Why B2B Sales Productivity Could Use a Dose of Design Thinking  |  November 4, 2009  

Tim Brown's TED talk in July 2009 at Oxford argues the case for designers to think big. In his view, much of what now passes for design isn't that important - it's too incremental and has too little effect. It's become a tool of consumerism, creating amusing products, but not ones that are very important.

He contends as the pace of change and uncertainty quickens, there's a need to solve much bigger problems and, in doing so, create world changing innovations. In his view, it requires bigger thinking, as enabled by the discipline of Design Thinking. Brown's points are reminiscent of Peter Senge's on systems thinking back in 1990.

In both authors' views, big changes occur when thinking is provoked which helps the players in a system discover the impacts of their efforts on system performance. Products which trigger such thinking, simplify choices and provoke improved outcomes. In my experience, solutions which reveal the impacts of existing system dynamics trigger design thinking. They become perspective shifting, change provoking, and performance improving.

Others have noted the implications for product innovations of Brown's ideas. A recent blog posting from Harvard Business notes that, in a savagely complex world, breakthrough ideas in business most often come from enabling a diversity of viewpoints and perspectives to be brought to bear on whatever challenges lie ahead. Jim Estill (a member of the Board of RIM) contends, in his review of the Design of Business, that successful business requires more design thinking.

Where might such thinking apply, best? In my view, where a problem's complex, the players don't directly control the impacts they have, and indigenous efforts haven't eliminated the problem. B2B sales productivity is an example. It was the number one issue for CEOs in 2008. Since then, quota attainment has continued to decline, according to CSO Insights, and firms have responded by raising quotas. In addition, in planning for 2010, some firms have apparently decided they're better off retaining mediocre sales people than replacing them. Perhaps, with bigger thinking, there's a better way.