How to be a Designer CEO without Being a Jerk. Or, Happy Business
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This is a a lightning talk I gave at Prototypes, Process, and Play. It describes how we designed company culture at Public Good Software.
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How to be a Designer CEO without Being a Jerk. Or, Happy Business
- 1. How to be a Designer CEO at a Startup without Being a Jerk I was chatting about ideas for this with Russ, and he felt it was a good talk. But after a bit of noodling on it, I wasn’t feeling it. Somehow it seemed wrong. Maybe you don’t want to be a CEO, or maybe you think all CEOs are jerks, especially design ones. You know. Make the logo redder and bigger. Use comic sans.. Who knows what crap these people could say.
- 2. OR I thought what would be better is to tell you how my design skills helped me to build a nifty business and help my people do their best work.
- 3. HAPPY BUSINESS It isn’t always happy, but it’s our business. This is the business of our theory of change. Happy business means delighting your community, ignoring trolls, and having empathy for all. Happy business means a team working as one on a shared set of problems.
- 4. ...ISH @jdkunesh CEO of @publicgood Jason Kunesh, tech veteran of the Chicago scene. I’ve worked all kinds of gigs. Orbitz, Groupon, Obama for America, I ran my own firm, we did work with Microsoft, Mayo Clinic, etc., etc. UX and Product, bouncer, guitarist
- 5. publicgood.com @publicgood CEO of public good software
- 6. A for-purpose start up Illinois Benefit Corporation (like a C-corp) with a social mission to build the capacity of public benefit organizations through our civic tech platform. Today, our partners are nonprofits, foundations, corporations & media. Our customers are the public. People. You! Two horses that pull the wagon for us: purpose and profit.
- 7. OKGO How does this relate to what you do? I dunno. Let’s do some research. A show of hands for everyone who’s a CEO? A show of hands for designers? A show of hands for design managers?
- 8. PRODUCT(a good, service, experience, moment, or other gift of economic value) Whatever you produce: a lunch, a play from a theater company, a skydiving lesson, an ice cream sundae or a website. It’s a gift of economic value.
- 9. PRODUCT PROCESS Kaizen, 6 Sigma, Lean, whatever. We’re seeking the Quality without a name in our product based upon the process used to create it. You cannot separate the two. The right problem to the solution given a particular context. Product/Market fit. Let’s talk about that for a second.
- 10. PRODUCT PROCESS COMPANY Then there’s a company, nonprofit, community group, or other organization that’s needed to provide for the people working in the process making the product. Some organizing capacity that defines relationships the company has to the greater whole. The company is almost an API for the people.
- 11. PRODUCT PROCESS COMPANY COMMUNITY All the people who use your product, or partner with you, or compete with you. Heck, even the people who work down the hall or in the office across the street from you. In social products, the community is the product. The product just facilitates it.
- 12. PRODUCT PROCESS IMPACT COMPANY COMMUNITY The change you make in the world. It can be simple stuff: profit, jobs, the time you saved people, the good you unlock in people who use your things, etc. It can be complex: In our case, we have to submit formal social impact reports, which you can find on our website.
- 13. PRODUCT PROCESS IMPACT COMPANY COMMUNITY BRAND The sum total of the experiences you offer through any of those other pieces. Brand exists in the mind of the beholder, based on all the ways they interact with you: the other five things listed up there.
- 14. PRODUCT PROCESS IMPACT METRICS METRICS METRICS All of these items can be measured and improved. They can be explained, even if only roughly approximated, as numbers.
- 15. VALUES CULTURE EMPATHY COMPANY COMMUNITY BRAND These things are more difficult to measure, but need to be defined and agreed to by everyone in the group so you can reflect on them together and be inspired by them. They are the OS for our collective and personal experiences in these contexts. I’ll share our company values in a second.
- 16. WHERE’S DESIGN?
- 17. “Design is a behavior, not a department.” –David Milne At Public Good, we have no design department, but we do have designers and researchers.
- 18. “If I’m introduced as an expert, I’m in the wrong meeting.” –Dean Kaman At Public Good, like everywhere, we are all experts at something, but we are asked to do lots of other things during the course of the day. We have a team of people with diverse skills and backgrounds, some from nonprofits, some from startups, some from who knows where. Regardless of where they came from, they are ready to dig in. Here’s how we work together.
- 19. GIVE AGENCY My friends Jeff & Howell from the Green House always insist upon this, and at first it’s hard to get. When people come to me with a decision to make, I invariably ask them what they think is the right decision. I made the decision to put them on our team, so I need them to understand that they’re here to kick butt.
- 20. BE MEASURABLE But whatever you do, you need to make sure of its outcome. The way to do that is to measure it.
- 21. BE MEANINGFUL But the only thing sadder than being the slowest one in the race is running the fastest but in the wrong direction. So, you need to make sure the outcome you are measuring has the meaning you want.
- 22. BE HELPFUL And because it’s a startup with a diverse team, we need to help each other when asked upon, because it’s difficult to find meaning and metrics in your work by yourself.
- 23. BE TRANSPARENT You can’t affect what you can’t see, so you need to share your work, from the executive team on down. Otherwise people don’t trust their understanding of what’s meaningful, or they can’t be helpful. We also take this pretty deeply into our culture. We asked the team if they all wanted to expose their salaries & options, including the founders’ team, in a completely open fashion. Some wanted to, some didn’t, so we don’t. We do share all kinds of stuff with our team we’d normally only share with investors and advisors. Again, it matters to us that they know the context for our decisions.
