Читать книгу Voices of Design Leadership - Ken Sanders - Страница 14

Having said that, what is the right balance between business and design? One of the earliest frameworks to answer that question was proposed in the 1987 book Success Strategies for Design Professionals, authored by Weld Coxe, Nina Hartung, Hugh Hochberg, Brian Lewis, David Maister, Robert Mattox, and Peter Piven. Published by Krieger Publishing Company, the book introduced the concept of “SuperPositioning” to architecture and engineering firms.

The authors’ SuperPositioning matrix offered a tool for firms to evaluate their Project Organizational Values (Idea, Service, or Delivery) on one axis, their Firm Organizational Values (Practice-Centered Businesses and Business-Centered Practices) on the other axis, and assess their positioning on the matrix relative to competitors.

Today, the competitive bar is much higher. Idea, Service, and Delivery are table stakes now. What still varies between successful firms is the balance between Practice and Business. In general, Practice-Centered Businesses are led by professionals who have a qualitative bottom line, based on the quality, impact, and recognition of their work. Business-Centered Practices, on the other hand, are led by professionals who have a quantitative bottom line and are more focused on financial rewards for the firm and themselves.

These are not binary choices but instead endpoints on a spectrum. As a conceptual framework, the spectrum between the two can inform a healthy dialogue about where your firm resides today, where it seeks to reside in the future, and the strategies required to move along the spectrum in one direction or the other.

There is no judgment here, by the way. Successful firms exist in a variety of locations along the practice-business spectrum. Firms such as AECOM or Jacobs, both publicly held corporations that have grown primarily through acquisition, are closer to Business-Centered Practices. A firm such as MASS Design Group, a non-profit dedicated to offering design services to the underserved, is closer to a Practice-Centered Business.

Do AECOM and Jacobs care about design quality? Of course. Does MASS Design Group care about business success? Absolutely. If a firm focuses too much attention on one at the expense of the other, it will not survive very long. The question is one of proportion. In your firm, how does the balance between business and practice influence your pursuit of clients and projects, your recruitment and retention of talent, and your day-to-day decision-making?

If your answer is that both are equally important, you are marketing to yourself. Design leaders and their teams make decisions every day that sacrifice revenue or margins for the benefit of design quality. Other decisions sacrifice design quality in exchange for improved financial performance. The issue is organizational awareness and judgment. What are the trade-offs? And how are such decisions made at your firm?