Need of the hour: People thinking, not design thinking
There is a storm of design thinking that’s fallen over strategy and design companies. 1-day workshops, online courses, multiple books, and much more have become the key tools to succeed at design thinking. Yes, there are 1-day ‘bootcamps’ that ensure you will leave the room a better design thinker ready to change your company’s approach to all its projects.
However, all these workshops, and more importantly companies talking about design thinking, are ironically failing at one critical point in this process: Keeping People at the Center of their approach.
Design thinking, the way it is explained in the popular workshops and talks, self-centres the process around ‘You’. Here lies the problem. If you do not keep the people at the center of everything you do, your approach and efforts will fail. It is important to understand that when design thinking talks about keeping people at the center of all thinking, it is not only referring to a mindset change while thinking about the client’s stakeholder or target audience.
It is talking about imbibing a more robust approach to people in general and this includes your colleagues and clients, seniors and juniors alike.
Design thinking is not a revolutionary idea. It only promotes what truly should be done or has always been spoken about: thinking about people when executing a project. There are companies that still benchmark ideas against global practices while executing their projects in a different part of the globe. Or companies that believe they already know everything about a sector and can directly jump to execution.
This kind of an approach is pointless because whatever solution you create will always be removed from the brand’s audience’s ecosystem and way of living.
And for those companies that believe they are keeping the people at the center while functioning, they are ignoring a critical understanding: people refers to even people you work with and all the people at the client end. A top-down approach in a company that believes it’s conducting design thinking principles in its project is failing at the starting line itself. They will talk about the brand’s target audience with complete passion, but will forget their own people especially in dire times, when people need the most support.
So how do you induct people thinking in your organisation? From my experience working with a stellar team lead and a committed team, this is how I think people-thinking can take shape:
1) Know what everyone does, and exchange roles sometimes
You will understand your colleagues work-load and responsibilities only if you make an effort at understanding what their job role and skill entails. So get their to-dos onto yours for a month, and one day in the month try doing what they do everyday. This will also reduce conflict in the team, especially when a deadline is approaching. It builds more empathy and understanding, leading to better accommodation of ideas and thoughts.
2) Let them take the lead
I have grown as a team player only because my team lead let each one of us take lead on different projects. And this aspect of leading a project was not just internal. Even for the clients, we became the face of the project, and the contact point. It built trust between the team members, taught us more about our fields, and more importantly made us more responsible. All of us are still learning but today this approach has made us more confident in dealing with newer challenges.
3) Manager and chairman are both your clients
Do not consider any member from the client team, or partner team to be senior or junior. Yes, some decisions from their team eventually would be led and driven by their senior-most member, but for our project and partnership benefit, we should treat each member equally. It brings in a sense of comfort amongst each member, and they are equally committed to the project’s positive outcome. Eventually, the working becomes collaborative, thus adding more to the table.
4) Respect experience, but also listen to the new-voice
The most fun in deriving an insight is from a discussion that has people of all opinions and thoughts. Let every voice be heard, and let each person get enough time and space to express their points well. Recently, I worked on two pitches, and in both pitches, we got some amazing ideas from literally each member of the team. And it was more fun because everyone added to the idea-pool on their own without any additional probing.
5) Teach and learn
You might be a great designer, but do not know enough about operations. You might be a brilliant strategist, but with less knowledge of design execution. We know more of something and less of something else. Let’s accept this and move onto learning something new from a team member every month. It builds patience and prepares you for failure better. The learning also does something to your brain as you feel elevated and prepared to take up more responsibilities going forward.
6) Don’t fire
Don’t fire anyone until you have exhausted literally all options, and the other person has also given up. Most often in a high-functioning team of committed individuals, people quit when they feel their calling is someplace else. You don’t have to worry about firing them. When my colleagues around me were fired, it brought the entire morale of the company down. Cut all unnecessary costs, your own expenses if need be, but let firing be the last resort.
The above-mentioned points are something that I have adopted in parts in my work-life. I am slowly making it a practice to adopt each one of these with more rigour.
The advantage of committing to even some of these is that it makes you more empathetic, trusting, and confident in other people, changing your complete mindset at work and in your personal life. Eventually, it just becomes a way of working.
Maybe try a couple of these points, and see if it also changes your approach in general to everything at work and in personal life!
