things.

That we need to consider is how can we lead with empathy? Whereas [00:15:50] previously empathy was simply not something you do in a corporate culture. And now we've seen at least from the employees who are our customers, when it comes to HR [00:16:00] and you have to adapt. And you, you said this yourself in the love that you use the term needs and wants because marketers obsessing about what needs and wants.

And HR should obsess [00:16:10] about needs and wants, except for the customers that are obsessing, like music wants for their employees and this new two thirds that's coming up, they have different sets of needs and wants. And it's being expressed in a [00:16:20] very different way that is changing management styles, 

Matt: [00:16:22] because we need to the same changing demographic with the consumer base.

It mirrors one end up [00:16:30] and, you know, I, I always, I love one day and that makes me laugh Prince and I I've always laughed at the kind of the. Hypocrisy of as consumers, we [00:16:40] can't wait for change to go faster. Like we want the new stuff now as an employee, I don't want change to happen at all. Yeah. That's a real [00:16:50] interesting, you know, dichotomy.

Guest: [00:16:51] It is. And I think, eh, let's, let's throw some science on it and see if maybe we can, uh, we can, we can design for this. [00:17:00] Uh, in the workplace. So we, one of the reasons why as consumers and this rabbit hole goes deep. So, uh, I'll start with just the hedonic treadmill right now. [00:17:10] Our, our pleasure center is designed to peak in the pursuit of happiness, not on the acquisition of happiness.

This has been measured in many, many studies over, [00:17:20] right? So it's the chase for the next iPhone. That's going to come out in four months and the, and the leaks and stuff that keeps us, keeps us chasing. And as soon as you acquire it, the [00:17:30] amount of pleasure you had in the last lead up to it goes down, but companies either accidentally, or very much intentionally bake that in, right.

Uh, [00:17:40] when it comes to launching your products, but companies internally don't really have that. Right. So, uh, so we can, we can talk about ethics about this in a second, [00:17:50] but in general, you think about every new version of coming out every year, keeps you from, uh, keeps you unhappy with what you have now, but also striving towards a new one.

How can we use that little [00:18:00] hedonic treadmill brain hack? And applied to HR. Cause I think there's an opportunity there. 

Matt: [00:18:04] I think there is, I think there's an opportunity to be more thoughtful about it. How do you think we should apply it? 

Guest: [00:18:08] I think, [00:18:10] um, I think there's, uh, there's there's opportunity to put milestones that people can strive for.

Right. [00:18:20] And that would be  and it can't just be this one, your conversation, but nonetheless being transparent about where the growth is, um, being transparent about what these milestones [00:18:30] are and. Uh, and having them strive towards that, having employees strive towards those milestones might be a way to have them continually move towards something else while they are [00:18:40] in pursuit of things.

Matt: [00:18:41] Yeah. That's just the, it's a good practice. Most organizations would employ any way with project management, basic fundamentals. You take a big project and break it into smaller [00:18:50] pieces. And I think what. I think as a, as a consequence of what we've seen in the last 12 weeks. And I think as we look forward, we all agree we're operating now in a new normal and [00:19:00] things will not go back to the way that they once were.

They'll look in a lot of ways similar, but it will be in a lot of ways, be quite different. And one of the ways that I'm very interested to see is. [00:19:10] How we as a society view work and the context in which we view it, because until recently we viewed work for the majority of people was a nine to five operation from Monday to Friday.

[00:19:20] And we headed elongated on both ends of the nine and the five weekends in some cases in service to being productive or because the company needed our support or things of that nature. But most of us were working [00:19:30] 40, 50, 60 hours a week. In whatever job that might be. And some of us had not traditional hours, if you were in retail or in frontline work or had shift work.

So there were different [00:19:40] iterations, but most of it for most of us work involves leaving your physical address and going into another physical space. And that may be the predominant [00:19:50] mode going forward, but it will not be as predominant as it was going forward. And I wonder how we're going to look at things like remote work and create.

