Transforming the Corporation: The Design of Procter & Gamble--How Design Thinking Turned the Business Around

Actual dialogue about new ideas at the senior level of most organizations is exceedingly rare. Rather than engaging in dialogue, executives devote their time and energy to bulletproofing arguments with airtight evidence and analysis and then advocating and defending them. Such was the case at Procter & Gamble when a new CEO came onboard and shook things up. This chapter recounts the story of A.G. Lafley and how he managed to convert a tradition-bound, publically traded company into a design-thinking organization, driven to push knowledge as far and as fast as possible. In the process of building skills and changing organizational processes and norms, he won over skeptical analysts and produced real and lasting competitive value for P&G. This chapter was originally published as Chapter 4 of "The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage."