#88 Design Leadership in Evolving Landscapes: Bridging Creativity and Business Strategy with Ryan Ramsey
01:02:41 Share

Hello friends and welcome back to the future of your ex podcast. In this episode I have Ryan Ramsey with me and we had such an inspiring conversation with lots of insights. Ryan and I first crossed paths a few months ago at a conference in the US where Ryan delivered a very inspiring presentation that absolutely resonated with me and for me it was clear that he

his approach or the way how he approaches design leadership and business strategy would be so invaluable to our listeners so to you. Ryan is the founder of the Second Wave Dive where he blends instructional coaching and mentoring to offer fresh perspective on professional development. He's also focusing on the second phase of one's career when you're moving from mastering your craft to stepping into management and leadership roles. So he has a lot of

great advice when it comes to leadership, when it comes to communication, when it comes to really presenting your ideas and design decisions. And in today's episode, we will deep dive into a variety of topics such as the future of design, business strategy and how to design maturity into a one size fits all model, but rather something that should be adapted to fit the context of different organizational structures.

Ryan will also share valuable strategies for designers on how to bridge the gap between creative thinking and also the business part, essential for driving in today's fast-evolving landscape, especially in times of AI.

And I would say, let's dive right into this conversation, lean back and enjoy. Welcome, Ryan. Actually, I think really our first deep conversation that I've been looking forward to. We met each other a couple months ago, but only got to sort of talk limited. So I'm really excited to get to know you more.

Me too. This was the reason why I wanted to have you in the podcast. I really loved your presentation you gave at the ITX conference, I think like two months ago. I thought it would be so inspiring for the listeners of this podcast to dive into your thoughts and insights. So in this podcast episode, we will talk about lots of different things, a business, the future of design, design maturity, innovation.

But before we are talking about these topics, Ryan, please give us a quick intro so the listeners know who you are. My name is Ryan, and I would say first and foremost, I'm a dad. I've got three kids. That is probably the majority of really what I'm thinking about these days. They're 15, 12, and 8. So we're right in the middle of being with them and being a parent. And

I'm married, I have a spouse, and it's also probably number two to make sure that I'm a good partner and whatnot. We live in the U.S., a rural part of the U.S., a state called Vermont. So we're right between Boston and Montreal. My background is I run a tiny business called Second Wave Dive.

And within that, I kind of create tiny micro businesses. Most people for this podcast are going to be interested in something like chief design officer schools. For the last five years, I've been independent and have been building really professional development curriculum in a very different way. So kind of blending instructional, coaching, mentoring models together because we learn in different capacities, but we also learn

have different times of when we are wanting to learn, different modes in which learning is relevant to us. And so CEO School is this sub-brand that I created under Second Wave Dive. And yeah, that's where we really focus on the second phase of your career. As soon as you kind of really get great at your craft now,

You're transitioning into management or senior leadership, and you're really wanting to communicate and validate to others the impact power that your craft might actually have on, say, a company or the bigger product or portfolio of products. Prior to that, I had a long history of working in-house. Probably before that was very popular. I went in-house in 2005, and so I...

Spent a long time working at companies like Apple and Electronic Arts. We lived in Switzerland for a few years and I worked for an R&D division of Nestle. Much of that time was focused on employee experience and customer experience of tooling softwares and partnering with engineering companies.

marketing these types of organizations to build internal software. So yeah, that's a brief summary. Awesome. Thanks for the intro. I think it's super inspiring to hear the story and how you started working for different corporations now doing your own business. I'm super curious, right? Like you have worked at various companies with lots of different cultures and also design maturity levels.

What would you say are some of the key strategies for designers to navigate and adapt these environments, right? Like if you compare all those different experiences. First and foremost, I would say that while I was in the experience,

I was just kind of winging it. There was no clear strategy. I imagine what many people are going through. You're running on a combination of kind of adrenaline and anxiety and curiosity and fear, you know, all these types of things. And so while I was in it, I couldn't assess or interpret what maturity was or wasn't.

In hindsight, I think my answer would be a little different because I think so much when design maturity gets talked about or has been written about, it sort of focuses only on design as this independent entity of here are crafts, here are processes, here are practices that show design maturity. And I think of it very differently, which is...

