Top ten ways to promote good design in your organization
Avoid the classic mistakes that work against you
When I wrote the book How Design Makes The World, I studied how others promoted good design practices in their organizations. To cut to the chase, the big mistake I observed was using the metaphor of evangelizing, which comes from Christianity. This model assumes that we know the truth and that our truth will be obvious to others, but this turns out not to be very effective in most workplaces. Why?
Most adults already have their own truths about how work should be done! And most people, most of the time, do not want to change. Evangalizing therefore comes across as proselytization, which makes people feel like they are being judged and converted against their will, which isn’t a feeling most people enjoy. We don’t judge our users and we shouldn’t be judging our co-workers either.
Instead, the best place to start is to use your design skills: study the people you want to influence. What goals do they have? What problems do they need to solve? And how can your skills help with those things? No one wants to be converted, but everyone wants their goals satisfied and problems solved.
Here are my top ten lessons from all the techniques I studied:
A better metaphor is to be an ambassador. Unlike an evangelist, an ambassador has to learn the local culture and language. They are better designers of their message since they learn about who they are working with before trying to influence them. Ambassadors are not passive: they have an agenda. But they see charm and being helpful as the way forward. They master the local language and customs and learn to fit in. They know that earning the ear of powerful people is one of the most effective ways to get things done and this is easier to do if we are fluent in their language, rather than just our own.
There are three tactics: broadcast, personal and situational. Broadcast is when you give a big presentation: wide reach but shallow depth. Personal is when you talk to someone individually and try to persuade. The most effective is situational: your team faces a problem and you help solve it. You need them all, but situational is the most important as it’s the only direct credibility you can earn. Broadcast becomes more effective when you can refer to personal and situational evidence of success, but it can also be the way you learn about people and situations to focus on.
Aim for small wins, not conversions to a belief system. No one transforms their beliefs all at once, except in movies. Instead of grand theories, find places where your idea solves a problem for one specific person. Pick the person who is most receptive to you (or least against you) and has some decision making power. Ask about their problems. Find one your skills can resolve and offer to help. Provide value on their terms first and build from there. When you have a victory, use it as evidence to convince others to work with you in the same way.
Common problems UX design can help solve include “how do we know what the right features are?”, “how can we save engineers time?”, “how do we improve customer satisfaction?”, “how can we increase revenue?” or “how do we earn customer trust?” Enter these conversations or initiate them, but use their language and goals first. If the title of your meeting request or first sentence of your advice is is one of these things, people will give you their attention. As opposed to “Give designers a seat at the table” which is a demand, not a solution to anything.
Allies matter more than ideas. Once you solve a small problem for one person, they are an ally. Everyone likes people who solve their problems. You can enlist an ally to help you convince someone you don’t know to let you try and solve a similar problem for them. Eventually, when it comes time to convince a leader, it’s your allies that will make the difference. Moving upstream in the decision process depends on allies more than your ideas or your charisma. Sometimes people have the same problem you do and they can become natural allies (who is equally frustrated by their lack of influence? Can you help each other solve the problem?). And don’t forget: your boss should be your biggest ally and share your goals.
Your bigger goals require more powerful allies. Who has the power to make the organization change the way you want? It’s likely a VP, a director of engineering or a general manager. You often need smaller allies to gain medium ones and medium ones to gain big ones. But at some point you will need a relationship with whoever has the power to make the changes you desire. They have to know you personally and trust you. Before you try to persuade a powerful person, have two people that report to them already on your side (or who make the pitch for you).
Design maturity grows one step at a time. Organizations only grow at a certain pace. If you expect to jump from level 0 to level 10 (design nirvana) in a month, you will never even get to level 1. Ambassadors are patient. They study the pace of change in their culture, and other similar cultures and define stages of progress (you should have a design maturity model). It’s demoralizing to the people you are trying to convince if you often express, even passively, how backwards you think they are.
Engineers have more power than you realize. They have great influence over which defects they fix (including UI issues) and what the work estimates are on project tasks. They are a great source for small wins. Having even one engineer as an ally can make all the difference. How do you start? Express curiosity about their work, earn some trust, find out their frustrations and see if your skills can reduce them.
The messenger matters as much as the message. We judge messages on how much we trust the person giving them. It’s hard to influence someone who barely knows you. Sometimes it’s a matter of chemistry, and your sense of humor or charm will be more effective with some people than others. Pay attention to which messengers are more effective, and why, with the person you need to influence. Match the size of what you are asking for with their level of trust in you so far. As you grow trust, the size of your requests can grow with it.
Like good product design, don’t blame the user. We’d never let an executive say “it’s the customers fault they can’t figure out how to use or product.” We should apply the same ethos to our coworkers. Of course there are organizations so dysfunctional or poorly led that progress is improbable, but resist this conclusion. You may have simply not found the allies you need yet, or developed the ambassadorship skills, to turn things around.
How have you had success promoting good design practices? Where have you struggled? Leave a comment.
Note: this essay was first published on scottberkun.com.
Love this, Scott! Your insights are always spot on.