#16 The change I want to see
A short note on progress
Because we are about a month away from closing 2020 for good, I thought this piece of Note from my phone is quite relevant.
I was once asked the question: What advice can you give to individuals and companies to make things better?
For individuals, strive to be more business-driven. Look for areas where you can align your work with the business, with the customers and consider that as your lens. Do not just be pixel pushers. Instead, consider value of your work and how it solves problems. Aim for bigger problems to solve as you progress. Do not get stagnant. How & why we do things is just as important as the thing. Learn new things every day and strive for timelessness in your work. Don’t get caught up with the status quo, but rather find ways to challenge it for the sake of innovation.
For organizations, foster a diversity of voices. Have a representative for each department and let them speak up. Live up to the principles you pride yourselves a lot with. Look at things from a customer perspective. They should drive the conversation. The more you take care of them, the brighter your future will be. They, alongside your employees, are everything that makes the company successful.
Manager vs Leader
Jared Spool gave a thoughtful talk about the difference between a manager and a leader. Here’s an excerpt:
“Management is making the team as effective as possible.
Managers are appointed by the organization.
Managers have direct reports.
(Most product managers are not actual managers, despite the title.)
They make change happen through role power.
Leadership is pushing the vision forward.
Leaders are not appointed by the organization or need to have direct reports.
Leaders become leaders when they get their first follower.
They are no longer leaders when nobody wishes to follow them.
(Effective product managers are leaders.)
They make change happen through influential power.”
Pretty powerful stuff, I’d say.
A little personal announcement:
I will be giving a talk next year at UX Camp Winter Edition. It’s such a great opportunity to do so alongside many other renowned people in the industry. Thank you so much Russ and the team at UX Camp for this!
“Mapping the Journey of a Design Career”
How do you design a career you’ll be proud of? How do you turn constraints into advantages? These are the questions I want to explore as I talk about my own journey into UX from traditional design. From past failures to wake up calls and personal reinventions, I’ll map out this human’s journey so far.
I hope to see you all there!
I want to also open up my inbox to Q&A’s if you guys have any questions for me. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the future of work, user experience, philosophy and everything else I talk about on this platform. Thank you for subscribing!