Design Thought Leader

June 19, 2010

“Now, beyond the work, it’s not just about creating desired outcomes for clients. You’ve got to help fulfill desired outcomes for your designers too, as part of how you organize your team. If the people creating the work don’t get something out of it in the process, then it isn’t likely they’ll stick around.

This is the big mistake that most design firms make. They make awesome work, at the expense of sustaining the people making it. This rarely happens the other way around, because if you don’t do great work for your clients, you won’t have employees. You could argue that great creative direction can happen without consideration to other people’s emotions… but this is usually why design firms churn and burn. And as you hire and grow an organization, you need the full range of people, from planner to visionary, to force the necessary friction that leads to great work without rampant overtime.”