Discover the importance of human-centered leadership and AI. Learn how to balance technological advancements with empathy and ethics to drive sustainable success with Chair of IDEO, Tim Brown.

What skills can help us get the most out of AI? When we approach AI in a human way, with people at the center, it can be a powerful tool that augments how we work. As AI becomes more and more widespread across industries, it’s critical to learn the skills to harness and collaborate with AI in a way that is humanistic, ethical, and impactful. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, we speak with Tom Gruber—product designer, entrepreneur, and co-creator of Siri. He shares critical skills to get the most out of AI, why AI needs human-centered design, and the ethics of using AI tools. https://ideo.in/3MiQGVn

Great products and services are driven by great product strategy. But too often we get stuck in the strategy part of product strategy, failing to get tangible enough to make insight-driven decisions about our roadmaps. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, we speak with YC Sun, Design Director at IDEO. He shares common challenges for leaders when it comes to product strategy, the keys to building great product strategy, tips and tools for getting tangible with your product strategy, and how to navigate decision trade offs.

We all want to be great managers. But when it comes to actually working with and leading young people, there’s no clear strategy or playbook for success. Too often it feels like we’re having to decide between two extremes: enforce high standards and risk pushing our mentees away, or take a more gentle approach and withhold criticism, therefore missing out on critical learning moments. Often the end result can be intergenerational misunderstanding. How do we interact with young people so that they feel inspired, enthusiastic, and energized rather than disengaged, outraged, or overwhelmed? In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, we speak with David Yeager, author of The Science of Motivating Young People: A Groundbreaking Approach to Leading the Next Generation for Managers, Parents, and Educators. He shares how to cultivate a mentor mindset, the science and research on mentoring young people, applying a growth mindset to cultivate young talent, and key tools and strategies to employ for better mentorship.

Most of us recognize why curiosity is important. Few of us know how to practice and unleash its full potential. But when leaders embrace curiosity, it becomes a catalyst for transformation, helping leaders challenge their assumptions, connect with people, and build cultures where everyone feels like they matter. Learn why curiosity is one of the most important skills for leaders today, plus tangible tips and activities that we can practice to build our curiosity muscles, from Scott Shigeoka, curiosity expert and author of the new book, SEEK: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World. https://ideo.in/scott

At its worst, friction can be a destructive force in an organization. Friction can undermine productivity and innovation, create inefficiency, and even chip away at our energy and enthusiasm for work. But what if friction could be reframed as something positive—something that makes the right things, like joy, productivity, and creative thinking, easier? Learn how great leaders use friction to make the right things easier and the wrong things harder with Bob Sutton, organizational psychologist and New York Times best selling author.

Learn about how play gives us permission to dream and diverge, think outside the box, and discover solutions to unprecedented problems with Michelle Lee, Managing Director at IDEO and Instructor of our newest Creative Thinking for Complex Solving course.

What makes a good insight? Learn about how to make customer research impactful with Arianna McClain, Head of Research & Insights at Cruise.

Learn about what makes a good strategy with Roger Martin, strategy advisor and bestselling author. https://ideo.in/roger

Learn design tools for testing value propositions, how to understand willingness to pay, and how to uncover insights to help finetune your value proposition. View the full recap at: ideo.in/angel-annunciacao

Learn how to create a remote influence plan from Sacha Connor, Founder of Virtual Work Insider.

Learn how to use data to uncover opportunities for innovation and better understand people and problems from Bo Peng, Senior Portfolio Director of Data Science at IDEO. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/bo

Why leading change always starts with people, and tools you can try to make people the catalysts for change. View the full recap at https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration

Learn a framework for identifying bias, prejudice and bullying and choosing a response; tools leaders can use to disrupt bias; and ways to be an upstander at work. View the show notes, transcript and recap at https://ideo.in/kimscott

The 3 foundational elements of belonging, and the tools and levers of design you can use to foster it. View the visuals and resources discussed in this episode at https://www.ideou.com/blogs/

How organizations can shift toward more customer centricity, and why it starts with employee health. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/leslie

Tips for how leaders can tap into creativity to solve today’s biggest challenges from IDEO Co-Chair Tim Brown. View the full recap at https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration

Insights on creating inspiring educational experiences from Kai Frazier, Founder and CEO of edtech startup Kai XR. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/kai

Why workplace friendships are important, tips for making friends at work, and how to deepen connections with better conversations. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog

Lessons on different types of motivators, what behavioral science can teach us about motivation, and the importance of intrinsic motivators in the workplace. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/beworks

Tips on designing for uncomfortable conversation topics like sex, mental health, personal finance, and addiction from women’s health entrepreneur Kerry O’Connor. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/kerry

IDEO U’s Nusrat Ahmed and Coe Leta Stafford share 4 inclusive design mindsets and why they’re an important part of any designer’s toolkit. View the full recap at https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/how-to-get-started-with-inclusive-design

Strategy is often portrayed as a thinking exercise—a set of decisions and plans made by a small group. But strategy is brought to life by the people in every part of an organization every day. Engaging the people critical to both creating and activating your strategy is an element missing from most strategy approaches. In our new course, Activating Strategy, you’ll learn how to make more informed choices by getting tangible and running small tests, assess your resources and readiness to ensure your strategy is actionable, and scale and sustain your organization’s ability to support strategy across functions, departments, and teams. No matter where you sit in your organization or what strategy frameworks or processes you use—this course can help you ensure your teams have the shared understanding, alignment, and conditions they need to move confidently from strategy to action.

