How To Learn From Anyone

"'Go out into the streets of Paris,' he was told by an older writer, 'and pick out a cab driver. He will look to you very much like every other cab driver. But study him until you can describe him so that he is seen in your description to be an individual, different from every other cab driver in the world.'"

From my favorite short handbook on creativity, "A Technique for Producing Ideas."

I've noticed an unhelpful humility often accompanies good design work, especially when accomplished beginners. Countless times, when students come back with particularly rich material from the field, they seem even more surprised than the rest of the class: "I guess we just found a good one..."

The phenomenon is even more pronounced when beginners watch experienced designers at work in the context of a workshop. They watch an "empathy interview" unfold and, delighted by the richness of the insights, start to wonder whether the demo interview subject was a "plant," and doubt whether they can possibly hope for such luck themselves.

The reality is, it's not magic: it's craft. And the craft can be learned. When students come back with great material, it's not useful (to them, or to the class) to assume they got lucky; but it's incredibly valuable to unpack what they did (specific, repeatable behaviors they engaged) to discover such interesting material.

After a particularly fascinating demonstration expertly given by one of my colleagues, I often say to the onlooking students, "You're probably thinking, 'Well they got a good customer to talk to!' No; they did a great job interviewing their customer. And you can do the same thing. In fact, your goal is to discover why you're the luckiest team in the room, why your customer is the most interesting customer you could have been randomly assigned. Take it as a personal challenge to discover what makes your conversation partner the most fascinating person in the room."

There's an angel in that marble, you've just got to patiently carve a conversation that reveals its contours.

One helpful hack to build this skill is to be interested in everyday conversation partners. At the dinner party, at the work function - to actually practice curiosity and interest. Everyone is a world-expert in something - meaning, they know more about some obscure topic, subject, or skill more than 95% of people. Make a game with yourself to discover what that is, and then allow them to carry the conversation in an unexpected direction, according to their passion.

Paul Graham said something in a recent post ("Think for Yourself") that I loved:

"When I meet someone who knows a lot about something unusual (which includes practically everyone, if you dig deep enough), I try to learn what they know that other people don't. There are almost always surprises here. It's a good way to make conversation when you meet strangers, but I don't do it to make conversation. I really want to know."

Genuine interest is always the best cover, and because you can learn from anyone, you can be genuinely interested in anyone you end up meeting. You never know when a seemingly irrelevant piece of information will come in handy.

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