Ep 200| 5 Reasons Why politicians, policy makers should apply design thinking ?

Welcome to this Design for Change. Thank you for staying tuning in with me. This is the 200th episode, guys. I'm really excited and happy to share one of the most most important information to you all. Okay, so this particular podcast is going to address how a design thinker, how a design thinking methodology can really influence policy making, influence politicians, influence our government systems. What has been running around. This is a thought process which I've been really thinking for a long time. And I wanted to record this as a podcast with top five learnings why a politician or a policymaker should apply design thinking. And eventually there are scope opening in India and abroad as well for the designers to go and intervene in the policy making for them to intervene in the government systems in order to create an effective living. Okay, so this podcast is going to give you that information. Guys, jump into this podcast, take a lot of notes. Welcome guys. Welcome to this Design for Change. Thank you for staying tuning in with me through this podcast. We are impacting thousands and thousands of people and I'm on a mission to help more than 1 million designers to really reach a lifestyle of a creative designer. Even without having a degree or experience. It's okay. I'm going to help them reach their goals through this process and I'm constantly working and I'm also helping people who are already designers to double and triple their salaries and their career growth in less than 90 days. Okay. Yes. So we have an interesting point today. So why a policymaker or a politician needs to really apply this design thinking. There are top five reasons which I'll give you guys See first is understanding the interconnections. Design thinking definitely can encourage lot of politicians, policymakers, lawmakers. The reason why I'm talking about interconnectedness is see without systems and subsystems we can't run anything. There are many factors which are designers and the policies and the programs are being connected with. Okay, by applying the system design principle, like let's say if you are making a mind mapping, if they're making the data and information coming in front of them, they'll see the interconnectedness, what this particular problem is connected with, what people and these people are connected with what problem and how this problem can be solved by implementing the simple systems and changes. If you identify this leverage points only guys interventions could be made. There is a book called Thinking in systems you can read. It's by Donnella Meadows. I'll paste the link. Also it's a beautiful book. It talks about systems in a more more what you call simpler way and you can go and find all the depth of it. She talks about the leverage points because lot of people put a policy on a surface level, but design thinkers, they really understand the root cause of a problem and they identify the leverage points. So similarly, I would highly recommend politicians and lawmakers, they can able to leverage that point, find out that leverage point and then apply this. You know what significant system changes will happen. Guys, this is the first important point. Understanding the interconnectedness and leveraging the advantage of this turning point. Second, what is the feedback loops? See, design thinking helps policymakers recognize feedback loops within the system. First. Okay, like let's say reinforcing certain feedbacks and finding out the trend, finding out the data which is consistently appearing and balancing the feedback which will really stabilize them. Like let's say if lot of people are having problems in terms of cough, cold, this thing, then government needs to make a policy in order to suppress that as well. If a lot of people are having a problem with this particular dental health issues recently, and the statistics is really high and they need to create a policy accordingly, maybe they can come up with a lot of dental checkups, a lot of dental health awareness programs, they can bring in some kind of games in order to make the people more aware of these things. There are games which people can even government can even encourage people to really go and install and play in order to understand more about their dental health. In order to gamify, in order to learn. Absolutely. There is no connection between dental health and games. But if you really understand the psychology of the people, what really people are engaged with, then you can solve a problem through their particular interest by making them indirectly understand. So this feedback loop should be closed by understanding this feedback loops, guys, policymakers can really anticipate unintended consequences and they can design even more effective policies and intervention give feedback. Third point is holistic problem solving. See the big problem, the big problem, what people really miss out is when making policy and other things, the holistic picture is missing. See, when a road accident happens, or if let's say something is happens, if you ask any person, they'll tell from their point of view. Let's say if an engineer, he'll give a point of view from his point is his technical point of view or his way of seeing the world. If you ask a person who is normally running in a road, if you ask a tea shop guy, who is next to that particular incident happened. If you ask a teacher, if you ask a politician. So everybody has a different view, right? So there is nobody who Is collecting this holistic problem solving and seeing this as a whole, what best needs to be done. Like let's say if a house is set on fire, okay, you got only two minutes to come out