Well put Mark! This really captures everything we’ve been posting on the Design Changes blog around design thinking.

Regardless of you’re industry—finance, engineering, sales, marketing—we believe that when design thinking is applied to any problem, your chances of an innovation solution dramatically improves.

This is because design thinking is a not problem-focused mind-set —it’s a solution focused mind-set. It uses both left brain and right brain thinking to find an actionable solution. Design thinking can be applied to find:

1. Order in chaos

2. People-centered solutions

3. Emotional/desired appeals

4. Memorable, human experiences (scenarios/stories)

5. Unseen/overlooked opportunities

6. Possibilities for the future

7. Prototypes for solutions

Internationally renowned academic and author on business and management, Henry Mintzberg, wrote the influential book, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, and he claims, “Leaders and managers need to think like designers…Design and leadership are fundamentally about actively creating the future rather than reacting to the present.” Mintzberg points to large, successful corporations like Apple, Starbucks, Sony, and Virgin, that all use designed thinking in their leadership, management, market, creation and innovation.

Now, does their success prove that design thinking really works?

The reason is because engaging design, or “human-centered design” (HCD) is a process we truly believe helps us create solutions that will better the world. We use HCD when designing new product and service names, cultures of innovation and digital experiences for our clients and readers.

The actual process was deemed “human-centered” by IDEO, the renowned design thinking and consultancy firm. IDEO created a three-lens model to help give us a more in-depth understanding of HDC.

As you view the world through this lens, you come to understand how HDC can help organizations:

1. Connect better with customers

2. Transform data into actionable ideas

3. Distinguish opportunities

4. Increase speed and effectiveness when creating new solutions

An effective HCD process begins with listening to the people you want to affect with your ideas and solutions. Through the first lens, the Desirability lens, we examine their needs, dreams, and behaviors, understand them, and then we can identify what is desirable to them. Next, we can start to view our ideas through the Feasibility (what is technically and organizationally feasible?) and Viability (what is financially viable?) lenses.

As you can see from the graph’s overlap, the most effective solutions that come out of this Human-Centered Design approach overlie three lenses.

A few years ago our partner company, MFX Partners, was called in to help a local community health centre manage change. Meeting with the management team, we discovered that rapid growth was causing unrest among the employees. Until recently, all employees were used to working in one building. They had built a strong internal community and created rituals such as potluck lunches, etc. However, because of the growing demand for health services, the organization received government funding and added a number of satellite offices. The expansion changed the workplace environment and some employees weren’t handling the change as well as others.

We led an employee session where we utilized design thinking techniques such as role playing and change mapping. Looking back, I believe the most powerful aspect was providing a safe environment that allowed everyone involved express how they felt about the changes taking place.

During the change mapping component, we drew three vertical lines on a flip chart representing three stages of change based on the work of internationally known speaker, author and consultant, William Bridges, they include:

Endings – A stage that often involves high stress, shock and denial for many people.

Neutral Zone – The foggy place between the old way and the new way of being and doing things. This middle zone is often disorienting and confusing.

Beginnings – This stage occurs as the clarity of the new way of being surfaces.

During this exercise we asked each employee to place a dot on the chart to next to the stage they were at. The interesting thing was that there was a fairly even distribution of dots:

1. One third of the employees were in the endings zone

2. Another third were in the neutral zone

3. The remainder had moved on to the beginnings stage of change

This simple visualization exercise assured everyone that, whatever stage they were currently in, it was completely normal, and it reinforced the simple, but often forgotten need to find safe ways to allow people to express themselves and work together to a brighter future. This new awareness helped management identify solutions to manage the change and move everyone forward.

I work with some very talented minds on a daily basis, and although I’ve collaborated with creative types and designers in the past, I wasn’t accustomed to the habit of sketching or white boarding my ideas and thoughts in images. But I’ve found this technique is very effective for relaying abstract thoughts when trying to sell ideas or generate more group ideas—and what’s great about it is that you don’t have to be an artist to utilize it effectively.

Why is visual communication so effective?

1.The brain, by nature, tends to remember visual depictions more often than text.

2. Visualization adds weight to your thoughts and ideas.

3. Images break the details of a project up into digestible bits of information—which are much easier to take in and understand.

4. Images also function as a checklist to verify details between project stakeholders and us.

5. This way, project point-of-view can be referenced to at-a-glance.

6. Keep the visual communication in everyone’s view to keep the project on track.

7. Post-Its allow things to be easily updated with new information.

“We find the few folks early on who want to share their dreams, their desires, their pain points with us,” says Permanente. “Then we observe them in their expertise areas…and take them through the ideation phase where front line staff are inspired to release all of the great ideas inside of them.”

Permanente says he sees the power of design thinking when those low fidelity prototypes (or ideas) are put into action in a hospital within few weeks. “It’s truly powerful stuff,” he says.

Watch the interview and find out how engagement with frontline staff has been responsible for creating solutions for universal problems in health care— medication administration error, nurse shift handoff and pain management.

Elizabeth Johansen is the Director of Product Development at Design that Matters, a company that creates new products and services for the poor in developing countries. Johansen is passionate about creating positive social impact through design through an exercise she calls cultivating “the group mind”.

Now cultivating the “group mind” doesn’t mean that everyone involved thinks alike and follows each other like lemmings. No, it’s a collaborative experience where members of a group feel comfortable and free to be themselves as they meld individual ideas and personalities together to become a collective—opening new doors they would never have discovered without the help of everyone involved.