Maturity is really influenced or dictated by the company and the business model and the operational model of which you are working in. So it's very contextual because what one company needs in terms of maturity might be traditional product design. What another company might need in terms of maturity is maybe more service design,

And I think it's important for us to interpret and understand what has already been determined before we get there in terms of exploring the idea of where we need to be high maturity and where...

you know, doing the baseline helps us do that. And so my idea of maturity is that it's not just a linear one through five, but it's more there are aspects that should be a five and there are aspects that actually should be a two in order to make sure that we have that five, because you know, as I do, there's always going to be the constraints of resourcing of time of money of talent. And, um,

That doesn't go away. And so for me, that can't be the answer. Just more money, just more time, just these types of things. The second thing that I would say is maturity is so interlinked to how the company has organized itself. What is the direct path to revenue?

And so many companies, when they choose to go into business, they choose subscription fees or advertising or low pricing as like that clear, distinct advantage that they have compared to competitors. And that's very different than, say, a company like Apple that has chosen superior, the best product and service quality.

And so within that understanding, I think that's the main driver of what maturity will be and what's needed. And we can get into like nerdy stuff, but I'll probably everybody. But I think to how that company decides to organize itself. So we have the, you know, the book from Kristen Skinner and Peter Merr holds around design or design, you know, or design for design orgs. Great book.

But there's actually a design above that. The company has decided. And what you have in that are basically three models. You have a general management model. So this is a company that has clear, distinct divisions. Almost like you have the functional model, which is more akin to what Apple has decided, where they don't have an iPhone team. They don't have a Mac team.

Instead, they have all these teams that are experts at what they do, and they have to collaborate in order to produce something like an iPhone. So I think when we talk about maturity, it really kind of is contextual to where you are. And then the opportunity within that is to collaborate.

determine an entirely different definition of maturity and that's that's pretty you know yeah that's stuff that I could kind of determine now but when I was doing it I couldn't see it in the moment you know at all yeah yeah of course and I think this makes so much sense right like instead of following different like those are the five steps that you need to do rather stay and think

how is the organization structured, right? Like what are the problems at the moment? What is the need actually? Like what does the design team needs or the organization needs that design could provide? I absolutely love that so much because it helps us also to take one step back and think about everything, not act directly, but just like, you know, build a strategy that really makes sense for the company. And I think this is so important for designers to understand, right? Like,

And maybe a good reminder for everyone who's like currently working at a company is a little bit lost. Maybe like, you know what you mentioned about your career when you were in it, you didn't know. Yeah, sort of what are the situations or challenges that we are facing right now? And certainly when I was in it, I had a very biased sort of personal opinion on that. And a lot of that was

The challenges I face or our team faces are we're not getting enough research done or we don't have enough time or we're struggling to get talent or there's been a reorg and or my boss is left. So it's very personal. And I think that's where a lot of us start is from. Here's the challenge I'm trying to solve. We're not getting enough accessibility. I'm not included in a meeting.

So that's very personal. So what I like to sort of frame with the folks that I work with now is like, okay, we could start with that. That's true. That's valid. That is absolutely your real world, right? Your context. Okay. So we start with that question. What are those situations? Write them down. What are you facing? Okay. Let's reframe it or just ask a separate question. What are the situations or challenges that the company is facing?

As a company, what are the challenges or opportunities that the product is facing? Are they facing regulatory pressures? Are they facing competitors? Okay, let's look at a historical view. What has the company been deciding on how they want to address their problem? Did they do a reorg? Did they hire new talent?

Are they focused moving towards artificial intelligence? Great. Okay, now let's come back to you. What is it that you don't really like right now that you would like to see go better tomorrow? Write those down.

And now with these sort of two sides, we can get to what I would call like multi-solving. That's not my word. That's my neighbor, Dr. Elizabeth Saywin's word. She's a world renowned environmentalist. And she came up with this wonderful world called multi-solving. And I love this word, but okay, here's what the company has been doing. Here's the stuff I don't like. What's a new creative solution where we get both at the same time?

Is there a new way that I can approach this where we solve two problems with one answer? And so that's, you know, a very kind of different take. And it takes a lot of emotional energy to just deal with our own stuff. And let's face it right now, especially many of us aren't in a place to actually spend any more emotional energy on that stuff.

