Executive Education
To design is to change things. That’s why businesses are interested in design thinking—and it’s also why it’s hard. In executive education, I focus on the hard part about design: making it work in an organization that is not set up for it. To do that, you need to think of design not as a set of tools, but a mindset and an entire way of being.
I use real-life examples, case studies and exercises to stimulate reflection and discussion. Participants come away not only full of ideas and clear takeaways, but a clear path towards implementing them in their own environment.
Strategy
Systems thinking is critical to strategy, and the big-picture perspective is essential. But you need a “small-picture” perspective too: people regularly complain about systems, but they don’t see the whole picture—only their own part of it. The role of strategy is to orchestrate systems that maximize user (or customer), employee and stakeholder benefits in a sustainable manner.
When I facilitate strategic discussions, I encourage participants to think from both a narrow and a broad perspective: to empathize with the individual user while appreciating how the system really works, and for whom.
Past clients include Aspen Snowmass, AstraZeneca, Corus Entertainment, Constellation Wines, Glaxosmithkline, Takeda, Telus, and WorkSafe BC.
Global Education
Can teaching change the world? You bet it can. But most teaching is about filling students’ heads with facts that they forget as soon as they’ve heard them. This was never a good idea, because it’s the meaning of facts that matters, the connections we make to our lives. It’s an even worse idea now that machines can remember, analyze and synthesize facts better than we can.
I teach Innovation and Design at the University of Victoria. I am passionate about engaging students’ hearts as well as their minds, striking a spark of curiosity that lights a fire in their lives. I have taught students from every corner of the world. These days I work with educators around the world to bring new ideas, methods and critical thinking to students.
I am former Board Chair of Academics Without Borders, and Chair Professor in Design Thinking at Woxsen University in Hyderabad, India. I mentor and teach with iiAfrica, an African NGO devoted to management education for STEM graduates across the continent, and in the past with the Patan Academy of Health Sciences in Kathmandu, Nepal.