[00:20:00] Connection with an organization when people don't enter into the four walls of a single entity, when, when we have to create cohesive teams very quickly from disparate resources who may never [00:20:10] actually ever meet one another. And I know that's been happening in organizations before this, but it hasn't been happening at the scale.

Um, and it hasn't penetrated all industries equally. Um, and I just, [00:20:20] I get fascinated about how we're going to look at work and how. How we're going to view the psychology of connection in a, in an environment where you do oscillate between physical and virtual. 

Guest: [00:20:29] Yeah. I [00:20:30] think, I think it is going to be a very fascinating transition.

I think we're going to learn a few things. We're going to have a few surprises and some of the things that are, are [00:20:40] going to be tied and true. And I think one of the things is, look, we need human interactions. Right. And that, that, that doesn't surprise anyone. And when it comes to. A culture [00:20:50] now transitioning to virtual work, just like Trey did 10 years ago.

I think there might be an opportunity in creating hubs, right? So [00:21:00] you can hire virtual employees anywhere. And this is especially valuable in the Bay area where you pay top dollar for talent [00:21:10] in bear New York, a lot of the big space, but instead of hiring. 10 different employees in 10 different cities.

Maybe you think about the sense of community, right? [00:21:20] Psychologically humans are programmed to socialize in small groups, right? The number of changes Dunbar's number was at a hundred, but the number changes to how many [00:21:30] fulfilling relationships you can have in life. And it tops out. But if you, if you, if you address this virtual nature, By not having a home office, but [00:21:40] having a hub of employees, maybe these four employees all are 

from city X and these other four employers are from citywide.

And then you create, you play onto the, [00:21:50] uh, the, the tendency, the human nature of, of having small groups. And you actually build out events and employee events for remote work, but instead of being [00:22:00] completely separated, you've got smaller teams in smaller cities. That at least can have some form of culture and connection with each other.

Matt: [00:22:07] That's the key is we have to create conditions [00:22:10] for connection, and we have to create the environments and this princess where I get super geeked out again, because I'll be honest. I mean, early in my HR career, I didn't fit in [00:22:20] all that. Well, I was the guy who was in his mid twenties talking about how we needed to introduce more technology and data into HR practices in the mid nineties.

So [00:22:30] sorry, the late, the late nineties. And so I can promise you that I wasn't in the majority. And, um, I think now we've come full circle to a place where some of the things that even [00:22:40] I couldn't anticipate have started to happen. I didn't see a world where we were talking about immersive technologies in recruitment and training.

I didn't see a world where he would have quantum computing and be able to [00:22:50] come, you know, compound that level of data and analyze the strings of data we can look at for trends. Um, and. I think we're in an interesting place because I think we can use [00:23:00] technology now to make things more human centric. And that wasn't the predominant thought 20 years ago, when I started in HR, it was anything that involves plugging it in was its [00:23:10] responsibility.

Anything that involves paying something was finances, responsibility. What we deal with Matt is the culture and the feelings and the people now. A very narrow view of things, but that was what the view was 20 years [00:23:20] ago, 15 years ago when I started. And, um, now I, I hope people have evolved their thinking to the point where they see that in some cases, technologies actually make things better for people that [00:23:30] taking people away from the mundane, monotonous, repetitive manual administration that some people are still doing today in their jobs.

Is only in service to their job [00:23:40] satisfaction and allows them to tap into things like creativity and empathy and collaboration that they can't when they're working behind a spreadsheet for eight hours in a day. Um, so I think, you know, for folks [00:23:50] it's an opportunity to embrace work that is better served, served by other people, um, and to, you know, delegate the work to the machines that make sense to do that and to live in [00:24:00] some sort of.

It helps us with the technology in a way to, to leverage the best of both parties. Um, I get excited about the use of that, and I get excited about the application of [00:24:10] technology in being able to better gather sentiment analysis of employees, to better inform the experiences we should create for them going forward.

And I wonder. Taking cues [00:24:20] from our colleagues and marketing, as we seek to segment our employees and are able to gather so much more information about what they're doing and how they're engaging on content [00:24:30] on internet, on the internet and what they're doing in terms of their tasks, who they're collaborating with in the organization.

