Design System Disconcertion
“Am I screwing this thing up daily??” Short answer: yes. Long answer:
You aren’t the only one, and if you want to make something great, you gotta. It’s impossible to get everything right the first time. If you want to make something average, you already know those steps — it’ll be a breeze. How can you take the everyday hits of learning in stride and not feel like a failure along the way? What do you do when everyone is looking to you for the answers? Is it still the imposter syndrome after all these years?
Growing pains are embarrassing to reveal. These pains can appear and feel like weakness, insecurity, or unpreparedness. As our team at SAS transitions to CI/CD, develops using new code platforms, and builds a design system, we’re feeling this ourselves. This pain was probably one of the main motivators for writing my last article, Designing Enterprise Software (and the feelings that come with it) — I just didn’t know it yet.
Pains started popping up one by one — all of us feeling them in our separate arenas. Frustration was building as we managed and navigated tough conversations that felt pointed. We internalized and tried to cope in our own ways — hoping that if we just tried harder, became more readily available, built the right communication channels, included more people, it would all be enough. A year goes by, and it still feels like an uphill battle. Yes, we have made substantial progress that we are proud of, but as we lead, there is still some illusive undertone of precariousness that we are attempting to productively channel.
It doesn’t have to feel like that. While navigating this new terrain, we’re learning how to get comfortable, share, and most important, grow with each other along the way! Let’s talk about it.
Getting Comfortable
We’re in it for the long run — it’s not going to happen overnight. We all know it, but it’s hard to internalize this sentiment when we want to show our best work as quickly as we can. It feels like we need to build a mountain today, and all we’ve got are some measly pebbles to show.
Building a design system is a big venture. Make sure you are taking care of yourself as much as your work. Burn out is a real thing and can creep up without any warning. Give yourself grace and space. With a personable earnestness, Ethan Hawke acknowledges the inevitable acceptance of playing the fool that creative space necessitates in his Ted Talk entitled “Give yourself permission to be creative”.
It’s okay that everything isn’t buttoned up all the time. It’s okay to let some fires burn. Getting comfortable with chaos is vital to moving things forward in the most rewarding ways for everyone. It sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but we are creatives and need to express that. Your passion still needs to come through as you are working hard. It’s really what we are paid for! Juggle all those hats, but also remember you need to walk forward meaningfully. We need purpose in all the chaos. Time is relative; you will get there.
Now, eventually what do you do with all those fires? Do you know what you can handle? Do you know what you can handle AND be happy? Figure it out. Take the time to consider and communicate your needs effectively. It can be hard to speak up for yourself. Especially if you aren’t in a position of power, but it is imperative to learn this skill if you want to be content in your career — the long, long run 😉. Learn to say “no” in a diplomatic and secure way. “No” doesn’t have to mean no forever; maybe it just means no right now. Trying to do everything at once will either exhaust you, damage your product, or hurt relationships.
You will run into blocks that might make you question your abilities. Prepare yourself for those moments beforehand. Sharpen your awareness to pivot and keep momentum going. Time has a way of shaking things out on their own or at least getting you a little wiggle room with new advancements or ideas that can come to you in the gap (also popularly known as the shower 🤣).
Change can be overwhelming and scary. Don’t let fear control you, learn to harness your own power, and get comfortable being uncomfortable.
The many ways of sharing
Is the whole team aware of what is underway? Have you shared a timeline? Do they know how you are feeling? Do they know what to expect and how to contribute? Just like any proper relationship with verbs, if communication isn’t current, things get “tense” quickly. 🤣 ba-dum-ch
But in all seriousness, this tension can cause a lot of discomfort for many people. The necessary roads of sharing can be uncomfortable, but we’re equipped for that now, right? Ready to harness that feeling of playing the fool?
Showing WIP is hard for everyone, but when there are so many moving parts, you may not get the chance to marinate on designs as you’re used to. An essential part of a design system is to build together, so reoccurring check-ins are vital and always come too quickly. And boy, is there a lot of feedback! It can feel like being a receptor for an overwhelming amount of divergent information and at the same time a conduit for some kind of output without the luxury of being present in your own designs. Transparency and genuine conversation are essential for this time of sharing. In his article, “The power of critique”, Branden Kowitz lists five unique ways to improve feedback culture. He outlines the importance of psychological safety, growth mindset, radical candor, clarity of purpose, and building rituals.