So I think that's a moment that probably you've heard a lot about. We certainly hear a lot about from our peers of being in this weird liminal space of where's my energy? How am I feeling? What are, you know, all these layoffs, artificial intelligence, global pandemic and wars, you know, like it's a lot. And so maybe what we need is somebody to kind of just facilitate that conversation for us so that we can,

We don't have to be both our own facilitator and participant when we try to do that. And, you know, this is just evolution of me and my own thinking where, again, 10 years ago, I felt like my hair was on fire, you know, just trying to make it work. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's not that easy, right? Especially if you have a lot of tasks that you need to get done, then taking a step back and really thinking about the strategy and also like the business models, what you mentioned, a lot of designers, I mean, they're going to design school. So for them, it's

it's not that easy to understand like the business and what the product needs. And this is also something that you talked in your presentation about at the ITX conference, that designers basically need to understand business models and strategies. But I'm wondering how can designers really bridge the gap between like the creative thinking and getting the tasks done and also all the business things that are coming up in their day-to-day work? Well,

What would you say? There's obviously lots of resources to learn some basics around business. I wrote a book on this of how do we make it plain kind of

How do we leverage a lot of sort of design skills to understand business? And you have models like the business model innovation, BMI magic triangle. So this comes out of the university of St. Gallen in Switzerland. You know, it's kind of this very niche kind of thing, but it's just a visualization. It's a triangle model.

And it's just, you know, these words of who are the main customers? What is this company providing a value to them? How are they delivering it? And then why do those things bring money in? You know, why does that create value? And it's these simple kind of questions and, and,

I think for anybody who is trying to learn business, if you look at all the business literature of anywhere that it's taught and all the renowned names, even though they explain it in different ways, everything is really based around two questions. And that is where to play and how to win. The company has chosen to play in a certain market and

It could be geography. It could be with an age range. It could be a specific channel through SMS only. And then they choose, well, how are we going to win? Which is really like, how are we going to be different than others? So if I were somebody saying, here's where you can go look at this, you can Google just basics, or you could probably even use GPT or

Claude, any of these models to say, I want to learn the fundamentals of business. I have no idea. I don't go to business school. Can you tell it to me plain? And you'll see just a lot of this. You don't necessarily have to go into the books, into the literature. The second thing that I would say is strategy is design. Strategy is the whole concept of business strategy, a product strategy of all those things.

It is design. Your business partner would never call it design. Nobody would ever call it design. But when you think of design as a practice, I'm trying to understand a need. I'm trying to understand a want. I'm trying to understand an opportunity. I'm trying to understand a gap. That's all business people are doing. They use different techniques, different analytical techniques to get that information, but it's the same thing.

Same thing. So that's where I would kind of, you know, secondly. I think the third thing, if you really want to sort of learn, is if you have those basic models and understanding, is put your researcher hat on and observe. Observe the room. Observe what's being said. Observe what's being done.

Strategy is action. So the real strategy is what's being done, not necessarily what's being said. And within that, we're just interpreting. And I think one of the best ways to kind of bridge that gap between business people and design people is to ask them or invite them to share more. And I think it's this coaching technique of

I heard you say this, is that right? Do I have it right? You know, so I'm just validating that. I want to make sure I have it right. Our target audience is this, is that right? If they say yes, great. You can move to the next step. If they say no, you're still on that step, but framing it as like this curious question. Another way you might say it is like, I think it's this, do I have that right? Right.

What am I missing? Because in my career, most people, 99.9% of people are good and they're not trying to be malicious or withhold information. They just forget that we don't speak their language. We don't understand their background. We can't jump into their brains. But asking curious questions, I think it's this. So we go back to that little triangle.

sketch it out. I think it's this, is this right? And if you have somebody who says, ah, I didn't, that's okay. You're just looking for them to

either confirm, share a little bit more, kind of bringing them into the conversation with you. And I think that is where folks who have design backgrounds, research backgrounds, we have the skills, we have the toolbox, we have it. Just a little bit of reframing. I'm a Gen Xer. And so one of my

Members of my fake advisory board is Weird Al Yankovic. I don't know if anybody knows who Weird Al Yankovic is. He's a musician and artist who would take famous songs and write parody songs. So he would remix them. He has won Grammy Awards. He's had this wonderful life. But it's that point where I think remixing, taking a structure and remixing it for...

you know, this other context, an empathy map for your colleague, a business model triangle to think about, oh, what is it we do as a design organization? Who are our main audience here inside the organization? What are we providing a value? How are we delivering it? Are we delivering it through a prototype, through a service blueprint, through a Slack message? Okay, now why does that capture value for the company and for us?

