Accidental Leaders: Navigating the Uncharted Waters of Senior Design Leadership

okay okay are you hearing me well okay

so first of all thank you so much for

the opportunity of talking to you today

like to thank thank also the uxx

organization for setting this all up and

I would like to ask claps for them cuz

they did it all okay

yeah so today we're going to do a a

little Adventure into uncharted waters

of design leadership and I hope you

enjoy and you like this journey with

me uh first of all today is Children's

Day in Brazil so all Brazilians usually

change their profile pictures to all

pictures they have this is me at 5 in

Rio de Janeiro yeah uh in a really proud

position because I climed a rock of 2

Metter

right uh I was born in this place it was

a scy environment but my my but my

parents were fantastic they were was

super creative on this scenar and and

teaching me a lot about resilience and

how to be a leader since since of the

beginning right so I live I'm living in

Amsterdam for two years I got married

recently with talita which did the best

party of the Year probably a vog

magazine will give a prize to us or

something I don't know uh I like to sail

boats in tropical icelands and my career

in ux started with an unsatisfaction

because I hate bureaucracy and I hate to

to have bad experience as customer if

you want to see me sad send me to my to

a bank agency and let me wait in the

line for time okay so talking a little

bit more about my

career uh I started in design many years

ago but my first experience as a leader

was at Kazo this last company uh I

started there as the first employee it

was a garage garage startup with me and

the founders only I was the only ux and

and after 3 years working there they

just said okay you are the oldest design

in the company manage and then I say

okay I never fired someone I never hired

someone I never evaluated I never

reported I know nothing about management

I know everything about design right

after that I worked in another startups

like use it was in sh Tech hotmart was a

creative economy uh startup and now I

work at b.com b.com is the biggest

e-commerce in NE land where I live and

also in Belgium and that's it so when I

was working at us I started sharing a

little bit about this journey uh when a

designer joins in this management and

Leadership uh adventure and then I found

many people that was already also

struggling on this position like oh I

just recent got to management and found

some common people with

me uh after that I started doing some

courses of design leadership workshops

and now 6 years later we we did 26

editions with more than 1,000 students

already uh teaching design leadership

and then my purpose with these workshops

were was always to help design leaders

to be more conscient more confident and

more prepared to lead so I decided to

split my presentation into three

chapters so we're going to go into the

orange green and blue color Okay first

one is to be conscient about the current

situation of design leadership right

basically you design is easy

right you agree you have to know about

ergonomics you have to know about

metrics you have to know about service

about figma about prototype about

variables now about coding sometimes

about facilitation and then you you feel

like this guy yes I'm trying to handling

I'm trying to learn these

all uh but in the end what we do

interfaces and I see that the community

is not proud anymore about about this

thing oh I don't do UI anymore I'm a ux

I'm a product designer but it's

important to understand what it means to

do

interfaces interface is anything between

faces right it's super broad so in this

case the Hummer is an interface between

her hand and the nail try to nail a with

your hand it will be much harder so you

have an interface like a Hummer to help

her with the jobs to be done that I that

she has

uh but interface at the end can be

interaction Services products platforms

processes experience so doing interface

is Broad it's not specific

right and then in the end design is not

a science we have many uh variations

many methods and it there's no recip to

design that you can replicate the same

scenario and guarante the same results

so that's why it's not science uh I see

design designers as treasury Hunter

because we go from clue to clue uh more

near the final treasure so we try to

find this treasure that usually is prod

Market fit and then we we open this box

to the pro managers to other people and

say yeah I found gold but everybody is

always with a a shovel asking hey can I

dig and then you say no no no wait I'm

I'm still finding the next clue

right uh in the end the purpose of ux

design is to humanize things right we

want to guarantee that things are more

desirable more useful more easy to use

more

trustful uh and then it turns to be the

pitch of design it's underly in our in

our conversation with business in the

end we believe that if the product is

more humanized then it will be better to

business there's no guarantee of that we

have lack of evidence of it but we

believe as a community that if you have

more desirable we're going to have more

trust more loyalty more recommendation

more member get member better NPS a

better Pat and a better more cross

selling more uh average ticket and go on

on business metrix in the end we are

trying to lower the risks of launching

something and fail fail

bad about

confidence when you lead people you have

to be secure about yourself you have to

to inspire people and make they feel

safe in which direction you are

going so we studied a lot and we became

the design unicorn who here feels like a

unicorn that knows methods of design can

facilitate can prototype can do anything

in design don't be

shy okay we are hiring okay uh I will

share a care code in the end so going to

talk later uh but then suddenly when you

are this unicorn you turn to have this

opportunity to lead to be a principal to

be a staff to lead a project maybe and

then there are some assumptions that

when people got promoted oh now people

will work for me I can do whatever I

want yeah because I'm a leader business

will finally understand me because now I

have a seat on the table right or uh I

will work much less because people will

be working for me it's I can say I can

spoil you it's not true okay and then

suddenly you came you come to a board

table as that strong unicorn you were

and then you turn to be a baby shark

inside of a shark tank right you face

these people that are super experienced

it in business they are there doing this

for 20 years they grown billionaire

companies before they talk all their

language they use many abbreviations

that designers are not familiar with and

then you just feel like hey they gave me

the crayon to do some drawings while

they discuss the the things

right uh and then I like a lot this this

this quote from Alin tofler that he says

if you don't have a strategy you are

part of someone else's strategy

basically if you don't Define your

strategy someone will include include

you in their strategy and in the end you

are just servicing uh as

designer so it's important to define or

be defined right I have this phrase T to

it in my belly here uh because it guides

my life uh if you don't decide you are

also deciding if you don't have a plan

someone will have so it's important to

Define what's your vision where you want

to go with the design or the chamber

your

legion but okay what's what's common

between good leaders uh I don't know if

I have seen the playoff uh Netflix

series it's a good selection of of

leaders talking about their experiences

as leaders every leader have a cause or

a purpose behind they also have

followers when they convince this cause

uh to other people so people start

following

them basically they also have

antagonists because any time you want to

change something we're going to be

you're going to find people that loves

the inertia the way it is they want to

stay as as it is and then you're going

to have to be brave and with fear

because braveness is not Fearless

braveness is go even with fear inside

yourself so you have to position

yourself sometimes you're going to have

to challenge the status quo and then you

also going to have your imperfection and

Flawless because no uh leader is

perfect leadership is a visceral Journey

you're going to deal with many emotions

many tough decisions you're going to the

the higher you go the less mentorship

you're going to have the less clear it

is the next step you're going to give

you know uh there is a book that talks a

lot about this it's not a design book

it's a business book I can say it's

called the hard things about hard things

it's from B hovit it's full of cases of

hard tough decisions that a leader face

in their

career uh so okay how to be prepared to

to be a good leader the first thing is

to understand that going to management

is not a career Evolution it's not a

promotion it's a career change you're

going to go to another area it's not a

continuation of design you're going to

have to study other

things uh you come from this background

where you know many skills of design and

you have the necessity to learn as soon

as possible many management skills like

budget hiring career Evolution feedback

evaluation tough tradeoffs decision

making all those

things it's important to differentiate

what's management and what's leadership

management is to make things stays stay

as they are so when you manage you want

to have control of things you want to

have predictability so you don't want

things to change when you manage you

want things under control when you lead

you are trying to get to to have

movement you are pushing people forward

you know uh they are almost the opposite

you you see this is movement this is

stay

right and and they also have different

skills but leadership is much more on on

the will on the soft skills on the

behavioral part and management is

something more learnable like more

technical skills that you can learn

right in between these two you probably

have going to have to do both if you

manage people you're going to have to

lead have the posture but you're also

going to have to report but if you are a

craft design leader you're going to have

to take care of all these automations

also about the design process because

you are a leader in a specific uh set of

roles

right um it start from yourself if you

don't lead yourself you won't lead

anyone and my question here is who is

who is in charge of your life are you

leading your life or just following what

happens right if you don't lead yourself

you can't lead other people so how do

you reenergize are you re-energizing in

Red Bull Cafe uh games and cola or are

you really rizing when you have some

punch that we're going to happen during

your career uh another important fact is

how dependent you are from your job if

your personal life depend on that that

job to pay the bills probably you won't

be brave enough you won't take the risks

to be a leader so having Financial

safety is also important uh most of the

people get promoted and also raise the

the the the cost of life because oh now

I have more money it's important to have

safety and

savings uh in the end what I suggest you

is to be sapience sapience is a book

from Harari yeah they he also wrote uh

21 lessons of 20 21 SEC Century right

something like this uh but this thing is

basically that you graduated in design

but you are not a designer design is

just a tool in your belt you can put

more things in the belt probably most of

the people here in this in this audience

will live 100 years you can graduate

much more than just your first

graduation that you did when you were

young don't let this Define what you're

going to be to the rest of your

life uh yeah and I had this professor we

call them him saada that when I

graduated he said this I was doing two

graduations at the same time one at

night one at at at the morning and he

said don't let the university be in the

way of your studies and I took that and

I started studying anything like

economics anthropology because it was

free the the University you was

free so now we're going to pass through

three steps that I recommend you to do

this career transition the first one is

learn and we're going to do learn earn

and return okay learn you're going to

have to read other books you're going to

have to go to other events stop going

only in design events stop going only on

development uh development events open

your mind to other areas because you

don't if you don't have something in

common with these other people you're

going to relate you can't have Comm

communication you have to have something

in common to speak their language also I

recommend you to have other mentors

other alliances that is not common is

not on the on the design bubble

anymore earn uh what I mean by earn you

have to earn the respect from the from

the people around you you what I

recommend is to frame as small specific

problem that you can solve this month

don't go for everything don't go over

complicated overthinking

uh what What's your mission another good

advice is to trust your team if you

don't trust them they won't trust you

okay you have to do the first step trust

your team delegate things and expect

they will succeed another important

thing is to build this team building

this karage around you where people

likes to help each other it's important

to have have this feeling this Vibe this

good vibe around you so you're going to

have some quick wings some early wings

and probably this will be more connected

with lead indicators for example now I'm

researching more our prototypes are more

consistent in the first moment it will

be lead indicators but don't forget to

aim for the Neo movement in the

kpis and also don't forget your origin

uh so return means that you have to

always remember your purpose in the end

you're not designing for yourself you're

designing for someone else you have to

be user Centric you have to care about

them not about you in the end share your

learnings because you you learn a lot

when you teach people and show fragility

it's not a problem the best way to get

Confidence from other people is to show

that you are human and you have uh

you're not perfect

right uh and then one common question

that I Reed from my students is okay uh

what differentiates a design leader from

any other leader right and in my opinion

what differentiates our principles when

you design you try to have empathy you

try to get out of the building and face

reality not every business leader do

that you know you try to experiment you

can prototype things fast you can test

and you also can facilitate workshops

this is also a different ability you can

also automate things you know how to

scale you know how to talk with

developers and you have the storytelling

power in your hand so you know how to

tell a story from beginning to the end

and this is also a useful

ability another important thing that

Riya also touched uh this the today is

to avoid emotional data avoid the bias

especially when you are doing uh

management things for example it's

common to hire people similar to you

right it's a bias it's also common to

defend design and all costs and in the

end you see that we are just looking for

data to prove your emotional conclusion

you know you're not being neutral to

find the truth you are just taking data

to say yes I told you I'm right yeah so

it's ego in the

end uh another suggestion I have is in a

board table or with Executives don't

defend design defend user centricity it

stick to your propose it's not about

using empathy Maps it's not about using

Le Inception or Des Sprints whatever

it's not about that in the end what

Executives expects from design is that

this company is facing the reality and

it's not a fragility to the business

because if you don't have good uh good

relationship with your users someone

else can have like create a startup and

drop the big company because of that

fragility we avoid risk design is here

to avoid the risk of all the users

getting get out that's the risk we are

trying to

avoid uh basically

you're going to have to stop reading or

reading less books of design and then I

did hear a graduation of books I read

during this year uh about design design

and Leadership actually it's rare to

have a design leadership book there is

one that I like a lot the name is lift

off okay you can check it later uh

actually it's not here but yeah the name

is lift off but most of the books in

these side are about hiring about AGR

about financial about business about uh

hard

decisions as I mentioned before unicorns

are you there yeah we have a position

about many positions you can scan this

QR code and this time now take your

phone because we're going to show many

QR codes okay so the first one have

positions please sign up can I

change I see some cell phones yet yes

okay uh another thing that I want to

share with you is that during this year

teaching my students about design

leadership I got fascinated by actually

addicted to spreadsheets right uh I love

to do formulas and I love to scale up

and to connect things with web flow and

spreadsheets all the time so I created

this website called leadership tools it

have a in the beginning because it was

basically in Portuguese I translated

just for this event yes and then you can

download these spread sheets you can uh

they ship you can buy them and then you

have a discount code of uxdx you can buy

there uh okay this will help you to kick

off okay I don't know how to do one1 I

don't know how to manage my design

system I don't know how to evaluate

skills of my team I don't know how to uh

manage their salaries and goals the all

the things I have many templates there

that you can

download can I change okay I would like

also to thank Deborah Deborah was the

illustrator that did all this fun in

ations I work with her for the last 10

years and she's awesome she's open for a

freelance and if you want to hire her

especially to live in Amsterdam with me

I would love

okay so please and I have a surprise I

have five Treasures in this place uh

actually one in each corner and one

around the middle and basically it's

below the the chair it's something like

the a package like this with golden

chocolate coins

right but then if you find these golden

chocolate coins anyone found something

like this below the chairs no oh you're

going to have to be more treasure

Hunters right take the next

clue okay okay don't kill

yourself but then uh if you find this

you're going to come later to the side

of the stage and I will give you all the

spreadsheets from leadership tools w

it's treasure right for

free and that's it people thank

[Applause]

you okay thank you very much Anderson

I'll start with the first question just

for myself is what do you think are the

most common challenges you've seen when

you or others are unexpectedly put into

leadership positions can you repeat

because I can yeah I'll come closer it's

always a bit of feedback so what's the

most common challenge you've seen when

someone is put unexpectedly put into a

leadership position what's the number

one thing that you think they're going

to come across straight away what to

deal with the first challenge you're

going to face is to drop the figma stop

prototyping yeah say that again sorry

stop prototyping okay actually and then

the second the second part you're going

to have is to show design value because

it's not easy to measure design it's not

easy to measure uh User centricity it's

not obvious it's too subjective and you

can have NPS you can have P but they are

not enough to measure what you what you

need and people will try to ask you why

should I invest more in design convince

me they will open this this question to

you and you have to convince them okay

and we'll move on to questions from the

audience what would you say to a

designer who love to craft design but is

pushed to become a leader in order to

grow in his organ organization yeah

pushing the puller yeah most of the time

designers think that leadership is

something that you're going to face in

the future but actually design needs

leadership since you were a junior

because if you there is a phrase from

Jared spool that says that design is the

rendering of intent design doesn't

happen by Co coincidence so have you

seen a project that a designer analyzed

everything and said yes let's stay the

same I don't want to change anything

never saw this project right designers

likes to change everything so if you

want to change you're going to have to

lead change you know you are already use

it to lead and then it's not optional

leadership is not something that

designers can do later they are doing

now otherwise they won't convince the

developers the gpms the stakeholders

about what change they want to do so I

think that being a principal or or a

staff is not different you will also be

exposed to the board you you also be

contested you also have to to do a broad

perspective to design okay so how to

come back from leadership to design oh I

think it's impossible okay if you if you

turn to be a leader once doesn't mean

management okay doesn't mean you can

stop managing people but it's hard to

take off the initiative the visual

feeling you have it's like a virus when

you know what user centricity means

you're going to fight for it it's

confess it's an addiction to think about

other people right to think about hey am

I doing a relevant product am I doing

something that let people have a a

better life or a worse life we are

concerned about these about humanity and

this is the essence of leadership okay

cool someone's asking can you please

share that amazing deck we'll see we'll

come back to that one is it very hard

for teams when you're when you're sorry

is it very hard for

teams it's very hard to read also yeah

sorry okay I'll try try one more time

it's very hard for teams when your lead

is an exceptional designer who was given

a promotion to managed them but he

starts designing how do we keep calm

with managers like

this take off the figma

access and the mirror also the mirror

board view only view only and Tie Your

Hands yeah

okay uh

yes yes I I think I think that

stakeholders are are also important in

the process we say all the time that we

are user Centric people Centric but we

don't interview business people to

understand what takes off your sleep in

the night what concerns you we also have

to be EMP to have empathy with our

colleagues they're also trying to

achieve an objective so we also have to

listen this leader and say okay what's

your concern that makes you open the

file what what's what worries you you

know so we also have to empathize with

them okay okay uh what was the Netflix

film you recommended

