Part 3: Podcast — From craft to leader: building a future design practice

Introduction

Part 1: Abstract
This research component seeded and catalysed the idea that we as designers and future design leaders must think holistically in mindset and practice to become better more prepared leaders. Requiring designers to shift from user-centred to systems-centred, or me to we, particularly where design and organisation intersect.

Part 2: Article
The transition to a leadership role is hard for many designers because their love of craft runs deep — leading design means less designing. This article explores the challenges that lay ahead in moving from craft to leadership. Looking at emerging challenges and expectations for design leaders that work in cross-functional teams in modern fluid-like management structures.

Part 3: Podcast
This podcast is the third and final component of the Future Design Leadership series. Advancing the learnings from the previous components, this podcast will take the listener on a journey on a day in the life of a leader in their field. Each of the expert interviews brings its own cognitive learnings, principles, methods and frameworks into the conversation to gain insights into what it means to be, not just any old leader, but an effective systems-led design leader.

Host: Angus Nicholls is a Designer and Student at RMIT Master of Design Futures

GUEST SPEAKERS

Lubomila Jordanova

Guest: Lubomila Jordanova is Co-Founder & CEO of PlanA.Earth and Co-Founder of Greentech Alliance

Vincent Kyas

Guest: Vincent Kyas is Studio Senior Lead / Head of Brand Development at Deloitte Digital in Berlin

Kelly Ann McKercher

Guest: Kelly Ann McKercher is a Designer and Author of Beyond Sticky Notes

Jinhi Kim

Guest: Jinhi Kim is Leading Communication Design at BCGDV in Berlin

Andy Polaine

Guest: Andy Polaine is a Designer — Coach — Trainer — Writer — Podcaster & Speaker

Reflection

Throughout the making of this series, I couldn’t help but feel like this whole process was like a personal experiment on design thinking and systems thinking. The Truman Show of knowing thyself through the act of reflection, realisation and existentialism. To place myself in the context of a future systems-led design leader.

Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank in The Truman Show, 1998

When I began the topic, I felt I was in the fuzzy unknown, being a novice in leadership, not having experienced so much of it in a professional sense, but trying to understand where I place myself. I felt I was looking through a wide telescope into the cosmos trying to focus in one star or planet that I could relate too. As I researched and learned, I began to see each star more clearly and position myself in this context. My lens became sharper as I spoke with practitioners about their lived experiences, mindsets, models and understanding of how organisation function. Seeing how things are not linear but have multiple levels of scale and are interconnected, each part affecting the other. Giving me an ecosystems view of the importance of zooming in on the individual, developing core leadership capabilities, interpersonal skills and evolving processes within a team dynamic. To then zooming out, keeping a bigger picture view of whole organisations mission and standards and how it relates to the larger ecosystem it functions within.

*This podcast is part of my work in the Future Design Leadership unit in the Master of Design Futures program at RMIT University.

References

Jordanova, Lubomila (2020) Face-to-face interview. Berlin, Germany.

Kyas, Vincent (2020) Face-to-face interview via Zoom. Berlin, Germany.

McKercher, Kelly Ann (2020) Face-to-face interview via Zoom. Sydney, Australia.

Kim, Jinhi (2020) Face-to-face interview via Zoom. Berlin, Germany.

Polaine, Andy (2020) Face-to-face interview via Zoom. Offenburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany