Ep 60 Methodologies: Understanding the power and potential of Design Thinking

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates goes beyond the basics of Design Thinking to reveal how it can truly transform your team and company. Discover how Design Thinking empowers collaboration, brings everyone into the creative process, and serves as a powerful tool for evaluating leadership potential across your team and partners. Stephen shares insights on using Design Thinking to shift company culture and unlock innovation. Tune in to harness the full potential of Design Thinking and drive impactful change.

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Stephen Gates : 0:00

What's going on everybody, and welcome into the 60th episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show, we're talking about creativity, leadership, design, and everything else that helps to empower creative people. Now, be sure take just a second and subscribe to the show. I don't always release these every week. So I do want to make sure everybody gets them as soon as they come out. And while you're there, take a couple minutes and leave a review to let everybody know what you think about the show. Today, we're gonna keep talking about design thinking. And so back in Episode 3334 35, we covered the basics of design thinking. And I did those episodes because these days there is an insane amount of interest in design thinking. And this is complicated by the fact that design thinking I think gets a bad rap. It gets misunderstood. It gets kind of changed and perverted to suddenly be made into a lot of things that it isn't I think even if you go to the Wikipedia page you look it up to try to understand It is about six miles long, and it confuses the hell out of me. And I teach it. But there's a lot more that goes into just simply knowing the steps of any methodology. That's what makes it different. This is why some teams are wildly successful with it. Other teams, it falls completely flat. Because there's a lot of nuance a lot about the execution a lot about the power in the approach that makes all the difference. And so in this episode, what I want to do is it's just really gonna be about how do we understand the real value and the real potential of design thinking. It's also about some of the challenges that you may find whenever you use it. I think this is why I can sometimes get a bad rap because people think that this methodology will be a solution unto itself. It absolutely will not be, you need to understand this isn't a magic bullet. It's not going to fix all your problems. It's just a methodology. So if you use it the wrong way, if you give it bad input, if you cheat Change it or re altered or pervert it to get the outcomes that you want, you're going to get bad outputs. It requires discipline, it requires the right approach it reply requires people who are going to champion it and coach it. So the hope here is that at the end of this episode, you're gonna have a better understanding of its power, and have a maybe a little bit of a better perspective on how it can be useful. There's a lot of different reasons why I've used design thinking over the years. And I think that this is something it's been around since the 60s. It's not anything new and in spite of what anybody tells you. It's been around for a really long time. But it does some really important things. And I think the first two things that I want to talk about are what I have found to be the most powerful reasons the most powerful outcomes for why I think you should give design thinking a chance. The first and the biggest one is that it is an inclusive process. I've talked about this before, but we basically have this conflict This Changing of the Guard this changing of approach that's going on inside of our industry. And what that is, is that for a really long time, agencies were the dominant, creative driving force inside of a lot of different companies, they were seen as being the best thinking they were seen as being the only place you could really get ideas. Obviously, that's changing. We're seeing the rise of the in house design team, you're seeing those become a more integral part of creativity, a more integral part of companies. Well, the interesting byproduct of that is that then the approach, the way that people want to be creative, the way that people want to be included in this is changing. Gone are the days whenever as creative as we could, you know, just go off and say, Okay, look, you know, this is this big, mysterious thing and you don't understand and we're going to go over in the brain and like the watercolor of our spirit animal, just because it's just too complicated. You don't understand it. But I think we also have seen a real change or real shift in just what it means to be creative. It's gotten so much more complicated. It you used to just be about designing things that were pretty. Now with the rise of digital and so many other things. It's about business and technology, including product people. It's about goals and interaction. And so many more teams that need to be involved. It's not just simply about design, we're not a means unto ourselves anymore. And so as you've seen this rise, as you've seen the want for all these other groups to be included in the process, it's forced to shift. Some people, some companies have handled it better than others. But the underlying root underneath this is the move to a more inclusive process, which means as we have more team members, we have more partners, we have more clients, we need to involve them in the process. We can't be walled off in our own little silo doing whatever it is that we want. And that that's really one of the most powerful parts of design thinking is that it brings everyone to the table on a project. Because what it does is it takes advantage of the basic human psychology that people will support what they're a part of I did this again, whenever I was just, I've worked with banks or hotel companies, I've worked to turn these companies around to get them to think differently. And the one area that I always point to that I think is often the most vilified is legal. Because in so many cases, this is the roadblock the evil people, the ones who just won't