Remember when the candy-coloured iMacs were rolled out? These little jelly baby-looking computers came to signify the revival of Apple, the taste of things to come and a poignant example of how great product design could help differentiate a product in an otherwise entirely crowded, feature-driven market, which to consumers is more confusing than probably any other.
Within six months of the launch of the iMacs, computer manufacturers everywhere were trying to pick apart the success formula of these computers, they kept appearing on TV shows, adverts, in films – in fact where ever you turned for a while – you would be greeted by translucent coloured plastic. Invariably nobody did it so tastefully as Apple and hence the addition of translucent plastic to printers, other computer cases, consumer durables etc. failed to translate into the escalated sales figures everyone was hoping for.
How could it be? Obviously there was more to the success of the iMacs than just the candy-coloured exterior. It was about the design, definitely, – it was also about the more invisible things – the change in leadership at Apple that allowed such a product range to emerge from nearly a decade of beige me-too boxes. Consumers voted with their wallets and industry pundits speculated whether Apple would be able to create another winner. Years later we can truly say that the iPod has changed the way we listen to music, much like the original Walkman revolutionised music listening in the early eighties.
In this context I would like to expand on the Design Maturity model mentioned in an earlier post – this model talks at length about the role design plays in an organisation and more importantly how management views the contribution design can make in creating so called ‘Blue Ocean’ opportunities of radically strong, differentiated products. Austin Govella has drawn some intriguing parallels between this model, innovation and leadership maturity. Or has he puts it:
Jess McMullin’s design maturity continuum, reminded me of "The seven transformations of leadership", David Rooke and William Torbert’s article about leadership maturity in the April 2005 Harvard Business Review.
Similarities appear between how thinking evolves as someone
explores either design (systems communication) or management (systems
organization). I prefer more maturity than less, but one level isn’t
necessarily better, just different.
Here is his diagram:
Or Download design_maturity.pdf
Rooke and Torbert’s leadership maturity continuum stretches across
the bottom from Alchemist to Opportunist. They call these Action Logics
and refer to the logic one uses when choosing your actions. The
leadership continuum describes how managers and executives think at
each level of their leadership maturity. Steve Jobs is an Alchemist. My
brother is an Opportunist.
The green bar suggests the more mature your design or
leadership thinking is, the more equity your thinking generates for
your organization.
There we are – great design alone doesn’t fix things, you need innovative leaders to understand the role design can play in positioning a company and to understand how to streamline the organisation to properly allow innovation to flow through the organisation and make it onto the market place.
