In a recent article at BusinessWeek.com’s Innovation channel, Innovation at Risk, Lara Lee suggests that “exaggerating design’s ability to drive new growth” sets up the possibility that there will be a backlash against design thinking as a mainstay of the corporate innovation agenda. While there is indeed the possibility that the world, at least at the feeding trough of the popular business press, is reaching a state of innovation fatigue, Lara Lee sadly has it all wrong… She does not have a clue!

Bandit has been talking here about the Cluetrain Manifesto, a book that Ms. Lee obviously has not read, which I think is worth pointing out. First, on the side of corporate growth, just look at Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies list, and it is clear how important design thinking and design are to the companies that make the list. She even suggests that GE is now hunkering down, reducing its commitments to design-centered innovation, and is back to ’sticking to its knitting’ of portfolio management. Surely that’s news to Jeffrey Immelt, who has reframed GE’s recruiting, incentives, and promotions structures around what? Around domain expertise, customer-experience design, and new venture creation! These are the memes of design-driven innovation. (GE is #4 on the list.)

Furthermore, design is about much more than business. It is an approach to life, of which business is merely a part. It is, above all, an expression of awe and humility, where solutions to life’s problems are respected and solved without the hubris that underlies most corporate decision making processes. This is pointed out beautifully in a recent interview, at the NextD Journal, with Richard Boland and Fred Collopy. They frame design thinking as an approach to doing things in a certain way with a certain attitude, a design attitude vs. a decision attitude.

Why does this matter? It matters because until design thinking becomes a bigger part of the larger corporate culture, it will still be seen simply as another tool, another quick trick to spike growth here and there. At the end of the day, this is a cultural issue. As long as the existing corporate decision attitude prevails, design-led innovation will remain the domain of ‘artists’ and ‘creatives’ and not ’serious’ business people.

Look back at Fast Company’s list of innovative companies, and who is at the top (again)? Google. Notion #8 of Google’s Marissa Mayer’s 9 Notions of Innovation says it all: Provide something simple to use and easy to love. The money will follow.

That there is $14B/year worth of design thinking.

The Butcher