So we can take a lot of these things and just slightly remix it. But, you know, much like I said at the conference, that requires a lot of bravery, takes energy. Yeah. And I think once we have that,

that's where we can get just a little bit curious. And maybe we should talk about like how to find that energy or how to kind of go back into that rather than just, oh, wait, one day I'm curious. Now I'm going to ask. Yeah, that's true. We will jump right into that after a quick follow-up question, because what I think is so fascinating for me is the power of

collaborating and communication right like everything that you mentioned like how to talk with people from other departments I think this is just fascinating right because if you look at like what really happens in those meetings is it's just how it is designers are like here is the perfect solutions I've been presenting you an amazing idea that I'm having like it now right and

I think like something that is so important is to really communicate the value of design, right?

So I'm wondering, like, what advice do you have for designers who really struggle to articulate the strategic value of their work to especially non-design stakeholders or especially organizations that are non-design centric, right? Because it's not easy. And I don't know that my answer will be easy. It'll probably be easy to be heard and understood, but it's not easy because I think it's so intertwined with identity. Yeah.

philosophy, what we prioritize, what we believe is the most important thing. I think a lot of times we really want our colleagues to believe in design like we believe in it. Like that's the most important thing. I think I want them to have that same fundamental truth that I have. I want them to carry that with them. I want them to know that this is good.

And I would say, it doesn't really matter. What matters more is that you're making things happen. So let's just praise it in the idea. I think a lot of designers have certainly been frustrated that a colleague might call them even a title that they don't like. When I joined Apple, there was a colleague of mine that called me graphics guy. And I was initially-

upset. I was like, it's not what I do. But I was a person that was, you know, somewhat reserved. You had to get to know me before I kind of showed up and was brave. And so I let it go, but I was still frustrated. But the interesting positive about letting that go is I started also noting, noticing that this same person

would bring somebody by my desk every week, somebody new from different parts of the company and said, here's this person you need to meet whose ideas are great. This is Ryan, our graphics guy. And so I had to sit there and go, oh, wait, that's the more important thing. It doesn't matter how he's introducing me or what he's referring to. It's that he believes in

that the things that we do are valuable or, you know, making things happen in a new way is the thing. And I think that's really, really hard for a lot of us. All the time, I see storytelling, and I've talked about this before, but I see storytelling all the time where, say, you're in a triad model as a designer, and you're working with a PM and an engineer and

And a stakeholder comes in and says, we need a solution to this. And a designer hears that, says, great, I'm going to come with a solution. And then I hear the follow-up conversation where that designer, that researcher, whomever comes in and says, we should do research because we don't have enough information to solve this problem. And it's important to solve this problem.

So that sounds logical, perfectly rational, makes sense. But we have to understand that the lead of that conversation, we should do research, might be outside of the domain of the person who's receiving that information. It might be something that they don't like.

that they have their own biases, that they already have their preconceived notions. They don't think that's the answer. And so if that happens to you, do you spend the first five minutes and say, we should do research? And then 55 minutes in that conversation, having an argument or trying to explain the value of research going back and forth. I think one of the most practical ways to talk about that

is to start with that validation. Stakeholder, I heard you say that this is something you're worried about. That's the key. We know how important that is. Well, right now, we don't have enough information. The things that we've been doing, how we've been operating, how we've been prioritizing, it has not fixed that in the last six months. So we can keep going.

We'll be on budget and we'll be on time, but we don't really think anything new will happen. Or we could do research within budget and time, but that means we're not doing a prototype at the same time. But remember that prototype we've been doing didn't solve it. So rather than presenting our preferred solution as the lead solution,

Make that the solution to what our stakeholder colleagues are thinking of. Still the same answer. We still get to do research, but the way we frame it is like one of the more practical things we could do. And so what I always tell designers and researchers is you actually have the right story components. Change the order. We have lots of opinions about, say, a metric like NPS. Lots of opinions on LinkedIn. It's bogus. It's phony.

It doesn't really matter in one way, because if you're working with somebody who fundamentally believes in that and has some data that shows that there might be a correlation to that. If we just say, I heard that NPS is important to you, and I know how frustrating it is that that's not been working. Well, we've been doing these things and that has not changed it. We should do more research.

That's really how we're connecting choices. We're starting from a place of validating, not agreeing, but validating and proposing new options. And for me, I think if we do that, if we kind of are able to do that, even if the stakeholder says no, which every human has the basic right to say no, even if they say no, we know we did a good job. I presented a good argument.

