"[W]e must consider the possibility that if Design Thinking is critical, maybe restricting it to designers and protecting them from business people is not actually the most productive avenue to pursue. Perhaps eliminating the need for protection by turning business people into Design Thinkers would be more effective.
... Rather than supplementing modern analytical management with design sensibilities, it is time to integrate design into management practice. The job of executives isn't to protect designers from line management, but to help line management become Design Thinkers. It is time for the management discipline of Design Thinking.
To create a Design Thinking organization, a company must create a corporate environment in which it is the job of all managers to understand customer needs at a deep and sophisticated level and to understand what the firm's product means to the customer at not only a functional level, but also an emotional and psychological level... It must create an operating environment by which line managers experiment with new ways of delighting the customer, realizing fully that some new ideas will fail, but that in failing these efforts have valuable benefits. Even failed experiments help convince customers that the company is aiming high, and the feedback will help them come up with newer, better approaches.
...The great firms of the 21st century will be those that recognize the goal isn't to supplement analytics with design; it is all about integrating design and management."
