Dieter Rams on strategy.

Recently we’ve been enjoying a book from The School Of Life. It’s simply and modestly titled Great Thinkers, which sets the bar pretty high. You should totally buy it as it just makes you feel happier about the world and is definitely a better use of your time than scrolling through facebook or looking at the news. One of the thinkers featured is the designer Dieter Rams. There are two different types of people in the world, those who know who Dieter Rams is and those who have no interest whatsoever in design. We’re going to assume that you’re one of the former, given that you clicked on this blog article link.

His entry in Great Thinkers summarises his approach to design, and it’s striking how useful this is as a primer for approaching strategy too. We’re shamelessly ripping off the book here, but as we have told you to buy it already the good people at The School of Life won’t mind. What can Dieter teach us?

1. The value of simplicity.

Rams’ approach was to reduce everything back to what matters most. When you look at his products, the lack of literal or metaphoric bells and whistles is striking. It creates elegance, but also ensures function. It’s only the bits of design you need for things to work. Strategy would be better if we learned from this principle. How many times have you been on the end of a strategy presentation and simply not understood exactly what is being proposed? Rather too often, probably. We need to think deeply and appreciate the complexity of the problems we are solving. But the solutions must be as simply expressed as possible. Keep worrying away at it. Keep shaving the complex bits off. Make it simpler. Simplicity is very very valuable.

2. The value of modesty.

Oh this is a great one. His designs tend to be anything but showy. They’re not shiny ‘look at me’ objects. Some seem almost invisible, but they work so well. You get what you need from them. There is almost the absence of ‘design’, to the point where you have to remind yourself that someone decided to make it that simple, that effective, that good at doing its job. Strategy should be modest too. Humble in the face of everything we don’t know and can’t predict. Aware that it is not the end, but the means to an end. Good strategy sits on the sidelines cheering the team on, not seeking to barge on to the pitch and get the applause.

3. Empathy with the customer.

Dieter Rams spent a lot of time thinking about people. About how they will use the things he would design. And how an instruction manual is, essentially, a total failure of design. If you have thought about the customer properly, then your designs will just fit into their hands and work the way they imagine they should work. This is true of strategy as well. We think a fair bit in strategy about the end customer (the people who will be using the products or services made by the brand you are advising), but hardly at all about the real customer. Because the real customer is the people who will use the strategy, not the people who use the product. Have you spent enough time thinking about what they need from your words? How they will operate them? Does your strategy need an instruction manual? Shame on you.

4. Being classic.

Rams’ designs are not of the moment. They’re not ‘cultural trends’. They are designed to last FOREVER. In a sense they are sitting outside of time and culture. They don’t need much updating or upgrading, because they work at a fundamental level and have a perennial appeal. We should all aspire to strategy that works like this. Forget about what’s hot right now. Cancel your trend watching subscriptions. Think more deeply than that. What won’t change? What will endure? Do strategy right and you might only need to do it once.

5. Art and product design.

The things Dieter Rams designed work functionally but are such pleasing objects (for their elegant simplicity) that they can enhance lives and homes aesthetically. Strategy is not like this. But we can aspire to beautiful expression if we take it seriously. It’s not packaging, or an advert, but your expression of your strategic thinking can still be well designed and attractively presented. And it should be. Take pride in it.

Go on, read the whole book, it’s full of wisdom like this. And when you next pull together some strategic thinking, have Dieter in mind and see if you can use his principles to make your thoughts even better.