Your Medical Device Just Failed Because You Forgot Surgeons Have Different-Sized Hands (And Other Ways to Absolutely Torpedo Your Product Launch)
Your Medical Device Just Failed Because You Forgot Surgeons Have Different-Sized Hands (And Other Ways to Absolutely Torpedo Your Product Launch)
Psst! I need to tell you about the most expensive mistake I heard about this week.
A medical device company—smart people, cutting-edge tech, all the innovation buzzwords you can fit in a pitch deck—spent months (probably years) developing a surgical device. Got deep into the FDA approval process.
And then discovered their product was literally unusable by female surgeons.
Why? Because they designed it for one hand size. The designer's hand size, to be precise.
Chef's kiss.
This came up in my conversation with Kate McRoberts from Fathom Consulting, and honestly, it's the kind of story that makes you want to laugh and cry simultaneously. Because here's the thing: this happens ALL. THE. TIME.
The Data You're Using to Make Decisions? It's Already Expired.
Kate dropped this truth bomb early in our conversation: the data that executives have been using to de-risk decisions isn't as reliable as it used to be. The shelf life of insights is getting shorter. Markets shift faster. Everything's in flux.
So what are leaders doing? They're paralyzed. Waiting for "enough data" to feel confident. Spoiler alert: that data isn't coming.
Instead, you've got to move forward with intuition and experience. Which is terrifying, I know. But here's the part most executives are missing:
The best way to de-risk decisions isn't more spreadsheets—it's more humans.
Involving the Actual Humans Affected By Your Decisions (Revolutionary Concept, I Know)
Kate's entire practice is built on this radical idea: what if you actually talked to the people who will use your product? Or work for your company? Or be impacted by your strategic pivot?
I know, I know. Sounds obvious. But when's the last time you did continuous, structured, iterative feedback throughout your product development? Not just two market research sessions you checked off a list. Real, ongoing conversations with:
Your customers
Your employees
Your internal stakeholders
Because here's what happens when you don't: you build medical devices for the wrong hand size. You launch programs nobody buys. You roll out company-wide changes and your best people quit.
Kate calls it "shooting yourself in the foot." I call it "expensive performance art."
Speed Is Killing You (But Also You Need to Go Faster)
The cruel irony of 2025: everyone's under pressure to move faster, but moving too fast is when the harm happens. That's when your car runs off the road.
So you need to find the balance between speed and bringing humans into the decision-making process. The trick? Figure out the right moments to slow down and gather perspectives.
Not every decision needs a committee. But the big ones? The ones that affect your product roadmap, your go-to-market strategy, your company culture? Yeah, those need more voices in the room.
Your Team Doesn't Trust Each Other (And That's Costing You Everything)
Here's the thing nobody wants to admit: post-COVID, post-Great Resignation, post-musical-chairs-with-everyone's-jobs... your teams are full of people who barely know each other.
They're in back-to-back Zoom meetings. They don't have shared history. They don't know what each other is "good at" or "weird about." (Kate's words, not mine, but I love them.)
And when people don't have that foundation of trust? They can't:
Make decisions quickly as a team
Take risks together
Have healthy friction and push back on each other's ideas
Move with real alignment
You think you're being efficient by skipping team-building. You're actually creating drag on every single decision your company makes.
Kate's practice includes facilitating this kind of human-centric team alignment. Getting people to actually know each other so they can trust each other, challenge each other, and ultimately move faster together.
Because yes, getting to know your colleagues' humanity might feel like "one more thing" when you're already exhausted and burned out. But it's literally the hardest-metric thing you can do to create actual success.
As Kate put it: "It's like Ted Lasso or any sort of silly motley crew sports movie. You know it to be true."
The Bottom Line (Because You're Busy and I Respect That)
If your company is trying to grow in today's chaotic, data-deteriorating, trust-depleted market, you can't optimize your way out of the human problem.
You need to:
Stop waiting for perfect data. It doesn't exist anymore. Move forward with imperfect information but bring the right humans into the process.
Design WITH the people who'll use your stuff. Not for them. With them. Throughout the entire process. (Unless you enjoy FDA failures and product launches that faceplant.)
Invest in your team actually knowing each other. Not as résumés and job titles, but as humans. The ROI is faster decisions, better ideas, and people who don't quit during your next pivot.
Balance speed with humanity. Yes, you need to move fast. But moving too fast without human input is how you build surgical devices for the wrong hands.
If you want to hear Kate break down the science behind why this stuff works (and share more stories of companies getting it spectacularly wrong), [watch the full episode here].
Trust me, it's worth 30 minutes of your time. Because the next product failure, failed launch, or mass resignation at your company? That's way more expensive than half an hour with someone who knows how to help you not screw it up.
P.S. If you're reading this and thinking "this all sounds nice but we don't have TIME for this soft stuff," I'll tell you what Kate told me: this isn't soft. This is the hardest-metric thing you can do. But keep doing what you're doing. I'm sure your competitors will appreciate it when your next product launch fails and they get your market share. 💀
Karl Pontau hosts The Human Connection Podcast, where we talk about the stuff that actually matters in business: the humans running it. Because whether you're B2B or B2C, it's really H2H, human to human. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we probably say something that'll make your HR department uncomfortable.