I wonder what potential that will be in terms of creating workplaces that are more human centric. [00:24:40] Hey everyone. It's Matt here. I hope you're enjoying the show before we continue. I wanted to give a quick shout out to one of our sponsors. [00:24:50] Benji. The future of work is today and Matt Parsons and the team at Benji have figured out a really cool hands on learning [00:25:00] solution that you need to be considering as you transition your organizational learning and team building and engagement online.

Now I spend several [00:25:10] hours a day myself on video platforms. So whether it's zoom or Skype or go to meeting, they're great. They allow me to interact with people and see [00:25:20] them in all parts of the world, though. If you're like me, once those calls go on a bit too long, I start to get a little bit. Distracted.

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I'll be honest, I've been so impressed with the tool [00:25:50] myself that we're actually looking at using Benji to power our virtual workshops with client facing products. So I'm actually working right now with Matt one-on-one to develop a [00:26:00] journey mapping exercise, so we can take clients through the employee experience and aluminate thousands of dollars and hours of inefficiencies that [00:26:10] organizations tend to have in their onboarding and hiring processes.

It's a great tool. And because you are a listener of the thinking of inside the box podcast, you're going to get a [00:26:20] special benefit as well. I've talked to Matt. He wants to give as many people as possible access to this tool so they can make online learning more engaging and you can do [00:26:30] so as well by using the discount code bento 20.

So if you log on to the. Benji website, which is my benji.com and as impressed with the solution as I am, [00:26:40] then enter the code in Benji 20 and you'll receive 20% off your purchase. And with that being said, we'll return back to regular programming. 

[00:26:50] Guest: [00:26:50] Yeah, I think, I think the. The very exciting, low hanging fruit is psychometrics.

I say, it's low hanging because it's actually [00:27:00] low or hanging for HR than it is marketing. Right? So to actually compile the psychometrics and, and, and, and, and really to use personality science to get your [00:27:10] customer well. Your customers don't work for you, right? You can't just give them a personality test and said, we're going to make your life easier because you have an incentive to sell them stuff.

And that [00:27:20] roadblock is not as high with HR because you're not so much selling them stuff. You simply want to understand them better. Goes back to what you said about needs and wants, but, uh, [00:27:30] apply it in a way to make the team function in a way that you want it to function. Right. So, and, and we talk about this and blind sight.

We talk about psychometrics. We [00:27:40] specifically talk about what is called the ocean personality test, right? And it's a, it's a personality test that. Spans your person, if it's the best [00:27:50] personality test at the moment, and it's not your old school Myers Briggs, it's not your horoscope, but you're able to learn a lot more.

Hey, you think [00:28:00] it's, we're laughing about it, not Matt, but you know, what is a horoscope, if not just a big old personality, world's oldest personality, a wheel. I'm 

Matt: [00:28:08] get an argument 

Guest: [00:28:08] from. [00:28:10] But, but, you know, we have the privilege as, as HR leaders to be able to give someone the, the, uh, the, the [00:28:20] personality exam and then see exactly how you can apply that to make their lives.

Better as employees. And, and this is I think, a [00:28:30] foundational change, but I think in a world that is constantly changing to understand how your employees will respond to change. We had this personality tests and be able [00:28:40] to address and calibrate accordingly for that, for that person. That's huge. That's huge.

And I think it'll be big five now or, uh, the [00:28:50] ocean ocean ocean test now, but it'll be maybe something else next five years, but nonetheless. I can't ask my customer should take the big five tests. It's [00:29:00] really hard to write you as an HR leader, can ask her, ask her, ask her employees to do it. How can you use that?

And I think that, I think there's an opportunity right there. 

Matt: [00:29:09] It [00:29:10] butts up against a topic that I'm hearing much more about these days, Prince, because, and I don't know if it's because um, people are again, resisting the inevitable change. And [00:29:20] the hangings already started, but I'm hearing the phrase, the ethical implications of analytics, a lot more in conversations, um, and th th duty and [00:29:30] responsibility of employers to use information about their employees more respectfully and also ethically, um, And you'll hear the occasional unfortunate story from [00:29:40] an employer.

