Curiosity and Asking Why Essential - April Steele and Linda Kreter
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Welcome to Wise Health for Women Radio with Linda Prater. Women are pressed daily to give more, learn more, and be more, often at the expense of mind, body, or spirit. Each week with intriguing guests and topics, we'll bring you fresh ways to view your limited time, encouraging a shift to new, healthier perspectives. Wise Health for Women Radio, helping women thrive. And now here's your host, Linda Prater.

Good morning and welcome to Wise Health for Women Radio. I'm Linda Crater and we strive really hard to bring you guests who have different viewpoints and unique ways of looking at life. And goodness knows that we are all fed so much data but so little information.

And I'm bringing to you today a wonderful person from a company that we have interviewed people before from called Epic Pivot.

If you want to follow along and see what they do. They're a transformational leadership company that takes a look at their audiences and tries to figure out, doesn't try, they accomplish. They accomplish the amazing feat of figuring out what people really are seeking and needing and wanting to know about whatever topic or business that they are in. So it's culture transformation. And

And I'm afraid the word transformation has been so used over the last decade. And it's come to mean good things, not so great things, or we want to change you. That's not the case. Transformation is simply taking what you have and taking the best of it and fitting it to whatever circumstances you're looking at. So I want to introduce you to this amazing guest. Her name is April Steele.

She's the Director of Insights and Innovation for Epic Pivot, and she's just an amazing person. And we will just have this far-reaching conversation today, and I hope you will really enjoy it and learn some things. So, April, welcome to our program. Thank you for having me. You know, it was just an absolute delight when I saw your name and email address.

Because I think that we're all looking for some, we'll call it the truth. And one of the statements that came with your bio was that you lead a research team to identify the, and I'm putting this in air quotes, the unbiased truth. And I would say, how in heaven's name do you take steps toward doing that?

Because I think the whole world has become a place where we're kind of unsure about what is truth. Not my truth, your truth, but the truth. So can you speak to that? Because I think that that is a misconception that people have. It used to be that, well, my solution is easy. We all just need Pinocchio noses. But that's not going to happen. That's right. Yeah, it is.

It's funny because you said your truth and my truth, and I think my position on that would be that that is all that matters is our own sort of subjective truths. And it's very, very difficult to...

to identify what is sort of the universal or meta truth, right? And I think that we strive to get as close to that as we can, but there will always be subjectivity and there will always be the perspective of different people and how we are looking at that one truth. So, you know, as much as we like to say we get to the unbiased truth, I think it would be more accurate to say that we strive to get as close to the unbiased truth as possible.

That sounds very fair because I think when we're talking about truth, it depends on what we're discussing. Because perspectives, we all come to our life through experiences and our lenses that we look at things through. So of course there's going to be variations in what people believe. And it's interesting though that when we look at true data, just numbers, charts, all of those sorts of things...

They also can be interpreted. That's right. Yes. And there's a lot of, I think in business today and in a lot of industries, there's sort of a bias towards big data, quantitative data, charts.

statistical significance, these things that we feel like or might give us comfort in thinking that they're representing something true about the world. But the fact is those studies and the way that data was collected was

was set up by a human with their own and their own takes on the world. And so, um, there really is no such thing as, as, um, as true data, right? Because all of that data, one, it's being filtered through the researcher and then it is being interpreted by, uh,

that same researcher or another researcher. And so the way that we're interpreting that data, what it tells us or what we think it tells us is all shaped by, like you said, our lenses and our experiences. And so, you know, you can interpret data a lot of different ways. And I would say that I am much more interested in the why behind the data and figuring out the context of people's experiences and,

You know, for instance, if it's survey data, why did people answer the way they answered and what are we missing? What options might not have even been given on that survey that people would have answered that question with? And so, yeah, it's very it's comforting to have data, but it is still very subjective.

You know, it's interesting you say what's missing from the survey. How many times have you been given choices in a multiple choice, you know, click the most accurate one or something like that, and you think, well, my choice isn't up there. That's right. And if you click other, not everybody gives you a box to put freeform text in because not everybody has the ability to go back and look at freeform text, which is, of course, why they're making it multiple choice.

But it is interesting that there's a lot of middle ground, in my experience, missing. You get the polar opposites. You get maybe the step inward a little bit on either one of those. But in the middle, it's like between black and white. There's a lot of gray. How do you account for that?

