A talk given to University of Washington HCDE Program introducing how design thinking offers a toolkit for the 21st century "4C" skills of collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking

2. DESIGN THINKING PROCESS

3. DESIGN THINKING PROCESS
FLARE FOCUS FLARE FOCUS

4. THIS
PROCESS
IS NOT
LINEAR

5. INNOVATION MINDSETS

7. NORDSTROM CASE STUDY

8. POCKET STYLE

9. NORDSTROM BEAUTY BAR

10. How might we redesign our leadership
development program?

11. We are in the midst of 3 strategic inflection points that impact our work:
WORKFORCE
Multiple generations
Culture of entrepreneurship /
startups
Purpose economy
Employees’ market
TECH
Rise of mobile
Cloud technology
Open source
Machine learning
Automation
RETAIL
Shifting channels
Changing consumer
expectations
Technology driving new
experiences
Our industry

12. 40 COMPANY VISITS &
INTERNAL ETHNOGRAPHY

16. Silicon Valley 2.0
The competition for technology talent is more fierce than ever

17. Silicon Valley 2.0
The competition for technology talent is more fierce than ever
Employees care more
and more about
company culture and
values

18. Research shows company culture impacts performance
2x
Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For
perform nearly 2x better than the general market
Gallup found that companies with engaged
employees had 22% higher profitability and 10%
higher customer ratings
-New York Times, Why We Hate Work, May 2014 $

19. People are precious, not ideas

20. How do we lead culture change?
Hint: Not in 2 hour weekly meetings

22. The best of both worlds
RESEARCH DESIGN
We conduct research and design employee programs and experiences to continuously
improve our culture, leadership, and work environment.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Surveys/Adv. Analytics
Program Measurement
Experimentation
Programs
Events
Experiences

25. 25
NorDNA value scores
increased
CULTURE
We’ve defined our
benchmark
Employee Engagement score
ENGAGEMENT
Average Team NPS scores
increased,
and we defined an
All Tech NPS score
SATISFACTION
Circle size indicates % of
respondents who chose the
respective NorDNA as the
most impactful to their
employee experience
MOST IMPACTFUL NorDNA VALUES

26. Our flagship programs
INNOVATION BOOTCAMP
A fast-paced, immersive two-day experience that teaches cutting-edge innovation
methodologies and creative problem solving in a real world environment.
TRAILBLAZERS
Providing a support network and tools for employees to become change agents for
themselves, their teams, and our organization.
21ST CENTURY LEADERSHIP
Providing leaders with a shared approach and cross-company network to help them build
and lead high performing teams through rapid industry changes.

29. INNOVATION MINDSETS

30. The 4 C’S

31. COMMUNICATION
CONFIDENCE IN: ACTIVE LISTENING, BEING CURIOUS, STORYTELLING

32. COLLABORATION
DEFER JUDGMENT • WORK W/ DIVERSE TEAMS • BUILD ON IDEAS OF OTHERS

33. CRITICAL THINKING
REASONING • SYSTEMS THINKING • PROBLEM-SOLVING

34. CREATIVITY
NEW APPROACHES • CREATIVE THINKING • INNOVATION

35. INNOVATION

36. %ofAlumniusingmindset
0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
Yes, and Flare/Focus HMW Show don't Tell Bias to Action
74%
70%
65%65%
74%
28%28%
16%
20%
32%
DT MINDSET USAGE

37. “Big D” DESIGN

38. We are all design thinkers!
HR
Strategy
Finance
UX
IT
Sales
Product Management
Marketing
Audit

39. If you love it, give it away

40. From Deloitte 2016 HR Trends Report
“Respondents at companies where HR delivers the highest
levels of value are almost five times more likely to be using
design thinking in their programs than their peers.”

41. 4C’s IN ACTION
“Even with company tests that are underway in the buying office, having this mentality makes me more open to learning
and working hard to make sure the test can be successful. And if the test is not, I gather my learnings and move on to
the next. Overall this has been a rewarding approach!”
“I set up a brief exercise for the teams to walk through. I handed out blank paper to all of them to use as prototypes,
gave the feature a name, and asked them to create what they imagined it to look like and what information would be
displayed. As we made our prototypes of the feature, it became very obvious that there were multiple perspectives
and use cases that needed more investigation- all the prototypes were dramatically different and revealed that every
individual on the team envisioned the feature as providing a different experience and value.”
FAIL FORWARD FAST
SHOW DON’T TELL/BIAS TOWARDS ACTION/BUILD TO THINK

42. NORDSTROM CASE STUDIES
“
After completing Innovation Bootcamp I became more cognizant of the
words I used and how they affected the people and results around me. No
longer did I say, "What should we do?", BUT instead I started saying, "What
COULD we do?" I also began promoting the, "Yes, and..." mentality, which
helped promote dialogue in meetings and thus increased the shared pool of
knowledge everyone was operating on.”
YES, AND/HOW MIGHT WE?

43. WALK UP SERVICE DESK

44. catalyz

46. Don’t tell me what you did,
tell me what you changed

47. RUBE GOLDBERG KID