Running and growing a design business makes all sorts of demands on the managing director or chief executive above and beyond a requisite creative ability.
As well as being a designer, a consultancy head has to become somebody who understands leadership, management, strategy, finance, team dynamics, delegation, budgets, psychology and a host of other elements which come into play during the day to day running of a business.
Typically, designers learn these things on the fly through direct experience and trial and error. Very few owners and managers of design consultancies have undertaken any substantial training in management and leadership. Like many other aspects of the way design businesses emerge and grow, designers trade first and foremost on their creative skills, picking up techniques in how to run a business along the way.
One way for a design business director to support, bolster and even verify the hands-on experience gained from running an agency is to undertake professional development training in leadership and management. ‘Almost everyone in the design industry has no training in running a business or management,’ says Caroline Hagen, managing director of Bristol packaging design consultancy Reach. ‘You can get away with this, but if you want to build your business and take it somewhere you need training. If you want to grow or really make a mark you need a bit of help – more than a bit actually.’
Kevin McCullagh, founder of product strategy consultancy Plan, believes that professional training is vitally important in the design industry. ‘For anyone running a design business, training [in this area] is massively valuable. It enables you to anticipate issues ahead of time and gets some systems and people in place so you don’t fall into certain bear traps. It also really helps with the “imposter syndrome” which a lot of people feel: you realise that you’re not just winging it and that you do know what you’re doing, which is worth its weight in gold.’
Support and wisdom
Design business owners in particular stand to gain a lot from leadership training because they are typically running small businesses without formal management structures or a board of directors to advise and steer the company’s strategy. Design heads often find themselves comparatively isolated when it comes to making management decisions with few, if any, external advisors to provide support, experience and wisdom.
Kate Stewart, partner at Liverpool-based interiors and furniture consultancy Team A Go-Go, explains: ‘Some managers have a board of directors above them, whilst others have no one and are more like someone who’s self-employed. I don’t have a board – there’s no formal structure above me, so it’s really good to get feedback in a way that you can’t normally get without people having an agenda.’
McCullagh paints a similar picture of his experience. ‘I run a ten person business on my own without any management or a board. I’ve been in a management role – in previous jobs, including at [product design group] Seymourpowell, and this one – for about 15 years without having had a nanosecond of formal management training. So to go on formal training courses is incredibly valuable.’
McCullagh and Stewart were amongst a number of managers and leaders drawn from across the creative industries to undertake the pilot Advanced Leadership in the Creative Industries (ALCI) course in 2009, run by Ashridge Business School and the Cultural Leadership Programme. McCullagh also attended the Building Creative Businesses course at the London Business School (LBS). ‘The LBS course was more about running a business, whilst ALCI was more about me as a leader, but both were absolutely fascinating. Of course, you’re always learning, from clients and through project work, but that learning curve is pretty shallow, so it was good to be on the steep slopes again and gain the collective wisdom of a business school.’
Structuring your business and understanding your role
One of the first things that management and leadership training might help you to do is understand the distinction between the two roles. Working out whether your strengths lie in leadership or management might be the first step toward focusing your role and structuring the rest of the business accordingly. For example, natural leaders may find the requirements of business management distract them from their strengths as strategists with forward vision. In this case it may make sense to develop a solid management structure to support a leadership role.
‘Apparently, I am a good leader but less good at managing,’ says Stewart. ‘So one of the things that I have implemented [since the ALCI course] is more structure around my role – a tier of management around me created by shifting some roles around here. The company is growing rapidly at the moment and whilst we were always very proud of our flat structure, we have had to build in a stronger management structure which frees me up to do all sorts of other things.’
McCullagh is also thinking of forming a more formal management team at Plan. ‘I have begun to establish the criteria and processes for establishing this, so that it’s not just a case of picking the people who have been here the longest. The training also stressed that you need to make time to reflect and think about what you’re doing as it’s very easy to get caught up in project work and lose sight of some of the important things. I’m definitely already trying to chunk up management tasks and allocate them more in order to free up leadership time more – at present I have to be both manager and leader.’
External advisors
Similarly, the leadership responsibilities of an agency head can be supported and enhanced by appointing non-executive directors or working with mentors. Caroline Hagen also attended the ALCI course and has since put in place this kind of support to her role as MD at Reach. ‘Since the course I’ve taken on a non-executive director and the dynamism that this has given me in planning for the future is incredible. It is someone with lots of experience in management and the running of companies – an action person who can help me get things done rather than just talking about issues. Around the time of the ALCI course I also started working with a leadership coach. Both the coach and the non-executive director are able to be entirely objective about the business, which is really useful,’ she says.
At Plan, McCullagh has also built up external support following the leadership and management training courses. ‘I’ve got a wider team of advisors around me, which is particularly important for a lone director-founder. So now there’s a non-executive director, a PR advisor, a commercial advisor, an HR advisor and so on. Also, one of the outputs of the LBS course was a new business plan. We’d had a five year business plan when the company was founded and we are now five years old, so it was time to reevaluate and plan for the next five years. But this time it wasn’t just me sitting in a room – I would discuss it with the whole group and then show the plan to the tutor at LBS. Then the financial elements were critiqued by a financial person, the strategic elements were critiqued by a strategy person and the whole group would comment on it too.’
Building your support network
Management and leadership training can introduce you to a network of people who may be from different industries, but who are often facing – or have faced – similar issues and challenges. ‘One of the most obvious benefits of the training courses is the network of people they introduce you to. There were other designers on the ALCI course but also other industries like advertising and music, which is so much better. If it was just designers it would have been more limited,’ says McCullagh.
Dee Cooper is the product and service director for Virgin Atlantic airways and, although trained as an industrial designer and working in a design role, spends a lot of her time liaising with non-designers within Virgin Atlantic and in the airline industry. Having the chance to relate her experiences to others in the creative industry was therefore very valuable, she says: ‘I enjoyed benchmarking myself against other creatives and it was good not to use creativity as an excuse for being different to other people. This helps you to see where you are strong or weak and you learn a lot about yourself. If was doing a leadership course with accountants, for example, I would already know that I’m different and so it would be harder to compare.’
Kathryn Knight, publishing director at Faber Music, also found the formation of a cross-sector network of peers to be an especially beneficial outcome of training: ‘None of us will ever again feel alone when we are presented with seemingly impossible business challenges in the times ahead: we will be able to turn to our ALCI colleagues for wholly objective advice and support.’
Where next?
As these experiences show, undertaking professional training can be beneficial in a number of ways, especially for people running small to medium sized businesses – the size of a typical design consultancy. Leadership and management training in particular can help in the following areas:
- Understanding the role of a manager and determining where your personal strengths lie in terms of leadership and organisation
- Advice on how to support your role and develop your business by using external advisors such as non-executive directors and mentors
- Guidance on preparing a strategic business plan
- Forging a network of peers that can provide informal support and the sharing of experiences
For more information about professional development training in general – along with listings of a wide range of courses - see our list of courses in Training for designers.
Advanced Leadership in the Creative Industries 2010
It is clear that the leaders of creative businesses will continue to face a myriad of strategic issues throughout this recession and beyond. Supported by the most up-to-date thinking on leadership and strategy, this advanced leadership programme is designed specifically to meet the professional development needs of those senior executives who are leading our globally renowned creative industries in turbulent times.
Advanced Leadership in the Creative Industries (ALCI) 2010 is an innovative and intensive leadership development programme specifically designed for senior executives who lead creative businesses.
Designed by the creative industries, ALCI 2010 provides the opportunity for visionary leaders to understand and enhance their leadership capacity, enabling them to successfully steer and advance their creative businesses, in a rapidly changing marketplace during the current recession and beyond.
Firmly grounded in reality and supported by the latest academic thinking, expert guest speakers and relevant case studies, ALCI 2010 will enable you to draw from it what you need to thrive.
Programme dates
The programme takes place at Ashridge Business School, near Berkhamsted, over four two-day residential modules and one inter-modular learning day commencing in April 2010 through to July 2010.
ALCI is delivered by Ashridge Business School.
The best way to understand more about the Advanced Leadership in the Creative Industries programme (ALCI) 2010 and to appreciate the Ashridge environment is to visit.
For more information and to reserve a place, please visit:
www.culturalleadership.org.uk