If your team’s critiques could benefit from some structure, round robin feedback is a good first step to try. As the Nielsen Norman Group asserts:
Facilitation is a core aspect of a critique. Traditionally, facilitation is a mechanism used to manage chaotic processes. As Connor and Irizarry describe “[critique] facilitation is the conscious, balanced management of conversations towards a conclusion.” This management creates the structure and framework needed for productive conversations.
- Sarah Gibbons
Critiques for a design system can get even trickier because of responsibility overlap. Inclusion in the evolution of the system ensures that all ideas and disciplines have had equal opportunity of contribution, but that comes with a bit of ambiguity. These areas of gray can be dubious. They require nurturing and finesse. Recognize these overlaps, accept responsibility where it is due, but also have the courage to share!
If someone is wanting to lead, let them take the reins for a while. You notice someone getting beaten down, lend a hand. If you are stumped and stunted, toss it to someone who has an idea or two. A productive team is honest and fluid.
Speaking of honesty, a small circle of us at SAS started meeting weekly just to get feelings off our chests (similar to other companies like Sanctus). This meeting formed while we were really hopeful about where we were leading, but the scale of what we were (and are) trying to accomplish held an annoying amount of gloom. We combined the two words and came to the essence of this time together: “Glope” (Gloom + Hope).
Even though our Glope meeting is open to expressing the full range of emotions, we do our best to balance hopefulness and gloominess. It started out as a type of therapy share, but over time tangible improvements have become a byproduct. We are now finding solutions to problems we wouldn’t have otherwise found had we not been able to share our true feelings about things. It’s important to not write off or ignore pain points out of fear, because you might be overlooking a beneficial place for growth.
Growing together
Embracing the uncomfortable and willingness to share don’t come easy. They aren’t rewarded or taught in our culture. More so, the opposite is readily reinforced. Uncomfortable is gooey and weak. Never let ’em see you sweat!
BUT! Slowly we are starting to understand the nuances that have been avoided out of fear for so long. Real toughness and courage are needed in order to do the right thing: be vulnerable. You have probably heard of Brené Brown by now. As an American professor, lecturer, author, and podcast host, she is in the forefront of this research. Here are a few quotes from her work:
“If it’s worth doing it takes courage and there is no courage without vulnerability.”
“Vulnerability happens in uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”
“We avoid tough conversations, including giving honest, productive feedback. Some leaders attributed this to a lack of courage, others to a lack of skills, and, shockingly, more than half talked about a cultural norm of ‘nice and polite’ that’s leveraged as an excuse to avoid tough conversations.”
“We haven’t made progression developing these skills in leaders because we don’t dig into the humanity — it’s too messy.”
“The middle is messy, but it’s also where the magic happens.”
Ah, the mess. The humanity! The fright! What do we do with these challenging sentiments? How do we put them into practice constructively? How do we build trust and courage?
I leave those complex answers to Brené; she has numerous books, articles, trainings, and talks on the matter. For now, we need only acknowledge the importance of these messy things and nurture growth.
In a similar vein, Margaret Heffernan speaks about social capital in her 2015 Ted Talk, “Forget the pecking order at work”. A term that has been studied since 1890, social capital is the effective functioning of social groups.
“Now we need to redefine leadership as an activity in which conditions are created in which everyone can do their most courageous thinking together.”
“… when the going gets tough, (and it always will get tough if you’re doing breakthrough work that really matters) what people need is social support and they need to know who to ask for help.”
- Margaret Heffernan
Heffernan stresses the importance of community over superstars; social sensitivity over thick skin; and a culture of helpfulness over independence. With these things, ideas flow and grow. People don’t get stuck down dead ends. There can be time, space, and freedom for collective restoration.
“… what motivates people are the bonds and loyalty and trust they develop between each other. What matters is the mortar, not just the bricks.”
- Margaret Heffernan
We need empathy and connection. We need vulnerability and courage. So, grow, motivate, encourage, support, ask for help, listen, share what’s on your heart, and play! Don’t try to do it all on your own.
We might not have it all figured out right this second, but that means we’re doing the hard work of exploring new land. This mountain is a tall one and we need each one of us to succeed. If we’re doing it right, it’s going to get awkward and uncomfortable. Instead of holding fear in that place, embrace it as a sign of doing something right. Explore it with an open heart.
I’ve got your back!
Opinions are my own.
👏 ❤Let me know you’re out there, too. ❤👏
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