By Janaki Kumar, Head of Strategic Design Services, SAP
Behind the big brands of Apple, Microsoft and Nestle are real people doing challenging work every day. While they use cutting-edge tools designed with technical and business considerations, the human needs are often left out. This begs the question: Can global brands realize the potential of “human centered innovation” and inject creative confidence into their organizations?
To help answer this question, I consulted with David Kelley, founder of the Stanford d.school as I had the opportunity to attend one David’s talks on innovation, creative culture and creative confidence at Stanford.
During the Q&A, a student asked David for career advice among various tech startups and Internet advertising companies in Silicon Valley. David’s answer to the student? “Look for innovation in unexpected places.”
At the Design and Co-Innovation Center (DCC) at SAP, we have worked on more than 400 customer projects in less than three years. I invited David to visit the DCC and see some of our projects for himself.
Here are three things that stand out to me from that wonderful conversation — all of which are important for organizational leaders to know if they seek to become an unexpected place for innovation:
Don’t be a victim of over-planning
“Planning is great, once you know what the insight is that will allow you to innovate,” David told us. He went on to explain how people spend so much time planning for things without being sure what they were planning for. Many organizations fall victim to this, seeking to understand their challenge by planning in lieu of tackling it head-on. “It takes some guts to not know what you’re doing,” David said, “but get out there and mingle — get into the mess, get into the real understanding of what’s going on.”
Overcome skeptical managers by double delivering
“Double delivering is the only way I have seen it work without a champion at the top,” said David, explaining one way in which innovative approaches could take root within an organization. If a company is reticent to make change, David recommends empathizing with people who are skeptical. That can mean doing things in the way that is expected at first, then undertaking additional work to present an alternative, creative solution. Share the results of both efforts, creating an opportunity to witness the benefits of a design thinking approach. “Senior management starts paying attention to stuff they don’t understand that’s successful, because they view themselves as having their arms around the whole thing.”
Remain cutting edge
“Whatever you think it takes for you to stay at the cutting edge,” said David, “you have to really be mindful of what you’re doing.” More people will adopt new ways of working within an organization when they see more examples of success, but it’s the practitioners’ responsibility to continue to push the boundaries.
He told us to look to places such as the d.school and look for inspiration from the outside constantly. He advocated that companies always be learning organizations that never rest when they think they’ve found the answer. There’s always more to be done. Maintaining that mentality, he said, is important to staying relevant. “You’ve just gotta’ have an incredible thirst for being at the cutting edge.”
By unleashing creative confidence within organizations, people can excel in their jobs in spite of every obstacle placed in front of them. Given the confidence to make changes to the tools we work with and the environment we work in, we could, indeed, make a much better world.
This story originally appeared on the SAP Business Trends community.
