Reflection on Design Thinking for Business Innovation  University of Virginia Darden School of Business    Challenge    Every teenager that has attended high school probably knows that there are students that  have difficulties making friends, and end up eating lunch alone. Eating lunch alone due to a  lack of friends can have serious effects on a person’s well-being, and eventually on mental  health. According to an article by Kira Asatryan that has appeared in Psychology Today,  loneliness can cause mental health disorders such as depression and addiction.     Such situations do not only occur in high schools, but can be observed at universities across  the globe as well. While attending a U.S. college for a semester during my undergraduate  degree, I started to realize that there are several students eating lunch alone, not because  they choose to, but because they lack social connections on campus. This was a situation I  wanted to change. To do so, I wanted to permanently reserve a table in the college’s dining  hall, where I would place small cards with topics that foster conversation among the people  sitting there. By decorating the table in a special way (e.g. by using a yellow tablecloth), and  establishing a poster explaining the cause and the idea, the table should become well known  across the whole campus, foster sharing a table with unfamiliar people, and ultimately  facilitate making new friends.     My plans called for the support of the college’s administration since a table would need to be  assigned to the cause permanently. However, the challenge I faced was the transmission of  the underlying problem to people that probably never thought of it and/or never experienced  the problem of loneliness in the dining hall themselves.    Selection    To get the permanent table in the dining hall, and to get the support of the college’s  administration, I managed to get an audience at the president’s office. While preparing my  pitch, I became to realize that maybe not everybody was aware of the problem of having to  eat meals alone, and the mental health disorders that could be caused by it. To minimize the  chances of somebody in the room not understanding the underlying problem, I decided to  use the storytelling tool.     Storytelling refers to a methodology used to connect people to a message, ignites, and  unites people. A story should have a logic, an emotional connection, and a larger purpose.  The main purpose of storytelling is to inspire people, and help deliver data, hard facts, and  recommendations in an extraordinary way. By telling a story, the audience should be  convinced that the problem is bigger than any challenge out there, and make them want to  invest in solving the problem.    Application    I rewrote my pitch and created a story that would emotionally affect people. By doing so, I  hoped to facilitate getting the necessary support of the college’s president and other key  persons. I started by creating a fictional character based on the students I talked to that  usually eat lunch alone. To support my pitch, I took several pictures of the dining hall and  students sitting alone at tables (with their permission of course). The pitch I wrote was based  on Muhammad, a freshman that has experienced loneliness also during high school, and now has  some difficulties making friends at college. Due to the circumstances, Muhammad eats lunch alone,  listening to music most of the time. However, he is not happy with the current situation, but  struggles to just sit with people he doesn’t know. One day, Muhammad enters the dining hall again,

expecting to eat lunch alone again. However, this time, he discovers a special table with a  yellow tablecloth in the middle of the dining hall, with several people sitting there and having  a decent conversation about a topic that is written on one of the cards on the table. The  poster next to the table states that everybody is welcome to join the group. Muhammad decides to  try it out and sit at the table. During lunch, he gets to know the other people, and just before  he leaves the table, he gets invited to play some soccer after class. Ultimately, Muhammad has  finally been able to make friends, and now enjoys eating his meals at the special table to  ensure everybody has the possibility to experience the same positive effects that he has.    The story convinced the college’s administration, and I got the permission to establish the  table in the dining hall. Moreover, the president offered to mention the table in her weekly  email to all students. The people in the room praised the pitch, which is why I believe the  storytelling approach was effective.    Insight    The storytelling tool is an effective methodology to transmit a message to an audience that  may not be familiar with the underlying problem. I believe that this methodology is especially  useful for pitching ventures to potential investors, decision makers, and influencers.  However, the tool can also be used for any kind of presentation since it provides a useful  structure, facilitates transmitting messages, and fosters understanding among the audience.  However, it is important to know the audience beforehand in order to create a story that  resonates with the majority, or ideally with everybody. Storytelling helps connecting to the  emotions and past experiences of people, no matter if they are front-line workers or the top  management of companies or institutions.     More broadly, I believe that design thinking is an essential skill every entrepreneur should  have. This is not limited to storytelling but the whole design thinking framework. Design  thinking helps structuring an approach in an uncertain environment, and be comfortable with  it. Also, design thinking does not dictate what kind of tools need to be used but offers a  variety of different approaches a person can choose from. My experience with storytelling  and design thinking has been very positive so far, and I plan on using the different tools on a  regular basis in the future.    Approach    The situation called for an emotional connection to the audience, in this particular case the  college’s administration. Therefore, I am sure that the storytelling approach was the right  design tool to use. Storytelling helped me to appeal to the emotions of the audience, and  explain a problem in a simple and compelling way. The emotional connection was crucial to  get the support of the college’s administration, as this idea does not yet offer a direct return  on investment. However, the special table positively influences the college experience for  many students. If I ever face a similar situation, I would choose the storytelling tool again.    Visualization is an alternative approach I could have used. Pictures and illustrations help an  audience understand the pitch better since it combines verbal explanations and visual  impressions. However, I believe storytelling and visualization can be combined, which is  what I essentially did since I used pictures of people eating alone.

