LEADING ORGANISATIONS
“The business is the materials within which we design. If we don’t take the effort to understand the materials, how could we possibly expect to change the fabric of that material - how could we possibly expect to design better solutions for it?”
Effective design leadership in relation to the organisation requires good business acumen, deep understanding, and communication between different organisational functions (Jerrard and Hands, 2007). Design leaders transform organisations by understanding its commercial drivers and leveraging user-centric practices and tools across broad stakeholder groups to help achieve business goals (McKinsey & Company 2020). In this quadrant, the value that design provides is in the ability to synthesise diverse range of experience and perspectives, framing problems to solve for, and aligning stakeholders to innovative solutions through creative processes (Wakelam, 2020). Senior design leaders in more mature design practices have greater reach and influence across the organisation, from direct stakeholders, through to indirect stakeholders and to the wider organisation.
Level 1: DIRECT (Micro)
A leaders capability to influence the wider organisation starts with their ability to understand and engage effectively with their most direct audience. This includes representing and evangelising design to their direct peers and stakeholders surrounding them, and connecting the outcomes of design with the commercial outcomes sought out by the direct stakeholder group.
Level 2: Indirect (Meso)
The influence and impact of a design leader grows across organisations as they begin to build design awareness in networks in areas that traditionally do not engage directly design functions. At this level, the value derived from design is less from design-as-a-function and more from design-as-a-skillset. Design leaders influence more broadly by recognising wider organisational problems and identifying the skills and tools of design that could be useful for indirect stakeholders to solve for these problems. Effective leadership also looks to activate the right people through education and training to enable design at this scale.
Level 3: ORGANISATION WIDE (Macro)
At its highest level, design leaders use design thinking to influence business strategy and decision making of the organisation as a whole through design-centred tools, and by envisioning and visualising a future for others across the whole organisation to align to and rally behind. Design leaders at this level create value through a unique ability to identify and understand systemic connections and problems horizontally across the organisation, and by using design to surface dark matter and identify new opportunities (Wakelam 2020).
“(The value of) Design at the organisational level is in its ability to process diverse perspectives and arrive at unexpected outcomes.”