Designing for seismic change

Design Management Journal, Spring 2002 by Yamashita, Keith, Bodden, Tara

An outside shock, a new competitor, a new CEO, an innovative technology, organizational unrestall can be sources of dramatic shifts in a company's

direction and strategies. Keith Yamashita and Tara Bodden

outline how specific design and communications rules help executives and managers not only deal with change more effectively but actually capitalize on such challenges.

The technology industry and the advent of the Internet. The auto industry and the customer uprising over poor service and support. The healthcare industry and the rise of managed care. The music industry and the Napster-inspired populist movement. All are cases in which an industry was overtaken by unexpected change. Confronted with change, some companies prosper while others fail. Why?

In our practice, we've studied and worked for a number of executive teams that have faced such changes. This article is about lessons learned and rules distilled from working with leaders at IBM, Kodak, HewlettPackard, Sony, The Walt Disney Company, Mercedes-Benz, PBS, and Netscape, among others.1

These leaders teach us a new way to look at change-and how design and communications can be used as tools for fueling and shaping its course.

Change as a holistic, organic activity

Gone are the days of regimented change programs, complete with Gantt charts and weighty change manuals.

Change now occurs in real time. Today, evolution within industries and companies follows the same change patterns that occur in nature: Systems constantly fall out of balance, and the players within the system are on a relentless search to recapture it. The role of leaders is to catalyze response in the right direction-from "out of whack" to alignment.

Some changes are deeper and less expected than others. They may start far off on the horizon, but overtake your company suddenly. Seismic change is the phrase we use to describe this more-significant type of unbalance. Caused by an outside shock, a new competitor, a new CEO, a technology shift, organizational unrest, these changes are dramatic-and demand that companies evolve to keep up.

We have found that seismic change is not necessarily a bad thing. And it's not necessarily something that "happens" to a company. Seismic change can actually be instigated when, for instance, your company unleashes a powerful new idea that rapidly gains momentum. In fact, design and communications can help management teams not only survive eras of extreme change, but capitalize on them.

In our practice, we've found that the behavior of successful leaders in the face of such adversity can be captured in a five-part model. This "model for designing seismic change" calls on vision, communications, culture, brand and customer experience, and leadership. Think of them as five lenses through which any goal or challenge in a company's reinvention should be viewed.

Vision

We've learned from CEOs at resilient companies that virtually all meaningful change starts with vision-a long-term view that informs a company's strategic direction in the marketplace. Vision answers the question: Why do we exist, and to what end?

In studying the shockwaves generated by the rise of the Internet, for example, we see how IBM's vision of e-business lifted its success. Similarly, Kodak crafted a vision in a world in which sharing memories is increasingly made possible by digital-not analog-technologies. PBS was forced to battle against the Internet and cable to woo viewers and rekindle relevance. In all three cases, leaders first defined a new strategic intent for their businesses. Design and communications are critical in giving life to a vision, making it at once aspirational and concrete-in the words of HP CEO Carly Fiorina, "something that captures both hearts and minds."

Communications

Once CEOs chart a new destination by defining a compelling vision, they use the art of communication to convince everyone else. The best leaders get buy-in from every stakeholder: employees and senior executives, partners, the press, Wall Street, industry analysts, and sometimes, even competitors. We've also found that leaders who are particularly skilled in guiding organizations through periods of extreme change see communications as more than traditional brochures, executive stump speeches, and marketing communications-to them, every interaction is important and can be designed to tell a vibrant story or create an experience that changes people's view of their company. For us as designers and communicators, this creates a new role-we become partners to CEOs in breathing life into these stories in an uncommonly wide set of venues, media, and interactions.

Culture

Once rallied, employees need a dear path to progress. And this usually means redefining the corporate culture-how work gets done, how employees treat each other, how teams interact with partners and customers. At first blush, it may seem that design and communications can do little to change corporate culture, but both turn out to be tremendous tools. They help to visualize strategy (so people can act upon it), to make new behaviors tangible, to magnify "positive deviance" (shifts in behavior that exemplify the new culture) in teams. We believe design and communications, applied to culture change, will be the next great opportunity for our profession.