Jennifer Riel, IDEO’s Global Director of Strategy, shares the 7 common strategy myths and how to make your strategy more actionable. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/jennifer

In times of turbulence, uncertainty or stress, it can be difficult to tap into the creativity needed to do your best work. SYPartners and kyu Collective Founder Keith Yamashita says those are the times it’s most impactful to have a reservoir of inspiration to pull from. In this conversation with Keith, we talk about rituals and tactics you can try to find inspiration individually, in duos and in teams. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/keith

Erica Keswin, author of Rituals Roadmap, shares the business case for rituals in the workplace and the key elements behind a ritual. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/erica

Tara Tan, General Partner and Investor at IDEO Creative Capital, joined us to share three themes she’s seeing emerge in the world of web3 and how to apply those ideas to your business, whether you’re in the digital space or not. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/taratan

You’ve got tons of compelling data to prove out your strategic choices. Now, the challenge is how to go from boring charts and numbers to a story that will move your stakeholders and build alignment around a way forward. IDEO Partner and Executive Director Justin Massa shares how the combination of data and storytelling can overcome strategic roadblocks, with stories from IDEO’s work in the healthcare, automobile, and finance industries. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

IDEO Senior Portfolio Director Katie Soven shares why orienting your team around outcomes is more effective than checking off a list of tasks. This episode revisits one of our favorite moments on the Creative Confidence Podcast around the theme of enabling leaders to bring out the best in their team. Listen to the full episode with Katie and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: ideo.in/well-said-katie

Wonderschool CEO and Co-founder Chris Bennett talks about giving his team the freedom and support to approach problems in their own way. This episode revisits one of our favorite moments on the Creative Confidence Podcast around the theme of enabling leaders to bring out the best in their team. Listen to the full episode with Chris and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: https://ideo.in/well-said-chris

Michelle Lee, a managing director leading IDEO’s Design for Play team, tells us how to create a magic circle and why removing constraints is so powerful in helping your team come up with wild new ideas. This episode revisits one of our favorite moments on the Creative Confidence Podcast around the theme of enabling leaders to bring out the best in their team. Listen to the full episode with Michelle and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: ideo.in/well-said-michelle

Serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist Brit Morin shares advice for inspiring a team by nurturing individual needs, creating psychological safety, and giving people meaningful work. This episode revisits one of our favorite moments on the Creative Confidence Podcast around the theme of enabling leaders to bring out the best in their team. Listen to the full episode with Brit and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: ideo.in/well-said-brit

IDEO Senior Portfolio Director Dwayne Edwards shares an activity leaders can try to encourage their team to tap into the power of intuition. This episode revisits one of our favorite moments on the Creative Confidence Podcast around the theme of enabling leaders to bring out the best in their team. Listen to the full episode with Dwayne and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: ideo.in/well-said-dwayne

Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei and IDEO Senior Design Director Lauren Collins share advice for inclusive leadership, encouraging participation, and giving attribution. This episode revisits one of our favorite moments on the Creative Confidence Podcast around the theme of enabling leaders to bring out the best in their team. Listen to the full episode with Frances and Lauren and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: ideo.in/well-said-lauren-and-frances

IDEO’s Steve Schwall and Jan Rod share stories of projects in the transportation and mobility world, techniques they rely on to create future-forward products and experiences, and how low-fidelity prototyping unlocks new ideas in highly complex industries. View the full recap at ideo.in/steve-and-jan

Why it's good for business to bring emotions into the workplace, and skills and mindsets to manage our most difficult emotions. View the full recap at ideo.in/lizandmollie

Learn what businesses can do to address climate change with Maria Fujihara, Founder & CEO of SINAI Technologies, and Gabe Kleinman, Head of Portfolio Services at Obvious Ventures. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/maria-and-gabe.

In our 5-week online course, Human-Centered Systems Thinking, you’ll: - Gain techniques for mapping complex systems and identifying the root causes of a problem. - Establish a shared view of the system and reframe problems from different perspectives to uncover new solutions. - Find the right problems to solve and pick the best solutions to experiment with. - Deepen your understanding of your organizational systems by taking an iterative approach to testing solutions and gaining insights. Learn more: ideou.com/systems

We talked with Dabney Hailey, founder and principal of Hailey Group, about the Visual Thinking Strategies (or VTS) method, why it works, how to bring elements of it into your daily practice, and why leaders should shift to the facilitative leadership style this method teaches. Read the recap at ideo.in/dabney.

Human-centered systems thinking is an approach to problem solving that helps you see the interconnectedness of things while also staying grounded in the needs of your stakeholders. Deirdre Cerminaro, IDEO Executive Design Director and IDEO U instructor, shares IDEO’s approach to systems thinking. Get tools, mindsets and examples you can apply to your own work to help you surface more impactful solutions. View the full recap at ideo.in/deirdre.

Learn how being a generalist can lead to career success with David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of Range. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Learn how to incorporate improv techniques into your presentations for greater impact and engagement in this conversation with Caricia Catalani, Senior Design Director at Pear Therapeutics. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Google Group Creative Director Brandon Viney shares how to use what inspires you to find your creative identity. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Chris Wilson, social entrepreneur and author of The Master Plan, shares the importance of believing yourself. This clip revisits one of our favorite moments of 2021 on the Creative Confidence Podcast. Listen to the full episode with Chris and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: https://ideo.in/well-said-chris

Designing Strategy instructor and best-selling author Roger Martin explains how your strategic choices shape where your organization is now and where you'll end up down the road. This clip revisits one of our favorite moments of 2021 on the Creative Confidence Podcast. Listen to the full episode with Roger and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: https://ideo.in/well-said-roger

Sacha Connor, founder and CEO of consultancy Virtual Work Insider, argues that snacks are not culture. She says values and behaviors shape culture, especially in a remote world. This clip revisits one of our favorite moments of 2021 on the Creative Confidence Podcast. Listen to the full episode with Sacha and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: https://ideo.in/well-said-sacha

