Change by Design

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO authored a book in 2009, titled Change by Design. Today it ranks number five at Amazon under the category Organizational Change. Tim writes:

This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a blueprint for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking - an approach for creative problem solving - into all facets of their organizations, products or services to discover new alternatives for business and society as a whole.

The high ranking at Amazon is not because a bunch of leaders who want to be creative rushed out to buy Tim's book - even though Tim clearly communicates the strategies and business reasons behind engaging design thinking, c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-e-s in CEO and leader language. Rather the high ranking is because those who work for these leaders are desperately in search of - as in crawling across the hot desert floor in search of a tall, cool glass of water - other leaders who get it, other companies that are doing it and other ways to operate a company better.

If you're a CEO / leader and the word change begins to constrict the little fellers in your groin's environment, relax. You don't have to embrace creative problem solving to change your entire company. Learn about it, become familiar with it and change one outdated personal business practice. Once you've gotten your arms and mind around design thinking and have effected a positive personal outcome, you will be encouraged and excited to use it once again. For design thinking to be effective in your company, it must become a mindset in which you truly believe in.

The cold reality of the situation is that if you're a CEO / leader now and are not already tuned into design thinking, you will never will. Your best bet is to step down from CEO and become a Wal-Mart greeter for your company. The only difference is you'll have the wealth and knowledge of your typical WM greeter, but you'll get to actually use it because you will remain on with your company in an advisory capacity. (Wal-Mart shuns the depth-less pool of knowledge and resources contained in their greeter's hearts and minds).

Could you possibly imagine the courage and incredible self-knowledge of a CEO who understands that he doesn't have the capacity to embrace design thinking, but cares enough about his company to turn the reigns over to someone who does and remain on to help?

The cold reality of the situation is that this person doesn't exist. And this leads back to my number one recommendation for reading Tim's work: Learn to identify CEO's and companies who embrace design thinking. Learn from them. Work for them.

Here's another reason for reading Change by Design: Use it as a compass to help navigate your own road. Read the book looking through the window of your own potential development. 

Comments

[Steve Sherlock]

Dave, I loved Tom's earlier work "The Art of Innovation" and am several chapters into this one. We can compare notes when I finish.

[Steve Sherlock]

Oops, not the same author in above comment but from the same firm (IDEO) ... too early this morning to comment properly

[Rosa Say]

Dave, about this part:
"...because those who work for these leaders are desperately in search of - as in crawling across the hot desert floor in search of a tall, cool glass of water - other leaders who get it, other companies that are doing it and other ways to operate a company better."

I find that happens with MWA too - a lot. I wrote it with managers in mind, hoping to give them a resource, and I hear from their staff most of all, sharing sentiments which are usually something like, "If only you were my boss..."

Yet the possibility for better is there, waiting for us to seize it, so I love books like this which push possibility under a brighter spotlight.

[dave]

I'm sure at one point Rosa, over the last 5 or 6 years I mentioned that one of the reasons that MWA* resonated with me so much is for the very same reason it resonates with the staff people you speak of here.

*Well, MWA and the hundreds of other management books that I sought out like exposed diamonds in a mine.

Of course the very fact that the staff people share their sentiments is proof alone that the world yearns for managers that get it.