When Britain’s Treasury commissioned Sir George Cox to lead an examination into creativity in business, it did not anticipate the findings the crusading knight would ultimately table.
Then head of the British Design Council, the former Director-General of the British Institute of Directors, Sir George is an entrepreneur, a successful businessman with interests in IT and consulting and a background in aerospace engineering. Familiar with the challenges particular to engaging business to apply creativity and design to improve productivity and performance, he had no illusions about seeing his report take flight.
Compiled in consultation with key stakeholders and a small but dedicated research group, The Cox Review, as it became known, canvassed and consolidated a diversity of opinions across disciplines, enterprise, trade bodies and universities.
Released in December 2005, The Cox Review found that whilst Britain had an immensely significant tradition of creativity and innovation, it had never truly capitalised on its potential. To not do so now, warned Sir George and his colleagues, could sound the death knell for the progress of British industry in the globalised knowledge economy facing emerging economic superpowers, unconstrained by hidebound thinking in an ever-evolving, technology-driven marketplace.
Simply put, Britain needed to become an innovation nation for its very survival.
Key recommendations included design immersion and support programmes for businesses, the strengthening of links between tertiary education institutions and industry, supporting fusions of skill bases and dispensing with outdated educational streaming, a review of the tax credit system with an attitudinal shift in oversight that was less prohibitive and more supportive, and a network of highly visible, flagship design centres of excellence.
Rather than sink unacknowledged into a dusty archive as its author feared, The Cox Review sounded a loud report through the halls of power, proving a catalyst for profound adaptive change and a paradigm shift in thinking.
Much to his surprise and delight, all key proposals were implemented, or at the very least heeded and seeded to go forward strategically and meet the challenges described.
In innovation-based economies, design is the driver. The key he says, not just to the success of a business, large or small, or the seeding of a new enterprise, but vital to its very survival. Design takes creativity and focuses it on a purpose. Creativity without design is art.
Design Victoria enjoyed a discussion on the business of designing a sustainable future with Sir George Cox on his recent visit to Melbourne as a guest speaker at the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival.
Sir Terence Conran also accompanied you to the presentation of the Cox Review to Treasury. When asked for his opinion by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Sir Terence famously stated that he had been waiting 50 years to hear the word ‘design’ spoken in Downing Street. Do you think it took someone with your business background to actually articulate to Government that which the design industries have been saying for decades?
Sir George: I think it helped. When I [was appointed to] the British Design Council, they were bringing in someone with a business background who had quite a strong existing relationship with Government. I had lobbied for business and I’d also started a programme in the UK jointly with other bodies called ‘Enterprise Insight’ which was formed to encourage young people to engage in enterprise, because ‘enterprise’ doesn’t have the cachet for young people that it should have. So, I had done quite a lot of work with Government, and had established good relationships with departments: I had delivered on the things I’d said I would do for them, so that was very fortuitous really. Therefore, when I was arguing at Treasury for investigation into the area it wasn’t taken as a special pleading on behalf of design, it was seen as: ‘Here is someone from business, asking how do we go about earning a living in the world?’ I wasn’t specifically trying to promote the design industry. Incidentally from what I do, I would hope that the industry would benefit, but I was not part of a trade body representing design. The mission of the Design Council is to try to get businesses to understand and use design, not to promote designers as such.
Is there an institutionalised perception of design as simply part of ‘the arts’ and therefore viewed in a manner other than a quantifiable economic driver? Are stakeholders not defining design properly?
SG: Perhaps there is a view simply regarding ‘design’ as just that, as ‘lipstick on the griller’. Business owners may say, ‘Yes, I use design. If I need a new brochure done, I’ll get designers in… or, if I have to change the reception area – we use designers.’ But it’s not using design in the strategic sense, which is what we believe in. It is not really involving design in the key issues facing the business.
As an entrepreneur yourself with a diverse background, what qualities do you look for in classifying leadership in the so-called smart economies, and their constituent companies today?
SG: I have a fixed view on leadership and I sometimes lecture business schools and groups about what it really is. It is a term that we throw around: ‘Oh leadership, it’s a good thing, we can’t get too much of leadership …’ But what do we mean by it? People talk about it as the ability to convince, or it’s about courage ... But there is only one characteristic of leaders and you can see this throughout history. Who were the great leaders of the 20th Century? And they were not all good people of course, but they were all very powerful leaders. The only thing they have in common is that they had clear sense of where they wanted to lead people. And whilst people subscribed to that vision, they were leaders. When they no longer believe in the vision, you are no longer a leader.
