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Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage Hardcover – Nov. 9 2009

by Roger L. Martin (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 224 ratings
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Most companies today have innovation envy. They yearn to come up with a game—changing innovation like Apple's iPod, or create an entirely new category like Facebook. Many make genuine efforts to be innovative—they spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire innovation consultants. But they get disappointing results.

Why? In The Design of Business, Roger Martin offers a compelling and provocative answer: we rely far too exclusively on analytical thinking, which merely refines current knowledge, producing small improvements to the status quo.

To innovate and win, companies need design thinking. This form of thinking is rooted in how knowledge advances from one stage to another—from mystery (something we can't explain) to heuristic (a rule of thumb that guides us toward solution) to algorithm (a predictable formula for producing an answer) to code (when the formula becomes so predictable it can be fully automated). As knowledge advances across the stages, productivity grows and costs drop-creating massive value for companies.

Martin shows how leading companies such as Procter & Gamble, Cirque du Soleil, RIM, and others use design thinking to push knowledge through the stages in ways that produce breakthrough innovations and competitive advantage.

Filled with deep insights and fresh perspectives, The Design of Business reveals the true foundation of successful, profitable innovation.

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  1. Print length
    208 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard Business Review Press
  4. Publication date
    Nov. 9 2009
  5. Dimensions
    14.61 x 1.91 x 21.59 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    9781422177808
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1422177808
  8. See all details
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Review

"… among the most fundamental and comprehensive books ever written about the subject of business design and design thinking." — Business Design Association, November 2nd, 2009

"…for readers interested in the processes of design…there are some interesting bits of detail and discussions on how exactly this is done." — The Financial Times, October 15, 2009

"Insightful analysis of a hot management trend, useful for executives of all levels."  —BusinessWeek, October 26, 2009

"…a tough-minded elegant survey of why design thinking shouldn’t be considered some soft thing that’s nice for business at the edges but not necessary at the core." —MIT Sloan Management Review, Improvisations blog, October 2009

"...offers thoughtful and valuable insight for all managers, and concludes with important instructions for individuals who want to become design thinkers. An excellent book." — Booklist, October 15, 2009

About the Author

Roger Martin is dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and a professor of strategic management at the school. He authored The Responsibility Virus, The Opposable Mind, and many articles in leading business publications including Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek, Fast Company, and Barron's.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1422177807
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard Business Review Press; unknown edition (Nov. 9 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781422177808
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1422177808
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 kg
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.61 x 1.91 x 21.59 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 224 ratings

About the author

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Roger L. Martin

Roger L. Martin

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I am an author and strategy advisor to CEOs. My passion is an helping businesspeople use more effective models to guide their actions. I've looked, for example, for common patterns in the way successful leaders tackle difficult 'either/or' dilemmas. I've explored how it is that corporations drive out innovation - even as they desperately seek it. I've examined the way in which theories that are meant to help corporations achieve financial goals and make shareholders rich actually produce the opposite. In each of my books, I diagnose the manner in which our thinking gets in our own way, and provide specific advice for overcoming that challenge.

Check out my books to the left and visit my website (www.rogerlmartin.com) if you want to see more of my writing.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
224 global ratings