let you get away with what you want to get away with. But I think if you take a step back, and if you actually look at the process, what you're going to see is that in many cases, what design teams what creative teams do is that we go through the entire process, we go through find insights, we do brainstorms, we come with ideas, we do some executions, and then we go and talk to legal, we don't put the shoe on the other foot, we don't create any empathy, we don't see that what it is that we've done, is that we've created this very binary sort of system for them. At that point, we've done a lot of work a lot has been invested in so either they can approve it or they can reject it. At no point did anyone go to them and say, This is what we're trying to accomplish? Can you help? This is where it is we want to go we want to do something differently. How can we think about that differently? How can you Help, the ability to do that, with so many of these teams that are often vilified, overlooked, excluded, or just simply put in bad situations can be profound. This inclusive approach, like I said, is the dominant new direction and creativity. And that's what design thinking does is that it brings everyone to the table. It says to everyone that you are creative creativity is a team sport. It does not ask everyone to be a designer. This is the worst part. The hardest part about design thinking, is the fact that it has the word design in the title. Because that's the problem is if you have to ask Most people, when you say you're a designer, the answer is always going to be no. If you go up and you ask people, are they creative? The answer will almost always be yes. And that that is a really key distinction is that it allows everyone to be creative again, because we are all creative. Again, I have talked about this numerous times in the past. Our challenge is the thing that we have to overcome is that our education system, our company, Our society ourselves, have put these boxes and taught us to basically get rid of creativity to not let it be a part of us that that hat can't be something that we need every day. Walk in to any kindergarten to spend time with any children, you will see that this is true. Look how wildly imaginative any or all of them are, look at the way they act, how free they are. Again, we've learned to lose that. So this is the thing is by making it inclusive, it brings this process back it allows everyone in. But for the design team, I think that it also does a few really important things. Because in many cases, as I've gone around, as I've talked with these different in house design teams, the thing that you see is that they're often overlooked. They aren't empowered the right way. They're marginalized. There's a bunch of these different things where they aren't really living up to their full potential and they aren't sure why. Well, this is the thing that I've discovered and why with so many of my groups. Whenever I come in design thinking is the first thing that I ended Install into the team. Because what it really does is whenever you go into these large companies, you go into these large teams, what you find is that, well, sometimes the design team has created these monsters of their own making. Since they aren't being inclusive. Since they aren't being creative. What they've done is that they've told all the other teams really subconsciously that they need to step up, they need to bring their game, they need to have more ideas, they need to have more solutions. So sometimes the monsters or clients that people will describe to me are very much of their own making. But so what I want to do is that I want to be able to bring in, what are those things that are going to rally people together, even what's going to rally the design team together? Because in many cases, as these teams get bigger, they may not all be in the same location. Even if you are in the same location, maybe part of it reports to marketing part of it, some product part of it sits someplace else. How do we actually be able to get these people to kind of get on the same page? Because there's nothing that's going to be more important than keeping your team on the same page when it comes to creativity, to have the same approach. And that's the thing is that design thinking is going to set the expectations for your team. It's going to give them the guidelines for how they should work, how they should pursue multiple ideas, what is the standard and the shape that they're going to do? It's this freedom in a framework. That is often a really hard balance to strike. But it's important if you really want to be successful. But that's the thing is that how do you create these common ways of working these shared understandings? So even if the products are different, the clients are different, the teams are different locations are different. All these things are different. You have some things that are the same. And that's why I think it's important to put these in place because so often what you want to do is to look at have a tent pole about how do you approach design, this is oftentimes where design systems can come into play. You don't have a tentpole around creativity, what is the methodology that we use to actually approach this problem. And you want to be able to start building these things out so that there is a common shared way of doing things a shared purpose, a shared vocabulary. But the other big thing that it does is that it empowers the design team, because one of the best byproducts of design thinking is that when you bring it into your team, you know, you are suddenly bringing in something new. And you bring it into your team, your company, the people, you work with your clients, whatever it is, and it instantly empowers that team. Because you are the ones that are bringing everyone together. You're the ones that are teaching them something new. You're the ones that are empowering them that are giving them the option of showing them the way that there are other ways that they can do things. Because as creatives we use this process for working a problem, and we do it without having a solution. Many other people, a lot of other people are not used to working that way it scares the hell out of them. But that's