Design thinking is an art that marries human behavior to idea generation. IDEO, a fixture in Silicon Valley for over 20 years with offices now across the globe, is the company best known for designing solutions to complicated matters. Tim Brown, the company’s CEO, wrote Change By Design and shares stories of how IDEO drives innovation in everything from improving kids’ toothbrushes to enhancing women’s experiences working for and shopping at Best Buy. The book is fine – as in meh. Brown is surely an accomplished leader and consultant and yet his book teases the reader with scant detail on how each project comes together. Leave ’em wanting more is a fine rule to follow if you’re a stand-up comedian, but when you want business people to get excited about your book, kindly provide meaningful details in your stories, lest it appear you’re simply attempting to advertise your consultancy. When the reader seeks case study-level meat here, he/she merely finds a couple of paragraphs of thumbnail sketch. Oh well.
Brown notes that the key to design thinking is to have lots of ideas shared inside a culture where everyone is allowed to speak freely. This goes far beyond the standard rule of brainstorming that says there are no bad ideas, because of course there are hideous amounts of horrible ideas. A team must bandy about all thoughts – some crazy, others half-baked, still others more fully formed – to have a decent chance for good stuff to burble to the surface. To paraphrase Faulkner, to write well one must be willing to kill off their little darlings, so the mission here is to consider everything and settle on perhaps just one thing that will make a difference to the operation, whatever that may be. Whole Foods Markets operate this way. CEO John Mackey believes that all of his employees should be able to contribute to the overall vision of the company, sharing what the author calls “navigational beacons,” and the grocery chain tweaks operations by allowing staff to work in small teams in an attempt to improve the shopper’s experience. Naturally, hard work and additional expense are required to nurture this type of process along to fulfillment, something that a breakroom suggestion box is far less likely to accomplish.
At IDEO, the core rule is to defer judgment and build on the thoughts of others; when doing so, its teams improve the chances of coming up with breakthrough ideas. In using this approach, design thinkers were able to help Marriott conclude that its attempts to improve the “customer’s journey” were based on assumptions – show ’em what they won, Johnny: a smiling face at check-in! – rather than observation. When truly studying what weary travelers wanted, the hotelier was able to learn that a nice lobby and friendly greeting are fine, but the “exhale moment,” as in collapsing in the chair of one’s room and clicking on the TV, is what really counts and therefore where enhancements must be made. Lesson learned: as business people, we must move past what we assume our clientele wants from us and truly discover the answer. And we don’t even necessarily have to hire high-flying, globe-trotting grey suits to accomplish this. Maybe we just need to ask.