Design leadership and craft. Hands-on, in the studio rather than the org chart.
Chuck’s work happens in the studio, where design actually gets made: working sessions, reviews, the five-minute coaching moment when a designer is about to make a subtle wrong turn. He does not write decks about design excellence. He sits next to the designer and helps them see the next move.
That kind of involvement changes the work in real time, and it rubs off on the people around him. Craft scales on a team through a hundred small corrections that add up to a higher standard, not through a memo.
Twenty years of leading design teams have distilled into tools teams keep using after he leaves: a flexible design process built around what is known and what is not, a career architecture describing the skills and mindsets of strategic designers across both IC and management tracks, and tested workshops in strategic design thinking, synthesis, and facilitation.
I do my best work in the studio. Not writing decks about design excellence, sitting next to a designer who is about to make a subtle wrong turn and helping them see the next move. Craft scales through a hundred small corrections that add up to a higher standard. A good crit is where that starts, and I have yet to meet a team that could not get better at critique.
One session, your team’s work on the screen, direct feedback. He will tell you honestly whether he is the right person for more. Most fractional engagements start with a single crit.
Ask Chuck for a crit