This post is by Christian Bason, PhD, CEO at Danish Design Center, and Jens Martin Skibsted, Global Partner at Manyone.

  • The problem: Global problems are expanding in speed, scale, turbulence and complexity
  • Why it matters: Public institutions are under immense pressure to respond with new solutions, but their approaches to design and innovation are insufficient
  • The solution: Six ways of thinking that expand your perspective and allow for truly novel and impactful solutions to emerge

New College at the University of Oxford was built in 1379. Particularly famous is the school's beautiful dining room. The vaulted ceiling of giant oak beams evokes thoughts of scenes from Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films.

However, in the middle of the 20th century, a problem arose at New College. A routine inspection showed that the oak planks were infested with beetles. They had to be replaced - soon.

The college fellows were bewildered. Where should one get that amount of oak? And even worse: even if obtained, how would they pay for it?

Then a board member suggested that they could use some of the old oak trees that grew in a grove on the school grounds. The college forester responded promptly:

"Well, sirs, we was wonderin’ when you’d be askin’."

Indeed, back in the 15th century, New College's board had been so foresighted as to plant the oak trees if, in the future, there would be a need to replace the beams in the dining room ceiling. And there was - more than 500 years later.

We must expand our thinking to the long and ultra-long term - from 10 to 40 or even 300 years.

The story illustrates the value of extremely long-term planning. It’s an example of the kind of thinking we need today if we are to address the world's most complex and turbulent problems.

Six new ways of thinking

In EXPAND: Stretching the Future by Design, published this May, we point out six ways to expand our thinking and design the innovative solutions of the future.

1. TIME

We must expand our thinking to the long and ultra-long term - from 10 to 40 or even 300 years. Since 2015, we have used the UN World Goals for 2030 as a reference, and that time has soon passed. We now need even longer and more ambitious goals.

**2. PROXIMITY **

One of the biggest challenges of our time is the lack of ethical action: action that is taken not because we have to – but because we should. Specifically, we need new approaches that expand our empathy. Take the Red Cross experience centre in Østerbro, where you follow in the footsteps of a refugee through a virtual reality experience. Instead of just a few decision-makers being flown to a refugee camp to experience it in real life, thousands of people - from young activists to business leaders - can get a close, personal and hands-on experience of what it means to be a refugee. Closeness motivates action: more fundraising, more investment, more volunteering, and better decisions that benefit people.

3. LIFE

We are now in a place in technological development where we have to question what is alive and what is not. We can extend life through medicine, physical intervention, and avatars - digital versions of ourselves that live on when our bodies are dead. In some societies, nature, such as rivers, has been ascribed rights. Eventually, we’ll have to ask ourselves, what right do we have to cut down a tree? By beginning to take care of everything living, we ensure the planet’s biodiversity and thus the survival of our species.

4. VALUE

We must expand what is considered valuable from financially measurable parameters to environmental and social sustainability. At the same time, we must change society's value-creating model from linear to circular, where we keep resources in a continuous flow and regenerate the environment. For instance, the Danish Design Centre is currently pioneering a 2030 mission towards a circular society in order to mobilise a wide and diverse ecosystem of the actors needed.

5. DIMENSIONS

Silicon Valley tech giants have given us the notion that intelligent machines will take over everything one day - that's what American technology guru Ray Kurzweil calls ‘the singularity’. But that future is neither necessary nor desirable. The most attractive future is one where we humans simultaneously retain our freedom. We must create new alliances with artificial intelligence, including to perform creative tasks within design and architecture - something the Danish architectural firm 3XN already does. With wise use of artificial intelligence, we can increase our freedom, not decrease it.

6. SECTORS

Finally, the time has come to rethink how we understand sectors. More innovation than most people think is driven and funded by the public sector. Think of the internet, GPS, and even Teflon - the latter was one of the countless by-products of the American mission to the Moon. Conversely, the private sector is now gaining ground in traditional public areas such as aerospace. The future belongs to the actors who expand their thinking, work synergistically between sectors, and create new mission-oriented hybrid organisations and platforms. 

An example is the EU Commission's ambitious New European Bauhaus project, which invests in bringing art, architecture, and design to the forefront of Europe's green transformation. The Danish subproject works across research, the public, the private, and civil society with philanthropic foundations.

Leaders who want to expand their thinking and shape tomorrow's solutions can bring these six ways of thinking into play right away. Either to challenge the way you understand problems or as a "creative challenge" to drive idea and concept development. Or as a way to test new ideas.

And what about the story from Oxford's New College? It turns out that the oak trees on the school grounds were probably not planted to replace the school's roof structure. The school first took over the land ownership of the trees in the year 1441. However, this does not change the fact that the oak trees were planted for use far into the future, making it possible to renovate the school's roof. History shows us that what can create a sustainable society is the same thing that has brought humanity to where we are today: our imagination.

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(Image Credit: Unsplash)