Ingrid Fetell Lee, author of The Aesthetics of Joy, helps us connect with physical feelings of joy in this 2-minute exercise. This clip revisits one of our favorite moments of 2021 on the Creative Confidence Podcast. Listen to the full episode with Ingrid and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: https://ideo.in/well-said-ingrid

Michelle Lee, a managing director in IDEO's Play Lab, embraces how mixed influences led her down a winding, joyful career path. This clip revisits one of our favorite moments of 2021 on the Creative Confidence Podcast. Listen to the full episode with Michelle and read a recap of the conversation on the IDEO U blog: https://ideo.in/well-said-michelle

In this episode, IDEO’s Lauren Collins and Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei discuss how to level up your leadership practice by honing the skills and mindsets needed to empower your team and organization. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/lauren-and-frances

How did Wonderschool CEO and Co-founder Chris Bennett go from a spark of an idea to a venture-backed business? In this episode, Chris takes us inside his human-centered process for building a business. Chris shares about building empathy with his customers, prototyping the business model, finding the right sales channels, guiding a team, and staying inspired and connected to the mission. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Mentor Moment is a series where we help a listener with a work challenge. In this episode, Heather Currier Hunt, IDEO’s executive talent director and global head of learning and development, gives Kathleen some ideas for ways she can onboard several new team members and set the stage for a collaborative and successful team dynamic. Learn more about Heather at https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-currier-hunt-b114833a/. Are you struggling with a work challenge and wish you could get some words of wisdom from someone who’s been there? We’d love to help! Go to ideou.com/podcast and find details on how to share your story in the show notes for this episode.

Joe Brown, Executive Director at IDEO, explains how to use three different frameworks to approach change in your organization.

In order to maintain momentum and reach their goals, teams need to shift gears several times throughout a project. Project leaders are responsible for sensing the team’s need to shift and guiding them through these moments. Katie Soven, senior portfolio director at IDEO, shares how to maintain team momentum through complexity by shifting modes, the cycle of inhale and exhale in project work, and a framework for project leaders to know when and how to make a shift. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

If you’re wondering where to start with strategic planning, pause for a minute before getting into tactical ideas or writing a hundred-page strategic plan of action. Focus on identifying your strategic problem first. Strategy advisor Roger Martin shares common mistakes people make in the early stages of strategic planning and how to avoid them, ways to think creatively about your strategic problem, and how to frame a question to guide your thinking. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

With 10 years of experience as an entrepreneur and CEO, Brit Morin has learned a lot about what it takes to get an idea off the ground and how to inspire and lead a team. In this episode, she shares stories from the early days of her startup Selfmade, lessons on human-centered leadership, ways women are uniquely suited to excel as entrepreneurs, and skills she says are often under-valued but closely tied to entrepreneurial success. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog

Mentor Moment is a new mini series where we help a listener with a work challenge. In this episode, IDEO Senior Design Lead Stuart Getty gives caller Heidi a few ideas for ways she can get her team and company on board and excited about innovation work. Learn more about Stuart at linkedin.com/in/stuart-getty. Are you struggling with a work challenge and wish you could get some words of wisdom from someone who’s been there? We’d love to help! Go to ideou.com/podcast for details on how to share your story.

IDEO’s Tom Kelley shares his storytelling tips and the 4 stories entrepreneurs need to know.

IDEO’s Michelle Lee and Brendan Boyle share small ways to experiment with play at work and how it helps surface new ideas.

Peruvian conglomerate Intercorp has been working toward the same mission for more than 25 years: To help Peru become one of the best places in Latin America to raise a family. Hear how Chief Innovation Officer Hernán Carranza is helping the company make progress toward that goal, and learn ways creative leaders can act now to have long-term impact. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

How do you decide which opportunities to pursue in your career—and what values can guide you along the way? Designer and author Donald Burlock, Jr. shares the creative frameworks that he turned to at each stage of his career, and how to use them in your own journey.

In our 5-week online course, Leading Complex Projects, you’ll learn how to: —Surface intuition to make decisions when there’s too much or too little information. —Deliver stronger outcomes by clearly defining the purpose for the work. —Design moments of alignment. Learn more here: http://ideo.in/complexprojects

The more complex the project, the more we need to make space for intuition. Dwayne Edwards, Senior Portfolio Director at IDEO, shares tools and techniques to build your intuition and guide others through complex projects. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Jenny Gottstein & Olivia Vagelos, experiential designers at IDEO, share juicy details and stories that show how just about any experience can be made better with a bit of intentional design.

Sal Khan reflects on the past, present, and future of Khan Academy, and shares his vision for the evolution of education. If you hope to have greater impact in the world or you’re working up the courage to take a chance on a business idea, look to Sal’s journey for inspiration. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

There’s good reason—and plenty of scientific evidence—to suggest we prioritize seeking moments of joy. Designer and author Ingrid Fetell Lee shares why joy is important during challenging times, how it improves our performance and capacity for creativity, universal elements that make up the aesthetics of joy, and how to overcome common barriers to joy. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Learn three things companies and individuals can do to thrive in a hybrid work environment, tactics for combating remote fatigue, and how to build team culture in a virtual setting. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Learn how to map complex systems, identify the layers of a system in order to spot opportunities for change, and ways to manage bias in systems design. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Learn about the elements of a story, story arcs, why and how to experiment with your story arcs, and examples from the healthcare and entertainment worlds. View the full recap at https://ideo.in/annkim

Taking action on a business strategy is something many people struggle with. Jennifer Riel, IDEO’s global director of strategy, shares how to know when you’re ready to put your strategy into action, three design tasks required to do so, and examples and tips to help you get started. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Social entrepreneur, artist, and author Chris Wilson worked hard to go from a life sentence to a life of purpose. He shares lessons on resilience, his principles for success against the odds, and tips for crafting your own master plan. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy, authors of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book No Hard Feelings, say embracing our emotions makes us better at our jobs. They outline a framework for making better decisions by tapping into our emotions and explain how to move from emotional intelligence to emotional agility. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Emily Pilloton, Founder and Executive Director of nonprofit Girls Garage, shares insight into the power of making, tips for designing brave and inclusive spaces, and why building within your community is so meaningful.

