3 Key Factors of Design Organizations

Successful design organizations run on leadership, creativity and team collaboration. During my career working for design boutiques, global agencies and in-house design teams I have discovered how a strong vision mixing a great humanity of work hard/live life balance builds confidence and performance in creative teams.

A question of how?‍

I’m often asked questions related to these sorts of question around this topic. My answers ranges from a cryptic one-liner to a recital of Beowolf depending on whether I’m reoccupied with preparing for a meeting or having a cocktail. I like to think it’s because of my years of training and intimate collaboration with all sorts of creative teams. But in looking deeper, I see there is indeed a deeper process at play with not only how I worked design teams but how many of the best in the design business have managed, inspired and empowered their teams.

The design organization‍

If you are in business then you are in the design business. If you are in the design business then you employ at least the function of design in a strategic sense if not the full stack of design thinking, design, and design production. The process of design is a journey where teams learn objectives, ask questions, learn, ask more questions, offer solutions all for a business purpose. Design leadership’s goal is empower creative organizations (meaning everyone) to do their best, most innovative work within the scope of the business. Companies today are infusing design into their core values full embraced as a key competitive advantage. The communication of creativity and design processes are more important than ever.

The three factors‍

Thomas Walton, Ph.D., helped frame the discussion when asking three important questions and helping uncover the answers in depth. Design organizations ask: Leadership, Creativity, and Collaboration.

Leadership‍

What are the best ideas and structures for design? Communicating to the teams and organization a shared vision that inspires confidence, design thinking, and action-based initiative. The human side of this also inspires loyalty and belonging to a mission driven purpost of greatness. Beyond the vision, leadership must also help teams focus on the practical tactics that encourages cross functional teams to embrace ideation, design and creativity across disciplines, often helping become the bridge to shared understanding. Leadership of Design also understands the balance between work and life and how respect of for the totality of your team’s lives away from the office builds trust. Another factor in trust is encouraging teams to approach design in ways that expand conventional wisdom and creative problem solving. It is this calculated risk-taking that leadership can actively nurture that the performance of people and teams are boosted.

Creativity‍

What are the institutional behaviors that empower and cultivate ideation and design thinking? Everyone has either already or has (recently) understood the power of creativity within their business, teams, and employees. Businesses as profitable as Apple have made design and creativity the de-facto standard for the modern organization. Innovation experts today tell Fortune 1000 companies that developing creative employees is the key to developing innovative organizations. Environments that understand that reliance on logical/structured thinking stiffles design. On the other side, organizations that encourage teams and people to engage in exploration and imagination can open up divergent thinking. When this sort of mental leap occurs within leadership, the culture begins to embody it. A flattening and democratization of ideas and the growing of your team’s creativity through problem solving design thinking that is rewarded at the corporate level creates a culture of exceptional talent and a mecca to attract more talent.

Collaboration‍

What are the best ways team can embrace design and work effectively through the actual doing their work? This question is at the center of all that makes companies great places to work or makes them hell hole sweatshops to be avoided at all cost. Yet the process of getting work completed is a core task of management. Further complicating things are the management task of integrating many personalities working at different functions. Organizations have to balance teams/departments, focus/diversity, schedules/best options and more. Team building focuses not on the effort to design solutions to the product/project but on developing guidance and collaborative principles of how teams work together, ideate innovative design solutions for business and measuring the success and not-so-success of generated ideas.

Conclusion‍

Organizations who champion creativity by aligning values with inspirational creative vision connects the hearts and passions of their entire company. Design within these organization are typically seen as strategic to the overall success of the company.

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