of the house. What important things you will take. If you ask this question with the housewife, her answer will be different. If you ask a kid, the kid's answer will be different. If you ask a husband, his answer will be different. If you ask a firefighting guy, his answer will be different, right? There needs to be somebody who can holistically manage and find out what are all the common answers between these people. Like let's say housewife will say, hey, I'll bring my kids out. The kids will say, I'll bring my toys out. The husband will say, I'll get the, what you call important documents, properties, which is, which is very vital for us. Priority will change because there is nothing. Right? Wrong answer here. But the firefighter will see something different. I'll just go and find out the fire source and then first cut off and then I'll remove the people from there. So again, it's not about the right answer, wrong answer. Everybody in their perspective, in their importance, they're answering. But as a designer, if you analyze the situation and come up with a solution, seeing which is the ideal and optimal way, if a house is set on fire, people can escape from that. If you analyze the perspective of different people and make a solution, that becomes a holistic problem solving design. Thinker definitely needs to understand and promote this. That's why for a lawmaker and a policymaker also, this is important. You know what? By considering this broader context, what happens is you understand the dynamics of the system. This will develop a comprehensive solution, guys, rather than just finding out some symptoms and iterating and having this. So this is the third important point which is holistic problem solving. Let me repeat you guys. The first is understanding the interconnectedness of a system, leveraging the leverage points, identifying the feedback loop and balancing. Third is have a holistic problem solving. Fourth is implement a solution and then apply it and reiterate it multiple times until it fit properly to the problem. Until it finds a proper solution with the people. Because people will not accept, sometimes systems will not accept, sometimes some problem will come. So apply this design thinking in both ways. Because design thinking methodology is iterating approach, right? So policymaker needs to really emphasize this importance. Implement the feedback, implement policy, get a feedback, talk to the stakeholders, monitor the data continuously, refine, refine, refine, refine, refine. Until the System becomes perfect the moment. If you do this guys, you go to a greater level of empathy and understand it. That leads me to fifth point. So policymakers needs to really empathize and engage with the stakeholders. They have to communicate with different, different communities, groups, individuals, societies, find their needs and experiences and goals and aspiration and empathize with them in order to close the loop. If you are a decision maker in your organization, you can apply this information and see the difference. Guys, if you are someone who is a politician or a lawmaker or NGO guy, if you are working for this kind of people as a designer, you can trigger this kind of a conversation because they will see the holistic picture through you because they will be not seeing you sometimes. So that's the whole point of understanding. Guys, I hope you have got a clarity in why it is important for a policymaker to really see this information. If you, if you want to really go deep into this, I would highly recommend a book. You can read that guys. Okay, so thank you so much. It's a very short information, but I think it should, it should have created a good impact on you. Because the moment, if you're solving a problem through a design skills, then you'll see a great impact of what your skills can do. And imagine if you're going into an ngo, if you're going into a government organization, particularly in UK and Germany, there is a policy lab which a designer comes and collaborate with politicians and lawmakers to solve a problem like let's say traffic problem, like let's say garbage problem, let's say sanitation problem. You know, people have really solved this kind of a problems. And particularly when it comes to traffic, people have laid some kind of a separate lane to do this. People have put a lot of fine who are traveling in an empty car without much people. So that reduces people's congestion also towards traveling. And people have gamified their experience of keeping the place clean. People have created some environment where people can come and throw their dust or throw their trash properly so that it won't go outside or spill. So this gamification and understanding of people's psychology can really help to design a perfect policy. So when people are not understanding this, what happens is creates a problem. Okay, So I would love to read your comments also guys, engage in this post, in this podcast. What do you really think? What problem did you really come across while solving this? I would love to interact with you about this. Okay, thank you so much guys. Take care. All the best. If you need a support to learn product design and system design in an even more interactive way, even more in a depthful way. You can definitely connect with me through this email because I have learned something called system design which can which has really broadened my perspective towards product design and the problem solving community. If you wanted to really learn from me and get a guidance, you can definitely hit that email or my team will help you out guys. Okay. Thank you so much. If you find this useful, give me your best star rating in Apple and Spotify. Take care. Bye bye. All the best.