Design Isn’t a Department. It’s an Accelerator.

Matthew Doty
Jul 7
3 min read

Most CxOs I meet don’t have a design problem. They have...

A clarity problem.
A trust problem.
A speed-to-impact problem.

For example, a CEO once told me their team spent six months building a feature customers completely ignored. The issue wasn’t the code. It was an assumption no one validated before the first line was written. There was no shortage of talent. No lack of ambition. Just a missing checkpoint—the kind of checkpoint great design leadership builds in by default.

This example demonstrates a core challenge I tackle with clients: elevating design from "decoration" to "differentiation".

Design as Tactical Execution vs. Design as Strategic Acceleration

When organizations treat design as a service layer—something that gets painted on after the real decisions have been made—they get surface-level design impact at best. But when design is embedded as a strategic capability, everything moves differently!

Teams can move from idea to market in weeks, not quarters
Platforms evolve through anticipation, not just reaction
Customers experience consistency, not confusion
Stakeholders meet product launches with confidence, not crossed fingers

Strategic design isn’t just how your product looks. It’s how your org thinks.

In my last post, I introduced a model that helps leadership & design teams assess their true design performance: Impact = Capability × Capacity ÷ Priority. When this formula is well understood, I’ve seen design teams triple their effectiveness—not necessarily by hiring—but by changing where and how design shows up in the decision flow.

To get the strategic, accelerating impact I'm talking about here, design can't be just a team or a department. It needs to be a broader mindset and capability that affects every part of the business. When that mindset is nurtured and shared across functions (product, marketing, operations, support), clarity accelerates, trust compounds & innovation sticks. Its here that design becomes the connective tissue between vision and reality and the accelerator that ignites ideas and fuels them through implementation.

For example: I recently worked with a fintech org that was seeing high churn in early onboarding. Instead of adding features, we simplified the flow, reframed the language, and aligned it with insights gathered from customer support and compliance. The result? churn dropped significantly! That’s the power of clarity and alignment—two things design does better than most give it credit for.

How I Help Teams Make That Shift

When I partner with product, design, and executive leaders, the goal is always the same: transforming design from cost-center to competitive advantage.

That looks like:

Turning design teams into strategic partners—not ticket-takers
Coaching senior design talent to lead with confidence and business fluency
Scaling systems that reduce waste, support faster delivery, and foster real innovation
Aligning design, product, and engineering around shared outcomes

And here’s the thing: most of the time, we don’t necessarily need to add headcount. We add alignment. We add clarity. We add momentum.

To guide that shift, I use a framework built around four phases:

Awareness – What can design really do for the business?
Basics – Are foundational design practices understood, expected, consistent and effective?
Change – What behaviors and expectations need to evolve?
Discipline – What will make those changes stick?