Episode 48 highlights – Erin Casali podcast about UX & Design Leadership:

• Design leadership and what it means to be a UX manager
• Differences between being an individual contributor and manager/leader
• Tips and tricks to being an awesome UX design/research leader
• Strategies for providing feedback and criticism effectively
• Common challenges for folks transitioning from team member to team leader

Links from this episode:

• https://intenseminimalism.com/

Episode Transcript

(this transcript was automatically created using our very own transcription feature in Aurelius and has been minimally edited, please excuse any typos or weirdness 😀 )

This is the Aurelius podcast episode 48 with Erin Casali. I’m Zack Naylor co-founder at Aurelius and your host for the Aurelius podcast where we discuss all things ux research and product in this episode. We have Erin Casali. She has a hybrid background in design psychology technology and business. She’s currently head of design at jetpack part of automatic. Erin and I had a really thoughtful conversation about design leadership in what it means to be a manager in.

In the field of ux and research she has a ton of experience in this area and is given multiple presentations about the topic. So there was a lot to dig into we touched on some of the differences between being a team member in a manager our struggles you might face in making the switch from an individual contributor role to a leader or manager and what you can expect for how your job changes when you take on your first leadership role all really great stuff that junior level folks all the way up to Executives in ux research will have takeaways from

In this episode The Aurelius podcast is brought to you by Aurelius the powerful research repository and insights platform. Aurelius is an all-in-one space for researchers to organize notes capture insights analyze data and share outcomes with your team. We recently announced two of our biggest features yet Aurelius now offers transcriptions and our automatic report Builder, you can add any audio or video recording and have notes created for you automatically then Aurelius.

He creates a report with every key insight and recommendation from your project which you can then edit design and share with anyone right from Aurelius. Check us out at Aurelius lab.com. That’s a you re Liu es el a b.com. Okay, let’s get to it. Hey, Erin, how morning well not morning. I already made this mistake. It’s not morning for you to my morning. But afternoon for you. Yes. Awesome. Well, hey, I appreciate you jumping on and taking the time to chat with us on our show.

Excited to talk with you about some things especially her our talks and things like that that you’ve given I think will fit really well with the folks who listen to our podcast. But before I even go any further we should make sure folks here about that background that you have because it’s pretty extensive maybe take a few minutes and just you know, kind of introduce yourself talk about your background your experience and things that you’re passionate about. Yes. No, you’re absolutely right this simplest introduction. The shortest one is I work as head of design for Jetpack, which is one of the main products of automatic.

And people usually when I say 20 say what is the company behind wordpress.com the contributes to the WordPress project? Currently we have acquired or so Tumblr woocommerce simple note and a few other tools pretty much around WordPress ecosystem my background as you hinted is a little Variety in the sense that I started a mix of computer science design and psychology. I work at as a developer for a few years and then over time I switch at first too.

Visual design and ux design and then for me the in a way the most interesting job was to design management because in a sense, it’s beautiful how psychology plays a role across, you know design people projects and so on and that’s where I am. Now, I’ve been doing design manager and now for over 10 years awesome, that’s one of the things that always really impresses me with people who’ve been in the field for a long time the depth and breadth of their experience. We recently had Nick Fink on the podcast.

And the same thing in his case. Yes. Oh, you know it sounds like you know, Nick. Yeah, I mean just how much he’s seen how much you’ve seen in sort of all these little bits and bots in your background that contribute to the work that you’re doing today is always really fascinating to me you kind of touched on already so I have to ask how does psychology play into design management or design leadership? What’s the thing that comes to mind to you? Yes, well for me, it’s it’s real about the interaction with the people right in a way the shift from design to management for me. You know, it can be a natural one, especially.

