Nice Work: What if it's not our job to convince people to change?

Hey there,

A couple months back, I wrote a LinkedIn post that went a little wild. It was about the ways that I often see organizations convincing designers, researchers, and content folks that their lack of organizational power is a personal failing—that if they were just better at building influence or “managing up,” they wouldn’t have problems being heard or getting buy-in for user-centered work.

I’ve been thinking about this topic ever since—because it seems like every day, I hear a new story like this:

• A big-name leader tells their community that the reason UX researchers are getting laid off is that they haven’t made the case for themselves well enough.

• A design director tells a content design manager they can’t hire anyone until the existing team “demonstrates value”—while also demanding that each content designer on the team spread themselves across half a dozen or more product areas.

• A product designer is told that their skills are never enough—that in addition to visual design and UX skills, they now also need to do their own research. And build a design ops practice. And be fluent in data. And drive business strategy. And if they don’t enjoy or excel at all those things, they’re not worthy.

Friends, this is gaslighting. It recasts structural dysfunction as a personal failing, and tells people that if they can’t handle the challenge, it’s because they’re not resilient or competent or committed enough.

In other words, it makes you the problem.

And so often, it compels people in “underdog” functions in their organizations to just keep doing more: to run around and make more people happy, to build more decks to educate stakeholders and partners, to invest more time in holding office hours. It backs people into a corner and makes them reactive: always ready to defend their practice and justify their existence. Always ready to fight. (In fact, that word—fight—was used dozens of times in the content design survey data I’ve been analyzing the past few weeks.)

This is not sustainable. Living on defense—hackles up, seeing colleagues as enemies—is exhausting. It burns us out and makes us cynical.

And here’s the kicker: it doesn’t even work.

Erika Hall recently touched on one of the reasons why: the problem is often in the business model, not the people.  

But even in an organization with a realistic business model, attempts to “prove value” tend to result in heartache, not change. Because when we believe it’s our responsibility to convince people to care about design, we easily wind up pleading our case and begging for resources. This keeps us positioned as “nice to have,” not necessary.

And when an understaffed team stretches itself thin to “maximize its value” across an organization, it can only do shallow work. This teaches the organization that that’s the “value” the team can provide: surface-level work. Triage. Little fixes. And the deeper value of research, content, or design remains unrealized.

None of this protects teams from layoffs or shifts the power structure.

So…what if we just stopped?

• What if we let go of the responsibility to convince people to change, and instead made it our goal to simply share what we know in our bones to be true as powerfully as possible?

• What if we allowed the organization to feel the pain of its underinvestment in our practices—instead of us taking on that pain by overworking?

• What if we chose to focus on building relationships—on seeing our partners and stakeholders as humans with their own needs and pain points, not barriers or opponents?

• What if we took all that time we’re spending defending and justifying and fighting and proving—and reinvested it in something that brought us joy?

Will this magically give us a seat at the table? Probably not. But it will allow us to reclaim our humanity. It will make us feel more connected, more at ease. Less focused on second-guessing and watering down our perspectives. We’ll feel more like ourselves. And I believe that’s where we’re most powerful anyway.

— Sara

Upcoming workshops

Leading Content without Losing Yourself

July 13 from 12-2:30pm ET 

It’s been a hard year for content teams—from layoffs and reorgs to demands to “prove your value” and “do more with less.” Learn to find new calm and focus—for yourself and your team—in this workshop.

Create Your Leadership Canvas

Two-part session—meets August 8 and 10 from 12-2pm ET 

Uncover your leadership values, gain confidence in your strengths, and establish the growth areas that are most meaningful to you right now. Leave with a complete personal leadership canvas you can use for both day-to-day decisions and big-picture career planning.

EPISODE 6

My manager is MIA—help!

How to speak up when your manager checks out, your boss has a bad idea, or you’re scared of getting “mom zoned.”

On the reading list

📖 Why I quit my job at Google to work in local government
“We’re starting from ‘people need housing,’ not ‘this technology is cool, how can we use it.’” I know lots of people who’ve thought about leaving big tech, but are scared of what’s on the other side. Lauren Jong did it—and six years later, she’s more than happy with the tradeoffs she’s made. 

🎧 Navigating the content design interview
I have been loving the Content Design with Friends podcast lately. This episode—featuring Laura Lopez, Rosie Olaivar, Camila Pechous, Laura Costantino, and Susanna Agababyan—is a super-helpful look at all the pieces of the content design interview process. 

🎧 Revision Path Episode 508: David Dylan Thomas
“You do not need to be afraid of ChatGPT, you need to be afraid of shareholders.” Our friend David Dylan Thomas talks to Maurice Cherry of Revision Path about rethinking our relationship to our companies—and to capitalism. 

📖 Off the Clock
“The thing about earth-shattering events is that they have a way of shattering professional rules too, making old assumptions about labor seem less relevant, or at least less rigid.” This review of two new books—The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life From Work and All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive—makes me want to read both books.

📖 Please Take Your PTO
Please, just do it. If that feels daunting, this article—featuring fellow coach Jen Dary, who we love!—has some great advice for making that feel more possible.