That's their responsibility. That's their choice. I presented a good argument. I can live with that. I didn't let myself down. I didn't let the team down. Yeah, I love that. I think this is such a good tip. Also something that I'm going to take with from this interview is

to go into conversations with clients that I'm working with, right? Because sometimes I'm just presenting my own work. Just first validate. It's not that difficult, right? Just like acknowledge what they're saying, validate what's important to them, say that you understand because you actually understand and you want to find a solution. So it's not that you're lying. You're on the same page, right? So you don't need to pretend something and then come to the solution together. Potentially it could be research, could be an amazing opportunity, right? We could do that.

it will help to come up or to solve this problem that you are having, right? Yeah, it's probably the most pragmatic thing about this whole thing. I even wrote a little mini guide book I call play up your impact where it's mostly about this reframing. It's mostly like, how do we reframe what we did before?

Like, remember, here's what happened before. Here's the choices we made. And now here we are to the future. I heard how important MPS is to you. And here's an option that we can take. And that's the, you know, if we really talk about strategy or even business, I think one of the unspoken truths is basically a guessing game. Nobody has a guarantee.

There are no guarantees. We can gather knowledge and make good guesses and put it into the world and see if it works. That's really the heart of design. We don't really know until we put it into the world. And that's the same process that is happening in business, too.

Yeah, I think amazing tips. Definitely a lot of things that the listeners can take away because strategy is so important, especially at the moment, right? Like where AI is going to take, not take over, but is able to take over parts of our jobs. I

I mean, we're also dividing AI, so that's also a very good thing. But I think we need to maybe change our role a little bit as designers. So from your perspective, what would you say? How should a designer, mid-level, senior, also junior maybe, or a leader? So I think like all of the designers position themselves

to have an amazing future. Of course, can't look into the future, but what would you say? I was going through the trends of the past. When it comes to positioning, so this is like a marketing term, the positioning in the business world is very connected to that. Remember that question of how we win. So that formative question in business of how are we going to win is mostly how are we going to be different? Right.

Not better, not the best, but different. Offer a different choice. And, you know, design is a pretty known quantity now. We've been around enough. We've scaled enough. We're in many organizations now. It's not like it was 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago even. And so I think our colleagues...

stakeholders, you know, I think they kind of know how a designer will show up. They know what a designer will say. And all of the focus of design portfolios and CVs are kind of staying within that boundary. And I think one of the most important things to do, especially with AI and all these things, it will be there and it's

For me, the old interaction designer in me, I'm thrilled with it. It's like, well, now I get to kind of make the things that I wanted to make in a different way. But I think when we're talking simply about positioning, even think of a portfolio or CV, 100 people apply to a job. They all look the same. They all say the same thing. And so when it comes to positioning, it's the same thing in business. You're offering a new choice.

You see a need or a gap that isn't being addressed and you're offering a new choice. Imagine walking in and saying, I am the designer who is full in on AI. That's a very different choice. Or as a leader, we are a team who organized ourselves in this different way.

We didn't create impact through, say, product design, but we completely redesigned the supply chain. And that's that key word is just different. And so there's lots to look at. Another fundamental aspect of business analysis is what you would call competitive analysis. It's simply looking at other things that are out there, not to be in competition, but to see what's missing.

What do I do that isn't showing up here? What are we going to focus on that nobody's focusing on? It's the same for positioning. Obviously, the job market is not great. It's really bad right now. It's frustrating. And there's lots of macroeconomic things. There's big things that are determining that, and it's awful and it sucks. And I think things are going to...

be different. When it comes to positioning, we kind of have to go back and say, you know, the positioning that we may be using was relevant in 2015, but the market has changed as markets do. Technology has changed as they do. Can I keep repositioning myself? Can I keep adjusting? It's really hard. As soon as we get comfortable, we want to relax. We want to chill.

But in a professional life, we're always kind of having to adapt and change and grow. And I think that's also exciting. I get to reinvent myself. You don't get to tell me how I am anymore. I have that agency. I get to respond in a new way. I get to use my skills to show up differently. And if we can get there, that's, I think, quite liberating, that space. I get to choose how I respond.

I think this makes so much sense, right? Because lots of positions are remotely, right? So even if you're based in Switzerland, you can work for a company in the US. If you position yourself as someone like a designer who's all into AI and also into medical studies, for example, or medical clients, imagine like there is this one client in the US who's looking for a designer who's all into these topics. You would be a perfect fit, right? Yeah.

So you really need to think about how to position yourself. I think this is a great recommendation. And don't be afraid to show yourself. I know it's not easy to learn new skills. I know it takes time. And that's where I would say, is there something you are curious about? There's this concept in the therapy world called the eight C's of self-leadership. I am not a therapist. My wife is a therapist.

