Noel Tichy, Professor of Leadership and Management at the University of Michigan, suggests that effective leadership depends on having a teachable point of view. That is, if you don’t possess something (skill, knowledge, perspective, or some combination), then your ability to lead is greatly diminished.
Using this as a litmus test for leadership, I now realize how important IDEO is. IDEO, the Palo Alto based design firm, now does much more than design products, though they still do this. (In fact, they still design award winning products. This year they won design awards for a medical device for Samsung and an instrument panel for the Eclipse 500 aircraft.) Beyond this, though, IDEO is involved in all sorts of cool things.
They work with the CDC in their effort to reduce childhood obesity and with the Red Cross in developing countries to increase the rate at which people participate in blood drives. They apply their usability expertise to an increasingly wide range of social and business problems. They’ve also made Bank of America a lot of money and brought in loads of new customers through their ethnography-informed Keep the Change campaign that they launched for the bank.
IDEO U.
At the same time, IDEOers are prolific researchers, writers, and speakers. Their output, in terms of articles and books, is a curriculum unto itself. Call it IDEO University. Most of it is linked from their web site, some of it you have to root around for. If they choose to open their doors for students, I’m sure there’d be takers. I, for one, would be there.
As a primer for IDEO U., below are some pieces (and book links) that I just snagged in one quick glance. No credentials, no degrees, just some really cool and useful shit!!!
Creating an Entrepreneurial Culture of Optimism
Leadership and Innovation in Newtworked World
Informing Our Intution: Design Research for Radical Innovation
The Butcher
I love Ideo. (Fantastic name, too). They’re a rare example of a company that has grown quite large and managed to maintain a culture of creativity, intelligence, passion, and compassion. I’ve admired them for years - they’ve influenced my entrepreneurial path, for sure.
They’re one of the few companies I could imagine working for. Apple is another. Google used to be, but not so much any more.
When I was a senior in Integrative Arts (the coolest make-your-own-major at Penn State) I was privileged to be invited to take part in a graduate design class that would be working with Boeing’s ‘Special Payload’ division to redesign the interior of the 747.
Obviously, it was an amazing opportunity but what made it truly life changing was that the sole course book used that semester would be The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm.
I probably learned more in that one semester of practicing the IDEO creative process then the previous 7 semester combined. To this day I still model my creative/discovery process after IDEO and my clients are always amazed.
I can’t think of a better Scholar in Residence for the school of Not An MBA than America’s Leading Design Firm, IDEO.
Great Post!
Great feedback guys, and thanks much. There’s a fine line between adulation and overhype, to be sure, but I’m willing to take a chance when it comes to IDEO. Their empathetic methodology of -observation, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, love of customer feedback, and constant iteration- is applicable to many many things in life, far beyond the realm of activities that most people think of as design.
One I forgot to mention (Tim Brown’s ‘Strategy by Design’ article, in Fast Company), yet another awesome piece from the IDEO library.
[...] interview from several years back with Tim Brown, an interview with David Kelley and a more recent blog posting from another IDEO fan at Not an MBA (”Study business without the [...]