Labs for Design & Business

Jeanne Liedtka @ U of Toronto

Jeanne Liedtka, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business, visited University of Toronto and presented her work on growth. She argues that “catalysts” succeed against odds because they (1) have a broad repertoire (e.g., cross-functionally trained), (2) have a learning mindset, and have an empathy.

What was interesting in her talk  was to compare between growth mindset business people (based on hypothesis-driven thinking) and fixed mindset business people.

1. When people have a growth mindset, they consider life as a journey of learning, embrace uncertainty, seek new experience, broaden repertoire, manage risks through action, place small bets quickly (i.e., rapid prototyping), and thus succeed more often in new situations. 
2. When people have a fixed mindset, they consider life as a test to avoid mistake, fear uncertainty, avoid new experience, narrow repertore, fail to manage risks without action, place large bets slowly, and thus fail more often in new situations. 

She emphasized that “learning” is important when people make failures. “Learning people” learn from their failures because failures are opportunity for them to test their hypotheses, whereas “non-learning people” do not have the same chance.  

I am very much with her in that life-long learning with hypothesis-driven thinking is essential to succeed in ANY domain, let alone design and new product development.

So far, I have met only two academically sound literature on the topic of design thinking or how designers think. One is abductive thinking suggested by Nigel Cross and the other is this: hypothesis-driven thinking. If there is any other thought about how designers think, hope to talk more.