What you want in a leader for anything is a person who has a clear, passionate vision of where he or she wants to lead something – someone who knows unequivocally that this is the kind of organisation we want to be. And it’s not being a good manager – that is a very different thing.
You can put a person in a position to lead but you can’t appoint a leader.
You’ve spoken about the sorts of issues that face a globalised world and with so much information about today, through IT, faster speeds of uptake, and networked communication, never has there been such a time when there is so much data about so many things. Often people have specialised and multi-disciplinary skills, but they are not always sure where these fusions are going to lead them and by definition, us.
SG: Yes indeed. The other thing that we face in society too is that with all these powerful forces taking place, most aren’t actually being controlled by anybody. You talk about globalisation, people think it is being driven by a few big corporations … No, it isn’t. You and I are driving it. Even when you get protests against globalisation, think on it, they actually communicate and organise by the biggest force in globalisation, which is the internet. They are part of globalisation as well. Globalisation isn’t being driven by a few sharks; it’s being driven by shoals and millions of sardines… us.
The internet isn’t being controlled and directed, it’s a natural thing. And there is so much taking place in the world that isn’t actually a conscious decision. No one is making a conscious decision that we’ll be global – a company might if its dedicated business goal is to be global – but the decisions that are actually shaping the world aren’t being made by a few individuals, by and large. I think what we need politically is a few more genuine global leaders with a vision on this thing. We’ve been very starved of this in recent years.
It could be argued that there is a vocal responsibility on developed countries to at least be seen to rise to the global challenge of sustainability in ethos, practice and product whilst still maintaining profit and growth. How can this be achieved in the face of emerging powers making enormous inroads into global economies that perhaps have less accountable best practice?
SG: Firstly, if you talk about industrialised nations, I find there are more concerns with these issues in the corporate world than people believe or understand. For example, if we are to tackle a lot of the issues of sustainability, it will come from corporations. Why should the director of a big corporation care any less about the world he is bequeathing to his children and grandchildren than you and I? Albeit there are pressures of growth and profit, nonetheless there is real concern. More so, big corporations are in many ways the spreaders of knowledge. Yet if you go to a very underdeveloped country and because of other interests I have, I’ve been to some of the toughest ones in the world, the nation itself is not going to educate its population – it’s just not going to do it. And I mean vocational education. It’s not going to set standards of hygiene or workplace standards. But the big international corporations will set those standards for the people who work for them and therefore they will set that standard for the people of that nation. They will educate people. Not in the basics, but I remember going to an undeveloped, very rough, remote part of Africa and the amazing thing in the hotel was that what you ordered, came as ordered. When you went to the bathroom, there was actually a towel and a piece of soap. Then you turn the towel over and it has ‘Novotel’ on the back. And that’s the point. Who’s going to train people to be a waiter, cook, chef, driver…? That’s an international corporation. And I think what we are going to see is that they will drive up the standards internationally.
I believe that the responsible international corporations can be a power for good.
Now, you can say that perhaps some of the emerging giants haven’t got that ethos. It will come. Partly because of public pressure. You can ask, are they adopting these practices because of public pressure and image rather than philosophical belief? I couldn’t care less provided that they are adopting these responsibilities.
Marks & Spencer in the UK announced recently, that they were going to charge for plastic bags. That’s actually a big sign rather than a small gesture. If we are going to stop using trillions of plastic bags, it’s not going to be government who will arrest it with a tax. It’s a mixture of corporate behaviour and public attitude. When the public finds things unacceptable, they get it done politically. The same as this swingeing charge on polluting vehicles in London. This is really substantial. It’s charging 50 dollars a day just to have a car in London. That’s a lot of money. Politically, the Mayor can do that now because there is public support for these issues.
To say that Indian and Chinese companies won’t understand this is awfully arrogant and patronising. They are going through a phase we’ve been through. It’s very hard to lecture the Chinese on building coal power stations when Britain’s whole industrial wealth was built on doing exactly that. Or, to say to people in China, you shouldn’t be driving cars, when I’ve got three! I think you’ll find that there will be much more concern from these corporations in these countries than we see at present. China is horribly polluted in places of course, but they are not going to want to live with that – with a poisoned atmosphere any more than anywhere else. Even though at the moment, they’re driving tremendously for economic growth, I believe that sooner or later they will necessarily turn a lot of attention to environmental issues. And again, leadership in the area will evoke change.
Do you want a speech or a swing into action? So, when a big company says that they are not going to produce plastic bags anymore, an action that may be detrimental to its business in the short term, I don’t need the head of the corporation to make a speech about it, I need him or her to actually do it. Leadership isn’t about making great speeches. It’s about setting a clear direction.
