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09/07/2025

DBA Members’ Forum | July Summary

By Design Business Association

At July’s DBA Members’ Forum we were joined by Rama Gheerawo and Clive Grinyer for the top line on their latest books. Here’s a brief summary of what was discussed in the meeting, prepared under Chatham House Rule – we covered much more detail in the hour, but we’ll leave you to read the books.  

  • At a time when creativity is under threat and facing cutbacks, Rama calls for creative leaders to use their inherent skills of empathy, clarity and creativity to design new models of leadership.
  • Driven by a desire to make business more inclusive and to provide leaders with the ability to apply their creativity to how they lead, Rama’s book is aimed at creatives and business leaders. It’s packed full of tools to make leadership more inclusive, impactful and human-centred. 
  • It’s important to recognise your strengths but also pay attention to where you may favour one approach over another – great leadership requires balance. If you naturally lead with more empathy, where can you bring in more clarity or creativity? 
  • Buy Rama’s book -> Creative Leadership: How to Design the 21st-century Organisation. 
  • Clive was inspired by teaching non designers about service design which led him to translate how designers think and approach challenges for a wider audience. 
  • His book reframes service design for everyone, showing how putting customers front and centre and prioritising desirability first helps businesses solve the right problems, not just one part of an experience.
  • When all touchpoints align around the customer, you create the conditions for lasting, customer-led transformation.
  • Buy Clive’s book Redesigning Thinking: How Service Design is Solving our 21st Century Challenges with the discount code DGBREDESIGNTHINK30.

And if AI is your thing, I’m reading How to think about AI (A guide for the Perplexed) – by Richard Susskind – thoroughly recommend it!

Coming up

Our next DBA Members’ Forum is on Tuesday 5 August (Monday is a Bank Holiday in Scotland) at 4pm BST. Further details available soon.