Well, it happened: Most American companies finally “get” design.
The rate of acceleration by which they are try to integrate design thinking into their corporate DNA has taken me by surprise. Some have done it better than others, some only partially, but the relationship between corporate design and business management functions is completely different from what it was twenty years ago.
In the past designers could legitimately complain, “They don’t understand what I do.” Now designers and the cross-functional teams they work in are learning a common language.
I’ve personally made the transition from chronic scold to marveling at the meaningful conversations I can have with corporate clients about what design means to their companies. New design-school graduates are catapulting into a world where potential client-side employers know that they need them. This is as good as it gets.
I am not talking about the usual suspects like Nike, Apple, or Target. Or Martha Stewart, Herman Miller, BMW, OXO, or Ikea. I mean JetBlue, eBay, FedEx, H&M, Palm, Progressive, Mini, and hundreds of others that deliver innovative products and services people want to buy or use because they like them, and because they often look good.
The companies I’ve been excited by lately demonstrate their passion for bringing design thinking inside in the job position descriptions they write. Here’s part of a job description from a $13.5 billion insurance company looking for an “experience creative director”:
“Dream beyond limitations and swim against the current. Strike a balance between richly interactive or static content and transaction-driven experiences. Partner with Experience General Manager to ensure brand consistency across multiple touch points including online and offline channels. Turn an idea or brand promise into something genuine, engaging, and actionable. Support consistent and cohesive messages across all touch points from single experiential events to multitouch experiences across print, Web, wireless, and other media. Possess strategic knowledge of brand architecture, information design, and creative process. Have strong presentation, interpersonal, and hands-on skills. Navigate matrix organization; influence executives from multiple business groups; balance creative vision with business realities. Apply design leadership and strategic thought to interface design, look and feel, interaction, information design, and usability. Bring advanced knowledge of latest Internet and rich-media technologies. Develop research to inform leading-edge future progress. Provide day-to-day management, development, and leadership to direct reports.”
Companies are investing in design-thinking leaders who skillfully engage with multiple project stakeholders throughout the development and design process. As a concept moves from research to reality, they continually show, clarify, and substantiate how they reach their design recommendations. This enables chronically risk-adverse colleagues to make confident decisions that keep the corporate funnel full of innovation and continuous improvement, which in turn lead to pleasing customers and making profits.
Today’s evolution to integrated relationships between management and design functions replaces the old “management as design patron” model. Patronage is precarious and precludes collaboration and understanding of each stakeholder’s values, capabilities, and goals. Don Peterson, chairman/CEO of Ford from 1985 to 1990, told me that when he first saw it, he hated the design of the aerodynamic Taurus. So Jack Telnack, vice president of design, made a sketch of the car’s silhouette on a small piece of paper. He folded it up and said, “Put this in your pocket and look at it every day until you like it.”
And if he hadn’t? Taurus enabled Ford to exceed GM’s earnings for the first time since 1926.
RitaSue Siegel is president of New York-based design recruitment agency RitaSue Siegel Resources.
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