Is every entrepreneur an innovator in the sense you talk about using design strategically and incorporating it into clever business and innovation economies, driving a new way of looking at things?
SG: Most entrepreneurs are [innovators] because that is the basis of their business. I’ve always had a view that most entrepreneurs don’t become entrepreneurs out of a desire to have their name in lights over the company title. Or, even to make money. They do it out of frustration.
I became an entrepreneur because the company I was working for wouldn’t adopt my ideas on development. I went to the head of the corporation in America and said, ‘why don’t we go in this direction?’ And he wouldn’t buy it. That’s fair enough; he was the owner of the company. But I returned to Britain and was really quite depressed. I thought that the world is going in a different direction, the market is changing and there is such a fantastic opportunity. Now, I had delivered excellent profits and established a reputation for the company in the UK, which I was running, so I had no problem with my stature in the company, or the way they rewarded or treated me … but the lead guy just didn’t want to go in that direction. Then one thinks, alright, I’m just going to go and do it. And a lot of people begin that way. They start a business because they can’t get an outlet for doing what they want where they are.
Many people I know who have become entrepreneurs have done so because they were made redundant. And part of what I am on about is that we need entrepreneurs who don’t run out of ambition.
Is that a definite risk, to rest on one’s success?
SG: Oh yes. Perhaps more so in the UK than in the US. You start a business, you grow it, you establish it and then you get to a point where if you are not careful, you become more concerned with losing what you have made than creating any more. We don’t create the Wal-Mart’s, we don’t create the Microsoft’s … there’s a great tendency in the UK at least, from my experience, to cop out early.
Is that about risk-aversion?
SG: Well, yes and no. These are people who have probably put their houses on the line to start up so they are not risk averse by nature. You simply don’t want to get bigger and bigger … it’s a phenomenon I don’t fully understand. I’m partly guilty of it myself. The company I had built up over 15 years floated on the stock exchange and was international by then, so that’s quite successful. And then about 12 months later, we sold for a very good price to an American corporation. Now, sometimes I look back wonder what it would have been like if we hadn’t sold it although, at the time, your investors regard you as a hero. By contrast, a lot of American companies have much more ambition to just keep growing. And what you need to grow an economy is not start-ups. The window cleaner that resigns from the company he works for and buys his own ladder and bucket … he isn’t doing it for the economy and good luck to him. You need people who grow businesses and employ people.
Can you predict then what the “smart” businesses of the next 5 -10 years will be?
SG: I honestly can’t say that I know. But there are people out there that are already thinking about them. And in retrospect, they are so obvious. You can look back and think, ‘why didn’t I think about that at the time – oh well, I missed my chance now’. But these opportunities are there all the time. A couple of people in the UK started a business called Friends Reunited. They started it in their home, and all it does is present an internet site that lists schools, you subscribe and get in touch with your old classmates. Isn’t that an obvious thing to use the internet for? It’s ridiculously obvious. It’s not some very clever, cunning scheme. They built it up, and once fully established it became the site. And they sold it for millions. Now, you want to be rich? Why didn’t you think of that idea?
You question why eBay was not invented by an established auction house such as a Christies or a Sotheby’s. Many historic organisations, still market tradition as a point of difference in a ‘disposable’ world. When you say that we cannot extrapolate the past any more to tell us where we are going, how does one keep innovating whilst maintaining a respect for the saleable elements of craftsmanship, trust, longterm relationships, history?
SG: I think this is indeed a very big challenge for the well-established and successful company. In a very successful enterprise, there is a temptation to not change at all. You’re performing well, results are good, you are highly respected but in the long term that’s unsustainable. I’d submit to you that there is no business in the world that can survive on its reputation and past customer base and still be successful in the future and I don’t care how good a reputation you have. Now, that presents you with a big problem because you don’t want to ruin the brand – if you make a luxury car and you bring out a small car is that further leveraging the brand or damaging it? If you take the brand into another area and diversify, if you’re not careful that’s potentially damaging too. It’s enormously difficult in many ways to change a successful company if it hasn’t already changed.
You can see some successful companies that just keep changing - there is such belief in the brand you can do anything. You take Richard Branson - pop music company, start an airline. He started an airline when Pan Am and TWA were collapsing! This wasn’t a boom time for air travel and he starts a new airline! He starts a bank, an insurance company, a train company, and now space flight using the brand. It’s brilliant.