Food by Design is a NEW narrative podcast from IDEO. Our food system isn't broken, it was designed this way. And if it was designed this way, then it’s time for a redesign. That’s why we created this podcast. We believe in dialogue, collaboration, and creative inquiry, and talking to the people who are building the food systems we’ll need in the future ... right now. Let's dig in. For more info, visit: www.podfollow.com/ideo

Shellye Archambeau, one of tech's 1st Black female CEOs, Fortune 500 Board Member, author of Unapologetically Ambitious, on how to set a clear vision and raise your risk tolerance. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Former NASA astronaut and SpaceX advisor, Garrett Reisman walks us through his experiences in space and what he’s learned about teamwork, innovation, and creative problem solving along the way. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Coe chats with Guy about the key to influencing others and evangelizing products, causes, and yourself. View the episode recap and frameworks on the IDEO U blog: http://ideo.in/guy-recap

Jim Keane, President and CEO of Steelcase, shares techniques for empowering your employees to make decisions through humble and empathic leadership. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Learn how to set the groundwork for honest community conversations on diversity at work from Lauren Collins, Chief of Staff, Office of the CEO at IDEO. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Tension is inevitable. IDEO Senior Director of Global Learning and Development, Heather Currier Hunt, reframes tension as a learning opportunity that can take ideas and teams to a better place and provides her favorite tips. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Karen Holst, co-author of Start Within, shares practical techniques to help you move from idea to action. View the full recap on the IDEO U blog: https://bit.ly/2ZS0gr8

In a candid webinar hosted by the Design & Innovation Group, our own IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard spoke with her friend Robin Beers, Head of Customer Research and Experience Design at Wells Fargo, about the importance of representation of women in the design industry. They share insights and tips for how women can support each other and navigate challenges in the workplace. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Successful change efforts don’t happen at one speed. Change requires momentum and moderation at different points in the journey. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, Bob joins us to offer insights from his book Scaling Up Excellence: Getting More Without Settling for Less about how leaders can successfully drive organizational change by knowing when and how to pump the brakes and when to put the pedal to the metal. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Regardless of role, work can suck sometimes. Laszlo Bock, CEO and Co-Founder of Humu, a company that aims to make work better by encouraging people towards better habits and unlocking their potential, is focused on changing that. He’s dedicated the last decade of his career to bridging the gap between what we wish work was and what it actually is. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, he shares insights and tips on how we can make work better by sending small behavioral nudges to cultivate more empathy, equity, and resilience in the office. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Starting a business from scratch is already an admirable undertaking. Now, try starting a business while breastfeeding 7-month-old twins, raising a toddler, and traveling for a full-time job. That’s exactly what Kate Torgersen did when she founded Milk Stork, the first breast milk travel solution for working moms. Now six years old, Milk Stork has helped thousands of working moms get their "liquid gold"​ home safely from business trips and is offered as an employee benefit by many large companies. Coe sat down with Kate for a candid conversation to celebrate Mother’s Day and honor working moms. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

What can we learn in this moment from global entrepreneurs who are embracing constraints to build resilient, impactful businesses? Alexandre Lazarow, author of the new book Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs—from Delhi to Detroit—Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley, joined us to discuss the ways entrepreneurs around the world are shifting their mindsets around business innovation and what you can take away from their approach. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

What is design thinking? Why does it work? How do I get started with it? Our community had so many great questions on the power and potential of design thinking that we hosted an Ask Me Anything session on the topic with IDEO partners and IDEO U leaders Suzanne Gibbs Howard and Coe Leta Stafford. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, Sacha shares 10 pitfalls to look out for when working remotely and strategies for success. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Testing might sound like a very analytical activity, but it’s actually one of the most creative things you can do when developing a strategy for your business or organization. In this conversation, Jennifer Riel, IDEO’s Global Director of Strategy, breaks down ways to test your assumptions, build confidence, and weed out poor choices before rolling out a new strategy. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

In our new 5-week online course, Impactful Presentations, you’ll learn how to: –Deliver presentations that spark a shift in perspectives. –Create a meaningful journey for your audience. –Practice with different presentation methods. Learn more here: https://ideo.in/2SXQRcO

IDEO’s Dav Rauch explains why it’s important to connect with your audience as a presenter and how to get them in the right mindset to be open to new ideas. He shares techniques you can use to be a better presenter and help people retain the information you share. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

In the #1 New York Times bestselling book Designing Your Life, Bill Burnett and his co-author Dave Evans showed us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling. With their second book, Designing Your Work Life, they zero in on finding happiness at work. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, Bill gives advice on how to assess the potential of your current career and shares ways to redesign and re-engage with your job. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

Brendan Boyle, IDEO partner and founder of the IDEO Play Lab, joined us on the Creative Confidence Podcast to share how to bring more playfulness into your work. Get into a creative mindset and generate an abundance of new ideas with his favorite creative warm ups and group activities. See more on the IDEO U blog.

