Years ago, I believed that because a company hired me to be a Senior Design leadership, the company was ready for someone like me.
During the interview process, I shared what had worked for me in the past, and I asked all the questions about culture, innovation, and design that I could think of. I felt confident I had done my due diligence. My expectations were the company had reached a breaking point and needed help. While I didn’t come from a traditional business background, the company knew the status quo wasn’t working.
My inner voice told me I was exactly who they needed.
When I started my new role, I started with what I knew: design, front-end development, and product management. My plan was to focus mainly on developing people, teams, and processes to help us achieve some quick product wins. And it worked! After 12–18 months of ramping up skills and capabilities, the work was being seen and felt. The team and I were making a difference. As a result, I was invited to different kinds of leadership meetings with access to executives, senior leaders, and high profile projects.
I felt valued by my peers and the company.
Confident in my seat, I relied on the same approaches that worked during those first 12–18 months as a means to influence the organization’s future. But, that the same plan did not work.
All the things that worked at the product level kept me from being successful at the strategic level. The momentum our team had built stalled, I was responsible for fixing it, and I was utterly stuck. I didn’t know how to move forward.
I wasn’t prepared for this challenge.
I was anxious because I didn’t understand why what had worked before wasn’t working again. I was frustrated because I was treated like a novelty, despite a track record of previous success. I was scared because I had sold my team on the idea of our importance, and I didn’t want to let them down.
My doubt made me protect my ego first.
I knew what I needed to do. I had to develop better relationships, influence leadership, sell my value, become more strategic, etc.
I followed the guidance of well-known design agencies, in-house teams, and influential voices in the design field, through courses, workshops, and other extended learning programs. I implemented the tools, processes, and techniques I was taught.
I assumed all the guidance on design management would work.
Yet, the more I followed the guidance being prescribed by industry leaders, the more anxious, unprepared, alone, unheard, and stuck I felt. The case studies being shared only highlighted the positive.
The leaders providing the guidance had not themselves been responsible for decisions being made. The courses lacked any real-world situations or scenarios that involved change above the product level. I kept asking myself, “how are other leaders and teams successful with change while I have struggled?”
I felt alone in this struggle.
This pattern would repeat itself a few times as it followed me from organization to organization. This is what I felt like:
- The first time an executive asked what I was doing in the room, and I struggled to find a concise answer
- The second time my boss was fired just months after my arrival
- The third time I was asked to remove elements of my presentation because another group would feel threatened
- Every time someone said, “I don’t even know why you’re here, but glad to have you here.”
- That particular time my boss told me, “No, I’m not doing that. I really like my benefits package.”
Moving forward when you don't know what to do
I often think about this pattern: how I’ve always felt different as a leader inside an organization because I was a designer. How frustrated and isolated I’ve felt at times — especially when my peers and leadership labeled my work as pretty or the final step. How easy it was to blame the organization or my colleagues for not understanding me.
If you're facing a similar situation today, it’s essential to know that design can solve many things, but it’s not the only solution.
When taking on leadership roles, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the firehose of new information, processes, ceremonies, personalities, and unwritten rules. It’s understandable, you feel compelled to rush back to design - it's like being on autopilot. Spending time with our teams, our practices, and our craft is easier and more comfortable to do.
And yet, when you're on autopilot, there's no new paths forward. The struggle to find the joy in your work again remains.
Exposing yourself to micro-discomforts
In each phase of your career, you are faced with a new situations and responsibilities. It is overwhelming. The most significant pivot you can make in leadership is moving from managing design to directing it.
In modern psychotherapy, titration is used to help with trauma. This process exposes a person to small amounts of distress to build up a tolerance and avoid becoming overwhelmed.
By exposing yourself to small amounts of discomfort, you build up your tolerance to new things and avoid being overwhelmed by the firehose. The more you expose yourself to the tools, ceremonies, and processes of colleagues in other parts of your company, the better the chance you'll meet your own expectations.
The more you practice skills beyond design, the greater the chance you can hold your leadership accountable for the changes they say they so desperately want and need. The more you hold your leadership accountable, the more relief you will feel as a design leader, and that puts you in the place to be a better leader for your team.
Breaking free from your own status quo
Sometimes, the only way to break free from the status quo is to break free from your own status quo. Sometimes, you just need to let go of design. You need to trust that the processes and practices you believe in will be replaced with something more appropriate for the new situations you're facing.
Returning to my own story, I was exhausted with my own comfort zone.
I grew tired of the status quo, and frankly, I grew tired of my own story. To find joy again, I had to set a new expectation of myself. I was the one who needed to change. I was the one who had to move past traditional design management guidance. I had to look beyond design to empower my team, be more influential, and create the kind of impact expected of me.
I felt more alive than I had in a long time.
Once I began looking outside of design, I felt more prepared for situations and conversations I had previously been part of. In turn, my preparation helped me to be resilient, relieved, and heard. This is what I felt like:
- The first time I reverse engineered a colleague’s presentation to get additional headcount
- The second time I presented recommendations I could live with
- The third time I confronted my boss about the shitty cultural norms protecting the loud voices from the quiet
- The last time I left a role knowing I had done all I could have but needed to move on so I could live with myself.
I felt more confident and prepared as a strategic leader.
The things that have helped you make an impact in your design career are the things that are going to separate you from others as a leader. They will help you succeed in ways you can’t predict or plan out. While it’s impossible to see now, as you learn more than your craft, the things that others perceived to be your weakness will become your strength.
I know it because I’ve lived it.
If you’re in any of these situations now, you’re not alone. If you’re feeling any of these feels, we’re here for you. If you’re ready to learn new skills to enhance design, just let us know.
And if you’re not prepared to try something different, that’s totally okay. We’ll be here when you’re ready.