Category Archives: management

management, user experience

Elpha: “Leading an effective design organization”

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Elpha invited me to write about leading an effective design organization. Here’s what I had to say:

Leading a large organization is a hell of a job.

Sometimes it’s fun and exciting, like when you get to invest in a big project to imagine a new future for healthcare that’s built around the real-world needs of people no matter their socioeconomic status, ethnoracial identity, gender identity, or the intersection of those.

Sometimes it’s empowering, such as when you get to address pay disparities by ethnoracial identity and gender identity within your company.

And sometimes it’s infuriating, like when a peer executive writes off your entire organization’s work as “futzing about with pixels”.

Throughout my career, I’ve established brand-new teams in user experience and design, scaled teams, and led large global organizations. I want to share with you some of what I’ve learned about how to effectively lead a design organization as an executive.

What does it mean for a design org to be effective? To me, it means three things:

  1. The design org has a shared purpose and vision where everyone is empowered to do their best work, there is a lot of support for growth, and high performers are rewarded for their contributions.
  2. Our cross-functional partners know the value that design brings to the products and services that we create and grow, help us ensure that we’ve got what we need to do our work, and hold us accountable for delivering high-quality business results.
  3. We understand both the needs of our users as well as our business objectives and bring them together in a unique way that creates new value.

Each of these three points needs careful tending by the leader of the organization. A shared purpose and vision can feel like it’s been thrown aside, especially during times of uncertainty like our current economic climate. A change in leadership can result in new cross-functional partners who no longer understand the value of design or ensure that design has sufficient resources to be effective. As user needs and business objectives evolve, we have to understand that change and evolve alongside so that we can continue to create new value and not be left in the dust.

Getting all of this right is especially important, and can be especially hard, because design is one of the organizations within a company that has a higher-than-average number of people from historically-excluded backgrounds. We have more people of color, more LGBTQIA+ folks, and more women than many other organizations in a tech company. The diversity of the design team is one of our greatest strengths as we work to build products and services to meet everyone’s needs. However, we’re more likely to have the value of our work questioned or to have our leader under-leveled compared to the leaders of our cross-functional partners. We have to fight not only to have our seat at the table. I’ve learned that getting a seat at the table is only the first step: everything that follows is about using that seat effectively to meet business objectives, meet user goals, and be an effective advocate and ally for historically-excluded groups.

As a design executive, I rely on three things to help me see my way through all of this:

  1. Empathy. In addition to empathy for our users which is one of the most common traits and the best part about being in user experience, I extend my empathy to my cross-functional partners and fellow executives. By better understanding their perspectives, their needs, and their constraints, I’m better able to bring everyone along to reach better decisions.
  2. Love of my craft. I’ve been in user experience for over 20 years. I still love everything about it, from doing the early discovery work before we have product-market fit to understand what needs we must meet, to delivering a product and continuing to iterate on it to make it better meet those needs and whatever new needs emerge. As a leader, I get to create opportunities and remove roadblocks so that the folks who report to me have the space to love their craft and deliver their best results.
  3. Business acumen. By developing a deep understanding of our business environment and objectives, I can align the design org to the most important and most impactful work, partner effectively across the entire company, mitigate risk, and unlock new opportunities for innovation.
leadership, management

managing through layoffs

Layoff. Reduction in force. Redundancy. No matter what word you put on it, a layoff is one of the hardest things for a manager to lead through. It’s natural to feel overwhelmed in this situation, regardless of whether you’re the decision-maker on who is leaving the company. You will have your own feelings about what is happening, at the same time that you’re working to support team members who are leaving and team members who are staying.

When you’re a manager in this terrible situation, give yourself grace. Take time for yourself. Invest heavily in self-care for the next few weeks. (Yes, weeks. The impacts of a layoff are long-lasting. I’m sorry.) If you’ve got a therapist, spend time with them. If you don’t have a therapist, this might be a good time for that. Whatever you do, do not dump your feelings down on your team. Don’t hide that you’ve got feelings, rather don’t dump on them. Your team needs to see you handling this situation empathetically for those who were laid off and those who remain.

