Boeing lost its way and needs to rethink its very reason for existing. Innovations fail at Boeing due to a lack of anchoring innovations in a purpose-driven corporate culture. Purpose-driven companies are not only focused on profitability but mainly on making a positive impact on society. Their innovations are sustainable. This appears to be different at Boeing, read my article “How the Boeing 737 Max Incidents Could Have Been Avoided”.
Keynote: Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture
Speaker: Renowned Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D. | Location: 133 Town Center Blvd, Clermont, Florida 34714, USA | Target audience: Tech executives, innovation leaders, and design managers only | Prior registration required via tpsi@live.com | Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116 | Date/Time: To be determined
Event content and topics to be discussed:
Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture of Sustainable Innovation
“The one thing missing from the board of directors of Boeing is a holistic view on cultivating a purpose-driven culture of sustainable Innovation” — Hubert Rampersad
Boeing lost its way. Other companies should take heed; “It’s become clear that Boeing’s problems run far deeper. They expose decades of American corporate philosophy gone awry. Boeing is a quintessential example of America’s rotting business culture over the past 40 years” (Markets Insider). Boeing focused on pleasing Wall Street because that’s how American executives believe companies should operate. The people who are at the top are there for a reason, and it’s basically to maximize shareholder value. Simply changing CEOs or hiring more engineers won’t make Boeing’s problems go away. The company needs to rethink its very reason for existing and what it should provide to society as an enterprise. Lopez: “A good American company isn’t just a vehicle for financial returns; it is first and foremost an employer, a contributor to economic and/or technological innovation, and a source of US power. Whether the recent disasters shake Boeing out of its somnambulance remains unclear. It’s also questionable whether other major companies with a similar maximize-shareholder-value-at-all-costs ethos will learn from the mistakes. But it’s clear that what Boeing — and the entire American corporate body politic — needs is nothing short of a philosophical counterrevolution”. William McGee: “For decades Boeing was the pinnacle of American engineering. It was America’s crown jewel and one of the most important and impressive companies in the US”. In Boeing’s quarterly earnings, President and CEO Dave Calhoun (who was hired after the previous 737 Max disasters) promised more of a focus on quality and encouraged employees to speak up about issues on the factory floor. But the short-sighted Calhoun is putting out fires with his ad-hoc approach. He does not realize that he is only treating the symptoms of the problem and not addressing the root cause. The real root cause is a rotten corporate culture at Boeing which is focused on making shareholders happy instead of focusing on a purpose-driven culture.
Boeing’s trajectory has veered off course due to America’s deteriorating business culture, which prioritizes swift profits for shareholders over aircraft safety. This shift was initiated by Jack Welch approximately 40 years ago. The recent Boeing crisis lays bare years of flawed American corporate philosophy centered around shareholder interests. A significant portion of today’s corporate challenges can be traced back to the legacy of GE’s former chairman, Jack Welch, who was revered by CEOs worldwide. Interestingly, Boeing’s current Chairman, David Calhoun, once served as Welch’s deputy. Calhoun is focused on maximizing profits for his shareholders, just like many CEOs in corporate America. It’s probably no surprise that CEO pay increased by 1,322% from 1978 to 2020.
Lopez: “An entire generation of politicians and executives preached the doctrine of efficiency in the name of maximizing profits for shareholders, and we’ve seen the results: stagnant wages, massive inequality, legislators captured by industry lobbyists, and companies that coast on past innovation and financialization because it’s easier than investing in something new. As Boeing has been forced to reckon with the corporate culture it developed over the past 40 years, corporate America has been forced to face the long-term cost of its obsession with shareholder primacy and efficiency.” McGee: “Boeing is vital, but we don’t treat it like it’s vital. We treat it like a casino”.
Innovations fail at Boeing due to a lack of anchoring innovations in a purpose-driven corporate culture. The best innovations align with the innovator’s and company’s purpose and generate mutual value for its stakeholders. When innovations resonate with the employee’s and organization’s higher purpose and benefit the company, its employees, and key constituents, they are more likely to succeed and become sustainable. Purpose-driven tech companies are not only focused on profitability but also on making a positive impact on society. Their innovations are sustainable. ….READ FURTHER.
Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., founded the Center of Excellence in Design-Driven, Human-Centered, and Purpose-Driven Innovation in Orlando, Florida. He is a visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm.
To move forward, we must reimagine design innovation with sustainability at its core. This means shifting our focus away from rigid design steps and tools and fostering a sustainable purpose-driven design culture. Tech companies must focus beyond shareholder value and prioritize social responsibility. Boeing, for instance, should balance its focus on profits with a commitment to sustainable practices. Read “Boeing’s Top 10 Failures”.
In this article, I propose a new design approach that nurtures purpose-driven design cultures within tech organizations. It goes beyond the traditional design thinking that prioritizes sustainability and profitability and aims to positively impact society.
