Monday April 27, 2009 / 5 Comments

A good friend of mine recently stepped into an art director role and asked me for any advice I might have. I started to respond via email, but figured other people might find this useful. So, here you go!

1. Listen
   While you’ll have a strong urge to come in and “prove” you are a capable leader (usually through top-down, heavy handed actions), spending the first few weeks quietly listening, learning and observing will make you a far better leader in the long run. This is a new environment, with different members, each with different strengths and weaknesses. Make this about them— you want to learn everything you can about your team, the company, their clients, and their history.
2. Meet each person
   People are not all the same. You need to get to know each team member as an individual. You need to learn what each person’s strengths and weaknesses are. This is especially important with creative groups, where skills and talent can vary greatly, and where individuals hate being slotted neatly into (and rarely fit) a predefined role or job description. Most importantly, you need to learn what makes each person tick—why are they here, and not elsewhere. Fear? Satisfaction? To work with other team members? Convenience? Specific clients? It’s critical that you understand what motivates each team member to do their best. Tapping into these personal motivations will be the most effective way to accomplish your goals as a manager.
3. Cast a vision
   This is the tough one— your team (and depending on the size of the organization, your company) needs to have a clear and compelling sense of purpose. Call it vision, mission, mantra, strategic intent, purpose—whatever! Like the “put a man on the moon” mantra, you need to uncover the shared sense of purpose that unites everyone. Expect this to take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. It took me 5 months to figure this out at Viewzi.
4. Connect the group vision to personal motivations
   Perhaps farther down the road, the key to growing an excited, intrinsically motivated team to is to help your team members connect their personal goals and motivations to the larger group vision. If there isn’t a good fit, then maybe this isn’t the right place for that person. While this is a tough bridge to cross, it’s usually best for the company and individual— it’s critical that people be where they are happy, growing, and excited about the work they are doing.
5. Understand peers and bosses, politics
   As much as you want to focus on you and your team, it’s equally important to understand the culture (and politics) inside the organization you’re working at. If you succeed in truly creating a team culture, you—as a leader—will be looked at to pave the way and clear the road of barriers that would prevent the team from kicking a**. Your job will become less focused on the team and more externally focused on efforts that support the team— managing bad clients, navigating thorny political issues, etc. It’s important that you understand how to do such things.
6. Guide, don’t do
   As a manager, you need to learn to work through people. You cannot do their work for them. I’ll say that again: You cannot do your teams work for them. This is especially challenging if you are really good at what you do (and I know you are a perfectionist!). You will face a crossroad when you must choose: you can do people’s work for them, or figure out how to help them to do better work. The latter road is the much more difficult path, especially when you really want to just jump in and show them how it’s done, but this is your chosen path as a manager— to help those around you rise up and exceed your expectations. They’ll never do that if you’re doing their job for them. While challenging, this is the path that doesn’t lead you to dead ends, late nights, and burnout. What’s best, one day you’ll discover that you’ve surrounded yourself with people who can do what you used to do better than you ever could have dreamed. This is nirvana for managers.
7. Make the subjective objective
   So how do you get people to be better? Frame the problem to be solved. Establishing objective criteria for evaluation is critical to offering valid feedback. It should never be “because my boss doesn’t like it.” It should be “my boss helped me understand why it might not work, or how it could work better.” Whether you’re discussing a Web site or an ad campaign, clients pay you and your company to create these things in order to accomplish clear objectives. As a manager, making these business and design objectives clear to your team is key. Is this more or less usable? Will this increase conversion? How does this fit with our target market? At the end of the day, while expression and art are certainly a part of what we do, we are designers. And Design is concerned with accomplishing a particular purpose. It is these purposes against which we should evaluate our design decisions— not our personal opinions.
8. Meddle when necessary, but be clear about it
   Okay, not everything will be cut and dry. Sometimes you’ll have an idea you want to see given form. Or maybe someone is just not moving past the concept they’re stuck on. In these cases (and do keep them rare), it’s ok to cross the line— just be clear about it: “I’m meddling now.” However, even in these cases where you’re demonstrating how you would solve the problem, the goal is not that this employee would emulate your solution; no, you should want this different perspective to challenge them, inspire them, and provide them with a fresh way to look at the problem that will inspire their own, original solution. You’re jumpstarting their stalled engine, not programming the GPS (and if they do solve it in your way, they’ve made that choice as designers).
9. Designate clear owners…
   Resist the urge to be hands on, if that’s not your role as a director. A sense of ownership is critically important among creative professionals, regardless of talent level. It’s important to be clear about who owns what or who has the final say. Everyone should have some project or some piece of the project they can point to and say “I made this.” Whatever “this” is, be clear about it, and then help them hit a home run with whatever it is they own. This means understanding their unique solution to the problem and either nurturing this idea to be stellar, or helping them understand where the idea is lacking. In an environment with lots of small projects, it’s easier to parcel out the projects to individual owners. However, if there is only one or two project that everyone is working on, ownership can be a bit trickier…
10. …but also prioritize group collaboration
    While a sense of individual ownership is important, it’s often not that cut and dry. And some of your best ideas won’t come from any one individual. Pixar has assembled a stellar team of animators and engineers. They have a great practice of daily peer review sessions, where whoever attends provides feedback on work done the previous day. Programs like these encourage everyone to participate and feel that sense of ownership on a larger project. More importantly, these conversations quickly educate less mature team members on what constitutes a “good” solution. I’ve also found that almost all projects go through divergent and convergent phases; a phase for when you’re generating ideas and a phase for when you’re refining a selected idea. The nature of collaboration changes with these phases. I set aside ownership during the divergent phase, allowing everyone a chance to generate new ideas. Out of this process will generally come a few ideas worth pursuing. I believe it’s very important to let the originators of an idea (who are often the champions for that idea) see it through to completion. It’s at this point that I can say “you own this” and the team will help you make the best of a concept that everyone agreed was worth pursuing.
11. Don’t feel threatened by stellar employees
    Don’t be afraid of people knowing or being better at something than you are. Expect this—and be excited by it— it means your overall team, including you, has that much more to offer. You have your own strengths and weaknesses. And there’s far too much out there to know everything. Let your team and peers complement you where you are weak. And let them step up to the plate in these cases, either joining you in meetings or taking your place. Don’t ever feel threatened by a really strong team member— rather, count this as a blessing and do everything you can to keep this an environment they want to remain in.
12. Let individuals represent their own work
    This one can be risky, but hear me out. If someone has done great work, make sure they get the credit for it. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to see bad managers take their employees good work and represent it as their own. Or worse, credit the employee but present the ideas themselves and butcher the presentation. Let the idea owners present their work. And if they’re not so good at representing ideas yet, help them out. Being able to represent, explain and defend your ideas is a basic communication skill that everyone at all levels needs to learn at some point. Have reservations about doing this? A good friend (and mentor to me) repeatedly said his job was to work himself out of his current position. Help people on your team do those things that would groom them for your position.
13. And a few random comments…
    Most of what I’ve written assumes a fairly talented team. I personally favor the small, flat teams made up of mid-to-senior level folks. In these situations, your job as a manager is much easier. (It’s more like a group organizer than anything else.) However, your situation may involve many more levels and titles, and may include interns and junior level folks. I wouldn’t make exception to anything I’ve advised above. But, the projects people get to work on should be appropriate to their capabilities (and fit with their interest and talents). This means people who do great work with what is given to them will in effect earn the right to do more interesting work. And this has nothing to do with tenure or titles, but rather prior accomplishments.

