Designing For Organic Growth: Partnering With Managers to Help Them Succeed
February 15, 1PM ET
Jeanne Liedtka, Professor of Management, Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia
Ask managers at any level, in almost any organization, and they’ll tell you that they struggle to produce the kind of profitable organic growth that is expected of them. Consistently, organic growth is at the top of the list of challenges for business leaders—and at the top of their list of essential capabilities for ensuring success. And yet, there has been a surprising lack of attention to helping managers develop this ability. Most organizations, our research suggests, are their own worst enemy: they don’t give their managers tools to find growth, their business mindset and processes don’t support people who do somehow stumble upon growth opportunities, and their corporate cultures seal the deal by turning growth into an unnatural act.
Partnering with designers—and using the tools and techniques associated with a design thinking approach—offers a superior option for helping managers to overcome the growth challenge. But introducing this new way of thinking to managers can be perilous. In this session, we will look at some advice from designers who’ve succeeded. The points we’ll look at include:
Why starting small is important Finding bandwagons to jump on Trying to give it away rather than hoard it Working with doubters Making tools accessible
About the Presenter
Jeanne Liedtka, Professor of Management, Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia
Jeanne Liedtka is the United Technologies Professor of Management at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Formerly the Executive Director of the School’s Batten Institute, Jeanne has also served as Chief Learning Officer for the United Technologies Corporation (UTC), and as the Associate Dean of the MBA Program at Darden.
Jeanne’s current teaching responsibilities focus on design thinking, innovation, and organic growth in the MBA and Executive Education Programs at Darden. Her current research interests focus on exploring how design thinking can be used to enrich our ability to create inclusive strategic conversations about organizational futures. Her book, The Catalyst: How You Can Lead Extraordinary Growth, co-authored with R. Rosen and R. Wiltbank, was named one of BusinessWeek’s best innovation and design books of 2009. Her most recent book, Designing for Growth: A design toolkit for managers was published in May, 2011.
Jeanne joined Darden in 1989, having received her DBA in Management Policy from Boston University and her MBA from the Harvard Business School. She has been involved in the corporate strategy field since beginning her career as a strategy consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.
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