At the World Economic Forum this year in Davos, Switzerland, no fewer than 22 sessions were dedicated to the subject “Innovation, Creativity, and Design Strategy.” Readers of this magazine weren’t waiting for the big shots to recognize the importance of “the creative imperative” and give it their blessing. Coming up with better ideas that lead to better solutions and products and unexpectedly happy results is what we do every day.

Why, then, the sudden public focus on innovation and creativity? Because the global economy is rearranging itself: The historical proprietors of production and efficiency are losing ground to emerging markets; new social and political realities are demanding radical solutions to create jobs, combat disease, and better align needs with resources; and the competitive playing field is a lot more crowded. The old solutions—dictated by the few to the many—are coming up short. And this disruption scares a lot of people, because it challenges entrenched authority, signals a shift in power, and leaves us all searching for how to compete on the basis of what we do best.

Those CEOs hobnobbing in Switzerland weren’t there just to party. They’ve got a problem: After years of management focused on control, cutting, and containment, they now need something different—the active discovery of new products, services, and systems instead of the ongoing refinement of outdated ones.[1]

Thinking wrong is one way out of the wilderness. It is not another glib technique or trendy new 12-step program for success. Thinking wrong is a discipline. It helps you look beyond short-term deliverables to more meaningful results. As a habitual way of solving problems, its simple purpose is to help you break free of preconceptions and biases and generate a richer set of options.

From childhood we are conditioned to ask the right questions. Thinking wrong says keep asking the wrong questions until the old perceptions and assumptions collapse under their own weight. Only at that point are we liberated to make something really new.

A THINK WRONG WALK-THROUGH.
1. IDENTIFY YOUR CLIENT'S ASPIRATIONS.
When C2 was invited to design the cover for the May/June issue of STEP, we knew there was a bigger need and aspiration behind the assignment. So before we got started, we pressed STEP to share with us why they wanted to do a think wrong issue, not just what the assignment entailed. Thinking wrong is all about generating solutions that are unexpected in two ways: because they depart from the status quo, and—more important—because they connect with the client’s larger vision, purpose, or plan.

STEP’s aspirations and desired results:
To be seen as one of the leading voices and thought leaders for the design industry, and to increase subscriptions and newsstand sales.

1 John Hagel and John Seely Brown, “Funding Innovation Vs. Managing Innovation,” BusinessWeek Online, Feb. 16, 2006: “There’s now an opportunity to connect with creative talent wherever it resides and build relationships that enable all parties to innovate more rapidly and to get better faster by working with each other. Fully exploiting this opportunity will require a fundamental rethink of our approach to mobilizing resources, creating much more scalable pull platforms to support large numbers of participants, in place of the push approaches that constrain our innovation opportunities.”