Читать книгу Voices of Design Leadership - Ken Sanders - Страница 23

The leadership framework of Results, Relationships, and Reputations has since been advocated by other management consultants,⁵ but in my mind, Ted Hall deserves the credit. My contribution is to add a Fourth R: Resilience. It is an important word with multiple meanings.

First, resilience conveys a design firm’s commitment to sustainability: addressing climate change, minimizing negative environmental impacts of the built environment, and strengthening local communities. Today these are no longer capabilities, they are fundamental design values.

Second, the word addresses the resilience of an organization: maintaining a healthy balance sheet that can withstand economic cycles, planning ahead for leadership succession, avoiding concentration of revenue among too few clients, and avoiding concentration of power among too few leaders. In this context, resilience is about building a self-governing, self-perpetuating firm for the long run.

Third, it speaks to the emotional resilience of leaders: adapting to stressful situations, overcoming setbacks, and maintaining personal health and well-being. It is about work/life balance and the importance of taking time off to exhale and reenergize. The traits of emotional resilience include self-awareness, self-empathy, optimism, a willingness to acknowledge and learn from mistakes, and a healthy sense of humor.

Virtually every activity that takes place within a design firm can be connected to Results, Relationships, Reputation, and Resilience. As an organizing framework, The Four R’s can be used to evaluate and prioritize proposed initiatives and investments. The first question to ask when considering a new idea: which of the Four R’s does it support and how will it create value for the firm or its clients? If the answer is unclear, proceed with caution.