Um, in, in research design or in my interpretation of, of surveys? I would say the interpretation of surveys because study design is, is a complete another animal. I, my background is in clinical research. And so I know that unless you set the study design up to test what it is you're looking for, anything unknown is going to be an outlier. Right. So I would say that in the, in the filtering and the interpretation. Yeah.

I would say I always advocate for learning as much as possible before the survey even gets designed. And that way you are ensuring that you are asking the right questions and using the right scales and things like that. But even, you know, even for instance, on a scale question, like, you know, your feelings on a one to 10 scale, my 10 is going to look a lot different than your 10. And so, you know, I, I,

We use surveys and quantitative data in some of our work, but I always advocate talking to people in addition to those surveys to contextualize the data and to understand sort of the range of experiences that make up that data set. And so once you kind of can walk in somebody else's shoes, you're a little bit more

closer to knowing why they may or may not have answered a survey question a certain way and what it means to them and things like that. But it is very hard to interpret. And a lot of times clients will come to us asking for a survey and we present the results and they say, well, what does this mean? And we have to say, we don't know what it means. We'll have to talk to people to find out what it means.

If you see, for instance, I'm just pulling off the top of my head, but let's say you have a product out there and you find that women in their mid-30s are more likely to buy that product. That's great to know. I guess now you know who your audience is, but it doesn't tell you anything about why that is. Why are women drawn to this product more than men? Why are

mid-30s women drawn to this product more than mid-20s women, you know, it doesn't give you that context. And so I'm always looking for the context in between the numbers. Well, and your background does that, you know, you are a degreed anthropologist and ethnographer. And so your training and education leads you there, but it also sounds like your personal curiosity keeps you there.

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That's right. Yes, I say that curiosity is my biggest asset, both as a researcher and just as a person. Being curious about the world and wanting to learn about the people around you and asking great questions is so important. And I think, you know, when I'm talking about anthropology or the importance of listening,

in business, I always say to go into it with, you know, a toddler's mindset, almost assume that you know nothing, and let the person you're speaking with be the expert and let them explain their world to you. Because, you know, if if you go in with your biases, or with specific questions that you think are important, you're going to miss out on all the other things that

they want to talk about or that they think are important. And so it's almost like just

Like a toddler asking, well, why? Why is that? Why is that? That's what I always advocate for. But I agree with that because I think curiosity tends to be tamped down as we get older and you start to be put in boxes. Though you might resist it, you start to get there as you become more experienced, more older, more mature. And we also...

We start to get bogged down in the details of the work and what you're trying to accomplish and attaching ourselves to the outcome. When you're looking for information, you're really not setting up a hypothesis and searching for the outcome. You're looking for information that will give you insights.

And that's a very different thing. And I think sometimes we forget to do that. So my favorite question is why? So why did you get into human centered design? And what is it?

Oh, that's a great question. I'm trying to think back. How far back do I want to start? When I was a toddler. No. When I was a toddler. No, I've always been broadly curious about the world. I've always been sort of the one to question things and say, why is it like this? You know, like growing up in the church, I would always ask like really tough questions of my youth pastor. And I think I caused a lot of frustration with

with, uh, with people. Uh, but I've always just been, you know, I want to get to the root of things and I also moved around a lot and that gave me kind of this interesting, um, position as an outsider. I felt like an outsider a lot of the times. And so I was kind of observing people, um, rather than always participating and, um,

When I started, my journey through school is very long and complicated, but I dropped out of college for a while and decided to go back eventually, and I majored in sociology. And I majored in it because I was interested in social theory and power dynamics and things like that. And I ended up taking a dual-level class in –

The class was a class from the anthropology department, but it was called neighborhood development and social entrepreneurship, which is a mouthful. But it was essentially about the ways that social movements have changed communities and changed neighborhoods. And I was just so fascinated because this class was really focused on the ways that

researchers and anthropologists have used their skills to affect social change. And in the sociology department, it was all about numbers and statistics and theory. And in the anthropology department, it was much more about talking to people and action and getting into the work, you know. And so I was just really drawn to that and drawn to this idea that, you know, being able to make sense of

a lot of different people's perspectives and being able to kind of translate the ways that different people think about the world, um, is really a valuable tool, not only in the work force, but just in life, you know, being able to understand, um, somebody else's perspective and, um, step outside of those boxes, like you said, and step outside of those, um,

those limitations that we think exist and really see things from somebody else's point of view. And I think not only, um, you know, was I very lucky to have stumbled into a career and something that I love, but also it has really shaped the way that I look at the world. Um, and you asked about human centered design. Um,

