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 The leader as autocrat is an outdated mindset that belonged to the era of operati...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...

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...

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...

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...

The last time I quit a job, I was 15, and it was my newspaper delivery route. Other than a few internships with fixed terms, I’ve worked at just one company since leaving graduate school: IDEO. So what do I have to offer about the topic? Quitting an organization and quitting a job are not the same ...

If you’re reading this post on LinkedIn, then you already understand the power of communities working together to create new possibilities. But as we head into 2015, it’s worth underscoring the importance of community collaboration. When Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank, his i...

Looking back on your college years, what would you change about your experience? Would you head to college straight out of high school? Choose a sensible major? Power through and get your degree in four years? Sarah Stein Greenberg, executive director of the Stanford Design School, offers a provocat...

One of the most important choices I made in my career was one I didn’t even realize I was making. When I graduated from design school, I was pretty sure about what I wanted to do with my life. I was fascinated with industrial design, and was happily imagining spending the rest of my career developin...