Judgment is about the past. Design is about the future. Judgment is about avoiding mistakes. Design is about creating value. Education is all about judgment. Throughout education youngsters are taught about the way things are and the way things should be. They are taught to recognise standard situations and then to apply the standard answer.
Thus a doctor has to diagnose 'what is this?' Once the judgment has been made, and the standard situation identified, then the doctor knows the probable course of the illness, the possible complications and the standard treatment. In business, and elsewhere, the task is to analyse the situation in order to identify standard elements. The standard response is then applied to them. This system works extremely well and is very powerful. It is so effective that we have not seriously thought about its limitations. Our standard judgment is indeed excellent, but it is not enough.
After the Dark Ages came the Renaissance. This was the re-introduction into Europe of the thinking of the Greeks and Romans. At the time of the Renaissance, education in both schools and universities was in the hands of the Church. Church thinkers had no need for creativity, no need for constructive thinking and no need for design. What mattered was judgment, 'truth' and argument. There was a need to prove heretics wrong, rather than a need to design a better future. So the emphasis in education remained on judgment.
At the Renaissance, universities found that they could learn more by looking backwards, at the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, than by looking forwards. Universities never recovered from this. The emphasis remains on 'scholarship', not on design. While scholarship is indeed essential, so also is design. Value is created by design.
INFORMATION AGE
Everyone knows that we live in an information age. We have come to believe that all we need do is to collect more and more information, and the way forward will be clear. There are times when information alone does create value. More often, it is the thinking applied to the information that creates value.
Research shows that people who go to the cinema are between 15 and 25 years of age. So the studios make films to fit the tastes of this age bracket. Suddenly a different movie appears: My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It tops the box office in the US. Why? Because there is a huge audience outside the 15-25 group who do not go to the movies because none of the films interest them.
This is but one example of how information without thinking can be highly dangerous. Yet we persist in putting all our effort into information gathering and virtually no effort into thinking. Thinking is no substitute for information. Only rarely is information a substitute for thinking. The purpose of design is to take all the information and factors and then design value. Value needs to be designed, unless you just want to copy someone else's design.
PLAYING THE GAME
The game at school is to guess exactly what the teacher wants. Play that game well, and you will do well. Later on you also need to guess what the examiner wants. When youngsters emerge into the real world, it is not so easy because there is no 'teacher' to please. Those who go into business are perhaps more fortunate than others, because there is a boss to be pleased and a game to be played: do what you are supposed to do effectively and efficiently. If you play this game well, you will be appreciated and promoted. So senior positions are naturally held by those who have been good at playing this particular game.
There is no call for design, no need for design and, very often, no room for design. It is enough to recognise standard situations and to apply standard action answers. Research people respond to the research brief. Marketing people respond to market conditions with standard marketing strategies. None of this is disastrous. In fact, it can be highly effective. It may, however, be well below the organisation's potential. But who is to notice that, except a few shareholders?
SKIDS
A new disease - 'SKIDS' - is spreading in the business world. Many organisations are 'on the skids' but do not notice it. S. stands for 'Sufficient': K. stands for 'Knowledge': I. stands for 'Idea': D. stands for 'Deficit': S. stands for 'Syndrome'. Organisations suffering from SKIDS have ample knowledge and information - but are very short of ideas. Such organisations may have a conscious 'me-too' strategy. Let other people try out new ideas and then imitate the successful ones. This is a moderately successful policy. Often, however, the first in the field gets all the benefits.
Most organisations do not pay serious attention to idea generation. Such organisations believe that ideas just happen and that naturally 'creative' people will always be coming up with ideas. Even those organisations that do seek to do something about new ideas rely on very old-fashioned methods such as 'brainstorming', which is not very effective.
To help such organisations I am now setting up an 'outsource', the purpose of which is to provide some additional value ideas to an organisation. This is not to suggest that an organisation is incapable of generating ideas. 'Additional ideas' are always needed. However, it is also very difficult for someone within the culture and history of an organisation to step outside this to get a different perspective.
Because technology is advancing so very rapidly, we always look for technology to provide new value. Yet the biggest gap is in the design of new 'value concepts' which technology can easily deliver. Technology or technologists are not in the best position to design value concepts. The emphasis is, once again, on the design process. Judgment can take us far along the technology road, but judgment is unable to design new value concepts.
We know about graphic design, about fashion design, about industrial design, etc. All these are very valuable, but superficial when related to the fundamental meaning of the word 'design'. At its most basic level 'design' is the putting together of ingredients to create value. In many of the standard uses of 'design', the value is visual satisfaction. Yet the functional design of a new currency, like the euro, is just as much design as that of a new coffee pot.
NEGOTIATION
The huge difference between judgment thinking and design is so very fundamental that it comes into all our behaviour. For example, in conflict resolution we rush to negotiate with lawyer-style arguments. What is needed first is a design conference which can turn up new concepts, possibilities and alternatives. There is then much more to work with in the negotiating stage. Unfortunately, this never happens because we believe we can argue a way forward, instead of designing one.
For those who want to look more deeply into this very important matter, I have written a book called 'Why So Stupid? How the human race has never really learned to think.' Not available in stores, it must be ordered from Blackhall Publishing, at 27 Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Eire (tel, 353 1 278 5090; e-mail, blackhall@eircom.net). The price is high (£175) because it is the sort of book you give to your colleagues to change their thinking - for ever.
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