While you’re giving grace, make sure to give some to your peer managers. They’re also dealing with lots of difficult things. Check in 1:1. Managers often don’t get a ton of support in a time like this, especially if their team was relatively lightly-impacted, but they’re still dealing with the survivor syndrome of themselves and their team, plus trying to figure out how to move forward. Give your peer managers some space to say the things that they can’t say to their directs, and be vulnerable with trusted peer managers too.

Whenever you talk to your Human Resources business partner (HRBP), give them some extra grace. Layoffs are terrible for HRBPs. They’re dealing with the worst of this situation. If you’ve got a good relationship with your HRBP, offer them some safe space to talk/vent/whatever.

In the weeks after the layoff, you will probably see some problematic behaviors amongst your team and others. Some folks are going to throw themselves into their work to have somewhere to channel their feelings. Some folks are going to throw themselves into their work because they’re terrified of getting laid off next. Some folks are going to disengage for a bit. Be prepared for all of that and do what you can to redirect the unhealthy behavior. If your employer has any benefits like an employee assistance plan (EAP), this is a great time to refer folks to it.

Folks are probably going to be on edge for a few weeks, or even longer. You will probably see an increased amount of interpersonal tension and stress behaviors. Be ready to manage that. Any big internal event or milestone, like a launch or review time, will probably cause more of those emotions and behaviors to bubble up. By being prepared for this, you can help divert behaviors away from unproductive or toxic ones. Many of the folks who remain might be nervous about the future of the company and whether there will be future layoffs. When you’re asked about these, be honest about what you know and what you can share with them.

You might find that your team has reduced trust in you because they believe (rightfully or not) that you must have known something in advance or must have made decisions about who to keep. They might think that you should have done more to prevent the layoff. You will have work to do to regain their trust.

This is one of the awful times of management. You can get through this.

leadership, management

evaluating the performance of managers

One of my mentees, a newly-minted director, asked how to evaluate the performance of the managers who now report to them. We were discussing some of the differences as you move from manager to director and how to make the shift in mindset.

Measuring the effectiveness of individual contributors (ICs) is relatively straightforward. Are they getting their work done? Are they helping others get their work done? Are they helping those around them build their skills and be more effective? Are they taking feedback? Are they giving high-quality actionable feedback? Measuring the effectiveness of managers, though, feels a bit harder.

Manager performance questions

These are the questions that I use to help me understand how well a manager who reports to me is performing.

How well are their ICs performing? If their team is performing well, the manager is probably doing pretty well. If their team isn’t performing well, what are they doing to turn it around? Are their ICs performing well only because, or possibly in spite of, the manager micromanaging them?

How is morale on their team? If their team is happy, the manager is probably doing pretty well. If morale is low, what is the manager doing to turn it around? Is the manager keeping morale artificially high, such as by not giving difficult but necessary feedback?

Do their ICs have the right amount of stretch assignments? Is the manager creating the right opportunities for their team to grow their skills?

How well is hiring (if any) going? Are they able to find a great slate of diverse and high-quality candidates for their roles? Are they following best practices in their hiring process?

How well is the manager working with and communicating to peer managers? This is such an important part of their job. What is the feedback that you’re getting from their peer managers?

How well is the manager communicating to their manager? Do you as their manager know what’s going on, at the right level of detail? Are you caught unaware by problems on or with their team?

Is the manager contributing to cross-team initiatives? Besides just getting the work done, you should have cross-team initiatives to help improve your organization and your company. Your manager should be contributing to these?

How well is the manager handling conflicts (within their team, between teams, between themselves and others)? Some days, it can feel like the job of a manager is only to be a mediator between conflicting parties. A good manager is managing those problems, coaching people through them to handle them better themselves, and reducing the risk that a conflict will spiral out of control.

How well is the manager assigning and delegating work? Are they giving the right work to the right members of their team? Are they doing so fairly and equitably? Are they delegating the right work from their list to folks on their team?

How well is the manager dealing with emergencies? There’s always some kind of emergency going on. Sometimes it’s work related, sometimes it’s personal, sometimes one creates the other. When an emergency of some sort comes up, is the manager handling it?

