Calling All Design Thinking Naysayers! Why It Works

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore

- Andre Gide 

I could be wrong about this (and tell me if I am), but show me a person who thinks Design Thinking is bunch of b.s. and I’ll show you someone who needs to be right, needs to be in control and is deathly afraid of losing control and therefore looks for way to quash anything that might cause him/her to give up control.

 I got this insight because I am a serial ideator. I ideate in chunks and I can’t stop ideating (including this blog/chunk).

 However, prior to any ideation coming to me, my brain and mind go through serious breakdowns that are not welcome, not pleasant, uninvited and sometimes downright frightening. That is because although I always make it back – I mean, I’m still here - to feeling sane and coincidentally to having breakthroughs, there is often a period of such utter disorientation where my thoughts and feelings (and if gave into it, my actions), are all disjointed and on their own recognizance. Words that come to mind are wigged out, unglued, out of my mind, unhinged, crazy, lost my mind, non compos mentis, not playing with a full deck and perhaps the most descriptive of them all, just plain out of sorts (because I can’t sort it out). 

It’s as if when I’m on a roll and ideating productively my mind and brain are like a Rubik’s Cube, all solved and moving in the same direction and in a stay of flow (which is what I am feeling as this article seems to be writing itself). However, when the breakdown occurs it’s as if that Rubik’s Cube has become totally discombobulated with no chance of it coming back together and I begin to have a visceral feeling that my mind could actually fragment and then shatter, from which there is no return. It's a case of free floating anxiety flirting with panic. Fortunately for me, I don't panic (but I'm not saying it won't happen), I just feel like vomiting.

If you are a Design Thinking naysayer reading this, you might be thinking, you’re nuts Doc. And I’m not saying you’re wrong. On the other hand, welcome to the world of creative problem solving before the creative or problem solving kicks in

So why does Design Thinking work and help with that?

The first step of Design Thinking, and I believe the Rate Limiting Step, is to Empathize. 

The British psychoanalyst, Wilfred Bion, has said that the purest form of listening is to listen without memory or desire. What that means is to listen (a.k.a. empathize) to others without an old personal agenda (memory) you’re trying to plug them into or without a new personal agenda (desire) you’re trying to plug them into. In either case you’re not listening to their agenda you’re instead listening to confirm your own biases

I may again be wrong, but I’m guessing that many of the Design Thinking naysayers have a personal agenda that they can’t let go of. And that personal agenda is to

1. Not lose control
2. Not take the chance that as right as you think you are is as wrong as you could turn out to be, because that could cause you to doubt everything you know
3. Not take the chance that what your customer, client, market, investor really needs and is truly in their best interest – which they may not be able to articulate – may not be a fit for your ideology or your inventory

Another reason why Design Thinking works is that after you completely let go of not just your agenda, but any and everything you know about anything, so that you can totally get with the where, who and the why of the other person (and if you don’t freak out from your free floating anxiety), you can seamlessly move into Defining the problem from “their there” vs. being stuck in “your here”* (your agenda).

Then once you can Define their problem (instead of being blinded and deafened by your problem with their problem), you can begin to Ideate various solutions.

If you make it from Empathize to Define to Ideate, you will then be able to exhale because you have turned a corner and instead of having lost your mind, you begin to think again, but this time it is truly informed by being of service and in the best interest of "their there" instead of staying stuck in “your here.”

Well I think I’m at the end of this flow.

Until my next ideation...

* Read more about the distinction between “their there” and “your here”

• * “Their there” and “your here” are part of the central components to developing Real Influence