CREATIVE CLASH:
ADDRESSING THE UNDERLYING CONFLICTS THAT STIFLE CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS.

David Dunne Chris Ferguson Paolo Korre

“It’s like fighting a battle”, one designer told us. Design thinkers in traditional organizations constantly run up against fundamental differences between their way of thinking and the managerial mindset. For creative people, these differences lead to frustration and disenchantment; for managers, they can undermine the work of innovation and lead to missed opportunities.

Creative Clash is about these differences, how they are manifested in practice, why they arise, and what creatives and managers can do about them.

You would think that designers and managers would have a lot in common. Designers are attuned to the feelings and thoughts of users; companies too want to get closer to customers. Yet they are often talking past each other, and sometimes it seems as if their agendas are fundamentally different. According to another designer, “A lot of companies want design so they can manipulate their customer, more than learn to improve their product, their service, their organization”.

It's as if they come from different planets – yet it’s all happening under the surface. Designers and managers have different cultures and different ways of thinking, talking and being. In research, designers look for novel insights about people’s lives, where managers seek data that can be collected in a predictable and repeatable manner. Where designers creatively imagine new futures, managers value efficiency and control. Where designers use play to unlock creativity, for managers play is frivolous and un-businesslike.

Of course, not all designers and not all managers fit this picture. But our research, and our own experience, show all-too-common patterns of engagement between these two groups. To deal with these patterns, first you need to recognize them.

This book explores the experience of innovation in organizations, from the perspective of design thinkers. How can they be creative, and bring about change, when they feel blocked at every turn? How can leaders and managers foster environments that allow designers to live up to their creative potential? Creative Clash unpacks the underlying, often hidden, forces behind the different beliefs and approaches of designers and managers. It provides concrete ways for design thinkers to navigate their way in traditional organizations, and for business leaders to build the right cultural framework for design to flourish.

Creative Clash belongs within the Business section, with books about innovation or leadership. Comparable titles include David Dunne’s Design Thinking at Work: How Innovative Organizations are Embracing Design. This book considers the challenges organizations face in implementing design thinking as a strategic and cultural issue, but does not focus on differences in ways of thinking and being. Roger Martin’s Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the next Competitive Advantage argues for design as a strategic variable without exploring its cultural implications in organizations.

Other titles highlight organizational barriers to innovation, but do not address the challenge of differences in thinking and culture between managers and creatives. Tom and David Kelley’s Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All focuses on overcoming broad challenges to creativity, but does not explore mindset differences in organizations. Catmull and Wallace’s Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration focuses on the creative culture at one firm, Pixar.

Creative thinkers who work within traditional organizations will readily identify with the real-world stories in this book and find answers to the challenges they face. Innovation leaders who do not have a design background will learn how they can help foster creativity within their organizations.

Creative Clash brings together three authors with extensive experience in design thinking in business from complementary perspectives. Dr. David Dunne has taught executives and students in business and design around the world; he is the author of many articles on design and management, and the popular book Design Thinking at Work (2018). Chris Ferguson is an award-winning designer and the founder of Bridgeable, where he has spent the last two decades working out the clash between designers and managers in some of the largest and most complex organizations in the world. Paolo Korre is one of Canada’s leading designers in the field of healthcare, a co-founder of Design meets Healthcare, and a contributor to newly released book The Future of Aging (2020).