Design Thinking versus Creative Intelligence
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Tom Berno |
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By Tom Berno, Associate Director, School of Art and Design, Texas State University—San Marcos
Writing recently for Fast Company Design, Professor Bruce Nussbaum launched something of a bombshell by declaring that "Design Thinking was a failed experiment." Following this provocative statement, he declared that he was ready to move onto something new: Creative Intelligence, to be measured by a new metric called the Creative Quotient.
Considering Nussbaum’s influential past status as an advocate for Design Thinking, this is a particularly startling declaration. So startling that it deserves deeper analysis. Two concurrent theses are central to Nussbaum’s reasoning. First, that Design Thinking has delivered all it can (more on that shortly); and second, that Design Thinking’s central purpose is to deliver creativity.
In building his case, Nussbaum relies heavily on multiple assumptions that simply don’t add up. To start, he describes Design Thinking as a process. This is structurally incorrect as a definition. Processes are data-driven and linear in nature, with a goal of determining statistically measurable outcomes. The word approach better defines what Design Thinking actually is—a means of addressing problems that seeks valid, but not necessarily measurable, outcomes (Fly, 2010). In practice, Design Thinking employs lateral thought processes rather than linear ones. Next, Nussbaum defines the desired product of Design Thinking as creativity. This also finds little support as a claim. The true end-product promised by Design Thinking is innovation.
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 Identifying something as Design Thinking doesn’t make it Design Thinking. Call it operator error.  |
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Nussbaum’s own rationale repeatedly references how some practitioners have successfully "packaged" Design Thinking as a self-contained product. The result, he claims, is "incremental change" as opposed to innovation. This one-size-fits-all approach may accurately describe the appropriation of the term by savvy consultants, but no true advocate of Design Thinking would identify this as successful application of the approach. Design Thinking supports the creation of new models, not marginally refined ones. Identifying something as Design Thinking doesn’t make it Design Thinking. Call it operator error. More importantly, offering evidence of incorrect application of Design Thinking as evidence of its failings is just a means of stacking the deck.
These failings in the argument could perhaps be forgiven if a truly compelling—perhaps innovative—alternative was a part of Nussbaum’s pushback. As he introduces Creative Intelligence, he defines it as "the ability to frame problems in new ways and to make original solutions." How does this constitute a radical departure from the definitions currently used to describe Design Thinking? In reality, it doesn’t. Leading figures in the design thinking movement talk about the creation of new models for business (Martin, 2010), and the envisioning and creation of entirely new scenarios and meaning (Verganti, 2010). It’ll take more than a name change to position Creative Intelligence as a superior—or even different—alternative.
Nussbaum makes contradictory claims concerning the success/failure rate of Design Thinking in practice to support his argument. At one point, he claims the success rate was "very low," but elsewhere he concedes that there were "many successes"—although he quickly counters that there were even more failed efforts. The net takeaway here is that, when used correctly, Design Thinking does produce on its promise of true innovation. Based on his own descriptions of widespread misuse of both the term and its application, one could use this evidence to claim that a large part of the failures were tactical. Design Thinking is not, and never was, a tactical application. One could say that in the history of advertising there have been many more failures than successes. This is hardly a credible argument for the wholesale abandonment of advertising as a practice.
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…the very term ‘creative’ offers few advantages, and potentially many negatives. |
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Furthermore, the very term "creative" offers few advantages, and potentially many negatives. Noted brand strategist Marty Neumeier, in his seminal work The Brand Gap (2006), describes the creative side of the equation as "Magic." Use of terms like magic hardly inspires the confidence of the executive suite. Nussbaum also makes a general claim that "everyone likes creativity because everyone believes they … can be creative." This use of creativity as a self-affirming construct has little evidence to support it. Howard Gardner, a noted psychologist and former MacArthur Genius (1999) who has written extensively on human intelligence, defines creativity as "that (which) affects a domain" to the extent that it has a "documented effect on the relevant domain." The implication is clear: creative success in one field, or several related fields, does not portend success when applied to other domains. Thus, "creativity" is not a cure-all as either a concept or a term when applied across multiple domains.
The lack of compelling evidence supporting Creative Intelligence as a superior alternative to Design Thinking brings the argument back to a preferable scenario: building on the success of Design Thinking. Nussbaum already concedes that it has been successful—it is his claim that it has run its course in practice that is suspect. He is willing to concede the field to those who presented design thinking as a "trick"—a sort of quick fix to the innovation gap in business. Yet this conclusion contradicts the very essence of Design Thinking: that it moves beyond the "left brain vs. right brain" dynamic, blending the data- and process-driven approach familiar to business managers with the iterative approach of the designer (Walters, 2011). In Design Thinking, one failure is not a cue to abandon the effort, it is an opportunity to learn, and the point of departure for the next iteration of the solution.
