The four pillars of leading design teams through complexity

Seven leaders from Zalando’s product design community share their insights on how to lead teams through complex projects.

If there’s one thing product design and team leadership have in common, it’s navigating complexity. The overarching goal in both spheres is growth — be that innovation, business growth, or professional development. And the way to get there is by understanding people — customer needs or the skill set and motivations of our team members.

All of these constituent parts involve a great deal of complexity. That could come from facing the unknowns connected to new technologies or markets, establishing cross-functional alignment, prioritizing tasks, or cultivating an environment for optimal performance and collaboration. Product design team leaders oversee all of these aspects. As Product Design Manager Thomas Schluchter shared in a previous article, his role is “as iterative of a process as product design and involves a great deal of curiosity, discovery, and empathy.”

At Zalando, both Product Design Managers and Senior Product Designers lead teams — managers steering from behind and seniors navigating from within. As our human-centered organization drives towards our vision of being the starting point for fashion, complexity is a constant. How do we empower our teammates to unravel intricate challenges, craft inventive solutions, and thrive throughout the process?

From cultivating emotional safety to leveraging strengths and fostering alignment, seven leaders from Zalando’s product design community share their valuable insights on how to lead teams through complex projects.

Cultivate emotional safety

As leadership expert Simon Sinek posited in his TED talk, Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe, when uncertainty is a constant, the only variable is the conditions inside the organization: “That’s where leadership matters because it’s the leader who sets the tone.” As leaders, we can create that safe environment by building a solid foundation of trust, cultivating relationships, opening communication channels, encouraging diverse perspectives, and framing failure as part of the learning process.

Product Design Managers Julia Belling and Jarno Koponen believe in a people-first approach. Julia places personal check-ins before even the most high-priority tasks, knowing it ultimately benefits the project. She also makes herself readily available outside of meetings to help her team find the information and support they need. Jarno agrees that effective collaboration stems from first meeting as human beings. “At the beginning of a complex process, there are vulnerabilities. None of us know the solution, and we may have different opinions. Figuring it out together starts with trust and transparency.”

“People find the confidence to leave their comfort zones. Then others start to relate and sympathize. It creates a totally different energy than diving straight into project details.”

Product Design Manager Matias Ferrero recommends building a set of rituals or activities in which each individual feels seen. “Give team members space to express themselves. For example, ten minutes every so often to present something they are working on or that interests them. It helps them to build the muscle of sharing and discussing with the team.”

To strengthen relationships, Director of Product Design Christian Baerend sends his team on paired walks. “They each spend ten minutes sharing the defining moments of their careers, for example. Afterward, they have to report back about what they’ve heard, which promotes active listening.” Christian also encourages openness by kicking off each team meeting with a ‘Triple A’ round of appreciation, acknowledgments, and apologies. “There is no obligation to share anything, but people find the confidence to leave their comfort zones. Then others start to relate and sympathize. It creates a totally different energy than diving straight into project details.”

In Senior Product Designer Diego Lavecchia’s experience, setting up behavioral agreements at the beginning of complex projects helps to create a relaxed atmosphere. “We come together for workshops and guided sessions where we share how we like to collaborate and receive feedback. Communication flows much better. We encourage opposing views and know it is safe to experiment and make mistakes.” Knowing that experimentation is one of the keys to innovation, Head of Product Design Dr. Christina Dicke fosters in her team the resilience to keep trying, no matter how time-consuming. “If it works, we move to the next stage. If not, we fall back and try something else.” Senior Product Designer Maria de la Riva loves how her lead, Head of Product Design Jay Kaufmann, sets an example for self-reflection. “Whenever they think they could have approached something differently, they acknowledge it and set a path forward. Their openness, transparency, and willingness to admit mistakes have helped our team to feel very comfortable.”

Nurture alignment

Alignment is the oil that keeps whole teams rolling smoothly toward a solution. To stay on track during the inevitable twists and turns of complex projects, we, and our stakeholders, must agree on the direction — or, as Zalando’s Founding Mindset encourages, “Disagree and commit” until new information comes to light. We are all on this journey together. Our product design teams welcome collective ownership of goals and decisions from the get-go and keep the conversation flowing throughout. As Maria reflects, alignment is a continual process. “It has to be maintained. We might find initial clarity, only for things to be unclear later because there are so many moving parts in the project.”

Keeping to hand the design principles, frameworks, or documents we have coproduced helps to ground complexity in common values and knowledge while empowering team members to work with autonomy. “Our team’s principles build on insights from user research,” Diego explains. “Sharing them and referring back to them shows we have not just created those goals for the sake of having them, but we are using them to help us make decisions.” Maria’s Size & Fit team began its partnership with software company Fision with collaborative sessions: “Every Software Engineer, Applied Scientist, and Product Designer that had an important role to play in the project contributed. Whatever goal we set, all parties checked whether it was feasible from their perspective or if we needed to compromise.”

