domingo, janeiro 10, 2010

Inovação através do design

Costumo apelidar de manobras lanchesterianas, as cogitações limitadas dos macro-economistas, ou dos burocratas de Bruxelas, que têm uma coisa em comum: a linearidade do raciocínio.
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Costumo chamar a atenção para a vantagem da micro-economia, para a vantagem de pessoas concretas, que sentem, que têm relações amorosas com clientes, fornecedores e produtos e conseguem ver o que mais ninguém consegue ver.
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Há pouco tempo descobri na revista Fast Company uma referência que me chamou a atenção para o pensamento de Roger Martin:
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"Martin believes that the North American economy is radically transforming. As the production of goods and services increasingly becomes routinized, the cost advantages across a growing array of industries accrue to China and India. Scale alone is not enough to thrive in a world where markets are rapidly globalizing; incremental improvement won't deliver a decent ROI. Our companies will continue to prosper only if they push to the higher ground of innovating and creating "elegant, refined products and services" -- which might well be produced elsewhere.

The upshot, says Martin, is nothing less than the emergence of the design economy -- the successor to the information economy, and, before it, the service and manufacturing economies. And that shift, he argues, has profound implications for every business leader and manager among us: "Businesspeople don't just need to understand designers better -- they need to become designers."
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In a global economy, elegant design is becoming a critical competitive advantage. Trouble is, most business folks don't think like designers. (Moi ici: E os políticos? E os burocratas? E os macro-economistas? E os contabilistas? E os consultores?)
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In a recent interview in Toronto, Martin asserted that real value creation now comes from using the designer's foremost competitive weapon, his imagination, to peer into a mystery -- a problem that we recognize but don't understand -- and to devise a rough solution that explains it. "For any company that chooses to innovate, the foremost challenge is this," Martin says. "Are you willing to step back and ask, 'What's the problem we're trying to solve?' Well, that's what designers do: They take on a mystery, some abstract challenge, and they try to create a solution.
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The trouble is, when confronted with a mystery, most linear business (Moi ici: lanchesterianos) types resort to what they know best: They crunch the numbers, analyze, and ultimately redefine the problem "so it isn't a mystery anymore; it's something they've done 12 times before," Martin says. Most don't avail themselves of the designer's tools -- they don't think like designers -- and so they are ill-prepared for an economy where the winners are determined by design.
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And that, Martin claims, means traditional organizations must reinvent themselves to perform more like design shops. In this new world, there are fewer fixed, permanent assignments. Instead, work flows from project to project, and people organize their lives around their projects, just as in a design shop. (Moi ici: Tabu!!! Vida de artista saltimbanco!!! Precariedade!!! Portfolio de projectos! Trabalhar sem rede! Em suma, um resumo da vida que levo e que não quero trocar por nada!!!!!!)"
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Depois de apreciar esta exposição "Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage", já não hesito, vou encomendar o livro. É disto que precisamos para subir na escala de valor e, aumentar a produtividade através da criação de valor, a única forma de também os trabalhadores beneficiarem.
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Já agora, a partir do minuto 20, na fase das perguntas, os consultores que apoiam a certificação de empresas deviam escutar e reflectir.
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Na passada sexta-feira, talvez no RCP, ouvi a justificação de Assis Ferreira para o despedimento de 113 trabalhadores do Casino do Estoril. Só falou de cortes e mais cortes que foram feitos para salvar os postos de trabalho. Não fez uma única referência a acções para atrair mais gente ao casino... como se os cortes atraíssem mais clientes.

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