“We’ve Always Done It This Way”: When Innovation Gets Stuck
A legacy retail company with over 15,000 employees faced stagnation despite their size. Employees feared change and clung to outdated processes, halting innovation and growth.
The Turning Point: Seeing the System Through the Growth Culture Index™
- Only 14% of employees felt safe to experiment with new ideas
- Teams reported high clarity but low creativity
- Innovation was isolated to certain departments
The Shift: Design Thinking as a Cultural Tool
- Design Sprints Across Functions: Teams solved customer problems in 2-week design sprints, guided by real user insights.
- Fail Fast. Learn Faster: Failure became a tool for growth and learning.
- Innovation Scoreboards: Teams tracked the number of ideas tested, lessons learned, and discarded concepts.
The Outcome
- Checkout experience redesign reduced wait time by 30%
- 45% increase in employee freedom to innovate
- 3x increase in ideation platform participation
How Innovation & Design Thinking Enable Growth Culture
- Encourages Curiosity & Empathy
- Creates Safe Spaces for Experimentation
- Breaks Silos Through Collaboration
- Builds Learning Velocity
Traditional vs. Design-Driven Cultures
| Traditional Culture | Design Thinking Culture |
|---|---|
| Execution over experimentation | Empathy + experimentation = transformation |
| Ideas approved top-down | Ideas co-created by cross-functional teams |
| Fear of failure | Failure framed as fast feedback |
| Rigid roles and processes | Flexible thinking and iterative problem-solving |
| Innovation as a buzzword | Innovation as a daily behavior |
How Growth Culture Index Measures Innovation Culture
The Growth Culture Index™ assesses:
- Innovation behaviors like curiosity, risk-taking, and collaboration
- Openness to experimentation
- Leadership support for iterative design-based thinking
- Frequency of user-driven problem solving
5 Ways to Integrate Innovation & Design Thinking Into Your Culture
- Train Teams in Design Thinking Basics
- Host Design Sprints for Internal Challenges
- Normalize “Test and Learn” Language
- Reward Learning, Not Just Outcomes
- Involve Customers in Early Ideation
Final Thoughts: Growth Loves the Brave
Growth doesn’t happen by playing it safe. It takes bold learning, cross-functional collaboration, and the courage to try something new. Design thinking provides the structure and mindset to unlock that bravery.
Ready to assess your culture’s innovation readiness?
Take the Growth Culture Index™ Diagnostic and unlock your organization’s creative potential.
Tags: innovation culture, growth culture, design thinking in business, agile organizations, organizational learning, experimentation at work, leadership and innovation
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