Rise of the DEO: Leadership by Design

Maria Giudice · Christopher Ireland

Oct 2013 · New Riders

About this ebook

The majority of companies, their employees and their leaders navigate a space where competitors appear overnight, customers demand innovations monthly, business plans rarely last a full year and career ladders have been replaced by trampolines. This environment of constant change will only accelerate in the future and traditional business leaders are ill equipped to deal with it.

Just as we took our cues from MBAs and the military in casting the ideal CEO of the 20th century, we can look to design - in its broadest form - to model our future leader, the DEO. These leaders possess characteristics, behaviors and mindsets that allow them to excel in unpredictable, fast-moving and value-charged conditions. They are catalysts for transformation and agents of change. A hybrid of strategic business executive and creative problem-solver, the DEO is willing to take on anything as an object of design and looks at ALL problems as design challenges.

Readers will learn not only why this form of leadership is essential to the success of modern organizations, but also what characteristics are best suited to this role. Through intimate conversations with leading DEOs, we explore the mindsets, communities, processes and practices common to creative business leaders. The book lays out—graphically and through example—how DEOs run their companies and why this approach makes sense now. We help readers identify these skills in themselves and their colleagues, and we guide them in using these skills to build, revive or reinvent the next generation of great companies and organization.

Ratings and reviews

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About the author

Maria Giudice

Innovator, artist, protagonist, and positive provocateur, Maria has pursued a vision of intelligent, elegant, people-centered design throughout her professional life. Her grasp of the pragmatic, the authentic, and the essential have kept her at the forefront of design and business for over 20 years. Under Maria's leadership, Hot Studio, the experience design firm she founded in 1997, grew from a two-person outfit into a full-service creative agency with an impressive list of Fortune 500 clients. Facebook paid Maria the ultimate compliment in Mar 2013, by acquiring her and most of her employees in their largest “acqui-hire” to date. Maria’s new roles as Director of Product Design at Facebook allows her to experience first-hand the challenges and opportunities DEOs face.

Christopher Ireland

Researcher, strategist, idea generator and alliance builder, Christopher started her career with the notion that businesses could benefit from a better understanding of people and culture. Her ability to create simple explanations of complex human behavior and to translate those insights into effective design and development strategies attracted a wide range of clients including Microsoft, HP, Pepsi, Levis, Gap and more. As a co-founder and CEO of Cheskin, a firm that pioneered design research in Silicon Valley, Christopher had a ring-side seat to unrivaled feats of creation, innovation and reinvention.