Design Thinking To Prevent Organizational Amnesia

In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill quoted “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it”

I believe this famous quote is also very valid for companies at any size.

Companies, organizations are like living bodies and they have their own memories. Their memories, most of the time, are captured in local servers, in cloud, in processes and in people. Indeed, they are scattered around within the organization. That is making the biggest difference when comparing memory of an organization to memory of a human.

As an organism, human body stores everything in one location where each piece of information is connected. Unlike to a human brain, memory center of organizations sits at different locations which does not require a connection. And when people with a lot of stories and experience leave companies, first their data is getting lost. After a while, a process which was built with that data starts to fade away. It is because no one remembers anymore the specific valid argument behind that process and its logical connection to the value creation or capturing. After processes are falling apart, then organization loses its culture, its existence. That is how amnesia hits organizations and initiate such cycle of self-destruction.

This does not mean this self-destruction caused by amnesia cannot be avoided. It requires a very fast and pragmatic approach to replace those forgotten memories and processes. And from my point of view that is where #designthinking process is coming in.

Following 5 quick steps, new members of an organization can build new processes, experiences which later build culture of the organization.

Stage 1: Empathize—Research Your Users' Needs

Stage 2: Define—State Your Users' Needs and Problems

Stage 3: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas

Stage 4: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions

Stage 5: Test—Try Your Solutions Out

According Clayton Christensen, father of #disruptiveinnovation, “culture is a way of working together toward common goals that have been followed so frequently and so successfully that people don’t even think about trying to do things another way. If a culture has formed, people will autonomously do what they need to do to be successful.” (https://excellentcultures.com/clayton-christensen-harvard-business-school-business-culture-definition/) He also stated that this successful way of working that is followed so frequently, are indeed processes of an organization.

Therefore, by following five steps of design thinking, building new processes and improve them with an iterative approach can help an organization to build a new culture which may put the organization back on its feet again.