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.