Category: Creative

Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown, CEO of the celebrate innovation and design firm IDEO, is not a book by a renowned designer for other designers. Instead, this is a guidebook for leaders – in the creative field and those outside of it – for how it is to bring design thinking into all aspects of a business enterprises’ products and services. Design thinking is a unique approach to creative problem solving that can result in powerful, effective solutions to abstract, multifaceted problems. Throughout the book, Tim Brown cites examples of this from his worth with multi-billion-dollar manufacturing companies; recently founded start-ups; NGOs in the developing world; and health care centers seeking to ensure that they are on the front lines of innovation in order to ensure that the quality of care given to their patients is the best in the world.

Defining design thinking in a paragraph allows to give an overview of what it entails, however, it is best viewed as a set of approaches to problem-solving that includes prototyping early models; testing variations of product or service; scripting improvisational interactions; surveying and anthropological research, and all around obtaining a better contextual view of those involved in a given service milieu. After all, “By testing competing ideas against one another, there is an increased likelihood that the outcome will be bolder, more creatively disruptive, and more compelling” (67).

While engaging with a company that uses design thinking as part of their design process means that deliverables will takes longer to arrive than traditional companies, it’s this sort of divergent thinking that is the route, not the obstacle, to innovation.

While Brown provides a simple set of guidelines for creative leaders, which I’ve copied below, he is more focused on showing how design thinking can be applied to improve the quality of the interpersonal dynamic between companies and their customers.

The 6 Rules for the Best Design Approach

1. The best ideas emerge when the whole organizational ecosystem – not just its designers and engineers and certainly not just management – has room to experiment.
2. Those most exposed to changing externalities (new technology, shifting customer base, strategic threats or opportunities) are the ones best placed to respond and most motivated to do so.
3. Ideas should not be favored based on who creates them.
4. Ideas that create a buzz should be favored. Indeed, ideas should gain a vocal following, however small, before being given organizational support.
5. The “gardening” skills of senior leadership should be used to tend, prune, and harvest ideas. MBA’s call this “risk tolerance”. I call it the top-down bit.
6. An overarching purpose should be articulated so that the organization has a sense of direction and innovators don’t feel the need for constant supervisions.

Brown believes, like many others within the current design and marketing field, that there has been a qualitative shift given the internet. For Brown, we now live in an “experience economy”. This shift is described as one people are no longer mere passive consumers of products and services, but are now more likely to actively participate in some manner – whether it be writing an online review; joining a groups related to a product or service online; or even becoming an advocate of the company in some way. Functional benefits alone are no longer enough to capture customers or create the brand distinction to retain them. Because of these new customer needs and demands, companies must not just innovate their products but also their services. This means that management must sometimes follow the lead of those on the front lines of customer service – after all, the best experiences are not scripted at corporate headquarters but delivered on the spot by service providers

With service-oriented design thinking implementation is everything. An experience must be finely crafted and precision-engineered as any other product, something that is illustrated in the anecdote he provides about Snap-On Tool’s engagement with IDEO. Wanting to ensure that they had a larger place in the market during the upcoming revolution in mechanically-oriented computer technology, IDEO helped craft a narrative of the company’s growth that highlights the strong sentiments of product loyalty automobile mechanics felt for their tools. By designing an interaction, something that allows a story to unfold over time, they were able to better visualize themselves continuing to be a market leader in an age of electronic diagnostic tools.

In the course of his narratives, we are provided many examples as to why Tim Brown thinks that we should think of a designer as “a master storyteller whose skill is measured by his or her ability to craft a compelling, consistent, and believable narrative. It’s not an accident that writers and journalists now often work alongside mechanical engineers and cultural anthropologists in design teams.” Whether it was in IDEO’s work for the European Union to determine how it is that the elderly might use technology to ward of loneliness and build community; helping Gyrus ACMI develop new techniques and instruments for non-invasive surgery; or Marriott to improve the experience of their customers – it’s clear that design thinkers view the world in a radically different manner.

What sort of divergent thinkers should be searched for? Both on the side of those that are on the creative teams and the extreme users of products and services.

Extreme users because they “are often the key to inspirational insights. These are the specialists, the aficionados, and the outright fanatics who experience the world in unexpected ways. They force us to project our thinking to the edges of our existing base and expose issues that would otherwise be disguised. Seek out extreme users and think of them as a creative asset.” (232).

As for those on the team, Tim has a lot to say about the kinds of abnormal people that should make them up. Citing findings from The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin he states that “thinkers who exploit opposing ideas to construct a new solution enjoy a built in advantage over thinkers who can consider only one model at a time.” Integrative thinkers know how to widen the scope of issues salient to the problem. They resist the “either/or” in favor of the “both/and” and see nonlinear and multidirectional relationships as a source of inspiration, not contradiction.” Reading this felt like personal validation, as in my work experiences I’ve frequently felt like the odd person out for the conclusions I’ve reached on issues and how I get there.

In the last section of the book, Brown states that a number of commercial trends convergence points to an inescapable realization: that design thinking needs to be turned toward the formulation of a new participatory social contract. While I agree with him to an extent, I found it interesting that despite his multiple laudatory references to William Morris, founder of the English Crafts movements, there’s no comment made on his socialist orientation.

To me, one of the defining characteristics of avowed socialists is their ability to use what Brown calls design thinking to see that another world is possible, that the conditions of misery in which many people live need not be so and that with collective human action this is malleable. I think it would have been interesting to explore this given the nature of the digression from how to apply design thinking in the business world to the world at large, but that’s better suited for another book.