the art of

business design

Copyright Cultivar Consulting Limited 2010

an e-guide to authentic design thinking

contents
✤ introduction
✤ significant moments in time
✤ sustainability & CSR
✤ the next step - authenticity
✤ authentic leadership
✤ a profound sense of purpose
✤ thinking styles
✤ design thinking
✤ the design process
the author ✤ the art of business design
James Rock
chief business designer
cultivar consulting
introduction
✤ this e-guide is designed to quickly stimulate your
thoughts and encourage you to act further
✤ the booklet isn’t a how-to manual, but more of a
summary of my philosophy of invention as it
applies to designing business models
✤ for established business leaders it explains why
now is the time to re-think, re-design and re-
build for the future
✤ for new start-ups it should stimulate you to think
differently and freshly, to seek inspiration in
designing a business that really fires your
passion and help you to be more successful
✤ it describes how creativity and innovation can be
linked to business experience to invent new and
more effective business models

✤
Its all about - The Art of Business Design
significant ✤
sometimes events occur that give us a shock!

moments in time
✤ if they didn’t happen our life would continue pretty
much as-is without the need to change
✤ when they do arise it usually leads to disbelief,
followed by realisation that the status-quo no longer
applies
✤ 9/11 was one of those days... perceptions about
managing public safety and transportation changed
overnight, our world was turned upside down
✤ 2008 was one of those years... when consumerism
driven by easy credit suddenly unravelled
✤ these events are often called “black swans” high-
impact, hard-to-predict, and rare occurrences, and
when these significant emotional events hit us we
need to reframe our world...
✤ in 2009 there arose huge public distrust in capital
markets after the banking sector crash, and in public
institutions after the scandal of MP’s expenses
✤ Most of us now realise that greed isn’t good, and that
capitalism needs to be re-invented to provide both
economic and social development
sustainability & ✤ sustainability isn’t just about hugging tree’s

CSR
✤ it has become a wide-ranging term that infers taking
a long-term perspective of our future
✤ in business it covers three principal areas -
✤ environmental sustainability
✤ societal sustainability
✤ economic sustainability
✤ this holy trinity of sustainability is usually grouped
together to form a company’s corporate sociability
responsibility (CSR) policy
✤ in the USA, CSR is often called the “Triple Bottom
Line” i.e. its focus is about their combined impact on
how to improve profitability - true capitalist thinking
✤ but isn’t focusing on bottom line profit inherently
un-sustainable? doesn’t taking short term profits
often mean investment cutbacks? you can’t save
your way to sustainable long-term prosperity
✤ now there is a new trend to something more genuine

✤
a sustainable approach that works... authenticity
authenticity ✤ authenticity is a set of values that guide individuals
and organisations in facing the many tensions, forces,
pressures, and influences of everyday life with
honesty and integrity
✤ there are growing movements across the world that
are building knowledge and expertise in this field
✤ every day more individuals, organisations and
businesses are adopting authenticity as their way of
becoming truly sustainable
✤ authentic businesses display the following attributes:

P - they have a profound purpose beyond profit, a

purpose that is socially and/or environmentally
positive

I - they display integrity between communication and

action

R - they show respect for others

S - they display sensibility to exploitation of resources

and customers; and they have

U - a distinct and unique business personality

authentic ✤ being a leader is a difficult role

leadership ✤

✤
a leader needs many qualities and skills

we know the ones who inspire us

✤ they are full of life and passion
✤ they believe in the greater power of a team
over an individual
✤ they are ethical and act with integrity
✤ they trust people to act responsibly
✤ they respect the needs of others
✤ they have the courage to follow their
convictions
✤ above all, authentic leaders have a deep and true
sense of purpose and deploy their energy in
pursuit of it
✤ people are always willing to follow inspiring and
authentic leaders
✤ so why not be the leader others choose to follow?
a profound sense
of purpose ✤ do you know your own life purpose? it defines you
and helps you to know who you truly are
✤ for most of us there is a gap between the life we are
leading and who we truly are - this gap causes
stress and the bigger the gap the more stress there is
✤ when we know our life purpose and apply our
talents in pursuit of it we feel engaged, fulfilled and
much happier - we become passionate in our work
✤ and if a group of people with a shared purpose
work together their energy rises dramatically - in a
business this energy delivers dramatic results
✤ so do your employees know their purpose? what is
it? does it align them? are they passionate?
✤ authentic businesses focus on their profound sense
of purpose to provide exciting work environments
✤ they usually outperform their peers too...
thinking styles ✤ it is well known that the brain has two distinct
halves - left brain and right brain
✤ thinking originates from either side
✤ left brain thinking is described as logical,
sequential, rational, analytical, objective - it
focuses on the parts
✤ right brain thinking is described as random,
intuitive, holistic, synthesising, subjective - it
focuses on the whole
✤ in business people are predominantly left brain
thinkers - they deal in reality
✤ our education system is primarily designed to
foster and help develop these left brain skills
✤ but artists and designers are predominantly right
brain people - they deal in creativity
✤ so why can’t these thinking styles can be
combined?
✤ they can - and this is now being recognised...
 ✤ leading business leaders have said we need to re-

design thinking
think, re-design and re-build - but in ways that look
not at the past... but by embracing the future
✤ society is changing, technology is rapidly
developing, competition is global and on-line
✤ the west realises it can’t compete with low-cost
labour producers any longer, and is committed to
creativity and innovation as a competitive response
✤ so its recently been said that design schools are the
new business schools - because it’s now apparent
that old-school businesses are out of date
✤ leading business schools are beginning to develop
collaborative links with the best art schools
✤ top design companies like IDEO are now being
engaged in business and service design
✤ creativity and innovation is needed to design these
businesses of tomorrow i.e. we need to inject a dose
of right brain, abductive thinking, and we now
need to ask ourselves “what might be?”
✤ we can use the design process to provide a
framework that helps us design our own business
of the future...
the design
process
✤ designers manage the process of design in
different ways, but there are similarities in every
approach, covered by four common phases :-
✤ discovery - the start of the project - beginning
with an initial idea or inspiration in which user
needs are identified
✤ define - in which interpretation and alignment of
these needs to business objectives is achieved
✤ develop - where design-led solutions are
developed, iterated and tested within the
company
✤ deliver - where the resulting business model is
finalised and launched in the relevant market
✤ this process channels creativity in pursuit of
delivering innovative solutions
✤ it provides a structure by which we can manage
invention...
the art of ✤ businesses are flexible amorphous structures that
need to be responsive and change over time

business design
✤ business tensions come from different directions,
including the economy, changing customer needs,
competition, and shareholder expectations
✤ sometimes these arise at different times, but very
often they come together
✤ authentic business architecture is a framework
that links the key elements of the business to
provide a flexible structure
✤ any tensions cause the whole to flex together,
meaning every part has to adjust accordingly
✤ now we are re-thinking, re-designing and re-
building we need to design a business of the
future that can cope with these tensions
✤ it needs to be based on the fundamentals of
authenticity at its core - a new business culture
✤ we need to focus on creativity and innovation to
deliver excellence, engage our people, and excite
our customers by our passion

✤
in short - The Art of Business Design
contact us now

✤ web: www.cultivar.co.uk

✤ telephone : 44 (0) 121 443 5524

✤ mobile : 44 (0) 7802 976806

James Rock ✤ email : james.rock@cultivar.co.uk