Photo by Andreas Haslinger on Unsplash
I moved to Zurich with my young family in the late summer of 2019 to take up my new role as a UX Lead at Google. I was assigned to the Travel product area, splitting my time between an established consumer product and an early-stage project focusing on a new market. I had looked closely at both projects and was full of ideas.
The first task I set myself was to try to get to know the people I would be working most closely with, as I was keen to share my ideas and convince my new colleagues to implement my seemingly obvious list of improvements.
Having evidently not learned previous lessons about hubris, I prepared a short presentation to introduce myself to the team and highlight my previous accomplishments as a way to build some credibility. Very few people turned up to my presentation. Those who did listened politely, asked a few simple questions, then left. Tellingly, nobody asked what I thought about either of my new projects.
So I tried a different approach. I organised one-to-one meetings with the people who led the other disciplines. “You must be the new Lucia,” they would all say. I worked out that Lucia Terrenghi had occupied a similar role to mine before recently moving on to lead a new initiative elsewhere in Google. “She was brilliant,” people would add, without me asking. They never went on to say “you’re not going to be as good” but that’s what I concluded nonetheless.
During my tour of the new team, I quickly realised that the lead product managers on both projects would be important collaborators. Still keen to hit the ground running, I set up some time to meet with them as soon as they were available. The first product manager I spoke with explained that they were working on an established product with a clear set of priorities through to the end of the year. “Perhaps you should talk with the other team,” came the friendly suggestion. “They are at an earlier stage and might need more help.”
I tracked down the other PM, who not unreasonably said, “We are in the middle of business conversations with our new partners, so there is not much room for any new thinking right now. Perhaps the folks who work on your other project are in need of fresh ideas.”
It dawned on me that my reputation for achievements in other organisations counted for nothing. And, somehow, Lucia’s reputation for effectiveness lasted long after she had left the team. So I talked to her next. I didn’t want to be “the new Lucia”, rather my own authentic self, so I was reluctant to ask for advice about what to do specifically. Instead I asked her about her experience at Google and what she had done to have such a lasting impact on the team. She was kind enough to pass on a single piece of wisdom: “help them ship the product, then everything else will follow.”
And so I redoubled my efforts to help the teams deliver their work, studying the strategy and current experience meticulously, then working side-by-side with designers to produce work that would improve the user experience while respecting the inevitable complexity of the business constraints. I’ve been looking for ways to help ship the product ever since, building a reputation project by project, as someone who can help get things done.
During those first few weeks at Google, I was reminded that reputation is like an investment account. You can make smart investments that grow your reputation, or you can make mistakes that will deplete it. To be influential, you need a healthy balance of ‘reputation capital’, but when you change teams, or especially when you change organisations, you have to accept that this basically starts at zero.
Later at Google, Lucia became my line manager and, in addition to her day-to-day involvement with the projects, I saw first-hand what made her such an influential leader. She did two things that stood out to me:
Number one, she actively participated in every meeting that she chose to attend. Even in the most boring meetings where I’d expected UX leaders to take a back seat, she took a keen interest and fearlessly made suggestions outside of her area of expertise. It was clear to me that she was truly an organisational leader, not just a functional one.
Number two, she would always listen to ideas, but never felt obliged to take advice on how to make the best use of her team. She often had to field friendly suggestions on how to slice or combine our resources to complete one project or another, or slightly tiresome offers to escalate on her behalf to lobby more senior leaders and secure additional designers or researchers. She would always refuse. “I can’t just grow them in the garden,” she would say, usually with an appropriately withering Italian hand gesture. With this I understood that she was prepared to be accountable for how to grow and deploy the creative potential of her team.
I’m sure others observed this too, and much more for that matter, with Lucia’s reputation growing each and every time she influenced the creative direction of a project that she was responsible for. This ability to take an active interest in, and personal responsibility for, the success of the broader team, combined with leaning into the details when your involvement makes a difference, is a key trait that can be seen in many effective leaders at Google.
This is as important now as it was back then. Everyone on a team has the opportunity to contribute to every detail, and especially the heavy lifting, of execution and product excellence. They can take the time to understand and weigh up the business and user trade-offs that might have to be made for one reason or another. To learn about the intent of a particular project and how it sits in the broader strategy. The challenge for creative leaders is to find ways to contribute meaningfully on both ends of this spectrum. To bend your back and move the piano, before you get to play it.
We’re no longer constrained by our job descriptions, the org chart or traditional expectations for skill sets, and yet a seat at the table is never guaranteed. To get one and, more importantly, make use of it, we may have to accept that we are opening a new account.
Maybe not starting from zero, but everything counts.