Nussbaum observes that Design Thinking achieved another notable success, moving beyond "aesthetics … to the much wider social space of systems and society." This is a powerful and compelling development. Coca Cola’s David Butler addressed the same issue at the 2009 AIGA National Design Conference, when he stated that designers need to move beyond "small conversations" about aesthetics, and transition their practice from tactics-based projects to addressing broader systems at their core. This is yet more evidence of success for Design Thinking that practitioners should seek to expand.
For a company to maximize design and design thinking as competitive advantages, a company must ensure that the proper resources are predictably available to support new initiatives while sustaining key design applications and communication. Chuck Jones (2010), Chief Design Officer of Masco Corporation, described this as the "design ecosystem," a self-sustaining environment that integrates design and design thinking throughout the company’s operations. This is a much deeper commitment than simply employing a process in the course of daily operations. Proponents of Design Thinking understand the importance of this commitment, but also focus on the need to put Design Thinking into a business context utilizing the language of business, not of design (Butler, 2010). This would seem to contradict Nussbaum’s claim that creativity would be a valued construct to substitute for Design Thinking.
One additional aspect of Design Thinking notably absent from Creative Intelligence is one of its greatest strengths. This is its potential to create "winning states"—the focus on establishing criteria to measure success, and evaluate the effectiveness of efforts against those criteria. Sean Carney (2010), Design Director for Global Imaging and Web Services at HP, related that, when faced with the challenge of re-energizing the company’s line of printers, HP redefined the issue to focus not on printers, but printing. By adopting a user-focused perspective, HP was able to look at the entire issue as a comprehensive system, which enabled innovation on a broad front. The result was improved performance for the entire business unit. This underscores the effectiveness of Design Thinking at a systems level. Nussbaum’s vision for evaluating Creative Intelligence—the Creative Quotient—focuses on "abilities," rather than on the results promised by a properly envisioned winning state.
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Design Thinking has a bright future, but only if its proponents and practitioners stay true to its principles. |
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Design Thinking has a bright future, but only if its proponents and practitioners stay true to its principles. The temptation to reduce it to a simplistic process must be resisted, just as attempts to abandon its successes in favor of alternatives that offer little in terms of concrete differences, much less advantages. Design Thinking has an established foothold in the business world due to a number of notable successes. Rather than retreat from these successes, proponents of innovation should seek to build on this foothold to continue to push the limits of innovation. It’s not only the intelligent solution, it’s also the creative one.
References
Butler, D., & Jones, C. (2010 June). Industry—Design and Transformation. In
Re-thinking...the future of design. Symposium conducted at DMI Design/Management Thinking 22 2010 Conference, San Francisco, CA.
Carney, S., & Schwartz, B. (2010 June). Integrating Design Thinking—Corporate Design Management Practices. In Re-thinking...the future of design. Symposium conducted at DMI Design/Management Thinking 22 2010 Conference, San Francisco, CA.
Fly, J., & Verganti, R. (2010 June). Design and Innovation. In Re-thinking...the future of design. Symposium conducted at DMI Design/Management Thinking 22 2010 Conference, San Francisco, CA.
Neumeier, M. (2006). The brand gap. Berkeley, CA: New Riders
Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York: Basic Books.
Martin, R. (2009). The design of business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Nussbaum, B. (2011). Design thinking is a failed experiment. So what's next? Fast Company Design. Retrieved April 6, 2011, from http://www.fastcodesign.com//1663558/design-thinking-was-a-failed-experiment-so-whats-next#comments
Verganti, R. (2009). Design-driven innovation: Changing the rules of competition by radically innovating what things mean. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Walters, H. (2011). Design thinking isn’t a miracle cure, but here’s how it helps. Fast Company Design. Retrieved April 6, 2011, from http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663480/helen-walters-design-thinking-buzzwords?partner=homepage_newsletter
Biography
Tom Berno is an experienced design communications specialist with a 21-year track record in the field. His career encompasses all phases of corporate communication design and brand development. Client experience spans a breadth of industries including Financial Services, Real Estate Development, Aerospace, Technology, Oil and Gas, Tourism, Cultural & Entertainment, and Hospitality services.
Tom has worked at several prominent Texas design and advertising firms, and continues to collaborate with them through his design consultancy, idea21. Since 2001, he has been a member of the Communication Design faculty at Texas State University specializing in corporate brand communications curriculum, and was recently appointed Associate Director of the School of Art and Design.
Tom’s design work has received extensive professional recognition throughout his career, including the recent publication Brand Identity Essentials (2010, Rockport Publishers).
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