A week and a half ago, I had the pleasure of attending the screening of the documentary, “Design Thinking,” followed by a panel discussion of some of Memphis’ brightest and most creative minds. This event was hosted by the Memphis chapter of AIGA, the professional association for design. The documentary explores the methodologies and ideologies of the design thinking movement, and how design thinking can help create meaningful and innovative breakthroughs. The trailer for the documentary can be seen here.

First, let me tell you that I am quite the left-brained thinker. In fact, I am so left-brained that those who know me might argue that the right-brain is totally missing from my cranium! Nevertheless, I enjoyed the event and the brain-stretching that occurred. I began to wonder why more businesses do not use the Design Thinking methodology?

Design Thinking is a proven and repeatable problem-solving protocol used in the design world that any business or profession can employ to achieve extraordinary results. It consists of four key elements:

1. Define the problem. The trick here is to get to the real problem – ask Why, Why, Why. It also requires empathy to fully understand the problem.
2. Create and consider many options. Businesses tend to solve problems the same way every time. Multiple perspectives are important. Better answers happen when 5 people work on a problem for a day than one person for five days.
3. Refine selected directions. Take a handful of promising results and nurture them. Sometimes the refining process means looping back to step 2 and 3 until the right answer surfaces.
4. Pick the winner and execute. At this point, the design process will yield a successful solution to the problem.

Perhaps the reason it is difficult for businesses to employ this methodology is because most business-types are linear thinkers where problems are attacked by crunching numbers and analyzing them to redefine the problem. Design thinking is not an event, it’s the process. The late Steve Jobs said, “Design is the fundamental soul of the company that expresses itself through an end result – the product.”

So rather than send our people to their cubicles to think outside the box, let’s build teams who can, with empathy, get to the root of the problem and apply the design process to reveal creative solutions.

Ah yes, a different way of thinking! Einstein would be proud.