Leader as Designer
The most influential leadership role is that of the designer of the organization, as the designer's choices shape the system's structure and behavior. Leaders must see themselves as participants within a living system, not as external engineers redesigning a machine.
THE IDEA
LEADER AS DESIGNER
If people imagine their organization as an ocean liner and themselves as the leaders, what is their role? For years, the most common answer I received when posing this question to groups of managers was “the captain.” Others might say, “The navigator, setting the direction.” A few would say “The helmsman, actually controlling the direction,” or “the engineer down below stoking the fire, providing energy,” or even “the social director, making sure everybody’s enrolled, involved, and communicating.” While these are legitimate leadership roles, there is another which, in many ways, eclipses them all in importance. Yet, rarely do people think of it.
The neglected leadership role is that of the designer of the ship. No one has a more sweeping influence on the ship than the designer. What good does it do for the captain to say, “Turn starboard thirty degrees,” when the designer has built a rudder that will turn only to port, or that takes six hours to turn to starboard? It’s fruitless to be the leader in an organization that is poorly designed.
Translating the role of designer from the context of an engineering system to that of a social system is tricky. As leaders in organizational contexts, we are not designing a thing, something separate from ourselves. When we think of ourselves as designers, it might even be tempting to think of the organization as a sort of machine, one that somehow needs to be redesigned. But, we are participants in the system not outsiders, and you do not redesign a living system as you would redesign an automobile.
Leaders who appreciate organizations as living systems approach design work differently. They realize that they can create organizational artifacts like new metrics, or formal roles and processes, or intranet Web sites, or innovative meetings—but it is what happens when people use the artifacts or processes or participate in the meetings that matters.
When to use it
When redesigning a company's performance review system, consider how it affects behavior beyond the metric—such as collaboration or innovation—rather than just efficiency.
When structuring a new team, think about how the team's processes will enable or constrain their ability to respond to changes in the market.
When introducing new technology, focus not only on the tool itself but on how people will interact with it and what routines it will create.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
The Ocean Liner Analogy
Leaders often see themselves as captains or navigators, but the true power lies with the designer of the ship. A captain's orders are useless if the rudder is designed to turn only one way, illustrating how organizational design determines what is possible.
Designing for Living Systems
Instead of treating an organization like a machine to be redesigned, a leader-designer creates artifacts (e.g., a new metric for customer satisfaction) and observes how teams actually use them, recognizing that the real impact comes from human interaction with the design.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
What aspects of your organization are poorly designed—like a rudder that only turns to port—that hinder effective decision-making?
How can you create artifacts, processes, or meetings that encourage learning and adaptation rather than rigid control?
In what ways are you a participant in the system you lead, and how does that change your approach to design?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Fifth Discipline The Art Practice of the Learning Organization (Peter M. Senge)