Quotes from “The Design of Business” by Roger Martin

I recently completed The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage by Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management.  As noted in the front flap, the book focuses on:

…a new way of thinking that balances the exploration of new knowledge (innovation) with the exploitation of current knowledge (efficiency) to regularly generate breakthroughs and create value for companies.  “Design thinking” focuses on accelerating the pace at which knowledge advances from mystery (an unexplainable problem) to heuristic (a rule of thumb that guides us toward a solution) to algorithm (a replicable success formula).  As knowledge moves through this “knowledge funnel,” productivity grows and costs drops.

Besides elaborating on “design thinking” and the “knowledge funnel,” the book also discusses, among other things, the following concepts:

• Exploration vs. Exploitation
• Validity vs. Reliability
• Charles Sanders Peirce & Abductive Reasoning
• Wicked Problems
• Personal Knowledge System
• Integrative Thinking

Overall, I found it to be a thought provoking read.  Some of the more interesting design thinking-related points include:

• The most successful businesses in the years to come will balance analytical mastery and intuitive originality in a dynamic interplay that I call design thinking. (p. 6)
• The design thinker therefore enables the organization to balance exploration and exploitation, invention of business and administration of business, and originality and mastery. (p. 26)
• To become a design thinker, you must develop the stance, tools, and experiences that facilitate design thinking. (p. 30)
• …design thinkers develop tools for moving knowledge forward. They build their capacity for the unique configuration of designs that transform their insights into viable business offerings. (p. 30).
• We believed that design thinking for business broke down into three essential components: (1) deep and holistic user understanding; (2) visualization of new possibilities, prototyping, and refining; and (3) the creation of a new activity system to bring the nascent idea to reality and profitable operation. (p. 88)
• …design thinking represents a fruitful balance between intuitive thinking and analytical thinking, between validity and reliability. (p. 137)
• Design thinkers want their ideas to make a difference in the world. Their stance takes for granted that the world can change, and that they, as individuals, can bring about that change. It is a wonderfully open and optimistic way of being. (pp. 153-154)
• Rather than perpetuate the past, the design thinker creates the future. (p. 158)
• The design thinker has a stance that seeks the unknown, embraces the possibility of surprise, and is comfortable with wading into complexity not knowing what is on the other side. (p. 159)
• The key tools of design thinkers are observation, imagination, and configuration. (p. 160)
• To be a better design thinker, consciously use your experiences to deepen your mastery and nurture your originality. (p. 165)