She has introduced me to lots of things, you know, and therapy has introduced me to lots of things. But there's this simple, very pragmatic thing called the eight C's of self-leadership. There are eight words that start with the letter C. They are feelings words. Do you feel calm? Do you feel curious? Do you feel creative? Do you feel connected? There's four other words. I can't think of off the top of my head. But what I think those are good signals of

is if you feel any of those words, you are in a good place to learn. You are at a place where you have the emotional energy to step outside yourself. If you don't feel those words, I jokingly created the eight T's of self-sabotage, which is if you feel tense or tetchy, you know, these types of threatened, not a good time to learn. That's not a topic you should sort of dive into.

But if we dive into different topics, AI is just one thing. What if you're curious about statistics? I've been trying to get designers curious about statistics for years. It's not going very well. But what if you just have a little bit of statistical knowledge? Suddenly you show up to the world completely positioned in a different way.

You know, when I would go into interviews and I had this weird fascination with statistics for a long time, that's just me. But I go into an interview and the common question of, well, how do you know when it's working? What kind of impact? And I would say, well, you know, I just did some basic correlation analysis and linear regression and we saw patterns in the data and we could make predictive predictions.

I was the only one saying that. I knew every time. I could even see the interviewers sometimes even Googling, like, what is this person talking about? And so that didn't mean I always got the job, but it meant I was remembered. And that's the important thing about positioning is I think even like being a counter argument, being just slightly different

Yeah. There's no guarantee that you will get the job or the right fit, but I think you're closer to finding the kind of fit that you want and you certainly will be remembered and thought of. And that's, we know when we talk of hundreds of resumes, the first goal is to be remembered enough to get a phone call, to get remembered enough to have a follow-up, to get remembered to have the opportunity to show some, you know,

So that's how I think about positioning. It's really just that fundamental concept of, am I showing up differently?

And it also really helps to find positions where you are a good fit, right? Because maybe for the position you were rejected to when you told about statistics, they were like, not a good fit. So you wouldn't be very happy at it, right? Because we all know how horrible it is if you are stuck in a position that you hate. It is the worst. And I think, honestly, I'm going to ask a rhetorical question to your audience who are

has maybe been working for 10 years. I think really between 2010 and 2020. But if say you started your professional work in 2015, the market was such that everybody wanted design. Did you have a lot of recruiters knocking on your door? Were there people in your inbox courting you?

wanting to date you in a way, was it really nice to feel wanted? And did you choose another job because maybe it's just because they wanted you, but did they then go into that job and right away? No, it wasn't a fit. So that's where we were up until the pandemic of gosh, when it's maybe I'm in a job that I don't really like. Well,

There are a dozen suitors at my door, each holding an invitation to come hang out with them. And that was very attractive, but not necessarily the fit. And so I think in this moment, we go ahead and go back to the self. It's important that we are also included in the story. We all have value. We all deserve to have our needs met.

And it's really hard work to figure out what our needs are. Do you have some tips on how to do that? I mean, therapy is a big one. I've just been fortunate to be in a position where I can access that. Fortunate to be in a position to be married to somebody who's brilliant at that. Those are like my answers because it's my story. I'm also in a very privileged position

in a variety of ways that I know many people aren't. They're, you know, and maybe we can share them in the notes and stuff, like just the eight C's of self-leadership. They're just little words. They're almost like a basic script. It feels almost robotic, but they're, you know, robotic at first. Am I feeling calm? Do I even know what calm feels like? You know, it's like, that's a existential question in itself. But if we're conscious of it,

if we know that and we walk in to any conversation or meeting and we just check in am i still calm am i still curious am i still connected do i feel creative if yes you're in a wonderful place to stretch if not there are all sorts of tricks to delay because your body is telling you you're not in a good position to make it a new choice or a new decision

And I think that's where lots of us in professional settings, in meetings, we can feel quite cornered. We can feel quite threatened. And if we are to stand up for ourselves and say, hmm, that's good information. This is new information. I need to go back and think about it before I give you my answer. That is honoring yourself.

What you're really doing is saying, like, can I get back and see if I find one of those C's again? Because if I'm in that place, I'm going to find a good answer. And I think the big challenge of that is somebody else now might feel tense, tetchy. They might now feel threatened. They might move out of their calm. And what I would say is that's not your problem to solve.

