What an amazing feeling at the beginning of a workshop. Lot of expectations and curiosity at the same time. Often a weird feeling, like if it would be the beginning of a journey with no destination. If you ask participants one word that qualifies his/her expectation, you end up with "creativity", "excitement" but rarely "solution", "achievement" or "progress", But my former colleague at Procter, Mark Ciesco, now working for GE Healthcare, shared that image of an elephant in a room to illustrate how, sometimes, Design Thinking means putting an elephant in the room. Indeed, Design Thinking is like looking through a paire of alien eyes, like if everything has been destroyed, eliminating all pre-conceived ideas. Still, everyone comes with his own background, expertise, culture or education, which makes the discussions richer. Because after all, we are all human made of our own stories that shape our way of thinking and acting. Similarly, I always recommend to be extremely naive when starting a Design Thinking workshop, this is a great way to build on each others ideas and defer judgement. Design Thinking is the art of accepting others ideas and improve them. Let me know if you would like to start the discussion on this subject.
