Designing in Hostile Territory

A friend who works for a large wireless provider complained to me recently about the impossibility of taking a design approach in his "design-unfriendly organization." He had put forward a new approach to customer service designed to dramatically enhance retention and was shot down by, of all things, the "Corporate Customer Innovation Committee."

"Roger," he bemoaned, "You write all this stuff about business design, innovation, and creativity, but unless managers have a CEO that aggressively promotes design, they will be squelched." I can feel his pain. I empathize -- but do I sympathize? Not really, because my friend is thinking about the question from a design-free perspective and expecting a design-friendly outcome that just isn't going to happen.