Nurturing Design Thinking

Fast Company recently asserted that the era of design thinking has ended. Far from the end of the era, companies increasingly realize the need to build their internal design thinking capabilities to enhance their innovation capacity. As we move into a new era of nurturing in-house design thinking, companies must make long-term commitments to supporting the conditions for design thinking to thrive and be patient enough for innovation efforts to take root and bear fruit.

Nurturing a New Methodology

It takes time for new methodologies to be adopted across a company. It takes time for people to understand fresh approaches and for changes in how teams work to lead to tangible successes. It takes time for a movement to change how companies operate. Indeed, it takes time to transform a company. Design thinking has the potential to do just that, and for it to take hold within a company, it benefits from the mindset of a gardener. Consultancies have worked closely with companies seeking to learn and apply design thinking for decades. Most are engagements involving multi-year journeys, onboarding new hires, and the persistent involvement of CEOs.

Company leaders must set the conditions essential to adopting design thinking. First, they must set expectations and plan for several years of growing a design thinking capacity. Efforts often start by working in areas relevant to the company but not so significant as to cause undue risk. Using this approach, even with small victories, others within the organization can see how the process applies to them. This approach also allows for experimentation and the kind of trial and error that occurs when onboarding new design-thinking practitioners. In addition to transforming how existing employees innovate, hiring colleagues with new design research capabilities, unique outlooks on business, and the ability to quickly prototype with technology is often needed. All of this takes time. Several tiers of leadership within the company must be involved to ensure that the focus on design thinking can persist beyond leadership changes.

“Being mindful of how deeply the roots of design thinking are reaching within a company is essential to ensure that the movement can persist even if fundamental leadership changes occur or a company pivots strategically.”


The Power of Design Thinking - Worth the Investment

Design thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving and innovation. It places the end-user at the core of the process, encouraging empathy, collaboration, and experimentation. For large companies in particular, embracing design thinking brings them closer to their customers and offers several compelling advantages:

1. Customer-Centricity
Design thinking ensures that companies prioritize the needs and preferences, resulting in products and services that resonate more effectively with the market.

2. Adaptability
In today's fast-paced business world, adaptability is critical. Design thinking encourages flexibility, enabling large companies to effectively pivot, iterate, and respond to changing market dynamics.

3. Creativity
Encouraging a culture of creativity and ideation is essential for staying ahead of the competition. Design thinking fosters an environment where innovative ideas can flourish.

4. Employee Engagement and the Right Talent Mix
Empowering employees to contribute to problem-solving and innovation fosters a sense of ownership and engagement, increasing job satisfaction and productivity. Interdisciplinary teams that can empathize with each other and build together are essential.

In the long run, nurturing design thinking within an organization is an investment that allows it to continuously reap what it sows, year after year, as the creative potential to realize innovative products grows. It ensures that a company can grow and evolve to respond to market changes as long as it is nurtured by leadership and across the culture.

Fertile Ground - Design Thinking is Rooted in Talent.

If you don’t have those familiar with design thinking, where can you find them? Perhaps those practicing design thinking for years within design consultancies are ready for a new context and open to joining in-house teams. Or maybe there is a need for new talent that complements your company's existing employees and amplifies your innovation efforts.

If the latter is the case, below is a list of five schools that deeply integrate design thinking into their curriculum or have rich interaction design programs that produce talent key to design thinking.

Carnegie Mellon College of Design

North Carolina State University College of Design

Umea Institute of Design

University of Washington School of Art + Art History + Design

Stanford d.school


A Blueprint for Nurturing Design Thinking

Now that we understand the value of design thinking let's dive into the blueprint for nurturing it:

1. Leadership Buy-In
For design thinking to thrive, it must be championed from the top. Company leaders must understand the potential benefits and actively support its integration. This includes providing resources, time, and training for employees to engage in design thinking processes. Once a company starts a design-thinking journey, leadership must constantly watch over initiatives and tell stories about ongoing successes and things that can be learned from failures. Leadership must also observe and assess the leadership tiers below them to ensure their proficiency with design thinking. Companies have trained senior leaders and mid-level managers in design thinking simultaneously to engrain the creative approach more deeply within the organization.

2. Comprehensive Training
Offering design thinking training to employees at all levels is essential. This can be done through workshops, courses, hiring external experts, and rotating staff through key projects where design thinking is applied. The goal is to ensure that everyone in the organization understands the principles and tools of design thinking.

3. Create Cross-Functional Teams
Design thinking thrives on diverse perspectives and cross-functional collaboration. Encourage the formation of multidisciplinary teams that work together on projects. This diversity of thought can lead to more innovative solutions.

4. Foster an Empathetic Culture
Empathy is a cornerstone of design thinking. Encourage employees to actively seek and understand their customers' and colleagues' needs and perspectives.

5. Prototyping and Testing
Design thinking does not involve just thinking. It depends upon iterative prototyping and testing. Create an environment where teams are empowered to develop prototypes and gather user feedback. Concept iteration based on user feedback leads to refined ideas and solutions.

6. Failure Is an Option
Innovation comes with the risk of failure. A culture practicing design thinking embraces failure of the right kind at the right time early in the process, allowing employees to take calculated risks and learn from their mistakes. Failure is often a stepping stone to success.

7. Celebrate Successes
Equally crucial as accepting failure is celebrating success. Acknowledge and reward teams that achieve positive outcomes through applying design thinking. This recognition will motivate others to embrace the approach.

8. Continuous Improvement
Through practicing design thinking, a company’s culture and innovation output should be constantly enhanced by monitoring how things are created and how they can be improved. Design thinking is not a one-time initiative; it's an ongoing process. Encourage continuous improvement by regularly reviewing and refining your design thinking practices to align with evolving goals and challenges.


In Summary

Nurturing design thinking within companies is not just a trend; it's a strategic move to stay competitive in an ever-changing business landscape. Companies are increasingly harnessing the power of design thinking internally to drive innovation and success by cultivating a culture that embraces empathy, creativity, and customer-centricity. Remember that it's a journey, not a destination for the next quarter or the one after that. With commitment and dedication, your organization can reap the rewards of design thinking and sustain innovation efforts for years to come.

Design Thinking, StrategyDanny Stillion