A few weeks ago I was promoted to Director within our Design team1 — a surprise for which I’m truly grateful 🥲 🙏🏽 Admittedly, it is not a role/title that I campaigned or negotiated for. I’ve been so intensely focused on leading a massive, complex re-design involving multiple teams (pods) across the company, getting it to a customer-satisfying conclusion within very tight deadlines. 😅 I plan to share more about that soon… Meanwhile, it’s truly uplifting to see my efforts recognized and validated, as I stand on the shoulders of my direct team and cross-functional peers for their generous support and incredible work — they deserve huge credit! 🙌🏽
I often joke that my job as manager involved mostly sending Slack messages, setting up meetings, and adding Figma comments — but I do “roll up my sleeves” a few times! 😉
Also, it might shock you to know that in 22+ years of working in this field, I’ve never been promoted in a job before — this is actually my first time! There’s a simple explanation: a) my early years in design involved many short stints with periods of consulting and b) my later years saw me hired into the senior-most roles like Principal or Architect, so there was no promotion path anyway. 😇
So what does this particular promotion mean for me and my job? As I’ve once described, being a manager in a rapid growth-stage startup compels me to apply the “three halves model” — serving as a people manager, project manager, and design principal. As director I see myself evolving that with a key element of domain-level business value, shaping & leading culture, vision, strategy through design, perhaps even across domains via cross-functional initiatives, as appropriate. 🤔
A few other points of self-reflection:
I realize in some organizations, having a particular title unlocks access to certain “tables” or “rooms”, with conferral of respect, as well as authority — something I’ll be looking out for. 🗝️🚪👀
Accordingly, I anticipate greater self-awareness of my presence and voice in certain settings. I mean, have I become the HIPPO now?! 😅 Hopefully not, but I aim to be extra mindful of not curtailing open debate or critical questions/feedback. My standard posture is to listen first, then offer opinion after others have spoken, which I intend to continue.
I’ll be learning to flex any and all new “director powers” for those best moments that benefit my team. 💪🏽💥 Especially applying them towards raising the visibility of other individuals and their ideas/contributions. And of course, I’ll continue to foster a servant leadership philosophy.
Lastly, I see this elevated role as part of my ongoing journey of applying theories of “meta-design”, shaping organizational conditions to enable good design to thrive, not just in terms of tangible products, but also influencing the quality of thought, mindsets of people, diversity of methods, etc. 🌟
Time will tell…watch this space for updates!
For context, our current design team consists of multiple managers overseeing domains of designers, and we roll up to the Head of Design.
Congratulations!
I can not imagining a more deserving person. Congratulations to you, Uday.