Purpose-Driven Design Culture in the Age of AI
Technology companies should prioritize cultivating a purpose-driven design culture based on eco-design thinking as a fundamental capability to achieve sustainable growth and competitive advantage. These companies are not only focused on profitability but also on making a positive impact on society. They go beyond merely understanding what customers want and why they like it. Look what happened with Boeing due to the lack of a purpose-driven design culture. Read: “Boeing lost its way. Other companies should take heed”; “It’s become clear that Boeing’s problems run far deeper. They expose decades of American corporate philosophy gone awry. Boeing is a quintessential example of America’s rotting business culture over the past 40 years” (Markets Insider). Boeing focused on pleasing Wall Street because that’s how American executives believe companies should operate. The people who are at the top are there for a reason, and it’s basically to maximize shareholder value. Changing CEOs or hiring more engineers won’t eliminate Boeing’s problems. The company needs to rethink its reason for existing and what it should provide to society as an enterprise.
A holistic model for building a sustainable purpose-driven design culture
Tech companies should prioritize profits and promote values, high character, and ethical critical thinking among their employees. This will help impact our society’s well-being, integrity, and empathy positively. In this section, I provide a holistic model to realize this sustainably, as shown in this diagram. This model is based on my latest book, “Eco-Design Thinking for Personal, Corporate, and Social Innovation.” It is also based on my experience as a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most crucial tech company in the world and Europe’s most valuable tech firm, the only tech company in the world with a sustainable design-driven culture.
A purpose-driven design culture requires a new way of thinking
A purpose-driven design culture needs a new way of thinking. As Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” That’s where eco-design thinking emerges, shifting from the traditional fixed mindset to a more dynamic growth mindset. The difference between these two approaches is illustrated in the diagram below.
Many designers favor their brain’s left side and ignore the right, resulting in a lack of balance. This limits their ability to approach complex design issues creatively and with authenticity.
A purpose-driven design culture requires a new generation of brilliant engineers
We need a new generation of brilliant engineers in the age of AI with a new mindset to design a better world and create a vibrant future. Engineers must possess skills like creativity, imagination, agility, critical thinking, and sustainability to become visionary and innovative entrepreneurial leaders or to design innovative products. These skills are not typically associated with engineering, but the rapid rate of technological change has made most college and university courses obsolete by the time students graduate. Read “We Need a New Generation of Brilliant Engineers“.
STEM programs give engineers insights into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, they often fail to nurture the holistic, authentic, and imaginative qualities essential for tomorrow’s engineers. Read “How STEM Education is Failing in the Age of AI”.
A Purpose-driven design culture requires sustainable innovation
In today’s complex world, sustainable innovation is crucial. Traditional innovation approaches are inadequate because they lack a holistic approach. This is why I introduced my Eco-Innovation concept, which focuses on the human side of innovation.
Eco-Innovation involves integrating sustainability into the process of innovation. I identify three types of innovation that fall under this category:
Personal innovation is unlocking your creative potential and creating new opportunities for yourself. By disrupting your current market, you can make a significant social impact. Personal Disruptive Innovation by Hubert Rampersad helps you find your purpose and improve your life for greater happiness and health.
Corporate innovation involves applying new ideas to create new products, processes, or services that increase the value of a company. Corporate innovation also encompasses Open Innovation by Chesbrough, Disruptive Innovation by Clayton Christensen, and BlockChain Innovation.
Social innovation is developing and implementing new ideas and solutions that meet social needs and strengthen civil society. There is some overlap between social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Social innovation aims to improve the world by implementing innovative ideas that create social and environmental change, benefiting many people. Social entrepreneurs seek the most effective ways to achieve their social mission and provide social benefits.
The diagram below shows how personal, corporate, and social innovation are interconnected. Personal innovation is linked to self-learning, corporate innovation is linked to organizational learning, and social innovation is linked to community learning.
Personal Disruptive Innovation
Personal disruptive innovation is an innovative approach that unlocks your creative potential by cultivating a strong growth mindset, creating new unique opportunities, disrupting your current target market, and allowing you to make a significant social impact. It involves five steps, as shown in this model: 1. Personal Ambition, 2. Personal Brand, 3. Personal Innovation Strategy, 4. Implementation, and 5. Personal Integrity & Empathy.
The roadmap for personal disruptive innovation begins with personal ambition (personal mission, vision, and key roles), founded on self-knowledge. It’s important to remember that all knowledge begins with self-knowledge, all learning begins with self-learning, all innovation starts with self-innovation (personal innovation), and authentic empathy begins with personal integrity. Self-knowledge involves knowing oneself. Remember what Aristotle said: “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” To be more innovative and creative, designers should focus more on cultivating self-knowledge, which is the foundation of imagination. Read “Why Creativity Sucks“.
By defining your personal ambition, you can uncover your true purpose and understand the meaning of your life. Remember what Elon Musk said: “Don’t even attach yourself to a person, a place, a company, an organization, or a project. Attach yourself to a mission, a calling, a purpose only. That’s how you keep power and your peace. It worked pretty well for me this far”. The 5 stages in the personal disruptive innovation model have been described in detail in my articles “5 Steps to Cultivate Authenticity, Integrity, Empathy, and Critical Thinking” and “Cultivating Critical Thinking in the Age of AI”.