In the end, the goal of all of these practices is to establish trust. If your team trusts you, well… things are so much easier! They’ll listen to feedback with an open mind. They’ll take you seriously. And on those occasions when the work is not so desirable (which will be more than you’d like), they’ll be more agreeable to continue doing their best work— knowing that you’re looking out for them. You want a team that trusts you, and knows that you are personally invested in their individual growth, wherever that growth may take them.

I could write a bit more about mentoring programs or some of the specific things I’ve tried over the years, but I’ll stop here. I feel this is a pretty good general list of principles that I try to practice. That said, I will point you to three additional sources of great management advice:

1. 10 Tips to Manage a Creative Environment — I first heard this at SxSW. As Sarah B. Nelson and Bryan Mason went through each of the ten tips, I found myself nodding my head vigorously to each one. You can check out their slides here (note: you really need to hear the accompanying audio for some of their points to make sense).
2. One thing I haven’t mentioned here are individual personality differences and how to account for those. For example, most people I’ve worked with enjoy representing their own work. However, for some individuals, this would freak them out. At Adptive Path’s MX 2008, Margaret Gould Stewart, User Experience Manager at Google, shared some practical tools for custom-tailoring your management style for different personalities . She’s put together a set of attribute cards you can use to help understand individual work styles your team members will have. This fun little exercise will help you understand what each member of your team needs from you as their manager.
3. I just came across this post over at randsinrepose.com . It’s a good complement to the advice that I’ve given here as it focuses more on what being a manager will mean for you.

I hope you find some of this helpful. Best of luck in your new position!

Friday December 19, 2008 / 8 Comments

What do rock bands and guitar heroes have to do with management theory? This was the topic of my most recent presentation:

Groups and organizations, just like musicians, don’t all work and behave in the same way. In this presentation, I look to the music industry to describe four organizational archetypes—each with a different set of values and ways of working. By understanding each of these work cultures, the culture we work in, and the work style that best fits us personally, we can make sense of the conflicts we face at work and become more effective at our job, whether we’re employees, managers or—rock stars!

Where this originated
Needless to say, I’ve been really excited to share this with everyone. It was during the Q&A for my Star Wars presentation-- over a year ago— that I made a spur-of-the-moment comment about George Lucas and how his leadership style was quite different from that of Gene Roddenberry, the visionary behind Star Trek. That presentation was focused on various lessons we can learn from the making of the original Star Wars movie, lessons about change and making innovative ideas a reality. Of course, at least one thing I was left wondering about was the group dynamics behind great innovations. What personality traits are needed to lead a successful, innovative team? Do we have to be strong, demanding visionaries like George Lucas, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson ? How much credit should go to those people the team? What about innovative groups, like those at Pixar or the original Xerox PARC folks? It was this line of thinking led me to reflect on another popular form of creation that involves different personalities: songwriting (and performing).

Anyone who has ever been in a rock band— especially more than one— can testify to the interesting group dynamics that go on. Sometimes these groups are in constant conflict, sometimes everything is pure bliss. Sometime a few changes in lineup can dramatically alter the group and their output. Rock bands (and other kinds of musical groups) are a great petri dish for exploring team dynamics.

So based on personal experience and observations, I began looking to for patterns and archetypes. Along the way I discovered a fabulous book by business guru Charles Handy The Gods of Management . In it, Handy describes four organizational cultures, and identifies each with 4 different Greek gods. His four cultures matched closely with the where my research was leading (and certainly influenced my thinking, moving forward).

What I saw emerge were 4 (potentially 5) different kinds work cultures. Each culture values different things, operates in radically different ways and has their own sets of strengths and weaknesses. Mostly importantly, by understanding these cultures (and which one you value), it’s easy to push the fastforward button on most conflicts you might have at work. Forget the stereotypes (“creatives” vs “suits” being a popular one). It’s much deeper than that. Does authority come from what you’ve done, who you know, or seniority? Does your business operate in relatively stable environment, or are things changing all the time? What motivates people professionally? These archetypes have proven to be a great lens by which to understand different types of organizations.

So, what are the four types of organizational cultures? They are:

• The FrontMan – Though more common with small companies, folks like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Martha Stewart or George Lucas represent this organization. These are visionary leaders with pretty strong ideas about how things should be done; Power is the dominant theme of this group and success depends on how close you are to and how well you imitate the leader. If you want to work here, you will be executing someone else’s vision.

• The Studio Musicians – This is the dominant corporate work culture, where structure, rank, and hierarchy keep things going. Workers are hired to fill a role. Titles and promotions are key motivations.

• The Rock Band – This culture is typical of smaller, creative groups. Teams work together, focused on the project. Collaboration and creativity are valued here.

• The Rock Star(s) – These are your ‘A-Players.’ But they also tend to be mavericks, adhering to their own ideas about things, which often isolates them from other workers. They create tension, but it’s often in the best interest of their employer. and if you can tolerate their dissension, the rewards will be great. Loyalty to their profession and themselves is the dominant theme of this group.

Obviously, there’s much more to this. But, you get the idea. Anyone who is familiar with personality assessments like the four humours , the five love languages or more academic assessments like the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator will understand how useful these tools are for relating to people who don’t think like you do. In a similar fashion, these four organizational archetypes are useful for understanding different work cultures that exist, and the unique role each one plays. To be clear, this is a diagnostic tool. It’s not going to solve your conflicts, but it will help you gain a deeper understanding of where the conflicts come from— and how to overcome them.

Even more important now
The dominant work culture of the last century was the role-based organization. While this culture is great for manufacturing, where predictability and regulation are critical to success, it is the worst kind of culture for knowledge and information workers, especially in a space where things are in a constant state of change and businesses must deal with uncertain situations. Most of the information architects and user experience professionals I work with deal with uncertainty everyday. Our practice is about taming complexity. Unfortunately, the same thinking skills that makes us good at our practice also put as at odds with how most companies are run. This is also true of other “creative” groups—developers, architects, entrepreneurs, scientists. Few industries or businesses are immune to constant change, and the workforce needs more “creative” thinkers. Unfortunately, most businesses of any size struggle with how exactly to manage the entrepreneurial spirit within a culture of routine. Likewise, these individuals don’t understand and value the positive qualities of an organization focused on routine, predictability and efficiency.

Over the last decade I’ve led four different entrepreneurial (and intrapreneurial) teams. I cut my teeth at a startup. Moved on to consulting for many years. Became an “innie” for a some time, before returning to the startup world. I’ve been fortunate to work in a lot of different environments— each with their own unique management challenges. I’ve read plenty of books and articles by so called gurus. But it wasn’t until I framed things in exactly this way that all the conflicts I had observed (and been a part of!) suddenly made sense. “How do I manage a maverick employee?” “How do we prevent attrition following a merger & acquisition?” “Why are my boss and I always at odds?” “How do I manipulate that VP who is in the way of this project?” “Why am I so miserable in this position— I thought I’d be happier…” “What is the ideal job for me?” This way of thinking about different organizations with different value systems has helped me understand and respond to persistent management challenges. I’d love nothing more than to share this with other people. So, here’s looking at 2009 and taking this show on the road. What do you think— world tour?

Monday December 8, 2008 / 2 Comments

One of my passions is managing high-performance, collaborative teams. Accordingly, I like to note the subtleties that distinguish one team from another and affect overall success. Here’s an observation I made recently.

In collaborative environments, there’s a huge difference between saying “John’s idea” and “the idea John suggested.” A small semantic difference, perhaps. But consider the object of each phrase. And the effect.

“John’s idea”
In the first phrase, the object is the person. It is their idea. Their comment. Their opinion. Put this in context of an open and contentious dialogue about, say… how to implement a product feature. In this scenario, you are pitting people against each other. It is my idea against his idea. Someone wins. Someone loses. Moreover, even casual feedback and comments become associated with a person, who eventually has to defend what was merely a contribution thrown into the mix.

This is a destructive way to manage team dynamics. Not only does it create adversarial conditions, it frustrates coming to agreement on great ideas that are actually a fusion of contributions from several people. Instead of ‘this great idea we came up with’ you end up with ‘my idea with some of his thrown in’ is the idea that won.

Let’s contrast the first scenario with this second one…

“The idea John suggested”
In this scenario, the object is clearly the idea. Authorship is secondary, and only as a label. In fact, in these situations it good to get to a description of this idea that separates it from the contributor. What you end up with here is a gathering of people, all contributing and ‘playing’ with an idea— the thing being discussed. Think of this as the stewed pot that everyone is gathering around. What are people focused on? Not each other. The focus is on the thing being formed. And, if someone introduces a great idea (or a bad one), it’s more detached from the person.

Moreover, because the focus isn’t on individuals, but on the merits of the idea, people do feel more at ease to both contribute and comment on the ‘thing’ everyone is discussing. You get more ideas, because people feel at ease throwing in things that they would keep to themselves if their identity was tied to the merits of the idea. And it’s far easier for others to criticize an idea when it isn’t so inextricably linked to a person. End result? More conversation, for starters. And when you reach the ‘end result’, it was a collaborative effort. No one won or lost. And everyone (who participated) gets credit. They were part of a team.

One lingering question…
Does John ever get credit and recognition for his great idea?
Of course. If the great idea that saves the day can be traced back to an individual (and it’s not the result of a group effort), isn’t it obvious who came up the idea? They know it. You know it as their manager. And so does everyone else. But it’s not during a session that’s supposed to produce great ideas that you should recognize individual contributors. Or call out bad contributors. No. Save performance feedback for later. Use these collaborative sessions to produce ideas. And to create the best conditions for generating good ideas.

Thursday May 15, 2008 / 3 Comments

I’m excited to share with you my presentation from Adaptive Path MX.

It’s a version of my Star Wars presentation. But, only 6 of the 15 lessons are represented. (I joked that this was the first in a trilogy!) And I’ve made a few critical additions.

In the original presentation, I identify and share 15 lessons that might apply universally to anyone with a visionary idea. Basically, ‘You got an idea? Here’s some advice to help make that idea a reality’. Anyone could be someone founding a startup, or the maverick leader inside a large organization. But, while the lessons might apply universally, I wasn’t thinking of startups when I created this…

The backstory
Between my interview with Todd Wilkens and the opening slides , I think you’ll get a good idea of the backdrop that led to this presentation. There’s a lot of resistance to change inside large organizations (no surprise), but most resistance has little to nothing to do with the project or idea you have. In his book The Myths of Innovation, Scott Berkun dedicates a chapter to the myth that ‘People love new ideas” (no, they don’t).

On the surface, you’d think that people— companies— are looking for the ‘next big thing’ to invest their dollars in. The truth is, no one really wants to take a risk on the next big thing. We’d rather have “brave souls like Magellan, Galileo, and Neil Armstrong take intellectual and physical risks on our behalf, watching from a safe distance, following behind (or staying away) once we know the results.” Or put another way, “Innovation is expensive: no one wants to pay the price for ideas that turn out to be not quite ready for prime time.”

But, it’s about more than risky, or even safe ideas. It’s about a fear of change. Or an inability to understand truly new ideas. And this is where many innovative ideas fail. Again, Scott Berkun:

Many innovators give up when they learn that ideas, even with dazzling prototypes or plans in hand, are the beginning. The challenges that follow demand skills of persuasion more than brilliance.

And this…

Every great idea in history has the fat red stamp stamp of rejection on its face. It’s hard to see today, because once ideas gain acceptance, we gloss over the hard paths they took to get there. If you scratch any innovations surface, you’ll find the scars: they’ve been roughed up and thrashed around— by both the masses and leading minds- before they made it into your life.

