Acumen Leadership Workshop: What the heck is my North Star
This is the second entry in my leadership journal for Seth Godin’s Leadership Workshop on Udemy. Read the previous post on this here.
In this lesson, Mr. Godin talks about why leadership is difficult. He argues that leadership is hard because it might not work. To be a great leader, we need to know what our end goal is. We have to understand that maybe we don’t know how to get there, but where is “there”? What does it look like on the other side? Knowing these, he says, allows us to tell our story to other people who can join and help shape our journey.
My North Star has always been to become a catalyst for great design and strategy, perpetually framed to help solve the user’s problems. This is something that I’ve always believed in and it’s something that I don’t think will ever change.
Prompt Questions
What about your leadership journey might not work?
Although Human Centred Design is becoming more and more popular over the years, it’s still not something that is in the forefront of every project. I’ve spoken to people who say their company is focused on formulating strategy from extensive user research accompanied by both qualitative and quantitative data, and yet when push comes to shove, user research is something that they don’t feel the need to invest in. I think that there is still a lack of understanding in the value of taking the time to solve problems through a lens of learning, of recognizing that we are here to serve real people, not perfect personas. That buy-in from external stakeholders can be sometimes challenging.
I’m the type of designer who loves doing extensive research. I just completely nerd out on it. The discovery process takes time but I’m always anxious to test and iterate as quickly as possible. My worry is that user research is still not a priority. It’s usually the “dispensable” part of the process. But little do they know, this is the most important part because it informs us of what the problem actually is.
Does describing the chasm in front of you make it more likely that you’ll fall into it?
Absolutely not. The more I talk about it, the more I will be able to share my journey and meet people along the way who care about putting forth great design for users as much as I do. For the past few months, I’ve been active in facilitating and conducting more workshops. I believe that by doing this, over time, design strategy will become synonymous to business strategy.
Let’s be honest, how can we go wrong with intentional design thinking and meticulous experience? I think there’s beauty in always questioning the process. Ask why, why, why. As a designer, you have absolutely nothing to lose. Remember to keep fighting for the user. It truly does matter.
How about you? What’s your North Star? What scares you about it? I’d love to know. What keeps you up at night?
