Building a design-led culture: insights and misconceptions
#197 - Nov.2024
When Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO, started his interview at Figma’s Config annual event, everyone cheered.
He began by highlighting an interesting fact: out of all Fortune 500 companies, he seems to be the only CEO with a design background.
He also pointed out a cruel bias in the start-up industry: designers don’t start companies.
Over the years, there has been significant progress toward making designers part of company boards. Now, we see the role of Chief Design Officers having direct influence in business leadership.
But CEOs? Why can’t designers run companies?
Brian made this point: “Design, in some ways, is fragile.” I think he has an important point here. Creative processes are chaotic by nature. Traditional companies struggle to deal with processes that are not predictable.
Yet, in a world that is changing so fast, leading through uncertainty requires people who embrace creativity and design as a way to innovate.
We need companies that embrace processes that make us think differently. Companies that are customer-centric while building sustainable and profitable businesses.
Companies that are driven by design culture.
But what does it actually mean to be a design-led company?
In this article, I want to share my perspective on common traits of these types of companies.
Design bug
Let me tell you a story. It was 2011. I was part of a tech consulting firm, and we were trying to find new ways to serve customers. Through a partnership we had with SAP, I came across what I think was one of the best opportunities in my career.
SAP was developing a new type of solution using in-memory databases and had put together an innovation team at SAP Labs in Palo Alto. I had the chance to join that team.
When I joined, they explained to me this idea of “Design Thinking.” At the time, I didn’t know much about it, and overall, the concept was just gaining traction in the business world.
This approach felt different. We invited strategic customers to the lab—companies like Target and Burberry—to run experiments. They brought their problems, and we worked together to create hypotheses and solutions. We co-innovated.
Co-innovate with customers? Wasn’t it our job as consultants to come up with the best solutions?
Well, as I mentioned, this was different. It was a team working backward from a problem to find ways to solve it. We navigated through uncertainty, open to new ideas regardless of “sides”. We let design take the lead.
I often say that this experience was as if the “design bug” had bitten me.
This experience changed my perspective on solving problems (I later specialized in Service Design). I saw firsthand the power of creative people working together as a team. Iterating over ideas and navigating into the chaos towards clarity.
Many of these engagements resulted in prototypes and solutions that had a big impact to the business and to customers.
I couldn’t understand why companies weren’t adopting this same approach to run their businesses.
Why was it so difficult?
Design and uncertainty
Throughout history, businesses have evolved through processes that are predictable. We’re used to the saying, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.”
Predictability and metrics have been the gold standard of business since the industrial revolution.
Yet, design is far from a linear process. It requires iterative cycles of exploration, prototyping, and testing. It’s a continuous process of understanding customers and adapting the value proposition. For designers, this might feel natural. But what about the multiple roles required to run a business (accounting, finance, legal, etc.)?
Embracing design means shifting from predictability to experimentation. This gives you flexibility to explore innovative solutions. On the downside, it becomes a constant battle against uncertainty.
In a design process, it’s hard to predict what you’ll find. It’s a process that demands consistency and resilience. This is one of the reasons why it’s so hard to implement design thinking practices. This is particularly challenging our times when businesses are focused on optimization and efficiency. Metrics sometimes give us a false sense of control.
So, what is a Design-Led Culture? Design-led cultures use design as a strategic driving force. It integrates design principles across all business processes. It’s a culture that places design thinking at the core of all decision-making.
Here are some common misconceptions I’ve encountered about design-led cultures:
- Design can fix everything;
- Design thinking comes naturally to everyone;
- In highly collaborative environments, everyone is an owner;
- Any type of experimentation and failure is accepted.
Is design a magic pill?
Let’s clarify this upfront: design can’t solve everything.
I agree with Sarah Gallivan when she says, “Designers who claimed that design can fix anything did all of us a disservice.”
Design has the power to help businesses find the right problems to solve and determine how to solve them. But in isolation, it can’t solve everything.
There’s a tendency to see design as a magic pill that can turn any business into a success. But here’s the hard truth: good design can be expensive.
If you don’t balance design outcomes with how the business will generate profit, you’re setting yourself up for failure. There’s no value in creating a beautiful, intuitive product if the company can’t sustain itself.
Design should align with business outcomes. Don’t overpromise and underdeliver.
Thinking as a designer
Design skills don’t come naturally to everyone. Over time, society has shaped us toward efficiency. In business terms, this means finding the most efficient way to design and implement solutions.
When you first start experimenting with design tools, it might feel chaotic. It’s not a step-by-step process but rather an iterative one of diverging (discovery) and converging (definition).
Promoting a design-led culture requires:
- Developing both hard and soft skills for those embracing design thinking;
- Strong leadership to support and promote design thinking;
- Mechanisms to operationalize design thinking across the organization.
Scaling design thinking is particularly challenging in large organizations. But no matter the size, the foundation remains the same: develop the team and connect design outcomes to business outcomes to prove value.
Collaboration through clear ownership
There’s a misconception that creative cultures are unstructured. Everything is about collaboration with no clear responsibility. While collaboration is key, it shouldn’t mean a lack of accountability.
In a design-led process, roles in decision-making need to be clearly defined, especially when ambiguity is high. Accountability ensures that everyone knows how they contribute to the process. Clear ownership across product, design, engineering, or other roles.
Design is not about getting consensus on every single decision. You need clear roles and responsibilities, especially when making decisions under high ambiguity.
It’s not about pointing fingers. It’s about ensuring each person knows how they add value across the design journey.
Hypothesis and experimentation
Design-led cultures envision failure as a way of learning and iterating on how to deliver more value to customers. Failure is natural for any creative process.
This doesn’t mean that failure is accepted at all costs, particularly when it results from decisions that are hard to reverse (the so-called “1-way door decisions”).
Experimentation is the way we iterate through design thinking. But experimenting without a clear hypothesis—just to “see what happens”—is a mistake.
I think this anti-pattern comes from companies adopting a misinterpreted mindset from lean start-up ideas. They ship and validate later.
Experimentation should be intentional. You don’t create a hypothesis after launching. You start with one. A good hypothesis should define:
- What you expect to happen;
- What assumptions support that outcome;
- What you’ll do in case of success or failure.
Design-Led Cultures Aren’t Built Overnight
They require a combination of strong mechanisms, effective change management to endure resistance, and design leaders who know how to promote and scale design.
But the payoff is worth it.
When design becomes a strategic driver, businesses not only create better solutions but also adapt faster to change. And change is becoming the common denominator of our times.
For a world with more designers running successful businesses.
¡Saludos!
