Smart Growth – the Hipster

Pascal Dennis, co-author of Harnessing Digital Disruption

Radical collaboration entails engaging & aligning three very different personalities – the Hipster, Hustlers and Hacker. Laurent Simon

Each of these characters correspond to a fundamental question or test each innovation must pass. If our idea fails to pass the test – Stop! And decide, do we persevere, pivot, or kill the idea? Here are the three questions & corresponding personality:

1. Does it wow? Hipster
2. Can we make money? Hustler
3. Does it work? Hacker

The sequence of questions reflects hard-won wisdom:

• If the idea doesn’t wow the customer, why bother?
• If you can’t make money, why build it?
• The ‘better mousetrap’ metaphor is flat out wrong! In fact, nobody cares about our mousetrap.

Hipsters typically have an artistic temperament. They’re able to imagine the entire customer journey from ‘I think I need something…’ to ‘Wow, I really loved that experience. I’m going to tell all my friends about it’.

Think Steve Jobs, Jon Ive (Jobs’s Chief Designer), or Remi Babinet (the architect of Evian’s famous ‘dancing baby’ campaign). The best Hipsters dig deeply into a product, seeking to discover the simplicity at its core. They believe ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.’

Steve Jobs famously insisted that Apple’s ecosystem be closed so that ‘we can control the entire customer experience’. By contrast, Bill Gates (a consummate Hacker) prefers open systems to ensure access to the best technologies. Gates complained that Jobs ‘did not really understand technology’. And Jobs complained that ‘Microsoft’s customer experience was lousy’. So, it goes…

How many organizations understand & fully engage the Hipster? Here are some common Hipster laments: ‘People around here don’t understand what I can do…They think my job is to design the website.’ To be sure, some Hackers & Hustlers are allergic to Hipsters, which can lead to comic, though unhelpful episodes.

My favorite Hipster is Leonardo DaVinci, who like Jobs sought to get to the simplicity at the heart of things. I recently visited the Leonardo DaVinci Museum in Rome, which has two main sections: Paintings and Inventions – (‘Hipster’ & ‘Hacker’, no?). A measure of genius is surely the ability to fluidly work in very different spaces: in Leonardo’s case, Art & Engineering. (In Jobs’ case Design & Business; in Gates’ case, Technology & Business.)

The Hipster is the least understood & most vulnerable of the 3Hs. Jon Ive was unique in that he had Steve Jobs full support & protection. Too often the Hipsters hard-won insights are abandoned in the mad rush to ‘ship the product’! Protect & support your Hipsters; make a place for them in your company culture and at the decision-making table. We ignore their empathic understanding at our peril. Next time, I’ll tell you all a funny story about what can happen if you don’t.


Best regards,

Pascal Dennis

E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

PS For more on Hipsters and 3H teams, check out our book.




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look….

Innovation Fundamentals - Radical Collaboration & the 3H Model
My Hockey Stick Curve, part 1
OpEx/Lean, Innovation and Wakefulness
The Difference Between Protecting Your Core Business & Igniting New Growth