Design as Leadership: Exploring the Terrain

IDI
MIA Seminar 504
Design as Leadership:
Exploring the Terrain
Rick Fox, Architect
IDI Professor
February 23, 2013

The focus here...
 Is on the inherent potential of DESIGN to
lead self and others.

The focus here…
 Is not about design
leadership as the
notion that responsible
professionals should:
 join
 network
 lobby
 pressure
These are important,
just not the focus of
this presentation.

The focus here…
 WHY? Because,
 non design-
professionals can
do all these things
 these activities
are not unique to
design

Aspects of Design
Relevant for our purposes
 Product
 Process
 Person

Aspects of Design
 Product: (noun)
 a human-made
object or artifact
 features of an
“outcome” or
experience

Aspects of Design
 Process: (verb)
 purposeful choice
 network of human
decision-making
 serendipitous
discovery

Aspects of Design
 Person: (homo sapien)
 character traits
 mind-set
 “intelligences”
• IQ, PQ, EQ, SQ
• XQ
Narcissus ponders

Aspects of Design
 People lead a
process that
culminates in a
product.

Product: Artifact | Outcome
Object & Function
 Functionalist View:
 Holistic View:
 …
 …

Object & Context
 Discrete View: each object stands alone, as a
separate thing.
 Subset View: each object is part of, and fits into a
context larger than itself.
 Unitary View: object & context are one.

Emotional Engagement-
Attachment
 According to John Edson in Design Like Apple:
 Authentic engagement focuses on:
• beauty, ingenuity, charisma
 These create a unique competitive advantage.

Meanings & Messages
 Do objects convey/embody messages OR,
is the object itself the message?
 ‘beautiful’ home
 ‘artful’ home

Monuments & Landmarks
 Mysterious Megaliths
 does anybody really know function this serves?
Stonehenge
Wiltshire, England
3,000 – 2,000 BCE

 Beloved Architectural Oddities
 at completion the tower leaned 1.5-degrees off vertical
 by the 1990s, more than 5.5-degrees
Leaning Tower
Pisa, Italy
1173-1350 ?

 House as ‘deconstructed’ village
 recently listed for sale at $ 895,000
Frank Gehry’s
Bensen House
Calabassas, CA
1981

 Mnemonic Devices
 design concept developed by Lin while she was an
architecture student at Yale University
Maya Lin
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Wash, D.C.
1982

Evaluative Criteria
 Outcomes may be
evaluated by various
pre-determined,
[supposedly neutral]
criteria, such as:
 imaginativeness
 literacy [visual, spatial,
cultural, design]
 absorption of issues
 synthetic response
 communicative
potential/capacity/strength

Architecture & Design Values
 Vitruvian triad:
 firmitas
 utilitas
 venustas
 older translation:
[firmness, commodity, delight]
 recent translation:
[strength, function, beauty]

Architecture & Design Values
 Vitruvius revisited:
 David Smith Capon. The
Vitruvian Fallacy, Vol. 1.
(1999)
• six categories
 Rick Fox. Diagram:
architecture & design
values.
• six categories
• three axes intersecting
• circular process
 function-context,
 form-construction,
 meaning-will

Aesthetic Theories
 Many different
theories might be
usefully deployed to
evaluate a designed
object or outcome.
 Rick Fox. Aesthetic
Theories: Philosophies of
Art for Design Professionals.
16 Apr 2007. A PowerPoint

Interpretive Positions
 A framework for
architectural
interpretation
 Rick Fox, Interpreting
Architecture: a Krauszian
Approach. May 2009.
 Rick Fox, Synopsis of
Chapter 5: Application and
Examination of Cases. May
2009. A PowerPoint.

 M1: Any given
design problem has
many design-
solutions.
Michael Krausz
American Philosopher

 M1: Any given
design problem has
many design-
solutions.
 S1: Every design
problem has only
one design-solution.

 Not many designers
openly embrace S1
 But some adopt this
position—in effect—
when they strike the
attitude that only their
solution matters
 OR their solution some
how counts for more
than anyone else’s

Process: Decision |
Discovery
“Game-Changers”
Innovative objects have the
potential to radically alter…
 our behavior
 our values
 our world-view

Process: Decision |
Discovery
“Game-Changers”
Things we can’t live without…
 but, didn’t even know
we needed:
 smart phones
 tablets
 “wearable tech”
Maxwell Smart makes a call

Process: Decision |
Discovery
“Game-Changers”
Change Design
 =df: design as a tool
for cultural change.