Virgin is a good example. You have a well-established brand that is continuously changing, looking for new ways of doing things. And his airline is continuously looking for new ways to innovate. They look at every element very carefully though. Of course, they worry about jeopardising the brand name. But it is the long established company that won’t countenance change partly because it is scared of it and partly because it doesn’t see the need to – they are under real threat. You want to use the brand, the reputation as a platform but you can’t just trade on it and not change. You have to keep moving forward. In fifty years time, some of the brands we know today will still be around, some will have disappeared, and some will have become household names …
In the realm of new tech, a brand such as Apple is just a masterpiece of vertical positioning, design drive and branding putting products out to market with speed and marketing brilliance. But is the pressure on any manufacturer of speed to market demand potentially compromising quality for the end-user?
SG: I don’t think anyone deliberately launches a half-baked design. There is pressure to get to market but no one would consciously send out a product that is not market ready.
As we’ve been discussing, the point is that none of these things is sufficient on its own. When I talk about good design, I talk about something that is easy to make, easy to maintain, and nowadays, it’s sustainability. That will be the big, big feature in the future. Remember, one of the things the designer has to get wised up to is that when it comes to sustainability, they have to change from being the villains to the heroes. For example, we’ve just dumped three televisions with perfectly good pictures. Why? Because they were obsoleted by the next generation of televisions. Like most people, we separate the rubbish in our waste bin each week, recyclables, paper… So what is in my waste bin? Wrapping, plasticised covering, designer packaging. I buy a CD, a game this big and the packaging is twice its size. Designers have a role to play here, which they are not playing.
Why? Is business not inviting them into the discussion?
SG: No, I just don’t think the issues have hit the design community the way they should at present. What we want is a bit of leadership there. Instead of waiting for business to come back and say, ‘we want to design sustainability into this product’, [designers] should be pushing us. They should be driving this. At present, if you are a manufacturer of whitegoods or televisions, you can only sustain your business by obsoleting what’s out there and selling more. Now, I believe it’s going to turn around in the way that Rolls Royce now supplies aero engines. Rolls Royce makes most of its money nowadays from services. They make an engine but then, they take a contract to maintain you in the air. So, they have a vested interest in keeping that engine going as long as they can rather than aiming to replace it. And I predict that you are going to see this with a lot of products and services in the home. Plans for usage, and processes like that. We simply can’t keep up otherwise.
Technology is a vital element in realising theoretical innovation across the diversity of industries and services. How can an SME be economically viable, market ready and still place a premium on R&D whilst keeping apace with the rapidity of IT advances?
SG: The one thing that counters that is the whole approach to prototyping. There was a time that if I wanted a new product, I’d do the drawings, I’d go to someone to create a model… now you have a prototyping machine, the product is there hours later. There are things which speed that cycle up enormously. Even though some engineering aspects in aerodynamics for example, are much bigger and more complex, delivering a new airplane is much faster through simulation technology. So there are plenty of tools to aid this response to market. You can move quickly now.
But again, the design community ought to take much more leadership with some of these issues, driving these ideas, driving these concepts rather than waiting and responding. Now, I spend a lot of time with designers and they are so full of insights and ideas, and not just in relation to what they do specifically. I talked to someone recently about medical diagnosis and he showed me a T-shirt with microchips embedded in the fabric. It records heart rate and blood pressure throughout the day and you transmit the data by mobile phone to your doctor at the end of the day. This transforms the cost of medical provision. Traditionally, if you need to be monitored like that, you have to attend the clinic, the doctor wires you up…and here is a designer talking about remedying it. So, more leadership like this from designers would be a great development.
We spend a lot of time discussing the problems of society; I believe the solutions are there. There is not a problem we face that we can’t attack whether it is the provision of health care, medical services and education in the developing world … for all of these issues, there are solutions. And every time I meet with a designer, I came away so incredibly inspired with the things that can be done. So why don’t people simply do it?
A designer I know recently showed a transportable flat pack for use in crises situations. Because of the charitable work I do, I’ve seen a lot of earthquake areas and disaster zones, and as emergency housing, tents are dreadful. You can’t sterilise a tent. But if you had these flat packs stacked and ready to go, you would forever change disaster and emergency response. There are so many good ideas out there for tackling these issues. So [designers] are inspirational, but we want a little more leadership from that community. The other crucial element about design is that it tends to have a weak voice when it comes to trade bodies. I can name some powerful trade bodies for every sector imaginable but creative industries don’t have a loud voice.
Again, perhaps if you change the lexicon of that historic view - that rather than just a function of art practice, design is actually an economic driver for a new economy; people will sit up and listen.
SG: Oh, it will come. I’m sure it will.
Related Links
The Cox Review of Creativity in Business — www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival — www.lmff.com.au
British Design Council — www.designcouncil.org.uk
Lani Steinberg for Design Victoria
26 March 2008