Every design organization inherits metrics that once validated its value — but now constrain its growth.

You know the dashboard I’m talking about: filled with adoption rates someone once fought to establish, usability scores that once saved a launch, and task completion rates that made perfect sense three pivots ago. Someone still updates it weekly. No one questions it. Until suddenly, it’s not just outdated — it’s actively misguiding your strategy.

As I explored in my previous framework for meaningful metrics, successful design organizations measure across behavioral, strategic, and emotional dimensions. But here’s what I didn’t address: the most challenging part of evolving your design measurement isn’t identifying what to track next — it’s letting go of what no longer drives the outcomes that matter to your business.

The Design Metrics We Inherit

Every design metric tells a story — of a design leader who needed to prove ROI, a usability crisis that demanded measurement, or a product launch that required specific success criteria. But as your product matures and user needs evolve, the context shifts. Your design organization grows. Business priorities change. User behaviors become more sophisticated. And yet, the metrics stay.

We hold on because:

• They feel familiar and “scientific”
• They ladder up to the executive expectations we helped set
• They provide comfort in ambiguous creative work
• They make our design impact look quantifiable and impressive

But letting go of a design metric forces uncomfortable questions: What does design success look like now? How do we prove value in this new context? Most challenging of all, what if our current measurement approach prevents us from having a greater impact?

When Design Metrics Become Strategic Liabilities

You know a design metric has outlived its strategic usefulness when:

It’s being reported, but design decisions are not being informed. If your leadership team sees the identical UX scores monthly and nothing changes in your design approach, it’s organizational theater, not strategic insight.

It measures design activity, not design outcomes. While “Component library usage” or “design reviews completed” discuss process compliance, they say nothing about user problem resolution, experience quality, or business impact — the strategic metrics that drive organizational success.

It anchors your design strategy to past business models. This is the most insidious trap, and it often manifests in what I call “The Executive Summary Trap” — reducing complex user experiences to single scores that once mattered but no longer predict the outcomes your business needs.

It creates false confidence in design performance. When your metrics show green while user satisfaction, retention, or conversion stagnate, you measure the wrong things and make strategic decisions based on incomplete pictures.

Case Study: When User Experience Metrics Stop Reflecting User Value

Consider a fintech company that initially built its design measurement around a single core use case — peer-to-peer payments. The design team focused on traditional UX metrics: task completion rates, time-to-complete transactions, and usability scores around money transfers. These metrics helped optimize the core experience and proved the design’s impact on user efficiency.

But as the company expanded into comprehensive financial services — direct deposit, savings features, credit products, and spending insights — the legacy UX metrics began telling an increasingly incomplete story.

High task completion rates for individual features didn’t indicate whether users understood the platform as a comprehensive financial solution. The behavioral metrics showed efficiency but missed the strategic impact on customer lifetime value. Efficient transaction flows didn’t predict whether people trusted the company with their primary banking relationship — a critical emotional metric for financial services success. Traditional usability metrics measured feature adoption but missed the more profound behavioral shifts required for financial services engagement.

To design for this evolved business model, the team had to fundamentally rebuild their measurement approach using what I call the three-lens framework: shifting from measuring discrete task efficiency (behavioral metrics) to tracking financial behavior integration (strategic metrics), from feature-specific usability to holistic financial confidence (emotional metrics), from transaction completion to long-term financial relationship indicators.

This wasn’t just a metrics update — it was a strategic design pivot that required letting go of measurement systems that had previously defined the company’s success story.

The Strategic Cost of Measurement Inertia

For design executives, outdated metrics aren’t just data hygiene problems — they’re strategic risks that compound over time:

Resource misallocation: Teams optimize for metrics that no longer predict business outcomes, wasting design capacity on improvements that don’t move the needle.

Stakeholder misalignment: Design loses credibility and strategic influence in executive discussions when design metrics don’t connect to current business priorities.

Innovation suppression: Legacy metrics often reward incremental improvements over breakthrough thinking, constraining your team’s ability to drive transformational user experiences. This is what I’ve previously called “The Usability Success Ceiling” — optimizing only for task completion while ignoring emotional resonance and long-term value creation.

Competitive blindness: Measuring yesterday’s success criteria prevents you from seeing today’s competitive advantages and tomorrow’s user expectations.

Redefining Success: The Leadership Work of Letting Go

Evolving design measurement requires more than analytical rigor — it demands organizational courage and strategic vision. This builds on what I’ve called the leadership testing framework: creating systematic improvement processes that drive action, not just generate data. In my experience, design teams rarely struggle due to a lack of data. They struggle from a lack of permission to question success as it’s currently defined.

Here’s how to lead this transformation:

1. Conduct a Strategic Design Measurement Audit

Start with these executive-level questions:

• What design metrics do we track because “we always have”?
• Which metrics influence our design strategy and resource allocation?
• Are we measuring the design’s impact on current business priorities?
• What user and business outcomes do our design metrics fail to predict?

Categorize each current metric:

Keep: Metrics that still predict user satisfaction and business outcomes — your foundational behavioral and strategic indicators
Evolve: Metrics that need deeper behavioral context or stronger business connection — often these need to shift from single-lens to multi-lens measurement
Replace: Activity metrics that don’t capture design’s strategic impact — the vanity metrics that feel comfortable but don’t drive decisions
Add: Missing emotional metrics that capture the design’s contribution to brand equity, trust, and long-term competitive advantage

2. Build the Business Case for Measurement Change

Before retiring familiar design metrics, create a compelling narrative about what’s shifting in your market, user expectations, and business model — frame measurement evolution as strategic adaptation, not performance critique.

Connect new measurement approaches directly to business outcomes your executives care about: customer lifetime value, market differentiation, competitive advantage, and growth sustainability.

3. Co-Create Measurement Strategy with Cross-Functional Leadership

Don’t develop new design metrics in isolation. This connects directly to building cross-functional measurement alignment — bringing together product, engineering, marketing, and business stakeholders to define success collaboratively.

Ask each function: What questions about design impact do you need answered to make better strategic decisions? What design outcomes influence your team’s ability to deliver business results?

When leadership teams co-author a design measurement strategy, they’re far more likely to trust and act on design insights.

4. Establish Measurement Evolution as Ongoing Strategic Practice

Build quarterly measurement reviews into your leadership rhythm — “decision thresholds” for your key metrics. Ask:

• Are our design metrics still predicting the most important outcomes for our business?
• What user behaviors or business results are we missing because of measurement gaps?
• How should our measurement approach evolve as our product and market mature?

5. Connect Design Metrics to Executive Decision-Making

The ultimate test of design measurement isn’t analytical sophistication — it’s strategic utility. This echoes what I’ve emphasized about moving from measurement to movement: the best metrics don’t just measure success, they create the conditions for it. Ensure your design metrics directly inform decisions about resource allocation, product strategy, user experience investments, and competitive positioning.

If your design metrics aren’t influencing executive-level decisions about where to invest in user experience, they’re not strategic enough.

Legacy Isn’t the Enemy — Strategic Drift Is

Not all established design metrics are outdated. Some are enduringly valuable, even foundational to your design practice. But others are artifacts of previous strategies, markets, or organizational phases.

The key is knowing which is which — and having the organizational courage to evolve measurement systems as your design impact requirements change.

Design measurement must evolve during rapid business change — new markets, business models, competitive landscapes, and user expectations. It must reflect where your design organization has been successful and where it needs to drive future value.

The Executive Imperative: Building Measurement Capability

Letting go of legacy design metrics isn’t just operational optimization — strategic leadership determines whether your design organization drives business results or measures design activity.

This connects to the broader challenge I’ve explored: building organizational measurement capability that serves three critical leadership functions — proving design’s strategic value, aligning cross-functional teams, and driving better decision-making at scale.

In a landscape where user experience increasingly determines competitive advantage, the metrics guiding your design strategy must be as sophisticated and adaptive as the experiences you create.

The question isn’t whether your design metrics are accurate — it’s whether they’re strategically relevant to the outcomes your business needs most.

Reflection for Design Leaders

What’s one design metric your team still tracks religiously, but no longer influences decisions, or reflects the impact design can truly have?

What would it take to replace it with a measurement that better predicts the user and business outcomes that matter most?

And more importantly: what would your team unlock if you did?

Read more by the author on this topic:
51: Measuring What’s Next: Designing Metrics for Innovation, AI, and Emerging Experiences: How to evaluate design success when you’re building the future, not the present

36: Beyond the Dashboard: A Design Leader’s Framework for Meaningful Metrics: A Playbook for Impactful, Insightful, and Human-Centered Product Design

28 Proving UX Impact Without Hard Numbers: How to Showcase UX Success Without Traditional Metrics

“If it can’t be measured, it can’t be improved.”
True — but only if you measure the right things the right way.

In product and UX design, metrics are double-edged swords. They assist us in validating decisions and demonstrating impact. Yet, they can also lead us to oversimplify human experiences, pursue vanity metrics, or overlook the intangible qualities that characterize great design.

Three Lenses for Evaluating Design Outcomes

Relying on a single metric often oversimplifies the complexity of user experience and can lead to short-sighted decisions. A multidimensional measurement approach is essential for organizations aiming to create a lasting impact.

By examining behavioral, strategic, and emotional dimensions, teams gain a more complete understanding of both how products perform and how they resonate with people. Here’s why each lens matters — and why it should be part of every organization’s toolkit:

• Behavioral metrics reveal whether users can effectively and efficiently complete key tasks. They highlight usability issues and areas of friction that might otherwise go unnoticed. When people struggle to achieve their goals, it directly undermines engagement, trust, and the overall value of the experience. It should be able to answer the following: Can people do what they came here to do?
• Strategic metrics link user behavior to broader organizational objectives. These insights help determine whether a product or service drives meaningful outcomes, such as growth, retention, or efficiency. Without this connection, teams risk optimizing for activity rather than impact. It should be able to answer the following: Is this helping us achieve our goals?
• Emotional metrics explore how users feel during and after their interactions. Emotions influence memory, perception, and loyalty. Understanding how experiences make users feel helps organizations design more human-centeredly, building deeper relationships and long-term trust. It should be able to answer the following questions: How does this make people think?

