3 Design Thinking tips to become a great leader and face all challenges!

The great mission of those who lead the development of Design Thinking within a company is to make the team members see the changes that will be made as an opportunity for reformulation and improvement.

And this is often a great difficulty, because, throughout the Design Thinking Process, many changes in attitudes will have to be carried out, and this is not always well accepted.

So, based on research developed by the Harvard Business Review, we will present three very important points to be worked on with your team so that the implementation of Design Thinking is better.

What is Design Thinking?

According to Tim Brown, in his book, "Change by Design", "Design Thinking is the third way, it is essentially a problem-solving approach, crystalized in the field of design, which combines a holistic user-centred perspective with rational and analytical research with the goal of creating innovative solutions.".

It is a method that was developed based on how the mind of designers works to solve problems in different areas, using practical tools to build the prototype and test.

Remember that the term designer refers mainly to people who develop improvement projects, not only to creators of arts. The digital transformation allowed the expansion of these functions.

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Now let's see three tips that will help you overcome the biggest challenges you will face as a leader during the implementation of Design Thinking.

3 Tips for overcoming leadership challenges in Design Thinking

1. Develop empathy in employees

One of the biggest challenges that a leader faces with his team when starting to apply Design Thinking is the difficulty of getting employees to put themselves in the customer's shoes and considering the user experience.

After all, one of the basic points to develop a good solution is to try as much as possible to have the point of view of the target audience that will consume that product and service in their daily lives. It can be called human-centered design too.

And for that to happen, it is necessary that the design team, as soon as it starts the development of the project, puts aside any kind of prejudice or resistance in relation to the product, service or project.

And how can the leader do this?

A good tip is to present the team with the full picture of the customer, showing them the importance and impact of that project, and making them reflect on how their attitude will impact the development of the solution.

In addition, according to research carried out by Harvard, it is also crucial that the team feels supported by the leader, as situations will arise along the way in which the effectiveness of the presented solution will be questioned, and, as a result, the team may feel demotivated.

Therefore, it is very important that the leader is always supporting and motivating the team and, at the same time, valuing the interest of the end customer experience.

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1. Encourage divergent thinking

Several times, due to the pressure to deliver the project to the client, or even the pressure to deliver a perfect job, the leader ends up making the mistake of passing this on to the team, demanding quick solutions to the problem presented.

And this type of attitude ends up decreasing the efficiency of the solution presented, as the team tends not to analyze a wide variety of possible solutions, falling into the error of converging faster, less efficiently, to the first good solution that appears.

According to research carried out by Harvard, the solution to this problem is really to give the team freedom to have the most diverse thoughts and propose, from the most obvious to the most absurd solutions, because then the possibility of excellent solutions is much greater.

A very interesting example cited in the survey is by Larry Loftis, a great executive, which practices the exercise he calls the seven ways.

In this exercise, teams must come up with seven possible solutions to a problem presented. He reports that the first two or three come very easily, and that, in the others, the team begins to have more difficulty, and the tip he gives at this moment is to unhook the initial thoughts and open the mind.

The leader's main objective in encouraging divergent thinking in the team is for them to be able to go beyond the easy answers and find options that can be truly innovative.

At first, it may seem that this boom of ideas will generate confusion, but that is where you are wrong because it is from this explosion of ideas that great solutions will emerge.

1. Stimulate the tests

Finally, a very pertinent problem throughout the development of Design Thinking is the fear that the team often has of carrying out failed tests.

In order for this not to happen, it is necessary that you, as a leader, provide the team with confidence, time, resources and pass on to them the idea that failed prototypes also represent progress.

Initially, you may think what I said in the paragraph above is absurd, but stop for a moment and reflect, if your team is afraid to test the solutions found, you may be giving up amazing solutions for your customers.

Of course, everything must be done in a balanced way, so it is important that the team is aware of the cost that these tests have for the company, both financially and in terms of dedicated time.

A valid starting point for success in this phase is to be very specific about what are the general results that the team needs to achieve in the end, as this will make it easier to filter ideas and know which ones are really worthy of testing.

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