"At the time a heuristic is first tentatively proposed, no one can prove whether it is useful or valid at all."- The Design of Business, page 25
That’s really the scary notion behind design thinking for a lot of people; by definition, you’re tackling an unknown as one half of your balancing act. You’re diving back into a mystery with no true sense of potential profit, timeline, or eventual product or service. It’s daunting for those of us who have spent most of our lives in a more “execution-style” business world. As such, many businesses end up unintentionally spending a disproportionate amount of time in the algorithm phase – refining, cost cutting and making incremental improvements.
As the one exception in most companies, true designers have no problem in the world of the unknown, the unproven. In fact, they live for it. Giving a designer a big hairy question to solve, a budget and a timeline is to make a designers day. For the rest of us, though, we need to realize the importance of embracing this style of thinking and incorporating it into our daily functions. We need to proactively work to embrace our innovative tendencies.
"The design thinker, in the words of novelist Saul Bellow, is 'a first-class noticer.'"- The Design of Business, page 30
The best ideas for your industry may already exist. They may be thriving (or flopping) outside of your industry. Have you seen the commercial on innovation where the guy gets an idea for a new drilling machine from his son’s bendy-straw at a fast food restaurant? The best ideas come from ones outside your day to day experience. They come from keeping your eyes open and truly ‘seeing’ the world around you – for all its possibilities and insights. What are you learning today from the world around you?
"Because it is so well suited to satisfying the organizational demand for proof, reliability almost always trumps validity."- The Design of Business, page 45
The question to ask is not “Why?” Hugely innovative ideas do not come from statements like “show me forecast projections for the next 30 years.” The question to ask is “Why not?” Don’t get caught up in what’s worked in the past. If you rely on past data to drive all your decisions, you’ll end up with variations of past results (incremental improvements at best). When P&G launched Pampers, the product was revolutionary. Pampers “Cruisers” was incremental progress. Small gain in market share, nothing revolutionary. Tide2Go, on the other hand, was a radical innovation for P&G. The rewards matched the impact. Innovation = truly new. It comes from going back to the beginning of the knowledge funnel and asking, “Why didn’t we explore this path? What’s might be down there?” It’s saying, “The market’s changed a bit since we originally created ‘product x’. Do you think the needs/desires of our customer base have changed since then?”
Don’t be afraid to question. Yes, it’s more work to innovate. Yes, it takes more mental power, more resources, more funding. Yes, it’s uncertain and there is an element of risk involved. But it’s also the only way to create change; real change. A true design thinker doesn’t run foolhardy into extra costs and new challenges. But she doesn’t shy away from them either. Find the balance, and you will be a rock star in your organization.
Roger Martin has served as dean of the Rotman School of Management since September 1, 1998. Previously, he spent 13 years as a Director of Monitor Company, a global strategy consulting firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he served as co-head of the firm for two years.
