Why it's time to apply design thinking to business leadership

As a teenager, Dr Melis Senova was torn between her desires to be a medical doctor and an aerospace engineer. So it was a dream come true when years later she could bring those two passions together in her PhD research, redesigning cockpits for FA-18 and F-111 fighter jets to help pilots better cope with the stress of their workplace.

But after stepping back into corporate roles she soon became disillusioned with the lack of creativity within large organisations when it came to their approach for tackling problems.

“They were very quick to jump into solutions, repeating the same sorts of linear decision making processes that created the problem in the first place,” she says. “There was absolutely no creativity, wonder or curiosity.”