Resident IDEO storytellers Zena Barakat and Brian Janosch talk about the importance of stories in the world of business and innovation. Learn how to get started weaving stories into your work today with real life examples and tips for using stories in common business scenarios. Learn how to create a story brief, explore different mediums, and create multiple versions of your story to gather feedback from others in our 5-week online course Storytelling for Influence: https://ideo.to/Yjfodp

Rochael Adranly, IDEO partner and general counsel, has spent her career finding the balance between the rules-based world of law and the ambiguous, non-rules-based world of design. In this Creative Confidence Podcast episode, she shares how to bring out the natural creativity in others and encourage colleagues to be your partners in innovation—instead of your roadblocks.

As a venture capital investor at Collaborative Fund and Kindred Ventures, Kanyi Maqubela has invested in dozens of companies—including Lyft, Kickstarter, Beyond Meat, and Blue Bottle Coffee—and evaluated hundreds more. He seeks out founders and businesses that are not only addressing a market need, but have the potential to reinvent our future. In this episode of our Creative Confidence Podcast, he shares the elements he looks for to signal a strong business idea, an impactful leader, and a collaborative team. Build your leadership abilities in our course Leading for Creativity, and learn how to design prototypes to test and iterate business ideas in Designing a Business: https://ideo.to/XX94SR

People and culture leader Margo Downs joined us for an episode of the Creative Confidence Series to share lessons learned from her years as a leader in people operations at Stitch Fix, Starbucks, and lululemon athletica—companies well known for their distinctive cultures. We dove into the building blocks of culture, her framework for operationalizing culture at scale, and how to impact culture regardless of your seniority or title.

An IDEO partner and global director of design, he’s also a lifelong musician and associate professor at the Berklee College of Music. He’s spent many years studying the shared mindsets of musicians and designers and is in the midst of writing a book on the subject to come out next year. He joined us on the Creative Confidence Series to share more about what the business world can learn from the musical one. To learn tactics for experimentation and generating new ideas, check out IDEO U's 5-week online course From Ideas to Action: https://ideo.to/fFtiIN

Suz chats with Sheryl O’Loughlin who says there’s a dark side to entrepreneurship, but it’s possible to run a startup in a healthy, joyful way. In this conversation, we dive into Sheryl’s vast experience as a CEO, founder, mentor, and advisor to pull out key lessons she’s learned at critical moments in her career. Walk away with tips for launching and growing a successful business while maintaining a fulfilled life.

Tim Brown, IDEO Chair and former CEO of IDEO for 19 years, shares his perspective on the qualities necessary for creative leaders in today’s unpredictable business and economic conditions. He discusses what we can do to find the opportunity in ambiguity and design and build better systems to meet the needs of the future.

Roger Martin is a bit of a legend in the strategy world. His book Playing to Win, written with former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley, is a favorite in business schools. And decades of work consulting with some of the world’s most recognizable companies have cemented his place as one of today’s leading business thinkers. In this conversation, get an inside look at Roger’s approach to business strategy and hear about our newest course, Designing Strategy: https://ideo.to/u3xSQA

How do you evolve a customer journey map from a tool that inspires and explains to one that creates action? In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, hear tips for this and other service design challenges, and learn how IDEO Partner and Managing Director Melanie Bell-Mayeda and her team are evolving the practice of service design with stories from the latest work at IDEO. She expands on the lessons she teaches in our Human-Centered Service Design course with tips for moving from a high-level and inspiring customer journey map toward real action, breaking a massive service design challenge into more manageable parts, and picking the right moment that matters in a customer journey. Learn more about our online course, Human-Centered Service Design: https://ideo.to/u9u072

Didier Elizinga, CEO and Founder of culture analytics platform Culture Amp, joined us on the Creative Confidence Series to talk about applying design thinking mindsets to culture and people operations, turning culture insights into actions, and making change happen from wherever you sit. Learn more about inspiring change in an organization, community, or network through movements, not mandates in our online course Designing for Change: https://ideo.to/OiXZ1q

What do you want to change? IDEO Partner Bryan Walker introduces "change journeys" and takes us through an exercise to understand what type of journey you are on. Bryan shares change examples from Ford, Marriott, the Gates Foundation and more to help illustrate how to go about change.

In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, Joe Gerber, Managing Director of IDEO’s CoLab, talks about how to connect the dots between a vision of the future and a business that can make that vision a reality. Joe shares how the team at CoLab are using design fiction and cross-organizational stakeholder collaboration to uncover meaningful innovation and launch new ventures in the world of emerging technology, the Circular Economy, and more. Whether you work in the field of innovation, you’re an entrepreneur with a startup, or you have an idea for a business that you’re ready to explore, using the principles of design fiction and cross-organizational collaboration can help. Check out our 5-week business design course to go deeper on testing and prototyping different aspects of a new business: https://ideo.to/xRZl6p

In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard speaks with Mighty Networks CEO and Founder Gina Bianchini about how to launch and lead a business when the future of that business is yet to be defined. Gina shares the story of how she spotted the market opportunity for Mighty Networks, built the business through experimentation and co-creation with the community, and continues to lead her team to push the boundaries of innovation. Want to learn more about matching market needs with business ideas and creating a blueprint to create, capture, and deliver value? Check out our online course Designing a Business: ideo.to/F8VPqU

In this podcast takeover series, Jake Knapp, designer and author of Make Time and the New York Times bestseller Sprint, shares quick tips to help you optimize your energy, focus, and time. Part 5 has advice for reflecting on and learning from your efforts. Check out our page to listen to the full interview with Jake and hear more about how he started his journey toward productivity and mindfulness and lessons from his experience designing products at Google. Download the free Make Time poster we created with Jake to put these tips into action: ideo.to/knapp

In this Office Hours episode of our Creative Confidence Series, David Kelley, founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school, chats with IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard and answers questions from our community on design thinking, creativity, and leadership. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to this episode on our podcast, and check out their full conversation to hear more of David’s thoughts on the core abilities of the most successful design thinking practitioners. Learn more about building the skills and abilities to deepen your design thinking practice with our Advanced Design Thinking Certificate: https://ideo.to/J3Y8ev

