Design thinking as the next competitive advantage
Posted in On the Radar on November 13th, 2009 by admin – Be the first to comment
Earlier this week, thanks to the genorosity of Sandra Blevins from The Brand Collaborative, I was able to attend a brain-sparking, forward thinking panel discussion on “How Design Thinking is the next competitive advantage.”
The panel was presided by Roger Martin (Dean of Rotman School of Management), Tim Brown (Co-founder of IDEO), Bruce Nussbaum (Contributing Editor at Business Week and Faculty Member at Pratt Institute) and Will Setliff (VP Strategy, Insights & Innovation at Target)
I want to talk about some of the larger trends/ themes from the panel. I’m not sure how they directly influence the future of content and digital media but perhaps together we can identify some themes?
1. Design as a process, not a product or a service.- This came up a few times in the discussion. Martin mentioned how business has for a long time, taken a very scientific approach to management. Will Setliff from Target concurred saying how tempting it is to immediately narrow the scope of the problem and figure out a solution to it. Business and even B-schools train us to become reductionists. The pressure on proving everything in advance (hypothesis) inhibits us. Setliff mentioned how he is opening up the process early to provide it a greater context and not immediately narrow the scope. Use a different methodology – broaden the perspective.
The focus is moving towards creating a more deliberate design process. For example, Target now looks more holistically at its data center and keeps a “everything is subject to design” mindset.
2. Education system, in particular B-schools, need a more integrative approach: The crux of the discussion was how education institutions need to better integrate the idea of cultural and design-based thinking into the core. Setliff made a very interesting comment. “We put MBAs (new hires) through coursework that reminds them of their passions before B-School.”
Setliff’s quote of the night: We need a Monetessori MBA.
3. Creating an open learning and working environment: I don’t remember who exactly shared this anecdote. P&G as design-foccused company and a prime example came up a few times. One of the leaders at P&G beleived that people that are not born into a culture of design don’t it just by hearing someone talk about it, but if they experience it first-hand, they become huge proponents of it. IDEO’s Tim Brown concurred and shared how IDEO often involves the client in the process so they can see the impact of design-based thinking firsthand.
We organize education around narrow questions. Roger Martin made an interesting point – why is biology taught as biology ? Maybe it should be taught as biology and engineering together?
A few challenges that popped up were the ones that don’t necessarily have an answer. How do we replicate sucess? How do we develop a narrative in such a way that we can re-tell it with the same impact ? (Its harder re-telling a story than creating a new one) Stewardship of ideas through the organization in a reliable manner?
4. Analysis vs. Intuition: This was the most interesting part of the conversation for me because it acknowledges the room and need for analytical thinking. The power of analytical thinking is that it gives you the skills to ask the right questions. Design thinking, sometimes focuses far too much on the answers. But it is important to sit back and consider, “where does the question come from?” People are drawn more naturally to hypothesis without the willingness to contemplate what the question is.
Setliff shared another example of how once Target did away with it’s rigid employee training manual and gave them the freedom instead to do what they think is right, customer satisfaction overall improved by a few points. “Give the tools to those who use it.”
I was curious to learn if there was a point of intersection between social media/ digital thinking and design thinking and to my question, Tim Brown replied, “Social media reinforces design thinking.” It’s not about warehousing knowledge anymore but using it to operate at scale.
All in all – a terrific evening. Some awesome trends and themes to keep track of!
You can read more about this evening here: Bruce Nussbuam’s blog.