Baked In

Begin by thinking of yourself as a designer. Start by making a list of all the things you’ve designed. Some software? A new sales program? A distribution plan? A meal plan for the kids? As you broaden your definition of design, you strengthen your inner consciousness of yourself as a designer. You are a designer. Design is just a good plan, after all.

Do the Bruce. Don’t just design what you see in your business. Design what you don’t see. Design for the change. Plot out your business for the next ten years. For example, if you have a product and you know you will have to update it every two years, look at that cost as a whole, and begin to design a more flexible system that will allow you to make those changes better and cheaper. Do you have a couple of ideas already?

Look at your entire business and write down an inventory of all the potential positive and negative touch points: the product, the packaging, the shipping, the packaging the customer has to throw away, the old product in the trash or landfill, the website, the uniforms, the trucks, the customer service people. Everything. Pay special attention to the stuff you would rather not think about. The biggest opportunities lie here. Put this list aside for now. You have ideas, but you’ll have even better ideas soon.