Inspired by Chengdu: Design Thinking (Post 3 of 4)

Welcome back to "Inspired by Chengdu - Adopting the Leadership Personality of a Design Thinker."  Let's continue our journey with a conversation about design thinking...

Essentially, design thinking is an iterative (sometimes, seemingly chaotic) process that trained designers use to organize and work through challenging problems. It has received a great deal of attention in the last several years, with organizations around the globe spending millions to incorporate design thinking into their innovation methodologies. Design thinking works because it is inherently human-centered: designers are trained to approach problems with empathy, finding the solutions that humans want and need.  This empathetic foundation makes design thinking extremely flexible, comprehensive, applicable, and effective in exploring solutions for all types of situations. In short, the designer’s tool box offers powerful insight into the whys, hows, and what ifs that can derail even the best intentions when they are not considered first from a human perspective.

So what is in the designer’s tool box? 

“Many people outside of professional design have a natural aptitude for design thinking,” according to IDEO’s Tim Brown in his book, Change by Design. I’m absolutely one of those natural design thinkers - and I’m sure many of you are, too.   

Just how do you know if you think like a designer?  Well, Mr. Brown describes design thinkers as:

1. Empathetic. Design thinkers have the ability to see things from several different perspectives and therefore consider details that may be missed by others.” 

Think about your neighbors and how you imagined they felt as you explored the perfect world in your mind. During that empathetic journey, you tapped into their thoughts and feelings; put yourself in their shoes. You observed the world from their perspective and used that information to rearrange the details, which affected how you responded to their needs. Empathy promotes empathy. And empathy supports leadership.

2. Integrative thinkers. We design thinkers “consider even the most contradicting points in both data and human responses because we understand that often the most innovative solutions lie within the context of the most conflicting issues.” 

Evaluating options for healthy urban development and lessons learned from others who have done it before, through a designer’s lens, will nearly always offer conflicting solutions. Being integrative in approach, design thinkers embrace that conflict, realizing that within it lies the opportunity to do things better.

3. Optimistic. Design thinkers believe “there is at least one solution that is better than the current alternatives, and [we] tenaciously pursue that solution.” 

I would venture a guess that each of you can identify at least one scenario in the world you just imagined that is better than the alternatives that exist today.  Even better, your optimism and energy to pursue that alternative is contagious.

4. “Enthusiastically collaborative.” Design thinkers draw energy from the ideas and experiences of others and openly explore and contribute [our] own various interests and talents to the team.” 

Successfully creating an environment of sustainable growth through an architecture of policy, business, culture, education, community and environmental concern requires everyone’s best work: and it starts with the expectation that our best work is exactly what the team will get.

5. “Experimenters who are not afraid to push ideas outside the box.” This does not mean that you go big or you go home.  It does mean that identifying a lot of ideas, choosing a few potentially good ones, pushing them beyond a prescribed comfort zone, then collecting feedback and adjusting each until you’ve identified the best option, allows us to experience each idea as a tangible solution. Designers call it prototyping. Start small, try something out, make adjustments, and hone in on the best solution.  

Now that we know what the traits are, how do we help leaders leap?  We'll talk about that as we wrap up our journey tomorrow...

Inspired by Chengdu: Journey (Post 2 of 4)

This is the second post in the series "Inspired by Chengdu: Adopting the Leadership Personality of a Design Thinker."  

I live in the American southwest, in the majestic red rocks near Zion National Park. It is a landscape that inspires and reminds me daily what can be accomplished when diverse forces come together in a common goal.

The growth taking place in our world today is exciting and challenging. My last visit to southern China was just months before the devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake. My family, and so many others around the world, shared deep empathy and love for the people of China during that time - much as the world did with us after September 11. Their resilience and persistence in re-envisioning and rebuilding is inspirational.

In the spirit of inspirational paths, we are going to embark on a short journey together. On this journey, we shall explore the leadership personality of design thinkers, consider how we can each develop our own authentic voice, and begin to see why this approach is timely and practical for today’s world of explosive growth and complex challenges.  

Every journey begins with a first step. Let’s begin. 

Please close your eyes. In your mind, picture the world as you would like it to be. Land. Food. Air. Water. Is it a peaceful place? Are people happy?    

From that elevated viewpoint, zoom in to observe the city or town in which you live.  How does it look?  What are the things that strike you as important or missing?  