Was safe for more service design oriented people because instead of Designing the product you design your organization that assigns the product so, you know, what’s the end goal is but you know that you need to shape the right seam and when you’re talking people, well, it’s literally all about psychology. And I know that there are a lot of classes for management degrees and so on but the amount of insight that my background in Psychology is able to give here. I mean, I’m not

Train that psychologist, but I have a background right? It’s incredible because I can capture when things are happening and gather nuances being a able also to switch the level. I’m talking to right I can talk at a project level. So very factual very in a sense objective as much as possible, but I can also go down a few notches and inside engage at a personal level and trying to acknowledge that maybe the problem we’re discussing has a source in the person and if we fix that

The magical everything else self solids, right? So there is a lot of things in there for me that really excite me. It’s a really beautiful convergence for me. And by the way, it doesn’t make me perfect and it’s not magical ability of reading people and interacting with people sometimes have difficult conversations. Sometimes I make mistakes, but I don’t know. It’s an entirely different level of of engage. Yeah that makes total sense. I don’t think anybody’s reading this suspecting you’re claiming to be perfect. None of us.

Our but it’s interesting that you bring that point up to because kind of what I was taken away from what you were saying is that it isn’t so much that you have to be a trained psychologist to be better at management or that as you said gives you any kind of magic ability. It’s almost like design in some sense. Right? Like anybody can design but someone who is trained or has a background in his it has the ability to notice particular things understand what they are and their implications right in design and I have to what I was taking away from what you were saying is because you have that background in psychology.

You can notice certain things just as anybody can be observed Behavior. You can observe certain behavior and kind of get a sense for what that might mean and you know some some of the implications of that and then maybe how to work with that person to for the best searches. I heard outcome for the team. Yeah. Absolutely. I think everyone had the experience at least. I hope of a good team in a positive mode that is creating things. Like it’s of course the health of the people in the team is amazing to have

but also it has very dark benefits in terms of productivity. I know it’s it’s a relationship that in a sense should not be done. But in other ways if I focus on the people, I know I’m also driving everything else. So for me, that’s a big one. That’s a really great point. And I think companies have said that for a long time take care of your people in the rest will but I don’t know that everybody does it in practice, right? So I guess with that something that comes to mind that I would like to ask you is. How do you make sure

Actually practicing that you’re not saying this is important, but you’re actually practicing those things focusing on the team making sure it is a happy productive. Well running team. Yeah. I mean we can touch up a few different topics so we can talk about safe spaces we can talk about actually. Yeah, one of the most pragmatic suggestions is working on feedback feedback is a huge topic and one that most of the time I see people overestimating themselves like I’m going to feedback. I’m you know, I’m very

very objective. I try to do things we feel we are good at that. It’s however a skill that can provide a huge amount of benefits and a skilled at this probably one of the easiest also to train so difficult, but among the various soft scales and up psychology level. That’s one of the easiest to to practice and train there are some tips like be more objective talks about the problem or talk about the thing and never about the person but also there are things that a little bit connecting what

Same before I often start by saying that there is a myth around negative criticism in the sense that I don’t know how many no kind of man. He is explains very well the idea of regression to the mean in the sense that if we think about a person that is improving, right we can draw a line ascending line of this person improving their skills over time. And if at any point of feedback, this person will never be perfectly on their average right some days that we do.

Things better some days they will do things first. So there is a bias there because if these people are doing something worse and we criticize them if feels that they improve but what they just did is regressing to their mean so they underperform it for once and the next time they’re just going back to their own average and on the other way if they’re performing better than average and you give a positive reinforcement if feels like that they regress it a bit. But again, they just went back to the

On average. Mmm. So we have up psychological here perception a cognitive bias where we feel that the negative criticism worked and the positive didn’t but in practice they both work in very different ways and I would argue actually that a lot of the negative ones can be easily reframed or shape it as positive as constructed not just constructed but 3D positive I see I mean, that’s the most interesting piece. I took from that. Is that recognizing someone’s average?

Yeah, right because it’s kinda like a pendulum we could swing one way or the other but it eventually going to come back to Center and if you have to do the really hard work of understanding the people on your team to find the average has to know well, am I giving the right kind of feedback here or you know, are they just kind of coming back to where they ought to be or they actually progressing? How do you do that? How do you go about figuring that out? Frankly? So one of the simplest thing and it may not apply to everyone it may depend on the situation and the workspace one is living in but just try for example for a month to

Only give positive reinforcement and train that and see what effect you have. Of course at the beginning you will be it will be difficult and you will be rough and over time you will be doing reinforcement. And by the way, when I say positive I’m saying that in a sense that it still has to be to fulfill all the requirements of good feedback. So we say often that constructive criticism, which usually is a synonymous while not synonymous but its affiliated with negative we say

Okay, you need to be precise. You need to give a direction where you want them to go, you know, there are certain things. We say around that the same things apply to positive like giving someone positive feedback as in. Oh, you did a good job. That’s not feedback. I mean, it’s great emotionally, right but you’re not actually giving feedback If instead yours basically saying, oh you’re not that specific thing you did the specific path, you choose the specific among all the things you could have done that was good and the enemy telling you why

It was good. That’s a good positive criticism because it’s precise it’s motivating and telling you why it was good. Mmm and it can be incredibly powerful. Yeah that makes a lot of sense instead of just because you just say you did a great job that’s praised. It’s not criticisms lat. Yeah, I guess it could be considered feedback, but it’s not it’s not super constructive, right? If you can point to something specific say you did a great job because of this that either explicitly You Know spoken or unspoken let somebody know. Well, those are the kind of decisions in those are the

The kind of behaviors that I should then model, you know, I think just as humans you pick that up and then all of a sudden that’s where you can progress because you have specific things that you know, you can do not just some positive outcome. Great. You did a good job. Thank you for that. You can’t necessarily replicate that exactly fascinating stuff. Okay, as we were talking about this one of the things I thought of we’ve got folks who listen to this show that are in all sorts of positions in their company, right all the way from brand new to maybe ux design researcher product Team all the way to somebody like yourself, right? Who’s leading a team.

Or executive of a team one of the things I want to kind of step back and say as someone who certainly been there. What do you feel like, you know junior mid-level members of a team need to know about managers, you know that they can be better Parts better members of the team. That’s a very good question. I think one of the best advice I ever personally got and I think it’s still the first advice I would answer this question with is try to understand. What is their goal because

Again, that’s a very design approach. It’s a user. It’s your manager, but it’s a cruiser like and they are fulfilling certain goals in their life in their career. Right? So if you understand better the the angle and the perspective they’re having wider giving you may be a specific feedback. They’re telling you to do a specific kind of work, then you can fulfill it better in a turkey hours ago about designers Consultants. I was for example giving the example that there is a joke, I think on a cyan coding horror

Site and it is the joke. Oh, why do you want to do you I do you want to redesign the website? Right? And the answer of the manager was well because I’m trying to show off. I’m a good manager. So yeah, it’s a joke, right? I mean on the surface it’s a joke, but if we stop for a second, that’s true next. Yeah new manager in a new row. They need to show that they’re effective. The joke is actual reality of a lot of scenarios and if

You in a team are able to understand that sure you’re trying to do a website. That is the best possible website for users. But also you are able to understand that your your manager and which means the proxy that talks about your team to the rest of the organization is happy. Then your team is going to be best position inside your organization. So there is a little bit of a shift but for me the emphasis is that this is a design scale, you know, if I was talking with

Mon-fri different profession you need to teach them. Okay was focus on the user. What do you do how you do research that. How do you approach it? But we designers we do this you just need to understand that sack user and they have goals. I couldn’t agree more. I’m we don’t have audio. I’m sorry. I video on this podcast, but you would have seen me nodding in agreement the entire time listening to this one of the reasons why I should be no surprise. It’s a very recurring theme on our show and we talk about bias is something I’m biased to because I talk about this all the time as well maybe.

In a different way than you did. So you’re talking about like sort of the inter-team relationship. I often talk about it as with the relationship to as a designer in any capacity to stakeholders into the business and I say the exact same thing you cannot be effective and help them or you know sell your ideas or recommendations or suggestions for change until you understand what it is. They need to accomplish and what they’re on the hook for and I love the one thing that you said because you just kind of what are they trying to do? So I liked often ask the question. What does your boss if I’m talking to a steak or what?

Your boss want from you help me understand that so I can help you get what you need and it really is that simple and of course there’s a bunch of nuance and steps and work that need to happen to do that. But it is it is a simple as figuring that out and then going from there. Yeah, exactly really cool stuff. Well, you know, I there are you gave a talk that caught my eye that was very similar in that respect and on how designers can go from, you know, maybe not just being somebody who makes the thing that ends up on a screen or builds the

Website or designs the app but actually two more of a consultative type role with your stakeholders with your businesses. Can you talk about that a little bit more? Yes for me. It’s stepping into the duality of designers. When especially at the beginning of their career, they’re super hyper focus on the user, right? So that’s our goal. That’s the problem. They’re trying to solve them trying to make you know, the best possible design to fulfill. The user needs. The thing is at some point in their career.

I need to start understanding that also business needs and this is not a duality in terms of you know, capitalism is bad and so on. It’s just a matter of understanding that we need to fulfill both because if the business doesn’t succeed, well, there is no service to provide to the users in the Tokyo referring for example, I say things like a design fails if it doesn’t ship it’s a bad design if the design doesn’t ship and it’s a bit of an extreme.

Take but on the other hand, it’s true. Like you can have the best possible design that fulfills all the user needs. But maybe it’s a disaster for the business because you haven’t considered the amount of work it triggers for support or the amount of resources. It needs to be built or whatever is it? That’s not a great design. I’m sorry, right and I think this is a topic that is not often spoken to but even if you look of a lot of even industrial designers interior designers in the history of design

You see that they mention a lot of the times or we did this chair or we did this space solution and it’s great because it’s modular. It’s great because it’s built on with cheap materials, right and turn the famous designer in the history of design, right? So these two ality for me is a shifter designer needs to take in as they grow and it’s an important one. It doesn’t have to be antagonistic. There are there are good good interplays that can happen there and again as a designer we are

Very well positioned to try to propose where that interplay happens and a little later in the career. I would also say that one of the difficult things is wearing these two hats in the sense. Sometimes even myself even today sometimes I give a comment and I get a note that is like how can you say that it’s a bad design you are designer you’re suggesting to do this and I’m like, yeah, but on the other hand, it’s the best possible design. We can shipping two weeks that

Feels the need so I’m taking that first before, you know, a four months design that requires two teams to be executed, you know, yeah, and then we can get there because if then hypothesis validated so you entering a bit little bit of nuance its attention. It’s absolutely attention. And so making also explicit is important, but it’s an important things to do. Yeah, very well said very well said understanding the things that you suggest again the implications they have two.

People other areas of the business some of that I think comes with experience but other parts of it is as you would suggest that’s a designer’s trait. That’s a something that we know we’re equipped to do and be better at sort of earlier in our career and I would argue have to be if we are to be successful and I think that everybody listening to this at one point or another whether they designed this thing or not was a part of some project at the time maybe didn’t ship and they look back on and said, ah, they were idiots. They wasted it. It was perfect. It was great. The business didn’t get

Elder didn’t get it or this whatever the budgets are just don’t understand it. And that’s not the case. Like when you say they’ll design is when it doesn’t ship, you know, clever and good or are mutually exclusive you may have made a very clever design and there’s no arguing that there’s some really cool stuff. A lot of us can all make but good meets the needs in a 360 right? It meets the needs of the people that that are eventually going to have to use this thing. But it meets the needs also of the business and all facets of it. Not just it’s going to make them money, which I

Honestly, really appreciate the fact that you call that out and say hey look that’s just the way the world works. It’s not a bad thing, but we got to be mindful of it as a quick side note. I think how we make money and whether we do that ethically is a whole nother conversation. That’s just as important, but the reality is if they don’t make money, we don’t have jobs as designers. We can’t provide the services should be valuable to these people right like understanding all this stuff. Actually. It makes you really really effective designer. I love the fact that it’s if it doesn’t ship is filled design doesn’t mean that you’re not a good designer doesn’t mean it wasn’t clever, but it did say I would

Add to this topic. Sorry that there is also an interesting aspect there. I was recently reviewing a brand-new refresh and I was comparing what the studio published as the you know the on their own portfolio in a sense and what the company actually refine it and used effectively and you clearly notice and by the way, the company is not one of these cases where the design was, you know diluted or, you know made the bad, but you clearly see

See that how cutting-edge the portfolio example is. It was beautifully executed a lot of nuances a lot of finishing and then you notice that the company one still a great design. But you know that there are some changes that are clearly and obviously made to fit a little bit the brand the overall brand to be a little bit more efficient because it should work on print it should work on digital it should work, you know, and so you notice this and neither these two dinners you

These two are failure, right? It’s good that the designer went a little bit over the edge, but it’s also completely understandable that the company choose an approach that is a little bit to do it. Yeah. Yeah that makes sense. That’s another thing too is I don’t really want to call it compromise. I think it’s just an understanding of how you arrived at that middle ground because you might be right but you might not be 100% Right? Does that make sense and that case it sounds like almost that’s what you were describing their. Yes. Yes also because a great edgy design

Bites people. I mean even if it’s not going to be executed a hundred percent. Yeah, I’ve liked using that approach purposefully when recommending certain things. It’s basically like the analogy I give is let’s say you’re trying to find how far you can go and how effective you can be or how edgy you might find the edge of the cliff because you find the edge of the cliff and you make that recommendation people going to go. Well, that’s way too close and they take one or two steps back. You’re still way closer to the edge. Then you would have been if you played it safe and just said well we think right here because then you’re always going to want

Get back, right there’s always going to be some hesitancy about a new idea and you can continue to push and work hard and sometimes you get people to see it all the way through to your vision, but oftentimes if you sort of over Index, right if you go a little too far people go. Well, that’s too much but you’re onto something there. Let’s take it one step back and all of a sudden your way farther than you thought you could have been it’s a useful technique even psychologically right to sort of push somebody way past where they expected and go. Okay. Well, I can’t suggest we come all the way back because clearly that’s not a good idea. It just wouldn’t make sense it.

Making it seem like a compromise. It’s just an interesting technique. So Erin, one of the things that came to mind as we were talking about. This is kind of going back to management there. It’s a big difference going from a designer an individual practitioner on a ux design research team and then becoming a manager. What’s the biggest thing? What was the biggest change for you in adopting that new role for me? Personally, it has been a long time ago. So it’s a bit difficult to tell a story I coach people I help people exactly in this shift. So I

Say that one of the first thing that emerges every single time while not let me not a hundred percent some people get it. But pretty close to a hundred percent is you need to step back from designee. You need to step stop trying to do what you were doing before. It’s a different job. It’s a different in a way. It’s a different profession that is still very much in format from your background, right? So that’s the thing right? I’m not designing anymore the pixels the product.

And now designing the team and that’s like letting go is the first difficult thing to do and I would say then there is a second one that happens fairly often is that this can get a little bit too into micromanagement. So it’s an interesting one to highlight. Is that resisting the temptation to do the work for them? Mmm, right? Mmm, so in a sense that as a team lead, of course if you got there

if you got there for good reasons, it’s very likely you’re better of the you know person you just hired but if you constantly step in your notjust micromanaging, but you’re also one wasting your time and to not allowing them to grow right resisting the Temptation on your side and on their side providing for them the space I see the space to fail but in the sense of you know, try to do allow them to do things, you know, you have done the

time or the space to correct instead of correcting before they do things because that’s how they grow. That’s how you grow. But also that’s how you tell the team that mistakes are fine. Right right because you allow them and they see that nothing happens. Actually not just nothing but a growth moment happens. Yeah, that’s again just can’t help but sit and Nod in agreement is so very well said particularly about the one point of

Giving somebody to the space to grow you stunt their growth if you just come in and fix it for them. You know, like you said there’s two points that number one. It’s not your job anymore. And number two you’re preventing the people on your team the opportunity to grow and to get better. I had a similar experience when I had moved from sort of senior level practitioner into a management role and I was still doing I was so actively doing design but I had found a similar experience where my focus was so much on the Excellence of the work not as much.

Initially on growing the people and their Excellence of the work. That’s that’s the shift right? That’s the big change and the challenge that I think a lot of us face something to be mindful of especially as you know, there’s a lot of folks right now. I think in the ux world things are moving very quickly faster than they ever have been at least from my experience. There’s a lot of folks who just a few years ago where junior level you xers or researchers and now all of a sudden they find themselves in senior level or even potential promotions to lead a team because that’s how quickly our profession is growing. This is just one of those

And I think be mindful of that before you walk into it before you walk into the wall, right? Yeah. Absolutely. I’m curious. You know, we’re talking a lot about management and Leadership and I’ll give you a minute to answer this one because this might be tough. What was the most challenging position you ever found yourself in as a manager as a leader of a design team and you know, maybe talk about how you how you manage that challenge Paso. I mean, there are lots of lots of different sizes here. I could I could mention I think management wise are usually the beginning of my

Which two management where I still didn’t have the the Safety and Security of knowing how things worked then they the same time in the role. You are expected to not just fulfill that role but also to to push the design Vision to stakeholders to Your Own Boss to the leadership team. And so there is there was always this Duality at the beginning of trying to do a great job with the team. But at the same time trying to teach

Educate the Senior Management around that right and I think the tension created quite a few situation where I can enter the situation when I was putting too much pressure on the team mmm, because I was trying again goes back to what we were saying before but I was trying to to prove certain things to to management two other higher stakeholders and that pressure is not healthy. I mean I could have with a hindsight I can I have now I could have achieved the same goal in a different way, but

But I was in a position of having to demonstrate both tore my team into what stakeholders that was. Probably one of the most difficult time of my career. I cannot get into too much details. Yeah, that sounds difficult. You have pressure from all sides to sort of prove something or show something and sell that to them. I guess without getting into too much detail. I would ask. What advice would you give your younger self in that situation today with all the experience, you know have parts of it to not be afraid of setting expectations.

Station in the sense expectation can be negotiated. But if you don’t never sent they’re always going to be stretched because nobody is going to say anything. So I will try to over deliver on every possible side, but over delivering on something that is never sent. Right. So it’s if at the time for example was able to say, you know, this is what you can expect in a week or this is what we can do in the time frame you gave us and so on.

With Precision maybe they have said no to say okay, but then I can negotiate right but I never at the beginning never put down that kind of stone to allow the discussion to happen. Yeah, and that one of the things that causes a lot of problems because everyone is expecting something different and I never took the time to align anymore. So I was constantly intention because I’m not doing enough they were expecting things and solve the problem. So put down that stone discuss why

Of the expectation is and then you can work to over-deliver because most of the time you can achieve or over achieved that Milestone but if it’s never down doesn’t happen. This is such a great point. I’m so glad that you brought this up because I don’t think this is actually discussed enough particularly in design leadership. I think in traditional management books and courses like you kind of mentioned earlier. They probably talked about this quite a bit but expectations and communication most problems. I would argue maybe all

Holmes stem from Communications and expectations and you’re right. You know the thing I took away from what you were just saying they’re super important is that if expectations are never clearly set your either always stretching them or not meeting them because we don’t have alignment like you said on what is to be expected what what and when you know, I think is such a big deal and it’s fine to actually at least I think I think it’s fine to want to stretch to over achieve those expectations. But the thing is if you don’t explicitly

The say in agree and set expectations and you’re constantly over delivering by default. You are setting an expectation. You’re setting a precedent that will this is how these people were able to work. They can they can meet this at this time in this quality all the time. And then that is a very quick road to burn out in my opinion. Yes. That’s a big challenge for your own self and your own health. Yes, awesome yet another thing another brilliant piece of advice and shares and some things to think about. I think that applies to not

Only managers but individual, you know sole practitioners to like people actually executing and doing the design and so as a manager it sounds to me like, you know, one of the things that you focus on doing is making sure expectations are set with the team, you know, so that the term managing up setting expectations with stakeholders in the business as well. Right? I want also to add that sometimes it’s fine to ask not sometimes it’s fine to ask and if I do ask in so many situations like sometimes I even myself even when I was trying to set an expectation

I was like, oh we can deliver this by this date and I realized looking at them and I was like, okay that was way beyond what we expected and it’s fine to ask them. So what are you expecting for me to to do by this date or two doing this project or to do whatever I would say doubles up in management in the sense people in position of responsibility independence of management not management don’t need to have all the answer, but they need to be able to find it. I’m a big big proponent of

What is basically collect consultation decision making our advisory decision making it’s important that you drive the decision, but you don’t need to have the answer yourself. And that’s for me is key. Yeah, that’s another really big one too. I think that you find yourself in when you’re younger in your career. You feel like you always have to have the answer but really, you know, you are a part of a larger decision you your role is to help find the answer. Sometimes you may have the answer and it’s convincing others that the that’s the right answer.

