The Design Thinking meme has been around for a long time — since around 2007 — but only recently did it pick up some steam due to the global financial crisis (driven largely by an as of yet unacknowledged global, fundamental crisis at the very heart of business and capitalism itself).

As…

I agree design orientation sounds like a good signpost for a mindset that’s needed within business. Working as a strategic designer in a domestic appliance manufacturer I feel there is a balance to be struck between encouraging design thinking in all and recognising leadership in it, and that the design thinking signpost doesn’t fully describe the change in mindset.

I believe designers have a very exciting leadership role to play, but that the leadership type and style will be different to traditional leadership, and that’s necessarily so.

It’s like design is evolving beyond it’s traditional silo. Where I work we’re only early on the curve but there is progress. I’d say the evolution beyond the silo depends in large part on individuals carrying the skills and design mindset as pioneers, design as an organisational function is still seen as a silo.

In this process strategic type designers naturally have a vision for a new way of working, organisational makeup etc, but from experience I’d say some the keys are:

Patience; evolution from the bottom up takes time. 

Readiness for opportunity; when senior management open doors you need to be ready to go for it even if you’ve just taken a few blows along the way.

Discipline; making sure you’re present at cross disciplinary or senior management progress meetings, however time consuming (or boring).

I agree that designers evolve into this kind of role, and feel that ‘design management’ needs to catch up with that process. The profession as a whole is maturing in the marketplace and education needs to find a way to tap into that. For me design orientation is a good signpost, and that design’s role is increased rather than decreased as design thinking is promoted, it’s a mindset change that design can lead by evolving beyond it’s traditional silo.

Thanks for the post Raymond.