Who's used the information inappropriately to inform bad, you know, bad behavior, bad decisions, but yeah, yeah, there's this, there's this, there's this fear, this, this, you know, fear under the [00:29:50] covers, if you will, of HR worried about, well, if we start to measure the employees, will certain people want to use the information for reasons that aren't.

In the service of making [00:30:00] people's workplaces better, but are actually in service to helping exploit resources more or more effectively. Um, and that's a constant tension that exists between [00:30:10] those in the organization that are seeking to maximize ROI. And those in the organization who are looking out for.

Culture and, and in some cases, just viewing them in binary terms is wrong [00:30:20] anyway, but you have that, that, that reality and a lot of organizations today, 

Guest: [00:30:23] I agree. I, I look, this is a reality map that I've had to deal with as a marketer. A lot of what I [00:30:30] do is driven by bridging this. Horrible horrible gap of trust between marketing and consumers.

Right? I, as a marketer, [00:30:40] I want to make really cool products. I want to represent brands that people fall in love with. And as a consumer of yourself, I want to buy cool shit. I want to buy cool things and want to [00:30:50] have brands that I'd get into photography, humans with, because you want to fall in love with products.

Um, however, shady stuff has been happening over the years, uh, with data. [00:31:00] Right. And, and one of the examples we use in the book was the, uh, I don't know if you used face, swap the app. Okay. Yep. Oh man. Someone owns, someone owns a [00:31:10] digital 80 year old version of you and then a digital infant version of your phone.

Right? So, so face swap is just for, for the listeners fish swap is when you take a picture of [00:31:20] yourself or your friends, you upload it onto the staff and then it will age you. Older or younger. And there you go. You have to see what you look like as an infant or a senior citizen. Well, Tricky [00:31:30] tricky, those photos that they just created for you, they actually don't.

So they own the rights to all these things, right? So these types of things keep coming up and it keeps eroding that trust between marketers and [00:31:40] consumers. And I think public policy, I think, I think the U S has been great about innovation and products. They've been not innovative with public policy. I think Europe has been really good about [00:31:50] public policy, but not as sure innovation.

So, um, the, the, the takeaway for me here is like, The public policy conversation has to happen in [00:32:00] parallel with this other database conversation. And I think this is where there might be a bigger opportunity for HR because [00:32:10] there has already been, uh, a cyclical, uh, cultural stuff, publishing marketing, right.

Everyone were on the internet and it was a gold rush for data. [00:32:20] Arguably still there users are still giving away their data for free on Facebook, right on Instagram, on WhatsApp. Right. Free is expensive today in the world of digital tech. [00:32:30] Um, but they'll conversations. You're right. They are happening, but HR can learn from the last 10 years, 20 years of this aggression of innovation and then public policy [00:32:40] catching up innovation, public policy catching up.

Right. And you can work on that concurrently, um, and, and, and, and, and find that solution. And really how driven are you [00:32:50] internally to solve? These chemistry problems, right? The people chemistry problems. And I think, I think way data is, or just a [00:33:00] data application to address them HR issues. I think it's a little intense, but I think you would be, we would, we would all be fools for ignoring the ethical implications, but.

[00:33:10] You put together bylaws at the company level, if not at the, at the city and the state level to push that through. But I think that's why there's a massive opportunity for leadership to step in [00:33:20] and actually have this conversation. Here's how we're ethically going to use it, you know? And here's how, here's how you can opt out.

Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're doing with it. And one of those talk about, again, this [00:33:30] is, this is the final chapter in the book we saved it for ethics is such a gnarly chapter. And, and one of the things we talked about is what does trading Valley look like? And what does transparency look like?

What are the pillars of [00:33:40] ethics here and how do you apply them for your city country company? And how do you communicate that? 

Matt: [00:33:46] She begs the question and I'm sure Prince of all the questions that you get. When you're [00:33:50] speaking on podcasts and with your students and with your clients, the, probably the number one question is, tell me what's going to happen in the future, especially now where we've had a giant [00:34:00] reset.