To be discussed in the next section, the eco-design thinking model starts with personal disruptive innovation to understand, explore, redefine, and redesign yourself before solving the design problem. You need to become innovative and empathic first to develop innovative designs for the end users. You need to develop disruptive skills first. You need to reinvent and redesign yourself first to become a disruptor. In the upcoming section, I will discuss the eco-design thinking model, which emphasizes personal disruptive innovation as the first step towards understanding, exploring, redefining, and redesigning oneself before solving any design problems. Being innovative and empathic is essential to developing innovative designs that cater to the end users’ needs. Therefore, developing disruptive skills and reinventing oneself to become a critical thinker is necessary.
Top 10 Causes of Bad Designs
My article “Top-10 Causes of Bad Designs” highlights the negative impact of bad designs due to a lack of consideration for sustainability and generative AI. Some well-known examples of such methods include the botched vaccine rollout in America, Citibank’s loss of $500 million due to an unfriendly loan management tool, the $2 trillion F-35 project, Boeing 737 Max airplane, the T-14 Armata Russian Tank, and the Samsung. Galaxy Note 7. Please take the time to read my article “Why OceanGate’s Design Approach Sucks; How the Doomed Titan Sub Tragedy Could Have Been Avoided.” CEOs who prioritize their personal design choices over critical safety regulations, endangering human lives, can learn a valuable lesson from the tragedy of the Titan. This also applies to individuals like Elon Musk and companies like Boeing. Please look at my article “How could Elon Musk’s $3 billion Mars rocket failure have been avoided?”. The following figure displays the top 10 reasons for bad designs.
Eco-Design Thinking as part of a purpose-driven design culture
As mentioned, the world has no shortage of complex problems to address. These problems cannot be solved sustainably with outdated design thinking. A sustainable, purpose-driven design culture should take center stage rather than relying on a theatrical and ad-hoc design process that involves cozy design meetings with sticky notes and fun design tools. Eco-design thinking is part of this culture. It prioritizes creating intelligent, resilient, empathetic, and honest designers. This new creative process involves empathizing with yourself, the end user, and the environment to generate innovative, imaginative, empathetic, and disruptive design ideas. The new model is depicted in the figure below and consists of four stages: Explore, Ideate, Prototype, and Execute. It is an iterative, incremental, cyclic, and concentric process of exploring, ideating, prototyping, and executing (Rampersad, 2023). Eco-design thinking is a circular and iterative process that has no endpoint. The model consists of various stages that may form iterative loops and do not need to follow a specific sequence. Every iteration brings forth fresh insights. It is recommended that this process be repeated until the issues of the designer and end-user reach an acceptable level. Eco-design thinking is a continuous and circular process that requires testing and refining your design while empathizing with yourself, the users, and the environment. At any design stage, generative AI tools can produce the best empathic design customized to the end-user’s needs and the environment.
The process of eco-design thinking involves exploring, ideating, prototyping, and executing different aspects of a design. Each iteration is then reviewed to identify additional requirements, and the process is repeated to produce a new and improved version of the product or service. The model involves creating a rough product or process in one iteration, reviewing it, and then improving it in the next iteration until it is complete. Based on the results of incremental prototyping and execution, changes and refinements are made to the most recent iteration of the design.
To create a smart design, it’s essential to first explore your life, empathize with the end user, and research the environment. Once you’ve identified the design problem and user needs, you can generate ideas to meet those needs. From there, you’ll develop a prototype of the finished product or service and test it to ensure it’s meeting the requirements in the best possible way. If adjustments need to be made based on the test results, you’ll adjust the design accordingly and execute the solution. If the prototype doesn’t meet the need, you’ll create a new one and start the process again until the end user is satisfied.
The 4 Stages in the Eco-Design Thinking Model
Let’s examine the four stages of the eco-design thinking model more closely:
EXPLORE
The first step in this design process is to empathize with yourself, examine and redesign your life, and reinvent yourself before tackling the design problem. This will give you a better understanding of yourself and the design challenge. The goal is to transform yourself into an innovative, empathetic, disruptive designer who can keep up with generative AI and use generative AI tools effectively to generate more inventive, imaginative, disruptive, compassionate, and creative ideas. The exploration phase includes three sub-phases:
Personal disruptive innovation: Personal disruptive innovation refers to a groundbreaking innovation that unleashes the designer’s creative potential, creates innovative personal opportunities, disrupts your target market, and enables you to make a notable social impact. This type of innovation is based on a framework and roadmap that helps you explore your life, develop resilience, reinvent and redesign your life, cultivate your personal eco-design thinking brand, and uphold personal integrity. By unlocking your creative potential, personal disruptive innovation allows you to disrupt the usual course of your life. Before exploring the design problem, it’s essential to understand yourself and your environment empathetically. This initial stage focuses on exploring your life. Personal disruptive innovation also involves creating a powerful, authentic personal brand for compelling storytelling⠀ using eco-design thinking during every step of the design processg. Elon Musk is currently the world’s most powerful personal brand and a brilliant storyteller. He connects emotionally with his audience, creating a solid bond. ChatGTP is a helpful tool for improving storytelling. I recommend reading my articles “50 Tips For Becoming a Disruptor“ and “Crafting Your Authentic Personal Brand: A 5-Step Guide“.