- 24. BE DEMOCRATIC So we consciously push democracy in our culture, but this is where the jerk part of the talk comes in. I am still a benevolent (I’d like to think) dictator. It’s my job to keep us on the rails, to take the agency that comes with leadership, and call BS when the team meanders or spends too much time navel-gazing.
- 25. BE ACCOUNTABLE Ultimately then, we all need to be accountable. To our values, our community, our company.
- 26. ENCOURAGE DISSENT And we need to encourage dissent. If stuff isn’t working out, we need to all be comfortable to say, “Nope, this is not the way” or “This is kinda the way, let me help you” or “Here’s a much better idea for how to do this.”
- 27. BE HAPPY The most important question I can ask team members is, “What are you excited to work on?” If the answer doesn’t match their work, that’s either a problem or an opportunity.
- 28. www.publicgood.com@publicgood Thank you! publicgood.com @publicgood Give to any nonprofit in the US on publicgood.com.
Editor's Notes
- I was chatting about ideas for this with Russ, and he felt it was a good talk. But after a bit of noodling on it, I wasn’t feeling it. Somehow it seemed wrong. Maybe you don’t want to be a CEO, or maybe you think all CEOs are jerks, especially design ones. You know. Make the logo redder and bigger. Use comic sans.. Who knows what crap these people could say.
- I thought what would be better is to tell you how my design skills helped me to build a nifty business and help my people do their best work.
- It isn’t always happy, but it’s our business. This is the business of our theory of change. Happy business means delighting your community, ignoring trolls, and having empathy for all. Happy business means a team working as one on a shared set of problems.
- Jason Kunesh, tech veteran of the Chicago scene. I’ve worked all kinds of gigs. Orbitz, Groupon, Obama for America, I ran my own firm, we did work with Microsoft, Mayo Clinic, etc., etc. UX and Product, bouncer, guitarist
- CEO of public good software
- Illinois Benefit Corporation (like a C-corp) with a social mission to build the capacity of public benefit organizations through our civic tech platform. Today, our partners are nonprofits, foundations, corporations & media. Our customers are the public. People. You! Two horses that pull the wagon for us: purpose and profit.
- How does this relate to what you do? I dunno. Let’s do some research. A show of hands for everyone who’s a CEO? A show of hands for designers? A show of hands for design managers?
- Whatever you produce: a lunch, a play from a theater company, a skydiving lesson, an ice cream sundae or a website. It’s a gift of economic value.
- Kaizen, 6 Sigma, Lean, whatever. We’re seeking the Quality without a name in our product based upon the process used to create it. You cannot separate the two. The right problem to the solution given a particular context. Product/Market fit. Let’s talk about that for a second.
- Then there’s a company, nonprofit, community group, or other organization that’s needed to provide for the people working in the process making the product. Some organizing capacity that defines relationships the company has to the greater whole. The company is almost an API for the people.
- All the people who use your product, or partner with you, or compete with you. Heck, even the people who work down the hall or in the office across the street from you. In social products, the community is the product. The product just facilitates it.
- The change you make in the world. It can be simple stuff: profit, jobs, the time you saved people, the good you unlock in people who use your things, etc. It can be complex: In our case, we have to submit formal social impact reports, which you can find on our website.
- The sum total of the experiences you offer through any of those other pieces. Brand exists in the mind of the beholder, based on all the ways they interact with you: the other five things listed up there.
- All of these items can be measured and improved. They can be explained, even if only roughly approximated, as numbers.
- These things are more difficult to measure, but need to be defined and agreed to by everyone in the group so you can reflect on them together and be inspired by them. They are the OS for our collective and personal experiences in these contexts. I’ll share our company values in a second.
- At Public Good, we have no design department, but we do have designers and researchers.
- At Public Good, like everywhere, we are all experts at something, but we are asked to do lots of other things during the course of the day. We have a team of people with diverse skills and backgrounds, some from nonprofits, some from startups, some from who knows where. Regardless of where they came from, they are ready to dig in. Here’s how we work together.
- My friends Jeff & Howell from the Green House always insist upon this, and at first it’s hard to get. When people come to me with a decision to make, I invariably ask them what they think is the right decision. I made the decision to put them on our team, so I need them to understand that they’re here to kick butt.
- But whatever you do, you need to make sure of its outcome. The way to do that is to measure it.
- But the only thing sadder than being the slowest one in the race is running the fastest but in the wrong direction. So, you need to make sure the outcome you are measuring has the meaning you want.
- And because it’s a startup with a diverse team, we need to help each other when asked upon, because it’s difficult to find meaning and metrics in your work by yourself.
- You can’t affect what you can’t see, so you need to share your work, from the executive team on down. Otherwise people don’t trust their understanding of what’s meaningful, or they can’t be helpful. We also take this pretty deeply into our culture. We asked the team if they all wanted to expose their salaries & options, including the founders’ team, in a completely open fashion. Some wanted to, some didn’t, so we don’t. We do share all kinds of stuff with our team we’d normally only share with investors and advisors. Again, it matters to us that they know the context for our decisions.
- So we consciously push democracy in our culture, but this is where the jerk part of the talk comes in. I am still a benevolent (I’d like to think) dictator. It’s my job to keep us on the rails, to take the agency that comes with leadership, and call BS when the team meanders or spends too much time navel-gazing.
- Ultimately then, we all need to be accountable. To our values, our community, our company.
- And we need to encourage dissent. If stuff isn’t working out, we need to all be comfortable to say, “Nope, this is not the way” or “This is kinda the way, let me help you” or “Here’s a much better idea for how to do this.”
- The most important question I can ask team members is, “What are you excited to work on?” If the answer doesn’t match their work, that’s either a problem or an opportunity.