设计、创新、颠覆。这些流行词汇正在逐渐成为全球会议室乃至实战策略和决策的重点考量因素。然而，好的设计有多大的价值？如何衡量它所具有的价值？

换句话说，重点在于：设计是否能够为企业带来利润。

麦肯锡公司的企业创新副总裁本·施帕德说：“答案是肯定的。”同时，他也有相关研究为证。

在上周二于新加坡举行的《财富》头脑风暴设计大会上，施帕德介绍了其为期五年调查的结果，涉及多个行业的300家公司，涵盖医疗、银行和消费品等行业。调查发现，有25%的公司会将采取特别的决策，将设计和“设计性思维”融入其组织，它们的财务业绩要好于那些不采取此类措施的公司。

施帕德表示：“就设计效果而言，排名前四分之一机构的营收增速是其同行的两倍，其股东获得的回报也高出了70%。这些数据足以让任何首席执行官或首席财务官心动。”

然而，弗吉尼亚大学达顿商学院的珍妮·利塔卡教授指出，设计影响和效果的衡量涉及“一整套复杂事项”。“如果我们过于关注营收和利润，我们便会失去设计的一些超级力量。”珍妮的新书《为追求更美好的效果而设计》（Designing for the Greater Good）即将面世。

这种力量包括领导思考和行动方式的改变，涵盖接受“某些结果无法在较短时间内得到衡量的事实”，以及学会以开放的心态对待意料之外的事情。

这种开放的心态会带来回报。伟哥就是个例子，利塔卡说道。

这款产品并未实现其设计初衷：降低高血压。然而，其出乎意料的效果让伟哥成为了医药巨头辉瑞历史上最成功的产品之一。如果辉瑞高层未能以开放的心态对待这一出人意料的结果，那么伟哥所取得的商业成功也就无从说起。

利塔卡指出，需要转变思维的不仅仅是企业领导。“我们有必要实现创新的民主化。”她说道，也就是让设计性思维渗透至机构的各个层面。

然而，企业软件公司Salesforce的高级副总裁杰森·怀尔德表示，这一举措应始于顶层。他说：“领导与首席执行官们逐渐意识到，他们无法左右未来，而是必须在这一过程中发挥领导作用。”他还指出，设计师们还应该想决策者之所想，这样才能够赢得高管的信任。

怀尔德说，有远见的高管会采用设计与设计性思维模式，在他们的领导下，这些公司在未来发展壮大的概率比那些无此打算的公司更高。很多公司就像是一条鲸鱼：鲸鱼死去之后往往需要数年的时间沉入海底。到那时，其他的海洋生物便会将其尸体蚕食一空。

怀尔德指出，那些未能采纳设计性思维的公司“并未意识到他们已经死亡或是行将就木，而且正在被对手蚕食。”（财富中文网）

译者：冯丰

审校：夏林

Design. Innovation. Disruption. Those buzzwords are driving strategies and decisions from boardrooms to bullpens across the globe. And yet: What is good design worth, and how can that value be measured?

The bottom line, in other words, is: Can design deliver for business’ bottom line?

“The answer is yes,” said Ben Sheppard, vice president of enterprise innovation at McKinsey & Co., and he has the research to prove it.

At Fortune’s Brainstorm Design conference in Singapore on last Tuesday, Sheppard presented the results of a five-year study of 300 companies across a range of industries including healthcare, banking, and consumer goods. The research found that the 25% of companies that took particular types of decisions to incorporate design and “design thinking” into their organizations had better financial returns than those that did not.

“Organizations in the top quarter of design performance are growing their revenues at twice the rate of their peers, and their shareholder returns were growing 70% faster,’’ Sheppard said. “Those are numbers that would make any CEO or CFO pay attention.”

Measuring the effects and results of design, however, involves “a complex set of issues,” cautioned Prof. Jeanne Liedtka of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, and author of the forthcoming book Designing for the Greater Good.“If we focus too much on revenues and profits, we lose some of the superpower of design.”

That power includes changes in the way leaders think and act—including accepting that some results can’t be measured in a relatively short period of time, and developing an openness to the unexpected.

That openness can bring rewards. Consider Viagra, Liedtka said.

The product failed at what it was designed for: reducing high blood pressure. Its unintended results, however, provided pharmaceutical giant Pfizer with one of the most successful products in its history. Pfizer’s commercial success with Viagra would not have been possible had its executives not been open to unintended results.

It’s not just corporate leaders that need to adjust how they think, Liedtka said. “We need to democratize innovation,’’ she said, by allowing design thinking to permeate an organization at all levels.

Still, it starts at the top, said Jason Wild, a senior vice president at business software company Salesforce. “Leaders and CEOs are realizing that you can’t delegate the future,” he said. “You have to lead the process.” But it is also important that designers be able to speak the language of the boardroom so they can win over executives, he added.

Visionary executives who incorporate design and design thinking are leading companies that stand a better chance of thriving in the future than those who don’t, Wild said. Many companies are like whales: When a whale dies, it takes years for it to sink to the bottom of the sea. Until it does, other sea creatures feed off its remains.

Companies that fail to adopt design thinking, Wild said, “don’t realize they are dead and dying and are being consumed.”