All of my friends who are economists and data scientists and marketers and, and just mathematicians are just so fascinated by what's going to be a whole new data set, [00:34:10] where we just haven't had this experience before, and we're going to have to make some really informed. Judgment calls on some decisions.

Where do [00:34:20] you stand as you go forward and thinking about neuro marketing and the path forward, and what are some things that you're thinking about as we look kind of six, 12, 24 months in the future, 

Guest: [00:34:27] uh, two things, [00:34:30] um, data ownership and the role of marketing start with the last one. First, their response it's too bad marketing.

Isn't no marketing. It's better marketing. [00:34:40] Right. So the response to data abuse, isn't good, killed data. It's to, first of all, figure out you should not do that and create laws against it, but it's not to kill the use of data completely. [00:34:50] Right. So we have to truly think about what that means wholeheartedly, right?

We're not going to live in a world that is not consumer centric. That's not happening in the future. [00:35:00] Right. Um, but I'm bringing it to my second point. I think education around data needs to go up. Um, I think I'm not sure [00:35:10] everyone should be a computer scientist when they walk out of there high school graduation.

What I'm saying is just know about data ownership and, [00:35:20] and I think with people spending more time on the internet now than ever. I think in the next five years, ish years, I think data ownership [00:35:30] will start to be closer to what user experience was. Remember. Now you are, everyone knows you X or two favorite alphabets.

Everyone knows you X everyone talks about experience. It wasn't the case a [00:35:40] while back, right. User experience is only recently became a college degree. Well, think about data ownership. We want the average person to know more about data ownership and know that they're making it [00:35:50] to give away their data in order to get a product for free or alternatively, willing to pay, to get a product, to not track them [00:36:00] at all right.

It says we're not asking. WhatsApp to let us pay for using WhatsApp for a couple bucks a month in exchange [00:36:10] for a more, a private messaging app. We're not, we're not doing it with Instagram. We're not doing it with Gmail. We're not doing it. Yeah. With insert name here of your favorite test 

Matt: [00:36:18] product. 

Guest: [00:36:19] So [00:36:20] in the next five years, this is partial prediction and partial, wishful thinking.

But as I think, I think this, this whole, a quarantine, the [00:36:30] new quarantine, um, facet of life that's been thrown onto us. I think it's going to lead to more data ownership. And more questions wrapped around that. 

Matt: [00:36:38] Yeah. I couldn't agree with you [00:36:40] more. And I think you're right. The, the perception of, of free people are waking up to the reality that nothing is free, um, that is a cost to everything.

Um, and [00:36:50] that it's incumbent upon us to ask better questions about the things that are put in front of us because we're busy and we're susceptible to making [00:37:00] decisions that you wouldn't otherwise make. And unfortunately, you're right. There are examples of. Organizations that have taken advantage of the trust that consumers have put in them.

And, and, and that's [00:37:10] a shame cause it's the minority, but it puts a bad taste in everybody's mouth, around the majority of others. Um, and I, I get excited about that. Becoming more [00:37:20] of a, of a talking point. I also get really excited about the use of other technologies in creating an experience that more closely replicates what we'd be looking for as [00:37:30] consumers.

And I worry about. You know, obviously we are in a place now where I don't think we're anywhere close to gathering in large groups of people. I can't see [00:37:40] sporting events opening up anytime soon. Um, I can't see large concerts occurring. These events will occur, but there'll be broadcast to people's houses.

Um, pay per [00:37:50] view subscription services. We'll probably replace them. But the idea of fitting 25,000 people into the staple center is probably not a thing in LA for the next little while. And when I think about. What [00:38:00] people go to those events for when they go to those experiences? When I think about marketing, I think about creating experiences for people.

And if you apply a marketing lens into the HR [00:38:10] profession, you should be looking at your employee experience in the same way. And that agent interaction with the organization and the employee is a trigger point and an opportunity to disappoint them [00:38:20] or to delight them as you take the kind of the Disney analogy and.

