Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter
R. Dutt
Berrett-Koehler Publishers (September 2021)

How to dedvelop the mindset needed to design vision-driven products and services

I agree with Radhika Dutt that “product” is a way of thinking, not a job title or function. “Whether you work in a nonprofit, a government organization, a service provider, research, a high-tech startup, or freelancing, you have a product. Our traditional view of a product as a physical or virtual object is outdated.” That is, if the objective of marketing is to create or increase demand for what you offer, product is what you deliver. It could be a dining experience, a series of rides at an amusement park, or a haircut.

According to Dutt, “Radical Product Thinking (RPT) means finding the global [i.e. market share] maximum by thinking about the change you want to see in the world. Your product then is an improvable system to bring about that change. In RPT your product is led by the vision for the change it’s intended to create. A radical product is vision-driven and has a clear reason for being, which drives strategy, prioritization, anx execution. RPT offers organizations [and individuals] a clear guide to developing this mindset so each of us can build vision-driven products.” Those who read this book would be well-advised to view visionary thinking in context of this observation by Thomas Edison: “Vision without execution is hallucination.”

As I worked my way through the narrative, I was again reminded of the work of Norman Borlaug, an American agronomist who led initiatives worldwide that contributed to the extensive increases in agricultural production termed the “Green Revolution.” Borlaug was awarded multiple honors for his work, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal. He is credited with saving more than a billion people worldwide from starvation. He had a compelling vision and was driven by a total commitment to making it a reality.

These are among the passages of greatest interest and value to me, also offered to suggest the scope of her coverage:

o Lean methodology (Pages 27-28 & 101-103)
o Radical vision statement for desired change (52-56)
o Radical vision statements (52-57 & 90-91)
o Vision questions: HOW, WHAT, WHEN, WHO & WHY (52-77)
o How to craft your own RDCL strategy (65-76)

o Prioritization and decision-making in organizations (78-94)
o Execution and measurement by organizations (95-111)
o Hypothesis-driven execution and measurement (97-101)
o Goal setting: Objectives and key results (103-107)
o RPT approach to measurement instead of goal-setting (107-110)

o Motivation (112-113 & 158-162)
o RPT framework for culture (114-122)
o Biased behaviors/inequality (138-139, 161-162, & 177-179)
o AI algorithms (141-142)
o Ethics of creating digital solution products (149-166)

o Prisoner’s dilemma (154-157)
o Nash Equilibrium (157-162)
o Revi Menon (157-162 & 169-173)
o Hippocratic Oath of product ethical issues (162-166)
o Radical Product Thinkers translating vision into action (169-179)

Throughout her lively and eloquent narrative, Radhika Dutt provides an abundance of valuable information that will help her reader to understand HOW vision-driven products can create transformative change and helps to recognize the need for Radical Product Thinking in the given organization;  she also identifies and explains the responsibility that comes with the “superpower” of building vision-driven products. Her book is a brilliant achievement.

My brief commentary concludes with these comments by Kenya’s Wangari Maathai when she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her life’s work: “In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.”

Yes, it is.