One of the most uncomfortable parts of the innovation process is the whole not-knowing bit. We humans love knowing, and it’s particularly distressing to endure the unresolved. Nowhere is the more painfully felt than in the synthesis phase of design work.

And yet “the magic of design” lies in this stage: imagining the human meaning beyond particularly surprising quotes and behaviors. One simple phrase we use at the d.school to assist folks in making these interpretive leaps is to take a specific, concrete, observation from customer research and say, “I wonder if this means…”

Nobody likes doing this, at least at first. The problem is, we all want to make empirically verifiable statements. We like to conclude. Deduce. Reason. Not wonder.

When’s the last time you said, “You know what I wonder…” in a board meeting? If your board is like the one’s we’ve seen, they leave very little room for wondering. Just the facts, please.

And yet what a difference permission to wonder makes! The disruptiveness of a new solution is largely the function of the boldness of the leap. The team that wonders most boldly often triggers their imaginations to run wild with possibilities.

I was talking to a very seasoned executive, a private equity investor with 30+ years experience, about the transformations that have taken place on one public company board since she attended our course at Stanford. She said, “The biggest difference is, I’ve started allowing myself to wonder. Even wonder aloud! I used to want to have all the answers, to try to win a point, etc. Now, I see the magic in wondering — it transforms the conversation, from proving to possibility.”

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