Leading with…Rebecca Hales
Rebecca Hales, head of content design at Workplace, shares her path to leadership and explains why we all need to find our ‘voltron’.
Firstly, can you tell me a bit about your path to leadership?
I started on the path to leadership out of necessity. After a year working flat out taking a major project from alpha to beta to live, I looked at the opportunities to iterate and improve on efforts so far and thought ‘Oh shit, there’s no way I can take advantage of these all on my own’.
Thankfully, my boss at the time, director of digital engagement and communications at the Government Digital Service (GDS), Wendy Coello, was fantastic. From early in our relationship she’d encouraged me to be open about problems and be bold with solutions. So when I proposed growing a team and hiring my first line report, she gave her backing right away. And I don’t just mean in terms of budget and sign-off, but guidance towards resources for new managers and access to a network of design leads across GDS that I could learn from.
So my path started with the very practical realisation that I couldn’t do it all on my own. But management and leadership are two very different things. Management is about prioritising work and delivering effectively through others to get stuff done. Leadership is about being clear on the destination and creating support frameworks that allow for people to have autonomy in getting there.
Like an idiot, I’d hired with a short term management mindset (I wanted to unblock more work with more headcount). But my brilliant new starter needed the support of someone with a long term leadership mindset (they wanted to do well in their role, having impact now and developing in future).
My pivot to the path of genuine leadership started right then: during my first 1:1 with my first ever line report when I realised that leading is about empathy not administration and what a privilege it is to give folks the things they need to do well and then get out of their way. Just like Wendy had done for me.
What was the biggest shock for you when you moved from IC (individual contributor) to leadership?
How much you still need other people. As an IC I’d always perceived senior leaders as islands. Yes, I’d see them work collaboratively with other members of the leadership team on strategy and product problems but it seemed that ultimately they stood on their own, confident and assertive in all ways.
What you don’t see is the support network behind every leader. Lara Hogan calls it the ‘Manager Voltron’ in her book Resilient Management. As a leader, you need someone to give you honest feedback, help you navigate tricky politics, provide a neutral sounding board etc. It was a shock to me how important building and maintaining that network (or ‘voltron’) is: it turns out it’s very rare to find a (good) leader who is an island.
What excites you most about the future of content design?
I’m trying to wrap my head around what augmented and virtual realities mean for content design. It’s a whole new world of interactions and experiences. Whatever those might look like across as yet unknown technologies, content designers will still need to make sure companies and organisations put people and their needs first.
Lots of what we consider content design good practice still comes from the world of print and writing for the web. It’s really exciting to think about what we might take from that and what we might leave behind as we try to help people navigate interactive spaces. I’m excited to learn from video game writers, screenwriters, immersive theatre production companies about non-linear content experiences and how user needs and business expectations might be met in AR/VR.
Have you read any great books lately that have helped you in your work?
David Dylan Thomas’s Design for Cognitive Bias is a super read for a post-lockdown world. The last two years have left everyone exhausted and Design for Cognitive Bias talks about how 95% of cognition happens below the threshold of conscious thought. Our users are busy and tired: they’re on autopilot. So it’s got me thinking about how to design to avoid harm from bias, adding ‘helpful friction’ using content design and building trust by encouraging people to slow down.
Can you tell us any funny stories from your content days in parliament?
I was responsible for the UK Parliament’s first use of an emoji in official communications. At the time this felt like a huge content decision.
My content team were working to develop a set of tonal values underpinning content on a new website for Parliament (active and friendly, straightforward, inclusive) and we saw our owned social media channels as a space to experiment with that and get quick feedback. Using a single, widely recognised emoji with alt-text alongside text in an Instagram caption to add depth of feeling should have been non-controversial. But the list of people who needed to be consulted or informed on this decision was as long as your arm. It included the communications directors for the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as the leaders of both Houses. It took eight full weeks to socialise ‘the emoji strategy’ around the necessary stakeholders and get the right approvals.
The emoji in question? A rainbow 🌈 .
Rebecca will be speaking at Lead with Tempo in March. Tickets are on sale now.
