The model of Design Thinking has become highly popular with organisations that want to achieve transformation through innovation. Many are trying their hand at implementing design thinking, but surprisingly, even after going through the full cycle a number of times, they are still not seeing the results and benefits they had expected.
So how can a popular innovation journey with such a good track record for innovation success be considered a failure?
First, many business leaders and organisations embark on design thinking with the wrong mindset. Peter Drucker, the management guru, once said: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This simply means that no matter how brilliant a strategy or idea may be, if it runs against the organisation’s culture, it will never work.
Design thinking is both a skill and mindset. It requires a complete reorientation of attitudes towards risk-taking, failure, and concern about loss of face. The cultural challenges in many Asian cultures are particularly strong in these areas, and unless these issues are addressed as part of your innovation strategy, the prevailing culture will eat your strategy as Drucker predicted.
Second, organisations have unrealistic expectations regarding design thinking. You might have heard this phrase many times: “We tried design thinking, it didn’t work.” But this defines one of the biggest obstacles in building design thinking capability.
Design thinking is a process that, when used correctly, will help you identify the right problem and build the best solution to solve it. But it’s not a magic wand or a one-off fix; it takes time and persistence to master design thinking.
Furthermore, design thinking does not have a pre-built solution in itself -- it gives you the skill set and mindset to find genuinely innovative solutions to high-value, unserved needs. But do not expect to generate an industry-disrupting innovation at the end of your first training session. You need to master the methodology and mindset, and manage your expectations while you learn.
Third, another consequence of unrealistic expectations is the lack of persistence -- giving up too soon. Design thinking is not an event or a project. It is meant to be a core capability for our era and should be a natural part of your activities.
When applied in innovation projects, it is important to understand that multiple iterations are built into the design thinking process. A famous example is the penetrating spray WD-40, which is so named because its developers only succeeded on the 40th attempt to formulate it. What if they had given up after the first or 20th or 39th attempt?
Many times organisations do not have the perseverance to stick with an idea long enough to see it come to fruition. They are used to solving simple problems and finding easy fixes and that is not what design thinking is for. Design thinking tackles deep, human-centred needs and you need to work towards the solution one iteration at a time.
Lastly, organisations may lack the vision. Bill Burnett, executive director of the design programme at Stanford University, once said: “You can’t fix a problem that you don’t think you have.” He stresses the importance of understanding what you are trying to do before you start with design thinking.
If you simply ask someone to think of a great idea at that moment, it actually shuts down creativity as it is too broad a request. You need to understand your context, what is happening to your business, what your competitive landscape is, and what your strategic innovation intents are.
It is certainly not about beginning with the end in mind, but it is about beginning with a clear vision of the areas where you need to innovate. Without this clarity of vision, you’re just hoping that you get lucky.
Design thinking delivers if you let it. All you need to do is get out of your own usual way and let it work. It takes time but every application, every iteration, moves you closer to that breakthrough innovation.
And, while design thinking is doing what it is meant to do, it is also transforming your culture -- changing how your people view risk and failure, and instilling a bias towards action and human-centred solutions.
You are absolutely right to expect great things of design thinking. Just don’t expect anything to happen overnight or give up after the first try.
Arinya Talerngsri is Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director at SEAC (formerly APMGroup) Southeast Asia's leading executive, leadership and innovation capability development centre. She can be reached by email at arinya_t@seasiacenter.com or www.linkedin.com/in/arinya-talerngsri-53b81aa
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