Empathize: Before moving forward, gaining a compassionate understanding of the end user and the issue that needs to be resolved is essential. This can be achieved by listening to their stories, observing their behavior, and engaging with them. By empathizing with the end user, we can better understand their experiences and develop a personal connection with the problem. It’s equally essential to empathize with ourselves and the surrounding environment first. To design effectively, it is necessary to have empathy and understand the needs of yourself, the end user, and the environment. During this stage, generative AI can enhance collaborations between designers and end-users of the product. It also enables end-users to empathize with each other more effectively.
Define: During this stage, you will compile the information that was collected during your empathetic research, analyze your observations, interpret the empirical findings, and define the problem in a way that is centered around the customer. The end result should be a problem statement that is customer-focused and human-centered. ChatGTP is available to help you formulate a compelling argument.
IDEATE
The ideate phase is composed of three sub-phases, which are:
Initiate: Choose a facilitator who can effectively initiate and manage discussions, revisit the problem, and establish guidelines for brainstorming and generative AI tools. It is essential that the chosen facilitator has experience with the personal disruptive innovation method and has applied it to himself.
Think: Engaging in divergent and convergent thinking to develop innovative design ideas. While convergent thinking focuses on finding the best solution to a problem, the generative AI tool Stable Diffusion can support divergent thinking by connecting product ideas and generating fresh ideas. By encouraging designers to think like there is no box and consider new possibilities for a product’s form and function, Stable Diffusion can help them arrive at innovative solutions they may not have thought otherwise. This is a departure from outdated design methods prioritizing function over form. With Stable Diffusion, designers can use a series of prompts to build upon their ideas and create impactful visual designs, read Eapen et al. (2023). With ChatGPT, you can evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of new concepts and choose the optimal solution.
Synthesize: To create a coherent whole, it is essential to combine various product ideas. Analyze and connect your thoughts, and choose the strongest to develop themes. Cluster similar ideas together and select the best clusters. Assign a group to each set to evaluate the ideas, and hold separate follow-up meetings to eliminate any unusable ideas based on selection criteria. During this synthesis phase, you can use Stable Diffusion to quickly evaluate a wide range of product concepts based on the most important criteria and combine them into a cohesive whole.
PROTOTYPE
The prototype phase is made up of three sub-phases, which are:
Create an experience: After implementing solutions into the prototypes, they are evaluated based on user experiences. It is essential to guide the end users through the prototype to allow them to experience it firsthand. During this stage, generative AI tools like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney can assist in creating product storyboards. At the same time, ChatGPT can aid in improving the design and helping the end users understand the prototype. Collaborations between designers and end users can be enhanced using generative AI to co-create better strategies. Designers can benefit from the assistance of generative AI in effectively communicating their designs through both written and visual formats, resulting in more creative and intelligent designs. Additionally, generative AI can provide crucial details that make the design more understandable and feasible. Here’s an excellent storyboard example where (Eapen et al., 2023) utilized the Stable Diffusion generative AI tool to create a design for a flying car.Designers can leverage GPTs to enhance the customer experience by delivering personalized recommendations and content. The customized AI algorithms can analyze user behavior and preferences to increase engagement and satisfaction.
Feedback: You can improve your solution by listening to customer feedback. It may be helpful to utilize storytelling once again to gather feedback. Generative AI can aid in accepting new ideas from the user, while Stable Diffusion can help design a better solution.
Iterate: If the end user disapproves of the solution and provides negative feedback, you must make adjustments and repeat the process. This involves modifying the prototype based on the feedback received. If the end user is not content with the results, redefining the issue and empathizing with them more effectively is essential. During this stage, generative AI can help by comprehending the end user better, which can reduce the number of iterations. Consequently, design costs and time will be decreased.
EXECUTE
Execution has always been the sticky wicket for outdated design thinking. The execute phase in eco-design thinking is made up of three sub-phases:
Test: When presenting the prototype, it is essential to allow the end user to fully experience it. Through testing, you can determine whether the solution is effective or not. The tragedy of the OceanGate Titan submarine and the Boeing 737 Max
could have been avoided if proper testing had been performed before its use. Under no circumstances should the sub be used for commercial deep dive missions until thoroughly tested. Please take the time to read this article, “OceanGate’s approach to engineering was ad hoc and ultimately inappropriate.” ChatGTP’s storytelling feature can also gather consumer feedback on how the final product is used in real life. This feedback can help designers understand users’ empathic experience when using the product or service. During this stage, generative AI can improve the design by facilitating communication between the designer and the end user, making it more easily understood.