When it comes to forming a solid “group mind”, Johansen points to Truth in Comedy, the improv comedy bible. In it authors Charna Halpern, Del Close, and Kim Johnson claim that a “group mind” is formed “Once [a participant] puts his own ego out of the way…stops judging the ideas of others—instead, he considers them brilliant…pays close attention to each other, hearing and remembering everything, and respecting all that they hear. The goal…is to connect the information created out of the group ideas—so it’s easily capable of brilliance.”

The book also recommends a method known as the “yes, &…” approach, a concrete technique for cultivating “group mind”. Using the “yes, &…approach, “[Participants] agree with each other to the Nth degree. If one asks the other a question, the other must respond positively…answering “No” leads nowhere… Each new initiation furthers the last one, and the scene progresses. The acceptance of each other’s ideas brings the players together, and engenders a “group mind.”

Bertie County is one of the poorest counties in the United States. Eighty percent of the students here live in poverty, and their best hope for employment is a low-skilled job in agriculture or biotechnology. It’s not much of a future to look forward to.

So why have 16 teenagers in grade 11 committed to attending an experimental design course called Studio H (which stands for Humanity, Habitats, Health and Happiness) for three hours every day this coming school year?

According to Emily Pilloton, the founder of Project H, “Lots of people in poor rural communities like this have no idea what design means…[but] We’ll be teaching the students design thinking, leadership skills, shop skills and citizenship. Hopefully they’ll think of design as a different way of thinking, seeing and tackling problems. If they go on to work in, say, agriculture, it’s a great way of understanding why they might plant in a different way.”

Pilloton, the founder of Studio H, recently moved to Bertie County from San Francisco—along with project architect, Matthew Miller. The class will be held in a once abandoned car body shop behind the school that has been converted into a classroom, studio and workshop to house the project and it’s students. During the school year the students will be tasked with designing a community farmers’ market to sell locally gown produce. And if Studio H is successful in Bertie County, Pilloton and Miller hope to introduce it to other poor rural schools.

Read the full New York Times article about design thinking in Bertie County.

Sutton should know. He’s the co-author of five books on managerial audiences (including The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Firms Turn Knowledge Into Action) and he says that failure is widespread before innovation occurs. “The reality is that the typical successful innovator experiences the agony of defeat far more often than the thrill of victory.”

It’s true that failure happens to the best of us. But instead of giving up, Sutton says that we should embrace failure, learn from it, and put those lessons toward our future ideas. “The ability to capitalize on hard-won experience is a hallmark of the greatest organizations,” he says.

“The [people] who are most adept at turning knowledge into action…and those that are the most successful when it comes to developing and implementing creative ideas…[fail and often].”

Read the full article to find out why the most successful creators tend to be those with the most failures.

* Creativity was rated the most sought after leadership skill
* According to 80% business success demands new ways of thinking
* Less than 50% believe their companies can deal with this complex business environment

However, the Harvard Business Review shared six secrets to creating a culture of innovation that they believe businesses must make in order to deal with the shifting business landscape:

1. Meet needs

What do you employees need to perform at their very best? Are their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs being met at work? If staff is preoccupied by unsatisfied needs it should be no secret that they’ll bring less energy and drive to work. Why not let your employees design their days as they see fit? The nitty-gritty details shouldn’t matter if they are performing effectively and getting work done on time.

2. Teach the systematic approach to creativity

Betty Edward’s book Drawing on the Artist Within describes the five stages of creative thinking: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Understand this rough roadmap for engaging the entire brain in the thinking process—both the analytic left side and the big-picture right side—to effectively solve problems.

3. Nurture passion

When people are assigned tasks that they aren’t passionate about it kills their creativity. Those encouraged to follow their passion at an early age develop stronger discipline, deeper knowledge, and resilience to obstacles. If you find ways to let staff express their unique skills and passions at work—they will be more engaged and productive while at work.

4. Define purpose

Money pays the bills, but it (can’t buy you love) isn’t meaningful on it’s own. Human beings strive to make positive contributions to the world—even on small levels. That’s why the most successful business leaders can communicate a compelling mission and fuel employees forward.

5. Provide time

We live in a “more, bigger, faster” society, but ironically, creative thinking requires uninterrupted, pressure-free time on a regular basis or else we burn out.

6. Recovery

Human beings are not computers—although we’re often treated like machines. The average human can only expend energy for a short period of time (about 90 minutes), but then we need rest in order to recover—for example we go for a walk, go for a drive, excise at the gym, listen to music or even meditate to spur creative breakthroughs.

No, that’s kind of depressing and really uninspiring in my books.

A truly inspiring physical workspace is a collaborative hub. A space where groups of various sizes can easily get together, share knowledge, and help support and grow each other’s ideas. You can’t do that in a cubicle farm.

Take a look at the renowned IDEO office pictured and described in this blog post. This is a great example of an aesthetically pleasing, comfortable physical space that offers the solitude for people to go off and work individually—while offering various collaborative spaces that encourage just that. This goes far beyond the meeting room with the boring rectangle table surrounded by leather-backed chairs (I don’t care if they’re ergonomic or not). In fact, now that I think of it, this office has a lot in common with the MFX Partners’ office in Kitchener’s core and the Design Changes studio in the Princess Twin building in uptown Waterloo. And I know all of our employees can back me up when I say it’s these types of environments that support and stimulate new ways of thinking every day!

Does your workspace resemble any of these ten seriously cool workplaces?

I understand that not every aspect of these examples will suit every company and every industry. However, there’s room for most companies to improve their physical spaces when it’s the most vital factor for encouraging design thinking and stimulating positive change.