Joe: Here’s a wild statistic for you. A study looked at 58 large companies that adopted the famous Six Sigma management program—you know, the holy grail of efficiency—and found that 91% of them actually trailed the S&P 500 in performance. Lewis: Whoa, hold on. So the gold standard of corporate improvement was actually a lead weight? How is that possible? Joe: It’s possible because getting better and better at the wrong thing is a fast track to failure. And today, we're talking about the right thing. This is the core idea in Marty Neumeier's fantastic book, The Designful Company: How to Build a Culture of Nonstop Innovation. Lewis: And Neumeier is the perfect person to write this. He's not some academic in an ivory tower; he was in the trenches, working as a brand consultant for companies like Apple, Google, and Adobe. He saw this problem firsthand. Joe: Exactly. He was one of the key figures who helped popularize design thinking in the business world. And he argues this failure happens because most companies are trying to solve what he calls 'wicked problems' with outdated tools.

Lewis: Okay, 'wicked problems.' That sounds dramatic. What makes a problem 'wicked' as opposed to just, you know, hard? Joe: That's a great question. A 'tame' problem is like a math equation. It’s solvable, there's a right and a wrong answer. A 'wicked problem,' a term from design theory, is different. It’s persistent, it’s slippery, and it has no single right answer, only 'better or worse' solutions. Think about things like climate change, or in business, breakneck market shifts and deep customer distrust. Every time you try to solve one piece of it, the problem changes. Lewis: Huh. So it’s like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. The problem itself squirms away from your solution. Joe: Precisely. And Neumeier says the reason we have so many wicked problems is because of something he calls 'design blindness.' It’s a mindset that’s been baked into business for over a century. Lewis: Okay, but come on, a century? Does that 'design blindness' really exist in boardrooms today? Give me a real-world example of this in action. Joe: I've got the perfect one, and it goes all the way back to 1889. An American railroad baron, a guy named Collis P. Huntington, was visiting Paris. He was one of the richest, most powerful businessmen of his time. He’s standing in front of the brand new, magnificent Eiffel Tower, and a newspaper reporter asks him for his critique. Lewis: I’m guessing he wasn’t impressed with the architecture. Joe: Not even close. Huntington, this titan of industry, looks at this marvel of engineering and art, and his only question is: 'Your Eiffel Tower is all very well, but where's the money in it?' Lewis: Oh, man. That is painfully on the nose. He couldn't see the value beyond an immediate, quantifiable profit. Joe: Exactly. He was completely blind to the symbolic power, the emotional resonance, the experience it created. And here’s the punchline: since 1897, over 120 billion dollars' worth of Eiffel Tower souvenirs have been sold. That's the long-term 'money in it' that his design-blind mindset couldn't grasp. Lewis: That's incredible. So that's the 19th-century version. But you’re saying that thinking still exists? Joe: It absolutely does. Just look at Kodak. Here’s a company that literally invented the first digital camera. They had the future in their hands. But their entire culture was built around the 'money in it' from selling film. They were so focused on optimizing their existing, profitable business—the spreadsheet numbers—that they couldn't see the monumental value of the new world they had created. Their design blindness, their inability to see beyond the current balance sheet, led them straight to bankruptcy. Lewis: Wow. So it’s the same mindset, just with spreadsheets instead of top hats. They were so busy counting the money from film they didn't realize the whole currency was about to change. Joe: That's the sickness Neumeier identifies. And it’s a trap that countless companies are still in today.