These three lenses create a holistic foundation for measuring success when used together. They help teams move beyond surface-level indicators and make more intelligent, aligned decisions that benefit the business and the people it serves.

How should metrics help your testing plans?

Metrics should act as a compass for your testing plans — they help you focus on what matters, guide your hypotheses, and determine whether your solutions are making a difference. Before you run any test, metrics help clarify success by defining specific, measurable outcomes tied to user behavior, business goals, or emotional response. This sharpens your hypotheses and prevents vague or unfocused experiments.

During testing, metrics help you track progress and identify patterns — what’s working, what’s not, and for whom. They also keep teams aligned by offering a shared language to evaluate results. Significantly, metrics should shape what you test, how, and with whom you test. For example, if your behavioral metrics show users are dropping off at a key step, your testing should zero in on that friction point. If your emotional metrics reveal frustration, your test plan might include qualitative methods like interviews to understand why.

In short, metrics turn testing into a strategic learning tool, not just a checklist item. They ensure your experiments are purposeful, targeted, and capable of delivering meaningful insights that drive better decisions.

The Five Deadly Metric Sins

Metrics are robust, but when misused, they can lead teams astray, create false confidence, and obscure what matters. These five common pitfalls often show a more profound misunderstanding of how data should inform decision-making. Recognizing them is the first step; designing around them is building smarter, more human-centered systems.

1. The NPS Mirage — A single score ≠ customer truth
   While Net Promoter Score (or any singular metric) might offer a quick pulse check, it cannot tell you why customers feel the way they do, nor does it reveal the complexity of their journey. A high score may mask critical pain points, while a low score without context leaves you guessing. Decisions based solely on a composite number risk oversimplify the customer experience and miss actionable insight.
2. The Data Hoarder’s Fallacy — More data ≠ , better decisions
   Collecting more data doesn’t inherently lead to better clarity; it often leads to analysis paralysis. Teams drown in dashboards without a focused question or hypothesis, mistaking quantity for quality. Great testing plans are guided by intentional metrics, not endless vanity numbers. Data is only valuable when it’s aligned with purpose.
3. The Say-Do Chasm — What users say ≠ and what they do
   People’s stated preferences often differ from their actual behavior. Users may say they value one feature but consistently ignore it, or claim to be frustrated but still convert. Testing must balance attitudinal insights (what people say) with behavioral ones (what they do). Over-reliance on interviews or surveys without observational validation leads to false assumptions and misguided roadmaps.
4. The Usability Tunnel Vision — Smooth tasks ≠ lasting loyalty
   Just because users can complete a task doesn’t mean they found the experience meaningful, memorable, or worth returning to. Over-indexing on task success alone can result in efficient but soulless interactions. Emotional resonance, brand perception, and long-term satisfaction also matter. Sustainable success comes from designing experiences that are both usable and valuable.
5. The Redesign Backlash Blindspot — Resistance ≠ failure
   Not all adverse reactions signal the wrong decision. Users often resist change, especially in redesigns, even when improvements are objectively better. Measuring success too early — or interpreting pushback as failure — can prematurely derail good ideas. You need to distinguish between temporary discomfort and actual usability breakdowns. Short-term metrics don’t always capture long-term value.

Metrics as Cultural Levers

The best metrics don’t just track — they reshape how organizations think:

• They create shared language between design, PMs, and engineers.
  Metrics are a common currency across disciplines, bridging the gap between creative intuition, product strategy, and technical execution. While design teams might speak about flow, friction, or delight, product managers focus on growth levers and business outcomes, and engineers think about performance and feasibility. When framed thoughtfully, metrics align abstract goals like “better experience” or “more engagement” into measurable objectives everyone can rally around. They foster collaboration by grounding conversations in evidence, not opinion.
• They expose hidden priorities (e.g., short-term gains vs. long-term value).
  Metrics can surface tensions between immediate performance metrics (like conversion rates or click-throughs) and long-term goals (like user trust, retention, or brand equity). Without clear visibility, teams may unintentionally optimize for what’s easy to measure rather than what truly matters. Focusing on short-term metrics alone can lead to dark patterns, feature bloat, or churn masked by acquisition. The correct measurement strategy brings these trade-offs into the open, enabling healthier debates, more intentional decision-making, and more sustainable product strategies.
• They turn pixels into boardroom narratives (e.g., “This flow improved retention by 15% and doubled positive sentiment”).
  Design often risks being seen as subjective or aesthetic unless paired with meaningful outcomes. Metrics help translate interaction and experience into outcomes that resonate with stakeholders, especially those further from day-to-day product work. When a design improvement can be tied to reduced drop-off, increased satisfaction, or faster completion time, it elevates the role of design from contributor to strategic partner. Data-backed storytelling gives design a seat at the decision-making table and helps executives connect the dots between human experience and business performance.

Final Truth: Metrics should speed up progress, not merely record it.

The ultimate role of metrics is not to sit in a dashboard or get buried in slide decks—they’re meant to drive momentum, shape better decisions, and surface new opportunities. Metrics are a tool for action, not just reflection. When used intentionally, they help teams test smarter, align faster, and adapt with clarity.

Measure not just what’s easy — measure what matters. It’s tempting to focus on what’s readily available: click-through rates, bounce rates, or surface-level engagement. However, the real value lies in measuring what truly reflects impact — user trust, long-term retention, or emotional resonance. This takes more effort, but it’s where meaningful growth lives.

The path forward isn’t about choosing between intuition and data — it’s about weaving them together. Combine empathy with evidence, pair prototypes with performance, and let your metrics tell a fuller story that reflects how your product functions, feels, fits, and fulfills its promise in people’s lives.

Because in the end, the best metrics don’t just measure change — they create it.

Are you struggling to figure out what to do when your organization doesn’t have metrics and you have to build a case study?

Read Twisha’s take on: Proving UX Impact Without Hard Numbers.

Want to read more on this topic:

• Shaunak Bharnarkar: Measuring the success of product design: OKRs and KPIs
• Eric Chung: Measuring the emotional impact of design for better engagement
• Nick Babich: Measuring Design: Essential Metrics
• Google Research: HEART framework

I used to think outstanding leadership meant being endlessly available — first in, last out — in the details, on every call, solving every fire, and saying yes to the stretch project, the keynote, the mentorship, and the roadmap review. Until the year, I couldn’t hear myself think.

Between launching a new loyalty ecosystem and onboarding multiple new team members, I realized I was running on instinct. The calendar looked like Tetris blocks, and the results looked great, but I wasn’t. My decisions felt reactive, and my creativity was stale. Worst of all, I was modeling a version of quietly unsustainable leadership — for me and the people looking up to me.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how rest became a strategic lever and how creative pursuits helped me redefine success in the mid-career plateau. But this shift wasn’t just personal. It began to reshape how I led. If I could unlearn the hustle narrative in my own life, I had to ask: What was I unconsciously teaching my team about impact, urgency, and worth?

That’s when I started thinking differently — not just about how we lead teams but also how we sustain them. It is not just about how we scale design but how we regenerate it.

The Problem with Infinite Contributors

Tech loves infinite scale — systems that grow, code that deploys, infrastructure that expands on demand. But design is human work: it demands time, focus, and creative energy. Unlike servers, designers don’t “spin up” without cost. Push them to operate like a feature factory, and what you’re scaling is burnout — sacrificing depth for velocity, trading insight for output.

The irony? Leaders often enable this. We mistake motion for progress, urgency for importance. However, sustainable creativity requires boundaries: saying no to protect yes, prioritizing outcomes over activity, and treating creative energy as a finite resource. Scaling design isn’t about adding more people but designing systems where great work can thrive without breaking the people who make it.

The Shift: From Extraction to Regeneration

We don’t need another lecture on “work-life balance.” We need a paradigm shift — from extraction to regeneration.

Regenerative leadership flips the script. Instead of asking, “How do I maximize output?” it asks, “How do I create conditions where my team can replenish — so they do their best work, not just their fastest?” The principle is borrowed from nature: in thriving ecosystems, resources are renewed, not just consumed. Health isn’t a luxury; it’s the foundation of sustainable growth.

This isn’t idealism — it’s strategy. Research by the Energy Project (Tony Schwartz) proves that humans perform best in rhythmic cycles of effort and recovery. Studies on psychological safety by Amy Edmonson show that teams innovate more when not in survival mode. And data from Google’s Project Aristotle confirms that sustainable cultures retain top talent.

The lesson? We can’t fuel long-term impact with short-term depletion. If we want breakthroughs, we must design environments where energy is restored, not just extracted. Because creativity isn’t a resource to mine — it’s a flame to tend.

How I Began Leading Differently

Here’s what changed for me as a design leader:

I built Slack into the system: I stopped filling every hour with meetings and started protecting blocks for deep work and deep rest. I normalized “thinking time” on my calendar, made it visible to my team, and asked them to do the same.

I made multiplicity visible by openly discussing my art practice, writing, and the audiobooks I listened to while sketching. These weren’t side hobbies; they were essential to my resilience. And when I shared them, something shifted: my team started sharing their passions and protecting time for them, too.

I reframed performance: Instead of measuring productivity by visible output alone, I asked: Where is the energy flowing? What’s bringing clarity, not just motion? We created space for emotional metrics. We tracked team health alongside project velocity. It changed what we prioritized — and how we delivered.

I modeled saying no: Boundaries are contagious, and so is burnout. When I said no with clarity and context, others felt empowered to do the same. We began to trade frantic overfunctioning for focused, intentional momentum.

Regenerative Practices for Design Leaders

If you’re a design executive looking to build sustainable creativity, here’s where to start:

Audit your team’s creative recovery time with rigor. Track not just project hours but the space between them. Are there moments for reflection after critiques? Is there white space between sprints? Like any high-performance system, creative teams need recovery cycles to maintain quality. The best ideas often emerge in these in-between spaces.

Make energy management a leadership metric. The map that projects which drains your team versus which ones light them up. Notice patterns — are there certain types of clients, phases, or collaboration modes? Use these insights to balance workloads strategically, not just equally. Energy is your team’s most valuable currency.

