In a corporate body, emotional intelligence (EQ) could be referred to as design thinking which helps an organisation to drive relevancy in business.

We would therefore be exploring the power of design thinking, as we go through some key points on the importance of relevancy in business and how design thinking can help companies stay connected to their customers.

Design thinking is a set of tools that bring people together to solve a common problem. Design thinking is human centered. It is about building empathy for people.

The first step in the design thinking process is gaining this understanding of others. Form a hypothesis about the problem you think your customer is facing, and then go out and actually test it. Share it with people, then listen and observe. Watch their behaviour, gauge what they are thinking, notice reactions. Build empathy.

When you get back in the office with your team, put all of your observation notes up on the wall to make them visual. This can help you crystallise the true problem so you know exactly what to solve.

What is the value of design thinking for a business?

To be a successful business, you have to be relevant and deliver value that is relevant. Change is one of life’s certainties. Mindsets change. Values change. If your company does not evolve, you run the risk of losing touch with your customers and becoming irrelevant.

Driving relevancy requires you to be clued in the problems your customers really need solved. By building empathy through design thinking, you can determine the true challenges they are facing and avoid wasting time and resources on what you think the issues are. If you are solving the right problem in the right way, you will have a more sustainable business over time.

How can you convince your company to give design thinking a try?

Design thinking is relatively new, and whenever you enter anything new into an existing equation, it makes people nervous. You want to start by building internal alignment around design thinking with your colleagues. To do this, you can even use elements of design thinking to introduce design thinking to your team: spend time with your colleagues to understand where they are before you pitch the new process.

Also, consider if your organisation has a safe environment to fail. With design thinking, you will be testing hypotheses and building things that will not end up working. You will want to foster a space where your colleagues can embrace failure and learning.

•Lawrence Nwaodu is a small business expert and enterprise consultant, trained in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, with an MBA in Entrepreneurship from The Management School, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, and MSc in Finance and Financial Management Services from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Netherlands. Mr. Nwaodu is the Lead Consultant at IDEAS Exchange Consulting, Lagos. He can be reached via nwaodu.lawrence@hotmail.co.uk (07066375847).

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