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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
“An artist is a man who seeks new structures in which to order and simplify his sense
of the reality of life.” —John Szarkowski
“The Ideal of beauty is simplicity and repose.” —Frank Lloyd Wright
“Why would you design something if it didn't improve the human condition.” —Niels Diffrient
Design as Possibility in Practice
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, featured on Division Group’s cover, symbolizes our integrated design philosophy—where transformation emerges through the synthesis of form, purpose, and cultural resonance. It helps convey our purpose and address the “What” and “So What” of each transformation we support. Drawing on the poetics of architecture—as articulated by Alexander Tzonis—we see design not merely as form-making, but as a way of thinking that aligns meaning with structure. This is deepened by K. Michael Hays’s notion of architectural imagination, which reveals how design brings cultural and institutional forces into visible form. Together, these perspectives shape our belief that organizations, like buildings, must be designed to both perform and speak.¹
Read: Design as Possibility
A Philosophy of Organizational Architecture
By Eric Teunissen, CM
This essay articulates how Division Group applies a design lens to organizational transformation. Informed by Boland and Collopy’s Managing as Designing², it explores design not as decoration or procedure, but as a creative and moral act. The essay reflects on how Division Group synthesizes emotional resonance, strategic purpose, and human-centered iteration to shape structures that both function and speak.
→ Download the Essay (PDF format)
As part of this design philosophy, the essay Design as Possibility offers deeper insight into how Division Group integrates the logic of architecture and the principles of design into organizational transformation. It explores how design becomes a strategic act—one that aligns systems with meaning and form with purpose—while this section serves as its interpretive companion, illustrating how those principles are applied in practice. Together, they provide a conceptual backdrop for our approach to organizational transformation, where theory, structure, and strategic imagination converge in real-world settings.
Organizational Design
Building on this foundation, we approach organizational design as both a strategic and interpretive act—one that draws from architectural theory to address the complexity of change within contemporary institutions. As K. Michael Hays argues in Architecture’s Appearance and the Practices of Imagination, architectural imagination is not merely about representation; it is a critical mode of thought that renders latent meaning, identity, and cultural structures visible—making the invisible perceptible through form.³ It provides a conceptual framework through which organizations can be reimagined, not only as functional entities but as concrete assemblages shaped by and responsive to cultural, social, political, and technological forces.
As Frank Gehry suggests in Managing as Designing, great design holds ambiguity and form in deliberate, dynamic tension—a philosophy deeply embedded in our work and further elaborated in our essay Design as Possibility. This duality—between clarity and complexity, structure and emergence—guides how we approach the realities of organizational transformation.
In merger and transformation programs, stakeholder intentions are rarely aligned in advance. Multiple, often conflicting forces act upon the program. In this context, Division Group functions as an organizational architect, mediating between competing interests and structuring the process through two complementary instruments: the schema, which provides typological and formal clarity; and the diagram, which maps and connects emergent patterns, tensions, and external influences. Together, these enable the creation of a dynamic equilibrium—a structure that resists reduction to context while remaining sensitive to it.
The resulting design is both expressive and functional. It encodes the organization’s values, tells its evolving story, and meets operational imperatives. More than a solution to a management challenge, it becomes a medium of communication and transformation. In this way, Division Group’s work advances the practice of program management through a design-led, theory-informed approach that aligns institutional purpose with strategic structure.
“Organizational design is a liberal art. It is the creative and moral act of shaping meaning, aligning purpose, and enabling human potential through form.”
— Eric Teunissen, CM, Founder and Chief Executive, Division Group
"The Theory of Sculpture"
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So What?
The program culminates in an aesthetic experience—one that is purposeful, intellectually engaging, and emotionally resonant.
As George Hagman suggests in Aesthetic Experience⁴, such encounters are not limited to the realm of art, but can arise through acts of creation, innovation, and transformation.
In this context, the design process becomes more than functional execution; it becomes a source of insight, meaning, and inspiration.
It is through this experience that the organization is moved to embody its change vision and pursue its future with clarity and conviction.
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→ Learn more about our approach to organizational design
References
1 Tzonis, A. (2004). Evolving spatial intelligence tools: From architectural poetics to management methods. In R. J. Boland & F. Collopy (Eds.), Managing as designing (pp. 65–77). Stanford University Press.
2 Boland, R. J., Jr., & Collopy, F. (Eds.). (2004). Managing as designing. Stanford University Press.
3 Hays, K. M. (2016). Architecture’s appearance and the practices of imagination. Log, 37, 205–213.
4 Hagman, G. (2005). Aesthetic experience: Beauty, creativity, and the search for the ideal. Routledge.
A Unified Philosophy
“Leadership is the ethical, imaginative act of interpreting change. Design is the structural expression of that vision.
Together, they shape purposeful, resonant, and enduring organizational futures.”
— From Leadership as Human Art and Design as Possibility
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