Top reviews from Canada

Minh
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!!
Reviewed in Canada on November 12, 2023
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Goes in detail of design and has great info on design of business hence the name. Highly would recommend anyone who is starting a business and for anyone who is looking for a informative book to read as well.
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Horace McPherson
4.0 out of 5 stars Find some balance
Reviewed in Canada on October 12, 2013
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Learn the differences between Exploration vs. Exploitation, Validity vs. Reliability, the balance between analytical thinking and intuitive thinking. In this book Roger Martin takes you through a journey of how to become a design thinker. In his previous book (The Opposable Mind) he dealt with what it takes to be an Integrative Thinker. As stated by the author, "Integrative Thinking is the metaskill of being able to face two (or more) opposing ideas or models and instead of choosing one versus the other, to generate a creative resolution of the tension n the form of a better model, which contains elements of each model but is superior to each (or all). Design Thinking is the application of Integrative thinking to the task of resolving the conflict between reliability and validity, between exploitation and exploration, and between analytical thinking and intuitive thinking. Both ways of thinking require a balance of mastery and originality". A design thinker is not only effective but also efficient. Every organization needs to find ways to apply this type of thinking (and operating) to their business. They will see a balance that will bring incredible results and improve their competitive edge.
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Robert Morris
5.0 out of 5 stars How to "gain fluency in both the allusive poetry of intuitive discovery and the precise prose of analytical rigor"
Reviewed in Canada on October 9, 2009
In one of his previously published books, The Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking, Roger Martin explains that all great leaders possess "the predisposition and the capacity to hold two [or more] diametrically opposed ideas" in their head and then "without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other," were able to "produce a synthesis that is superior to either opposing idea." Integrative thinking is a "discipline of consideration and synthesis [that] is the hallmark of exceptional businesses [as well as of democratic governments] and those who lead them." Great leaders develop a capacity to consider what Thomas C. Chamberlain characterizes as "multiple working hypotheses" when required to make especially complicated decisions. They do not merely tolerate contradictory points of view, they encourage them.

In his latest book, Martin explains why "design thinking is the next competitive advantage." In fact, it may well be the most valuable application of integrative thinking, in part because, that successful business innovation is the result of collaboration and proceeds through a "path" or (as Martin describes it) a "knowledge funnel." The model for value creation that he offers in this book requires a balance - "or more accurately a reconciliation - between two prevailing points of view on business today." One is analytical thinking that "harnesses two familiar forms of logic - deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning - to declare truths and certainties about the world." The other is intuitive thinking - "the art of knowing without reasoning. This is the world of originality and invention...Neither analysis nor intuition is enough," however. Martin presents a compelling argument in support of reconciling the two modes of thought, asserting that the most successful businesses in the years to come will balance analytical mastery and intuitive originality "in a dynamic interplay [he calls] design thinking."

How so? "Design thinking is the form of thought that enables movement along the knowledge funnel, and the firms that master it will gain an inexhaustible, long-term business advantage. The advantage, which emerges from the design-thinking firms' unwavering focus on the creative design of systems, will eventually extend to the wider world. From these firms will emerge the breakthroughs that move the world forward [because] design-thinking firms stand apart in their willingness to engage in the task of continuously redesigning their business." And, I presume to add, because their leaders have mastered integrative thinking, without which creative and productive collaboration cannot be achieved, much less sustained.

So, what is "the design of business"? It is the process by which business leaders apply design thinking within the current knowledge stage and hone and refine what is known so that they can "generate the leap from stage, continuously in a process I call the design of business." Citing the pioneer insights of Charles Sanders Pierce, Martin duly acknowledges that it is not possible to prove any new thought, concept, or indeed in advance. In fact, "proof" must be redefined. "the answer, Pierce said, would come through making a `logical leap of the mind' or an `inference to the best explanation' to imagine a heuristic for understanding the mystery."

Although all this may sound highly theoretical and hypothetical, in fact the bulk of the material that Martin provided in this book addresses two separate but related questions: How to master design thinking? And How can it help to create a decisive competitive advantage? He focuses on a number of exemplary companies those initiatives help to provide an answer to each of these two questions, especially to the second. They include Cirque du Soleil, Research in Motion (RIM), Procter & Gamble, Steelcase, IDEO, Apple Inc., Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, Herman Miller, and Target. Led by an enlightened and determined, when necessary tenacious CEO and management team, each of these companies embraced design thinking and overcame three major forces of resistance whose objectives were to "enshrine reliability and marginalize validity": the demand that an idea be proved before it is implemented, an aversion to bias, and the constraints of time. There can also be cultural barriers, the result of what James O'Toole characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." One of the less-recognized benefits of integrative thinking is that it is more inclined to respect, perhaps even welcome dissent. At least some of those who oppose change will be less inclined to do so if they and their concerns are treated with what they perceive to be appropriate respect.

