It's incredible to think it has been almost 10 years since the initial publication of Change By Design, the book that launched this very blog. In the decade since first sharing the ideas that fill those pages, the world has changed dramatically, but the power of design as a tool for solving proble...

The myth of leadership is that it has to be top-down. The CEO has all the answers and leads by handing down mandates. But any chief who thinks he or she has all the answers is limiting the scope of the operation. Why? The leader as autocrat is an outdated mindset that belonged to the era of operati...

Some of today’s most successful companies—Airbnb, Nike—have CEOs who are also designers. And leading organizations across industries, like Apple, 3M, and Pepsi, have highly influential Chief Design Officers at the helm. Making design a priority isn’t just about meeting the glossy expectations of tod...

There was a time when efficiency was enough. When the role of the CEO was to optimize business as if it were a machine—making sure the supply chains and manufacturing systems and marketing channels were produced maximal output at minimal cost. Those days are over. And though I don’t suffer any roman...

It has been exciting to see design thinking gaining ground in a growing range of industries over the last few years, but even I have been surprised by the enthusiasm with which some in the legal field have embraced the concept. The law is not exactly known for creative problem solving. But it turns...

What if we had a new way to design products, services, and businesses that were good for people, the planet, and business? That's one of the questions we were seeking to answer when IDEO teamed up with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to launch the Circular Design Guide. Why a design thinking guide f...

The world of business has never been more volatile or unpredictable. Sources of competition and disruption can appear anywhere—not just disruption in products, services, and technology, but also in channels to market, policy, talent, brands, and supply chains. In order to survive in today’s complex...

This week, school principals across the globe are lacing up their sneakers and toting their brown bags to school as part of Shadow a Student Challenge, a program to help school principals better understand their students’ experiences. As of Monday, more than 1,200 school leaders have taken the chal...

You may have heard that IDEO has joined the kyu collective (a unit of Tokyo-based Hakuhodo DY Holdings). kyu was formed by a group of diverse companies including SYPartners, Sid Lee, Digital Kitchen, C2, and Red Peak Group. It’s an exciting moment for us, and we wanted to explain why. Since IDEO sta...

I was chatting with my colleague Suzanne recently and she told me about a friend of hers. Adam is a creative soul. He’s well-read, plays music, cooks elaborate meals, and is highly engaged in arts and culture. He’s an engineer by training, and has worked in senior roles in multiple companies, but h...