Practical Ways To Apply Design Thinking to Leadership
We need design thinkers everywhere, especially in business leadership.
Yet "design thinking" can quickly become a watered-down ritual exclusively for designers or a shiny new framework lauded by the business but never truly internalized. (We won't go there. For now!) Let's focus on applying elements of design thinking to leadership—from the minutia of everyday decision-making to the big thorny problems.
First, a refresher. Stated simply, what is design thinking?
Tim Brown, President of IDEO, explains, "Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success."
Cool. Now let's follow that up with what design thinking is not. It is not:
A standardized process
A fad or magic bullet
Linear, with a clear starting and stopping point
Design thinking is:
A way to create meaningful positive change for your users, customers, and employees
Non-linear—with a focus on continuous, collaborative learning
Adaptive to your organization
Here are three practical ways that design thinking can strengthen the impact of your leadership, no matter your industry.
1. Become a better learner
I love the story of the man and his teacup. This super-smart guy, a professor of some sort, is out seeking a teacher to learn Zen. He finds one. The teacher invites the man inside, pours him some tea, and fills the cup to the brim. But he keeps pouring! The man says, "That's enough! No more will go in!" The teacher responds, "Your head is full of ideas and opinions. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
Oof. Or, rather, ouch.
How can leaders learn what's going on with their customers, employees, and culture unless they first empty their cups?
When conducting user research to inform product innovation, researchers adopt a "beginner's mind" to observe, listen, and learn new insights that could influence a possible feature. They are emptying their cup to make room for learning. Leaders must do this, too.
Here are some practical ways leaders can "empty their cup" and cultivate intentional learning:
Remaining genuinely open to an idea that you believe will fail (or have seen fail in the past)
Getting out of the office and spending time with customers to observe, understand, and internalize their pain points
Asking — and encouraging your team to ask — "Why have we always done it this way?"
2. Distribute control
Distributing control is often confused with delegating. Anyone can delegate. Distributing control? Not so easy.
The act of delegation is activity-based and consists of dolling out and managing the flow of tasks. Distributing control means allowing someone else's view of reality to inform decisions.
Everyone's view of a problem looks different. No human can ever have all the information, so no single person should solely control the final product or be the only decision-maker. To facilitate open, productive collaboration, we must momentarily suspend our mental model of "right," which means hearing someone else's perspective and proactively seeking out cross-disciplinary partnerships.
When leaders don't distribute control, they may manipulate other opinions and insights to confirm their version of reality...which is scary and very bad. Pervasive and damaging self-sealing logic will drag any org to its knees.
Some examples of leaders distributing control:
Seeking and internalizing perspectives outside of one's department—especially below the "management tier"—for more information before making a decision
Organizing a working session with a group of cross-disciplinary employees to brainstorm ways to improve an area of cultural friction
Always asking, "How can other perspectives broaden my view of reality?"
3. Envision the ecosystem
When building a digital product, teams might focus exclusively on what they're making: the "thing." Not the stuff happening around it.
Failing to take the time to understand other critical moments of interaction with the business limits how well these teams can serve users through any singular touchpoint.
Everyone should be able to answer:
"How will users find what we're building?"
"Where will they go from here?"
This broadens their view of the other touchpoints that could be shaping customer expectations or frustrations. The knee-jerk response of some product teams might be, "That's [insert department name] 's job, not mine." That might be correct in theory, but that logic crumbles during execution. It sends a message that accepting a narrow view of the customer journey will do just fine—that everyone just owns their piece of the pie. Internal silos grow and manifest into fragmented and frustrating customer experiences.
These are some ways leaders can envision the ecosystem:
Appoint SMEs across marketing, IT, product, and operations to build a holistic view of the customer journey
Align key cross-functional teams with a shared set of metrics focused on decreasing friction across digital touchpoints
Ask, "What organizational silos exist, and….why?"
Design thinking is a catalyst for creating more effective leaders, stronger teams, and a collaborative culture, which have far-reaching impacts on the business.
These three ways to apply design thinking are just the start. How else does design thinking apply to everyday leadership? I'd love to hear what you think.