What Most Innovation Books Won’t Say Out Loud
Why I wrote Innovation Unrated, and the uncomfortable questions the book asks of teams that claim to practice human-centered innovation.
I’ve walked into too many rooms where innovation looked good on the wall. The teams quoting empathy like it’s a plugin, the stakeholders chasing workshops instead of truth, and products being “user centered” without ever talking to a single user.
I didn’t write this book to get published.
I wrote it because they said that Design Thinking was broken. It’s not. They just need to do it right.
Too many teams are moving fast with no clarity. Too many boardrooms are quoting empathy while clearly bleeding users left and right. Too many designers are performing innovation rituals without tension, without friction, and without truth.
This book is for the ones who stay in the room when things get uncomfortable. The ones who know when the post-its stop working. The ones who lead when no one else knows what to do next.
It’s called Innovation Unrated: On Design Thinking.
I’ll let you in on a secret: this book won’t teach you how to “do Design Thinking.” It challenges you to think clearly, connect with people, and lead with confidence, even when the truth disrupts the narrative.
It’s the kind of book that asks:
Where is the problem?
Who actually talked to a user?
And what happens when the pitch fails, the CEO is watching, and your strategy still has to hold?
Instead of templates and frameworks, you’ll find real stories from the edge: banks, telcos, healthcare centers, hospitality chains, and startups. The moments where clarity had to be earned, not theorized.
The real work doesn’t happen in the sprint. It happens in the silence between meetings.
Design Thinking isn’t a checklist. It’s a posture.
And if the user’s voice never made it into the room, you didn’t do discovery. You ran a theater show.
This is a book about getting it right when the stakes are high and the timeline is broken.
You want to sharpen your design thinking?
You want to build things that hold up under pressure?
Then this is the one.
Innovation Unrated: On Design Thinking is available now.
Read it if you lead.
Buy it if you’ve ever been the one who had to, or should, carry clarity when innovation gets numb and ideation gets dull.
Ricardo Toledo
Design + Strategy + Innovation
Author of Innovation Unrated: On Design Thinking.