Human-centered design sort of came out of, it was sort of a response to sort of the mass production of industrialization. And a lot of products were being manufactured and then ended up in landfills. And, you know, it became sort of, people started thinking, well, what if we made products that actually met people's real true needs? And so human-centered design is sort of a

It can be used for innovation and often it's used sort of interchangeably with the term innovation, but it's really about

taking a step back and like you said not focusing so much on the thing itself so what you know if you're producing widgets the question is always how do we make this widget better and how do we add more features to this widget and what you know how do we uh get this widget in more stores and it's like no no no no let's take a step back and understand people's lives and then when you understand their needs and the ways in which they're having to sort of

navigate their world, you identify all of these unmet needs and all of these, um, you know, contextual ideas that give you, um,

more inspiration. So you start thinking outside the widget and start thinking about the broader context of what could we create that really solves a need and isn't just so focused on the features and aspects of this one thing. So it's a really great discipline. And again, you can use it not just for

you know, products, but for services, for marketing, for... You can use it for parenting. Exactly, right, exactly. It's applicable to anything. Right. You know, I think one of the things that I have felt strongly about over the years is that often the things that are stopping us from innovation or putting ourselves in other people's shoes is that we need to unlearn as much as we need to learn. That's right.

Yes. Do you agree with that? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think we all, again, our lenses and perceptions of the world are shaped by our experiences throughout our lives. And so it's impossible to take those lenses off completely, but even just recognizing that you have lenses and that you're seeing the world a certain way, not because that's the way the world is, but because that's

your own bias and the things that you've experienced shaping your perspective. I think even just recognizing that you have those lenses and trying to kind of leave those

aside when you're speaking to people is really important. And again, we're never going to be able to rid ourselves of bias entirely, but just recognizing that it's there and being able to kind of check yourself. And a lot of times we, as researchers, we use a term called triangulation and it's a kind of an academic term, but it really just means having several different people look at the data because a

everybody's going to interpret it differently. And when you, the more people you have looking at it and interpreting it, the closer you can get to sort of that shared understanding of what does this mean

And it's really important that those people have diverse perspectives. And I'm always advocating for diversity, not just as a sort of checkmark and a step towards equity, but actually it improves the work because those different perspectives are going to add so much more color and context to the work. I agree with you. Do you feel that since the pandemic,

People are more open, less open, more trusting, less trusting. I have my own opinion on that. But I'm just curious because for me, the pandemic seemed to change things. Yes, we each had an experience through the pandemic, but it wasn't the same for everyone. I mean, some people held a pool noodle up while somebody else was on a yacht.

Right. So it was varied. So I wonder, the companies that you're working with, no specifics, of course, but is there a trust in answering these questions? Because I know people have become less trusting overall from what I have observed. That's pretty accurate. Yes. I think, I mean...

it's endless the ways that the pandemic changed things. And I think we still, we're not going to know even, you know, it's going to take a long time for us to even understand all the ways that things have changed. But, but yes, I do see, I think that,

It had different, like you said, it had much different effects on different people. I think for some it opened us up and for others it further kind of drove us into boxes. And so I'll speak to kind of both sides of that.

The one thing I do think that there is a lot more fear in the world and a lot less risk taking. And I think that that has really translated in the companies that we're working with and in the scope of what they're willing to kind of let go of and explore. So I definitely think that there's, you know, sort of a risk.

an aversion to risk that has come out of it. Um, but I also think it, it really opened us up to what's important and I think it got us thinking a lot more about the ways that we spend our time and how, uh, what's important to us. What, what are we willing to sacrifice for our careers and what are we not willing to sacrifice? And, um,

I think it has made companies a little bit more open to things like hybrid work environments and more work-life balance and just understanding that we're human and that we have human needs. And that, you know, sometimes our babies are going to be crying in the background of our Zoom calls. And sometimes we need to take off work and it's not the end of the world. And just being a little bit more human centered, I guess, about the ways that we are working.

