I joined TPXimpact a year ago this week which means I should probably look back and think about what I’ve learnt so far.
- Working with a hybrid team slows everything down because it slows down how you build trust. I made sure to visit all our various offices at least every few months to try to compensate for working with a pretty big team (over 100) who prefer to work from home. It means that it takes a long time before people trust me with information, a conversation or a question. A designer asked me to coffee last week and we walked around the office to talk about a pretty average client situation. I was really happy to have graduated to being someone to have conversations with.
- Never match other people’s vibe. I’m an escalation point most of the time which means people come to me as a kind of ‘supplier of last resort’. And at that stage, they’re usually pretty agitated. And it could be problems of any scale. I have to be the person who doesn’t stress cry back at them. I respect their anxiety deeply and don’t judge them, I just can’t ever get as emotional. I can’t afford to say ‘don’t be silly, that’s inconsequential’ either just because of the conversation I just had with someone else an hour ago. I have to be the calmest person on the call and try to provide clarity as fast as I can. And sometimes it means working with HR or calling someone else. But I can’t meet them where they are exactly. I have to create some emotional distance so action is possible.
- Be good at having the conversations noone wants to have. As designers, we like to please and seek to solve problems to please. This role has been a useful antidote to this as I get to give people constructive feedback or think about how to have difficult conversations all the time. This is also where I think that people can process what they hear from a North American accent in a slightly different way. I don’t sound like their mother, so it’s ok. I also try very much to be very precise but not unkind with any feedback. It’s hard enough hearing something difficult, might as well make it as clear as I can. Again, work in progress.
None of this would be possible without working daily with my boss Ben and my colleagues Vicky, Imeh, Jas, Charles, Liberty, Laura and Tash. I’m lucky to get to learn from them, every working day, from 10-6.