In this podcast takeover series, Jake Knapp, designer and author of Make Time and the New York Times bestseller Sprint, shares quick tips to help you optimize your energy, focus, and time. Part 4 gives you ways to remove distractions from your phone. Check out our page to listen to the full interview with Jake and hear more about how he started his journey toward productivity and mindfulness and lessons from his experience designing products at Google. Download the free Make Time poster we created with Jake to put these tips into action: https://ideo.to/F7U3Uf

In this podcast takeover series, Jake Knapp, designer and author of Make Time and the New York Times bestseller Sprint, shares quick tips to help you optimize your energy, focus, and time. Part 3 gives you tips for creating effective deadlines. Check out our page to listen to the full interview with Jake and hear more about how he started his journey toward productivity and mindfulness and lessons from his experience designing products at Google. Download the free Make Time poster we created with Jake to put these tips into action: ideo.to/knapp

In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, IDEO Partner and Managing Director Mike Peng chats with IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard about creative collaboration—the method IDEO teams use to come up with innovative new ideas. Mike gives insight into our new course, Cultivating Creative Collaboration, that teaches you how to guide others through the creative collaboration process. He also shares tips for overcoming common challenges, why this way of working is necessary in today’s world, and how tension can be harnessed to unleash creative ideas. Get more tips and techniques from Mike on guiding collaboration in our new 5-week online course, Cultivating Creative Collaboration, starting May 23rd: https://ideo.to/JzmBTe

In this podcast takeover series, Jake Knapp, designer and author of Make Time and the New York Times bestseller Sprint, shares quick tips to help you optimize your energy, focus, and time. Part 2 covers tips for using your calendar to your advantage. Check out our page to listen to the full interview with Jake and hear more about how he started his journey toward productivity and mindfulness and lessons from his experience designing products at Google. Download the free Make Time poster we created with Jake to put these tips into action: ideo.to/knapp

In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, IDEO Executive Design Director Chris Nyffeler chats with IDEO U Managing Director Coe Leta Stafford about the value of prototyping, how to create low-fidelity prototypes for digital products and services, and the role of technology in design. Chris is also the instructor in our online class, Prototyping for Digital Experiences: https://ideo.to/WMHQFx

In this podcast takeover series, Jake Knapp, designer and author of Make Time and the New York Times bestseller Sprint, shares quick tips to help you optimize your energy, focus, and time. Part 1 covers how to choose a highlight for your day. Check out our page to listen to the full interview with Jake and hear more about how he started his journey toward productivity and mindfulness and lessons from his experience designing products at Google. Download the free Make Time poster we created with Jake to put these tips into action: ideo.to/knapp

Daniel Coyle chats with IDEO U Managing Director Coe Leta Stafford about his newest book, The Culture Code, three skills that the most successful teams have in common, and how high performing teams react to tension differently. Get tips and techniques for guiding teams through creative collaboration by embracing diverse perspectives and tension in our 5-week online course Cultivating Creative Collaboration: https://ideo.to/faNcXN

[Bonus Episode] In this Office Hours edition of our Creative Confidence Series, Jane Fulton Suri, IDEO Partner Emeritus and Executive Design Director, chats with IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard and answers questions from our community on design research, empathy, and observation. Check out their full conversation at ideou.com/podcast to hear more about Jane’s experience over her 30-year career at IDEO and in design research.

Jake Knapp has spent years figuring out how to prioritize the things that matter in an increasingly distracting world. In this episode of our Creative Confidence Podcast, Jake, the author of Make Time and the New York Times bestseller Sprint, shares the methods he has developed to find focus in daily life, opening up the opportunity to have more impact at work and at home. He shares how he started his journey toward productivity and mindfulness, lessons from his experience designing products at Google, and how by focusing on fewer things, you can actually do more as an individual and a team. Download the free Make Time Interactive poster we created with Jake: https://ideo.to/ENpPlm

“If you’re human, you’re creative.” —Warren Berger, Innovation Expert & Author Innovation expert and author Warren Berger has spent years studying how questions can transform our business and personal lives and tap into our creative potential. In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, he shares insights from his new book, The Book of Beautiful Questions, featuring hundreds of big and small questions that harness the magic of inquiry to tackle challenges we all face—at work, in our relationships, and beyond. To learn more about using questions to guide and motivate others, check out our 5-week online course Leading for Creativity, part of our Foundations in Creative Leadership Certificate: https://ideo.to/j3NdeD

Chris Flink, executive director of the Exploratorium, former IDEO partner, and a founding faculty member of Stanford University’s d.school talks to IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard about the evolution of the museum over 50 years, how they’ve expanded their reach globally, and how they cultivate creativity with their visitors, the broader community, and within their own organization. Want to learn more about fostering a creative culture and inspiring others? Check out our Leading for Creativity online course, part of the Foundations in Creative Leadership Certificate, to see a case study from the Exploratorium: https://ideo.to/vklw0w

In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, Jane Fulton Suri, IDEO Partner Emeritus and Executive Design Director, and Dean of IDEO U Suzanne Gibbs Howard reflect on the evolution of empathy in design during Jane’s 30-year career at IDEO and why bringing curiosity into your work takes courage. To learn more about human-centered design and methods for surfacing insights, check out Jane’s online course Insights for Innovation: https://ideo.to/drQaya