the thing is that now we are in a position of power to help To be empathetic, to show them the way because when you use design thinking which is inclusive, you become the guide and the teacher for all those other people, that puts your team at the center of the process that empowers your team. And that is a subtle, but incredibly important way of doing things. Because there are the hard power ways of doing things of going to all these other people and saying, damn it, you're going to listen to me because I'm the designer and I'm in charge, having that sharp elbowed approach, which is not going to work with the majority of people. true leadership, true power, I think comes out of vulnerability. Instead of going in and telling people they're wrong, dictating what it is that they need to do kind of shoving things down their throat. You take the different approach. You say, I know you don't know how to do this. You say I'm here to help you. We can get through this together. We can go through this process together, that we can do something different and better. Let's go challenge the status quo. get in a fight. Have people call us crazy dudes. The things that this entire show is about, but to be inclusive about it, to be vulnerable about it to be empathetic about it. And the you'll see that the insane amount of trust and power that then comes out of that. But that's why I think this is so important. That's why I've done it and put it at the center of so many of my teams is because of that byproduct is because of the way it will bring people together. And it gives you the power without an a political playing some kind of game of risk annex and everything else on the board sort of way. And that is deeply, deeply powerful and will deeply change the way that people look at your team. Because what it does to is that it lets anyone solve anything. Here again, a misperception is that design thinking is just for design. It's just for designing things. Well, if you take a step back and you think about that a little bit differently, solving any problem is simply just designing a solution and that's what so great about this because what it does is it gives shape and form to creativity. Once again, it gives it that freedom and a framework. It gives everyone a way to understand how do they find a way back into solving problems that maybe they lost to rekindling some of that childhood creativity to rekindling some of that passion that they necessarily maybe didn't quite have to have tighter grip on as they thought they did. An interesting one of the proudest moments that I had at Citi had had very little to do with any of the work or any of the things that I really did there. Because I spent a lot of time working with ideas, building a design thinking curriculum, I spent a lot of time refining that curriculum, spent even more time trying to teach that curriculum trying to roll it out across a 300,000 person company, a Herculean task and other places they made documentaries about it. Mine didn't get quite as much recognition. But one of the proudest moments that I had was in you know, I don't know what a couple months after I started teaching, I walked into a conference room and they're in the conference room. saw something written on the board that affected me in a way that I didn't necessarily expect it. Because whenever you do design thinking I talked about this, whenever I did the episodes here to teach it to you, one of the things that you do is that you need a bridge to get you between the insights that you found through research and the actual brainstorm to do the ideas. What we do whenever we do those is we use these statements are called How might we statements, and that these are very purposely constructed to be really the launching pad for a brainstorm. But it also is this case where it lets you be able to look at something from a lot of different angles, and I think that's really important. But what it was, was it whenever I walked in there, I saw on the board it said how might we have a great baby shower? Seems simple seems on assuming it seems like it shouldn't be that big of a deal. But the thing that I saw whenever I saw that was that people were using design thinking for more than just work it had transcended their projects. They saw The value of it to the point where even whatever it became down to doing things that were personal, they could use it there. They understood that it was about more than just design. They understood that whenever it came to designing an app, designing an organization, designing a great baby shower, designing whatever that was, the ability to bring people together to give it some form and structure, the ability to be inclusive about it made it better. And that's really powerful. And I think that that's a really good part of this. Because what it does is it gives you creativity on demand that allows you to have great ideas on demand. I think as a part of any creative career. This is something that will become increasingly important to you. Because what you're going to find out is that your ability to summon your creativity on demand. And then increasingly, as your career goes on, your ability to help other people summon their creativity is going to become a critical critical asset in your success. Because the speed of business and everything else is speeding up. It gets even better And bigger whenever you are in leadership, because that's the thing is that people aren't going to wait around for three days for you to accomplish some sort of idea. They want guidance. Now, they want insight. Now, they want a lot of these different things. And I think I've spent the vast majority of my career trying to work and refine on getting faster so that I can do a lot of these things. But that's only because I think I am a little bit more empathetic than most, I think I'm spent a lot more time studying my creative process than most. But since a lot of people aren't doing that, what this does is it gives shape to their creativity, it gives form and structure, it gives them a consistent way of approaching it. And here again, for those of us who don't do this all the time, you can feel much more like madness than a method, especially in the beginning. But whenever you have those