How is design thinking impacting large enterprise companies

Category: Design Thinking / User Experience

Design thinking is, at its heart, a human-centered approach. Many people think of large enterprises as robotic an unfeeling, without a heart or soul. And in the past, that may have been the case. But today the emergence of design thinking is helping to change all of that. It’s helping larger enterprises to take a more human approach to business. Here are a just a few of the ways design thinking is changing the business world as you know it.

 

It’s Evokes Emotion

Design thinking works by building empathy with users. That means that an enterprise that puts design thinking at its core is empowering its employees to draw conclusions and make observations of behavior on the things people want and need from their products. These conclusions are expressed in emotional language, making the emotional resonance a product strikes with a user as valuable as the utility of the product in their lives.

 

A great example of emotional resonance is in car sales. If a car company promises you that if you buy their product you’ll get a comfortable and stylish ride that is also safe, it’s putting forth an emotional proposition for the user by promising a feeling of luxury and safety. Companies that use design thinking in their process understand that a decision they make in the boardroom will have a positive impact in the lives of its users – and that ultimately has led many companies to financial success.

 

It Provides Freedom

If you want your company to be able to respond to customer needs at the drop of a hat, then design thinking is where it’s at. Companies that use design thinking have power structures that are very different from the power structures of more traditionally-run companies. That’s because they empower their people to meet challenges head on to go beyond their job descriptions. When people who are traditionally seen as at the bottom of the corporate totem pole can make decisions to help improve the customer experience going forward, it makes them happier and the customer happier too. It’s a new approach to skillsets that are reflected in HR departments in enterprises around the world.

 

They Test Solutions

In organizations that focus on design thinking, you’ll often see new ideas around the office as prototypes. It can be digital diagrammatic, or physical, but they’re always a prototype that helps to communicate ideas and find solutions that can be tested in the real world. It’s not your traditional structured work environment, but instead an environment that value open-mindedness and open communication of ideas. It’s a community of people coming together to solve a problem and they are given the freedom and encouraged to explore the ideas together.

 

If you’re going to become a design-thinking enterprise and find success, you can’t be shy. You have to be willing to tinker with ideas out in the open. Design thinking is more of a social activity than a personal one, and the work culture definitely reflects that setting employees and ultimately users up for success.

 

They’re Willing to Fail

Design culture is a nurturing culture. It doesn’t exactly encourage team members to fail but it recognizes that things often aren’t done right the first time. In order to be celebrated for your major successes, you have to be willing to trip up along the way and embrace it. Failure is part of the cost of true innovation – so view it as a way to get where you want to go and an experience you can learn from.

 

Design thinking certainly isn’t a new concept, but it’s one that many more companies need to be educated about. If you’ve wondered what make large enterprises so successful with this process, then go on your own design thinking journey to uncover the things you can do better to more fully embrace this philosophy.