In our most recent Creative Confidence Series chat, David Kelley, founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school, and IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard sat down to discuss the core abilities of the most successful design thinking practitioners and personal stories and learnings from David’s friendships with several of today’s most innovative CEOs and leaders. Hear from more innovative leaders on the IDEO U podcast. Learn more about building the skills and abilities to deepen your design thinking practice with our Advanced Design Thinking Certificate: ideo.to/y4EyDx

In a special episode of our Creative Confidence Series podcast, IDEO U co-managing directors Suzanne Gibbs Howard and Coe Leta Stafford answered questions from our community of learners on how to overcome barriers to creativity at work with tactical examples, stories, and tips. For more tips on activating creativity within yourself and others, check out our on-demand class, Unlocking Creativity: https://ideo.to/KXWA1w

Chris Waugh, Chief Innovation Officer at Sutter Health, and Suz sat down to discuss how service design can radically and rapidly change the ways healthcare is delivered, making it more personalized and a better experience for patients. Interested in learning more about journey mapping and designing innovative experiences? Learn more about our Human-Centered Service Design course: https://ideo.to/service-design

Jocelyn Wyatt, Chief Executive Officer of IDEO.org, and Dean of IDEO U Suzanne Gibbs Howard as discussed the unique challenges of designing for the social sector and how to apply advanced design thinking principles to manage multiple stakeholders and solve for complex issues. To go deeper with the topics from this conversation, explore the Advanced Design Thinking Certificate: https://ideo.to/tlTGrv

In our latest Creative Confidence Series chat, David Aycan, IDEO Products Managing Director, and IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard sat down to discuss how to effectively design for and implement change and ways to measure the impact of creativity in an organization. Looking to learn more about purpose or dive deeper on bringing creativity to your team or company? Join our upcoming Designing for Change course or Power of Purpose on-demand class: https://ideo.to/ewxLRM

In our most recent Creative Confidence Series chat, Charles Hayes, Executive Managing Director of IDEO Asia, and IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard discussed creative leadership and a changing culture of innovation in China. If you’re interested in going deeper into case studies of creative leadership across the globe and learning IDEO’s tools and mindsets for creative leadership, join our upcoming Leading for Creativity course: https://ideo.to/LUwedO

Keith Yamashita, SYPartners Chairman and Founder and instructor for our newest class From Superpowers to Great Teams, sat down with IDEO U Managing Director Coe Leta Stafford to discuss creative leadership and how great teams are built on a foundation of diversity, collaboration, trust, and self-awareness. To learn more about building diverse, collaborative, and effective teams, check out our new From Superpowers to Great Teams on-demand online class: https://ideo.to/3pey83

In our latest Creative Confidence Series Chat, Suzanne Gibbs Howard, Dean of IDEO U, chatted with Mathew Chow, Director of Organizational Design at IDEO San Francisco, about prototyping organizational change. Mathew Chow is one of IDEO’s first formal organizational designers, helping clients create and define the values, incentives, rituals, teams, and spaces that drive their culture and behavior. It’s a process that he says starts with understanding the human needs at an organization, and learning how they play into its ultimate goals. If you’re curious to go deeper into the topics of this webcast and learn more about IDEO’s tools and mindsets for organizational design, join our Designing for Change online course: https://ideo.to/WybaDX

In our most recent Creative Confidence Series chat, IDEO managing director and Human-Centered Service Design instructor Melanie Bell-Mayeda and IDEO U’s Coe Leta Stafford shared stories and tips about how to use service design to bring more meaningful experiences to customers and organizations. Melanie is a Partner and Managing Director at IDEO San Francisco. She’s responsible for helping lead the firm's design for change work, which focuses on helping organizations and leaders realize their creative potential. In over a decade at IDEO, she’s played several roles leading different areas of the business, including those where design is bringing value to new and emerging markets. Her client portfolio includes the North Face, Gaiam, Citibank, Chase, and T-Mobile. Melanie is a Harvard College and Harvard Business School alumna. Learn more from IDEO Designers and get hands-on practice alongside a global community in our new Human-Centered Service Design online course: https://ideo.to/i3eOXd

Suz sat down with Brynn Harrington, director of People Growth at Facebook, to discuss the question, what’s truly motivating to people in the modern workplace? They also explored the topics of a recent Harvard Business Review article Brynn co-authored: The 3 Things Employees Really Want: Career, Community, Cause.

In our most recent Creative Confidence Series chat, IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard sat down with IDEO CEO Tim Brown for a conversation on Tim’s evolving thoughts on creative leadership and his focus on asking better questions. Learn the skills and mindsets of creative leadership from CEO of IDEO Tim Brown in his online course Leading for Creativity: ideo.to/sPBfy4

Teachers are the innovators education has been waiting for, and design thinking can help them activate their own creativity and solve the biggest challenges in education today. In our most recent Creative Confidence Series chat, Coe sat down with with Sandy Speicher, Managing Director of IDEO’s education practice and a strategic adviser to the K-12 Lab Network at the Stanford d.school, to discuss design thinking in education and how teachers can be powerful change agents for schools and education as a whole. Are you passionate about innovation in education? Join the Educators Learning Community within the August run of From Ideas to Action online course: http://ideo.to/w0r5HV

In our most recent Creative Confidence Series chat, Coe sat down with IDEO Play Lab founder Brendan Boyle and Suzanne Gibbs Howard, Dean of IDEO U, to talk about the importance of creativity, and exercises that can help you tap into it. Our new Unlocking Creativity class has 11 hands-on activities to help you tap into the creative potential of your team, break past creative blocks, and advance new ideas. Learn more: http://ideo.to/PSt47o

At IDEO, we believe that you can design the parts of a business just like you can any product, service, or brand. As Amy points out, it’s about realizing that it’s not just product design that makes a company successful in the market—it’s about the business model, the revenue model, the operations, the strategy, and even the IT. It’s about blending the rigor of traditional business strategies and tools with design, all in the service of meeting a human need. Learn how to apply the skills and mindsets of business design to your next product, service, or business. Join our Designing a Business course opening June 13: http://ideo.to/BQP8sg

