Kristen Snyder, Pernilla Ingelsson, Ingela Bäckström
4 min
Many manufacturing organizations struggle to implement Lean principles because they focus heavily on technical processes while neglecting the underlying organizational culture and core values. This study explores how design thinking—an iterative, human-centered problem-solving approach—can help leaders in Swedish manufacturing companies identify and cultivate the values necessary for sustainable quality development. The researchers sought to understand the constraints that prevent leaders from engaging with culture and to test whether design thinking tools could help bridge the gap between leadership 'dreams' and daily 'realities.'
Over a three-year period, the authors conducted a multi-site case study across three Swedish manufacturing firms. They utilized the Stanford Design Thinking framework, guiding participants through phases of empathizing, defining, ideating, and prototyping. Data collection was extensive and participatory, involving leadership surveys, interviews with general directors, focus groups with middle managers, and cultural analysis protocols. By using methods like appreciative inquiry (AI) and storytelling, the researchers encouraged leaders to move beyond surface-level production metrics and reflect on the behaviors, norms, and values that shape their work environment.
The study identified a pervasive 'crisis leadership' model in manufacturing, where leaders are so focused on productivity and immediate problem-solving that they lack the time or tools to act as visionaries. Leaders often struggled with a lack of clear identity and a disconnect between their stated values and their daily actions. However, applying design thinking allowed these leaders to make their organizational culture tangible. By using cultural analysis and storytelling, leaders were able to identify invisible behaviors—such as an over-reliance on email or a 'clock-watching' culture—and develop new, more collaborative routines. This process fostered increased dialogue, improved employee engagement, and helped leaders transition toward a more proactive, value-based approach.
This research demonstrates that leadership development in technical fields like manufacturing should not be limited to process optimization. By providing leaders with a structured way to analyze and discuss culture, organizations can foster a more resonant environment where employees feel valued and engaged. The study suggests that design thinking is a practical, effective tool for leaders to break out of reactive cycles and build the cultural foundation required for long-term, sustainable quality improvements.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a study of value-based leadership in which design thinking was used as a participatory, iterative process to examine and stimulate changes in organizational culture and develop value-based leadership in Swedish manufacturing. Of particular interest to the authors was to make visible and understand the constraints in leadership that kept leaders from understanding and working with organizational culture and values. Design/methodology/approach A three-year multi-site case study was conducted in collaboration with three manufacturing companies in Sweden. The study design was based on a collaborative, iterative model using the Stanford Design thinking framework in which data were collected through a series of workshops using a variety of sources including: leadership survey; interviews with three general directors; focus groups with middle- and top-level managers; observations and cultural analysis, survey; storytelling and appreciative inquiry (AI); and an employee questionnaire. Respondents in the study represented leadership teams in three Swedish manufacturing companies and their employees. Findings In general, there is a lack of dialogue among leaders about what is leadership, what is culture and what is meant by values in the organization. As well, there is a heavy emphasis on structure and process, yet, at the same time, there lacks a clear understanding about why the structures exist and how they can be used to spawn innovation. Moreover, participating leaders in manufacturing succumb to a crisis leadership model that results from the heavy emphasis on productivity and bottom-line effectiveness. Design thinking and the methods used to develop work culture, including AI, storytelling and coaching, provided leaders with new insights into the culture within the company. Leaders were able to identify both constraints and possibilities for changing the culture from disengagement to engagement. Through the process, they also began to identify values and recognized the importance of valuing employees to affect innovation and build a culture of engagement. The authors also witnessed increased dialogue among leaders that reflected an understanding of the importance to engage middle managers and employees in problem solving and innovation. Originality/value This study demonstrates that leaders can benefit from innovative approaches to identifying and building work culture to achieve value-based leadership.
Sam: [reflecting] That's the crux of it, isn't it — the move from reactive firefighting to proactive cultural design. Where would a careful referee push back? [[RP_SECTION:study-limitations-and-generalizability|Study limitations and generalizability]]
Alex: [sober, acknowledging] The sample is the obvious pressure point. Three companies, qualitative design, no control condition. The findings are mechanistically rich — you come away understanding *how* the intervention worked — but generalizability is genuinely constrained. You can't claim this scales universally to every manufacturing context from a case study of three sites.
Sam: [probing] And the success of the framework seems to depend heavily on leader buy-in — on their willingness to treat their own behavior as a variable.
Alex: [precise] That's exactly right, and it's a limitation the authors acknowledge. The intervention works when leaders are willing to enter the empathy phase genuinely — to sit with discomfort about their own practices. In organizations where that disposition isn't present, the framework likely stalls at the ideation stage without ever reaching testable prototypes.
Sam: [analytical] So the real contribution here isn't a plug-and-play solution. It's more of a proof of concept — demonstrating that the design thinking apparatus can be meaningfully redirected at leadership culture, not just product development. [[RP_SECTION:iterative-leadership-development|Iterative leadership development]]
Alex: [thoughtful, precise] That's a fair characterization. The study makes a credible case that treating leadership development as iterative design — with observable behaviors as the unit of analysis — produces more durable change than conventional management-by-objective training. The implicit cultural norms become explicit, and explicit norms can be tested and revised.
Sam: [concluding] Which suggests that if leadership training shifted from setting targets to designing interactions, you might see less of the disengagement that tends to undermine Lean initiatives over time.
Alex: [warm, professional] That's the implication worth sitting with. Applying the same iterative rigor to organizational health that we apply to product development is a meaningful reframe — even if this study is only the beginning of the empirical case for it. Thanks for listening to ResearchPod.