- Leading design thinking requires being comfortable,
continually going from the details of making,
to framing the effort,
so the team remains in the flow of collaborative iteration.
There are many kinds of leaders.
Some are integrated as guides in the team,
and some lead many efforts,
and others are leading very large teams.
Across all are several abilities,
which really well support
effective, creative problem solving.
Understanding these abilities
and your own relationship with them
is crucial to developing your design thinking leadership.
I see four things good design thinking leaders
are able to do.
And I found some strategies effective.
The first is framing the problem
and continually reframing it.
Framing the problem means being able to go
from the details available right now
or from the concept explored today
to the longview, really smoothly,
and to have the confidence
to let the details reframe the problem
or the longview reframe
how the details are being approached.
The skill is being able to hold several perspectives:
the business strategy, the human needs,
the organization's needs in mind,
and fluidly integrate them
into how the problem is being explored,
so they can guide and shape,
rather than shut down creative exploration.
If there's one tactic to keep in mind,
it's make suggestions.
Be present with the team,
and bring that longview into the suggestions you make.
The second is enabling experimentation.
When you create an experiment with the safety to fail fast
and to learn from those fast fails and small wins,
you open the door for experimentation.
To enable experimentation,
model a bias towards making for your team.
I recommend you literally make time for experimentation.
It might be the lab day or the lab hour,
whatever it is,
and then make sure that you're present for that time.
Roll up your sleeves, get the whiteboard marker out,
and make with the team.
In both framing and experimentation,
bias yourself towards addressing the hardest problems,
the ones that really push the team thinking the most.
The third skill, communicating ideas,
is less often discussed
as a key for successful design thinking,
but I think it's very important.
Companies are interested in design thinking
for the promise of generating new, meaningful products,
services, and experiences that will lead and innovate
in their industry.
These new ideas are often very different
from the established way of thinking
about what's delivered today in a company,
and this difference can introduce a lot of fear.
So how you communicate,
the insights, the new ideas, the people's needs,
the solution itself,
will shape how your peers react
to the solution your teams create.
You need to bring a strong eye
for how the vision is made tangible,
in a memorable narrative to the rest of the business.
One strategy is to make sure you are externalizing work
on the walls of the team space,
and that you are able to, day by day,
frame the story of what's on those walls.
In the ambiguity of creation,
a daily refresh helps balance the detail and the longview,
and it builds your narrative daily.
So whenever you need to talk about the work,
it's crisp, clear, and refined.
The fourth.
You are directing the team through all of this.
It's important that you're present when you are there.
Define if you're going to be a reliable drop-in leader
or a consistent collaborator,
and make time to be available to the team.
Use your skills in facilitation
to encourage all the disciplines to collaborate,
and model this shared assumption,
the optimism that this will succeed.
Your role is to balance the vision
and the evolution of team thinking.
Your ability to move from the details to the longview
reduces the variable the teams need to worry about,
and lets them focus their energy
on the problem right at hand.
So think about the four abilities I shared:
framing the problem, enabling experimentation,
communicating ideas, and directing the teams.
And consider where your strengths lie,
and your growth areas.
I posted those four ideas in the course community.
If you'd like to discuss this further,
please jump on these threads.