Why CEOs Must Delve Into Design Thinking

As Traditional Silos Break Down, Companies Require Innovative Solutions to Transition From Industrial to Digital Organisations.

- Ranjan Banerjee

OVER THE PAST two months, I had some unusual conversations with senior leaders. During an interaction, the HR leadership of a conglomerate wanted to see how it could use design thinking to frame more usercentric HR policies. In another, a leader of an IT organisation wanted to know if design thinking could improve the effectiveness of performance appraisal processes in his organisation. Another friend had just taken over as the CEO of a large organisation, had seen a video I had shared on design thinking, and wanted to know if it could be used to drive change management. So, what is design thinking? Why does it matter so much to business leaders today?

Simply put, design thinking is an approach to creative problem-solving, especially suited to semi-structured and unstructured problems. For instance, if you want to know how to make citizens of Mumbai respect the environment more, that would be an unstructured problem. You do not know who litters and who does not, you do not fully know the reasons why, and you do not have clear, a priori information on the methods, resources and tools required to solve the problem. Defining the problem is, in itself, a major part of the problem. We need to understand it more to solve the problem better, and this is how design thinking helps:

Eclectic, non-hierarchical team: First, the team required to solve the problem is often eclectic and non-hierarchical. An ideal team to solve the environmental problem described above might include a municipal corporation leader, a ragpicker, a consumer activist, an ethnographer, an anthropologist, and so on. The team has to bring diverse perspectives to bear on the problem at hand. It is not necessary that every team member has prior exposure to the problem, but diversity of perspective and curiosity are prerequisites.