LG Uplus sends staff to Stanford to embed Silicon Valley work culture

LG Uplus is working to embed a Silicon Valley-style work culture across its organization, using an education program at Stanford University to help employees adopt new ways of working.

The company announced Tuesday that it has been running OutSight D.T, a design thinking education program for employees, since May.

OutSight D.T sends employees to Silicon Valley to take part in a Stanford University design thinking boot camp and on-site training. The first cohort of 21 participants visited Silicon Valley in May, followed by a second group of 12 who experienced Silicon Valley-style working methods in late June.

Design thinking, a methodology developed around Stanford University's d.school, centers on defining problems and generating solutions through a deep understanding of and empathy for customers. Global companies use it widely in developing products and services.

At Stanford's d.school, students and professionals from diverse fields work together to tackle real-world problems. The curriculum moves away from lecture-based instruction in favor of hands-on learning — field observation, interviews, and repeated cycles of idea prototyping and testing.

LG Uplus joined the program to establish within the company a way of working that prioritizes deeper customer understanding and rapid testing of ideas during the product and service planning process.

The company said the program carries particular significance because it goes beyond simple training — participants are encouraged to view their work from the customer's perspective and independently explore approaches they have not tried before. They also gain direct exposure to how professionals at global big-tech firms approach their work and solve problems.

Participants shared their impressions after the program. "Global big-tech companies spend more time finding where customers feel frustrated than building features," one said. Another said: "The quality of an idea was not proportional to the time invested. What mattered was speed of execution."

LG Uplus has also been taking steps to spread the effects of the design thinking education more broadly across the organization.

At a first-cohort results-sharing session held at LG Uplus's Yongsan headquarters in June, participants presented the projects they had completed and their plans for applying what they learned on the job, sharing new problem-solving approaches and collaboration cases with colleagues.

LG Uplus is also considering making the OutSight D.T program a regular fixture and expanding strategic cooperation with Stanford University to further strengthen employees' ability to understand customers and solve problems.

"OutSight D.T is an innovation program designed to help employees apply to their actual work a mindset of deeply understanding customers and redefining problems in new ways," said Yang Hyo-seok, chief human resources officer at LG Uplus. "We will support participants in applying the experiences they gained at Stanford and in Silicon Valley to raise customer value."