Architect time with intentionality. Treat your team’s schedule like a design system. Block deep work sessions in natural creative rhythms (morning for some, evening for others). Protect “low cognitive load” periods for subconscious processing. The most innovative solutions rarely emerge in back-to-back meetings.

Celebrate and leverage whole human complexity — the designer who DJs understands rhythm and audience engagement. The PM who surfs reads subtle environmental patterns. These aren’t just hobbies but professional assets that fuel a creative perspective. Make space for these identities to inform work.

Lead through visible evolution. When leaders share their recalibration — a canceled meeting to recharge, a changed mind on a strategy, or a boundary set — it implicitly gives the team permission to do the same. A model that growth isn’t about constant perfection, but conscious adaptation.

What Happens When You Lead Regeneratively?

The impact goes beyond productivity metrics — it transforms how your team creates, why they stay, and who they become.

The Work Improves: When designers aren’t running on fumes, they solve problems with nuance, not just speed. Creativity thrives in the space between “done” and “good.” Teams with room to breathe produce fewer rushed iterations and more breakthrough ideas, because innovation requires incubation.

Retention Becomes Organic: People don’t leave jobs; they leave unsustainable conditions. A regenerative culture silently but powerfully reduces attrition by making “staying” feel energizing, not exhausting. When work replenishes instead of depletes, loyalty grows naturally.

The Culture Shifts: You stop glorifying burnout and start measuring what matters: energy, engagement, and enduring impact. Sustainability becomes your competitive edge — a magnet for talent who want to do great work without sacrificing themselves to do it.

You Rediscover Your Purpose: Regenerative leadership has a quiet side effect: it heals the leader, too. When you stop equating “busy” with “valuable,” you reconnect with the joy of creating. You remember why you chose this work, not to manage exhaustion, but to build something meaningful.

Final Thought: Design Systems vs. Human Systems

We obsess over creating scalable, resilient design systems yet often neglect the most important system: the human, made up of tired eyes, overworked minds, and creative spirits (including yours).

So before asking, “What’s next on the roadmap?” try asking:
“What needs restoring — in my team, in myself — to meet what’s next with clarity, not chaos? With creativity, not just compliance?”

Because the future of design leadership isn’t about optimization.
It’s about oxygenation.

The best leaders don’t just ship — they sustain.
They don’t just extract — they energize.
They’re not just architects of products.
They’re architects of vitality.

Footnotes & Further Reading

If this resonated with you, explore the first two pieces in this series on rest, reinvention, and sustainable creativity:

4: Rest as a Strategy: How Stepping Back Leads to Big Ideas
Why stepping away isn’t weakness — it’s a design decision that fuels deeper creativity, sharper leadership, and long-term success.

31: The Moment the Climb Slows Down
A reflection on the mid-career plateau and how creative pursuits and multiplicity help us expand our identities beyond job titles.

Together, these essays form a conversation about sustaining ourselves, evolving our roles, and leading without losing our spark.

In the ever-evolving landscape of business and design, decision-making isn’t just a function — it’s the heartbeat of innovation and growth. Every decision — a bold strategic pivot or a subtle course correction — shapes an organization’s future. But in a world of complexity, ambiguity, and relentless change, the question isn’t whether decisions are made — it’s how they’re made.

The difference between good and great organizations lies in how they think. Moving beyond reactive problem-solving to intentional, strategic decision-making separates the two. Mental models play a crucial role here, not as abstract concepts but as transformative tools that help designers and leaders reframe challenges, anticipate consequences, and drive better outcomes.

For mid-career designers, mastering mental models isn’t just a skill — it’s a mindset shift. It’s about evolving from an executor to a strategic partner who delivers excellent work and actively shapes their organization’s future. Integrating these cognitive frameworks into your practice can elevate your impact, help you navigate uncertainty, and enable you to lead teams toward more thoughtful, more intentional decisions.

Why Mental Models Matter: The Designer’s Edge

Mental models are the invisible architecture of thought. They help simplify complexity, challenge assumptions, and reveal patterns where others see chaos. Mental models provide clarity in a world where cognitive biases, competing priorities, and incomplete information often cloud decision-making. They allow us to cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters.

This is especially powerful for designers. Design sits at the intersection of creativity and strategy, where every decision — about product features, user experience, or business models — has far-reaching implications. By adopting mental models, we move beyond asking “how” and “why.” We uncover root causes, challenge conventional thinking, and design solutions that don’t just work — they transform.

The Mental Models Playbook: A Guide to Smarter Decisions

Let’s discuss how you can integrate mental models into your decision-making process to drive better outcomes and position yourself as a strategic leader.

Step 1: Reframe the Challenge. The first step in effective decision-making is asking the right question. Too often, teams jump straight to solutions without fully understanding the problem. For example, when leadership asks, “How do we build this feature?” they assume a solution. A more powerful question is, “What problem are we solving?”

Innovation begins with this shift from execution to exploration. By fostering a culture of curiosity and critical thinking, you help your team move beyond surface-level fixes toward meaningful, high-impact solutions.

Step 2: Choose the Right Model. Not all challenges are created equal, and neither are mental models. The key is to match the model to the situation. Here are a few examples of how different models can be applied:

• First Principles Thinking: When you must break free from conventional thinking, this model helps you strip a problem down to its fundamental truths. For instance, instead of copying competitors’ loyalty programs, ask: What truly makes our customers stay? This approach can reveal insights that lead to more innovative solutions.
• Second-Order Thinking: Some decisions have ripple effects that aren’t immediately obvious. This model helps you anticipate long-term consequences. For example, reducing product packaging might save costs in the short term, but what if it leads to higher return rates due to damaged goods? By asking, What happens next? And then what? You can avoid unintended consequences.
• Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule): This model helps you focus on the most impactful actions when resources are limited. For example, if 20% of your marketing efforts drive 80% of your results, doubling down on those high-impact activities can maximize your ROI.
• Eisenhower Matrix: Not all tasks are created equal. This model helps you separate the urgent from the important, allowing you to prioritize effectively and delegate wisely.

Step 3: Apply the Model with Intent Applying a mental model isn’t just about theory — it’s about embedding structured thinking into your team’s workflow, mindset, and decision-making processes.

• Foster a Culture of Intentionality: Before applying a model, ensure everyone understands its purpose. Lead by example — demonstrate how you use mental models in your decision-making and share the results. Seeing tangible benefits will encourage adoption.
• Embed Mental Models into Team Rituals: Make these frameworks part of your daily workflow:
• Stand-ups: Use the Pareto Principle to identify the 20% of tasks that will drive 80% of the day’s impact.
• Retrospectives: Apply second-order thinking to reflect on long-term consequences, not just immediate results.
• Brainstorming Sessions: Start with First Principles Thinking to break down complex problems and challenge assumptions.
• Challenge Assumptions with Curiosity, Not Criticism: Mental models help surface hidden assumptions, but challenging them should feel like exploration, not critique. Instead of saying, “That assumption is flawed,” ask, “What if we approached this from a completely different angle? What might we discover?” This encourages creativity and fosters psychological safety.
• Align Decisions with Broader Business Goals: Before applying a model, ask: How does this decision align with our mission, vision, and key performance indicators? Connecting decisions to strategic goals ensures efficiency and impact.

Step 4: Evaluate and Adapt. No model is perfect, and no decision is final. After applying a mental model, assess its effectiveness. Did it lead to the desired outcome? What could have been done differently? Iteration and reflection are key.

Create Feedback Loops for Continuous Improvement: Applying a mental model isn’t a one-and-done process — it’s an iterative journey. After making a decision, create feedback loops to evaluate its effectiveness. For example:

• Quantitative Metrics: Measure the impact of the decision against predefined KPIs.
• Qualitative Insights: Gather team and stakeholder feedback.
• Retrospectives: Reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and how to refine your approach.

These feedback loops improve decision-making over time and reinforce the value of mental models, making them a permanent part of your team’s toolkit.

Becoming a Decision Design Leader

As a mid-career designer, you’re uniquely positioned to bring decision design into your organization. Here’s how to start:

• Lead by Example: Apply mental models in your work and showcase their impact.
• Educate and Evangelize: Host workshops, create visuals, and introduce key concepts in meetings to make mental models accessible and actionable.
• Integrate, Don’t Impose: Meet your organization where it is. Weave these frameworks naturally into existing processes rather than forcing new ones.

Final Thoughts: The Future of Decision Design

In a world of constant change, thoughtful, informed decisions are a superpower. Designers who master decision-making don’t just react to change — they drive it.

By embracing mental models, you can transform decision-making from a reactive process into a strategic advantage. This isn’t just about improving organizational outcomes — it’s about stepping into the spotlight as a leader who navigates complexity, inspires teams, and shapes the future.

Start small, think big, and remember: the best decisions aren’t just made — they’re designed.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

— John Buchan

As someone who has both led and been led, I understand the complexities of team dynamics. I’ve had managers who ignited my passion and others who forced me to reflect deeply on my capabilities. Likewise, leading teams has brought remarkable successes and humbling lessons.

I’ve realized that leaders often have insights they wish they could share, but the pace of work leaves little room for these conversations. So, let’s discuss them now.

We Don’t Have All the Answers (And We’re Not Pretending To)

There’s a pervasive myth in leadership — especially in design — that once you reach a certain level, you unlock all the answers. A playbook. A secret formula. Let me be clear: that’s a lie.

Leadership isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about navigating uncertainty with clarity, humility, and a commitment to learning.

When I was leading loyalty design at Target, we were tasked with reimagining the entire program. It was a massive undertaking, and the pressure was high. Did I have all the answers? No. But I had hypotheses, curiosity, and a team willing to collaborate. Instead of pretending to have a perfect plan, I said, “Let’s start with an audit. Let’s break the problem apart and figure it out together.”

That’s the essence of leadership — staying curious, adapting, and sometimes having the courage to say, “I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out.” Great design (and leadership) thrives on collective problem-solving, not individual certainty.

Leadership is a Mindset, Not a Title

Designers often say, “I wasn’t in that meeting,” or “I’m not at that level, so if you want me to engage, you should promote me.”

Here’s the thing: leadership isn’t about job titles — it’s about ownership.

