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In 1997, while working directly for the chief information officer at a software corporation specializing in health care systems, I suggested they had a serious opportunity they needed to address.? The serious opportunity being an outrageous turnover rate.? The corporation had begun the year with 1,400 employees and ended the year with 1,600 employees.? During the year they had hired over 1,000 new people.? I let them know half their assets had walked out the door.? They were not pleased with my interpretation of the events.? I encouraged them to start viewing their people as long-term assets.? I challenged them to re-imagine their value system.? To think differently about their people.? To acknowledge the most important asset their company had was between the ears of their people.? The only asset able to create the software of tomorrow was born from their peoples’ imaginations.? About that same time, I also suggested they could focus some of their marketing efforts to market their holistic healthcare solutions directly to the patient.? By way of high-quality impactful television advertising.? I mentioned using the “Super Bowl” as a stage for brand launching.? I encouraged them no competition existed in the patients’ mind regarding healthcare information systems.? They would essentially be first to market in the minds of patients.? I made my presentation to my company about the same time Apple debuted their “Think Different” campaign in hopes to re-invigorate their brand.? Apple is now the most valuable corporation in the world.? “Design Thinking” is “Brand Thinking”.??

DESIGN THINKING: WHY DO IT?

The application of “design thinking” enables individuals and organizations to remain relevant and innovative.? The main reason teenagers roll their eyes at their parents pertains to the perception that mom and dad are out of touch and irrelevant.? Why do teenagers think this?? Is it true?? The reason most parents find themselves perceived as irrelevant is because they have settled.? Design thinking does not allow us to settle.? Design thinking equips, empowers, and encourages us to dream about the possibilities of

?and then build the future we desire to live in.??

The saddest part of a story isn’t when the hero gets knocked down.? The saddest part of a story is when the hero gives up.? How many book and movie franchises are built on our hero or heroine giving up or settling? ? Imagine your favorite hero saying, “Well, that’s just the way it is.? Ain’t nothin’ nobody can do to change it.? Certainly not me.”? His shoulders slump he turns and walks away never to be heard from again. Nobody wants to read that book.? Nobody wants to watch?

that movie.? Nobody wants to live with that person.? Nobody wants to work with that person.? Nobody wants to be that person.??

Do we really need to explain why becoming a design thinker is important?? It’s so we don’t become the person our seven-year-old self would be disappointed with.? It’s so we don’t become the person our teenage self would roll their eyes at.? Design thinking is embracing the life we all long to live.? A life of adventure and possibilities.? A life filled with hope, optimism, creativity, and fun!

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DESIGN THINKING: WHAT IS IT?

Design thinking is a state of mind.? Design thinking is a choice to participate in the whole process of imagining the whole experience.? Everyone in an organization needs to develop their design thinking skills.? The first step is to have a child-like inquisitiveness and ask why at every step in the process.??

Design thinking is characterized by imagining a future state of the world and then working backward to build the world from where we are now.? When I returned to college in 1995 to get an MBA, I became a graduate assistant.? One of the best parts of being a graduate assistant was the office on campus and the twelve paid credit hours per semester—only six of them had to be courses that were related to my MBA.? I used the other six hours to take computer programming and acting courses. During the acting courses, I took a script analysis class.? The script analysis class used the book Backwards to Forwards by David Ball (1983) that described studying the script in reverse order.? Starting with the effects and then looking backward to the cause.? Exploring each line and each event and determining what preceding line and preceding event was the cause.? I would describe design thinking as a method of imagining experiences and outcomes that are familiar to your own life experiences.? Using those experiences to work backward to better understand what differentiated each.? Gaining valuable insight and understanding as to why one experience was great and others were not so great.

Tim Brown in his book Change by Design (2009) describes the process of design thinking as just that a process.? It is equal parts chaos and order.? It begins with observation and a deep search to empathize with and better understand the customer experience.? It then tries to imagine what a great customer experience might entail.? It looks for sources of inspiration outside the current product or service experience.? Diverging from a linear path to begin thinking outside the box and imagining all the many awesome pieces of a future puzzle.? Once an exhaustive re-imagining has taken place, then all the pieces are considered in-play.? These in-play pieces are then explored.? The exploration can take many forms, including but not limited to role-playing, quick and dirty prototyping, and anything that helps one better stimulate the imagination and further explore how those pieces could be implemented in the overall experience.? Taking each of these divergent puzzle pieces and then beginning the process of converging on a solid path of strategic, holistic, and integrated implementation.

Design thinking takes the stance that we are more into the personal experience business and less into the product and service business.? Although products and services are a part of the experience, people are the focus.??

Products & Services ? ?? Experiences

Things ? ?? People

WHAT HAPPENED TO QUALITY?