breakthroughs, the breakthroughs tend to be bigger, they tend to be stronger. They tend to be things that stick with them to the point where you will see them actually use it to do something like a baby shower, to plan their organization to do a lot of different things. And that is powerful. Because the other great thing that design thinking does is that if you want to affect change, real change, not change in quotes, not the thing that everyone talks about, but is unable to deliver. If you want to bring real change to a company in a real organization, the thing that you need to do is you need to change the way people think, not the way they behave. Too many of us too many companies are just simply putting window dressings on the same tired problems. Because what we do is we change behavior, behavior being Oh, we have a new buzzword that we use behavior being a new way to talk about a problem. behavior, meaning the fact that what it is is that is the expression of an underlying problem. The underlying problem is the way people and companies think because new behavior, new expressions, new words, new designs, new elevator raps, new whatever it is, on the same tired way of approaching a problem. isn't going to make any difference because what you're going to do is just simply have the same old problem with the new design the same old problem with different words, the same old problem that you've had time and time again, or maybe it gets a little bit different, before eventually backsliding into the exact same way of doing things that it's always done. A constant theme in this show has been comfort is the enemy of greatness. This is yet another expression of that. Doing what you've always done is comfortable, it's easy, it's safe, it makes people feel good. Even if they know that it's the wrong thing to do. It makes no sense to say it out loud, but emotionally we all do it all the time. But this is the thing, we have to change the way the company thinks we have to change its approach. We have to change these underlying problems. Stop doing the easy solution, the short solution stop triaging the behavior. Because this is again basic human psychology is we're going to solve the smaller simpler, easier problems because we can get them done faster. We can get some Sort of a sense of accomplishment. It's easier, simpler. The bigger problems, the problems about thinking, the long standing ones that have been there for too long, that have existed in the darkness for too long, they're harder, they take more time they take more patients, and they damn sure take a hell of a lot more leadership than what I'm seeing out of a lot of companies. And that is a huge, huge problem. But again, going in and telling everybody they're wrong, telling everybody, this isn't the way to do it, and Damn this place. That's not going to get you where you need to go. You need to find an inclusive way of bringing about change, you need to find a way that everyone, everyone can connect into a new way of doing things. Too often, CEOs and executives go out they make these big mandates, they basically make these big statements about where a company is going to go. But the problem is, is that the person on the ground, who is in there working every day 16 levels down from whatever that executive is, has not a clue how to plug into that. They have not a clue how to do anything differently and they have not a clue what they should be doing differently. Here again, design thinking allows you to be able to bring that into the company. It allows you at every level to have a scalable solution that everyone can find a way to use. But that's the thing is that it gives you that creativity on demand. And it lets you change the way people think. I cannot say it enough how important that is. But the other thing that it does, and that it forces you to do, is to find diverse creativity, because one of the challenges on any project is that when you're posed with a problem, it creates this tension in your brain. And that what that means is the fact that there is something you need to solve that creates a small amount of anxiety, a small amount of tension. What am I going to do? Am I able to pull this off this time? I did it last time, but this time is different. And so what happens is that whenever you find a solution that solves that problem, it gives you a sense of relief, who I have something I can present, I'm going to be okay, I can show my boss something, I'm gonna keep my job, my house, my loved ones, all of those sorts of things. That's not overstating it that that really is, I think a lot of what cascades through people's brains really subconsciously. But the problem is that whenever you get that sense of relief, it blinds you to more solutions because you fall in love with that first idea. It gave you that dopamine hit, it gave you that sense of relief. So what you do is instead of finding distinctly different lines of thinking, you just push that one idea around, or the other thing that you'll find is that everyone goes to the most obvious, the easiest insight, the easiest place to start. This is why in so many cases, what you see are that different companies will launch the same thing at the same time. They weren't working together, there wasn't a corporate spy. There's no espionage going on here. It's just a bunch of people who didn't push past the obvious. They didn't push past the easy answer. I've seen this time and time again. Again, having taught design thinking for years all over the world. Whenever I do what I do as an interactive workshop, give them an example solve something for an airline and give them these workbooks. So you can go through photo books, lots of different options for them to choose from. The funny thing is that almost every single time at least 50% of the class comes up with the exact same idea. And that you can say, Okay, well look, it's just a one day or two day workshop. course that's going to happen. You just gave them a workbook with a set amount of variables. But the reality is that again, people gravitate to the obvious to the easy to the thing that they think will find scale to the thing that they think is going to be the most easily accepted. Because what they're doing is they're thinking beyond