At the core, you are able to adult for yourself. I know this all sounds simple in this podcast. I know how hard this is. It's really, really hard. But therapy work is hard work. And the hope is that we do understand that we do have some choice in just how we show up.

We might not be able to change all the situations. We might not be able to do that. But the path towards it starts with when we choose a new way to respond. Those things take practice. It takes bravery. Try it out maybe in familiar settings first with people who aren't aggressive or angry.

They might not like it, but they're still kind. That's a great testing ground. That's a great way to prototype showing up for yourself. So, but again, you know, most people don't, you know, want the mix of stuff that was driving me to these decisions. You know, a lot of it fueled by anxiety and depression and shame. And I, those, those are as just the secrets of what fueled me as going to therapy.

Or trying a new technique. Yeah. I think a lot of designers go through phases of like, where they don't feel great, right? Like where they are hopeless, they're not validated in their work. So a lot of things don't work out for different reasons. So I feel like a lot of designers who are listening can probably relate to your story and how

I feel very empowered how you got out of this, how you tackled those problems and how you really use this wisely now and have all those interesting thoughts and ideas about how to deal with this now. So I think it's very helpful. And thank you so much for sharing that because this is super important, especially for younger designers or everyone actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who maybe are still in the middle of it, right? Thank you so much for sharing.

I was going to say, it maybe hints about leadership, this subject. I think a popular notion of servant leadership, that leaders are different than managers. And I think many of your audience kind of read through those things. I think about it in a slightly different way. There's an older framework that's been around since the 60s called situational leadership. So for those feeling, those feelings that you mentioned, despair, lack of hope,

They're looking for a leader in that moment that is different than perhaps when they're feeling confident and curious. It could be the same person, but what situational sort of leadership, and this is again, I think hard for leaders, is to sort of assess, am I with somebody who's in this moment of hope and despair?

Or am I with somebody who is curious? Am I working with somebody who needs direct, tell me what to do feedback? Or am I working with somebody who has it, who's got it? They just need a goal. And what we see, I think, with this little framework, it's called situational leadership. It tells us that we all move through these stages. If we remember when we first got a job, our first position,

We were probably like, boss, tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do. And then we maybe move into this moment of like, tell me what to do, but also tell me it's going to be okay. And then we move to this other moment where we say, I don't need you to tell me what to do. I still need you to tell me it's going to be okay. And then the last stage is, I'm good. But every time we get a promotion, every time we move to another company,

There are parts of us that are good and there are parts of us that are brand new. Think of if anybody's been a manager for the first time, you are at that last stage of craft. You know exactly what to do. But now people management, doing reviews, promotions, having hard conversations, you're looking to your leader and saying, tell me exactly what to do. So we all move through these stages a lot. And I think, again,

especially for any leaders. A lot of the work that I do is all the kind of professional development support you get when you're deep in your craft, say as an individual contributor, you don't have people responsibilities. I think we deserve that all through each phase. We deserve that. But in large part, that's ignored. You work at a company, as soon as you become a manager, you're on your own. There's not a lot of directors involved.

doing that sort of really hands-on situational leadership with a manager. There's certainly not a lot of VPs doing that with a director. C-suite, none of that. But I think this is one of those missing. This is where I kind of focus. Is this key for me to ensure that each stage you still have somebody meeting you where you are, giving you that context? Sometimes it's a hard skill. Sometimes it's a validation. Sometimes it's coaching.

And just having somebody to say, well, what do you think? How does this change if you get that? And so, you know, this is what makes it hard, especially if you get further into your career is a lot of that care and development is not really part of the systems that we work in.

yeah and I think this is so fascinating to me that even if you are more advanced in your career you still have challenges right those are different challenges and you still need to overcome them but there won't be a time and place where you're like I'm all good I'm all fine right it's like a constant not battle because this sounds so negative but a constant like

learning curve, right? Where you're learning, where you're adjusting, where you're reflecting yourself, right? And this is normal. This should be part of the process. And if you feel that way, don't be afraid. It's normal. We all feel like it, right? Like whatever level we have. We feel this in our personal lives. We feel this in our community with our relationships with our families and our friends and, you know, the cities we live in and how we interact with others. It's the same thing. I think what

is unfair in the essence. It is that when we talk professionally, we're really talking about core needs. Like I have to have food. I have to have shelter. I have to have these basics that the job provides me and somehow like

i i how am i going to meet those while i can't stop i can't not work and that that to me is is really the the bugger of it all because in that way you don't have a choice that's where we are robbed of agency in many ways is that we don't have endless funds

And certainly for me, the luck of being an American, of being like a white cis male American at a time in this space, like there are experiences I have where that degree is, you know, I have the easiest path. I have the easiest road within that system, you know, and that's true.

