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Innovation

Why DESIGN THINKING WORKS

Jeanne Liedtka | page 084

While we know a lot about practices thatstimulate new ideas, innovation teams often struggle to apply them. Why? Becausepeople’s biases and entrenched behaviors get in the way. In this article aDarden professor explains how design thinking helps people overcome thisproblem and unleash their creativity.

Though ostensibly geared to understandingand molding the experiences of customers, design thinking also profoundlyreshapes the experiences of the innovators themselves. For example, immersivecustomer research helps them set aside their own views and recognize needscustomers haven’t expressed. Carefully planned dialogues help teams build ontheir diverse ideas, not just negotiate compromises when differences arise. Andexperiments with new solutions reduce all stakeholders’ fear of change.

At every phase—customer discovery, ideageneration, and testing—a clear structure makes people more comfortable tryingnew things, and processes increase collaboration. Because it combines practicaltools and human insight, design thinking is a social technology—one that theauthor predicts will have an impact as large as an earlier social technology,total quality management.

HBR Reprint R1805D

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Health Care 

Organizational grit

Thomas H. Lee and Angela L. Duckworth page092

Grit, a combination of passion andperseverance, predicts success in many demanding fields. A perfect example ishealth care, where the grit of individual doctors and nurses has saved manylives. But today providing superior care is so complex that no lonepractitioner can do it all. Great care requires gritty teams that never stopstriving for improvement and institutions that exhibit grit across entiresystems of providers.

In this article Duckworth, the author ofthe best seller Grit, and Lee, a clinician and health care leader, describehealth care’s new model of organizational grit. It begins with hiring peoplewith grit—who love what they do, always want to get better, and are resilientin the face of setbacks. Their single-minded determination stems from a clearpersonal-goal hierarchy, in which shorter-term objectives support a top-levelgoal that gives direction to everything they do.

To be gritty, organizations must have asimilar clarity about priorities, and their top-level goal and their employees’must be aligned. If everyone is pursuing a separate passion, a culture won’t begritty. The gritty health care organizations the authors have seen (such asMayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic) all make “putting patients first” theiroverarching goal and use it to guide every decision. They also work tocultivate grit by, for example, setting high expectations; offering theresources, support, and trust people need to keep learning and growing; andestablishing strong social norms that promote their top-level goal.

While the objectives of organizations inother sectors may differ, they can apply the principles the authors outlinehere to become gritty, too.

HBR Reprint R1805G

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Managing Yourself

Give Yourself a Break: The Power ofSelf-Compassion

Serena Chen | page 100

When we experience a setback at work, wetend to either become defensive and blame others, or berate ourselves. Neitherresponse is helpful. Shirking responsibility by getting defensive may alleviatethe sting of failure, but it comes at the expense of learning.Self-flagellation, on the other hand, may feel warranted in the moment, but itcan lead to an inaccurately gloomy assessment of one’s potential, whichundermines personal development.

Research shows that we should respondinstead with self-compassion. People who do this tend to demonstrate threebehaviors: First, they are kind rather than judgmental about their own failuresand mistakes; second, they recognize that failures are a shared humanexperience; and third, they take a balanced approach to negative emotions whenthey stumble or fall short—they allow themselves to feel bad, but they don’tlet negative emotions take over.

Self-compassion boosts performance bytriggering the “growth mindset”—the belief that improvement is achievablethrough dedication and hard work. It also helps us connect with a moreauthentic self.

HBR Reprint R1805J

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