The best designers don’t wait for the perfect brief or direction. They embrace ambiguity, ask the right questions, and prototype their way to clarity. If you’re waiting for someone to hand you the answers — or the title — you’re missing the opportunity to lead from where you are.

So step up, engage, and contribute, even when it’s messy. That’s where the real impact happens.

Stop Waiting for Permission

Too often, designers hesitate, waiting for a leader to give them the green light. Let me be clear: you were hired for a reason. Your perspective, creativity, and expertise are valuable. Your leader doesn’t have the time — or the desire — to micromanage every decision. They shouldn’t have to.

Early in my career, I was guilty of this, too. I’d draft an email and sit on it for hours, overthinking every word. I’d have an idea but hold back, worrying it wasn’t polished enough. But I noticed something: the people who moved forward weren’t necessarily the most brilliant or most talented — they were the ones who took initiative. They didn’t wait for validation. They acted.

Design is one of the rare fields where you have the power to shape the future. So why wait for someone else to define the conditions? Step in. Take the lead. Tell the story of what could be.

Visibility is Intentional — Not Passive

Let’s be honest: your work won’t always speak for itself.

When I joined Venmo as a product design leader, we were deep into launching the Venmo Credit Card. The priorities were already mapped out, and staying in my lane would have been easy. Instead, I raised my hand to tackle one of the biggest challenges: differentiating our rewards system in an oversaturated market.

It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t straightforward. But it was critical. And by stepping up, I didn’t just contribute — I built trust and credibility.

If you’re waiting for someone to notice your work, you're already behind. Don’t wait for the perfect moment or opportunity — volunteer for the complex, ambiguous problems. Be the person who doesn’t just do the job but redefines what’s possible.

Boundaries Matter — We’re Your Leaders, Not Your Caregivers

A good leader cares about your growth and well-being. They advocate for you, create opportunities, and support your success. But here’s the hard truth: they’re not your therapist, parent, or emotional safety net.

I’ve had team members come to me with everything from workplace frustrations to personal struggles. And while empathy is at the core of what we do, I’ve learned that boundaries are essential. Without them, the dynamic becomes unsustainable for both sides.

If you’re struggling, try reframing the conversation. Instead of venting, approach it as a problem to solve: “Hey, I’ve been stuck on this. Do you have any advice?” This shift turns the interaction from emotional unloading into collaborative problem-solving.

And here’s my most significant advice: build a strong support network outside of work. Whether it’s mentors, peers, friends, or a coach, having external support is one of the most valuable investments you can make in your career and well-being.

Leadership is about balance — caring deeply while maintaining boundaries. The most impactful relationships thrive on clarity and mutual respect.

We’re Human Too

Leaders are often held to an impossible standard of infallibility. But here’s the truth: we’re human. We have bad days, make mistakes, and feel impostor syndrome.

I’ll never forget when a manager snapped at me in a meeting. My first thought was, Wow, what a jerk. Later, I learned they had just received devastating news about a project they’d poured months into. That moment reminded me: leaders are navigating their pressures while trying to support their teams.

So, don’t take it personally if your leader seems off one day. Extend the same grace you’d want on your worst day.

What This Means for You

The best designers and product thinkers don’t just ship great work — they lead.

They don’t wait for answers; they find them.
They don’t wait for permission; they step up.
They don’t assume their work speaks for itself; they make it undeniable.

Leadership isn’t about titles. It’s about creating the conditions for others to succeed — whether by advocating for the proper research, shaping strategic conversations, or mentoring the next generation of designers.

The messy middle of leadership isn’t glamorous. It’s full of uncertainty. But that’s the work. That’s what makes a difference.

So, what’s your next move?

Like this article? Follow me on Substack to get essays like this on design management a few times a week.

“Living systems require diversity and interconnection to thrive. The most successful organizations don’t just optimize for efficiency — they evolve, adapt, and regenerate.” — Carol Sanford, business consultant and author of The Regenerative Business

In my last article, I discussed how Middle managers are at the front line of change, which is pivotal in shaping how organizations evolve beyond outdated structures. This article builds on that idea by exploring the more profound shift businesses must make: moving away from an industrial-era mindset that views companies as rigid machines and embracing the reality that organizations function more like living ecosystems.

Many businesses remain entrenched in a mechanistic structure that prioritizes efficiency over adaptability. While this model may have succeeded in more stable times, it now proves inadequate in the face of rapid market shifts. This rigidity can lead to sluggish decision-making, stunted innovation, and an inability to respond effectively to new trends.

To thrive in today’s environment, organizations must recognize the dynamic nature of their operations. Embracing a model that empowers middle managers to drive change is essential. By doing so, companies can foster a culture of adaptability and resilience.

In this piece, I will outline the signs indicating an organization operates within a machine mindset and offer actionable strategies for middle managers to initiate transformative changes. The goal is not merely to function efficiently but to cultivate an atmosphere where innovation and responsiveness are at the forefront. The future belongs to organizations that understand the value of flexibility and their people’s active roles in the transformation process.

5 Ways Organizations Differ from Machines

1. Strength Through Engagement, Not Wear and Tear

Unlike machines, which degrade with use and require external repairs when they break, organizations can strengthen through challenge, adaptation, and engagement. Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes this phenomenon as antifragility — the ability of a system to withstand stress and improve because of it. Machines wear down with repeated use, but organizations that embrace uncertainty, feedback, and iteration can evolve and become more resilient. This principle underscores resilience and innovation not as finite resources but as dynamic capabilities that expand through continuous learning and experimentation.

A prime example is Pixar’s iterative storytelling process, which relies on continuous creative feedback to refine and improve each film. Similarly, Google’s “20% time” initiative encourages employees to experiment with new ideas, fostering a culture of curiosity and adaptability. While a machine, when overused, will eventually fail without external intervention, organizations develop a kind of “muscle memory” that enhances their ability to navigate complexity and uncertainty.

At their core, organizations are living, evolving systems driven by human elements — purpose, connection, and challenge — whereas machines are static, executing predefined tasks without growth or adaptation. Unlike machines, which require external intervention to change, organizations possess an intrinsic capacity for self-renewal through continuous learning, collaboration, and purpose-driven action.

2. Innovation Beyond Replication: Organizations Create, Machines Repeat

Machines excel at repetition — designed to execute predefined tasks precisely, producing identical results repeatedly. While this makes them efficient, it also makes them incapable of originality. A machine cannot invent something new; it can only perform what it was built to do.

Organizations, on the other hand, are engines of creation. When structured, they can generate new ideas, products, and industries to encourage curiosity, risk-taking, and collaboration. Unlike machines bound by their programming, organizations can break patterns, imagine new possibilities, and evolve unexpectedly.

In The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge describes organizations as learning systems that grow through experimentation and iteration rather than mere efficiency. Companies that operate like machines — focusing only on replication and rigid processes — risk stagnation. In contrast, those who embrace creativity and exploration unlock new forms of value.

Take 3M’s “15% time” policy, encouraging employees to explore passion projects. This initiative led to the invention of the Post-it Note — not from a predefined roadmap but from an employee’s willingness to experiment. Machines can execute tasks flawlessly, but only human-driven organizations can invent something new.

By designing organizations as spaces for exploration and innovation rather than rigid systems of execution, leaders unlock their full creative potential — proving that progress comes not from repetition but reinvention.

3. Sensing, Adapting, and Evolving: Organizations Respond, Machines Require Reprogramming

Machines operate within rigid, pre-programmed parameters. When their environment changes, they cannot adjust independently — they require an external update, manual intervention, or complete replacement. They do not sense shifts, interpret meaning, or anticipate the future.

Organizations, however, can sense, respond, and evolve. They are not fixed systems; they are shaped by the people within them, who bring intuition, empathy, and intelligence to decision-making. This ability to read external signals — whether market shifts, cultural trends, or customer behaviors — allows organizations to course-correct and seize new opportunities in real-time.

Management expert Margaret Wheatley argues in Leadership and the New Science that successful organizations act more like living organisms than static machines, responding fluidly to change rather than following pre-determined scripts. Organizations that embrace this mindset don’t just survive disruption — they turn it into an advantage.

Netflix is a prime example. Initially a DVD rental service, Netflix sensed the decline of physical media and adapted by shifting to streaming. Later, recognizing the threat of content fragmentation, they evolved again, investing in original programming like Stranger Things and The Crown. No machine could have anticipated and pivoted this way — only an organization that learns from its environment can sustain long-term success.

Unlike machines, which must be manually reprogrammed to change course, organizations can self-correct, reinvent, and shape their futures — not by following a fixed path but by continuously sensing and responding to the world around them.

4. Success Through Interdependence, Not Isolation

Machines are designed to function independently — each component performing a specific task without needing to listen, adapt, or collaborate. They operate in isolation, relying on external coordination to work together. Organizations, however, thrive on interdependence — where success depends on relationships, shared knowledge, and the ability to navigate complexity together.

Leadership expert Ronald Heifetz, in Adaptive Leadership, argues that organizations succeed not through rigid hierarchies but through collective problem-solving, collaboration, and shared decision-making. Unlike machines, which are programmed to execute commands, organizations must bring together diverse perspectives to solve challenges that cannot be reduced to a formula. Success is not about optimizing isolated parts but enabling cross-functional teams to think, adapt, and lead together.

Consider how Pixar thrives — not through rigid command-and-control structures but through an open feedback culture where animators, directors, and writers continuously refine ideas through collective input. Similarly, Spotify’s “squad” model ensures that engineering, design, and business teams work interdependently — learning from each other rather than functioning as isolated silos.

Machines cannot build trust, share knowledge, or adjust strategies in real time. Organizations, by contrast, grow stronger through their connections — leveraging interdependence to drive innovation, resilience, and long-term success.

5. Self-Healing and Transformation, Not Breakdown and Replacement

Machines require external intervention to repair or replace damaged components when they break down. They cannot diagnose their failures or evolve in response to them. Organizations, however, are not static systems of mechanical parts; they are complex, adaptive entities capable of self-regulation, renewal, and transformation. This ability to heal from within — rather than being fixed from the outside — sets resilient organizations apart from fragile ones.

