Prof Barry argues simply putting designerly cloaks on executives won’t work, even with designers acting as executive coaches. If organisational design is to have a rebirth, it will need to accommodate both the executive’s need for fast answers and the designer’s mandate for originality and freshness.
Clearly organisation design cannot continue as it has, simply offering a menu of organisational design choices to executive buyers. Organisation design is one of the executive’s most important jobs and it shouldn’t remain as yet another purchasing decision. At the same time, executives can’t easily take off time to go to design school.
We need organisation design practices that somehow enable executives to stop and go afar while still accommodating their fire-fighting jobs. Similarly, we need practices that introduce delight—organisation designs that are as aesthetically appealing as they are practical. Without these kinds of changes we will keep replicating the organisation designs that have caused the world so much trouble, designs which have led to global financial disasters and psychological unhappiness.
Organisation design, and by extension business design, began as a discipline around Henri Fayol’s and Frederik Taylor’s time. From the 1950’s to the 1980’s it quickly grew into a major area of study. And then, mysteriously, it fell from grace. According to Google’s NGram service, the terms “organisation design” and “organisational design” (in all language and capitalization variants) were used 60% less in 2007 than in the early 80’s. In other words, organisation design is discussed less than half as much as 30 years ago. This is backed up by publication numbers as well.
Organisation Design’s decline is unconnected to the overall use of the term “design” and its variants, which continue to grow. It is equally unconnected with the need for organisation design. As increasing numbers of new starts and global hyper-competition eat away at organisational survival and longevity, the need for effective organisational design is greater than ever.
Clearly something’s wrong. A field which should be in high demand is hardly on anyone’s reading list. There could be many reasons for this, ranging from the distanced relationship that organisation design has had with executive practitioners, to its engineering-based, “plug-and-play” approach where executives are supposed to choose between organisational designs rather design them, to the fact that the field is largely “people-less” in a time where the people part of organizing has become a key element in organisational survival.
A “designerly” antidote has been proposed by both the organisation studies community and the general design community (e.g., the work at IDEO): have executives act like professional designers. Underpinning these calls is the assumption that organisational design has not been about designing, at least not on a daily basis by those who have to use the designs. Rather, it’s been about choice—choosing between organisation designs developed by scholars and consultants and written into handbooks. Conversely, the design thinking movement suggests that if execs did more group brainstorming, post-it noting, user-centric research, and early prototyping, they would come up with more desirable solutions.
Appealing as this idea is, I believe it’s overly simplistic. Many executives are familiar with post-it note brainstorming and other designerly methods. They’ve seen the IDEO videos. They see designerly methods every time they contract designers to make new things. They know that designers like to work in networks, bouncing ideas off of one another. Yet most executives don’t use these methods themselves.
Why? I suspect that the divergent processes used by professional designers, processes which are hard won and take years to develop, are fundamentally at odds with the here-and-now, quick-fix mentalities that executives require. Designers deliberately derail quick-fix problem solving, while simultaneously imagining “othernesses”. Meanwhile, executives tend to collect large solution banks that they can draw upon as needed. Time is money, money counts, and speedy solutions are everything.
Hence I would argue that simply putting designerly cloaks on executives won’t work, even with designers acting as executive coaches. If organisational design is to have a rebirth, it will need to accommodate both the executive’s need for fast answers and the designer’s mandate for originality and freshness. Clearly organisation design cannot continue as it has, simply offering a menu of organisational design choices to executive buyers. Organisation design is one of the executive’s most important jobs and it shouldn’t remain as yet another purchasing decision. At the same time, executives can’t easily take off time to go to design school. I can’t predict how this organisational design shift will unfold, but I can predict that it will happen. We need organisation design practices that somehow enable executives to stop and go afar while still accommodating their fire-fighting jobs. Similarly, we need practices that introduce delight—organisation designs that are as aesthetically appealing as they are practical. Without these kinds of changes we will keep replicating the organisation designs that have caused the world so much trouble, designs which have led to global financial disasters and psychological unhappiness.
Speaker
Prof Daved Barry Daved Barry is Professor of Creative Organisation Studies in the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at the Copenhagen Business School, Adjunct Professor at Nova SBE (Universidade Nova de Lisboa School of Business and Economics), and Adjunct Professor of Management at RMIT. Earlier he studied painting, chemistry, music, and cooking, eventually going on to complete a BA (hons) in Psychology and a PhD in Strategic Management and Organisational Psychology at the University of Maryland. In 1986 he moved to Syracuse University, NY, where he taught strategic management, and then to New Zealand where he held the Victoria University Chair in Creative Organisation Studies. From there he assumed the Banco BPI Chair in Creative Organisation Studies in Lisbon, and eventually moved to CBS in 2010. His work focuses on how design and the arts can improve organizing, problem solving, innovation, managing, and leadership. Some of his accomplishments include the co-founding of AACORN (Arts, Aesthetics, Creativity, and Organisation Research Network), and LAICS, a graduate program in innovation and leadership. In 2007 he was awarded the Career Achievement Award for Innovative Scholarship from the Imagination Lab Foundation and the European Academy of Management, and in 2008 published The Sage Handbook of New Approaches to Management and Organisation, a compendium of contemporary management thinking.
Further details
Prof Daved Barry View Prof Daved Barry's profile on the Copenhagen Business School.
Olivia Dalgleish Contact Olivia for further information about this event.
