Leadership as the limiting factor in innovation
On the one hand this might be too obvious to state. On the other hand, this is a topic around which there might be not enough awareness among designers. I have touched upon this in a previous essay in which I stated that entrepreneurship is the missing link between design and innovation. As designers, we are more and more involved in innovation projects. Even when a client just wants a new logo and website, this project can be part of a transformation of the organization. Often the need for a new logo and website is a manifestation of changes that the company is going through or needs to go through. And in those cases I see more and more that the design process is not flowing because the entrepreneurship or leadership that is needed between the design and the innovation or transformation that needs to take place is missing. And I see that this is a symptom of the need for the organization to change. And working on getting the design process to flow can be a way to get the organization to change. Sometimes we need to work on the organization to get a design project to run well.
I listed some aspects of entrepreneurship in a previous essay: taking risks, courage, taking action, solving things, overcoming obstacles, creating change, motivating people, taking responsibility. This is the entrepreneurship part of leadership. Leadership is broader than entrepreneurship but it’s an important part of it. And leadership is not a role. Anyone in the project can lead and should lead in order for the project to be successful. I see opportunities for designers to do interventions that will create the change that is needed on an organizational level, on the leadership level in order for design to work better and projects to be more successful.
Most common leadership issues
The most common leadership issues I see in projects are:
- Micromanaging.
I feel that a lot of issues come from lack of trust. Often I see people in teams on both sides with enthusiasm and good ideas that are limited because they do not get enough space. Trust has to be earned but also given. A manager that wants to get involved in each little detail is no longer feasible in a complex world.
→ Limiting the ability for the manager to micromanage by excluding them from the team and having formal and clear stakeholder meetings as input moments helps in my experience. Setting clear boundaries, pushing back on micromanagement and earning trust is also needed. I try to make this part of the discussions in the project. - Weak middle management.
One of the most important players in projects I see are middle managers. The marketing manager, the program manager, the IT manager. CEO involvement varies but is mostly from a distance but if the CEO has to make the decisions, powerful middle management is crucial. If they are not taking ownership and not powerful enough this limits the space and the ability to take ownership in projects for the team members.
→ Empowering middle management is always a good way to improve the conditions for projects in my view. Give them the ammunition to convince their bosses and empower them in any which way you can. Find out what their bosses need. What works miraculously is aligning projects to high level strategies. Bosses want to see that the strategy they came up with is a good strategy by seeing results of that strategy in projects. Typically there is a gap between strategy, tactics and operations. If you can help middle management close that gap, this will increase your project funding and creative space. - Authoritative management.
Authoritative management only works in a controlled environment in which the manager has access to all information and has the appropriate knowledge. In a professional and complex environment this hardly ever works and in my experience it limits the innovation capacity. I have questioned the downsides of authoritative management and what lies beyond the hierarchical leadership model in a previous essay. Authoritative leadership is based on fear and this creates a toxic environment and erratic behavior. This is killing for innovation projects that need trust, space, and the safety to make mistakes and learn. It disempowers people. Not just middle management but everybody in the organization.
→ Often staying below the radar of the CEO or outside the hairball of bureaucracy is the only way to navigate this. Powerful and creative middle management that can shield the team from the destructive effects of authoritative management also helps. But the basic strategy for dealing with authoritative management is ignoring it as much as possible. Remember that authority is given and thus dependent on those who give it. People want authority, it’s a service but when it no longer serves, taking back authority on some level is what is needed. - Inertness.
The more successful a company is, the more difficult it becomes to take risks. It is difficult to let go of the ways that have created success in the past. But new problems require new ways. Especially in innovation projects, the success of the old ways can stand in the way of learning new ways. It’s hard to argue with success. But ways have shelf lives. Typically around 30 years into the life of a company, there is a breaking point. A lot of companies don’t live longer than 30 years because they are not able to reinvent themselves because of the success of the old ways that worked in the past.
→ One of the ways to deal with inertness is to create a separate space for innovation that is more or less outside the organization. Creating a sandbox in which you can experiment might help. If you create the right frame and expect people to think outside the box in an isolated area can help to become bolder. This next generation pocket can grow into the future of the company. Disrupt yourself before somebody else does it. Creating awareness around the need to change and creating a safe space for it can be a good start. - No ownership. Innovation projects typically involve multiple departments. Marketing, IT, finance, product design, you name it. Each department typically has its own leadership. So if a project runs between departments, who is leading the project, who is taking ownership? Innovation means risk. Taking up ownership means taking on the blame if it doesn’t work. Innovation projects need ownership, a mandate to make decisions and personal leadership to own it. In my experience, not having a clear and powerful owner of a project is a big limiting factor for projects.
→ One way to deal with lack of ownership is to share it and take up ownership from the design agency. Co-ownership and supporting and empowering the ownership on the client side is something that works. Ownership at the client needs to be involved. It cannot be somebody who is not in the project. People need to be engaged and the more people that are engaged, committed, owning the results, the better.
A little nudging goes a long way
I find it helpful to work on these things in design projects. Not just to get the design projects to run better but also to help organizations with their transitions. What I found is that in change management, big bangs don’t work. It’s all about awareness, keeping these things in mind and constantly working on these things. Step by step. Nudging people into the new way of working. Change takes time. The good thing of working on organizational change while designing is that people need to see to believe. If you design, you are creating a new future that people can see. If the design process is not running well, this might be a sign that there is a problem in the organization. It could also mean there is no match between the designers and the client. But what I often see that a design process is a canary in the coal mine of organizational transitions. People don’t expect organizational change to part of the service of a design agency, yet. So it’s not a topic that can be easily directly addressed. But indirectly in the design process is definitely something that works. In small steps. Things like minimizing micro management, empowering middle management, successfully working around authority, and helping to make an organization to become more agile is hugely satisfactory and can be an integral part of a design process. What I see is that if a design project doesn’t flow, it’s usually not because of the lack of good ideas but about the malfunctioning of the organization.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you enjoyed it. I will dive deeper into the topics around Design Leadership in upcoming articles. If you follow me here on Medium, you will see them pop up on your Medium homepage. You can also subscribe to an email service here on Medium which will drop new essays right into your inbox. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to see new articles in your timeline or talk to my bot at dennishambeukers.com :) You can also find me on Instagram. When I am not blogging about Design Leadership, I work as a design strategist and project manager at Zuiderlicht.