Process: Decision |
Discovery
“Game-Changers”
Change Design
 Regarding
architecture,
Bruce Mau notes
that,
“…the building is not the
project. How to live—
and work—is the
project.”
Bruce Mau, Change Design.
p. 169

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Change…
 has consequences
 it makes most people
anxious, whether
they admit it or not…
people say & do crazy #!@&%sh*t:(

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Change…
 So:
 listen below the surface.
 get agreement to proceed from stakeholders [who & how
many] at each step of the process [how major?].
 ratify joint commitments openly. This helps hold everyone
accountable—including you.
 never leave a meeting or conference call with ambiguous
action items.
 documentation & focused follow-up are necessities, not
after-thoughts.

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Execution - XQ
 The biggest problem
in business…

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Execution - XQ
 According to Gary
Harpst, the
foundational
challenge of
business success is
executing strategy.

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Execution - XQ
He writes,
“…building an organization that
has the ability to plan and
execute, while at the same
time, overcoming inevitable
surprises in business. This
is the biggest and toughest
challenge in business.”
Gary Harpst, Six Disciplines
Execution Revolution, p. 23

Process: Decision |
Discovery
”immaculate conception”
 Just say ‘NO’
 Design professionals tend to be full of ideas, but not so full
of ‘XQ’ [Execution intelligence]
 Just say “No” to weirdo fonts that are really hard to read
‘NO’

Process: Decision |
Discovery
 professional credibility depends on exemplary
execution, as much on unique ideation and
deep domain knowledge.
 If you don’t ‘ship’ everyone will know it.
 So, stand and deliver.

Process: Decision |
Discovery
 Today, design ‘XQ’ is fundamentally a
collective, collaborative & connective
undertaking that begins with personal
accountability.

Process: Decision |
Discovery
“If design is isolated in a department and doesn’t filter across
the entire organization, it’s easy to dampen or even kill its
impact.”
John Edson, Design Like Apple, p. 60

Process: Decision |
Discovery Emotional
Engagement
 an engaging process
nurtures the
hallmarks of a
healthy design
culture:
 ‘taste’
 talent
 curatorial discretion Will you be marry me?

Process: Decision |
Discovery Emotional
Engagement
 as a design leader
you want your design
business to be a
healthy design
culture.
please…

Process: Decision |
Discovery Emotional
Engagement
 Nobody thrives in a
cesspool of the five
metastasizing
cancers…
Ok then, I’ll just return the ring...

Process: Decision |
Discovery Emotional
Engagement
 From Covey:
 contending
 comparing
 competing
 criticizing
 complaining
Stephen Covey, The 8th
Habit,
p.213
you #$% jerk, U suck!

Process: Decision |
Discovery Design Method
 Using a method can
help guide the
process, but it is no
substitute for sound
judgment.
“Fear of living without a
map is the main reason
people are so insistent that
we tell them what to do.”
Seth Godin
Linchpin, p. 125

Process: Decision |
Discovery Design Method
 Remember Design
Theory ?
 pragmatic
 iconic
 canonic
 analogic
RNF.
Four Methods Diagram.
20 May 2006

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Design Process
 is an opportunity to learn and to teach
 how the ‘problem’ was approached & resolved
 how ideas are tested in a ‘safe’ environment
 synthetic-integrative-evaluative skills
 self-awareness and awareness of others
Vincent Scully
Professor of Architecture
Yale University

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Design Critique
 occurs on an academic-professional continuum
“Constructive solutions require constructive feedback.” RNF
Ada Louise Huxtable
Architecture Critic

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Design Critique
 So BE:
 descriptive
 specific
 positive
 sensitive
 realistic
Christina M. Scalise, Presentation Strategies & Dialogue, p. 114-115
Ada Louise Huxtable
1921-
2013

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Design Critique
 critique is also an opportunity to practice our
project management skills
Christina M. Scalise, Presentation Strategies & Dialogue

Process: Decision |
Discovery
Design XQ
“Ultimately, Design XQ is a human-centered process. It is about
leading people, not managing things.”
--Rick Fox

Person: Virtue | Mind-set
The “Genius Dilemma”
 I claim, both these
popular notions…
i) the lonesome, tortured,
lost soul yearning to create;
ii) the rugged, individual
genius struggling against
mediocrity
are…
Challenging ‘sacred’ ideas

The “Genius Dilemma”
 outdated
 useless
 counter-productive
threatens the status quo,

The “Unspoken Void”
 In Making Ideas Happen,
Scott Belsky:
 focuses on the skills of
execution necessary to
drive creative pursuits
 he presents a
systematic approach to
creative organization
and productivity
and will irritate and dismay many.

