Mind Reading Magic

As I mentioned earlier, design thinking concept comprises of a 5 steps process, starting with empathy. Empathy is taken care while doing empathy interview process. During this process the DT panel members go and do an in-depth interview of the customer and their stakeholders. At this point of time, there shall not be any prejudices, pre-conceived notions and biases. But in reality human beings have all these in their mind and it is slightly difficult to overcome them unless some conscious efforts are taken. Let me do a small exercise to demonstrate that how we all have some sub-conscious thoughts.

• Think of a number from 1–10
• Multiply that number by 9
• Add up the digits of the answer (Ex 26 = 2+6=8)
• Subtract 5 from the number (Ex 8–5 = 3)
• Find the letter that corresponds to the number (Ex: 3 — C)
• Think of a country whose name starts with that letter and write it down (Ex: C — China)
• Once again go through the following slide and ensure that you listened to my instructions carefully.

• Take the 2nd letter in the country’s name, and think of an animal whose name starts with that letter and write it down (Ex: H — Hippopotamus)

How many of you would have thought anything other than Denmark and Elephant?

You could have thought of any other country or an animal? How am I able to predict what you thought of? That is the power of our sub-conscious mind and the power of mind-reading.

Next time, when you interact with your customers, go with an open mind. No more biases, no pre-conceived notions and prejudices. Hope you liked this exercised. See you with some other interesting stuff in the next post.