So that's like the really, I don't want to swear, but I would use curse words here. Like that's the really of that situation that when it comes to the professional world, getting your needs met and having that kind of development and everything that all that care that you need that is not typically there. And you still have to play within the system. You still have to be part of it. Yeah. That's not so easy. And I really like that you emphasize that not everyone has the same

like the same situations right like we are all coming from different backgrounds and for some it might be easiest and for some it might be more difficult that's really not fair and i think like we all agree that this shouldn't be the case but maybe maybe to probably this conversation because i feel like we could go on forever you know i really love all the insights that you're sharing but

As the last question, what would you say are the important resources for designers, for people to maybe future-proof themselves and also people who might be not that fortunate coming from a different background, a little bit more difficult circumstances? What should they do? What are resources that you would recommend to check out? I think one of the greatest kind of resources is, for me at least, is like...

the art of using internet search without a specific destination or answer in mind of like exploring, you know, my background's in history. So a lot of what you do in history is to pick up a book, see what that book references and there's a footnote and you go find the next book. And so I think when it comes to resourcing one of the, the,

More practical things is ask your question, but leave out the word design or designer or leave out the word researcher, like leave that part out. How do large organizations do this? Or how does this work outside of, say, capitalism? How is this done in academia? How is this done in social services? And it's this wonderful way to just like, oh, yeah.

There's this other thing that I didn't even hear about. I'm going to try that on. That makes sense. Practically speaking, if you're wanting to learn business stuff, these skills are out there. There's lots of resources. I obviously wrote a book, Business Thinking for Designers. It's meant to be very practical. It's free.

There's fundamentals on like YouTube series or you have universities that have published this. It's all for free. But again, like without, oh, I have to learn this and I'm going to get this out. But just to sit with it and say, is there something new? Lastly, if you define yourself as a designer, like that is your identity. I challenge you.

to join communities that are your colleagues' titles. Go sit in a product management community. Go hang out in an engineering community. And what you will likely find is a lot of the same stuff, you know, a lot of the same struggle, a lot of same grief. Everybody has it better.

But what you will also find are resources that are just like siblings. There's all these like products, strategy resources that are in a spreadsheet format. But if you look at them, they go, well, that's design. It's just not a visual diamond shape. It's in a spreadsheet. And it's just wonderful ways to think about rather than translation, it's more like localization. So German is German in Germany, but

Swiss German is different German. Austrian German is different German. And they are very similar with design, product management, business. They're not completely different. They are fundamentally pretty much the same. They're just a different tone, a different variety of the same thing. So yeah, I'm sure we could list a bunch of resources in the references, but to me, it's like just internet search. Yeah.

Playing around with it or with AI models now. What if you ask, I'm a designer, but what am I missing from this conversation? What would somebody in another discipline say? Suddenly you get like all this stuff. Whoa, didn't even know it was there. And that I think is, again, like practically one of the best ways to

Reach out. I'm curious. Hey, I saw this one-page template on this thing. Is that something you use? Is this helpful? It's just communication. And people validate that. I think they really love it. If you're curious, if you want to understand them, if you're like, is this something that would be helpful? My favorite version of this is getting to know your accounting partner. Generally speaking, nobody wants to talk to the accountant. Right.

Every time I have gone in and I said, I'm curious about your job. What is it you do every day? What's stressful? What are the decisions you have to make? That person is like, you want to talk to me? And it's just this lovely discussion. And suddenly you realize, oh, that's how budgeting works. That's why.

this project or product has that budget. It's, oh, that's why this is happening. In a lot of ways, companies are driven by the decisions around money, revenue and costs, you know.

Yeah, no, that's true. I think this is such a good tip, right? Like talk to people, be curious and really want to understand them. You're not building great relationships, but also like collaborate with them and learn so much about communication. What's important and a lot of takeaways that you can use for your own design. I just remembered the art of noticing. The art of noticing is a book. It's also a newsletter by Rob Walker.

since we're talking about noticing it's great pragmatic that's you know one specific resource that we could talk about perfect thank you so much for sharing that i will put everything in the show notes so ryan i really appreciate all the insights that you shared i think it was a pleasure having you i really love talking to you and thank you so much for your time thank you likewise all right see you bye