When I think about the technology that we have at our disposal data is, is a great way of us being able to quantify and to [00:38:30] inform and to refine processes and to, to measure efficacy. And then I think about things like immersive technologies, like augmented reality and virtual reality that we can create new [00:38:40] realities, where we can coexist and do our best work and find situations where we can collaborate and democratize access to conversations and to assets.

And I wonder. The view of [00:38:50] marketing in the context of that, of, if we just, if we do move to this path of, you know, virtual reality and augmented reality, becoming a [00:39:00] predominant source of us consuming information, how does that change a marketer's perspective on the broader market itself? Does it, do, do you bring the same, [00:39:10] tried and tested tactics to a, to a different reality as you do to the one we're in now?

Guest: [00:39:14] That's a really good question when, uh, Let's take the VR piece because I'm already [00:39:20] fascinated by it. Um, so our brain is, if nothing else, a pattern seeking machine, it is always picking up patterns. [00:39:30] Uh, most of them subconscious, right. And it's always. Looking for data points. And when you put your brain, instead of [00:39:40] staring at a zoom screen with sometimes multiple pages of people on call, you're limiting the amount of data points your brain can [00:39:50] pick up about whatever's interacting at the moment you put that exact same call.

In a, in a virtual setting like VR, again, you'd have to look at [00:40:00] more of the variables in there. And we talked about this, that the brain's tendency to beat just always, uh, always be learning, always be picking up patterns in the [00:40:10] book when you that exact same brain inside, right. Of a VR headset while you're picking up a lot more.

Of the surrounding you [00:40:20] immediately give it more ways to connect with if people right now, for instance, is it going to be a virtual fake office and I'm not quite sure. Sure. That [00:40:30] picking up that data is, is, is going to tell me more about my coworker who owns virtually neuron. And that's what I mean, there's ways to add more authentic variables there.

[00:40:40] And, but, but I, but I think at the very foundational level, yes, virtual reality, at least in theory is going to give better or data [00:40:50] for, for the brain. And, uh, I'll give you, I'll give you one study before, before, before I volleyed the story. Got you, Matt. Um, so in the book lines, I would [00:41:00] just talk about how.

Um, your brain is prioritizes vision over their census and how that does screw with things with your sense of perception. And one of the [00:41:10] things, uh, that a group of researchers dead was staying gave some money red and white wine, and I had them test it and they gave them red wine and have them test it [00:41:20] just to get the notes.

The tasting notes. Um, the two red wines, one of them was the red and white wine. The red wine was simply the white wine, but with red food coloring, but then the [00:41:30] tasting notes were completely different, completely different. And, and they did the same study instead of an FMRI. So it wasn't just that they were true.

Correct. You're their brains have responded [00:41:40] differently to the white wine and the red wine, even if it was the exact same wine, just the food coloring. What does that have to do with what we're talking about? They replicated that piece of research. In [00:41:50] virtual reality, drinking fake glass of red and white wine.

It was crazy. Um, so it does goes to show, Oh, just how [00:42:00] far your brain will go to pick up patterns and, and. Plug into the established pattern that it knows about something and, uh, and, and the new data points. [00:42:10] And I think the opportunity is there. But my question for you is like I went through the transition of Slack where the office was divided.

Do we use Slack? You stick to email [00:42:20] and you have the human opposition on either side. Well, I think the adoption. It's going to be so rough. How do we adopt something like VR, even if they are able to make this [00:42:30] great neurally, accurate VR product? I think the adoption, the question is still a question we need to address.

As, as, as HR leaders, before we actually go all in on something like the [00:42:40] R. 

Matt: [00:42:40] How do you feel about that? Yeah, no, I completely agree. And still today, because yeah, because of the nature of the hardware, we still don't know have enough assets, right? Reasonable price point [00:42:50] to really democratize access to the resource we're getting there.

And three to five years from now, we'll be able to purchase VR headsets for a very reasonable price. Like the cheapest one I've [00:43:00] seen in the market. Now you can get a Google cardboard for both $30, but you require a smartphone to be paired with it. So like it's, it's coming down in price and no longer is that have to be in the thousands of dollars, but that's still a barrier for some [00:43:10] people.