Now, zoom in still further to view your neighborhood. Picture where you live. How you live. How do you feel about it?  Does what you see and feel make you smile?  

Now consider your neighbors. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment.  How would they answer these questions?  

[pause]

OK. Please open your eyes.

Welcome back.  

Now that you have visited the world as you would like it to be, and considered how others feel about it, let’s consider the following questions:  

1) How does what you pictured in your mind compare to what you know to be true in the world today? In your city? In your neighborhood?  

2) How did you feel about that world when you put yourself in your neighbor’s shoes?  Did new perspectives emerge about the ways in which your neighbor sees this world?

This simple exercise is a powerful tool anyone can use to begin solving difficult problems. What makes it so powerful?  The answer is simple: empathy.  

Empathy is the intellectual identification with the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.”  Empathy is foundational to effective leadership, for without empathy, a leader is incapable of understanding the perspectives of others, including those he or she desires to lead.  Empathy is also the foundational element in design thinking: the way trained designers approach problems and develop creative solutions.  

Empathy, then, is the the connection point between practicing effective leadership and developing creative, solution-driven strategies.  As we gathered in Chengdu last week to discuss healthy urban growth, I asked the audience to consider their personal relationship with empathy.  In follow up, I offer you an opportunity to begin to explore how you might adopt the leadership traits of design thinking to meet complex challenges.

We'll continue our journey in the next post in our series "Inspired by Chengdu."  See you soon!

Inspired by Chengdu: Introduction (Post 1 of 4)

Last week I had the opportunity to speak in Chengdu, China, at the 2012 China International Friendship Cities conference. It was an exciting opportunity, and simply being in China for those few days, listening to speakers from around the world promote their perspectives and successes, was an inspiring cultural and business education.  

My talk was brief (organizers limited us to six minutes each, complete with gong when your time was up...a misplaced motivational choice from my perspective but effective none-the-less), and a little different from the others : I urged the audience to remember to keep empathy at the forefront in our urbanization and development decisions - always keeping in mind that a city's stakeholders are its inhabitants, and prioritizing other goals over the fundamental needs and desires of its citizens will lead to far more lost than gained in the long run. 

I kept it well under the six minute mark: no gongs for me.

What I really wanted to speak about, however, had there been time to fully develop the idea for the audience that day, is that empathy - the basis of both design thinking and effective leadership - ties together these two individually effective practices to create an extremely powerful tool for discovering and implementing novel solutions to difficult challenges.  

Over the next several days and posts, I invite you to come along and explore some of what developed as I prepared for, spent time in, and finally returned home from Chengdu. 

Tune in tomorrow for the first installment of Inspired by Chengdu: Adopting the Leadership Personality of a Design Thinker.  

In the meantime, happy leading!

The Innovation Society will Never be the Same!

I know first hand the success possible when groups embrace the creative collaboration of design thinking (a.k.a. human-centered design), after all, I've practiced it personally for more than 15 years and have witnessed it work again and again in organizations large and small. So naturally, I was delighted to read about the U.S. Government's new approach to tackling hairy problems. Seems the Office of Personnel Management has leapfrogged other agencies to join the innovation society and...wait for it...lead change by embracing the unlimited possibilities of design thinking. 

Kudos to OPM! 

It takes guts, humility, and a driving desire to find a better way in order to embrace the creative, highly iterative and seemingly chaotic 'science of problem solving,' but for those among us willing to take the chance and commit to the process, we are never disappointed.  

So read on, and let the OPM's leap inspire you.  Then, when you, too, are ready to put the raw power of human-centered design to work, just remember: I'm just a click away.

OPM's innovation lab spurs new way of problem-solving

The sub-basement of the Office of Personnel Management's headquarters resembles more a of tech start-up than a federal office building. The innovation lab, as OPM calls it, provides a brightly-lit, open room for employees to meet and tackle the "stickiest" of the agency's problems.

Beyond the new coat of paint and crisp white furniture, OPM is embracing innovation as a new methodology — the science of problem-solving. The approach is called human-centered design, and it focuses on keeping the end user in mind throughout the problem-solving process. Originally applied to product development, the human-centered design can also apply to services — like the ones federal agencies provide.

The hope is the new space and new approach to problem-solving will actually lead to a new culture — one of innovation in government.

"That's not an oxymoron," said Matt Collier, senior advisor to the OPM director and the head of creating the innovation lab.  (Read more...)