On talking to elephants

17 March 2016

The rational versus the emotional. Our very own Design Director Kirsty gave a talk last week at Design Assembly’s Autumn Conversations.

She shared this simple story that we felt really aligns with the Dow ethos of EMOTION first. In a nutshell, it goes this way:

That the elephant rider (your rational side) thinks it is steering the elephant, but it is actually the elephant (your automatic, intuitive and emotional side) that has the far greater power, and can take over at any moment and dictate where you go.

The elephant analogy (originally by Jonathan Haidt, 2006) is a great way to explain how humans operate and make decisions. We prefer to think we are rational and reasonable: weighing things up before deciding, making the optimum choices for our lives. But the reality is that so many of the decisions we make are actually automatic and intuitive. We don’t actually have time to duly consider everything we are doing. And so we operate out of instinct and emotion.

Effective design then, connects with the elephant, not the rider. Easy on claims, big on wit, delight, surprise.

See more about the talk here