I think your point's well taken in terms of, um, there is going to be a. A lot of inertia around adoption of any new technology, especially one that [00:43:20] acquires you to immerse yourself in that, um, you know, a phone is passive and that you can engage, but you also can pull away. Whereas in VR, you're applying a lot of trust with the technology.

[00:43:30] I think people are going to be a little bit leery around that. Um, I also think though that. The way you get adoption. I think adoption is, I don't see a [00:43:40] reality where it's not fully adopted at some point. So I think it's just a matter of when, not if, but I think how you accelerate the win is, is that you get the technology in the hands of the [00:43:50] people that are ultimately going to get it in the hands of other people.

And that's probably starts with. Professions like education, where we start teaching children in school. [00:44:00] How do you, how to learn through virtual reality and to have more immersive learning environments that are customized to them, unique needs. And then as they become high school student, then they expect that and the university [00:44:10] expect that.

And then employees expect that. Um, and then I think on the other end of things, that we work with organizations now that have the ability to deploy in very specific circumstances. [00:44:20] I'll give you an example, Prince I'm looking right now at deploying technology in the sales process with using virtual reality for our customer base, that probably hasn't used virtual reality, but [00:44:30] the idea of shipping them off a headset and engaging in a 45 minute demo just seems a lot better than a zoom call.

Um, especially when like yourself were selling services. So the [00:44:40] relationship is so much more important than, uh, and it's, it's so much more harder to quantify the value of, um, another application of it, right. Looking at is the ability to continue to host meetings and meet [00:44:50] ups. You know, I used that in allergy.

I've kind of coined it in the last 48 hours, so it's hot off the press, but I think we all would agree. Prince that face to face is better. I would rather be sitting to you across the [00:45:00] table right now, drinking a cup of coffee, having a coffee and Zune. And zoom sucks. Yeah. Like it's fine. Like I'm not, I'm not beating up on zoom.

It's the best [00:45:10] platform for that. And it's not the same as sitting in the same room with somebody until zoom consult for that part problem. They, their solution is a very good video conferencing solution. [00:45:20] Augmented reality, virtual reality is somewhere in between. It's still technology and it's not the same as being in the same room, but it's a heck of a lot more intimate and personal.

So I think about things like performance reviews [00:45:30] or counseling sessions or meetings with lawyers and doctors, where that intimacy is almost a requirement than having a zoom call in the background when people are run around the house [00:45:40] after you. So, um, I think it's going to be a slow road, but I do see a path to adoption.

Um, and I, again, hope that it's driven by [00:45:50] evidence-based. You know, principals and that we figure out how we actually create environments, where people can enjoy this and we are engaged and, you know, I'm, I'm interested Prince in an environment where people actually pull on [00:46:00] learning. We're not just pushing it at them where they actually want to learn and educate themselves.

And I just, I believe right now that we have such a deficit of knowledge, given the problems we have, that we have to do what we can to [00:46:10] accelerate that process. 

Guest: [00:46:11] Yeah. I'll say this about adoption, right? It necessity. Is a great supercharger of adoption. Uh what's what's [00:46:20] what are the stats that I read the other day of really blew my mind was.

Video conferencing with doctors. The highest adoption has been with patients over the age of 50. And the [00:46:30] slowest adoption has been the patients under the age of 30, but it's a world where you would typically think of the other way around. Um, but now, you know, people are doing physical therapy on [00:46:40] virtual, which is crazy, cause it is literally a trade of touch.

So I do think that this Oh, shit moment that we've caught ourselves in. Is going to [00:46:50] force adoption quicker than otherwise as even we knew. But I think to go back to your point, we simply need to know more. And I think that's really [00:47:00] the key here. I think, um, I think the biggest thing about this is we, we as business leaders, as HR leaders, as marketing leaders, we know our lane [00:47:10] really well, and we try to expand it as much as possible and continue to innovate, right?