the moment they're thinking to their boss, and their boss's boss, and their boss's boss's boss, and all of the red tape and all the bureaucracy that so often goes into creativity that causes this problem to happen. So we take the easy answer, we don't push for more, but this is where design thinking can make the problem a lot better. Because as we talked about the How might we statements again, if done properly, what that will do is it will get you to look at a single problem from a lot of different angles. So you get distinctly different thinking distinctly different approaches to the same problem. And so that you aren't just simply settling for that first idea, falling in love with it and then just simply pushing it around making kind of like a one a one B one c slightly different flavors of the exact same thing. And that's a good thing. Because we need more crazy ideas, we need more wild ideas. This is why I've kind of built my career around that word crazy, because I think it applies in so many different ways in so many different moments. But that's the thing. And there's so many cases, whenever somebody goes, Wow, that's really cool. But that's kind of crazy. That's the moment when you know you're onto something. It's a moment that you think that you're getting to something that's different where they can see the potential in it, but they know there's going to be an uphill challenge to get there. Here again, as I've said many times before, there's a distinct difference. a distinct understand that you need to have between crazy and stupid, crazy challenges things crazy is putting things on an assumption on a human truth on an insight so it still solves a real problem. Crazy is something that can actually get built crazy balances that this is something that our customers actually want it is something that will make the business money and it's something that we can actually build crazy is not science fiction crazy is not stupid. Crazy is not doing things just simply to hear ourselves talk to make something that looks cool that has no has no substance and has no real impact. No crazy he's got to be bigger crazy he's got to be deeper it's got to look at problems from a lot of different ways it's got to do great not good it's got to put in the work to make sure that those things actually happen because that's the problem is that good exists good is too easily acceptable good is too often except well because good can get solved good can get past your client. People will look at like all that's good, good and safe, good comfortable. As we said before, though, comfort is the enemy of greatness. Good is the enemy of greatness. Again, I'm not using the word perfect. Nothing's gonna be perfect. Don't be that one that obsesses over to make sure every little thing is right. But that's the whole point of design thinking Why think it works so well. tier two. It allows you to so quickly even in a few hours, go from doing some research into insights. taking those into how might we statements doing brainstorms going through coming up with ideas and quickly prototyping those to get them in front of people. Because the other thing that we all need to realize, and the other power of this is putting the client at the center of this. And then I think that is incredibly insightful. And it can be incredibly powerful. Because the thing is that when we talk about design, design is an incredibly debatable medium. It's a lot of opinions. It's a lot of he said, she said, it's a lot of what I think versus what you think and who has the better taste and the better style. Because so often that's the dictation of design. Well, so for me in this moment where we have this incredibly debatable medium, I think what we need to do is we need to shift our thinking, we need to understand that the real product of our teams, the real product of any creative person is creativity. The expression of that, whether it be visuals, words, prototypes, whatever that is that is a visual expression of creativity. And that this is the thing is that what we want to do is to one make sure that our creativity is what is valued. But that also that since we are then the expression of that is being put into such a debatable form, we want to make sure that we put our customers, our consumers, our users, or whatever it is at the center of what it is we're doing, because that is not debatable. do things like once a week, or as often as you can put your work in front of users, if there's a disagreement about button color, if there's a disagreement about a word, if there's a disagreement about an approach, do it often iterate quickly and frequently to make sure that whenever you're doing this stuff, that you're always grounding it back into what really matters, which is the end experience. Too many of us forget the cold reality that the end of any project, what we're going to do is we're going to launch a piece of work, we're going to put it in front of people, and those people are not going to understand version 2.0. They're not gonna understand the compromises you make. They're not gonna understand why tech couldn't build something, what they're just simply going to understand as the reality of the experience that They have in front of them, what they see what they read what they hear what they use, that's the reality. And then they're gonna base the value of that, on what that reality is. And that's so often what we need to not do is to rationalize all the reasons why this thing that was such a great idea got neutered down into something, just nobody gives a shit about good ideas are fragile. good ideas are hard. good ideas are a lot of work, and good ideas because of that need. Friends. This is again, why inclusion in this process becomes so important, because it becomes so easy to make it safer, smaller, neuter it down, make it something that honestly then to the day goes from revolutionary to just a slightly lukewarm version of the business's usual product that you have now. And then we can sit around rationalize about how good it could have been the big idea that we had the thing that didn't go out the door, and pat ourselves on the back feeling better about that the entire time telling us all how important and how innovative we're being at the