Refine: If the testing phase doesn’t yield positive results, it will be necessary to go through another round of iteration to refine the design. After testing, the process can be repeated to improve the solution or move on to the implementation stage if the end-user approves. During this stage, generative AI can be utilized again to create a better design.
Implement: Once the final solution has been approved, it will be implemented, realized, and communicated. Take pleasure in the eco-design thinking experience and note what you have learned and unlearned throughout the design process. Celebrate any accomplishments and move forward to the next project. During this phase, generative AI can once again assist in creating an even better design and documenting the learning process.
Using ChatGTP and personal branding (as part of the personal disruptive innovation methodology) for storytelling can be incredibly useful in various stages of the design process. It helps to engage customers and create an emotional connection with them. It’s also helpful in defining problems and building empathy and trust with users. This eco-design thinking model facilitates building a sustainable, purpose-driven design culture in tech companies.
Benefits of the eco-design thinking model:
Eco-design thinking is the foundation of building a sustainable purpose-driven design culture in tech companies.
Before delving into design issues, exploring and redesigning your own life is essential. This approach leads to more intelligent and innovative designs and better use of generative AI, resulting in better designs.
The use of generative AI in the initial stage of the design process promotes a culture of personal disruptive innovation, creating unique and empathetic designs.
A high level of personal integrity and a designer’s empathy form the starting point to achieve superior design quality.
By gradually building and enhancing the product or process and detecting defects early on, you can achieve faster design outcomes.
By utilizing generative AI and compelling storytelling, you can obtain more reliable user feedback. This can be achieved by implementing a personal eco-design thinking branding blueprint, improving design quality.
Various traditional design tools can be accessed online.
Additional design tools have been incorporated to aid and streamline implementing the new Eco-Design Thinking approach. These tools have been aligned with the model to boost its efficiency:
Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., founded the Center of Excellence in Human-Centered and Purpose-Driven Innovation in Orlando. He is a Dutch-American visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm. “
“The one thing missing in design teams is a holistic view on cultivating a purpose-driven design culture to enhance design quality and performance” — Hubert Rampersad
A Purpose-driven design culture requires a new generation of brilliant engineers
We need a new generation of brilliant engineers with a new mindset to design a better world and create a vibrant future. Engineering colleges and universities today do not commonly teach the skills that future engineers will need. Engineers must possess skills like creativity, imagination, agility, critical thinking, and sustainability to become visionary and innovative entrepreneurial leaders or to design innovative products. These skills are not typically associated with engineering, but the rapid rate of technological change has made most college and university courses obsolete by the time students graduate. Read “We Need a New Generation of Brilliant Engineers“.
STEM programs give engineers insights into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, they often fail to nurture the holistic, authentic, and imaginative qualities essential for tomorrow’s engineers. Read “How STEM Education is Failing in the Age of AI”.
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Coaching your design leader and designers to enhance their team performance; the Coaching Framework.
Most design failures are caused by bad design leaders. The coaching framework involves ten steps, with comprehensive exercises, tools, and activities associated with each step. The coaching process starts with the introduction of this method via a plenary kick-off meeting, allowing design leaders and team members time for familiarization, followed by a minimum of ten 1-on-1 sessions of a maximum of two hours with individual design leaders and team members. This process is based on Hubert Rampersad’s latest book, “Eco-Design Thinking for Personal, Corporate, and Social Innovation.” It is also based on his experience as a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most crucial tech company in the world and Europe’s most valuable tech firm, the only tech company in the world with a sustainable design-driven culture.
Look for a quiet spot and perform the breathing and silence exercise to reflect on the personal purpose questions. This will create an atmosphere of silence to think about yourself and to listen to your inner voice.
Formulate your personal innovation strategy. Design your personal strategic map to coach yourself and enhance your critical thinking and imaginative skills.
Implement your personal innovation strategy according to the Plan-Deploy-Act-Challenge cycle. Get going with the continuous improvement actions with dedication and resolution.
Learn how to cultivate and maintain your personal purpose and innovation strategy to enhance your critical thinking skills and drive purpose and human-centeredness.
Develop your personal integrity by aligning your personal purpose with your behavior (alignment with yourself). Learn how to live up to your your brand promise.
Align your personal purpose with the team purpose through the purpose meeting (alignment with your design team) to enhance team performance.
Learn how to coach your design team members to formulate their personal purpose and innovation strategy and align with themselves and their team purpose.
Coach the design leader to become an effective purpose-driven leader.
Hubert Rampersad, Ph., founded the Center of Excellence in Human-Centered and Purpose-Driven AI Innovation in Orlando. He is a Dutch-American visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm. “
The world has no shortage of complex problems that must be addressed. The design industry needs a radical new design approach that goes far beyond the original design thinking methodology. It needs a sustainable, purpose-driven design culture rather than relying on a theatrical and ad-hoc design process that involves cozy design meetings with sticky notes and fun design tools. Tech companies and design firms need a purpose-driven design culture that prioritizes profitability and aims to positively impact society.
