Transforming organisations through the alchemy of design and love, with Clive Grinyer

Clive Grinyer delivers interactive, engaging, life-changing service design courses for an extensive breadth of business and public sector organisations.

Their executive education courses allow organisations to refresh, replenish and retain their people and extend their capabilities to create effective solutions to answer the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

Clive has been described as a passionate advocate for the transformational potential of design for over three decades, with today’s focus on the value of digital product design and on design’s value in leading customer experience in the UK being attributed largely due to his innovative work.

He is also a director of Project Love, a research project into how design can foster love, and co-founder of the not for profit Designing for Love. His book titled ‘Redesigning Thinking’ will be published in Spring 2025.

I really enjoyed our inspiring and energising conversation.

Overview:

In our conversation, Clive

• Explains being a designer working in multiple disciplines of design but now primarily considers himself a service designer.
• Tells us about ‘Project Love’, the result of an exciting brief from the Fetzer Institute, that has a 500-year mission to do good.
• Describes working with Mark Vernon, a philosopher, writer and psychotherapist interested in the meaning of love across different cultures.
• Delves into different forms of love, like neighbourhoods and communities.
• Highlights the importance of spirituality.
• Enthuses about the charity he founded, 'Design For Love', raising money to fund design projects like ‘story benches’.
• Expands on the meaning of ‘service design’ and how he discovered it.
• Talks about the concept of ‘process mapping’ and how invaluable trying out a customer’s journey can be.
• Opens up about how the energy that Project Love has can be applied to branding.
• Reflects on what he would have done differently with the benefit of hindsight.
• Shares his learnings.