“Behind the Music”
And here is the part that intrigues me: What are the stories behind the truly great ideas? What are the obstacles that got in the way of these ideas? And, what’s the real story behind visionary products that do manage to make it through otherwise hostile environments? From sticky notes to the RAZR phone, the stories of how these things came to be typically includes some form ‘rebellion’ against business as usual— which in large organizations has a tendency to be about power, position, predictability, and a score of other concerns fairly well-removed from the idea itself.

Somewhat familiar with Star Wars, I wanted to explore what it took to get this visionary film completed and in theaters. For starters, I love this film. But I also knew there were a host of challenges, as well as lessons about leadership, craftsmanship, and business that seemed to parallel much of what I have seen in the business world. That, and I can’t help myself— I love exploring patterns and connections between seemingly unrelated things.

Adaptive Path MX
So, when Adaptive Path contacted me to present this at MX, I was thrilled. Here was a chance to (1) share these ideas with a larger audience, but (2) bring out and comment on some of the elements that led to these musings (what I’ve shared here in this post), and (3) it was the perfect venue for my real topic: leading change.

The MX Conference is about ‘managing experiences’, and is targeted at PMs, Manager, Directors, and even VPs— those people ‘managing toward a vision’ (one of six MX themes). It’s not a conference about moving resources around on a Gantt chart. It a conference about promoting the value of a great customer centered strategies inside our organizations. And that can be a rebellious idea. One that may very well lead to adversity.

A business management perspective
Which leads me to a very encouraging paper: Gary Hamel’s ‘Strategy as Revolution’, published in the July-August 1996 issue of Harvard Business Review. Hamel speaks directly to executive leadership, urging them to embrace the revolutionaries within your company, as they may be the key to some much needed revolutionary ideas. Some notable quotes:

... in all too many companies, the entrepreneurial spark is more likely to be doused by a flood of corporate orthodoxy than fanned by resources and the support of senior executives.

If you’re a senior executive, ask yourself these questions: Has a decade or two or experience made me more willing or less willing to challenge my industry’s conventions? Have I become more curious or less curious about what is happening beyond the traditional boundaries of my industry? Be honest.

If you go down and out into your organization— out into the ranks of much maligned managers, for instance— you will find people straining against the bit of industrial orthodoxy. All too often, however, there is no process that lets those revolutionaries be heard… So, like economic refugees seeking greater opportunity in new lands, industry revolutionaries often abandon their employers to find more imaginative sponsors.

These were all very comforting words, especially coming from a credible business management guru. But for me, perhaps the most poignant statement was this:

Revolutionaries are subversive, but their goal is not subversion.

I’ve had profound difficulty articulating this sentiment is as concise a fashion. It’s not that visionaries are immature or obstinate. Quite the opposite: We’re rebellious because we care— not about politics, power, position, or the game (though perhaps we should). We care deeply about the business— creating value for our customers and the companies we work for. “People who care about their country— or their organization— don’t wait for permission to act.” (Hamel)

And this leads to a sad irony, “the secret tragedy of innovators is that their desire to improve the world is rarely matched by support from the people they hope to help.” (Berkun)

Words of advice?
So, what can we take away from this, if you are a revolutionary in your organization? Off the top of my head…

• Be realistic. A good idea is not even half of the challenge
• Politics are a part of corporate culture. Learn to play the game, or saddle up to someone who can.
• Don’t be discouraged when things don’t go smoothly— it’s human nature to resist the truly good ideas.
• Good ideas can and do come out of difficult situations.
• Rejection doesn’t necessarily mean your idea is wrong or bad.
• If you truly believe in the idea, keep shopping it around. Go around the roadblocks if necessary.
• If you must break some rules (we are talking about a rebellion here!), first understand the intent behind the rule you might be breaking or bending
• These are universal, human struggles, present wherever large groups of people gather together.
• Accordingly, encouragement and ideas can come from anywhere—even movies!

With that, I hope you enjoy the presentation. And, maybe you’ll find a few of the 6 (or 15) lessons we can all learn from the making of Star Wars useful or inspiring.

Friday April 18, 2008

If you enjoy the leadership and management themes I’ve been focusing on recently, then you’ll certainly want to look at Adaptive Path MX. AP has pulled together a stellar lineup— Chip Heath, author of ‘Made to Stick’, Chip Conley, founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, California’s largest boutique hotel company, Julie Peters, Brand Manager at Virgin USA, the stellar folks from Adaptive Path— the list goes on… If you’re managing or leading a UX Team, this looks like the conference not to miss. In speaking with Brandon Schauer and some other folks at AP, they basically describe it as the conference they would want to attend on the topic. And it shows. I’m really excited about this event.

While it’s a little late to be plugging a conference that starts in a couple days, if you are planning on attending and haven’t yet purchased tickets, you can reference ‘MXSA‘ for a 15% discount. That’s if you haven’t already registered.

I’m also very excited to be among the speakers presenting. A few months ago, I had a chance to speak with Todd Wilkens at Adaptive Path about my presentation (if you’ve seen my Star Wars presentation, it’s a version of that talk, with new content and an emphasis on some of the things that I glossed over in earlier versions— namely pushing visionary ideas through a corporate culture). I’m pleased with how the interview turned out. Todd asked some really great questions, which allowed me to comment on many of the more strategic leadership themes that I haven’t yet written about here. If you haven’t yet read the interview, please do. And then let me know what your thoughts are…

And if you’re planning on attending MX— come say hi!

Wednesday April 9, 2008 / 17 Comments

Confession time: I do not consider my self a good manager. I do however think I am a good director or leader. So what do I see as the difference?

In short, extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation. And providing a clear, actionable, inspiring plan.

Managers are great at making sure things get done. Directors are great at making sure we’re getting the right things done-. [UPDATE: As Joe points out, this idea originated with Peter Drucker who said this much more eloquently, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”] And that everyone’s inspired and empowered to make valuable contributions.

Managers are largely focused on the minutiae of day-to-day details: Are you getting done the things assigned to you? Have we communicated with the client? How well are we tracking to the project plan? When are you taking your vacation? Those sorts of things. While I can certainly be anal about my own work, I just don’t care to be that involved in what other people are doing. Isn’t that their responsibility?

What I do care about with regards to other people is whether or not we are clear on our roles and responsibilities. Aligned around a common, shared vision. And motivated— intrinsically motivated and passionate about what we, as a group, are building. Given the right circumstances, I think I’m good at creating this environment.

To be honest, I’ve felt a bit guilty about not being a better manager— I’m not good at crossing my t’s, dotting my i’s, or being able to account for what everyone is working on at any given time. I’m just not wired that way. Fortunately, I’ve been placed in leadership roles where I was somehow able to skip past the traditional managerial duties.

But as a director at various companies, I’ve also discovered something interesting: much of what managers do seems unnecessary when you have the right people on your team. I’ll say that again: much of what managers do is unnecessary when you have the right people. With the right people, self-management takes over for you. I think Jim Collins nails this when he says:

...if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away.

When you have the right people on your team, what qualifies as management is really about creating a platform from which everyone can track themselves. That, and figuring out how challenge folks so that they are delivering their best. This assumes a lot of trust and faith in their abilities, and not in your ability to handhold. Beyond that, management, in the traditional MBA sense, has been largely unnecessary in an environment where everyone has a clear raison d’être . Again, I’m talking about a specific kind of information worker. This doesn’t apply to all groups.

I think this quote from Michael Hillenbrand sums it up rather nicely:

Managers do things right; leaders do the right thing. This is the primary difference between a good manager and a good leader. A good manager can accomplish only what has been defined and documented for him or her, yet a good leader constantly questions why things are done the way they are and is able to recognize the value and potential of doing things differently. A good leader is passionate about excellence and must therefore strive for continuous improvements and change. In other words, a good leader knows that insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. [ Source ]

Next up: what qualities do I think makes for a good leader?

Wednesday December 12, 2007 / 5 Comments

As promised, here are the slides from my Star Wars and UX presentation:

To everyone who made it out, thank you. It was a personal pleasure to pull together this presentation. Star Wars and Design are two of my favorite topics. To be able to join them in an interesting and relevant way— well, thank you for indulging me! Also, special thanks to Ryan Freitas, whose presentation at UX Week comparing cooking and design inspired me to dust off this idea.

For those viewing the slides only, much is lost without the commentary. At this time, there are no plans to add audio. However, I will remedy this if I give the presentation again in a public venue.

Enjoy!

Tuesday November 13, 2007 / 1 Comments

I came across the following comment in an interview with Robert B. Tucker (pdf)

What should leaders do to foster a culture of innovation?

I advise leaders to make sure they are creating an environment in which mavericks are tolerated. The maverick is a well-documented personality type: These people would much rather change the system than simply perfect it. Mavericks don’t “go along to get along,” they don’t “dress for success” and, as the vice chairman of Medtronic puts it, they are a pain in the neck to manage. But they are absolutely necessary because they can make those “ah ha!” connections that lead to solutions.

If mavericks are not valued and respected, they will leave the organization and make their talents available to a company that will value them. Or worse, they’ll go off and start their own companies and compete with you.

Sunday August 13, 2006

A few of us at Geniant have been working on a career growth plan. This is for the User Experience Design (or “Enterprise Gateway”) practice, and should not only benefit individuals (“how do I get to the next payband?”) but also lend some structure to a pretty diverse range of skills and disciplines.

Had we not merged with Geniant, this formality might have emerged (to some extent) from the company culture, the type of projects sold or pursued, and the natural growth curve along which a company matures. However by pushing the fast forward button on our company, it’s been necessary to take a more proactive role in defining this internal structure. One, because we’re plying our trade in a different arena – enterprise service offerings. And two, because we have to figure how our expertise complements or integrates with existing focus areas we didn’t spend a lot of time pursuing – portal configurations for example.

Specific things we wanted this framework to define are:

• what types of people we want to hire

• what skills we value

• what skills we lack (for both the work we are doing and what we want to do)

• what types of growth opportunities there are within the company (for new and legacy employees)

• how this practice and different roles within this practice work together

• and so on…

That, and we needed some hiring structure in place to insure we’re hiring the right people for long term growth (and not just staffing short term needs).

The Presentation:
You can jump into where we’ve arrived, here:

…or continue reading below about some of the challenges we’ve faced, other models we tried that didn’t work, and what is revealed by framing our practice this way.

Challenges we’re facing:

• Technology for Geniant includes both web based apps and desktop based applications (e.g. WinForms). Having focused primarily on web-based applications at Bright Corner, we’ve had to rethink what skills are expected from a Front-End Developer. A really good—and valuable—WinForms developer may know very little about DOM Scripting or valid markup, for example.

• Along those same lines, we’ve wrestled with how to value people who are prized for the expertise in a specific Enterprise technology package or platform, but know very about things like semantic markup or valid CSS. How do you compare a Front-End Architect to someone who knows a package really well? They’re both making the UI a reality from a programmatic perspective, but it’s comparing apples and oranges. There goes a linear growth track.

• Not all IAs are created the same. This is true anywhere, but in our case we’ve had some fairly unique flavors of information architecture, resulting in some different processes and deliverables based on who was delivering on a particular project. Garrett and I are both IAs, but we can approach the same project very differently with very different priorities—and that is a good thing. What we’ve never had is a homogenized brand of IA.

• Not all IAs are created the same (II). While we were rather loose about our definition of “Information Architecture” at Bright Corner, at a larger scale we’ve needed to be more particular (mostly for hiring purposes) about the distinctions between interaction designer and information architect.

• Not all IAs are created the same (III). Defining IA for an organization is further complicated by the fact that no one in the field can actually agree on what IA is. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, along comes ‘Cross-Channel IA’ and ‘designing shared information spaces’ (other than just the virtual). Peter Merholz’s closing plenary at the 2006 IA Summit was a great recap of what IA has been and is about. Though I might quibble over the semantics…

• Not all IAs are created the same (IV). Let’s just say, for where Geniant wants to go, we’ve needed to start looking at Enterprise Information Architecture a bit closer…

• Content Sites and Applications are very different, each requiring as different a set of skills.

• Custom Applications and packaged implementations require different sets of skills.

• One of our strengths is the ‘deep generalist’ mindset, where we each have a broad set of very deep skills across many user experience disciplines. So how do we maintain this differentiator, but also support hiring highly specialized employees who do not have a broad set of skills?

• Whether it’s labeled as “Cross-Channel IA” or “Designing for Experiences,” adding these services can be… challenging. For a group that is so wholly focused on interfaces, how do you plug in the design of environmental spaces or processes? More importantly, try explaining to an IT company how these services are a logical extension of the interactions being designed for in the UI.

• We also recognize that younger hires we are able to mentor will probably grow along a different trajectory than that of most senior hires who have grown up inside other organizations. Developing a plan that works for and rewards both types of employees is also important.

Some of the approaches we took:
So, with all those challenges in mind, taking a historical look at the company, assessing present needs, and trying to anticipate the future, here are some of the initial approaches we took to structuring our practice:

“The Baseball Diamond”
This model is based in the idea that we all start with a similar (if not the same) set of skills and as we mature in our careers we move farther out into more specialized directions.

Pros: It was a nice, early start at articulating the ‘deep generalist’ nature of many of our employees; what’s represented here is the idea that if we all share a common base, then we’ll be ably to work more fluently together as we move into our specialized areas (contrast this with traditional organizations where disciplines are very siloed, with little to no understanding of what other people on the team contribute).

Cons: While sharing the same base set of skills was true for many, this is not true for most. Also, what are the specialized skills people move to? Are these proportionate across the board?

“The ‘Slider’ Approach”
Imagine a mixing board. Or an equalizer. Or for those familiar with the user experience tracks in Peter Boersma’s T-model post, imagine each of those tracks as a slider, where you can mix the skill levels of an individual across nine categories, with the goal to be somewhat experienced across most of these disciplines. Something like this:

Pros: Encourages a deep generalist mindset; recognizes a wide mix of skills; easy to assess your talent level across a range of skills, resulting in a quantifiable numeric value.

Cons: Which disciplines get picked? How do you get a fair mix of disciplines that doesn’t favor a design group over say a programming group? Also, this approach flattened and equalized some really disparate skills. And, without introducing some hacks and complexity, this didn’t support dependent disciplines (e.g. IA leads to EIA). Likewise, highly specialized people (who’ve reached the highest level of only one track) weren’t compensated fairly under this model. And again, who decides what the sliders are, and for how long?

