When I was on my recent trip to Japan and Korea, I came across an article in the Financial Times describing Australia’s reticence in adopting design thinking in business. The article itself is a high-level summary of research done at MGSM by Dr Lars Groeger and Leanne Sobel.
It’s a little chilling when you read things like:
“The results demonstrate that businesses in [Australia] are often unaware of how design thinking can help with innovation. The study also revealed that even when businesses are aware of the potential benefits of design thinking, they struggle to recruit appropriately skilled staff in Australia.”
I’m not at all surprised by the first sentence, but I’m singularly irritated by the second.
Why is it yet again the case that the “not invented here” syndrome rears its ugly head? Australia has a rich community of design thinkers and service designers, all well capable of helping business at any scale identify and solve complex problems.
You can read the article, Australia must embrace design thinking, at ft.com. The research paper is available from SSRN.
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