Interview with Hannah Donovan
In the run up to Clearleft’s Leading Design conference in London this October, the team caught up with Hannah Donovan to discuss her background, experience and thoughts on the subject of Design Leadership.
How did you make the jump into leadership
You know, I can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t doing some kind of leadership. I’m the oldest of six and both my parents worked growing up, so I learned leadership early. In my jobs out of uni I was either the sole designer (leading) or the person who knew how the web worked and leading that. My first official leadership role though was when I was leading design at Last.fm. The company was growing fast and I barely thought about stepping up to the challenge of hiring and leading a team, it was just what needed to be done. Of course, I had no idea what I was doing! Looking back on everything I’ve done since then I wouldn’t say I truly became a leader until I was leading the team at Vine.
Tell us about your typical day. Is it all meetings?
It can be! It depends on whether I’m leading a large team or working in a small start up. If it’s the latter then it’s literally everything from typical leadership duties to IC work to buying washing up liquid for the kitchen. Right now I’m doing the latter, so I’m balancing doing design and product work with leadership duties. If I had to break those down, for me they fall into three categories: First, communicating (so yes, meetings). Second, preparing — from things like being aware of market forces to planning for my deadlines to sharing information so others can be prepared too. Third, managing myself. Things like being mindful of my schedule, ensuring I show up as my best self for everything (no matter how terrible my last call was) etc.
What was the last thing you “designed”?
Ha ha — I guess it would be the vine.co archive. I’m still not sure how I led that team and also designed everything. What a time! Right now I’m working on a new project called Trash TV which means I’m in the weeds on everything, daily.
What makes a great design leader?
Two things: an incredible ability to galvanize teams and manage their staff, but also a vision. In the world of design, that means this leader must have taste. For example, through knowing their craft extremely well or being an excellent editor. Interesting, compelling, made-you-look design has a point of view (whether you personally like it or not!) and that point of view is power. I’m happy to be managed by someone who is a great manager, but I would have a hard time genuinely wanting to follow that person into battle unless I can completely get behind their point of view.
What do most new leaders get wrong?
It’s easy to fixate on the people you’re leading (because that’s new!) and over-rotate on managing down, when actually your biggest area of concern after yourself, is managing up. And you can be sure that managing your boss and your boss’ peers is going to be waaaaay harder than the ICs on your team. I love Dee Hock’s quote on this: “Invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself — your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers. Use the remainder to induce those you ‘work for’ to understand and practice the theory.”
How would you describe your own leadership style?
Ah, I dislike this question because I think our own perceptions of how we lead are not the same as reality, and really all we have to go on is the objective feedback of others. Based on that, I would say I’m extremely principled. I do what is best for the company, customers and employees at all costs and will put all of those things in front of my own personal needs. I have no tolerance for self-serving leaders. I don’t put up with baloney, and I’m direct and like people I work with to be as well because anything else is a waste of time. Directness doesn’t mean harshness though — being direct and kind is the winning combination. I love Kim Scott’s book “Radical Candor” on this subject. I get an immense amount of joy from giving people opportunities and then seeing them rise to challenges, develop new ideas, come up with initiatives etc. — so providing the environment for that to happen and being a sounding-board / coach / mentor / friend is my “style”.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced managing people?
Oh! That’s what my Leading Design talk is about! I can’t give it all away here…
Are design tasks a good or bad idea?
As a candidate, I hate them. I lack context on the company’s real problems, and when all I can do is scratch the surface, I get responses like “yeah we thought of that but [insert thing you couldn’t have possibly known and are not in a position to defend if you believe it’s worth investigating here]”, which is a huge waste of time for both of us. As a designer I pride myself on my ability to see both the big picture and the small details, and this isn’t a skill I can show off in that context because I don’t have the context for the big picture or the time/correct situation to do high fidelity detail oriented work. (That would be spec work, which is deeply uncool.)
As a manager, I dislike them for three reasons:
1. I also look for this forest and trees skill set in a designer, and couldn’t possibly critique them with a homework assignment.
2. I live by the principle that you should never do to others what you yourself hate.
3. You should be able to evaluate how a designer thinks and works by asking them questions about their portfolio. I suspect that design tasks are put in place by managers who haven’t learned the skills (or aren’t taking the time) to engage in thoughtful critique and that’s just… lazy.
What are your views on distributed teams?
Pros and cons. Distributed teams can be great for many reasons, and in any large company — necessary. They mean you have to be mindful of how information and culture is shared though. One of my pet peeves is companies who talk about having a “distributed team” and an “HQ” in the same sentence. If all the decision making power is in an HQ then the company is not truly distributed, it means the important water-cooler conversations are happening in one location and people working in other places are satellites. That can work too, but let’s call it what it is. I personally do not like running teams where most people are in one place but a few employees are remote, or if I do it, I make it clear to those employees that they need to take extra responsibility for their communication and how people communicate with them. I think Wordpress is a great example of a true distributed team that has invented ways of truly making it work.
What one piece of advice would you give your younger self?
Your network is everything! Get out from behind your computer and build it. Your work alone will not help you reach your goals. Follow up with everyone you meet and want to keep in your life — no matter how shy or nervous you might be because that person is operating on another planet of awesome. This industry is small and life is long — you might really need that person’s help in the future, or you might really be able to help them! You. Are. Good. Enough.
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Join Hannah, the Clearleft team and a host of other fantastic speakers at Leading Design, 25–27 October 2017 — book your tickets at https://2017.leadingdesignconf.com/tickets