end of the day. You look at that hard reality, you develop short term memory loss, you take a step back and you look at it. And what you see is just a rationalization. Something that isn't that great. And that idea left on the cutting room floor was just that. I think at the end of the day, that's why you know, so many times whenever I see a lot of creatives who come in bright eyed and bushy tailed full of, you know, Tails, all the ideas that could have been could have been, I guess I just don't find to be that impressive. Show me the people that got it out the door, showing people that made a difference showing the people that fought for it, show me the people that were able to do that. And look, don't get this twisted. The closet of my career is littered with what could have been. It's littered with great ideas that weren't, it's littered with a lot of the things that should have been better than they were. And there are times that I wasn't up to the task. I wasn't up to the fight. Sometimes it was a project sometimes it was for an entire job. And that sometimes I've had to walk away from those things, and that that's been a really hard decision. But that doesn't mean that it's not worth the fight, it doesn't mean that you don't try, it doesn't mean that you don't try to make things different and better. And it really also, I think, one of the things that design thinking is gonna do that really relates to that topic. It's gonna let you see the leadership potential in your team and in your clients. Because whenever you teach it, whenever you use it, it's an incredibly insightful process. And I've always found that within pretty much no time, you can easily see who's open to change, who has a really strong sense of empathy, who could think outside of the proverbial box and a lot of other really important insights that can help you change your team and your company. Because you'll see the ones who just can't get out of their own way. They aren't going to be open to change. They don't care what other people think about they don't care about their customers. They just want to run to the solution. They want to run The solution that they have, because they want to value the AI over the way. All of those are incredibly insightful, incredibly useful insights, to figure out who are the people we should partner with empower, give more work to spend more time with champion, make sure that they're the ones that are really getting that shiny new toy to show off to everybody else. And then who are the ones are going to be the work the problem, the short sighted, the ones who again, are not going to be that sort of future compatible sort of approach to things. That's a challenge. Because here again, a lot of people can talk a good game. They can say the right thing to say the right words. They read enough articles seen enough TED Talks, done enough other stuff, and then they compare it that back into a really wonderful sort of disguise that keeps you from seeing what the real person is lying underneath. Here again, the way they behave is not the way that they think. But that's the interesting thing is whenever you get into design thinking, then you're forcing that out into the open we're forcing the way they think out into the open. So I can see it in action. The words aren't there for them to hide behind. You just simply have the way they approach things, you can see their process their methodology, the way that they think about things. And that's what I want to see. Because for me, what I want to see is I want to see the way tackle somebody tackles a prominent and see how they tackle a bad day. Both of them are incredibly insightful into the people that they are, the way that they operate, the partners that they'll be in the sort of leadership that they're actually willing to demonstrate. And I think that this can be a fantastic barometer to help you out, to really get a good sense of your team, your clients, your partners, whatever that else might be. But to really understand whenever they're in the heat of the moment, whenever it isn't that manicured, thought about, you know, sort of approach to things in those moments, what really happens. But the last thing and I think the biggest thing that all of this adds up to is that design thinking is an incredibly powerful Trojan horse for change. Because since this is an inclusive process, When you bring everyone to the table to be able to work on the same thing, you can influence how they work. And you can influence how they think this is critical, because you want to create real change. You want to actually make things better, again, not changing behavior changing thinking, because you create real change. We have to cut beyond that. And we have to make it something everyone can plug into. We have to make it something that everyone can be involved in. And all of these things aren't going out and say, Okay, we're going to be different pounding your fist on the table, saying, okay, we're going to do these new things, berating people telling them, they're doing things wrong. None of those work, at least in my experience, they don't, you get a lot of resistance, you may get a few people who will rise up. But I think in the end, what you're gonna find out is those people are actors. They're the ones that are just going to change their behavior because they feel the current of things moving. They want to suck up to the boss and do this sort of stuff. And what they're not actually going to do is to actually think any different they're just going to behave different for a little while then behind the scenes not support what you're doing. But this is the Trojan horse for change, that becomes so incredibly important. But like I said in the beginning, knowing this stuff, knowing the steps, it's only the beginning, I see so many people going through the steps, and then they wonder why it doesn't have a bigger impact. Just like with your design work, success is going to be all about everything that surrounds this methodology. Are you thinking about the way you're positioning it to empower your team? Are you thinking about the way that you're going to use it to see what type of leadership what type of innovation personalities did you actually have with all the people