Like if that's sort of your brand as a, as a business professional, then you're going to continue [00:47:20] pushing forward, pushing forward, pushing forward. And that's why it's really inspiring to hear you. Rattle off a couple of these activations that you're doing. But I think one thing we forget [00:47:30] is what does HR, what does marketing, what does leadership, what does philanthropy?

What do all of these things have in common it's humans? And we need to [00:47:40] understand the impact of marketing, the impact of HR, the impact of VR, then impact of insert blank here on humans. And. And [00:47:50] that's our biggest blind spot, right? Unless you are a sociologist or a psychologist. Yeah. We don't truly know the impact of whatever you're [00:48:00] doing in business on human psychology.

And I think that's why. I that's why I wrote this book. I wrote this book with Matt Johnson, who is a [00:48:10] neuroscientist, and we did not write this book for marketing per se or from business people, per se. We wrote this book for anyone who wants to understand the psychological foundation of [00:48:20] themselves. Of their coworkers of their customers, of whatever.

So that way they can at least have a higher end understanding of why things are the way they are in their heads and that's [00:48:30] how their heads. So I think we have to have that as marketers and HR people, we have to know what's happening inside the minds of our customers, our employees, and ourselves. And that's why.

[00:48:40] We wrote the book blind side and, and, and, and what a disruptive time to, to truly commit to learning about psychology. But Hey, I think, I think it's a good time. [00:48:50] It's a good opportunity to learn about psychology when things are changing, our mindsets are going to change. 

Matt: [00:48:55] Innovation is born of necessity.

And as I say on this show with far too often constraints, drive [00:49:00] innovations, buckle up. 

Guest: [00:49:01] That's right, 

Matt: [00:49:02] Prince. I'm going to list the details of the book. I'm halfway through it. It's fantastic for those who haven't had chance to read it yet. I like you. I [00:49:10] love the interplay between inside voice, outside voice, consumer employee.

There's so much richness in it and I can't wait to dig more into it. I'll link the details for the book folks in the podcast, show notes, you have [00:49:20] access to it and to Prince as well. Cause I'm certainly sure he would be happy to receive your nudges on LinkedIn. All those various platforms. Um, Prince, thank you so much for your time today.

I know you're super busy with what you got [00:49:30] going on in your business. I want to thank you for taking some time to share with us and just want to wish you well. 

Guest: [00:49:34] Hey, thank you so much, Matt. Uh, it's been, it's been a really fun conversation. Definitely keep in [00:49:40] touch with all the crazy cool. Futuristic stuff you're doing.

I'm very curious how it pans out for you. 

Matt: [00:49:44] You have my promise that we will. All right. 

Guest: [00:49:46] Thank you, Matt.

[00:49:50] Matt: [00:49:54] At Vento HR, we enable your HR strategy with custom HR technology, procurement [00:50:00] implementations, and integrations to liberate your team from administration, enhance their productivity and experience to position them at the center of your organization's [00:50:10] transformation. Where they belong with experience as an HR executive myself, I have a real appreciation of the challenges facing today's HR leaders.

The world is [00:50:20] changing. Your industry is being disrupted. Your organization is transforming and all the while you're trying to do more with less you're being asked to [00:50:30] simultaneously model fiscal restraint, while the expectations of your departments are only increasing. At bento HR, we can support you at every stage of your [00:50:40] transformation from architecting, the strategy to developing and selling the business case.

Internally we support procurement implementations and [00:50:50] ongoing sustainment, and we tie it all together with a deep knowledge of the HR profession. And over six decades of combined experiences from our founding [00:51:00] team who has worked in or supported large HR organizations across multiple industries, including, but not limited to financial [00:51:10] services, technology, retail, transportation, and healthcare, check out bento HR today to build your very own bento box, which doubles as your [00:51:20] business case for transformation.

Leveraging recent research into the upside of digital automation inside organizations. And with your help in answering a few simple [00:51:30] questions related to your organization are bento. Builder will provide a directional business case for change. So log onto www dot bento, hr.com [00:51:40] and build your bento box today.