An interview with Timothy Yeo
Timothy is a design leader, speaker and bookbinder. He is best known for saying complex things simply. An introvert with over four decades of experience he is currently Head of Design at Finder. Timothy was formerly Head of Design at fintech startups OFX and Prospa.
We chatted to Timothy ahead of his conference talk at Leading Design Festival this March on Design Leadership For Introverts.
What has 2020 taught you about design leadership?
Tim: …that it is possible to lead a design team and design function, fully remote.
Up until this role, I felt like so much of the leading, vision setting and alignment I’ve done has been in-person. For me, so much of leadership is communication. Yet, I’ve always wondered: how would I lead if I was not..there?
Turns out: it’s different, but you can.
Not being under the same roof, working shoulder to shoulder meant I had to over-communicate so that the message landed. As the amount of communication increased, learning to write succinctly and clearly became even more important. Sometimes, video just did it better.
Learning that I had multiple ways of getting my message across was key. Not everything had to be a meeting. Not every Slack message warranted an immediate reply. We learned to switch to async methods of communication so people get back to you when they can, when they are at their best. This especially helped working across timezones. We saved our precious synchronous meeting times together to socialise, critique and debate, not status updates.
I also learned you do not need to be in the same room to build rapport and genuine relationships, especially with my direct reports. I started my current role in Apr 2020, right after most of Australia went into coronavirus lockdown. I have not met any of my direct reports in person, except for one, and that was only after our first 6 months working together!
Yet, even though we have not worked under the same roof, we have never felt closer as a team. Turns out the things you need to build strong relationships in a remote team are the same things as in person teams: time, empathy and simply caring.
Your talk seems to resonate with introverts, extroverts and ambiverts alike, why do you think that is?
Tim: I think it’s because none of us are true introverts, extroverts or ambiverts all of the time. Who we are and how we behave changes depending on where we are, who we are with and in what capacity. Perhaps there’s a little introvert in all of us, and that’s why the talk resonates with many types of people.
Also, I’ve written these techniques to be easy to apply. Most of these techniques could be applied the very next day if you were keen. And they probably work as well for extroverts as they do for introverts. It’s just that these were techniques I learned and developed that helped me with my introversion.
How can leaders pave the way for people from all types of backgrounds to realise their leadership potential?
Tim: We can start by having a simpler definition of what a leader is.
Culture, social norms, unconscious bias. These forces already layer a view of what and who a leader is within the context you live and work in. So the last thing we need is more criteria to define who or what a leader is.
For me, a leader has followers. If you have followers, guess what: you are a leader. That’s it.
Next, give others the opportunity to lead. It’s easy to pick out the enthusiastic who volunteer for more responsibility every time, but make room for the quietly capable in your team to have a go. Create a safe space and start low stakes. Match skills to tasks that stretch them outside of their comfort zone, and be available to support and coach them as they lead.
What we sometimes forget is that leadership is a choice. We can choose not to lead; we can be followers. In fact, we have to: if we are all leaders, who would be left to follow?
It takes an enlightened leader to recognise when someone else is better suited to guide us all to a better outcome for a task or initiative. It also allows us as people leaders to develop the leadership capabilities within our team. Over time, that capability evenly distributes, creating a high performing team.
What advice would you give if you were to write a letter to yourself 15 years ago?
- You do not have to be someone else’s vision of great.
- The things that make you special are the things that nobody else does better than you, that you love doing; the things that make you, you.
What are some of the unrecognised superpowers introverted leaders have?
Tim: We listen and notice, probably better than others.
As introverts, we are not eager to be heard. We listen, intently. We hear what is left unsaid and we read between the lines of what people do say. We read the room, and we notice.
We’re also comfortable with quiet, silent reflection. Sometimes, people talk to think. Other times, 3 short minutes of silence to collect our thoughts will get us to a better outcome than 30 minutes of rambling monologue.
Some people say that the move to remote working has benefited introverts. What are your thoughts here?
Tim: As an introvert, I work better in environments with less stimulation. Before, when working in an open-plan office, I’d put my headphones on or find a quiet corner to focus.
As a designer, there is an artistry to design that requires creativity. These flights of creative fantasy sometimes happen in group settings, but in my experience, they mostly happen in solitude; pen to paper, pixel to cursor.
So the move to remote work has given me loads of time to focus (if I can ignore the non-stop slack messages throughout the day).
But making stuff on my own all the time isn’t fun for me. I miss people. I also miss the serendipitous chance encounters and water cooler conversations that spark genuinely crazy ideas.
I think what pre-covid remote teams have learned (like InVision, Basecamp, HelpScout) and newly remote teams are discovering right now is the perfect mix is in the happy middle: mostly remote, just enough in-person.
My hope is that in a post-covid world, companies will embrace this new way of working, that you don’t have to be under the same roof all the time to do amazing work, and not simply revert to the way things were.
What are the common challenges you see faced by new leaders?
Tim: Imposter syndrome. Some of us are fortunate to have a design degree, but most of us who started in UX never had a formal education in human factors or the like. Even worse, even fewer of us were formally trained to lead, manage and build high performing teams. Most of us learned this on the job.
How has your leadership style evolved over the years?
Tim: Time-to-decision has shortened. What experience gives me is the confidence to know what decisions I can/should make quickly and what to deliberate on longer.
I learned about situational leadership a few years ago. Since then, I’ve tried to practice it and adapt my style to the context/situation at hand.
Lastly, what’s the best thing you’ve read/watched/listened to in 2020
Tim: Thalassa (a French travel documentary series that revolves around the sea and has been on the telly since 1975)
We’re delighted to have Timothy speaking at the #LDFest Conference in March. Tickets are available now.
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