Role of politics in design
An important tool to transform vision into preferred outcome
Design has come a long way — from being focused on building tangible objects and being a support discipline for other leading verticals within organisations such as engineering, marketing, sales etc, it has emerged as a discipline that leads change and drives businesses within organisation.
Therefore the 21st century designers need to hone skills that help them lead businesses from the front.
The complex and multidisciplinary work cultures demand from design professionals to go beyond computer based and hands-on skill and focus on skills such as human advocacy, leadership, verbal and non verbal communications to align visions, disciplines and individuals within those disciplines because design has become as much about managing humans as it has been about managing data and resources to deliver an outcome.
Now we talk about managing humans, it’s not just about managing your team or junior designers. If we look at the stakeholders in organisations today, it’s expansive. Starting from users and your immediate team to individuals in other teams and verticals, external partners, senior managers and it goes all the way up to leadership teams and beyond. All these individuals make very important decisions everyday to drive business, innovations and lead organizations towards its short and long term goal. As you can see there are individuals who are more powerful than you in the organizational context and there would be few at par and a few who would enjoy less power compared to you. All the decisions that these individuals take are going to impact your decisions and outcomes such as orchestrating customer experiences, leading non design teams or busting organizational silos. Therefore it’s evident how important it is to navigate through this complex network of decision makers in order to do the right work and do the work right. And for that one would need to master the skills of navigating through the power and power structures originating from these diverse decision makers.
To quote, Mark Michelli (Design Leadership @Fjord) “ As Politics are the study of power and power structures — and failing to master them is the reason customer experience designers often fall short. He also says — The orchestration of people and resources is — without fail — hard. It’s hard, in organizations large and small, to work together. It’s hard, when people are paid well to be specialists and experts, to speak the same language across disciplines. And it’s very hard, despite good intentions, for teams to see a problem the same way.
This couldn’t be more true. As a designer, our job is to inculcate customer centricity within organizations as well as be that cohesive hub that speaks respective languages of the verticals and keeps every spoke in its place by aligning towards a common goal.
But it is easier said than done. Practically speaking more often than not, individuals within organizations see the goals and vision vertically rather than a vision that cuts horizontally across disciplines within the organization.
That’s where designers come in. Designers have the creative and political tools needed to bring teams together around a common vision and solution — tools that help people pivot from the vertical thinking that protects their silo, to the horizontal thinking that’s required for customer experience transformation. He goes on to provide a few political principles all designers should embrace.
Mark: In my opinion the most impactful way to navigate through the power structures is to show the future-state vision to stakeholders and acknowledge and stress on their role in that vision making. But to ensure that every individual is aligned towards that common vision and take necessary steps to realise it, doing just the above is not enough. One needs to deploy other crafts at play such as when to be flexible in considering point of views and when to put your foot down, filtering good suggestions and advice from mere opinions, nurturing relationships within organisation and practice inclusivity where you get individuals directly or indirectly impacting your project onboard right from the beginning. These small steps towards a much larger goal may seem trivial but these are extremely helpful in navigating through the power dynamics within organisations.
One has to follow evidence based practices where the stakeholders, who are more powerful, equally powerful or less powerful than you, need to be told a consistent story by deploying extensive tools that we as designers have in our toolbox. We basically need to be the advocates of our users/ customers internal or external backed by the data that we have collected. This makes you less questionable and more credible.
One may have to sacrifice “the good guy” tag in the process because once you start disagreeing with people and challenging the status quo, it will make individuals uncomfortable and unhappy, but the best practice is not to leave them be in that unhappy state but to win them over by touching them with the human stories that you have discovered during your quest for human centricity within the organisation, As mark says: “Move them with qual, convince them with quant.”
Another very important approach is to practice persuasive conversation and build a habit of restraint by not losing cool in any situation, being immensely practical and not taking things personally. These skills are very essential to be an adaptive leader who keeps moving things towards progress and development no matter what.
If these principles are followed, there is no doubt that the whole organization and its individuals would move in the common direction, no matter how many disagreements and misalignments happen. Eventually the individuals will start functioning like a dynamic engine of an automobile where different parts are working towards the common goal.
Hence I close my argument by reiterating that Politics has become a very important design skill and it’s extremely important in driving good design outcomes to by orchestrating great customer experiences