Rebecca Ackermann (2023): “Founded in the 1990s, IDEO was instrumental in evangelizing the design thinking process throughout the ’00s and ’10s, alongside Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design or “d.school” (which IDEO’s founder David Kelley also cofounded). While the methodology’s focus on collaboration and research can be traced back to human-factors engineering, a movement popular decades earlier, design thinking took hold of the collective imagination during the Obama years, a time when American culture was riding high on the potential of a bunch of smart people in a hope-filled room to bend history’s arc toward progress. Institutions like MIT and Harvard and boot camps like General Assembly established courses and degree programs, suggesting that teaching design thinking could be as lucrative as selling it to corporations and foundations. At the same time, consultancies like IDEO, Frog, Smart Design, and others were also promoting the idea that anyone (including the executives paying their fees) could be a designer by following the process. IDEO’s then-CEO, Tim Brown, used a savvy strategy for selling design thinking to the business world by stating that we can solve any problem if we empathize hard enough. But in recent years, the shine of design thinking has been wearing off. Critics have argued that its short-term focus on novel and naive ideas has resulted in unrealistic and ungrounded recommendations. Years in, “innovation theater”— checking a series of boxes without implementing meaningful shifts—had become endemic in corporate settings. At the same time, several social-impact initiatives highlighted in case studies struggled to get beyond pilot projects. Innovation agencies and educational institutions continue selling design thinking to individuals, corporations, and organizations today. In 2015, IDEO created its own “online school,” IDEO U, with a bank of design thinking courses. When Jake Knapp was running those design thinking workshops at Google, he saw that for all the excitement and Post-its they generated, the brainstorming sessions didn’t usually lead to built products or solutions. Execution has always been the sticky wicket for design thinking”. Read the Fast Company article “Design giant Ideo cuts a third of the staff and closes offices as the era of design thinking ends.”
Corporate America needs a purpose-driven design culture, not design thinking.
The world has no shortage of complex problems that must be addressed. Therefore, we need to evolve beyond design thinking. The design industry needs a radical new design approach that goes far beyond the original design thinking methodology. It needs a sustainable, purpose-driven design culture rather than relying on a theatrical and ad-hoc design process that involves cozy design meetings with sticky notes and fun design tools. With their outdated design approaches, American universities share some responsibility for the challenges tech companies like Boeing. Intriguingly, institutions like Stanford, MIT, and Harvard continue to adhere to the entrenched and outdated design thinking method that yields uninspired results and numerous design flaws; read “Things About Sustainability, Design Innovation, and Creativity You Don’t Learn at Universities.” To move forward, we must reimagine design with sustainability at its core. This means shifting our focus away from rigid design steps and tools and fostering a sustainable design culture. Tech companies, beyond shareholder value, must prioritize social responsibility. Boeing, for instance, should balance its focus on profits with a commitment to sustainable practices. In this article, I propose a new design approach that nurtures purpose-driven design cultures within tech organizations. It goes beyond the traditional design thinking that prioritizes sustainability and profitability and aims to positively impact society. The core of this new approach entails eco-design thinking.
Critical differences between eco-design thinking and design thinking: Where It All Went Wrong.
Let’s explore the eight critical differences between eco-design thinking and the failed outdated design thinking approach used by IDEO, Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school), MIT, and Harvard:
Design thinking is, in theory, a non-linear and iterative process, but in practice, it is not. It has an endpoint, while eco-design thinking is a never-ending, non-linear, circular, iterative, incremental, cyclic, and concentric process of exploring, ideating, prototyping, and executing with no endpoint. Eco-design thinking never stops. It’s a continuous process of testing and refining your design while empathizing with yourself, the users, and the environment to generate innovative, imaginative, empathetic, and disruptive design ideas. Every iteration brings forth fresh insights. Through a gradual design, construction, and refinement process, along with early defect detection using iterative loops, you can achieve more efficient and improved design outcomes with eco-design thinking.
Eco-design thinking is holistic, while design thinking is not, causing bad designs. It starts with designing the designer’s life. Read my related article, “Top-10 Causes of Bad Designs”. Eco-design thinkers are holistic thinkers. They look at the bigger picture, not on just parts of the design problem.
Design thinking focuses on a process-driven, analytical thinking, cozy, theatrical design process and completing related tasks in a particular order using design tools. In contrast, eco-design thinking focuses on building a sustainable purpose-driven design culture. Design thinkers are left-brainers, while eco-design thinkers are intuitive, right brainers, with a growth open mindset. Their right brain and left brain are in balance.
