In order to do a better job of developing, communicating, and pursuing a strategy, the head of Ideo says, you need to learn to think like a designer. Here's his five-point plan for how to make the leap.

Strategy by Design by Tim Brown
From Fast Company, June 2005

It's remarkable how often business strategy, the purpose of which is to direct action toward a desired outcome, leads to just the opposite: stasis and confusion. Strategy should bring clarity to an organization; it should be a signpost for showing people where you, as their leader, are taking them -- and what they need to do to get there. But the tools executives traditionally use to communicate strategy -- spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks -- are woefully inadequate for the task.

You have to be a supremely engaging storyteller if you rely only on words, and there aren't enough of those people out there. What's more, words are highly open to interpretation -- words mean different things to different people, especially when they're sitting in different parts of the organization. The result: In an effort to be relevant to a large, complicated company, strategy often gets mired in abstractions.

ABOUT IDEO:

IDEO is a design consultancy based in Palo Alto, California,[1] with other offices in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Boston, London, Munich and Shanghai. The company helps design products, services, environments, and digital experiences.[1] Additionally, the company has become increasingly involved in management consulting.[2]

IDEO was formed in 1991 by a merger of three established design firms: David Kelley Design (founded by David Kelley, who is also a professor at Stanford University), ID Two (founded by Britain's Bill Moggridge), and Matrix Product Design (founded by Britain's Mike Nuttall).[3] Office-furniture maker Steelcase owns a majority stake in the firm, which operates as an independent unit.[2] The founders of the predecessor companies are still involved in the firm. The current CEO is Tim Brown.

The firm employs approximately 500 people in the disciplines of Human factors, Mechanical, Electrical and Software Engineering, Industrial Design, and Interaction Design.[4] IDEO has worked on thousands of projects for a large number of clients in the consumer, computer, medical, furniture, toy, office and automotive industries. Notable examples are Apple's first mouse, Microsoft's second mouse, the Palm V PDA, and Steelcase's Leap chair. Major clients (as of 2004) included Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Microsoft, Eli Lilly, and Steelcase.

In 2000, the firm was the subject of the "Deep Dive" episode of ABC's Nightline; they redesigned a shopping cart in five days.[5] In 2001, IDEO's general manager Tom Kelley wrote 'The Art of Innovation,' and more recently, 'The Ten Faces of Innovation.'

IDEO has won more of the BusinessWeek/IDSA Industrial Design Excellence Awards than any other firm. (Wikipedia.org)

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PDF format, 569KB, 4Pages. Powered by IDEO.

IDEO helps organizations innovate through design. Independently ranked by global business leaders as one of the world's most innovative companies, we use design thinking to help clients navigate the speed, complexity, and opportunity areas of today's world.

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Fast Company is a full-color monthly business magazine that reports on innovation, digital media, technology, change management, leadership, design and social responsibility. It was launched in November 1995 by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, two former Harvard Business Review editors. Fast Company's current editor is Bob Safian, a veteran of Fortune and Smart Money.

In 2000, Fast Company was sold to Gruner & Jahr USA, a division of media giant Bertelsmann, for $350 million. G&J sold it in 2005 and shortly thereafter exited the U.S. market.

The magazine and its website is now owned by Mansueto Ventures, a private media company controlled by Joe Mansueto, the founder and CEO of mutual-fund rating company Morningstar, Inc.. Joe Mansueto became a billionaire and joined the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans when Morningstar went public in 2005. Mansueto Ventures also owns Fast Company's sister publication, Inc. Magazine, which is dedicated to covering growing businesses and entrepreneurs.

In 1997, Fast Company created one of the first online social networks, the Company of Friends.

FastCompany.com operates as a network of sites with Inc.com and is a member of the Online Publisher's Association. The website features FC Now, which launched in 2002, and was one of the first staff-written blogs maintained by a print magazine.

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