The Business of Design

As designers, we aren’t often exposed to the kinds of topics that many people deal with in other job functions or groups. Some of that tends to change however when your career path takes you into more managerial roles such as Art Director, Creative Director or Design Director. In these types of positions, you are often required to act as both a manager and a leader. The problem I have found with many people making the transition to these kinds of jobs is a fundamental lack of understanding of the differences between management and leadership.

In fact, it is a question I sometimes ask candidates during the interview process where it may be a part of their job requirements. I think it is also important because it touches on issues around effective communication, motivation and barriers to motivation. The real problem lies in the fact that leadership and management are in many respects fundamentally at odds with each other. If a design team leader does not grasp this inherent conflict then their job can become much more challenging and success frustratingly elusive. They can alienate or confuse team members and fail to deliver effective creative solutions on time or within budget. This can result in disastrous consequences for their organization and career.

Let me explain. By definition leaders produce change by establishing and sharing vision, imagination, new ideas, inspiration and motivation. The operative concept here is change. Managers on the other hand need to produce predictability and order through organization, well developed operating procedures, controls, problem-solving, communication and collaboration. Put another way, leadership tends to be more strategic whereas management tends to be more tactical or applied. Big Picture versus details.

Managers focus on things like planning and budgeting, process improvement, measurement, analysis, key performance indicators (KPI) and core competencies. Leaders typically focus on things such as innovation, differentiation and broad expansive ideas and technologies.

Although both roles here may have many people reporting to them directly and indirectly in an organizational hierarchy, managers tend to have subordinates whereas leaders more likely have followers, believers, or even acolytes. The working relationship that managers have with their subordinates is more transactional in nature in that they generally give some kind of order or tasks to their reports which are then carried out. Leaders may also be managers, so consequently have similar kinds of transactional relationships with their subordinates. The difference in these situations is that leaders inspire people to follow them through ideas, personal charisma or other like mechanisms. It’s worth noting here that leaders may have powerful personalities and invoke strong feelings in their followers, but still not be especially friendly or likeable. History suggests people like George Patton or Attila the Hun were great leaders, but I doubt I would have enjoyed working under them. I believe that you can be an effective leader or manager by using positive methods and reinforcement. I think I’ll address that topic in another post however.

Both roles are important in an organization. Leaders need well-developed operating capabilities and should pay close attention to their organization’s core competencies. Managers must not lose sight of the bigger picture in carrying out their tasks and responsibilities. For a lot of designers moving into more managerial roles, creativity and a broader vision are less likely to be the greater obstacles to success. The more likely scenario is probably going to occur around operational activities such as scheduling, organizing and process. This can be particularly acute if their design team is new or the previous manager did a poor job. In some cases, it may be advantageous for these people to study more traditional business methodologies, either self-directed or in a classroom.

I think it’s critically important that people in managerial and leadership positions take a good long look in the mirror and make as objective an assessment as they can. This is difficult for most people and I know it has been for me. Try to really understand your strengths and weaknesses as they pertain to your job. For example, could I be more detail oriented, do I understand budgets or do I need to, do I communicate effectively, do I manage time efficiently and how well do I influence others without becoming coercive? It might be worth doing a SWOT analysis as it relates to your capabilities and job responsibilities.

In case you’re not familiar with it, a SWOT analysis stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It’s an old staple in business and management. It can be used in many ways and typically (but not always) the first two are more internally focused whereas the last two are more externally driven. In a hypothetical example, it might look something like this:

• Strengths -  Confident, creative, fast, work well under pressure, experienced, good technical and applied skills, industry knowledge etc etc.
• Weaknesses – Poor time management, no experience with budgeting or planning, work best alone, little experience at influencing or directing others, etc. etc.
• Opportunities – Company offers assisted tuition reimbursement for additional education, superior or others likely to provide effective mentorship, design team already in place and functioning well as a unit etc. etc.
• Threats – Poor or nonexistent support from upper management or superiors, corporate culture not conducive to collaboration or communication, too many responsibilities and deliverables required too quickly etc.

The main thing is that you fully understand the differences between effective leadership and management as well as knowing your own capabilities in these areas. Over the years, I’ve seen a great many people with otherwise fantastic abilities just struggle directing their teams because they never really understood these concepts. Once you are aware of them and your own capabilities, you can employ effective strategies to deal with them.