The twentieth century was created by design thinking and eventually distorted by efficiency first thinking.? The twenty-first century is being re-shaped by design first thinking.? The challenge is that anyone over the age of forty-five was educated to believe efficiency first thinking would lead to a better life.? Unfortunately, a clear majority of American corporations are run by accountants.? People trained to be risk-averse.? People trained to think efficiency first.? People trained to only act on verifiable and proofed concepts.? People who have created little beyond a twenty trillion-dollar national debt.? How could more of this efficiency first thinking be beneficial?? Efficiency is a major component when moving into the realm of distribution and delivery; however, nothing innovative is ever directly birthed from an efficiency first mindset--only incremental improvements are possible.??

Wal-Mart changed their organizational focus from being retailers in the late 70s to becoming merchandise movers and in the process revolutionized retail distribution.? Efficiency first thinking drove them to be more profitable and eventually drove their competitors Sears and K-Mart all but out of business.? However, once they held an outrageous competitive advantage in distribution they should have stepped back and realized that others might come behind them and become even better merchandise movers.? Amazon has become the juggernaut in the online merchandise moving business through both retail and resale.? Amazon helps to sell and re-sell items multiple times to where they have an extended life.? Wal-Mart could have done the same thing by holding physical swap meets in their parking lots and extending products lives and developed a feel-good community atmosphere.? Amazon should now get into the recycling business picking items up that have broken and are not re-sellable but do have a salvage value.? This would then close the environmental loop and create valuable blue sky for years to come.

Design first thinking will lead to a more innovative and ultimately efficient process in the long run.? It may cost a bit more on the front-end but the benefits on the back-end will more than make up for the time value of money.

DESIGN THINKING: WHO DOES IT?

Design thinking got distorted when quality was abandoned. ? It became the work of a professional designer.? Someone trained in the art of design.? Someone paid to dream.? Someone who doesn’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else.? A special person.? Perhaps a bit eccentric.? Perhaps a tad strange.? These “special person” beliefs are not only misguided and uniformed they are prejudice and damaging.? Damaging not only to those who have these beliefs but to the people who are the targets of these beliefs.? Design thinking is for everyone.? At one time everyone participated in design thinking.??

Before we started being responsible for our multiplication tables we were all aspiring artists and creative masters in our own right.? Art was subjective.? Participation was king!? Our teachers were more akin to encouragers and instructors, helping us to understand the basics and then allowing us to experiment, explore, and create in our own way.? Sure, our teachers gave us assignments but the assignments were less about getting it right for the teacher and more about getting it right for ourselves.? We all had an idea of what we were trying to capture, working long and hard to try and recreate physically what we had envisioned mentally.

Heroes are people who run into a burning building when everyone else is running out!? Heroes of design are no different.? Heroes of design are always drawn to the biggest challenges with the most to lose; because they know they also have the most to gain both societally and individually.? Heroes are people who look to employ their whole selves in service to others.? They seldom do what they are asked.? They always attempt to do what’s truly needed.? They work to serve others; not to collect a paycheck but to solve a problem or right a wrong.? Heroes of design are the people who are just crazy enough to believe they can change the world for the better.??

Design thinkers are the heroes who make our world more beautiful, functional, and transparent.? When a person drives by a Frank Lloyd Wright designed home or building they can’t help but feel like something went right.? You can’t help but feel like there is order in the universe or at least it feels like someone cares.? Design heroes are anywhere and everywhere you get the sense like someone cared enough to consider every detail about the human experience regarding the product or service designed.??

Nikola Tesla was one of the greatest designers to ever exist; he designed and implemented the modern alternating current (AC) electrical supply system.? Before his groundbreaking design and implementation work in AC the likes of Thomas Edison were hard at work implementing and betting on direct current (DC) which had multitudes of limitations and dangers.? Nikola Tesla on the other hand had dreamed of what was at work in the natural world as sparks flew from the back of a cat as he petted it in the winter.? He wondered, dreamed, imagined, and developed the modern electrical system, polyphase electrical induction motor, radio, remote control, wireless communication, and the ability to broadcast and collect power remotely.? All of these were ground breaking examples of innovative design thinking.? Tesla was notorious for claiming he was less about invention and more about discovery.? Design thinkers are less about invention and more about discovery; and in the process of discovery they find innovative ways to harness the energy of the world around them to help create a better world for everyone.

DESIGN THINKING: WHERE TO DO IT?

Everywhere you can from the board room to the factory floor.? Design thinking should be taking place in every facet of society. ? Government, industry, society, religion, all should be using design thinking to innovate and reimagine!? Design thinking should be used in every facet of the process; even when seeking efficiency in a process.? Efficiency thinking has its place in every process; however, design thinking is needed to innovate and imagine whole new industries.? Apple wondered if they could do something about creating an electronic music playing device for over four years prior to creating the iPod.? It wasn’t until flash memory came of age making it possible to store and retrieve music quickly that Apple finally acted.? Apple had already envisioned a music player and had thought about it for some time.? Once the technology came of age they were poised to pounce.? During those four years they were also reimagining the entire music industry as well.? Design thinking should be a large part of the conversation throughout every organization. Realizing, that although we may not be able to implement we can always design with the future in mind and then assemble and implement when the final missing puzzle pieces arrive.

