2022 Reflections: Loss, Leadership, and Design
Looking back upon this year, it was perhaps one of the most dramatically impactful both personally & professionally, in a very long time. It was a year fraught with grief and change, per the passing of my father after a lengthy illness — that in itself is a story to write another time, dealing with the merciless gaps in our healthcare (and eldercare) systems :-( Myriad issues abound — service design, humanism, advocacy, communication, payments, insurance…it’s just exhausting to catalog them, and I’m still processing many lessons therein.
However, a few points come to mind from the overall journey of my father’s illness & passing that I’d like to share for now, which I hope to develop further in a future story.
It’s not impossible; often it’s just really difficult: While it may sound like some athletic shoe ad, adopting this attitude really helped me persevere through the roadblocks, obtuse people, interminable phone holds, and countless documents I had to sign and…fax?! Ugh. But they are just difficulties; they can be overcome with tenacity, help from friends/family, and a lucky break or two (knowing who to know). Being in a small town can truly help, in that regard. More on that later…
Whatever happens, happens on time, when it’s supposed to: We can choose to rage against the universe, or accept that certain things happen as they’re meant to, as a way to teach you, guide you, inspire you, help you become better and make things better along the way forward. It’s not about giving in as much as giving way to possibilities that shape you. Sense and respond, with curiosity.
We live in transition: As we know, our cells die and regenerate constantly. Our thoughts meander and morph continuously. We fidget and shift our weight, adjusting our posture and place. We’re not the same person moment to moment. We grow and adapt over time. We’re always changing, and transitioning along the way. Knowing this make death — which is really a transition of life — easier to acknowledge as natural and pervasive.
OK. Whew. That was kinda heavy! I hope to say more soon (likely in 2023 Spring) in a completely separate multi-part essay, to give the proper space to share that perspective.
Meanwhile, professionally 2022 was a year of delving deep into “management” writ large, leading and building a team for a complex domain within a rapidly growing green-tech startup. More employees every week, higher revenue targets each quarter, and bigger customers to close ever more impressive deals. It’s all quite demanding — yet rewarding! So, it’s against that backdrop I’d like to share the following insights gleaned over the past year, as a design leader and creator.
1 — We work in psychological contexts; what matters are “essential human skills”.
It’s important to remind ourselves that we are people first, and work happens among human beings — flawed, complex, nuanced, and often surprising. The workplace — whether virtual or physical — is an ever-changing scene of human engagement. There are various psychologies, mindsets, and interpretations that affect how we thrive and fulfill (or don’t) our own goals. So-called “soft skills” that I call essential human skills, are needed more than ever as work becomes asynchronous, distributed, and dependent on multiple teams. The tenuous connections of human professional relationships need nurturing. This includes listening respectfully, asking with curiosity, and suggesting with humility. And let’s assume good intent — unless proven otherwise!
2 — We can’t make someone do something; instead, develop influence.
The moment you find yourself thinking “how do I make that team or peer do” something you want, it’s wise to take a step back and question your own motives and how they may align (or not) with the other’s goals/needs. And then pursue ways to encourage, invite, or advocate for their participation so they feel welcomed into a new system or activity. Setting up for their co-ownership or tying to their key measures (OKRs, etc.) can go a long way for the success of the initiative. Learning how to influence (those human skills again!) is vital.
Making someone do something via top-down edict or policed standards is a quick path to low morale and negative vibes around you and your project — believe me, I’ve been there! It’s an awful feeling. Instead, explore ways to influence in such a way that creates space for collaboration with shared purpose; maybe doing it so they think it’s their idea all along, isn’t too bad at all ;-)
3 — In-person presence & interaction is profoundly powerful.
Going on three years into the Covid pandemic, we’ve all used many tools and methods for collaborative work online (thanks Mural, Miro, Figjam, Slack, and yes…Zoom). And yet, being together in-person is a truly profound, even joyous moment! Nothing beats in-person presence and interaction, developing subliminal, collegial bonds with co-workers while taking an afternoon stroll to the corner coffee shop or touring Salesforce Park after a workshop session.
Thanks to Covid-safe protocols & vaccines, I’ve been able to lead multiple workshops this year at our San Francisco-based offices with groups of engineers, designers, and product leaders. And there’s nothing quite like it — along with the pungent aroma of Sharpies and tactile feel of crumpling actual Post-It notes! Admittedly, I felt a bit rusty at first. Leading a real-live workshop requires multiple types of energy — physical, mental, emotional and vocal! Yet the positive vibes resulting from workshops persist for days, even weeks, and can reinforce asynch/distributed relations afterwards.
4 — Prototyping (or “making”) is also research.
Talking with users and respectfully absorbing their needs, goals, desires, pain points — that’s absolutely vital. In the discovery stage of a project, it’s through listening and learning that we develop a deep empathy for the problem/opportunity space. And also, as demonstrated by my team, via rapid clickable prototypes you can further probe the possibility space, teasing out boundaries and frontiers of what’s really valuable and feasible. As others have noted, designing involves a fun paradox — you have to do a little bit of solution generation to understand the problem, and vice versa. By making quick stimuli (mockups, clickthroughs, etc.) that serve as guided prompts for discussion, you are researching a potential future state, and thus shaping a perspective that can inform a direction for the team.
5 — Big, hairy, strategic problems need naive questions.
“Focus on the fundamentals” is the oft-repeated line by head coaches of sports teams which survive their biggest, toughest games of the season. It’s easy in the world of product development to get lost in the overwhelming, intimidating nature of “big hairy problems” of strategy that dominate a quarterly review. Discussions get mired in the muddy language of internal jargon, vague posturing, and indecisive meh.
Instead, I’ve found it’s more effective to focus on the fundamentals — start with simple, naive questions to steadily build up shared understanding and aligned purpose. What’s the problem? What’s our goal? Who are we serving? What are the constraints? What’s the motivation or pressure driving the decision? What does success look like? Yes they sound basic but such questions can create the rhythm of having rigorous dialogue that can lead to tackling those hairy strategic matters with confidence and clarity. And chances are, others in the room (or Zoom) are thinking the same thoughts — including other leaders! Be the first to be brave enough to ask; others will undoubtedly chime in.
6 — Don’t lose sight of the abstractions while in the Autolayout 😉
Sorry for the dig at Figma, but it’s a somewhat half-serious swipe. The power of Figma as a versatile, robust, diligent tool for building design systems, drawing interface layouts, and finalizing production assets is unquestionable — just ask Adobe! And yet, it’s really crucial as designers that we don’t confuse Figma with the design discipline itself. It’s a tool with collaboration wired into its DNA, and intelligently built features, like Autolayout, that amplify a designer’s efficiency.
However, designing software well requires identifying and analyzing abstractions — conceptual models, object relationships, organizational maps — to form a coherent experience model that guides the resulting interfaces and interactions. Users don’t think in terms of Autolayout or components; instead, they behave in terms of their goals, values, needs, per their contexts of being.
Our job is to know how to translate a deep sense for those abstractions into well engineered, beautifully crafted apps, sites, and services so people can live their lives well, into the next year and beyond…
