Design Leaders: Mind the Language Gap!

maritoruiz
Nov 7 · 5 min read

On June 19–20th, 2019 design and innovation leaders from different teams across Salesforce attended the Leading Design Conference in Williamsburg, NYC. Leading Design brings together a group of diverse speakers to reflect on the design leadership challenges and changes we face as our practice evolves.

I will use the term “design” broadly. At Salesforce, we leverage design not only to create an amazing product and marketing experience for our customers, but also to help our customers (and internally within Salesforce on my team!) create a design-led vision for business transformation. As leaders of these organizations, we all face shared and unique challenges on our journey to become more design-led.

Sketches by the talented PJ Macklin

In the past 10–15 years, design has changed so much — especially with the pace of change that technology brings. We have seen design come in-house through acquisitions from major companies — with the intent of bringing in more of the culture and the mindset of creative teams, not just their design chops. When you consider scaling this within the enterprise space, it begs us to re-evaluate the role design leadership plays to impact culture, business strategy and new ways of working.

At enterprise scale, the opportunity is substantial: good design is just good business. An organization that culturally embraces and practices human-centered design can impact so many people — employees, partners, and customers; it can reduce risk and cost; it can create more engaged employees; and create organizational capabilities that respond faster to change. If you need real data, IBM just conducted a recent study with Forrester to quantify the impact of their Design Thinking practice.

As we expand design or design-based methods and practices out beyond our design teams, this introduces new leadership implications. There are new types of stakeholders with whom we need to build shared language and value: executives and leaders, partners who work hand in hand with our design teams, and new skills for our own design practitioners.

Given these topics, these were some of my takeaways from the Leading Design conference.

#1 Crafting shared language

The first: to scale design we need to get off our “design island”. Aaron Walter, from InVision, really pushed us to adapt to new languages (i.e., engineering, marketing, analytics, etc.) and the idea that our collective native tongue is one of business. When the value and benefit of design (not the activity) align with more of your stakeholders’ motivation to create new value, the impact of design scales. They begin to understand and get excited about what (of design) is in it for them! Crafting shared language influences this. More broadly, this is a model for design maturity: as design dips deeper into business it addresses not only products and services, but strategy and culture.

Sketchnotes of Aaron’s talk by PJ Macklin

With her philosophic lens, Amélie Lamont spoke about bias and cultural schemas that we bring into the language of design — these can create “in” and “out” groups. She reminded us that design isn’t neutral, it isn’t apolitical and asked everyone in the room to consider what we lose when we don’t integrate. Even our design education brings in cultural schemas that might leave out other cultures: what is “good” design in one culture may be very different in another.

As business become more global, it raises important questions. What risk do we take on by ignoring other cultures’ notions of good design rather than embracing? How might we be more inclusive and design for a broader range of people in different markets? I don’t have specific answers, but now I’m really curious to learn more.

The focus on language resonated with me for the simple fact that, in my own world, we are developing shared creative language and behaviors across teams like engineering, architecture, product management, change management, etc., to collaborate more effectively and integrate design methods into those practices. And if we remain exclusive with our design language, we leave a lot on the table. Translation becomes more necessary to articulate what, for example, “research” might mean to an engineering team. Or “prototyping” and “making“ to change management.

#2 Focus on human-centered decisions

My second takeaway is the talk by Kim Goodwin on “Bring Back Human-Centered”. Decisions, she says, ultimately make up the user experience. She noted, they’re not all well-designed, though. There are some failures of Amazon’s hiring AI weeding out women as an example that “the software we shape is shaping us.” Good decisions, she states, require “diverse deciders…and diversity is core to being human-centered”. (+1 for more diverse thinking to make our products and services more inclusive!)

Sketchnotes of Kim’s talk by PJ Macklin

#3 Sponsor vs. Mentor

My final, and likely most important, takeaway is the talk from farai madzima on being ‘The Only One of Your Kind in the Room’ reiterating the importance of how diversity opens up the frame of future possibilities…and, how, as leaders, we can influence and take action. Farai mentioned diversity and inclusion is every job and included a call to create a “new normal” and get away from building homogenous teams.

He also reinforced an idea from Laura Hogan that “marginalized people are over-mentored and under-sponsored.” If you’re curious about what sponsorship looks like, peek here. As leaders, and to leverage privilege for good, what marginalized groups in tech really need is “opportunity and visibility, not advice.” This completely reframed my notion of the type of action I’m taking with my own team and how I can help create more visibility for them.

Sketchnotes by PJ Macklin

It’s not surprising these were more about human systems and less on the craft of design. I was excited to see more conversation around diversity and inclusion, under-represented minorities, and career journeys — all of which are important to grow and build design competency in equitable ways. We’ve come a long way with design, but we still have a way to go to scale design with purpose and equity!

And…we also had time to connect as a team, which was ultimately the best part!

Salesforce Experience team dinner in Williamsburg. Thanks, Justine, for organizing! (Pictured L-R: Nikhil de Silva, Justin McLoughlin (Ignite), Adam Doti (Product UX), Jono Ferrer (Ignite), Mario Ruiz (Business Technology), Laura Gilcrest (Office of Innovation), Melissa Regan, PJ Macklin (Ignite), Andrew Afram (Experience Design), Megan Solecki (Office of Innovation), Teddy Zmrhal (Ignite)
Conference wrap with the team at the Hoxton Hotel rooftop. The sun finally came out! (Pictured L-R: Adam Doti (Product UX), Justin McLoughlin (Ignite), Jono Ferrer (Ignite), Mario Ruiz maritoruiz (Business Technology),PJ Macklin (Ignite)

maritoruiz

Written by

Practice Director, Business Technology Innovation @ Salesforce

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade