Tips for Designers to Build Credibility With Executives

Doing your job won’t get you promoted; managing up will. There are 6 key parts of managing up to executives: 1. "Be bright, be quick, be gone." Executives are busy. Come to your conversations prepared with well-thought-out ideas, and then express them quickly and clearly. Then move on. 2. Avoid bad surprises. Managing up before a crisis is way easier than doing it after the crisis begins. Stay on top of worrying signals and keep the executives informed before things blow up. 3. Build trust before you need to rely on it. Trust is built through consistent delivery. Deliver consistently, frequently give brief updates on your work, and build trust before you need it. You will need this trust when you are trying to influence outcomes, create change, or recover from a crisis. Also, when you make a big mistake, you lose some trust. This is natural. The more trust you have built up to draw from, the less likely you will be fired or blocked from a promotion when some trust is lost. 4. Executives cannot operate at your level of detail. Executives need to be in a million mental places at once. Don’t be upset when they don’t know the details as well as you do. Instead, anticipate this and communicate the key points. Then, say you can give more detail where necessary. 5. Provide options and solutions. Let executives know what you recommend and why, what you do not recommend and why, what you have considered, what support you need, and when you will follow up. Bring solutions, not problems. Give them answers to the questions they didn't ask. 6. Do not go around your management chain. If you absolutely must talk to an executive without your manager present, or if the executive comes to you, loop your manager in as soon as possible. This is common courtesy. You don’t want to gain a reputation for going over your manager’s head.

Measure your way to influence. Laura Baker asserts that great design alone isn't enough—success comes from building relationships, effective communication, and advocating for your work. (https://lnkd.in/gBxr8837) I agree with her and add that, in my experience, the quickest way to gain influence in these areas is to add measurement to the design team's skills. Measurement strengthens influence by giving objective proof of impact, making gaining support and guiding decisions easier. While many of the soft skills will continue to remain relevant, here’s a list of skills over time that have differentiated design: 1990s- I can design a website 2000- I can design a team 2004- I can design complex apps 2008- I can design mobile apps 2012- I can design responsive  2017- I can design systems ???? ZURB has stayed relevant for over 25 years by consistently adding value in all these areas. We assert there's growing pressure for design to make a bigger business impact, but that won’t happen without measurement. Measuring is key to creating effective solutions and driving business goals. For product and design leaders, a strong focus on measurement in design can support Laura’s points in the following ways: 1️⃣ Building/nurturing relationships When designers use data to measure the impact of their work, they provide concrete evidence of the value they bring. Sharing these metrics with stakeholders builds trust and strengthens relationships, shifting conversations from opinions to facts. 2️⃣ Invest in those around them Using measurement, designers can highlight how their work benefits the entire team, not just their own goals. This transparency helps others see how design contributes to shared objectives, fostering a collaborative environment where everyone can grow. 3️⃣ Navigating politics Data-informed insights help designers navigate workplace dynamics by providing objective results. Measurable outcomes help in decision-making, making gaining support from key influencers and navigating political challenges within organizations easier. 4️⃣ Setting appropriate boundaries Measurement allows designers to define their work's scope and expected impact clearly. This clarity can help them set boundaries with stakeholders or other teams, ensuring expectations are aligned and manageable. 5️⃣ Finding advocates and advocating for others Designers who consistently measure their impact can easily demonstrate value to potential advocates. By sharing data-informed success stories, they can encourage others to advocate for design within the company while also advocating for teammates by showing how their collaboration leads to positive outcomes. Measuring design’s impact helps build influence, achieve business goals, and foster better collaboration. #productdesign #productdiscovery #userresearch #uxresearch

Why won’t executives take design leaders seriously? Why do they seem to consider the perspective of a newly-minted product leader more valuable than that of a veteran design leader? And what can design leaders do to change the equation? Some clues can be found in our recent conversation on Finding Our Way with Leslie Witt, chief product and design officer for Headspace. As a designer and design leader who has crossed over to executive-level product leadership, Leslie can see both perspectives, and in our conversation it seemed to come down to two things: credibility and accountability. As Leslie points out, they go hand in hand. “As a designer,” she says, “the qualities that you are caring most about aren’t necessarily always the ones that you are most accountable to deliver.” But she also warns us that “the range of proxy metrics that we sometimes use for those things, like adoption or engagement, don’t necessarily prove out that you’ve actually added value.” To build their credibility, design leaders must shift their focus to draw the connections between business value and user value that others might not see. And that’s where accountability comes in. The strategy that all of this suggests is not to continue chasing the ideal proxy metrics for design outcomes. But also not to wait for perfect alignment with your executive leaders on the precise business value your team drives. Rather than struggling to define and gain buy-in for the best metric for design quality, the opportunity for design leaders is to assert for themselves and their organizations the non-design business metrics they intend to drive. Even if those metrics aren’t officially yours. Even if they technically “belong” to someone else. There‘s a lot more in the whole conversation with Peter and Leslie. Check it out right here! https://lnkd.in/eqqCJzRY

When Designers don’t connect our work to financial outcomes, we lose control of the narrative, leaving others fill in the blanks. Businesses assess money-in and value-out. How much value an investment creates shows where to invest further. • Designers usually focus on Product or Customer Outcomes (launched an improved flow, reduced cognitive load, etc) • SOMETIMES we connect our work to Business Outcomes (improved conversion, increased NPS, etc) • RARELY do we link our Design work to Financial Outcomes (decreased Customer Acquisition Costs, increased Annual Recurring Revenue) When execs don’t know how something like "reduced cognitive load" impacts the bottom line, it opens up reasonable and challenging questions like, “Why should I invest in Design?” To grow your influence, always link your Design work to Business and Financial Outcomes. Don't assume others can make this leap on their own. #ux #uxdesign #productdesign