Today's financial marketplace, driven by quarterly performance metrics, demands short-cycle actions, often to the detriment of the long-term value of your organization. Compounding this, playing people and facilities like chess pieces loses the embedded value of human networks and institutional knowledge, especially after a merger or acquisition. These patterns, common in publicly traded companies, have found their way into creative industries like architecture, design, and advertising as well. Using a personal journey through his 42-year career as an architect, interior designer and planner, 8 of which were spent as President of Gensler, one of the world's most influential design enterprises, Ed Friedrichs presents a model for business design in the 21st century. Drawing on strategies that created the world's largest architectural practice, an archetypal long-cycle business, he makes the case for a quantum shift in thinking about organizational design in today's creative business environment. This book contains numerous case studies illustrating how to develop strategies and culture to achieve a sustainable advantage in a highly competitive marketplace. What you'll learn: 1. How to develop a unique sustainable advantage for your enterprise by designing it to adapt to rapidly changing markets in real time. 2. Where the true value to your clients resides. 3. How rich networks and a deep culture will differentiate you from your competitors. 4. How to overcome the loss of knowledge through turnover by building a sense of ownership and a career orientation into your enterprise. 5. Why a deeply embedded design focus builds value into everything you do.