I really do agree with that because I know people who completely switched careers post-pandemic or, you know, went back to school or chose to have another child. Life-changing things that they had not considered before because one of the things I learned a long time ago, and I'm older than you are, is that sometimes you have to slow down to move forward. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

And being still and thinking inwardly and becoming very self-aware is a real advantage to knowing where you want to go next. And I imagine the same is true with your companies. They come to you with a challenge and they would like answers so that they can go forward. But as you mentioned, there's...

a much higher degree of uncertainty now and more of an emphasis on, well, we need the answers so we can succeed and stay in business. So there's a pressure. And to alleviate that pressure, I'm sure, is a balancing act as you're working with anyone, a person, a company, a group or a team member.

That's right. Yes. And I think that's been sort of our charge post-pandemic and post-rebrand. So we rebranded as Epic Pivot around this idea of

purposeful transformation. And I think it's just about challenging companies and saying, yes, the world is scary. And yes, there's a lot of uncertainty, but you have to embrace change and you have to, to, um, evolve with society and with the world if you want to succeed. And the way that you do that is by embracing, um, risk and taking, taking risks and being willing to, um,

question the ways that you've always done things and question your reason for existing in the first place and really

you know, leaning into, um, your customers and your employees as a guide for where you should go next. Um, because, you know, it is, it is scary and that's okay, but, uh, we're not going to stay in business doing the things that we've always done. And, um, you know, the best companies I think are those that are able to make those big pivots towards, um, a higher sense of purpose and a more, um,

bold, courageous sort of leadership and ways of doing things. I agree with you. And I think different generations, different ethnicities, anything that makes you who you are,

The deadliest words to me always were, well, we've always done it this way. And I work a lot with the Department of Veteran Affairs. And if you think you can change that ship direction quickly, you cannot. So you said, you know, big changes. I would, you know, add into it that even small changes made incrementally over time give progress.

And give hope to people and give them an understanding that, all right, you're not going to shake up my entire world and turn me into a snow globe with all the snow all around me. But you're just going to tilt it a little bit on a gimbal.

for a while, and you get used to that. So I think that people do adapt to change, but some people are more risk-averse than others just naturally, and then some have been deeply affected by the events of the last couple of years. And I don't believe that change is ever going to stop. The only thing that is true in life is that there will be more change. That's right, yeah, and I think that that goes to the sort of culture change aspect, and I think a lot of companies, sometimes you do get those

really forward thinking leaders that maybe are 10 years ahead of their workforce. And they, you know, enact these sweeping changes that then you, you see people leaving in droves. And I think that we always advocate for transformation from within and ensuring that all of your employees from the ones on the front lines, all the way up to executive leadership are bought into the process, that their voices are heard in the process and that it is,

a full cultural shift towards a different way of doing things so that it's not just one big sweeping scary change coming from the top down, but it's actually a mindset shift and everybody's on board and feels good about it because they had a say in it, right? Yeah.

Well, when you involve stakeholders and you build from – you may have the message coming from the top, but if you build it from the bottom and the top, I always go back to Montessori. It's the same Montessori method. You make small changes. You have a desired goal.

direction. I don't want to say outcome, because I think outcomes can sometimes surprise us in being better than what we thought. So desired progress is always a good thing. And I do believe that stakeholders need to be involved in culture change or you will meet resistance that you can't surmount. That's right. And to that same point, the stakeholders at sort of the

I want to say like on the front lines, or if you're looking at an org chart, the ones that are sort of at the bottom of the hierarchy, right? Those people are the ones that have the most, probably the clearest understanding of your business model, of your customer's needs, of your day-to-day operations. I mean, I think that executives that leave out

Those frontline employees and the workers on the ground interacting with customers and clients and stakeholders every day, they really have sort of their finger on the pulse of things. And to leave out that perspective would be to shoot yourself in the foot because, yeah, there's just so much to be learned there.

It's funny. Not everyone wants to be in leadership. And as you say, those stakeholders, if you're looking at an org chart only, looking at the bottom half, which are the worker bees, the ones who get it done, the ones with which you could not accomplish anything that you've set out for a goal, they are

when I ran a larger company and it was vital to have their buy-in because a culture change is much harder than building a company with a culture that people coming on board understand and go with. And so a true culture change, especially after the last four years,

is quite daunting to accomplish, can be done, especially with your company's help and your out point, outlook rather. It's just very interesting to watch. Buy-in is so much better when you don't have the hierarchy getting in the way of where you're trying to go. That's, yeah, absolutely agree.