Readers will appreciate Martin's focus on what works, what doesn't, and why. His own mastery of integrative thinking is reflected by the scope and diversity of different perspectives on how to achieve and then sustain successful business innovation. He reminds his reader that the key tools of design thinkers are observation that is "deep, careful, and open-minded," imagination that consists of "an inference and testing loop," and configuration that enables translation of an idea into "an activity system that will produce the desired outcome." In the previous chapters, he had discussed dozens of real-world examples of effective applications of these tools. the critically important challenge of enlisting the active support of those who are "reliably-driven analytical thinkers who dominate the hierarchy and the validity-driven intuitive thinkers who are often brought in to `get the organization out of the box,'" Martin suggests and then discusses five specific initiatives (Pages 168-177). With all due respect to the power of integrative thinking, Martin correctly stresses the importance of what is generally referred to as "emotional intelligence." That is, being willing and able to appreciate legitimate differences between and among groups as well as individuals; to empathize; to seek to communicate on others' terms, not one's own, using tools with which they are familiar; and to stretch out of one's comfort zone to those of others.

In this brilliant book, Roger Martin has shared all he has learned about what design thinking is and can do; also, he has suggested specific initiatives that can help to enable his reader to become an effective design thinker while maintaining an appropriate balance by gaining "fluency in both the allusive poetry of intuitive discovery and the precise prose of analytical rigor"; and finally, while creating value for a business, his reader is urged to discover how design thinking can create meaning for one's life. Bravo!
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kris
3.0 out of 5 stars Another expression the management lore already has for this is integrative thinking
Reviewed in Canada on August 29, 2010
The book sets out to prove that a design thinker is someone who uses both analytical and intuitive reasoning at the same time. Another expression the management lore already has for this is integrative thinking. The new spin the author puts on the topic is that a design thinker uses abductive logic, which is beyond deductive and inductive logic. In other words, it is the logic of what is to come and what is not built on the past. Through the text, professionals using analysis and labeled reliability-driven and those employing design thinking are labeled validity-driven. I don't fully agree with his dichotomy as even those who use analysis as a primary tool strive for valid solutions, even if they realize them in sometimes slower fashion. The author also provides a method to become a design thinker and that is by referring to his other book "The Opposable Minds" in which he states that every person has a personal knowledge system made up of a stance, tools, and experiences. By changing one's stance one changes the other components downstream that feed back and forth.
2 people found this helpful
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Gustavo Arruda
4.0 out of 5 stars Design Thinking expained simply
Reviewed in Canada on June 20, 2010
Great book if you are looking for introductory material on design thinking. Martin explains the concept in a very easy way and he provides excellent examples of leaders who employ design thinking techniques to move their businesses forward.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Samir
5.0 out of 5 stars Muy interesante
Reviewed in Spain on November 2, 2023
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Me encanta
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Rudy Sylvain Valace
5.0 out of 5 stars Une lecture intemporelle de notre société 😊
Reviewed in France on March 16, 2023
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A lire pour comprendre.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent over view of Design Thinking
Reviewed in India on May 12, 2020
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This book guides on how to leverage our thought process to encompass abductive thinking...balance between exploitation and exploration, reliability and validity. Excellent resource to start your journey on design thinking.
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone has to read this book !
Reviewed in Italy on August 3, 2017
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The book is about how to make businesses last. It's very important for today's world. If you have any kind of work, read it!
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Maricarmen
5.0 out of 5 stars GOOD BOOK
Reviewed in Mexico on March 22, 2016
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CONTAINS VALUABLE INFORMATION REQUIRED TO UNDERSTAND THE RELATION OF DESIGN THINKING AS AN ASSET THAT PROVIDES VALUE FOR THE COMPANIES.
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