Getting Personal: Developing Yourself as a Design Thinker

The CEO is not the only one in the organization who should be a design thinker. In fact, if the CEO and other senior managers in your organization are resistant to design-thinking principles and nurture a culture that is hostile to innovation in favor of maintaining the status quo, it may be up to you to hone your own design-thinking skills, increase awareness, and encourage others in the organization to adopt a design approach. This chapter will help you increase your creative output and learn how to work more effectively with non-design thinkers in your organization, rather than engaging in counterproductive battles that result in standoffs, hard feelings, and inaction. Both skills will help you be a capable and successful design-thinking CEO someday. This chapter was originally published as Chapter 7 of "The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage."