When mattress designer Joel Hügli set out to make mattresses more sustainable, he started by talking to manufacturers, experts, and users. Nothing new or fancy here. But here's one thing that made those conversations different. He asked in a naive way:

How do you do that? What makes this better? Why is it done like this?

He didn't just ask it; he asked with a tone and body language that really showed he didn't know and was curiosity. He showed he was more like a kid who really wants to learn and not like a consultant who asks why in order to find a problem (1).

This naive approach got people to open up about the deep reasons behind decisions, rules, and processes. By acting like he didn't know better, Joel got the full story and saw the root causes clearly.

Action question

What processes in your service or organization make it harder to create sustainable services or great human experiences? Who can you approach and ask true naive questions?

Footnotes

(1) A "why" question without that deep sense of naiviety can backfire as it often puts people in a defense mode. That's something I wrote about in 2019 in a principle called "Recognize that I bring something to the table" which is part of my second book in the Service Design Principles series.

Chris Voss, an ex negotiator for the FBI and the author of the book Never Split the Difference, explains in his book that "why" questions can make people defensive and he recommends instead of using questions that start with "how, what, when," etc. Those question can uncover the why in

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.

• Written with AI help: This principle draft is based on an audio note I took while walking that was transcribed and cleaned using Audiopen.