Design thinking focuses entirely on the end-user, while eco-design thinking starts with the designer’s creative, imaginative, and empathic skills.How can we ensure end-user happiness when our designers lack intelligence, creativity, ethics, and happiness? Before you start designing products, you must first design yourself. In the eco-design process, the initial step involves the designer’s disruptive and imaginative skills. Before addressing the design challenge, one should introspect, examine, explore, and reinvent one’s own life using our personal disruptive innovation methodology. This self-awareness enhances understanding of both the designer and the design problem. By exploring and reshaping the designer’s life early in the eco-design thinking process, we pave the way for more disruptive imaginative designs, leveraging generative AI to create empathetic solutions.
Design thinking neglects personal integrity, while fostering a designer’s personal integrity and authenticity marks the beginning of eco-design thinking, influencing their genuine empathy. Genuine empathy starts with personal integrity. Eco-design thinkers are integer, genuine empathic, trustworthy, and consistent in their behavior. As a designer’s integrity grows, so does their attentiveness and empathy. Remember: “The higher your personal integrity, the better your attentiveness, the better your empathic skills, the better your design, and the happier your customer”– Hubert Rampersad.
Eco-design thinking is a novel approach to design for sustainability and generative AI, while design thinking is not. Eco-design thinkers are an authentic personal brand. They make an emotional connection with the end-users.In the initial design phase of eco-design thinking, personal disruptive innovation encompasses developing novel ideas and establishing a robust, authentic personal brand for effective storytelling. This brand serves as a compelling narrative throughout the design journey. By leveraging generative AI and weaving captivating brand stories, designers can enhance their ability to gather more dependable user feedback. Read my article “Cultivating Critical Thinking in the Age of AI.”
Design thinking relies heavily on cozy collaborative meetings and what can be described as creativity theater, where the focus does not lead to sustainable creativity development. On the other hand, eco-design thinking takes an inside-out approach to creativity, emphasizing the designer’s imagination and disruption. It encourages a more independent and innovative growth mindset. Remember: The best ideas come when you are alone. Eco-design thinking diverges from traditional design thinking by eschewing reliance on cozy brainstorming. While the latter heavily depends on collaborative meetings to foster innovative ideas, research indicates that individuals working alone often exhibit greater creativity. Remarkable breakthroughs have emerged from the minds of solitary thinkers. For instance, Nikola Tesla conceived numerous groundbreaking ideas during his three decades of solitary work. Similarly, Stephen Hawking made significant discoveries despite being confined to his wheelchair, and the legendary Sir Isaac Newton famously unraveled the mysteries of gravity while in social isolation. Remember what Nikola Tesla said: “Being alone is when ideas are born. This is the secret of innovation”. Albert Einstein said almost the same: “Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living”. Personal disruptive innovation is the secret. It creates an environment for the designer to wonder and be curious and imaginative.
Design thinking focuses on knowledge, while eco-design thinking focuses on imagination. Eco-design thinking focuses on cultivating the imagination of the designer. Remember what Albert Einstein said: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Logic will get you from A to B. But imagination will take you everywhere… When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I conclude that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking… The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Technology companies should prioritize cultivating a purpose-driven design culture based on eco-design thinking as a fundamental capability to achieve sustainable growth and competitive advantage. These companies are not only focused on profitability but also on making a positive impact on society. They go beyond merely understanding what customers want and why they like it. Unfortunately, no examples of purpose-driven tech companies with a design-driven culture exist in corporate America. Apple, Google, IBM, Samsung, Uber, Airbnb, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, OceanGate, Tesla, and SpaceX are not design-driven due to their poor design approach they learned from DEO, Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school), MIT, and Harvard. Look what happened with Boeing due to the lack of a purpose-driven design culture.
Read: “Boeing lost its way. Other companies should take heed”; “It’s become clear that Boeing’s problems run far deeper. They expose decades of American corporate philosophy gone awry. Boeing is a quintessential example of America’s rotting business culture over the past 40 years” (Markets Insider). Boeing focused on pleasing Wall Street because that’s how American executives believe companies should operate. The people who are at the top are there for a reason, and it’s basically to maximize shareholder value. Changing CEOs or hiring more engineers won’t eliminate Boeing’s problems. The company needs to rethink its reason for existing and what it should provide to society as an enterprise.….READ FURTHER.
Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., founded the Center of Excellence in Design-Driven, Human-Centered, and Purpose-Driven Innovation in Orlando, Florida. He is a visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm.
The world has no shortage of complex problems that must be addressed. The design industry needs a radical new design approach that goes far beyond the original design thinking methodology. It needs a sustainable, purpose-driven design culture rather than relying on a theatrical and ad-hoc design process that involves cozy design meetings with sticky notes and fun design tools. Tech companies and design firms need a purpose-driven design culture that prioritizes profitability and aims to positively impact society.
