#24, PREVIEW 2: Managers should support, not dictate

you you wrote a forget the name of the article but you actually wrote an article about the power structure or the or the organizational structure where you start at the CEO orders go down yeah and you flip the pyramid around and and you created a not a power structure but a support structure right now granted people can go out and read about it but I wanted to talk about it a little bit can you give us the gist of what you were trying to get what you were trying to relay with flipping the the power pyramid sure I think the typical way managers think about diplomat is I've had in the past which is the opposite of everything I've ever tried to do in check I've thought about their job as there's power in that job right there's like and I think it's not great it's like I still kind of perceive like I look at our CEO and I'm like wow that that person wields power right as like power to change things to like say things and things happen like it never really goes away like it's not untrue that's that that's what happens but I think it's really useful for managers specifically and like leadership in general to think about it upside down like to think about themselves as like there are times where like I have something I want to happen and I want to like work with people to make it happen and that's what we do but my Pratt's not my primary mode like the primary job is actually to create a scenario or like you're supporting the people that are actually at the top doing the work like actually executing on everything because especially as you grow and scale like that ban gets wider than this then the pattern the leadership structure do you know anything like like the the amount of knowledge is so much bigger in that in that layer right in that like level of work like there's a there are a lot of times I find myself like saying to a designer like they're showing me some work in a couple of like directions and we're talking about I'm like look you know this better than I do like I don't actually like I can give you an opinion and like a semi informed opinion but really like this isn't a brand question this isn't like you know you know this better than I do so you should just make a call like what do you think I know your people are people like prepared for that when you check good that's not normal right so when you know it's not carefully yeah I mean I'm they're asking you because they're like I'm used to you making this song yeah yeah yeah do they get terrified a lot of you just tell them to make the color you go figure it out no I sometimes I think I've startled sometimes there's like a there's a moment where they they are like they hat they know what they think but they haven't decide what they think and they're kind of like oh and then they'll tell you you know what they actually think we still I mean we still even today kind of battle that a little bit it's not because of the power structure I don't think it's the it's just getting designers to go confident enough to make a call for themselves or even even if it wasn't a call if it was just like here's my opinion yeah it's just something with like any creative pursuit thing like people building confidence in their own opinions or something we're always going to work on about a lot of time we do find ourselves like some well prevent a bunch of stuff that's actually happen this week my first question isn't about but as I was like what what do you think person who did this like quite like why do you think that option three is the best tell us why let's talk about it because it helps us like focus the conversation and on to what they actually want to know is your is your ideal work environment than that people around you that work report to you but still work with you obviously but they just make decisions is that like the ideal set up I think so I I read this book called uh turn the ship around just I don't remember the name of the person who wrote it but the idea the core idea of explaining the whole things that uh in the military like in the Navy you the orders come down from the top right like you'd like if we want to turn left like the captain tells you turn this person in turn allows to Jules this person to turn left but like really the person down here who's steering knows we should turn left the whole time there's waiting right and that's insane like I can see the iceberg right slow that is like yeah right exactly see the iceberg but let's just like hang on oh wait am I going to get that I guess we'll run into it yeah but if you're talking about speed and you want to move quickly and like especially digital stuff like if we can change the stuff that on all the time we can experiment with things you can run experiment see what the results are and make changes based on that so I think we're in a position to not worry as much about it but what I want ideally is just to be informed I just want to like I don't like the thing we try to avoid a surprise for like big things like obviously if is like a small tweak or something I don't really care I don't want to know but if we're making some decision that seems semi critical like as long as people are aware like that's that's actually one of the core things the design team tries to do is like create awareness all the time with everyone like not just me not just the design team with every single person on the product development team because then it's like it's up to me then to say like hey hold on right like if I don't say anything we're good to go like you know if you don't hear from me that's a good thing like that's like that means like we're cool yeah and if I didn't see it and it goes out that's my fault because you created the wareness and I just decided not Isis lighting up the locker I didn't have time and that's not on you as a designer right I need you to move quickly and the teams to move fast [Music]

Channel: High Resolution

Views: 1,201

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Cap Watkins, Etsy, Buzzfeed, IT, management, design, design thinking, process, strategy, leadership, ui, ux, business, high resolution, podcast, education, startup, startups, university, design school, bobby ghoshal, jared erondu

Id: uQ9kE4_ZJ8I

Length: 5min 36sec (336 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2017