you're working with? Are you gonna use it to be more inclusive? This is none of this. None of this has to do with actually the steps the process solving, whatever it is, the brief is, what all this has to do with is understanding how to you position it, the power of it, why it's important, and that again, you're not just saying Going through the steps, anybody can do that. It's all these other things to think about. That really make a difference. Because I said this before, maybe it's a bit of a downer to ended on. Design Thinking is not a magic bullet. It's a methodology and not a process. And if you don't understand the difference between those two, that's a really important distinction. A process is something that you go through through a set amount of steps based on a set amount of information to get the same outcome every time. A methodology is a different way of approaching things. And methodology is that what we're going to do is to have a certain way of approaching things. But the personalities that we have the different things that go into it are going to leave this open to interpretation, it's going to mean that it's more open, it's more free, it's going to put the burden on you to make sure that you are staying open to different solutions that you are doing all the steps that you're not taking shortcuts, not making it easy, doing these other sort of things to make sure you get to the best work, not just the outcome that you want, because that's the reality. That's why there's not a magic bullet. This can be the most innovative process in the world, or it can be the most base businesses usual get to the solution that you wanted whenever you started this sort of thing, and everything in between. Because you can you can go in and you can lead the witness, you can find the research and the insights that are gonna lead to the outcome you want. You can steer the brainstorm to, again, get to the idea that you want, you can do all I've seen people do it. They knew what it was they wanted going in, and then magically, that's what popped out the other side. If you go back and you look at the work, what is the research? What's the insight? What's the How might we what's the brainstorm, you'll see that everything lined up to that. And all the things that didn't point in that direction were discarded, huge problem. Because that's the thing, you're not going to do anything innovative in your career. If you aren't willing to fail if you aren't willing to take a risk if you aren't willing to explore the possibilities. If all you want to do is go out and have a home run. Congratulations being mediocre for the rest of your time. Because if all you're gonna do is just take the easy answer to be able to get there so that you win the political battle. You know, you get the pat on the head from your boss but you lose with your customer. As you lose with the marketplace, that's a real problem. And I think that it should force you to go back and think about, are you really working for the right company? Because if that's what they're gonna reward is the internal politics or the actual customer experience, you're with the wrong company. You want to be in the place where both of those are aligned, we're doing the right thing just shouldn't be the way that you do things. Caring about people should be the way you do things. Being with organizations that punish you for caring about the work being with organizations that punish you for caring about people being with organizations that do not see the value of an inclusive approach to things should make you question if you're in the right place. Or again, even if they don't value it, if you see some people if you see that it could be able to get there. And maybe there's hope for it. But that's what I said is like with so many of these things, it's not just about the steps. It's not just about inspiration, ideation implementation. It's not about those three pieces. It's about a lot more than that. And this this is The stuff that leadership is made of, it's made of the moments and the people that can see the longer view. It's made up of the moments and the people that will get in there that'll fight for this stuff that'll push people to do better that bring everybody to the table, even if it makes them insanely uncomfortable. Because I've talked about this before, and it's probably the perfect place to end this is because in my experience in my career in my life, leadership is just simply your willingness to be the most confident, uncertain person. So hopefully, this has been helpful. Hopefully, this helps give you a little bit more perspective and positioning for those of you who have not understood why designing is such a big deal for the people who have tried it and haven't found success. Maybe it gave you a few other things to think about. So that maybe you give it a try again, and maybe a little bit more successful. So as always, if you find anything useful about the show, feel free, go over, subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, say nice things, all that good stuff, because it doesn't make a difference. As always, you can find out more about this podcast related articles and all the show notes including very extensive Notes for this episode just head over to podcast Stephen Gates calm. Stephen as always is St. p h. e n. Gates like Bill Gates comm look, you can follow me on all kinds of social media channels, you can ask me questions anywhere you want to I get them all the time, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, if you Facebook is your kind of weapon of choice, go through there. Type in The Crazy One podcast like that page. I'm posting new articles there and on other social media channels all the time. As usual, everyone down illegal wants me to remind you that my views are just my own. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. These are just my own personal thoughts. And finally, I say it every time because I mean it every time. But thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only real luxury that any of us have. I'm always incredibly humbled. You want to spend any of it with me. So go out there, change some thinking, not just some behavior. And as always, while you're doing it, stay crazy.