I’m Andi, and I’ve learned to seek out and enjoy discomfort as a designer. It’s a clear signal that I’m pushing the envelope and growing my creative muscles.

As makers, managers and founders, we are ever wooed by complacency — complacency in what feels immediately rewarding to work on; complacency in relying on aging best practices to guide our actions.

Yet it’s critical that we be uncomfortable. When making digital products, we need to aggressively manage resources, time and risk. Yet the pull is always there to go with what’s easy and gratifying rather than what’s important and valuable.

When you challenge the process or the expectations for your role, it creates discomfort. You can learn much from how your team reacts to that. What follows are just a few of the uncomfortable perceptions I’ve had to navigate as a creative who challenges such things.

The Princess

When you push back on designing the brand mark for that two-week-old startup, you may be perceived as a princess (or prince) for not iterating the hell out of logos. Of course, you’re challenging the role of ‘Design’ in the context of a startup.

It’s crazy-gratifying for founders to revel in their visual mark, like trying on clothes and imagining oneself at the big party. But it’s much better to simply use a placeholder and move on to higher risk problems.

New to the Rodeo

When you push back on big upfront processes, you may be seen as new to the rodeo. In reality big process merely allows all parties to hide behind the armor of doing things ‘the right way.’

For instance, generating a large research doc can put clients at ease to spend more money, but it doesn’t reduce their financial risk in any real way. Better to get something in front of people to identify real risks, then work with those. That can range from a rough UX prototype, to a high fidelity dry test on vibe and value proposition.

Questionable Standards

When you design 5 approaches fast to put it in front of people — something that’s good enough but decidedly not perfect — some may infer you lack refined standards.

In reality, it’s much better to design at the appropriate fidelity quickly, and introduce it to real people. For most B2C products, this means a high-level of fidelity for a thin layer of the experience. It’s a waste to go deeper on the experience too soon.

Not a “True” Creative

As a Creative Director, when you pair with engineers and develop an understanding of what’s under the hood, you may be seen as not a true creative. The old guard may not welcome your involvement in that aspect of the work. Some teams may even have a Product Owner who fancies himself the gatekeeper of communication between developers and the rest of the world. Of course it’s better for teams to work together from a shared vision. This goes the other way too…

Weak Instinct

If you welcome others’ participation in the concept and vision, some might suspect you have a weak instinct for the design. Why else would you bring in the unqualified masses?

There has been far too much ivory tower nonsense in the design world (tweet it). In reality, the more ideas that are on the table, the better the outcome. Again, it’s far better for the whole team to have skin in the game and to work towards that shared vision.

To do serious work and not waste time, money or good will, you will bump against these moments of discomfort and disruption. The trick is how you and the team deal with these moments. After a bit, it will become clear if the culture can bend enough to bear the necessary discomforts. And culture is everything. Don’t be afraid to move on if that culture won’t support the work. You will find one that does.

Special thanks to contributors Mike Mazur and Adam Hyde