Early on he notes that,
“Unfortunately, there
is a huge void of
leadership capability
in the creative
world…” p.17

As evidence, he cites:
 high attrition,
 failure to keep team
members engaged in
ideas and execution,
 frequent management
debacles,
 personal deficiencies &
destructive tendencies

He continues…
“Everyone with the gift of
creativity has a series of
tendencies that can
become obstacles.”
Scott Belsky, p. 18

“Visionary’s Narcissism”
 Belsky uses this term to describe the tendency
to believe that a given opportunity or challenge
is a ‘one-off’—a unique, historic moment not
likely to be repeated.

”Visionary’s Narcissism”
 Regarding leadership he says this trap is,
“a leader’s default thinking that he or she is
the exception to the rule.” p. 208

”Visionary’s Narcissism”
 His advice: [p. 208]
 challenge yourself to have perspective
 don’t get so caught up in the novelty of what you’re doing
that you lose sight of history
 stay grounded in the notion that the situation you face isn’t
isolated & unique [as you’d like to think]

A common over-reliance
 Personal preference:
 Scalise notes, “Personal preferences are powerful.” p. 99
 Even if true… {and I think it is}
 this is not a sufficient reason to conclude that personal preferences
ought to drive the design process; OR,
 that personal preference is what makes a designed-object exactly
the thing it is.

A common over-reliance
 A frequently cited aesthetic justification:
 “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
 Even if true… {and I think it is not}
 this view has some serious flaws
 See, RNF Aesthetic Theories PowerPoint

Other ineffective postures
 US versus THEM
 [informed design sophisticates] v. [general public]
 “The masses are asses.”
 US on behalf of THEM
 paternalistic paradigm gone wild

What Works!
Understanding and
practicing the roles of
leadership…
avoid redundant “framing”

What Works!
 Covey identifies
them as:
 modeling
 pathfinding
 aligning
 empowering
…A message from the Department of
Redundancy department

Modeling
 When properly done,
modeling inspires
trust without
expecting it, and
produces personal
moral authority.
Covey, p. 271

Modeling
 Leaders model the
other three roles…
 pathfinding
 aligning
 empowering

Person: Virtue |Mind-set
Pathfinding
 In design is:
 setting the tone
 opening up a space of
possibility
 embracing uncertainty
“Vision on a personal
scale translates to
pathfinding in an
organization setting.”
Stephen Covey
The 8th
Habit, p. 218

Person: Virtue |Mind-set
Pathfinding

Is also:
“…the toughest
undertaking of all because
you deal with so many
diverse personalities,
agendas, perceptions of
reality, trust levels, and
egos.”
Stephen Covey
The 8th
Habit, p. 221

Aligning
 Alignment for Covey is:
 designing and executing
systems and structures
that reinforce the core
values and highest
strategic priorities of the
organization.
See, Stephen Covey
The 8th
Habit, p. 234

Aligning
 In design is:
 getting processes &
objects to be congruent
with values
 embodiment of socio-
political, cultural values
& beliefs
“Aligning work is never finished.”
Stephen Covey
The 8th
Habit, p. 218

Empowering
Is the fruit of the other three roles…  Empowerment is
according to Covey,
“the natural results of both personal
and organizational trustworthiness,
which enables people to identify and
unleash their human potential.”
Stephen Covey
The 8th
Habit, p. 253

Empowering
Is the fruit of the other three roles…  In design is:
 when process &
object help people
find their voice
• [inspiration,
engagement]
 a way for people to
tap into all four [five]
parts of their nature
• [IQ, PQ, EQ, SQ, XQ]
 an innovative
approach to social
justice

Alternative roles of design leader
 Emerging expressions of leadership relative to
other stakeholders, include the design
professional as:
 steward
 facilitator
 servant-leader
 critic-provocateur
 advocate-activist
 story-teller
 idea agent
 linchpin

Opposition & Resistance
Coping with opposition to a
design-concept, approach OR
solution…
 Anticipate objections
[inspite of what Godin says]
 Manage your
response

Opposition & Resistance
Coping with opposition to a design-
concept, approach OR solution…
 Engage in 3rd
Alternative thinking
 Everyone is a
potential valuable
resource
 Look for common
ground
 Get stake-holders to
‘buy in’
 Listen, respect,
participate,
THEN decide.

The End
Thanks for
hanging in there…

Design as Leadership: Exploring the Terrain

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