Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation: What They Can't Teach You at Business or Design School

Applying design thinking to business problems empowers organizations and individuals within them to better understand their competitive and operational environment. From behavioral patterns to values to systems-level challenges to go-to market strategies, the process of understanding how to meet the needs of people often turns itself inward and reveals some of the deadliest organizational gaps and why they continue to persist.

In 1893 the world’s first management consultant got the notion to improve industrial workflow. Frederick Taylor, aka the father of scientific management, embarked on a scientific study of industrial processes. Since the publication of Taylor’s 1911 treatise, “The Principles of Scientific Management,” the field of industrial engineering has attempted to improve efficiency through Taylor’s management model. At almost 100 years old, scientific management is primarily based on a mechanical view of our universe as it relates to finding the “best” ways to work. Spurring powerful business models like the Ford assembly line, this discipline of speeding up productivity, controlling quality, and minimizing cost remains the primary management modus operandi.

More than 100 years later, scientists haven’t made much headway in scientific management. In the mid-1980s, ...