Location: 133 Town Center Blvd, Clermont, Florida 34714, USA
Prior registration required via tpsi@live.com | Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116
Target audience: Tech executives only
Event content and topics to be discussed:
Cultivating a Sustainable Purpose-Driven Design Culture in Tech Companies
Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a rise in purpose-driven and design-driven tech companies. These companies are not only focused on profitability but also on making a positive impact on society. In this article, I propose a holistic framework for building a purpose-driven and design-driven culture in tech companies sustainably. The framework includes several key elements, such as fostering a sense of purpose and empathy among leaders and employees, promoting design innovation, and integrating sustainability into the company’s business activities. By following this framework, tech companies can create a culture that not only benefits their bottom line but also contributes to the greater good.
HOLISTIC MODEL FOR BUILDING A PURPOSE-DRIVEN CULTURE
In this age of sustainability and AI, American tech companies should not only prioritize profits but also promote American values, high character, and critical thinking among their employees. This will help impact our society’s well-being, integrity, and empathy in a positive way. In this article, I provide a holistic model to realize this sustainably, as shown in this diagram. This model is based on my latest book, “Eco-Design Thinking for Personal, Corporate, and Social Innovation.” It will aid American tech companies to cultivate a purpose-driven culture sustainably.
This holistic, never-ending, purpose-driven cycle entails six stages:
Developing the personal purpose of design leaders and their designers entails the foundation for developing their authenticity, integrity, empathy, emotional intelligence, critical thinking skills, and character. Personal purpose is associated with ethical and emotionally intelligent individuals with a sense of direction. Having a higher purpose in life means you’re living your values and beliefs. Finding your higher purpose is discovering who you are, what you stand for, what matters to you, and what you can contribute to the world. When someone feels that his life lacks purpose, he may struggle to find motivation and direction. This can lead to a sense of detachment from his values and a lack of inspiration to enrich his life and those around him. Finding motivation and direction can be easier when you have a purpose in life. This will inspire you to become more effective, ethical, and fulfilled. Having a purpose in life will inspire you to discover ways to become more creative, imaginative, and innovative. Life is never richer, fuller, or more rewarding than moving faithfully and persistently toward a compelling purpose.
Formulating the personal innovation strategy of design leaders and their designers; to bring your purpose alive, you must translate it into measurable actions. Design leaders and designers should formulate innovation strategies to bring their personal purpose to life. This is a roadmap to developing a growth mindset, authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills. You won’t be a successful design leader or designer without continuous improvement based on your personal innovation strategy.
Implement and cultivate their personal innovation strategy according to the Plan-Deploy-Act-Challenge cycle to continuously improve and purposely manage themselves. Implementing your personal innovation strategy through the PDAC cycle will lead to self-awareness, happiness, personal disruption, and enhanced authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills.
Aligning the personal purpose of design leaders and their designers with their behavior and actions to cultivate their personal integrity and empathy skills; this stage ensures harmony between your purpose and actions, aligning your deeds with your conscience. Our conscience is the inner voice that guides us to distinguish between right and wrong. By listening to this voice, we can gain better insight into our empathic behavior, strengths, and weaknesses, ultimately impacting our solidarity with others. Albert Schweitzer once said: “The first step in the evolution ofethics is a sense of solidarity and empathy with other human beings.”
Developing the shared company purpose (or design team purpose) is about what the company/team stands for, its reason, and how it benefits society. Shared purpose entails the organization’s/design team’s soul and joint mission, vision, and core values.
Aligning the personal purpose with the shared company/design team purpose. This creates uniformity of personal and company/team values. Matching these two purposes is essential for achieving an ethical, cohesive, unified company/design team and a happy, engaged, committed, and passionate design workforce. It’s about aligning the objectives of design leaders and designers with those of the company/design team and fostering mutual value addition. Design performance is enhanced while design throughput time is shortened, all thanks to the innovative and happy designers constantly learning as a team.
Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., founded the Center of Excellence in Human-Centered and Purpose-Driven AI Innovation in Orlando. He is a visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML (the Most Important Tech Company in the World).
Orlando, Florida | tpsi@live.com | Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116 | skype: h.rampersad | About the author https://bit.ly/2CQLIfS
Eco-design thinking is a circular and iterative process that has no endpoint. The model consists of various stages that may form iterative loops and do not need to follow a specific sequence. Every iteration brings forth fresh insights. It is recommended that this process be repeated until the issues of the designer and end-user reach an acceptable level. Eco-design thinking is a continuous and circular process that requires testing and refining your design while empathizing with yourself, the users, and the environment. At any design stage, generative AI tools can produce the best empathic design customized to the end-user’s needs and the environment.
Designers can leverage GPTs to enhance the customer experience by delivering personalized recommendations and content. The customized AI algorithms can analyze user behavior and preferences to increase engagement and satisfaction.
a maximum of two hours with individual design leaders and team members. This process is based on Hubert Rampersad’s latest book, “
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gravity while in social isolation. Remember what Nikola Tesla said: “Being alone is when ideas are born. This is the secret of innovation”. Albert Einstein said almost the same: “Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living”. Personal disruptive innovation is the secret. It creates an environment for the designer to wonder and be curious and imaginative.
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