It's fascinating to me. So as you, as using your education, your experience and your life experiences, when you, what is the most important thing you bring to your work, you personally? That's a great question. I think me personally, my sort of proudest or most treasured

thing about myself is that I am unwilling to bend the truth or to let the research be used for

in service of some agenda. And so I guess it's sort of, I see myself as a truth teller and whether the client wants to hear what the research is telling us or not. I feel like it's my ethical obligation and it's the reason people hire us is to be truth tellers and to really get to the heart of meaning and truth, whatever that may be.

And, um, I think that, uh, you know, a lot of times we get hired because some executive or, or leader has an agenda and they want to prove something out. And, um,

that's not going to happen. Maybe it does get proven out, but it'll, it'll be the data that informs, um, my interpretation and my recommendations. And so I think that that's the thing that I, that I value most about myself is, um, that I want to be honest and true to, um, the people who participate in my research and true to the business. And of course, I'm never going to sort of, um,

you know, blow every anything up. But I always want to let people know that just I'll give you an example. We had a client recently that uses NPS. Are you familiar with the NPS rating scale?

Uh, no, I'm not. Okay. So NPS is called net promoter score. And if you've ever bought a product or service and been asked, uh, how likely are you to recommend this to your friends and family? Got it. That is the net promoter score, right? It has become the industry standard. Um, and it's used in a lot of industries to kind of measure, um, uh,

satisfaction and likelihood to continue purchasing your product or service. So they had had this insanely high NPS score for years and years on end. And we came in and we did some research and then we did the survey. They were very focused on the survey. And what resulted was an NPS score that was lower than what they were used to. And you would have thought that the world was ending. I mean, they were...

They were beside themselves to see that their score had gone down. Um,

And we could talk about why that may have been or, you know, but the fact remained that we hadn't measured NPS for them in the past. All we had was this one survey and our understanding of that data. And so I kept telling the client, better data is better data, even if it's not telling you what you want to hear. So we stood behind sort of our methodology and the ways that we went about the research design. And we felt like,

this is a truer interpretation of what you are trying to measure and whether it, even if that went down, it's still telling you something and you have more data to make sense of that NPS score now than you did before. And so I don't know if that's a good example, but it's like, sometimes we get so attached to the outcome. Exactly, exactly the outcome. And it's like, well, yeah,

If you truly want to be customer-centric and make your customers like you and want to come back, this is telling you something. If it went down because they're less satisfied, let's find out why because that's the only way to improve. What I was going to say before you gave that example is that what you're telling, what I'm hearing from you, to be cliched, is that...

integrity and values are inherent in your character. I know they are in the other two that I spoke with from Epic Pivot. And so the thing about integrity and character means you attract who you are.

And so I think that that's actually a very good thing. And I bet that client learned a great deal about what was going on because when you're measuring against, you had no baseline. That's right. You had only what you had started with. So now you have something that you can talk about and then dig deeper into finding out the whys behind it. So, I mean, I love that. And I think that...

Values and integrity, if you're honest to your core, then it will show and you will be authentic. And there's never anything wrong with that because there's a lot of people that are...

like the wind. I'm not talking about adapting. Adapting we all have to do. But being true to who you are and what you stand for is vitally important. I want to make sure people know where to find out more information. So you would go to Epic, E-P-I-C, pivot, P-I-V-O-T dot com. And it's just an amazing company. And you'll see two of our other former guests on the website today.

And it's just always a delight because when you talk, as did your colleagues, there is an energy that comes into play. So I want to thank you for the wisdom that you're sharing, plus the personality and the personal candor.

Thank you, Linda. This has been really fun. And I'm always so happy to share our work and talk about what I do. I think it's so important. And I'm obviously very passionate about it. So I could talk your ear off if you wanted me to.

Well, we can set up another time for you to do that if you would like that. But I want to thank you for bringing up the question of always asking why. Yes. Why, why? Because as kids, you know how they are. It's always why. And that curiosity not only gives you answers, but it keeps you young at heart. And I really find that the people I enjoy being around the most, they can be 100 years old. But if they're still inquisitive kids,

and looking for new ways to think of things or new things to explore, they're young at heart. Would you agree with that? Oh, 100%. Yes. And I hope I never lose my sense of curiosity and wonder about the world.

I doubt that you will. So thank you for sharing time with us today. To our audience, go to epicpivot.com and learn more. And April, thank you so much for your time this morning. I love talking to you. And I had never spoken with an anthropologist on the show before. So thank you. You're my first. I'm honored to be here first. Make it a great week. You too. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you for tuning in today. You can find more shows at wisehealthforwomenradio.com.