The failure of design culture change: causing quiet designer exodus?

I wanted to start this post with a generalisation about all designers — but I can’t really speak for all designers. I can speak for myself though.

As a designer I’ve felt really let down by the institutions I’ve worked with.

I’m an engaged, motivated, creative and passionate individual. I invest in the projects I get involved in. I want to use my skills to get things right and deliver great outcomes. I really do think that most designers feel the same way (but who knows right?).

But… to actually be able to do this in my previous jobs I’ve had to invest a lot of energy creating the space for design. At Woodside this meant going to the lengths of organising UX training for the delivery department, applying and implementing UX process change and conducting ongoing process oversight just so that I and others in the group had the space to be effective.

I thought moving to consulting and working in consumer oriented organisations would mean I could just be a designer instead of holding space all the time. Unfortunately consulting holds its own problems and again I was finding that I was having to find a way to hold space for design in a much more difficult situation.

Holding Space for Design?

By holding space for design I mean spending energy working against the organisational system, including manager/colleague perceptions and opinions, institutional processes and expectations, and system incentives and motivators in order to allow design work to happen on a project to the extent that it can be effective.

In any given system of people they’ll generally conform to established process, how they’re incentivised, and what they know.

I won’t go into the detail here of how to hold space for design — but ultimately it comes down to lobbying management/people in power, introducing language and concepts, and more lobbying. Which takes a whole lot of energy forever — unless the organisation flips on it’s head and undergoes radical cultural change from top to bottom. Haha.

The myth of “You’ll have to do that in every organisation you work at”

I’ve had this thrown at me by jaded corporate long-timers. It’s totally true right? If you’re going to be working at most traditional organisations this will definitely apply. You’ll have to fight bureaucracy to do design all the way.

But in my time away from traditional corporations I’ve found out something very interesting.

While I can’t generalise, I’ve been blown away by the customer-centricity of most small businesses and start-ups I’ve encountered. There have been some where I’ve had to say “I can’t help you, not really. You’re totally linked into the beating heart of your customers and are designing amazing products.”

Others that I’ve been able to help have just been so clued in to their customers — with direct contact permeating their entire product design approach. There are no questions about research, validation, and customer engagement. They love design because they can directly see the impact to their customers.

While not as well paid, this work has been so much more meaningful and inspiring, and nourishing.

More and more designers as “Corporate Refugees”

I heard the term “corporate refugee” and loved it, I felt like it described me.

Since I left corporate-land I’ve been chatting to designers and creative people I know, and there’s a common thread of frustration and yearning for meaningful work. It’s always the same thing — tied up in meetings, bureaucracy etc and feeling frustrated.

The only thing that’s stopping them leaving is a reliable pay-check. Families to support, mortgages and so on mean they need to be pragmatic.

But with the rise of social customer enterprises and design centric start-ups will they have that constraint for too much longer?

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If you’re a designer/creative let me know if you feel like this applies. Would love to be corrected and hear different opinions.

Responses to this article

A designer who’s a friend of mine contacted me after I published this and wanted to anonymously share these comments:

“…in the meantime I’m at [a major bank] and oh lawdy it’s all business centric — even though I’m amazed at their venturing a into human centred design a good 5 years or more ago, before most other big organisations in Australia were doing it — it’s like none of the business have been listening or understood.

The painful thing is that the design leaders are all about customer research to find out how to validate assumptions or at best how to cross sell and capitalise on opportunities — not for actual outside-in, human-centred design approaches. The designers are all aligning with how best to meet the needs of business and just finding evidence for it — not exploring how to improve service delivery and interactions or, God forbid, ways of actually helping people instead of exploiting them.

But — the $ are keeping me tied. Despite the fact that the only other choices I’ve had have been corporate anyway. I’m seeing how I go for a year or so and then considering either more $ or more social impact. Hate to say that in Sydney I probably can’t afford to choose the latter — and choosing the former is the only way I might be able to get involved in the latter.”