Exec jobs for designers, and org charts as artifacts
There’s an article in BusinessWeek for August 29. (But first — a Moment of Love for BusinessWeek for their ongoing articles on some of my favorite business-y topics like design, ethnography, etc.).
Wanted: VPs of Design. More designers are reaching the executive ranks. But where are they getting the general business knowhow they need?
Article summary: more companies are creating executive roles for designers — which means designers need broader business management skills, which they are acquiring through various methods, including mentoring, in-house corporate training, and external business-school-type training.
First off: this is all good news IMO for designers, companies, and consumers. The Design Exec (DE) role continues the trend of corporations recognizing the importance of design to their overall business motion. Victoria Postrel discusses this at length in her book The Substance of Style and in her blog The Dynamist.
At a more meta level: I love how organizational charts are both artifacts and drivers of how companies are thinking about themselves, and about what and who is important.
Org charts are an evolutionary artifact. They’re an outcome of an internal company process that decides what and who is important; yet by assigning power, recognition and resources, that revised org chart then drives further internal process that will inevitably result in more org changes. Witness how computer-centric roles have evolved over time — up and across the org chart in various ways.
Exec roles are a signal from a company, to itself and outsiders, about what that company values. Companies don’t put something at the exec level unless they think it’s important; chicken-and-egg, something looks more important once it’s sitting at the exec level.
Granted, sometimes the exec level role is more symbolic than actual, in terms of commanding real power to make decisions and influence outcomes. Still, having a seat at the table is better than not.
Designer background seems like a good thing to have at the exec level. Design is inherently creative and requires learning techniques for stimulating and channeling creativity. Design is also about understanding end users, i.e. customers. Creativity and customers seem like good skills to have at the e-staff level.
I wonder how different companies are structuring these Design Exec positions? Is the DE an influencer and evangelist (the common CTO model), or is the DE a line exec with teams to lead and targets to hit? There are pros and cons to each.
Implicit vs explicit executive skills: the BW article focused on designers learning explicit biz skills: corp finance, etc. But the implicit skills, around things like decision-making and communications and interpersonal skills and time management — those are key to going from lower exec level to senior exec level. The issue how how to learn those implicit skills applies to everybody though, not just DEs, so that’s a separate post.