Most companies that have been around for a while are poorly adapted for the knowledge economy, and even less so for today's "creative economy", where your ability to add value is limited only by your imagination. Perhaps that's why design-led companies are significantly outperforming their peers, according to researchers at McKinsey. Their report points to four strengths these companies have in common, all of which come out of design thinking: analytical leadership, cross-functional talent, continuous improvement, and user-centricity.
These four company-wide competencies fuel smart experimentation, speed to market, and increased customer satisfaction. But they all require a level of flexibility rarely found in companies weighted down by calcified structures and processes.
The good news is that, even if your company as a whole is suffering from "bureaucrasclerosis", your team doesn't have to.
I huddled up with my colleagues on the Team Playbook team, and we found plays to build muscle in each competency area:
- Goals, Signals, and Measures – The key to analytical leadership is measuring the performance of features and campaigns with the same rigor as revenue and costs. In this play, you'll articulate your highest-level goal, identify early signals that'll tell you whether you're on the right track, and set targets for your success measures.
- Disrupt – "T-shaped" employees who can apply their deep expertise across different contexts are the ones managers fight to keep. This brainstorming play forces you to think around constraints, making your neuropathways more flexible and keeping you primed to make that cross-functional impact.
- Retrospectives – Not just for software teams anymore! Teams in marketing, customer service, finance, etc. hold retrospectives to reflect on their work and make a continuous improvement a habit. Those who don't learn from the past... well, you know the rest.
- Empathy maps – If you can't walk a mile in your customers' shoes, you can still spend an hour inside their heads. Mapping out what people are seeing, hearing, and feeling bakes user-centricity into any project and leads to stronger results.
You don't have to wait for your C-suite to get the memo on design-led companies. Try incorporating these design-inspired techniques into your routine and begin quietly chipping away at "bureaucrasclerosis" from the grassroots level.
What else are teams doing to break free from bureaucratic legacy? Let's hear it!
