Artists are known for harnessing imagination, challenging conventional norms, and constantly experimenting and refining until a masterpiece emerges.
It’s a process that 185 students from nine universities across Ontario engaged in at Innovation North’s recent event, The Studio, as they visualized ways to address the retail industry’s billion-dollar product return problem. Ivey’s Grand Hall became an art gallery of sorts where student teams displayed their ideas on poster boards, each board sporting a QR code so observers could learn more and provide feedback.
It was all part of the Nurture stage of the 2024 Systems Innovation Challenge where the students were introduced through weekly virtual workshops to the complex, systems-level problem of product returns and discussed ways to address it. The Nurture stage culminated with an in-person studio session to showcase ideas where Ivey faculty members, mentors, and other students participating in the Challenge provided feedback so the student teams could refine their ideas before submitting a video deliverable.
“It’s called The Studio because it mimics the idea of how people in a studio learn from each other and work on their craft. It’s very different from a classroom where there is a sage on stage and the students are the people who are just taking notes,” said Mazi Raz, MBA ’05, PhD ’14, an assistant professor of strategy at Ivey who is leading the Challenge along with Innovation North Founder Tima Bansal. “This is very much working on a craft and it has this mimicry of a sculpting studio.”
Product returns are wasteful for companies and the planet
While the ability to return products is not new, Raz said the growth of product returns is a recent phenomenon that is creating huge financial challenges for companies as well as deep environmental problems. Recent media reports indicate hundreds of millions of returned items end up in landfill each year and some Canadian retailers have return rates as high as 20-30 per cent of items sold. Students participating in the Challenge were asked to analyze the factors behind the growth of product returns, the impact of product returns on society, and potential ways to lessen that impact.
The goal of the Systems Innovation Challenge is to develop the capacity of future leaders to see complex problems, such as product returns, through a systems lens – beyond just the organizational level to industry, society, and even the biosphere. Raz, who teaches Ivey’s MSc Systems Thinking course, recruited two students at the time – Abdul-Aziz Sardar and Handreen Hussein, both MSc ’22 – to work with Innovation North in creating a cross-discipline systems thinking challenge. Participants in the recent Studio portion of the Challenge ranged from undergraduate to PhD students and even included a student in medical school.
The power of collaboration in action
Sardar, who was a mentor at the event, said he was impressed by the dynamic interaction between mentors and participants.
“The Studio served as an opportunity for participants to cross-pollinate ideas. To understand spaces they may have left unexplored, to be inspired by the creativity of others, and to seek collaborative opportunities to combine, enhance, or iterate on ideas and understandings of systems. Systems thinking seeks to address problems that require collaboration, not competition, and this studio was a humble attempt to manifest this ideal future,” he said. “The session was a testament to the creative and analytical prowess that students across disciplines possess, and it underscored the importance of nurturing these skills early in their careers.”
Creating a new way of thinking
Although the Systems Innovation Challenge has a competition component, Raz said it’s different from traditional case competitions where ideas are unveiled as the grand finale. Instead, The Studio put the students’ initial thoughts on display for feedback so that preconceived notions could be challenged and additional angles could be explored.
“The key learning with this is that for the challenge to be tackled, multiple minds need to come together … Systems thinking gets you to formulate the issue in a much slower, but enriched thinking perspective so you don’t rush into things,” he said. “The metaphor I use is if general management education is about giving keys to people that will unlock problems, systems thinking is about teaching them the art of locksmithing so you devise your own keys.”
Mitansh Pala, a Western University Computer Sciences student and Challenge participant, said he learned to tackle challenges through a holistic strategy with four components: embracing ambiguity, zooming in and out, multi-stakeholder empathy, and elevating societal benefits over business problems.
For Ashwin Vignesh Rajagopal, an MBA student from York University, The Studio experience highlighted the importance of collaboration.
“This experience reinforced my belief that, as individuals, we may have access to all information, but we cannot effectively start to tackle complex problems unless we unite as one,” he said. “As a current MBA student, I believe the future of classrooms could follow the model of Innovation North, prioritizing issues that matter. Students from diverse backgrounds and perspectives come together to look at the same problem, collaborating on ways to make the system slightly better.”
Navigating the problem with real-world leaders
Next up in the Challenge is the Navigate stage where select teams will present their ideas to leaders at Walmart Canada at the company’s headquarters in Mississauga for a chance at up to $15,000 in cash prizes. Prizes will be awarded in three categories: most effective, most feasible, and most scalable.
Given the high level of interest in this year’s event, Raz said there will be another Systems Innovation Challenge next year, most likely Canada-wide.
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