From Battlefield to Boardroom: How Empathy Shapes Innovation in WW1 Masks and SaaS
One of the things that made WW1 so devastating was the new way that tens of thousands of soldiers were wounded.
It wasn’t just the “usual” injuries that 21 million soldiers suffered WW1.The large-caliber guns, trench warfare, and close-quarter shooting caused the soldiers to suffer severe scarring and deformities. Some were missing entire sections of their faces.
The damage was not only physical, but also psychological. They didn’t recognize themselves. And then they had to return home, and suffer social isolation and the shameful experience of scaring the very people who they defended with their lives.
It was trauma to body, mind, and soul.
But it also inspired compassion and ingenuity to come together to change these soldiers’ lives for the better, giving them a chance to face the world with more confidence. It started with one person – a sculptor, who was volunteering in a hospital for the Royal Army Medical Corps. Francis Derwent Wood saw and heard first-hand how these facial injuries impacted the soldiers’ lives.
He knew there was something he should do to help restore the soldiers’ dignity and chance their lives for the better. And he got an idea.
A Genius Idea
He founded the Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department at the Third London General Hospital, later known by Tommies as the “Tin Noses Shop.”
At first he made masks out of galvanized copper, and then would tailor them individually using pre-war photographs of the soldiers. The result? Life-life masks, painted to match the skin tone, and usually complete with glasses to help secure it in place.
Over time, and together with other sculptors including Sir Harold Gilles and Kathleen Scott, Anna Coleman Watts and physician Maynard Ladd and others, they developed all kinds of masks and prosthetics that were specifically designed to help restore these soldiers’ faces.
They constantly innovated materials and tools, to make the masks and prosthetics as cutting-edge and closely matched as possible to each soldier’s pre-war face.
And together they spread these innovations abroad, helping to restore soldiers in other allied countries.
These masks and prosthetics were more than just medical intervention. They were the direct result of a deeply empathetic act.
This true story brings us to an important truth. We as people are at our best when we use empathy to innovate.
Empathetic innovation
If we want to operate at the top of your potential, empathetic innovation is the secret hack to get us there.
The reason why traditional approaches to innovation don’t work as well is because they tend to focus on shiny new tech, or merely streamlining processes. Yes, these are important, but they can miss the mark when it comes to really understanding and addressing the heart of the problem they’re meant to solve.
It’s like cold medicine. It deals with the symptoms, but it doesn’t get rid of the cold.
Traditional innovative guesswork leads business development teams to pour time and resources into solutions that might not resonate with their customers or tackle the root cause of their issues.
That’s why empathic innovation is the answer.
Empathetic innovation makes waves because it puts people at the heart of problem-solving efforts. It’s a collaborative approach that meets the needs of everyone involved.
1) A customer-focused approach
By adopting a customer-focused approach, we can dive deep into the heart of their pain points. That’s how it is possible to develop solutions that genuinely resonate with our audience and are more likely to succeed in the market.
It’s a lot easier to make a solution that they immediately recognise is the solution they’ve been looking for, rather than trying to convince them that they need your product.
2) Active listening
To understand what they specifically need, active listening doesn’t just help. It’s the crucial component of empathetic innovation.
This goes beyond just hearing what our customers say. It’s more about understanding their concerns, finding the root causes of their pain points, and how their problems impact them.
That comes from asking good questions. Getting curious. Leaving no stone unturned.
The big question is why are things affecting them the way they are? Knowing the why can help you figure out if there’s an even better solution to their problems than the one you had in mind.
Active listening is the key to the golden opportunities for innovation and growth that might have been missed otherwise.
It’s also a better chance at success because there’s no guesswork involved in what customers need. 3) Tackling problems emotionally first
This is where the real difference lay and where the magic happens because it all comes back to one basic truth – we as humans are emotional beings.
It’s about looking at emotional solutions over the technical solutions. How does the problem affect the well-being, happiness and satisfaction of stakeholders and customers, and how can a solution address this first?
Tackling problems emotionally, means putting ourselves in our customers’ shoes and considering how a particular issue affects their well-being, happiness, and satisfaction.
That’s exactly how it worked with Frances Derwent Wood and the idea for masks and prosthetics. It didn’t come from a medical need.
It came from an emotional need to be able to live their lives with dignity and without shame, in bodies that they recognised as their own.
But Wood wouldn’t have known that if he wasn’t immersed in the world of wounded soldiers and what their post-war lives back home were like. And he wouldn’t have figured out this solution if he didn’t know about the deep emotional need those soldiers had to overcome that trauma.
By plugging these insights into how we develop our ideas and using our strengths, we can create products and services that not only solve their problems but also make them feel valued and understood.
Conclusion
In the world where it is right now, we’re getting to a place where it’s much easier to ignore who we are as people and see each other as personas or stats.
And because of this, we’re desperate for connection. To be heard and understood.
And this is just as true for our customers as it is for ourselves.
When we embrace empathetic innovation, we revolutionize the way we approach digital business challenges. We create a more connected, emotionally-driven world where our customers feel heard, understood, and appreciated.
And we solve their problems in ways they probably didn’t dream was possible.
And finding the solutions that customers don’t just want but need lay at the heart of all good innovation. It’s also the foundation for sustainable growth and competitive advantage.
Who doesn’t want to live in that kind of world? We’re big fans of empathetic innovation. Our LISA and TAPP products were developed directly from:
- Listening to the problems that subscription companies have
- Understanding how those problems affect them both as a company and as individual people.
We get the struggle. We’re a SaaS company. We’re B2B. We run subscriptions.
And we’re fortunate to have amazing partners and clients who have opened up and told us what solutions they needed to transform their businesses and make their lives better.
Interested in talking to us about what your needs are? We’re here to listen.
Let’s chat further.
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