“It’s important to emphasize that this is an iterative process; we won’t find all the answers immediately.”

When topics are as diverse as they are complex, regular knowledge-sharing sessions are crucial to establishing clarity and alignment. Christina’s growing Customer Fulfillment Product Design team spans B2C, B2B, and B2E. “We do one-on-ones and team presentations covering complex topics such as statistics and object-oriented UX. We also have a quarterly team strategy day where we all vote topics onto the agenda.”

From a managerial perspective, dividing initial complexity into approachable, accessible, and understandable pieces is a practical starting point. “We want to ensure the project doesn’t seem like a mountain,” Jarno shares. “Using our team’s combined force, we can work out how to approach the challenge and create concrete milestones. It’s important to emphasize that this is an iterative process; we won’t find all the answers immediately.” Before jumping into solutions or considering the bigger picture, Matias uses simple questions as prompts: “Who are we? What problem are we solving? What target user do we have in mind?”

Encourage novel approaches

Some might argue that more perspectives can create more complexity. However, especially in more experimental settings, the more minds we put toward a problem, the better. Julia and Christian use Zalando’s large, diverse, and mature product design community to their teams’ advantage. When faced with complexity, they like to approach the ideation stage similarly to a design sprint, inviting designers or other experts from different teams to contribute their thoughts and ideas. Echoing Zalando’s endeavor to build a company as diverse as our customers, Christian strongly advocates for building teams and panels with people of different backgrounds: “Diverse teams build better products.”

“When the different ‘melodies’ of the team come together, the ‘beat’ is there, and the ‘band’ starts to play, it’s a magical moment.”

To bring out multiple perspectives, Jarno emboldens his team to use various ideation methods and tools. “Diversity leads to creativity. I try to encourage different forms of expression when facing complexity. For example, removing constraints and opting for pen and paper during ideation can help some people to visualize and surface intuition. When the different ‘melodies’ of the team come together, the ‘beat’ is there, and the ‘band’ starts to play, it’s a magical moment.” Christian adds that accommodating introverts and extroverts to communicate in the ways most comfortable for them is a fruitful way to unlock the full potential of a team.

How well we avoid or overcome roadblocks is often down to flexibility and adaptability. Sometimes we need to shift perspective to see clearly. “It helps to shift our attention from the solution to the problem,” Diego suggests. “When we, and our stakeholders, approach complexity like this, lights start turning on and sparks of inspiration start flying.”

Lead from behind

Nelson Mandela popularized the concept of leading from behind. As he wrote in his 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, “a leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” Great leaders trust their team members to find the way, guiding them by asking the right questions. They motivate by leveraging their strengths and interests. And if their ‘flock’ ever feels lost, they empathize and bring them back to the ‘why.’

“Leading from behind comes down to a deep sense of trust. It’s also listening more than speaking and knowing how to bring out the knowledge and wisdom of your team.”

Product design team leaders are adept at applying design thinking to people management. “The team is our resource,” Christina asserts. “They are the skills we can apply to the problems we want to solve.” Neuroscience tells us the brain grows most where it’s already strongest. Therefore, to boost the problem-solving power of our team, we can seek to apply individuals where they are most engaged. “It all starts with having very fluent conversations to understand their interests,” says Matias. “Try to get as much information as possible about where they are in their growth journey.” In Julia’s experience, this approach leads to organic development: “One of my direct reports, Layla Martins, has a personal interest in accessibility and inclusion, making her a brilliant driver for Zalando Lounge’s Accessibility Enablement project.” Christian concurs: “I identify the right drivers for the project and how I can get the heck out of their way. Because typically they do a great job in driving these efforts if they’re working on the things they want to work on. Leading from behind comes down to a deep sense of trust. It’s also listening more than speaking and knowing how to bring out the knowledge and wisdom of your team.”

Of course, it is not only valuable to champion strengths but to identify misalignments or areas for improvement that could be blocking the progress of our project. Feedback is a powerful catalyst, and there are many impactful ways to approach it. Last year, Diego’s team completed two self-assessment workshops with an external specialist. “Afterward, my manager had a complete map of how we assessed ourselves and each other, including how we perceived potential areas for growth. It helped her to spot opportunities for us to shine.”

Are you ready to bring out the best in your team and tackle complexity together? Here’s a summary of what’s worked for us. Let us know what has and hasn’t worked for you in the comments.

Key takeaways

• Use a people-first approach. Cultivate trust, communication, and emotional safety.
• Break down complexity into manageable parts.
• Create clarity and direction through multiple knowledge-sharing methods.
• Align, then realign. Set goals and make decisions together.
• Encourage diverse perspectives, approaches, and tools to empower creativity.
• Utilize and trust in your team’s strengths. Optimize through feedback.