Stories: The Secret Ingredient Of Innovation

The power of empathy: understand other’s feelings, to better design a solution for them.

Pic by Karl Fredrickson

We all eat, but everyone dines differently. That’s the power of empathy — when you can understand what another person is feeling, you are better able to design a solution for them.

I had the honor of being part of a very exciting experience at the d.school, the innovation hub at Stanford University. A group of professionals from very different organizations (Google, San Francisco Opera, Safeway, Bank of America, Victoria’s Secret, to name a few) came together to work on a challenge: how to improve the food experience on campus. I was one of the many coaches who guided the teams through a human-centered design (Design Thinking).

People’s stories can be deceiving at first. We challenged the teams to go deeper and avoid getting stuck at a superficial level. Take the case of these two women, “Thelma and Louise”. One was a student; the other, an older friend that was just visiting. At first glance, food for them was like a trip of self-discovery –thus, the nickname the…