That’s okay too. But you don’t always have to feel like you have the answer one of the questions that came to mind in terms of communication and setting expectations with the team. I think makes a lot more sense in people kind of figure out whether you are in a design leadership role right now or not, but I wanted to ask you what’s the biggest difference in communication setting expectations between doing that with other designers and researchers and doing that with the business. What’s the biggest difference you found there? All right. Yeah. That’s an excellent question. I was saying that

Funny enough. I love studying across Fields And across Industries and across even subjects that have nothing to do with industry or whatever A lot of the time people are saying the same thing with different words. Mmm, and I usually summarize this by saying it’s a matter of vocabulary dictionary often like the business side and the design side are actually saying the same thing but they use words that are so different a register. That is so different.

They don’t understand each other. So, you know and for me one of the most basic examples of these is the user because of course the business cares about the user but the care about a different perspective with different words. And so it looks like there’s saying a different thing right? So the shift there is trying to reframe. Okay. I need to say this concept from the design field, but I need to talk with business people about this. So I need to show

Shift my language. So I need to translate the words literally to say the thing in a way that is more appealing for them and more understandable for them from one side from a linguistic side. I love language. I find it super fascinating but from from a pragmatic side. That’s a skill to be developed. Yeah learning these two languages. Yeah, that’s huge. That’s such a huge Point. Here’s a really good. I think maybe simple example something that we would care about as ux team make it easy to use. That’s kind of

The us and that has its own baggage and when we say it what that might mean to translate that to a business, that means they can do the thing. We want them to do faster what that then translates to is you have more people doing that thing your desired outcome at scale what that then translates to you see where I’m going with this you make more money as a business. So this is why you should care about this right? It’s not just we want to cook because obviously we do care about the customers and the people who use our products and services, but here’s the reason why you need to care about that, right? Not not that you

Need any more incentive but but it’s important to be able to translate that as to why this is an importance level maybe above something else in certain situations. Yes. That’s a pretty good example. Awesome. Well, thank you. Finally. I contributed something to the conversation rather than just pulling all of this great information out of you, you know, and with that we’ve been doing that now for a while and I need to be respectful of your time. One of the things I like to ask before we wrap up most episodes is you know, if I were if I were to get hit on the head or

Amnesia and somebody came and asked so what did you and are talk about? What was what was that conversation all about? How would you answer that question? How would you summarize what we discussed today? I always say that is think it’s a lot about thinking about the relationship between people and our knowledge in that everyone has their own goal and you can use your design skills to incorporate these goals when you work and collaborate with people awesome, very good concise summary of our

Of our conversation today, we covered a lot of ground and I can definitely ask a few more questions about leadership in the change in the difference between those things but you got to be respectful of your time. I am curious though. Is there anything you want to share with folks that we haven’t talked about today? I think we touched it a lot of good topics. We can go as your hinted much more in detail about of a lot of these. I personally I have so my own site intense mini money is not come is where I try to write about these topics, and I know that it looks

I can block but I prefer considering it more as a repository. I try to write things in a way that is in a sense Timeless and I use it personally as a reference when I study something I try to write notes and I look down. So I write that a lot about perspective on leadership how to become a new lead how to give good feedback how to receive feedback and all the topics. We touched it today and maybe more more pointed I could point to an article on.

A safe space that I think it could be very interesting as a next step in getting deeper into these topics. Awesome will make sure we have links to all those in the show notes. So for those listening as you normally would when head to the page where we have our discussion with Erin and you’ll be able to find those links and check those things out in Greater detail with that. I just have to say thank you again for jumping on and having this conversation today. I got a lot out of it and I’m quite sure that anybody listening whether they’re going to be in a leadership position whether they’re in one today. They’re going to take a lot out of the

Advise you had to share. Thank you so much for inviting me. Awesome. Alright, everybody. We will see you next time. This podcast is brought to you by Aurelius the research and insights tool that helps you analyze search and share all your research in one place. So you can go from data to insights to action faster and easier check out Aurelius for yourself with a 30-day trial by going to Aurelius lab.com. That’s a you re Liu es el a b.com if you enjoy this episode it would

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