Last night, I had the opportunity to attend a talk by one of the founding partners of the Leading Minds Lab. Prior to this, I had no idea what “design thinking” was. The feature image outlines its five stages, and it centres around ways of thinking that train your brain to innovate. Insight is a natural, human phenomenon, and happens at all of the above stages but the “define” stage.
Jennifer, the speaker, told the story of Doug at GE, who came up with an Adventure Series for children who had to get MRIs. Before his innovation, over 80% of paediatric patients were being sedated to help them keep still in the machine. After experiencing the Adventure Series, patient satisfaction increased to about 90%.
The three main points that I took away from the presentation were:
- We need to train ourselves to “unfocus.” Our minds naturally wander, but that can still be productive time if done with intention. 15 minutes of “unfocus” time is recommended for every 45 minutes of focused time.
- Walks are imperative. Being an English major, I already knew this because of William Wordsworth. I take weekly walks with my mentor, and walk to and from work with my partner. It’s a great time to reflect and think ahead about challenges that arise.
- Insights come to us easiest when they’re not forced. Having strategic planning and brainstorming sessions are great, but hindsight is always 20/20. When you take some time to not think about the problem at hand, the solution is more likely to reveal itself.
Khadijah Plummer Consulting 