Adrian Tobin
Recently, I was fortunate enough to chat not once, but twice with Adrian Tobin – one of the smartest people I have ever met. I say this not by the definition we previously used at university and high school, but because of the unique way he approaches complex issues. Adrian is the Founder & CEO of Kinlab, a consultancy firm devoted to ‘making sport better’ for tomorrow, today.
From age 16 to 24, Adrian raced for Kellogg’s as a professional surf ironman in the Nutri-Grain Ironman Series, representing Surf Life Saving Australia. After that, using his post-graduate qualifications in Business and Marketing, he designed behavioural change campaigns, programs and initiatives for the NSW & QLD Governments, as well as Beyond Blue. These experiences introduced him to the innovative process of Human Centred Design (HCD) and Systems Design.
HCD is a strategic problem-solving technique that focuses on human behaviour, finding the ‘why’ behind every issue. In starting Kinlab, Adrian knew this was a concept foreign to the sporting industry as large organisations rely on retrospective data that tells them ‘what’ is happening, ‘when’ and ‘how’. But, what Adrian and his team do so effectively is put humans at the centre, and conduct field research in context. That is, they immerse themselves in the customer’s environment: engage with them in their world and catch them while they are interacting with sport.
For example, imagine my sporting team, the Gold Coast Suns, want to improve the fan experience on game days. It is one thing to ask me to complete a survey on a Tuesday afternoon at work, but it is another to come along and chat with me in a packed People First Stadium on game day. Only through the latter can you truly understand why the issue is occurring - and thus decipher how the sporting organisation can be better.
It all sounds so simple, but this process makes many professionals in the industry nervous. Understanding human behaviour is daunting, but leaving the safety of your desk to enter a comfort zone that doesn’t belong to you is even scarier. Because of this fear, many businesses never find the real ‘why’ and instead put an assumption in its place – something Adrian believes has no place in a strategy room. Therefore, it is this organisational inertia that makes Kinlab so unique but also so essential – and institutions like Cricket Australia, the AFL and even the NFL have all seen amazing results.
My favourite story that Adrian told me was about his work creating artificial wave pools with the Kelly Slater Wave Company. He described a surfer’s relationship with the ocean as “religious” and juxtaposed it with a Swiss person’s relationship to the ocean, a landlocked country. As part of Kinlab’s field research, they set out to understand these two relationships and find a way to make a product that attracted Swiss customers unfamiliar with waves, without making a die-hard surfer’s experience feel artificial. For me, this was a way of thinking I had never considered nor heard of, and it truly blew my mind.
Looking forward, Adrian is focused on being the best husband and father he can be, as well as shaping the future of sport. The world is changing geopolitically, environmentally, technologically, and socially, meaning industry leaders will continue operating one step behind customer expectations unless they can be proactive. As the world grows increasingly dynamic and the Australian sports industry sets its sights on 2032, Kinlab is applying speculative design to anticipate the future of sport and help its clients accelerate their pursuit of improvement.
Adrian, thank you for showing me a new perspective on sport. You gave me so much information that I may need to write a second story, but in the meantime, I urge all readers to look further into what Kinlab do at www.kinlab.com.au. Adrian’s work is so unique that it makes him nothing short of a one percenter!
