Are We There Yet?

The fundamental question that the book addresses is: Are our innovation efforts aligned to the challenges of our times? We face high costs, global competition, low productivity, and technology disruptions. Our education system is geared towards solving known problems through an inductive thinking mindset. We have relied on massive technology investments as our source of competitive advantage, but our growth is declining. If we want to maintain our standard of living, we need firms to grow. Firms therefore need a new approach to innovation, one that focuses on customer engagement in its business model. The concept of design thinking is often described as the mindset for fi ms to make this transition. But with so much being written on design thinking, why do so many firms struggle to adopt this mindset and make this transition?