People-centered organizational development - the "DT" in our DNA
Figure SEQ Abbildung \* ARABIC \s 1 1: The three core elements or "P "s of Design Thinking, Place, People and Process, as taught for example at the Design Thinking Institutes in Stanford and Potsdam. "Place" stands for the work context, both spatially and technologically and culturally; "People" for the strong focus on collaboration, diverse teams and the people involved in the process; and "Process" for the conscious structuring of the creative work process and the methods used for it.
Our organizational development approach is strongly based on the principles of Design Thinking (DT). By this we mean, above all, a primarily user-centered, or more comprehensively, people-centered and empathically explored understanding of the problem space, as well as a strong trust in the effectiveness of creative collaboration and co-creation, and a high willingness to experiment and learn iteratively; as this is the only way to obtain solutions that are not only momentarily attractive, but also sustainably user-relevant and already tested against organizational reality.1
In addition to these principles, Design Thinking, especially in the HPI-Stanford-Traditionfrom which we originate, puts a special focus on the three "P "s as core elements of the methodological approach: Place (work context), People (people involved) and Process Process (process & methods; see Figure 1). The people-centeredness of the Design Thinking approach is not limited to empathy for the users receiving the end-product of the process, but also encompasses the working methods and culture of the team and the organization itself. This goes back to the methodological and ideological foundations of Design Thinking, for example, in the interdisciplinary and integrated teaching and work innovations of the Bauhaus movement (see Meinel, Weinberg, Krohn, 2005). This is because both the basic idea and the transformative effect of the Design Thinking approach are primarily aimed inward, at the team working with it and the applying organization alike. It can thus make a decisive contribution to establishing new work structures and releasing innovative forces by empowering and enabling individuals, teams and managers alike.2
In contrast to conventional, exclusively top-down organizational development and change management approaches, we use the principles of Design Thinking for an empowering, people- and user-centered approach that activates and leverages the problem-solving skills of the employees themselves. In this sense, we do not work for our project partners, but with them. This means not only considering employees and clients as the main users of any change measures, but also involving them in the design of the change process itself through participative and co-creative formats and measures.3 This not only leads to greater acceptance, but also to an empowering feeling of participation and shared responsibility for the success of such processes.
In the spirit of agile principles such as "individuals and interactions over processes and tools“4 this also means that we continuously align both our approach and our methods with our project partners. Doing so allows us to take care of changing goals and priorities and enables continuous dynamic adaptivity. An iterative approach that is always adapted to the individual organizational culture and goals also ensures that results are not only achieved at the end of the change process, but that openness to change and identifying potential for improvement are repeatedly tested and practiced on a small scale. Skillfully designed interventions not only help to get closer to the desired goal, but also to continuously learn more about the implicit and explicit structures, characteristics and needs of an organization and the people and teams that constitute it.
Our approach can be characterized as "diagnostic-dialogical", as we work analytically both quantitatively and qualitatively, always relating these data to each other and to the status of the process. This creates a holistic, dynamic picture of the organization with all its people, structures and processes, which takes change and current and future fields of opportunity into account. For us, organizational development therefore also always means cultural development, understood as a careful further development and modernization of the "collection of traditions, values, rules, beliefs and attitudes that form a continuous context for everything we do and think in this organization".5 A such, it is not about moving from one "This is how we do it here" to another "This is how we do it now," but rather evolving toward space for "What if we did it this way?" or "How would you do it?
Figure SEQ Abbildung \* ARABIC \s 1 2: Sustainable organizations effectively bring together human desirability and technological feasibility with economic and environmental sustainability.
Especially in terms of employer attractiveness and activating the existing creativity and problem-solving skills of existing organizational members, such openness is essential. It creates the space for employees at all levels to experience themselves as participants in the shaping of culture and corporate development. This feeling of participation on a large scale as well as the daily experience of effectiveness on a small scale together result in what is currently often described by the trendy expression of purpose - the feeling of doing meaningful work. In conjunction with the three dimensions of sustainability - economic, ecological and social - and technological and methodological know-how, the result is an organization that is sustainable both internally and externally, firmly based in a people-centered perspective and understanding (see Figure 2).
1 Brown, 2008, 2009; Badke-Schaub, Roozenburg, Cardoso, 2010; Carlgren, Rauth, Elmquist, 2016; Brenner, Uebernickel, Abrell, 2016
2 S. die Forschung, Artikel und Vorträge von Prof. Jeanne Liedtka zum „ROI of Design Thinking“, z.B. in der Harvard Business Review (2018: https://hbr.org/2018/09/why-design-thinking-works) oder auf Mural: https://www.mural.co/blog/maximizing-the-roi-of-design-thinking-livestream-recap
3 S. Endrejat (2017) in der Fachzeitschrift Gruppe.Interaktion.Organisation.
4 Manifesto for Agile Software Development (2001): https://agilemanifesto.org/
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