So let’s talk about design leadership. The theme of last week’s DMI conference in Amsterdam, Design Leadership proved to provide fertile ground for discussion. We discussed the scope of design, the potential power of design thinking, designers’ responsibilities, and the attributes of leadership. Here is a very subjective summary of what was said during the conference. In a later post I will add my own thoughts.

Stefano Marzano of Philips Design stated that design and leadership both share the quality of giving direction, of reaching for something, and of raising the quality of life. On top of this, design has the unique quality to materialize an abstract vision in an executable manner. This quality is highly valuable in leadership. Marzano also pointed out that holistic design is a renaissance-like approach to the profession, meaning multidisciplinary, cross cultural, across borders, and multi-skilled, based on the qualities of truth, honesty, curiosity and goodness. I must say I was impressed here, since this touches upon my own view of design at its best. Needless to say this is also where design comes closest to Marzano’s view of leadership. So essentially Marzano drew parallels between leaders and designers (implying that designers can be good leaders/design can be used to lead) , but at the end of his speech he also stated that strategy needs design to articulate it and to bring it to life (implying that without design, there can be no leadership). Then he went a bit too Philipsy on us, concluding that design is really an act of love….

Raymond Turner of the eponymous firm in London had a very clear speech on the differences between design leadership and design management. Since design leadership seems very much the flavor of the week, this was a welcome clarification. Where design managers manage designers, design budgets, design timetables, design processes and design infrastructure, design leaders have a role in envisioning, manifesting strategy, design investment, corporate reputation, shaping experiences, creating an innovative environment, training new leaders, and creating design awareness.
In Turners view, design leadership is involved with the strategic intent: where to go. Design management’s concern is how to get there. Turner also stressed that the realm of design leadership is not limited to designers. As such, it is not so much about leading the design discipline, but much more about leading the organization through design thinking.

Philippe Picaud, the design director of Decathlon, the French sports retailer, did a good job of promoting Brand Driven Innovation in his session: he stated that most sport companies invest heavily in brand communication, while Decathlon owed its success largely on focusing budgets exclusively on product innovation and design. Decathlon leads by design simply by using design as a key differentiator for their brands. What I loved: Decathlon’s design departments are always linked to stores, to keep the designers in tune with consumers. If you’re in France check out some of Decathlon’s cool private label brands, like Quecha and Tribord.

Fennemiek Gommer of Spanners also seems to be a kindred spirit: she distinguished an outside in approach to design (working with market and competitor analysis etc, the traditional Anglo-Saxon model) and an inside out approach (working with a portfolio of core competences, and driving innovation from brand identity and consumer insight, the German/Italian model). The inside out approach is more pro-active and innovation focused.

Christoph Böninger of Designaffairs talked about horizontal workflow design: If you picture the different factions in the organization as vertical arrows (marketing, finance, operations, sales etc.) design leaders meander horizontally through these factions, playing the role of enabler, connector, integrator, translator, and motivator. Traditional strategic consultants are quickly picking up on this type of thinking; it is by no means owned by the design community. So if designers want to play a role as design leaders, they will have to ‘compete’ with these strategy savvy consultants. Strategists are learning to think like designers, designers should learn to think like strategists.

Tim Selders of Park and Paal Smith Meyer of Lego had a very fresh approach to the whole design leadership issue: they did a round of Myth Busting to separate the wheat from the chaff. Their conclusion was that true design leadership is not only about leading design into effective business results, but also about leading the process of business innovation through design. Thus defined, design leadership is hardly ever recognized in the business community, and most design managers aren’t recognized as design leaders, according to Selders and Smith Meyer. I’ll get back to this in my own comments in a later post.

Ralph Beuker stated that design leadership in the context of the blogosphere is about openness, frankness, sharing thoughts and insights, and transparency. He gave many examples of how blogs can help drive business success, facilitate collaboration, share knowledge and demonstrate expertise. This is also of great value for design managers, as this post shows.

I will post my own views on the issue of design leadership later. I need a little more time to think about it….