An interview with Audrey Liu
A product design leader, Audrey has experience building and scaling design teams from the ground up, pivoting design and product strategies to deliver more value for users, helping Fortune 100 companies (including Starbucks, IBM, and Deloitte) bring their ideas to life in both physical and digital form as interactive experiences.
In her current role as a VP of Design at Lyft, Audrey leads the design teams responsible for the core user experiences across rider, driver, and enterprise offerings.
What has 2020 taught you about design leadership?
Audrey: 2020 was a year unlike any other — full of unexpected hardships all piling up at the same time. As a result, it also was a year choc-full-of leadership lessons — like 5 years packed into 1.
Resilience, perseverance, decisiveness…but most of all, it taught me the importance of leading with vulnerability. Everyone struggled with the pressures of last year. I know I did and I found that in the hardest moments, the best way to show up was with 100% humanity. It was important to not hide the fact that things were hard to process, or emotional, or that I was exhausted from juggling work, kids, and the news of the world. By opening up as a leader, you let your team know that it’s OK to not be OK right now. You help them feel less alone at a time when we are all so isolated. By calling things out and giving space to recognizing a tough moment, you have a much better chance of moving forward as a team, together.
Congratulations on your new role. Do you have any tips on heading up design teams remotely?
Audrey: Thank you! It was such a wild year with many low points, but having the opportunity to lead this amazing design team at Lyft is one of the brightest highlights of 2020 for me.
When it comes to leading design teams remotely, there are a few tips that come to mind:
- Over-communicate: I think we all learned quickly how important it is to over-communicate when you no longer have the benefit of casual in-person conversations. Information (your priorities, tasks that need attention, deadlines, etc) needs to be communicated over multiple channels and frequently. Even consider things like your calendar and how you can use time blocks to let people know that you’re blocking time, because you have a parent/teacher meeting.
- Make time for your team: From office hours to virtual happy hours, make sure to carve out time with your team that helps you stay connected to them in different ways. Check-in with people frequently. A simple gesture goes a long way when you’re remote.
- Walking 1:1s: I’m a big proponent for walking 1:1s, but that became really tough last year and I quickly found myself locked to my desk and my computer for 8 hours a day. When appropriate, I like to take my 1:1s as phone calls, so that I can get out and stretch my legs. I find it helps raise my energy level and increase my engagement after a day full of meetings.
How can leaders pave the way for people from all types of backgrounds to realise their leadership potential?
- Create clear expectations for each role and level of your organization.
- Show different models of success. There is no single path or outcome.
What advice would you give if you were to write a letter to yourself 15 years ago?
Audrey: I would tell myself to take more chances — to not wait until I was 100% ready for a role before taking it and to unabashedly chase big ideas. I would tell myself to stop trying to lead like others and to spend more time learning to lead like myself. Finally, I’d add a PS that not all free snacks are snacks I need to eat and advise myself to buy bitcoin.
You’ve spoken in the past about growing design teams. What do you think is the secret to attracting and retaining talent?
Audrey: I don’t think it’s a secret, but I think that it comes down to two things: 1) having a clear mission and an aspirational vision and connecting the work back to both often, and 2) creating a culture built on trust.
People need to know what cause they’re signing up for and once they’ve signed up for it, they need to be reminded of why they’re doing the work that they’re doing and how their work adds up to something larger, something with impact beyond a single product feature or flow. Day-to-day, it can be all too easy to get lost in the details of conversion rates or quarterly goals, so as leaders one of our key roles is to help teams see the forest through the trees. Find ways to bring the mission and vision to life in ways that reconnect them to the “why” of their work. Bring users in to talk to the team, highlight their stories, make their impact tangible.
Like any relationships, a team lacking trust is a brittle one, destined to crumble. As a leader, you have to ensure that you’re leading with transparency and that what you say and what you do are one and the same. Have open and hard conversations, admit when you’re wrong, and be there for your team.
What are the common challenges you see faced by new leaders?
Audrey: There are two challenges I’ve seen new leaders struggle with the most. The first is learning to lead through others instead of leading through doing or dictating. The difference is that the former is rooted in one’s ability to harness intrinsic motivation and to provide freedom within clear expectations and constraints. The latter is all about a desire to control the outcome and being disappointed when the outcome doesn’t exactly match what you had in your mind. For leaders to truly deliver impact, they need to focus more on the inputs that derive the right outcomes rather than only focusing on the outcomes themselves.
The second challenge is learning that leading is a balance of leading from the front, side, and back. It’s not all about one mode and it’s important to recognize when you need to engage with your team or with a specific team member in a particular way to set them, the project, or the business up for success. Often, new leaders will either only lead from the front or only lead from the back. In the first scenario, their teams feel stifled and overshadowed. They aren’t given the opportunity to step up and grow into leaders themselves. In the second, their team can lack clear direction and coaching and their own motivation can wane as they take a backseat in conversations and forums.
Lastly, what’s the best thing you’ve read/watched/listened to in 2020
Audrey:
- The 40 Year Old Version, a film by Radha Blank (and not to be confused with The 40 Year Old Virgin), is such an honest and hilarious story of a woman trying to create authentically amidst the pressures of life. By far the best movie I saw last year.
- I’m not a sports fan or particularly athletic, but boy do I love coaching and leadership lessons from the sports world. The Playbook: A Coach’s Rules for Life on Netflix is a documentary series that tells the stories of 5 incredible coaches and their approach to leadership.
- Dan Rather’s Twitter feed kept me sane through the political and national rollercoaster of 2020.
- A slew of podcasts kept me inspired. My favorites were Finding Fred, Catch and Kill, and (as always) The Knowledge Project, The Daily, and Exponential View.
We’re delighted to have Audrey speaking at the #LDFest Rest of The Fest in March. Tickets are available now.
Leading Design Community is brought to you by Clearleft, a strategic design consultancy based in the UK. We work with global brands to design and redesign products and services, bring strategic clarity, and transform digital culture.