A manager is a force multiplier

What I find most important to think about in manager performance is that they’re a force multiplier. If that force multiplier is being used well, they’re likely doing their job well. If they’re failing in some aspect of their job, they could be a negative force multiplier. For example, a manager whose team is low-performing and they either can’t see it or can’t turn it around is a manager who is a negative force multiplier. It’s your job as a manager-of-managers to understand where your manager is being a positive force multiplier or a negative force multiplier, and coach them as needed.

career, leadership, management

climbing the leadership ladder: from manager to director to VP

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Recently, I’ve been asked several times what I’ve found to be the difference of being a manager, a director, and a VP. Each of those roles is an interesting one with its own challenges. My thinking on this is heavily influenced by this blog post from Peter Merholz. In his post, he introduces what I think of as the three distinct modes of management: managing down, managing to the sides, and managing up.

Managing down is managing those who report to you, or through you if you’re managing managers or directors. Managing to the sides is working with your peers to communicate information, resolve issues, and make decisions. Managing up is the skill of giving your manager, whether they’re a C-level or a senior manager, the tools and information that they need to help you, your team, and your company be successful.

As a first-line manager, where you’re only managing individual contributors (ICs), almost all of your time is about enabling them to be happy and productive. About 60% of your time is directly managing them: keeping them on track, giving feedback, coaching them, making sure they’re working well together, etc. Another 30% of your time is managing to the sides: ensuring that you’re aligned with your peer managers, resolving conflicts, communicating status information, and removing roadblocks. The remaining 10% of your time is managing up: working with your boss to manage priorities, identifying additional resource needs, communicating status, managing the budget, asking them to remove roadblocks, and setting the strategy within your area of focus.

As a second-line manager (for simplicity, I’m going to call this “director”), where you’re only managing managers, your focus shifts. You’re no longer the one directly responsible for enabling a team of productive and happy ICs. That’s the job of the first-line managers who report to you. Now your role is to ensure that the teams who report to you are happy, productive, and working on the right things. For a director, I’d estimate that 40% of your time is managing down to the team: ensuring that your managers are being effective in their roles, coaching your managers in how to be effective coaches and leaders, communicating needed information, resolving issues, setting direction for your team, setting your team’s culture, and removing roadblocks within and for your teams. As a director, managing to your peers is more important than it was as a manager. I estimate that managing to the sides is about 40% of your job. This is ensuring that you and your cross-functional peers are aligned on strategy and prioritization, that you’ve got the right folks working on the right problems across your teams, and that you are removing roadblocks for your teams and for your peers’ teams. The last 20% of your time is managing up: working with leadership to set strategy, communicating needed information, advocating for your teams, identifying roadblocks that need leadership intervention, and so on.

As a third-line manager (for simplicity, I’m going to call this “VP”), where you’re only managing directors, your focus shifts again. Now your directors are the ones responsible for having their teams be happy, productive, and working on the right things. You are accountable for all of that, plus be part of the team responsible for setting corporate strategy, and delivering on the commitments that you are making on behalf of your team. This means that much less of your time is managing down, maybe 20% of it. Managing down involves is communicating strategy, coaching your directors, resolving conflicts within your organization and between your organization and others, setting your organizational culture as part of your overall company’s culture, and ensuring that your directors are aligned amongst themselves. Managing to the sides is still about 50% of your job. Now that it’s at another level higher, it is even more cross-functional. Now you’re setting strategy across the entire company, identifying opportunities for your company, setting policies, removing roadblocks across your org and for your partner orgs, and communicating needed information across the company. The last 30% of your time is managing up: working with the senior executive team on setting strategy, communicating, making decisions, representing the company, and so on.

Looking back at Peter’s original post, the percentages that he lists don’t match my experience. I think he’s underestimated the amount of time needed at each level to manage up and to the sides, especially at the lower levels. While Peter frames his thoughts in terms of design orgs, I’ve found in my conversations with other leaders as well as my own experience in managing engineers and product folks that it’s held generally true cross-functionally.

If the things that you love are communicating, unblocking, and coaching, you must do more of that at higher levels. The shift that you’re making at each level is that you’re more abstracted away from your core discipline, and that you’re seeing and making decisions on a much broader swath of the company and the business. You are responsible for making a lot more decisions, often with less information than you  would like. I’ve found it to be a lot of fun, and a lot of responsibility.

hiring

improving the success of hiring efforts

I’ve spent much of 2022 in hiring mode: adding designers, researchers, product managers, and leaders to my team and my company. So far this year, I’ve interviewed well over 200 candidates, from those just about to graduate from college for their first entry-level role to highly-experienced leaders for director and Vice President roles.

