Design Thinking: CEO's as Designers

Olivier Blanchard, author of the Brandbuilder blog, posted clippings from a Business Week article written by Bruce Nussbaum in his Nussbaum on Design blog. Nussbaum is assistant managing editor in charge of Business Week's innovation and design coverage.

Nussbaum's article, entitled "CEO's Must Be Designers, Not Just Hire Them" offers reasons as to why CEO's, managers and designers themselves must become proponents to Design Thinking.

In his post, Blanchard offers a great overview of Nussbaum's key thoughts. Here are a few quick snippets that Blanchard highlights from Nussbaum's article:

• "In the US, CEOs and top managers hate the word “design.” Just believe me. No matter what they tell you, they believe that “design” only has something to do with curtains, wallpaper and maybe their suits. These guys, and they’re still mostly guys, prefer the term “innovation” because it has a masculine, military, engineering, tone to it."
• "Innovation is no longer just about new technology per se. It is about new models of organization. Design is no longer just about form anymore but is a method of thinking that can let you to see around corners."
• "Innovation, design, and technology are all flowing into one another to form a single river of roaring change radically altering our culture, and especially business culture."
• "Design is so popular today mostly because business sees design as connecting it to the consumer populace in a deep, fundamental and honest way. An honest way. If you are in the myth-making business, you don’t need design. You need a great ad agency. But if you are in the authenticity and integrity business then you have to think design."
• "Let me emphasize this. I think managers have to BECOME designers, not just hire them. I think CEOs have to embrace design thinking, not just hire someone who gets it. I think many business schools have to merge with design schools, not just play poke and tickle with them."
• "There are two great barriers to innovation and design in the world today. Ignorant CEOs and ignorant designers. Both groups are well-intentioned and well-dressed—in their own ways—but both can be pretty dangerous characters."
• "Design should not give up its special ability to visualize ideas and give form to options. Design should extend its brief to embrace a more abstract and formalized expression of how it translates empathy to creativity and then to form and experience."

What more can I say. I think Nussbaum's article and Blanchard's summary speak for themselves. They certainly speak for me.