IDEO Partner Luis Cilimingras and IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard discussed how technological and cultural shifts are affecting business in Latin America, and shared tips and tricks for implementing design thinking from IDEO U alums and practitioners working in the region. Interested in learning the foundational methods and mindsets of design thinking and creating a shared language among your team? Find out more about our introductory Hello Design Thinking class, launching soon in Spanish: http://ideo.to/9aEEkF

Storytelling for Influence Instructor and IDEO Design Director Jenn Maer and IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard discussed the tools and mindsets that can help you become a master storyteller, prototype your story, and bring your audience along on an emotional journey. Dive in deeper and learn more from Jenn Maer in our online Storytelling for Influence course: http://ideo.to/RLx5VL

Owen Rogers works with companies on some of their biggest existential challenges. In this Creative Confidence Series episode, we chat with Owen, IDEO Partner and Senior Design Lead, about the human-centered approach to creating sustainable change within organizations and his tips for empowering and developing leaders. To learn more about creating change within your team and organization, enroll in our online course Designing for Change: http://ideo.to/PlIsI4

Your Superpower is your contribution, the role that you’re put on this Earth to fill. It’s what you do better than anyone else. Tapping into it will not only help your team, but you’ll find your work more satisfying, too. Here's the full recap: http://ideo.to/xYVsmT

In the latest Creative Confidence Series chat, Lynda Deakin, Managing Director of IDEO’s Design for Food studio, joined Suz to chat about ways design can enable system-wide change in the food industry. As Lynda answered live questions from our community, she touched on themes from food waste to the changing retail environment, to why it’s important to work with big food companies.

Eric and Suz chat about how to help your company change mindsets and become more experimental, lean, and accountable. Eric's observation is that these days big companies want to be startups and startups want to be big companies. But somewhere along the way, as any organization grows, it gets mired in bureaucracy that’s resistant to innovation. This is because they’re following a dated blueprint for doing business, which hasn’t changed much in 100 years.

We sat down with CoLab’s Joe Gerber and Gavin McDermott to talk about the distributed web and blockchains and why it's important to experiment with this emerging technology. Many people see blockchain technology as bitcoin, but as Joe and Gavin discuss, bitcoin is just the tip of the spear and one small piece of a larger movement of blockchain technology and the distributed web.

How do you prototype designing something that isn’t tangible, like a service? In this Creative Confidence Series webcast, IDEO Partner and Managing Director Ilya Prokopoff and IDEO U Managing Director Suzanne Gibbs Howard will guide us through their process for service design prototyping, share examples of successful past service design prototypes, and discuss how these prototypes can often lead to increased clarity and confidence behind ideas. Read more: http://ideo.to/PSxf75

We spoke with Paul about what he sees as cornerstones of creative leadership, how to catalyze people toward action, and his no fear attitude toward delving into the void—aka darker more challenging topics like death and aging.

Curious about what makes a successful, innovative team, Google led a two-year research project with 280 teams. They found only one distinction between innovative and non-innovative teams—psychological safety.

Designing for change is about helping leaders transform their organizations’ cultures and businesses in pursuit of innovation, adaptability, and impact. Join IDEO Partner and Managing Director Bryan Walker and IDEO U Managing Director Suzanne Gibbs Howard as they discuss a human-centered approach to change and give a sneak peek into IDEO U's newest course.

After two years of sailing 15,000 miles around the globe with her husband and seven-year-old son, Jennifer Massaro returned home with a new perspective and a story to share. Armed with her desire to convey her learnings from two years at sea paired with a belief that storytelling is a muscle that must be constantly exercised Jen enrolled in Storytelling for Influence. Hear about Jen’s adventure and how she crafted a relevant and empowering story that led her to the TEDx stage.

Design thinking is a mindset (almost a way of life). It opens you up to new directions and perspectives. And the more you exercise the design thinking muscle, the better you get at it. Each time you engage with the process, you end up feeling more capable. As founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school, David Kelley has been practicing design thinking for nearly 30 years. He’s passionate about using design to help unlock creative confidence in everyone from students to business executives. As instructor of our new online class, Hello Design Thinking, David brings his years of learning and expertise to this design thinking introduction. Join IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard and IDEO U Co-Managing Director Coe Leta Stafford for a discussion with David on design thinking as a roadmap for routine innovation. An audience Q&A will follow.

In our Creative Confidence Series chat with IDEO Design Researcher Silvia Vergani and Principal Research Scientist at Verily Life Sciences Danielle Schlosser, we discussed the challenges and opportunities in healthcare innovation today and how healthcare practitioners can begin to apply a more human-centered approach to their work. When design thinking methodologies are applied to healthcare they lead to a human-centered focus and an openness to generating and testing many ideas to find more innovative, far-reaching solutions.

In our Creative Confidence series chat with IDEO CoLab Co-Managing Director Joe Gerber, we explored the world of business prototyping. In his early days as a Business Designer at IDEO, Joe noticed that experimenting and prototyping were an essential part of IDEO’s process and became curious about prototyping something complicated and abstract like a business. Applying the design approach and philosophy to new business ventures with techniques like prototyping creates a clearer path forward.

IDEO Partner Tom Kelley is passionate about moving organizations and people from understanding and utilizing the tools of design thinking to unlocking a creative confidence mindset. In this Creative Confidence series chat, Tom and Suz will discuss how to make room for creativity within hierarchical organizations, Tom’s philosophy on leading for creativity, and growing from design thinking into creative confidence as an individual and an organization.