Excerpt from the article:Â
The Rise of UX LeadershipÂ
Robert Fabrican (July 16, 2013). âThe Rise of UX Leadershipâ. Harvard Business Review
UX, as user experience is known, is the new black in business culture . Most of the executives I meet with, regardless of their industry, now promote UX as key to their product strategy. Thatâs a big change from only five years ago, when UX wasnât on anyoneâs radar outside the tech world. For a designer like myself, itâs easy to recognize which executives know their products intimately, and which manage from a spreadsheet. Thankfully, Iâm seeing the emergence of a new generation of UX-oriented leaders with little patience for the hands-off approach. They recognize that as UX eclipses traditional brand marketing, they need to be more hands-on with their products.
The CEO as Lead Product Designer
Steve Jobs famously ushered in an era of the CEO as âLead Product Designer,â as described by one of his close collaborators, Glenn Reid , who worked with Jobs at NeXT and Apple: â(Steve) told me once that part of the reason he wanted to be CEO was so that nobody could tell him that he wasnât allowed to participate in the nitty-gritty of product design. He was right there in the middle of it. All of it.â
Given Appleâs success, it is not surprising to see many executives following Jobsâ lead. I recently met a top executive at a major enterprise technology firm who runs an $8 billion dollar product line and describes himself as the âChief Product Designerâ for his division (even though his title is SVP and General Manager, and he has never before considered himself a âdesignerâ). A few years ago, this characterization would have seemed like a step down for a senior executive. The nitty-gritty of product design has become a badge of pride in many organizations, like Facebook, which has embraced a âlearn by makingâ executive culture.
This product-centric mindset is not entirely new. The auto industry invented the blockbuster product ârevealâ long before Jobs, with auto execs unveiling new âconcept carsâ at auto shows in an annual ritual of one-upmanship that continues today. For example, the now ubiquitous and much beloved Fiat 500 was first unveiled by Sergio Marchionne, no stranger to showmanship, at the Geneva Motorshow in 2004 following the buzz generated by the 2001 re-launch of the Mini-Cooper by BMW. This spirit is exemplified by executives like Akio Toyoda, the CEO of Toyota, who worked his way up the through the ranks from the assembly line. In a 2008 New York Times interview , he said, âIf I am going to be at the top of the car company, I want to be the owner-chef â with knowledge not just of its vehicles but their ingredients. I taste my car, and if it tastes good, I provide it to the customer.â As Toyota CEO, Mr. Toyoda has lived up to his word, launching the radically redesigned Toyota Crown last year in a hot pink bubble gum hue that you could practically taste.
With consumer technology becoming such a status symbol in our culture, tech CEOs must put on a few good UX demos each year to reaffirm the connection to their products, or risk losing face with their peers and seeing their stock price plummet. This is a good first step, but it wonât make corporate culture more sensitive to UX. For that, CEOs must move beyond showmanship.
Some CEOs do get UX. They use their products on a daily basis. I recently met a senior executive of a financial services company who is so obsessed with his corporationâs product experience that he calls customer service with a new complaint each day, just to make sure the customer service representatives know their way around his product offering.