Edgar Schein, a pioneering scholar in organizational culture and leadership, argues that an organization’s ability to navigate crises depends not on rigid structures but on deep-rooted cultural values, shared learning, and psychological safety. Healthy organizations develop cultural “immune systems” — adaptive processes, resilient mindsets, and internal mechanisms that allow them to learn from failures, course-correct, and emerge stronger. Just as the human body fights infections and rebuilds itself after injury, organizations that prioritize learning and trust can turn disruptions into catalysts for long-term growth.

Patagonia’s response to ethical concerns in its supply chain is a powerful example of organizational self-regulation. Rather than retreating from criticism, Patagonia leaned into its core values, reinforcing its commitment to sustainability and ethical sourcing. The company transformed a potential reputational crisis into an opportunity for renewal, embedding fair trade certification, recycled materials, and radical transparency into its operations. By staying true to its mission, Patagonia didn’t just regain trust — it deepened customer loyalty and strengthened its identity as a purpose-driven brand.

Machines remain fixed until someone repairs them, but organizations can learn from failure, evolve through challenges, and rebuild from within. Organizations that invest in cultural resilience, leadership development, and long-term sustainability don’t just survive disruption — they emerge more potent, adaptive, and better positioned for the future.

Evolution, Not Just Expansion: The Future Belongs to Adaptive Organizations

Machines scale predictably — following pre-set formulas, growing in size but not intelligence. Their design is fixed, limited by their programming and physical constraints. Organizations, however, are not static systems; they are living, evolving entities that must constantly adapt, transform, and reinvent themselves to survive in a changing world.

Proper growth isn’t about simply expanding market share or increasing efficiency. It’s about reshaping strategy, culture, and identity to meet new challenges. Organizations that fail to evolve become obsolete — trapped in outdated structures, just as a machine becomes useless when its parts can no longer be updated.

Microsoft’s transformation under Satya Nadella illustrates this perfectly. In 2014, the company was deeply entrenched in its Windows-first model, struggling to remain relevant in a rapidly shifting tech landscape. Instead of chasing linear expansion, Nadella redefined Microsoft’s identity — shifting toward cloud computing, collaboration, and a growth mindset. This wasn’t just a technology change; it was an organizational reinvention.

Five Ways to Lead the Shift from Machine Thinking to Evolutionary Thinking — A Playbook for Middle Managers

Most organizational change starts from the middle. Middle managers are uniquely positioned to shift organizations from rigid, machine-like thinking toward growth, adaptability, and resilience. Here are five small but high-impact actions middle managers can take today:

1. Shift from Execution to Experimentation
(Innovation Beyond Replication)

Machines repeat tasks efficiently, but organizations thrive on experimentation. Instead of measuring success by efficiency and execution, introduce a structured way for your team to test new ideas without fearing failure.

• Create a “Small Bets” Initiative: Dedicate one hour per week for team members to explore micro-experiments — minor process improvements, new outreach strategies, or fresh approaches to problem-solving.
• Set guardrails, not rigid expectations: Give your team permission to take risks, but define success as learning something new, not just producing perfect results.
• Recognize experimentation in performance reviews: Make innovation a core expectation by rewarding curiosity, not just flawless execution.

🔑 Why It Works: When teams are encouraged to explore, they stop functioning like predictable machines and start creating new value.

2. Create Sensing Mechanisms to Read the Environment
(Sensing, Adapting, and Evolving)

Machines need external reprogramming, but organizations can sense, interpret, and adjust in real-time. However, you should try to Build mechanisms that allow your team to actively listen, reflect, and adapt to emerging trends — whether from customers, competitors, or internal dynamics.

• Host a monthly “Signals and Shifts” session: Ask team members to bring one surprising trend, challenge, or insight they’ve observed and discuss how it could impact the team.
• Encourage front-line employees to share insights: Often, the best sensing happens at the ground level. Implement a “Quick Wins & Observations” board where employees can document patterns or inefficiencies they notice.
• Make learning loops part of your workflow: After a significant project or decision, schedule a short retrospective to ask: “What signals did we miss? What would we do differently?”

🔑 Why It Works: Organizations that pay attention and adjust in real-time avoid being blindsided by change — unlike machines, which require external intervention to adapt.

3. Build Cross-Team Connections
(Success Through Interdependence)

Machines function in isolation, but organizations grow through collaboration and shared intelligence. Break down silos by creating deliberate, structured interactions across teams that might not usually collaborate.

• Start “Outside-In” Pairings: Have each team member shadow someone from another function (marketing, engineering, sales) for a half-day per quarter, learning their most significant challenges and pain points.
• Create cross-functional “Spark Sessions”: Run a monthly 30-minute session where team members discuss challenges and brainstorm ways their expertise could support each other.
• Encourage “Bridge Builders”: Recognize and reward employees who can connect teams and reduce organizational friction.

🔑 Why It Works: Unlike machines, which function independently, organizations thrive when departments share insights, collaborate, and solve problems together — creating a dynamic, adaptable system.

4. Encourage Self-Correction, Not Just Performance Reviews
(Self-Healing and Transformation)

Machines require external repair when they break, but organizations can develop self-healing mechanisms. Shift from performance management as a once-a-year event to a continuous, low-stakes learning and self-correction culture.

• Introduce “What Worked, What Didn’t, What’s Next?” Check-ins: After every major project or campaign, conduct a 20-minute session where the team shares lessons learned and actionable changes for next time.
• Normalize real-time feedback: Instead of waiting for annual reviews, encourage a culture where small feedback loops happen weekly. Use a shared doc or Slack channel for team members to request quick, informal feedback on their work.
• Foster a growth mindset: Openly discuss failures and what was learned, modeling the idea that setbacks are part of progress — not a sign of incompetence.

🔑 Why It Works: Unlike machines, which require external maintenance, organizations that foster self-reflection and continuous improvement develop the resilience to adapt and strengthen over time.

5. Model an Evolutionary Mindset
(Evolution, Not Just Expansion)

Machines change predictably, but organizations evolve through learning, reinvention, and adaptation. Set the expectation that growth isn’t just about scaling output but about building adaptability and intelligence in the team.

• Ask: “What Are We Unlearning?” At the start of new initiatives, identify outdated processes or assumptions that no longer serve the team’s goals and intentionally let them go.
• Use “Future-Ready Thinking” in Meetings: Dedicate part of key discussions to exploring how upcoming trends (AI, remote work, industry shifts) could change the way your team operates.
• Measure growth differently: Move beyond traditional success metrics (efficiency, output) to also track improvements in adaptability, cross-functional learning, and decision-making speed.

🔑 Why It Works: Unlike machines, which become obsolete when they can’t keep up, continuously evolving organizations stay relevant and competitive in a changing world.

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“70% of design professionals say their biggest barrier isn’t executive buy-in — it’s middle management. Why?”

The Leadership Gap in Middle Management

Many design professionals believe that the C-suite influences them. The real battleground for the impact of design on business is middle management and senior IC roles. You are the ones shaping how Design is perceived, how it integrates into company goals, and how executives invest in it.

Yet, challenges persist:

• Executives focus on business outcomes, not design processes.
• Cross-functional peers often see design as a service, not a strategic function.
• Design teams may be craft-focused rather than business-oriented.

So, how do you elevate design maturity as a middle manager or senior IC in an organization where leaders think about revenue, not wireframes?

1. Move Beyond Design to Business Outcomes

One of the most significant challenges for design professionals in gaining executive buy-in is translating design impact into business terms. Many middle managers and senior ICs understand the value of great design. Still, without a clear financial case, leadership may see design as a “nice-to-have” rather than a core business driver. To change this perception, design professionals must go beyond usability improvements and demonstrate how their work directly influences revenue, reduces costs, and drives efficiency. Here’s how to make that shift.

Instead of saying:
🚫 “We need more researchers to improve usability.”

Say:
✅ “User friction in onboarding costs us $5M in lost conversions per year. A better experience can increase activation by 20%, leading to an estimated $2M in additional revenue.”

How to shift your mindset:

1️⃣ Tie design Work to Financial Metrics (Conversion, Support Costs, etc.)

Executives prioritize metrics directly impacting the bottom line — revenue growth, retention rates, and operational efficiency. If design leaders want to influence decision-making, they must frame their initiatives in these financial terms. Instead of advocating for better design purely from a usability perspective, they should connect design improvements to measurable outcomes.

For example, a better checkout experience isn’t just a smoother flow — it’s a way to reduce cart abandonment and increase completed transactions, leading to higher revenue. A redesigned onboarding experience isn’t just about aesthetics — it’s about increasing activation rates, reducing churn, and maximizing customer lifetime value (LTV). By thinking in these terms, design leaders can position their work as a key driver of business success, not just a design enhancement.

Middle managers play a critical role in connecting design efforts to business impact. By gathering data, running experiments, and demonstrating measurable improvements, they can bridge the gap between design and executive priorities. Whether improving conversion rates, reducing operational costs, or increasing engagement, design leaders must position their work as a strategic advantage, not just a user experience improvement.

2️⃣ Use Data Storytelling — Quantify Design Problems in Business Terms

Raw data alone won’t win leadership over — design professionals must translate user struggles into business terms. Instead of saying, “Users struggle with navigation,” reframe it as, “Because users can’t find key features, we’re losing an estimated $1.5M in potential revenue from abandoned transactions.”

A fintech company applied this approach when analyzing password reset failures. They discovered that 15% of users abandoned signup due to a broken reset flow. Rather than just requesting a fix, they quantified the impact: a 10% boost in activation rates, leading to $2.4M in additional revenue.

Design leaders that sse behavioral analytics, A/B testing, and user insights to frame design issues as business-critical. Pairing real user stories with quantifiable data ensures executives see design as an investment, not a cost.

3️⃣ Show How Design Can Reduce Costs (Fewer Support Tickets, Increased Efficiency)

While revenue growth is compelling, design also drives value by cutting operational costs. Poor design leads to more customer support calls, inefficient workflows, and higher employee turnover.

By improving self-service experiences, companies reduce reliance on costly support teams. Similarly, optimizing internal tools enhances productivity and minimizes frustration.

