Today’s workplace calls for a new style of leadership to embolden and accelerate innovation. Design offers a novel way to discover market opportunities, experiment to validate concepts and mitigate risk, and deliver value to all stakeholders. This course offers hands-on experience applying human-centered design process to real-world challenges, and requires you to explore the world around you. Learn how to engage with end users, effectively frame problems, identify potential solutions, and build prototypes to test assumptions and learn what works (and doesn’t). Then dive into a range of ways large and small to bring design innovation into your organization.
From the lesson
Leading Design Innovation
How do you bring design innovation to your organization and sustain it over time? In this module we will learn theory and practical techniques to help you lead an organization that routinely produces innovative products, services, and systems.
Associate Professor, Co-director of the Research Cluster at the Segal Design Institute McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science (Segal Design Institute), School of Communication, Kellogg School of Management (by courtesy), School of Education and Social Policy (by courtesy)
Pam Daniels
Clinical Assistant Professor, Design Innovator in Residence McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (Segal Design Institute)
Ed Colgate
Allen and Johnnie Breed University Design Professor, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Director of the Engineering Design and Innovation Masters Program at the Segal Design Institute McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Greg Holderfield
Pentair - D. Eugene and Bonnie L. Nugent Clinical Associate Professor of Design, Director of the Segal Design Institute, Co-Director of the MMM Program McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science (Segal Design Institute)
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Previously we discussed that there are three areas that you as a leader can focus
to make your organization more innovative.
In this video, we will address the first of those.
How you communicate about design innovation to gain support within your
organization.
First, it's important to introduce everyone in your organization
to design innovation.
And discuss why it matters to them in their own personal domain.
Remember, new approaches can be stressful to those in
your organization who fear embarrassment, increase cost, or reduced productivity.
If you don't handle these carefully, you could worsen those fears.
So how do you help your organization willingly embrace design animation?
In my time working with leaders from small non profits to Fortune 500 companies,
I've learned that the leaders who are the most successful at communicating
the importance of design innovation do the four specific things.
The first is that they understand their users.
Every successful design innovator makes an effort to get to know the users, but
who is the user in this scenario?
The individuals within your company who you want
to embrace the design innovation process and attitudes.
You do this by going to where your employees are.
Spending time with them in the break room or on the shop floor.
When leaders understand their different stakeholders,
they can more effectively communicate with them to inspire action.
By spending time at YMCA centers across the country, Mora Shea,
the woman responsible for
spreading design innovation at YMCA came to understand their history of innovation.
Which enabled her to link her vision for the organization with their past.
In 1891 YMCA physical educator James Naismith invented basketball as a fun,
easy to learn alternative to soccer for wintertime when the fields were wet.
Moore referenced this prior activity.
Using this story as her centerpiece Moore was able to translate technical terms like
rapid prototyping into concepts her colleagues could relate to
like experimenting.
The second thing that leaders do to promote design innovation
is establish credibility.
Credibility grows out of the relationship between two people as they interact
with each other over time.
Well in many organizations, degrees and titles demonstrate credibility.
In organizations driven by design innovation, prior interactions and
more specifically, successes and failures strongly influence credibility.
Rapid iterative building and testing of ideas is the most effective way to
gain credibility, because you can demonstrate that you are able to face and
respond to uncertain situations by actually doing so.
Not just by talking about it.
Consider the approach Zia Yusuf took when creating a design innovation team as SAP.
Zia started with several small projects, rather than a PowerPoint,
announcing the organizational change.
The projects were highly disruptive to the organizations norms.
But because they had been developing testing ideas with the people
whom they wanted to embrace the design innovation the entire way
these people believed that the team had a good chance at success.
The third thing that leaders do to promote innovation
is to effectively use stories and stats.
As internal competition for resources grows, successful design innovators use
stories and stats to simply and concretely communicate
in a way they gets their team excited about introducing design innovation.
Emotional stories allow people to relate to your message.
Start with a personal story about a user, his need, the magnitude of his problem and
how the world might be different if you change it.
Evoke senses by enhancing stories with images or video,
make your story an immersive experience rather than just telling them.
But even the best emotional story won't really help you, if people don't
really understand what you're talking about or how you came to your conclusions.
Focus on assembling and analyzing the data to address the problems
which your organization cares about and present the analysis in a digestible way.
Flashing large Excel spreadsheets on a screen is not going to do it.
Data does not speak for itself.
Take time to make connections between the data and your story.
Be explicit about unexpected insights.
Finally, the last thing you need to do is be ready to receive feedback.
The best communication is a two-way street.
This means that you have shared ideas about design innovation.
You must be ready, excited even, to receive feedback.
To insure this, I offer the following three tips or the trifecta of feedback.
Number one, listen to the feedback.
Remember, the feedback is about the idea, not you.
Design innovators are most effective when they think about feedback
as information to inform their solutions rather than criticism about themselves.
Number two, thank people who give you feedback.
Whether you agree or
not, the person cared enough about the idea to share his thoughts with you.
Gratitude makes us feel good and it fills our need to be a value to others.
Number three, place the feedback in one of three buckets labeled accept, reject,
reflect further.
Just because feedback is given, does not mean that it needs to be integrated.
So, what does this mean for you?
If you want to be a leader in design innovation,
it's not enough to share your ideas.
You've got to remember how to receive feedback.
If you remember these three tips,
you can radically improve the quality of your ideas and make greater impact.
In this video,
you learn how to communicate design innovation through four steps.
Understanding your users.
Establishing credibility through experimentation.
Using stories and stats and receiving feedback.
In the next video we'll discuss building and
sustaining your team to support design innovation in your organization.
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Elizabeth GerberAssociate Professor, Co-director of the Research Cluster at the Segal Design Institute
Pam DanielsClinical Assistant Professor, Design Innovator in Residence
Ed ColgateAllen and Johnnie Breed University Design Professor, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Director of the Engineering Design and Innovation Masters Program at the Segal Design Institute
Greg HolderfieldPentair - D. Eugene and Bonnie L. Nugent Clinical Associate Professor of Design, Director of the Segal Design Institute, Co-Director of the MMM Program