Lewis: Okay, so we're blind and dealing with wicked problems. We're doomed. What's the cure? Is it just 'hire more artsy people'? Joe: That’s what most companies think, but Neumeier says that’s just treating a symptom. The real cure is to redefine what design even is. It's not about making things pretty. It's not about 'posters and toasters.' He offers a beautifully simple definition: 'Design is change.' Lewis: Design is change. I like that. It's empowering. Joe: It is! He says anyone who devises a course of action to change an existing situation into a preferred one is, by definition, a designer. A doctor designing a treatment plan, a teacher designing a lesson, a manager designing a new workflow. Lewis: That makes so much sense. It means a manager, a teacher, a parent... we're all designers. But how do you actually do it in a big, slow-moving company that’s stuck in that 'where's the money in it' mindset? Joe: That’s the second half of the book. Neumeier offers sixteen practical 'levers for change' that any organization can use to start building an innovation culture. We don't have time for all sixteen, but we can talk about a couple of the most powerful ones. Lewis: I’m curious. Give me the most surprising one. The one that sounds crazy but actually works. Joe: My favorite is Lever #2: 'Weave a Rich Story.' And the best example is JetBlue. Early on, they launched their first long-haul flight from New York to California. But their business model—high comfort, low fare—meant they couldn't afford to serve traditional airline food. The marketing VP was given a budget of one dollar per passenger to solve the 'people are going to be hungry and angry' problem. Lewis: One dollar? That gets you, what, a single peanut? This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Joe: It should have been. A traditional company would have served a rock-hard bagel and a sad slice of lunch meat. But JetBlue decided to tell a story instead. When passengers got on the plane, they found an airline deli bag on their seat. Inside, there was no food. There was a T-shirt. Lewis: A T-shirt? How does that solve the hunger problem? Joe: It doesn't. It reframes it. The front of the T-shirt had a picture of a chicken with the headline: 'Nature never meant it to fly.' And on the back, it read: 'Comfy leather seats, free DirecTV, low fares. No rubber chicken.' Lewis: That is genius! They took their biggest weakness—no food—and turned it into a hilarious, memorable story about all their strengths. They leaned right into the problem. Joe: Exactly. It was simple, unexpected, concrete, and emotional. Passengers loved it, the media went wild, and the JetBlue brand took off. They used storytelling to solve a wicked problem that a spreadsheet would have only made worse. That's a designful solution. Lewis: That's a fantastic example. What about another one? Something about managing risk? Because you're right, big companies hate risk. They want certainty. Joe: For that, Neumeier offers Lever #10: 'Think Big, Spend Small.' He says the biggest hurdle to innovation is the corporate demand for certainty about costs and profits, which is impossible for a truly new idea. So, he suggests companies act like venture capitalists. Lewis: How so? Joe: You don't place one giant, all-or-nothing bet on an unproven idea. You use 'stage-gate investing.' You make a tiny bet—seed funding—to turn an impulse into a sketch. If that looks promising, you make a small bet to turn the sketch into a prototype. If that tests well, you make a medium bet for a pilot program. You de-risk the idea at every stage, only committing more resources as you gain more certainty. It allows radical ideas to survive the corporate immune system. Lewis: So you’re not asking the board for a billion dollars for a crazy idea. You’re asking for ten thousand dollars to see if the crazy idea has legs. Joe: Precisely. It’s a system for nurturing innovation in a risk-averse environment. It’s another lever to build that designful culture.

Lewis: This all sounds great logically, but I'm with the accountant friend Neumeier mentions in the book. He asks the author, 'I'm having trouble imagining how it would FEEL to work in a company like that?' So, what's the answer? Joe: That question is the perfect pivot from process to people. Neumeier dedicates a whole chapter to it. He contrasts the feeling of a traditional company with a designful one. In a traditional company, the focus is on costs, the mode is command-and-control, and jobs are defined by rigid roles. The result is a feeling of being siloed, disconnected, and often, fearful. Lewis: Yeah, I can definitely relate. That sounds like a lot of workplaces. What's the alternative? Joe: In a designful company, the focus shifts from costs to customers. The dominant mode isn't control, it's vision and creativity. And you're not defined by your role, but by the projects you contribute to. Respect comes from merit, not your title. Lewis: And what does that feel like for the people inside? Joe: It creates a cascade of positive feelings. Focusing on customers creates a sense of connectedness. Working towards a vision creates excitement and satisfaction. Being valued for your merit builds self-esteem. Embracing risk as part of the process replaces a 'can't-do' culture with a 'can-do' feeling. And when you collaborate across silos, you get a feeling of shared success. Lewis: So it's a shift from fear to hope, really. From protecting your turf to building something meaningful together. Joe: Exactly. And Neumeier makes a crucial point. This isn't just about creating a nice place to work. It's about survival. He says that in the 21st century, companies can no longer simply 'unlock' existing wealth by cutting costs or acquiring competitors. The speed of change is too great. Today, they must actively 'create' new wealth. And that creation only happens in a culture that feels connected, excited, and hopeful.

Joe: So, when you boil it all down, the whole journey of this book is about recognizing that the old rulebook of efficiency is failing us. We need to move from being 'design blind,' like that railroad baron at the Eiffel Tower, to becoming 'designful'—not just hiring designers, but being designers in everything we do. Lewis: And it really starts with that simple, powerful idea you mentioned: 'Design is change.' If you see a situation you want to improve, whether it's at work or in your own life, you're already at the starting line of being a designer. You don't need permission or a special title. Joe: That's the perfect takeaway. It democratizes the whole concept. And it makes you wonder, what's one 'wicked problem' in your own work or life that you've been trying to solve with old, 'tame' solutions? And what would it look like to start 'designing' a way forward instead? Lewis: A great question to ponder. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Find us on our socials and share what 'wicked problem' you're tackling. It’s a conversation worth having. Joe: This is Aibrary, signing off.