A grocery delivery company that I worked for had discovered that a significant number of support tickets came from shoppers frustrated with inaccurate item availability, leading to canceled orders and lost earnings. By improving real-time inventory tracking and integrating better substitution recommendations, shopper dissatisfaction dropped, cancellations decreased by 30%, and support costs were reduced by a significant amount annually.

As a middle manager I would urge you to identify friction points in both customer and employee experiences. Streamlining workflows improves satisfaction while delivering measurable cost savings, reinforcing design’s role in business success.

2. Position Design as a Business Partner, Not a Service

One of the biggest challenges design professionals face in organizations with low design maturity is that design is often seen as a tactical service rather than a strategic function. In these environments, design is treated as an execution layer — designers are given requirements and expected to produce screens without questioning the broader business context.

This leads to a reactive, rather than proactive, role for design and diminishes its influence within the company. As a middle manager or senior IC, your role is to change this perception by embedding design into business strategy, product planning, and decision-making. The goal is to move from “order taker” to strategic partner — a shift that requires proactive engagement, business fluency, and a cross-functional mindset.

Instead of saying:
🚫 “We need to be included earlier in the process so we can advocate for better user experiences.”

Say:
✅ “We’ve identified that friction in our dashboard leads to a 25% increase in support calls. If we optimize the workflow, we could reduce these calls by 40%, saving an estimated $1.5M in support costs annually.”

This shift in framing is crucial — executives and cross-functional leaders are more likely to prioritize Design when positioned as a function that impacts business outcomes rather than just advocating for user needs in isolation.

How to shift your mindset:

1️⃣ Get Invited to the Right Meetings

Many design professionals wait for an invitation to product, business, or engineering strategy discussions, but the reality is that these invitations often don’t come automatically. To gain influence, you need to insert yourself into these conversations. This means requesting to join roadmap planning, customer insights meetings, or product growth discussions. The earlier Design is involved, the more impact it can have — if design teams are only brought in at the execution stage, their ability to shape strategy is already lost.

One effective tactic is positioning Design as an insights function — by surfacing user behavior data, pain points, and opportunities, you become indispensable in strategic discussions. For instance, instead of waiting to be included in a product roadmap review, a Design leader could say, “We’ve identified three major friction points causing a drop-off in our key flows — can we set up a time to discuss how these insights can inform upcoming priorities?” Proactively bringing data-backed insights to the table ensures Design is seen as an essential contributor rather than a reactive function.

2️⃣ Speak Their Language

To establish design as a business partner, communicate in terms executives and product leaders prioritize — churn, retention, revenue, and efficiency. While usability and accessibility are important, they don’t always resonate at the leadership level.

For example, instead of saying, “Users find our dashboard confusing,” reframe it as, “Customer support tickets related to dashboard navigation have increased by 30% in the last quarter, costing an additional $500K. Improving usability could reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction.” This framing makes design impact clear and actionable.

Align design discussions with business priorities. If leadership is focused on reducing churn, show how design can improve onboarding and simplify workflows. Speaking their language ensures design is seen as a strategic driver, not just a tactical function.

3️⃣ Help Teams Win

Increase design influence by making cross-functional teams more effective. Show how design enhances engineering efficiency, boosts marketing conversions, and drives product adoption.

For example, introducing a design system can reduce engineering rework, while optimizing landing pages can improve marketing conversion rates. With product teams, design-backed insights refine feature development and prioritization. The more design is embedded in workflows, the harder it is to sideline.

Shift from fixing screens to solving business problems. Partner with data and product teams to identify key challenges and drive measurable impact.

3. Build Design Advocacy by Making Executives Your Allies

Design professionals make one of the biggest mistakes when seeking executive buy-in: waiting until they need a budget, headcount, or project approval before building relationships. By then, it’s often too late. Executives don’t invest in design because it’s the right thing to do; they invest because it aligns with their priorities — driving revenue, reducing costs, increasing efficiency, or staying competitive. If the design isn’t positioned as a strategic business function, it risks being deprioritized when budgets get tight or priorities shift.

Middle managers and senior ICs have the best opportunity to embed design into leadership conversations before it becomes a last-minute consideration. To do this effectively, you must build executive relationships early, frame design in business terms, and use compelling storytelling to make the impact of design tangible. Design doesn’t just improve experiences — it solves critical business challenges that leadership cares about.

Instead of saying:
🚫 “We need more design funding to improve usability.”

Say:
✅ “Our current onboarding experience is causing a 20% drop-off rate, leading to an estimated $4M in lost revenue annually. Investing in a streamlined design could increase activation rates and recover at least $1.5M annually.”

How to shift your mindset:

1️⃣ Find an Executive Champion

Not every executive instinctively values design, but the right champion can amplify its impact. Look for leaders who prioritize customer experience, efficiency, or innovation — whether it’s a CPO, CTO, or CMO. Align design goals with their priorities to gain visibility and resources.

One of my coaching clients at an enterprise software company noticed the Chief Customer Officer was focused on reducing churn. Instead of pitching a generic design initiative, they framed their work as a way to streamline key workflows, reducing user frustration and support escalations. This secured funding for an internal design research team.

I would urge you to Identify executives who champion customer experience or efficiency. Listen to leadership calls, find alignment with their goals, and position design as a business enabler, not just a creative function.

2️⃣ Share Quick Wins

Many design professionals try to advocate for large-scale redesigns or organizational change, but big asks often meet resistance — especially in companies with low design maturity. Instead of pushing for sweeping initiatives, start with small, measurable wins that demonstrate design’s business value.

The best quick wins are those that:
✅ Solve a clear business pain point (e.g., reducing drop-off, improving conversion).
✅ Require minimal investment (e.g., A/B test a high-traffic page, optimize a key workflow).
✅ Provide measurable results that can be shared with leadership.

Instead of asking for an expanded design research team, prove the value of research by running a small study that uncovers a usability issue costing the company money. Instead of advocating for a complete site redesign, conduct a simple checkout optimization experiment that increases conversion rates. You create momentum for more significant design investments by delivering early impact with minimal friction.

3️⃣ Use Storytelling to Make Design Memorable

Executives are bombarded with data, reports, and KPIs every day — but what they remember most are stories. Data alone won’t prioritize design, but a compelling user story and business impact can be transformative.

Advocate for design effectively and frame challenges and successes through customer pain points. Instead of showing a heatmap or usability report, tell the story of a frustrated customer who abandoned the product due to a confusing experience. Instead of sharing retention metrics, highlight a before-and-after scenario where design improvements led to a noticeable behavior change.

Pair qualitative insights with quantitative data to create a complete picture when possible. Executives might ignore a usability score, but they’ll pay attention if you say, “One customer told us they spent 40 minutes trying to complete this form. That’s why we’re seeing a 30% abandonment rate — fixing this could bring in an additional $5M annually.”

A design leader at a healthcare startup used session recordings of real users struggling to book an appointment to highlight a critical usability issue. When leadership saw firsthand frustration, they immediately prioritized a design-led redesign of the scheduling system, leading to a 20% increase in completed appointments.

Other things to consider:

Bridge the Gap Between Design and Cross-functional Teams

A design team is most substantial when embedded into product, engineering, and data workflows. To do this, you need to work like a cross-functional leader.

How to break silos:

• Join engineering and product discussions early. Don’t just present final designs — co-create solutions.
• Advocate for design in processes. Show how design research speeds up product decisions.
• Collaborate with data teams. Use A/B tests and analytics to prove the impact of design.

Scale Design Maturity Through Systems, Not Just Talent

If your company’s design practice isn’t mature, hiring more designers won’t solve the problem. Instead, focus on building scalable processes that enable design to thrive.

How to scale design maturity:

• Build a design system. It’s not just about consistency — it makes design more straightforward and faster across teams.
• Introduce frameworks. Teach PMs and engineers how to think about design. (e.g., Jobs to Be Done, design thinking).
• Develop self-service research. Empower non-designers with design insights they can use themselves.

Conclusion: How Middle Managers and Senior ICs Shape Design’s Future

Driving design maturity doesn’t require a VP title — it requires strategic influence.

✔️ Frame design as a business driver, not just a design function.
✔️ Position design as a cross-functional partner.
✔️ Get executive buy-in through small, high-impact wins.
✔️ Embed design into product and engineering workflows.
✔️ Scale design through systems and processes.

The future of design isn’t about seats at the table — it’s about driving business value and making design indispensable.

🚀 Your challenge: What’s one thing you can do this quarter to align design with your company’s strategic goals?

The Double Diamond: What It Is and Why It Was Created

The Double Diamond is a visual framework for problem-solving, introduced by the British Design Council in 2004 to help organizations approach design in a structured manner. It presents product and design work in two broad phases.

Diamond One — Understand the problem

1. Discovery (Divergent Thinking) — Expanding perspectives to explore the right problem.
2. Definition (Convergent Thinking) — Narrowing down to a clear problem statement.

Diamond Two — Designing the solution

1. Development (Divergent Thinking) — Exploring multiple potential solutions.
2. Delivery (Convergent Thinking) — Refine and implement the best solution.

The model was designed to bridge the gap between design and business thinking, offering a structured yet flexible approach to tackling complex challenges. It was created in response to a growing need for organizations to embed design methodologies into strategic decision-making, particularly in industries new to human-centered problem-solving.

The Double Diamond provides a framework for product organizations to ensure teams solve the correct problems, prioritize effectively, and execute with alignment. However, when applied rigidly, it can create silos, slow decision-making, and fail to integrate into fast-moving product cycles.

So, does the Double Diamond still hold value? Yes — but only if we stop treating it as a linear process and start using it as a strategic compass for product decision-making.

Beyond Process: The Double Diamond as a Strategic Product Framework

Many critiques of the Double Diamond come down to misuse rather than fundamental flaws. The real challenge isn’t the model itself but how teams misunderstand, misuse, or struggle to implement it within real-world constraints.

Here’s how we can reframe the Double Diamond to help organizations align, adapt, and prioritize effectively:

1. The Real Culprit: Misalignment, Not the Double Diamond

The biggest challenge for product teams isn’t the framework itself but the disconnect between business goals, user needs, and execution. Misalignment arises when teams have differing understandings of what problem they are solving, how it maps to business metrics, and how success should be measured. This issue manifests in multiple ways:

• Leadership demands certainty too early, making it difficult for product teams to explore and validate opportunities. When leaders expect well-defined solutions at the outset, it discourages the necessary divergence for innovation.
• Research insights are collected but not fully integrated into decision-making, causing teams to move forward based on assumptions rather than validated user needs. This often results in solutions that don’t address core problems effectively.
• The Double Diamond is treated as a rigid checklist rather than a flexible framework, leading teams to mechanically follow steps without adapting to business realities. This rigidity results in wasted effort, redundant deliverables, and a process disconnected from actual product roadmaps.

At its core, the Double Diamond is a tool for structuring conversations, not a rulebook for execution. Its value lies in creating alignment across product, design, and engineering rather than prescribing an exact way to work.

Why does this issue persist?

• Organizational silos: Different teams (product, design, marketing, engineering, leadership) operate on different timelines and goals, creating friction in decision-making.
• Business pressure: Delivering quickly often pushes teams toward execution-first mindsets, skipping critical exploration phases.
• Miscommunication: Teams lack a shared language for defining and revisiting success criteria as the project evolves.

How can teams address this? Instead of forcing teams to “follow” the Double Diamond, we should use it as a shared thinking model to build alignment and adaptability. Teams should:

• Shift from a “handoff” mindset to a “co-creation” mindset, ensuring the squad (business, product, UX, tech) is intertwined throughout the process.
• At the start of every initiative, hold problem-framing/shaping workshops, where stakeholders collectively define what needs to be solved, what success looks like, and how progress will be measured.
• Build in moments of reassessment, where teams pause to align on whether insights from research and development phases should reshape their approach.

Tip: Start every significant initiative with a problem-framing workshop where stakeholders co-create the boundaries of discovery and define how success will be measured. This ensures that research, design, and execution remain aligned throughout the process, preventing costly misalignment.

2. Navigating Trade-Offs: Balancing Business Goals, User Needs, and Tech Constraints

The hardest part of product development isn’t just divergence or convergence — it’s the constant negotiation between constraints, insights, and execution. This stage is where initial optimism meets reality, requiring teams to make trade-offs that balance business priorities, technological feasibility, and evolving user needs.

Many organizations fall into the trap of:

• Frontloading research but ignoring findings later when business pressures demand immediate execution.
• Skipping discovery entirely to jump to delivery leads to poorly framed problems and ineffective solutions.
• Treating constraints as immovable instead of negotiable, limiting innovation by accepting limitations as fixed rather than adaptable.

This phase of uncertainty requires teams to stay flexible and continuously adjust their approach. Instead of treating the Double Diamond as a one-time sequence, it should be viewed as a series of micro-cycles where teams revisit decisions and refine their approach dynamically.

Why is this phase so tricky?

• Cognitive overload: Teams juggle multiple inputs — user needs, stakeholder demands, and technical constraints — all at once.
• Risk aversion: Organizations often default to the safest, most familiar solutions instead of embracing measured experimentation.
• Time pressure: Tight deadlines push teams to “lock in” decisions too early, stifling opportunities for learning and iteration.

How can teams navigate this effectively?

• Create iterative check-ins: Build structured decision points into the process where teams review constraints, validate assumptions, and refine their approach.
• Use rapid prototyping to integrate learning: Instead of waiting until the end to validate solutions, teams should continuously test and adjust based on feedback.
• Treat constraints as flexible levers: Engage in negotiation early with leadership, engineering, and business teams to expand viable options.

This phase of uncertainty requires teams to stay flexible and continuously adjust their approach. Instead of treating the Double Diamond as a one-time sequence, it should be viewed as a series of micro-cycles where teams revisit decisions and refine their approach dynamically.

Tip: Encourage teams to pause and reassess at significant decision points. A simple yet powerful question — “What have we learned that should change our approach?” — can prevent teams from pushing forward with flawed assumptions, reducing the risk of wasted effort and costly rework.

3. Breaking the Handoff Mentality: Embedding Iteration in the Double Diamond

One of the biggest criticisms of the Double Diamond is that it reinforces handoffs — business, product, UX, and engineering, each working in isolation before “passing” work to the next phase.

A better approach is to embed research and iteration throughout rather than treating them as separate stages.

• Discovery should be continuous, not just a kickoff phase.
• Prototypes should be the shared output, reducing reliance on lengthy documentation.
• Design and development should collaborate early rather than waiting for a polished handoff.

Tip: Move from a “handoff mindset” to a shared accountability mindset by replacing static deliverables (e.g., long research reports, finalized wireframes) with working prototypes, live documentation, or decision logs.

4. Making the Double Diamond a Strategic Tool, Not Just a Process

Product, design, and engineering must collaborate closely on strategy for the Double Diamond to drive real impact. Success depends on linking business metrics to customer experience while ensuring solutions are technically feasible and scalable.

Too often, research insights and design recommendations are ignored, delayed, or deprioritized because they challenge existing assumptions. Instead of relying solely on the process, product teams should focus on strategic influence:

• Align stakeholders early — Identify decision-makers, blockers, and key influencers to ensure initial alignment.
• Translate user needs into business value — Frame recommendations regarding revenue impact, customer retention, and operational efficiency.
• Leverage storytelling — Present insights in compelling ways that resonate with leadership, making data-driven decisions more actionable.

Tip: If research insights challenge leadership’s assumptions, don’t just present findings — co-create solutions with decision-makers so they feel invested in the outcome.

Conclusion: Evolving the Double Diamond for Modern Teams

The Double Diamond remains a robust framework for product teams — not because it dictates steps, but because it provides a shared framework for thinking about problem-solving, prioritization, and execution.

By treating the Double Diamond as a strategic decision-making tool rather than a rigid process, product teams can:

• Align the correct problems before jumping to solutions.
• Integrate research insights continuously rather than as a one-time step.
• Create iterative feedback loops between business, design, and engineering.

When used flexibly, the Double Diamond becomes more than a design process — a product strategy framework that drives business growth, innovation, and customer-centricity.

At the start of this year, after a solid year in therapy (gold star for self-work!), I made small but meaningful changes to reclaim my authentic self. One of the most significant shifts was untangling my self-worth from my work identity. Somewhere along the way, I had absorbed the capitalist idea that productivity equals value, and I had been living by my to-do lists like they were sacred texts.

Every night, I’d plan my tasks for the next day. Every morning, I’d wake up and try to power through them. And yet, no matter how much I accomplished, I’d often end the day feeling like I hadn’t done enough. The unchecked boxes haunted me, whispering, “You could have done more.” (Rude.)

Then, I made a slight but transformative shift: I started keeping a done list. Instead of focusing on what was left undone, I documented what I had achieved — no matter how small. And because I can’t just casually start a new habit, I took it to the next level. I moved from a handwritten list to a Google Sheet, color-coded my emotions, and even paired my daily accomplishments with affirmations. (Yes, I am a nerd. No, I have no regrets.)

The idea first came from a book my colleague recommended: Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. (Thank you, Kelsey!) If you, too, are looking for a way to achieve more balance (and a little less existential dread) in your life, I highly recommend it.

What Is a Done List?

“If you can give up the impossible quest to pay off your productivity debt, and instead start thinking of each day as an opportunity to move a small-but-meaningful set of items over to your done list, you’ll find yourself making better choices about what to focus on.” — Oliver Burkeman

A done list is precisely what it sounds like — a record of what got done instead of a wishlist of what should have happened. It swaps out the pressure of a never-ending to-do list for a much-needed reality check: Hey, you did things today!

I still have plenty of commitments and priorities to juggle (because of life), but instead of measuring my worth by the things I didn’t get to, I now wrap up each day by looking at what I did accomplish. And let me tell you, it feels a lot better than staring at unchecked boxes and questioning my entire existence.

Why It Works

It Reframes Success

A to-do list is a pile of good intentions — an optimistic guess at what future-me might get done. But let’s be honest: life is messy. Priorities shift, fires pop up, and by noon, the thing that felt urgent in the morning might not even matter anymore.

Take parenting, for example. I might plan a wholesome, screen-free evening where we cook a Pinterest-worthy dinner together. But by 6 PM, work has drained me, my kid is negotiating for Chipotle (again), and my patience is only getting cooked. If my to-do list said, “Make a nutritious, homemade dinner,” I’d feel like I failed. But my done list? It says, “Fed child. Avoided meltdown. Kept everyone alive.” That’s a win.

The same applies to work and teaching. I may plan to deep-dive into strategy and craft a beautifully designed Figma deck, but instead, I spend the day in back-to-back meetings, helping a teammate problem-solve or handling unexpected fires. A done list shifts the focus from what didn’t happen to what did — and most of the time, what I accomplished was meaningful, even if it wasn’t what I originally planned. It trades perfection for ordinary moments that add to real progress together.

It’s a Reality Check

Ever ended a long, exhausting day and thought, Wait, what did I even do? Same. Literally every day. A done list helps me track where my time is going.

In teaching, for example, I might plan to get through an entire lecture, but then a discussion takes an unexpected turn, students start asking questions, and suddenly, we’re knee-deep in a debate about the ethics of AI. (I love it, but where did the time go?) Instead of feeling like I “fell behind,” my done list shows me what mattered: I fostered curiosity, guided meaningful engagement, and helped students connect ideas. That’s the real win. It’s helped me take the pressure off, shifting my focus from rigid plans to daily recognizing big and small accomplishments.

It Shifts the Narrative from “Not Enough” to “More Than Enough”

To-do lists have a sneaky way of making you feel like you’re constantly behind. There’s always more to add, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’ll finally “catch up” one day. (Spoiler: you won’t.)

But a done list flips the script. Instead of measuring my day by what I didn’t get to, it helps me see the story of what happened. In parenting, that might mean I didn’t organize my kid’s closet as planned, but I did help with homework, listened to a long-winded story about K-Pop, and remembered to send in the permission slip. Maybe I didn’t finish that big strategic deck in work, but I did progress on an outline, connect with the right stakeholders, and unblock a teammate.

Life unfolds in the messy middle — the space between the plan and the reality, where the real work (and absolute joy) happens. A done list helps me rewrite the story I tell myself at the end of the day, from “I didn’t do enough” to “I showed up, I moved things forward, and that’s more than enough.”