earlier what was a Netflix film or was

it a Netflix documentary that You'

recommended earlier oh I like a lot the

playoff but ah I will be biased because

this day I I saw Band of Brothers you

know Band of Brothers is a a lesson of

leadership in every chapter in every

episode and it's hard decision tough

decision you see the emotional feeling

of decisions and there's also I don't

like Wars but as soon as I'm living in

Europe I'm studying a little bit more to

get the context of of the countries and

then these days I watch it I watch it

also w war true in colors have you seen

that uh it's also in Netflix and in many

moments of this documentary you see that

the personality of the leader changed

the way the war went went check it out

later but there are many I can send a

list of links later okay and that's kind

of leads into the next question is can

you S Suggest some books for someone

who's preparing on that shift into

leadership or maybe some training and

certificates yeah there is one that it's

called Uh design Orcs for or or design I

never know the name of it design if you

type design ORS you're going to find it

uh in the Google and the lift of is

really complete it shows slowly feedback

and now leveling and now hiring and then

it's really a stepbystep

methodology okay and this this next

question is to me this talk seems more

about design management than design

leadership do you think that there's a

difference yeah for sure there is a

difference but you're going to have to

wear many hats during your day uh

usually you're going to have a meeting

that you're going to face a feedback a

punch in your face and then you have to

go and give feedback to other people or

control budget for one hour so you're

going to shift from management and

Leadership during your day during a week

many times uh if I was talking about

management much more I would show how to

manage user research how to manage

metrics how to manage design system how

to manage uh user insights or whatever

so yeah you can be right maybe but yeah

okay someone's asking quite a broad one

but how do you face your first 90 days

in a new manage your position what kind

of tips would you have there this is

good question uh there's a book about it

actually but my opinion is that you have

to always have the Curiosity of a

researcher and the action of a of a ux

designer you know so treat your first 90

days as a research every interview every

meeting you have with any stakeholder

it's a data point you know catalog what

you learned and after one month show to

to our boss to our chief to our lead hey

this is what I Mapp it interviewing 30

people across the company and I think

this is the problem people are

complaining about do a research this is

basically my

recommendation look at this greetings

from your design team in the Netherlands

a awesome

presentation okay if you could don't

encourage them

don't if you could go back in time the

cost asil times which of these sorry

which of the learnings you shared today

you'd apply first to your younger self

yeah actually gami is someone that I

live there in Kazo I hope it was a good

experience yes uh I learned many things

because at that time I was a complete

Noob and I I let at that time I let my

emotions take care of my behaviors many

times and it's bad to leer you have to

have a posture you have to control your

your impulse and this is in my opinion

the best way to get rid of the bias you

get so the way you deal with your

emotions uh change the output you're

going to give as a leader and the

decisions you're going to do yeah so I

believe that now I understand myself

much more I know the triggers and the

the emotional consequences I have and

also what I feel in my body when I'm

angry or when I'm uh super happy that is

also a bias you know when you are super

Optimist you tend to agree to uh go with

everything uh on okay great I think

that's nearly all the questions is it I

think it is okay listen much appreciated

thanks for that talk that was very

interesting please put your hands

together for Andre or Anderson Gomez and

also