Leading with…Aladrian Goods

We spoke to Aladrian Goods – senior content designer at Intuit – about her content role models, and what excites her about the future of content design

Firstly, can you tell me a bit about your path to leadership?

I’ll let you in on a little secret, I’m still on my path to leadership. I don’t have a fancy leadership title; however, I do believe you can lead from anywhere. Often we think that leadership comes from the person with the shiny title or the longest tenure, but I have learned in my career that leadership starts right where you are. I began my career in content design in August 2019 as the first in-product writer for Intuit’s professional accounting products. When you’re the first and only, you have no choice but to lead.

I was thrust into this world of speaking about content design by a mentor and friend, Michael Haggerty-Villa, who recommended I coordinate and speak on a panel about representation, self-care, and content. This gave me access to so many new folks in the industry and really showed me that my understanding is on par and my voice is valued in the space.

The path is still evolving and revealing itself. Stay tuned.

What was the biggest shock for you when you moved from IC (individual contributor) to leadership?

Although I’m still in an IC role, I’ve been exploring the potential paths ahead and one thing that surprises me about leadership is the number of meetings they sit in that have nothing to do with content design. For example, managers have weekly 1:1s with each of their team members, they attend planning meetings for resourcing and assigning work, and so many other things outside of writing.

Who do you look up to or admire in content/design leadership?

Wow, this is such a great question and I could write an entire post on this section alone. There are so many great folks I admire in this industry and have had the chance to connect with over the last year and these are some of my go-to people.

Jordan Craig and Candi Williams are my girls! Seeing them speak, lead, and represent Black women in content design so unapologetically and passionately has given me real life examples of what’s possible. They also lead all-star content teams at top companies that are solving very important problems for the millions of people who use the products they design.

My boy Jonathan McFadden is a rising leader in this space too. He is an altruistic leader, an advocate for women and people of color, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be collaborating on something real soon.

I have to give a shout out to my Intuit content family too! Sarah Mohs and Tina O’Shea are incredible leaders who I’m lucky to learn from them daily.

Sarah manages our Content Style Guide site and leads our Content Style Council (among other things). She is constantly pushing the boundaries of what it means to be an ally and how we integrate it into our work. I love her commitment to scaling the anti-racist content guidelines, bringing the Content Strategy Bootcamp to our internal teams, and socializing the value of content design inside and outside of the company.

Tina is our fearless leader. She is so intentional about creating a culture of collaboration at Intuit and setting the table for content rather than begging for a seat at everyone else’s. Her ability to cultivate this culture of collaboration allows our content teams to seek opportunities to learn from each other, solve complex problems, and have a good time doing it.

I am genuinely inspired by so many folks in the content community. We’re a special bunch.

What advice do you have for new leaders?

Start with where you are with the people you have.

Seek to understand and strive to solve.

Build bridges, don’t burn them.

Create more opportunities than you ask for.

What superpower do you have that helps you most in your work?

My superpower is connection. My ability to build meaningful relationships quickly and connect the dots has helped me most in my work. Understanding who does what, who knows what, and who may know who can help has allowed me to get questions answered with velocity, get unstuck, and avoid doing duplicate work.

What excites you most about the future of content design?

I’m mostly excited about the new folks entering the scene and making an impact. It was less than 5 years ago when I learned about this discipline and now I see content design internships, junior roles, and an expansion of titles at top organizations. I think there is such a great opportunity for designers and writers of various backgrounds to break into this field.

From a tech perspective, I’m super curious to see how AI/ML work together to expand how we craft personalized and impactful experiences for the folks using the products we create. I know some folks may be nervous about tech “stealing our jobs” but I think diverse content designers are essential to creating the content that fuels these AI/ML models and once we do, it will free us up to focus on solving greater problems using content.

What would you tell your younger self knowing what you know now about your career?

Lean into your strengths and collaborate with folks whose strengths are your opportunities. Early in my career I was pretty insecure about not being strong in all the details, data, and even tech processes. What I have come to realize is that all these things can be learned on the job and the people who are good at them can be the best teachers.

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