Ever learn something that makes the randomness of the universe suddenly fall into an understandable pattern?
Yeah…I usually don’t either. But a few years back, I did.
The past few years have been a time of great change in my career. For the last 15 years, I have worked for a digital design and development company in Seattle, and I am fortunate enough to work on fantastic projects with truly amazing clients.
Thanks to supportive (and truly amazing!) colleagues, and some great project opportunities, I was promoted to Creative Director. While getting promoted felt great, there was one thing in particular that made me feel like I was on suddenly drinking rocket fuel and ready conquer the world. It changed how I thought about design, approached my work, and interacted with my clients.
Who the hell is Micheal Porter?
Now keep in mind I am not trained in business. I went to a great design school, but there was not a heavy emphasis in business within that program. But having been in the industry for 15+ years, I have a good understanding of some of the basics.
But something was missing. Watching more senior colleagues talk to clients and generate creative direction, I sensed there was some fundamental principle that I was not grasping.
It was a suggestion from our Chief Strategy Officer that changed everything for me. Out of the blue one day, I asked him to recommend a book for me to read. He replied that I should read a book called Understanding Micheal Porter by Joan Magretta. Porter is an interesting and influential fellow–he graduated from Princeton and is now a professor at Harvard Business School.
He is considered to be the founder of the modern strategy field and one of the world’s most influential thinkers on management and competitiveness. It was in this book that I found the basic definition of Competitive Advantage, and it goes like this:
“Competitive advantage is often misunderstood as the weapon used to trounce opponents. However, competitive advantage is really about creating value and doing so differently from rivals. Competitive advantage is fundamentally about superior value creation.”
This statement provided a tectonic shift in my point of view about what my job was. As a designer I know that I am hired to solve problems, make things useable, and be visually pleasing. But the concept that I was missing, like a keystone in an arch, is this: You are hired to create value for your clients, not design work.
“Until I understood this fact, it was impossible to climb out of the design trenches. The only way to further my career was to master another design trend or become more proficient with another design tool. It felt like a never ending cycle.”
Which lead to the "Big Question"
If I create value for my clients (not just design work), can I specifically describe how every single thing I do on a project creates value for them? Down to the pixel?
I mean…instinctually, sure, you know you are doing something of value and hopefully are on the right track when you are working. But if you asked me to specifically verbalize exactly how any one task was creating value, it was not always obvious.
For example, if I tried to answer "How does me choosing this color of blue create value for my client?" or "How does sketching this ux flow on a whiteboard create value for my client?", the answers felt like they had inherent value, but it was kind of hard to articulate.
This made me realize I had some work to do. So I went about looking at everything with this new lens.
I listened to clients and heard what was underneath just the design ask. I started thinking about the value they needed that maybe they weren’t articulating. I thought about the intersection of value for both the end user and the client and how the sum was greater than the parts if done well.
Suddenly there were opportunities EVERYWHERE and I had much clearer ideas about what success looked like and how to reach it.
And I dug deeper. There is a lot of writing out there around design thinking and how design is crossing over into the C-Suite as companies begin to understand how the power of design can shape their future.
I had read a lot of these articles before, but was never quite sure how they applied to me or how to harness them. But now I was able to connect the dots with those lines of thinking in new and powerful ways.
Armed with this new perspective, several interesting things happened:
I was able to make better design work faster- because I could always trace my actions back to whether or not what I was doing was creating the right value for the client.
By explaining my design decisions in terms of value creation (and not just meeting end users needs) I found I was suddenly speaking in a language that the clients understood more readily.
I was able to understand where my superiors were coming from in terms of day to day operations and company direction, and I found I was able to contribute to the conversation in a more meaningful way. I began gaining respect in new areas.
Ok…Now what?
if these gains sound like something that is right for you and you want to take your design career to the next level, consider doing the following:
Read Understanding Micheal Porter by Joan Magretta- I touched upon a single quote here, but really it was the whole introduction of the book that gave me the change in perspective (the rest of the book is good, but reads mainly as supportive material towards the basic premise in the intrduction).
Consider the "Big Question" above about understanding and seeking out how you create value and what that means when you are making wire flows, creating mood boards, anything.
Want to be a better designer? Consider signing up for my free e-course: Be a more valuable designer in 6 days. I can teach you the tools to boost your design ideas and help you make sure you are creating the right value for your clients!
The take away
Your clients hire you to create value for them.
You create value for your clients by designing experiences that meet their end users needs, both by the problem it solves and by how it makes the user feel. And it needs to do so differently than their competitors. This is a powerful principle – start looking at what you do and how you interact in every area of your profession thorough this lens, and it will change things.
““As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few... the person who grasps principles can successfully select their own methods.”
- Harrington Emmerson”