Design thinking is also system thinking.? Aravind eye clinic and hospitals started with one man Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy who had an outrageous altruistic vision—pun intended—and turned into the most productive eyecare system in the world.? He hoped to eradicate needless cataract related blindness in India.? He envisioned delivering cataract care including surgeries much in the same way that McDonald’s delivered food.? Functional, fast, and cheap. He didn’t settle for being a non-profit.? He didn’t settle at all.? He cast a big vision of eradicating needless blindness and then pursued innovative strategies to make that future world reality!

DESIGN THINKING: WHEN TO DO IT?

Immediately!? Start today.? Don’t wait.? Ready.? Fire!? Aim. ? Commit to the process and don’t lie to yourself about how good the old days were.? We tend to over sentimentalize the past and view it through a rosy and skewed lens.??

Divergence is the starting point.? Learning to generate multiple options will enable you to watch as the process unfolds in front of your eyes.? You will see the multitude of options have a fun place for exploration and extension.? Often, the option everyone eventually agrees on wasn’t one of the original options, but it was an extended version that became more robust as people both enhanced and simplified.??

The human experience is a wonderful way to gain awareness and insight into the unmet needs in a process or product.? Sam Walton the founder of Wal-Mart said he spent more time in his competitor’s stores than he did his own.? He was always trying to gain a better understanding about what made the other stores work or not work and then would translate those observations and interpretations into his own stores’ methodologies and strategies.??

Accept the fact that some of your design thinking will not lead to a direct product or service.? Accept the fact that design thinking is a much messier process because it is more explorative than your current thinking. ? And, give yourself and your design thinkers some grace. ? Imagine you are starting a seventh-grade basketball team with ten kids who have never seen or played the game of basketball.? Only an idiot would expect to start winning at the beginning of the season.? So, don’t be an idiot.? Know that you are totally new to this game of design thinking and it’s going to take some time to build the basic skills and knowledge of the game.? You will be lucky if you win a few games and that may not come until near the end of the first season.? So, be committed and be patient.? It’s better to have ten committed kids that have minimal talent than to have ten kids with maximum talent and no commitment!? Be the coach your team needs you to be.??

DESIGN THINKING: HOW TO DO IT?

There is a process to design thinking.? It’s messy and it’s different but there is a process.? Commit to the process.? The process begins with an overwhelming commitment to optimism.? Then allowing the divergent process of observation, imagination, inspiration and exploration generate ideas, choices, and options.? To use a buzzword “brainstorming”.? Then continue the process by creating prototypes, role playing, and experimenting with ideas and options.? This will then begin your transition into the convergence process of eliminating options and making choices.? It will then become more obvious which options are the most interesting, exciting, and worth pursuing.? Be willing to ask for outside help in facilitating an atmosphere that develops design thinking in your people and within the genetic rewiring of your organization.? You will need help and it will take time.

DESIGN THINKING: SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLES?

I have mentioned above a number of examples where design thinking created successful and sustainable outcomes.? Imagine design thinking as an atmosphere that is highly conducive to innovation, growth, and extension.? Design thinking is what happens when people who have a big vision of the future go back to first principles and then begin building from there.? They are cool with casting a vision based on an analogy so that others can contextualize their ideal endgame.? However, truly becoming a successful design thinker often means you have to throw away benchmarks because the truth is they are false ceilings.? Design thinking is a culture that is willing to go back to first principles and create something truly innovative and revolutionary.??

Tesla Motors and SpaceX are the two most obvious and influential organizations that will change the landscape and the world(s) we inhabit.? Both started with very altruistic and inspiring visions.? Tesla Motors was created to bring about the transition from unsustainable energy usage to a sustainable energy usage model.? Elon Musk, saw transforming the automobile as the biggest impact maker within the energy consumption cycle.? Tesla Motors is a few short years from outrageous adoption and creating a tipping point in the electrical car industry.? They didn’t take on big automobile makers.? They didn’t take on big oil.? They didn’t take on foreign governments.? They took on a huge issue that everyone in the world is facing.? The eventual depletion of fossil fuel reserves and air quality.? We may disagree on the exact timeline but we all agree we are dealing with a finite timeline.? SpaceX did a very similar thing regarding space travel.? They looked at the need for the human race to survive beyond an extinction-level-event. Postulating the need to become a multi-planetary species.? SpaceX is employing design thinking to build and extend the human experience beyond the confines of our planet Earth.

Adoption of design thinking is the only way to ensure extended mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health for the individual and the species.