The CEO as Designer
by Adrian Hanft, (3 comments)
I wanted to point you towards an article called CEOs Must Be Designers, Not Just Hire them* written by Bruce Nussbaum. If you don’t feel like reading the whole article, here are a couple highlights:
“CEOs and top managers hate the word “design.” Just believe me. No matter what they tell you, they believe that “design” only has something to do with curtains, wallpaper and maybe their suits. These guys, and they’re still mostly guys, prefer the term “innovation” because it has a masculine, military, engineering, tone to it.”
“If you are in the myth-making business, you don’t need design. You need a great ad agency. But if you are in the authenticity and integrity business then you have to think design.”
“Design is so popular today mostly because business sees design as connecting it to the consumer populace in a deep, fundamental and honest way. An honest way. If you are in the myth-making business, you don’t need design. You need a great ad agency. But if you are in the authenticity and integrity business then you have to think design. If you are in the co-creation business today—and you’d better be in this age of social networking—then you have to think of design. Indeed, your brand is increasingly shaped and defined by network communities, not your ad agency. Brand manager? Forget about it. Brand curator maybe.”
Do you agree with Nussbaum that CEOs should be designers?
Comments (3)
walkingstick said:
I wish his speech would have communicated the power and importance of staff designers to CEO’s instead of telling them it’s their job to become designers or even design-thinkers. And yes, they should be design hirers because the majority of CEO’s are not designers and that’s a good thing. Designers can be CEO’s but the reverse of that is seldom true.
When and if design is taken out of the hands of the designer and into the hands of CEO’s (or rather, their secretaries) their projects end up not communicating and costing their companies even more money; making them learn the expensive way why design is important the the future of their company.
I’d like for him to change his language and replace “design thinking” with “organizational thinking” or “reverse planning” or something like that.
Steve Jobs did not design the iphone. he had a great idea and then let his amazing team (of designers) execute the idea without impeding their creative processes. I would have loved to see that pointed out in the speech.
I wish there was an AIGA sponsored speaking event for CEO’s (instead of designers). The speaker would be a CEO or a respected business principal that would emphasize the monetary value and communicative power of design and designers. Time to contact my local chapter.
Too much micro managing creates camels but I’m getting off the subject. Thanks for tolerating my view and spending your 10 minutes on this post, please shoot it down if there’s a better way. I beg you.
Posted on July 5, 2007
Kyle Fletcher said:
At AIGA Minnesota Design camp a couple years ago there was a keynote who owned a small indpendent snowboarding company who was really into staffing designers and creative thinkers. I’ll look when I get home, because his name isn’t coming to mind, but he was really inspiring and made a lot of factual support.
A good piece of crossover reading on this matter is “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink. Enjoyable for designers and business folk alike.
Posted on July 5, 2007
Vanchechi said:
Thank you Adrian for the Post.
I am a bit familiar with Bruce Nussbaum seminars and his Innovation & Design site. Although I may not always agree with his take on design, he does offer an interesting voice that connects design and business.
I do agree that designers are not taught business practices or concepts in school and may not always be exposed to them in the workplace; this is a determent to their career. In order to be marketable, you have to be able to communicate to your audience and articulate the process of development. Fortunately or Unfortunately we are in the service industry, we need to understand the market and sell ourselves.
In my experience with recent grads there is a sense of entitlement that almost of an artist. How dare we have a client with demands? In the end an idea or concept may be great but you still have to sell it. I digress.
CEOs should not be designers and to demean the design industry by saying that design thinking can be adopted without any training is insulting. I have had the pleasure to work with creative directors with more experience that a doctor that gets thrown to me in a hospital, yet not with an ounce of the respect.
CEOs are leaders. Great leaders surround themselves with people smarter than themselves that can help guide and offer solutions. CEOs may have the vision, but they do not execute it. They leave the expertise to others, hopefully not the secretary.
From Good to Great is a reading I suggest.
Posted on July 30, 2007