“3 Most Popular Titles (with a 4th variable slider)”
Since the roles of Front-End Developer, Information Architect, and Visual Designer are so commonly bandied around—why not just turn these into three tracks, each with its’ own growth levels? And to support the specializations people have (mobile devices for example) add a 4th slider which is unique per individual

Pros: Around the office, these are the only three user experience titles most people recognize; from this the idea of ‘grades’ originated. As you see in our final model, maybe there was something to these 3 tracks…

Cons: Unfortunately, these tracks are grossly disproportional. Also, is a front-end developer the only kind of technology position we recognize? What about usability testing—where would this go? What about visual designers who are now doing UI design? And (rattle off a dozen other focus areas not covered by Visual Designer, Front-End Developer, or Information Architect)...

So…
There were other variations of these models, and other models discussed or proposed. But in the end, the things listed above gave way to…

“The 3×3 Model” (the final)
While the ‘3 tracks’ were way too narrowly defined and not remotely equal in scale, simply relabeling and broadening the focus of these tracks altered things considerably:

• Visual Design becomes Design

• Information Architecture becomes Human Sciences

• Front-End Developer becomes Technology/Development

While this might seem like a slight change, it changes things profoundly. Where before there were specific roles, you now you have focus areas — which could include a number of different roles and span a longer period of time.

Some explanation:

This model supports people from different tracks playing the same role on a project, a very real situation for small and growing companies where multidisciplinary skills are highly valued. In our case it’s common to have designers and developers doing information architecture. This model starts to explain how these disciplines can respond so differently when faced with the same problem. Designers favor elegant solutions. Developers want a system working as intended. And ‘Human Sciences’ people love concepts and mental models. Gross stereotypes, I know. But there is a grain of truth in here.

Coincidentally, as we started exploring these 3 tracks, I started encountering validation from other places. The most striking similarity came from MAYA Design, where they are fond of saying ‘Mayans come in threes,’ referring to the three broad disciplines represented on every project: Designer, Engineer, and Human Sciences specialist. Of course their scope of focus is broader than ours, where design also includes industrial design and engineering is about more than software. But, the idea is sound:

Every project needs…

• someone focused on what can or can’t be done with technology

• someone focused on how people think, feel, and interact

• someone who can create innovative solutions, whatever form that solution takes

While Geniant is not exactly cross-channel focused (yet), we do look beyond just screen interactions. In several instances, our information architecture work has resulted in organizations modifying offline process flows. By abstracting these tracks to the underlying discipline, I also didn’t need to go off and create a second model (outside of this one) for higher-order strategic offerings that moved beyond interface-based interactions. Where earlier models suffered from being entirely user experience focus (limited to screen or interface interactions), this model supports moving off of the screen and into cross-channel experiences or organizational assessments. Example: a simple ‘design’ track can support a “design-minded” person through 10 years of growth – from visual designer to interface/interaction designer to someone managing strategic innovations. Where the roles and duties might change, one thing remains—a person’s motivation for doing their work (even if that actual work produced changes from year to year).

Beyond the tracks, this model presents ‘grades’ – levels of advancement in a position. This was a carried over from an earlier model and stretched to span over 7-10 years of maturation—and several role changes. Where before the three grades represented career growth within a specific role, grades now took on a larger meaning, representing an invidual’s growing awareness of their contribution to the overall organization. Where someone may start off with a narrow focus at the screen level, at the highest levels of maturity that same person may look across multiple applications, technology stacks, and the corporate strategy, to make decisions rooted in a much deeper understanding of the business context.

There are a lot of nuances I’m glossing over here, and a lot that is probably very fuzzy without looking at the visual. So go ahead and download the framework. Let me know what thoughts you have…

Thursday April 6, 2006

In the newest issue of the Harvard Business Review, historian Robert A. Caro shares some insights on leadership and power that he’s observed studying the life of U.S. president Lyndon Johnson. It’s interesting to see some of the (very shrewd) tactics Johnson used to accomplish his objectives, and how his apparent change on issues was actually strategic, allowing him to push through a much larger agenda.

Here are of few of the comments on pragmatism and idealism that I feel are worth sharing:

But while pragmatism is essential to the pursuit of power and the achievement of goals, so is idealism. You may not be conscious of it, but if you are a great leader you are inevitably thinking in terms of larger ends. It both fuels your drive to amass power and forces you to decide what you will do with that power. In Johnson’s case, the larger end was helping 12 million poor blacks in the South.

Having a larger end like this has always been important for political leaders, of course, but it’s a relatively new idea for business, I think. Traditionally, business leaders have been seen as pragmatists concerned with the bottom line rather than as idealists in pursuit of the public good. But today, when CEOs have acquired more and more power to change our lives, they have become like presidents in their own right, and they, too, need to align themselves with something greater than themselves if they hope to become truly great leaders.