It’s a Confidence Boost

Some days, it feels like I’m just spinning my wheels — busy, yet unsure if I accomplished anything. But when I take a moment to write down even the most minor wins — getting my kid out the door with the lunchbox, helping a student reframe a problem, nudging a project forward by just one step — I can see that my effort wasn’t wasted.

A done list becomes a highlight reel, not just of progress but of presence. It’s proof that even in the chaos, I showed up, I made an impact, and things did move forward. And honestly, that feels way better than staring at unchecked boxes and letting them tell the wrong story about my day.

How to Start Your Done List

Keep it simple

Whether it’s a notebook, a sticky note, or a Google Sheet, keep your done list somewhere easy to access and update throughout the day. The key is consistency — make it a habit rather than an afterthought. If you want to take it further, try adding emotions or energy levels to spot patterns in your cycles. Are specific tasks draining while others leave you feeling energized? Noticing these trends can help you work smarter, not harder. I categorize my wins and pair them with affirmations — partly because I’m a data nerd, but mostly because I’m training myself to practice gratitude. But you do you! The best system is the one that works for you, so experiment until you find a format that feels effortless to maintain.

Include small wins

Productivity isn’t just about significant, flashy milestones — it’s built on the small, everyday actions that keep life moving. Did you finally schedule that workout after weeks of saying you would? That’s a win. Did you drink water consistently instead of realizing at 4 PM that you’ve only survived on caffeine? Huge progress. Did you take a break before hitting full burnout mode? That’s self-awareness in action. Even stepping away from your desk for five minutes instead of sitting for eight hours straight is a micro-act of self-care that deserves recognition. These seemingly small wins add up, reinforcing better habits, prioritizing well-being, and creating momentum for the bigger goals. A done list isn’t just about tracking accomplishments — it’s about acknowledging all the ways you showed up for yourself, no matter how small, because those moments keep everything else in motion.

Review weekly

A done list isn’t just a daily practice — it’s also a powerful tool for reflection. At the end of the week, take a moment to look back at everything you accomplished. Patterns will start to emerge: What types of tasks dominate your time? Are you spending too much energy on things that don’t align with your priorities? Where are your most significant wins happening? A weekly review can also help you identify gaps — maybe you’re giving too much time to admin work and not enough to creative thinking, or perhaps you need to set firmer boundaries to protect your focus. This small self-check-in transforms your done list from a simple log into a guide for making more intentional choices moving forward.

Pair it with gratitude

Getting caught in the mindset that work is just an endless series of tasks is easy, but a done list can help shift that perspective. Instead of focusing solely on output, use it to recognize moments of fulfillment — projects you enjoyed, people you helped, or unexpected wins. Did a conversation with a colleague spark a new idea? Did you take a risk that paid off? Did you do something that improved your day (or someone else’s)? By pairing your done list with gratitude, you’re not just tracking progress — you’re training yourself to see the value in the process, not just the result. Over time, this mindset shift can make work feel less like a grind and more like a space for meaningful contribution.

Final Thoughts

“Your mood is defined not by what you did but by what you thought about.”

— Ethan Kross

For years, I let my to-do list define my sense of accomplishment, measuring my days by unchecked boxes rather than the effort and intention behind them. But to-do lists were never meant to be the sole measure of productivity, and honestly, productivity itself is a relic of capitalism that shouldn’t dictate how we spend our time. The idea that our worth is tied to how much we produce daily is outdated at best and harmful at worst.

By shifting to a done list, I’ve reframed what matters — not just ticking off tasks but recognizing where my energy went, what I contributed, and how I showed up. It’s no longer about efficiency for the sake of output but about impact in a way that aligns with what I truly value.

I no longer ask, “What didn’t I get to?” Instead, I ask, “What did I move forward?” And that simple shift — from chasing productivity to acknowledging meaningful progress — has made all the difference.

Looking to optimize your life?
Here are some folks who have inspired me

• 📖 Ethan Kros Chatter
  The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It
• 📖 Teresa Amabile
  The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work
• 📖 Oliver Burkeman
  Meditations for Mortals

My first design manager Jean Cattell passed away earlier this week. She was the Director of Design at The Field Museum for many decades. As a young designer in the early 2000’s, it was great to be mentored by a strong, assertive woman who always had her team’s back. She fought fiercely to have time and resources to deliver quality exhibits and always made sure that we prioritized our lives outside of work even when we had crazy deadlines.

As I reflect on the loss of Jean, I wanted to share three key lessons I learned from her.

1. Providing autonomy fosters belonging.
2. Understanding contribution impact = High performance
3. Leaders set the tone for good behavior

Providing autonomy fosters belonging

In general, Jean installed a considerable sense of autonomy for everyone on the team, and she encouraged us to take ownership of our deliverables. She believed everyone should have an informed opinion. If we didn’t have one on a subject, she enabled us to ask questions, have conversations, do our research, and create a strong point of view.

Along with an informed opinion, Jean had great pride in working at The Field Museum. She always told us that it would be the best job any of us would ever have (which I admit it’s high up there). She constantly reminded us of our work's impact on people in Chicago and the sciences we served. If you caught her in an upbeat mood, she talked about the effects of our design and how it impacted natural history museums around the world.

Anytime we scoffed at creating what we thought were insignificant deliverables like an invitation for a gala or a wayfinding poster, she tirelessly reminded us of how it affected the overall mission and gently got us to look at the larger picture. For example, the invitation she would say would bring in donor checks that help keep the light in a department or an exhibit that is needed. Likewise, the wayfinding sign would help visitors orient themselves when they need something. She always took the time to listen to us complain and then helped us understand the impact of our contributions to the larger whole. Nothing was beneath her, and everything needed to be done so that it made her beam with pride.

She would walk around the museum, come back with things that did not meet her very high standards, and permit us to do the same. Taking pride in our work made us take ownership and made us feel like we belonged.

Given that we were deemed to be guardians of good design, we also never feared retribution for having a contrarian opinion and had many a lively debate on how to solve any problem, big or small. If there ever were times where we got carried away in a meeting, she would always have our backs.

Understanding contribution impact = High performance

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” — Andrew Carnegie

What Jean recognized is encapsulated very well in this Andrew Carnegie quote. She knew from her many years in managing exceptional teams that a one-size-fits-all approach didn’t work. So, instead, she met people where they were and invested a significant time understanding every individual she managed.

She told me the role of a leader was not to be friends with those who reported to her but instead to incentivize and motivate them to be their best selves every day. She set the bar high and believed that we had to strive to make things better no matter what we were doing.

She was unorthodox in her approach to management. We never had one-on-ones, and I had to manage my own workload, and if things got out of hand, it was my job to go to her. However, she did regularly invite me to try out all the Indian restaurants with her. She used this time to ask me about my life and probed into understanding what drove me to choose a career in design. She shared many stories of success and failures in her life in design and as a human being.

Whenever she encountered a movie about India or heard something in the news, she checked on me. She continued this even after I left my job at the museum. When my parents came to visit, she made the time to have lunch with them and glowed about what an incredible daughter they had raised, which she knew was important to them from my conversations with her.

She also used these meals to understand the impact I wanted to make in the world. I remembered telling her that I loved handicrafts, especially tapestry because they had such a sense of history. I might have mentioned this in passing, and before I knew it, I created banners for the great hall to create marked spaces for each tribe. She looked for opportunities to pair designers with the projects they loved, so they were excited about their work and brought their passion every single day.

Gestures like an occasional meal together made a world of difference to me early in my career. It made me believe that I was a valuable part of the team. Knowing that also powered how I saw the work I was given. It did not matter how small it was. The only thing that mattered was that I had a manager who took the time to help me understand how my contributions affected the greater good, and that’s all I needed.

Leaders set the tone for good behavior.

When we focus on our strengths and lean into the strengths of others, we can make the impossible possible. — Simon Sinek

Jean wouldn’t tolerate laziness, but she was incredibly gracious. When something wasn’t working, she would pull you into a private conversation and ask for your point of view to understand where you were coming from. Then, if change were necessary, she would ask you to come back with a different solution based on what needed to happen. She took the time to be transparent about why something was being asked.

I don’t remember ever being embarrassed or afraid that I was doing a terrible job. She also taught me that every point of view was valid, and so as a leader, she often spoke last (or maybe it felt that way). She also made room for everyone and never indulged in gossip.

When we encountered difficult stakeholders, we knowingly rolled our eyes at each other, but we never roasted anyone or their contributions.

Jean was also incredibly generous about her compliments. For instance, she always told me that my sense of color was like musicians having perfect pitch! Her constant repetition of it became a joke between my husband and me. To this day, one of us has to choose a color we bring up Jean’s edict and knows who gets the final word. She had a nugget like this about everyone on the team, and they came up every time you encountered her, and she was talking about solving a particular design challenge.

On one of my dinners with her, I asked her why she did it she told me that it was her secret sauce. If everyone knew what the other was good at, they would learn to lean on each other when they needed help. To this day, when I am stuck in a design problem, I know who to call for perspective based on what I had heard for so many years from Jean.

Whenever possible, Jean found ways to have us rely on each other, and she always elevated the conversations around her. I never really understood so much of the invisible thinking that went into creating a successful design team, but now, I can see how amazing she was. There was no room for negativity or any toxic behavior on her team, and if she caught you complaining, she sat you down and set you straight.

Great teams are a work of art, and only great leaders can orchestrate beautiful symphonies. Unfortunately for us, Jean is no longer here, but her contribution to the Chicago design community will live on for many decades to come. She will be missed, and those of us who knew her will cherish her big personality for the decades we are still around.

Life doesn’t always allow you to celebrate the people that changed your narrative. In this regard, I feel lucky that I was able to acknowledge what a pivotal role she had played in my life to her, and I got to thank her for it before she passed.

She made a great impact on me as an impressionable young designer, but if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have met the love of my life. We wouldn’t be raising a tenacious young woman who we hope can take on the world much as Jean did when she was with us.

Thank you for making the space for other humans to thrive. Rest in peace, my dear friend and mentor. I miss you terribly!