Recently, I have been thinking about Design Management and Design Leadership. Although these two are completely different concepts, they are often confused in Japan.
One reason for this is the meaning of the word "management. In Japan, the word is often used to mean "management," such as developing human resources and managing an organization, rather than "management" of a company or business. So when many people hear the term "design management," they reflexively think, "Ah, a method of developing and managing employees and organizations by design.
On the other side, an initiative called "design management" is sometimes recommended in Japan. This stems from a white paper called the "Design Management Declaration" published by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2018. Here, "design management" is an effort to gain a competitive advantage by bringing design into corporate management. However, this way of thinking is very different from the global trend in design management.
I would like to clarify a few of my current thoughts here.
What is Design Management?
Design management is an approach to solving the "Wicked Problem" in a company or business. In recent, issues related to business and development have become increasingly complex and diverse. Since it takes a lot of power to solve these issues one by one, they need to be solved more efficiently.
The Wicked Problem here has the following characteristics. *Rittel and Webber's 1973 formulation of wicked problems in social policy planning specified ten characteristics. >> wikipedia
There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better or worse.
There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.
Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.
Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.
The social planner has no right to be wrong (i.e., planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).
The figure below shows the perspectives of design management and corporate design.
Organized in this way, you can see that the scope of design management is broad and not limited to "branding" and "business creation. We can also see that these issues are complex and "wicked problems" that change on day by day. And more,Corporate purpose, vision, mission, and values must also be drawn from such a corporate design, but today, sadly, the reality is that they are being formulated far from the strategy as well.
I believe this perspective must be changed.
What is Design Leadership?
Design leadership is a relatively new concept that complements design management theory. In essence, design leadership aims to define future strategies, and design management is responsible for implementation. Design leadership can be described as leadership that generates innovative design solutions.
Turner separates the core responsibilities of design leadership into the following six activities.
envisioning of the future
manifesting strategic intent
directing design investment
managing corporate reputation
creating and nurturing an environment of innovation
training for design leadership
I think the most important issue of Design Leader “ to express the conscience of society through design”. Design leaders need to "do the right thing right" and should be held accountable for their actions and results. Measure, record, and communicate in a transparent way how the company's operations and outputs are impacting the environment and society. Because design can attract, change ideas, and cause people to act in arbitrary ways. It is also important to consider professional values and ethical implications.
Design Management and Design Leadership
The relationship between design leadership and design management in my opinion can be expressed as shown in the figure below. Design leadership is the ability to draw and pull up the to-be, and design management is the ability to push from as-is to to-be. The common language here is strategy, and it can be said that neither of these forces is effective without strategy.
Therefore, it seems to me that the lack of the word "strategy" in Japanese "design management" is a disincentive in the first place
This time around.
Thank you.
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