Design thinking and strategy. Part two

Customers as a source of inspiration

Customers as a source of inspiration

Once I was conducting a strategic workshop for a company manufacturing accessories for heavy road machinery. All the team members were engaged and participated actively and effectively, except one C-suite manager, who was visibly disappointed. I asked him directly what was wrong.

– It is not a strategy! — he exclaimed.

– What do you mean?

– Why are we talking about customers? About their needs? About customers’ values? It is not a strategy! Strategy is about big moves, general directions, merges, and acquisitions! Why don’t we leave all this customers’ stuff for guys from the marketing department?

Design thinking won’t tell us who to serve, or why.

There is a chapter in Jeanne Liedtka’s wonderful book The Design For Growth Field Book: A Step-By-Step Project Guide called “Strategy and Design Thinking.” It starts with some sentences in which Liedtka shares her opinion on the difference between two things. “They are not the same thing — each has a different…