When I’m the hiring manager, or the executive to whom the hiring manager reports, I do the following to improve the success of my hiring efforts.

First of all, I do most of the outreach to the most interesting candidates personally. Candidates almost always like talking to the actual leader of the team, not a recruiter.

For high-impact roles, I spend a lot of time on sourcing good candidates. I search for potential candidates, and share the results of those searches (both the positive and the negative) with my recruiter so that they can learn what I’m lookin for. I craft personalized messages, and I follow up on the messages that I send.

When I’m not actively hiring, I still spend time in places where the candidates I most want for my roles are the most likely to hang out so that folks know me and are more likely to respond when I am hiring later. Having a good reputation as a leader who is engaged and thoughtful means that candidates who aren’t actively looking are more likely to respond to me.

I make sure that I know what differentiates working for me, my team, and my company different than other companies. I share that with candidates so that they can better understand why they should choose working for me, my team, and my company over their other potential roles. I determine what matters to the candidate I’m speaking to, and talk up the points where working for me is most differentiated on those points from my competition.

I give feedback to high-potential candidates. Candidates often complain that they cannot get feedback during the interview process, so providing meaningful feedback is a further differentiator. As I strongly believe in giving actionable and timely feedback, it’s a way to show candidates how I live my beliefs. Seeing how candidates respond to feedback gives me additional data to use in my hiring decision.

Hiring is one of the most important things that I do as a leader. Getting it right is important to me.

hiring

the inverse relationship of quality and quantity of candidates in the hiring funnel

In my previous role, I worked at a rapidly-scaling startup. I joined when the company had ~600 people. When I left in November 2021, the company had merged with another company, acquired a third company, and in total grown to ~2000 people. As a leader in the organization whose role is inherently cross-functional, in the span of 18 months, I interviewed over 500 candidates for roles across the company. That number includes hiring for the establishment and scaling of the research and content design teams.

Through that process, I observed an inverse relationship in the sources of candidates for my hiring funnel. The sources that had the highest quality of candidate had the lowest quantity of candidates, and vice versa.

My stack-ranking of candidate sources based on the quality of candidates is as follows:

  1. Candidates who I reach out to directly.
  2. Internal referrals from people who are on my team or very closely aligned with my team.
  3. Candidates who a well-trained recruiter reaches out to directly.
  4. Inbound interest after I have posted my opening to highly-targeted channels. These channels are those that are the most closely aligned with the role and level.
  5. Internal referrals from people who are aware of my team but not aware of what makes a good candidate for my team.
  6. Candidates who a naive recruiter reaches out to directly.
  7. Inbound interest after I have posted my opening to less-targeted channels, such as job boards for historically-excluded groups or for very senior leaders and managers who work in tech.
  8. Inbound interest after I have posted my opening to non-targeted channels, such as a LinkedIn post or Twitter post.
  9. …
  10. …
  11. …
  12. Direct applicants via LinkedIn or my company’s jobs website.

If I were to stack-rank these sources based on the quantity of candidate, my listing is almost the exact opposite. Direct applicants via LinkedIn and my company’s jobs website far outnumber all of the other sources of candidates combined. When I looked at the funnel for the last person I hired, I had more than 50x as many applicants who applied blindly via LinkedIn and the company’s jobs website than I did from all of the other sources.

You probably noticed that I listed recruiters twice on my list. I’ve never been able to hand a job description over to a recruiter who I haven’t yet worked with and had them be highly successful in identifying the right candidates to reach out to. A recruiter who specializes in research and design roles has a higher success rate, but it still requires time and investment to learn more about me, my team, and what a successful hire for my team looks like. This education helps them when they talk to candidates. They are better able to represent me and my team to the candidate in their early conversations. When I’ve aligned with my recruiter on what great candidates look like, they reach out to fewer candidates, but those candidates are of much higher quality for my open roles.

Analyzing the quality and quantity of candidates in my hiring funnel helped me identify where I should allocate my time when hiring. In doing so, I was better able to optimize my job description to be a better representation of the role and a successful candidate, allocate my time to the activities that were the most likely to result in a high-quality candidate, and reduce the time that I spent on low-value activities.