A user manual for working with me.
The thing peers and reports tell me most often is that I'm a steady presence in messy rooms - calm, warm, enthusiastic, and useful. The thing I notice most about my own impact is that it tends to outlast me. The people I've led carry the thinking forward into their next teams. That's the part I care about most, and it's the part I'm most still learning to do better.
"My job is to move the work forward and grow the people doing it - and to refuse to treat those as separate problems."
How I lead
Listen first. Reframe before solving.
Most problems aren't what they look like. I'll ask first.
Start with the user, work back from there.
User up, team up, me last - even when politics tries to turn the arrow.
Set direction. Then get out of the way.
Vision and metrics come from me. The "how" comes from the team. I'll write the brief, give context, and ask harder questions than the brief itself - but I won't redesign the work over your shoulder.
Make space for experiments - including ones that fail.
Especially with AI tooling, new design system rituals, hybrid roles. I'll back a 70%-confident prototype over a 100%-talked-about idea. If it doesn't work we learn it cost us two weeks, not two quarters.
Coaching is the work, not a side activity.
I'll ask what you're seeing before I tell you what I'm seeing. Most days that is the job - not a soft skill bolted onto it.
What I value most
Curiosity over certainty
People who ask the second question. Strong opinions, held loosely.
Calm under ambiguity
Most of the interesting problems are messy. The willingness to sit with that is half the job.
Speed with humility
Ship fast, then own what went wrong. The pace is non-negotiable; the ego is.
AI grit
Not talent - reps. Daily practice, trial and error, and the stubbornness to keep iterating when the first ten attempts flop.
Craft with intent
Beautiful work, in service of the user - not the portfolio.
Diverse perspectives
Different backgrounds, different brains. Where I've built teams, this has been the unfair advantage.
How I hold the craft bar
Four questions · the standardHave we thought holistically about what the user is actually hiring this product to do?
Are we honest about what the user wants - versus what we want them to want?
Would we use this ourselves? No data answers that one. We just know.
Can we describe the job to be done clearly on a whiteboard? If we can't, we don't understand it yet.
How I give feedback
Rhythm
- Biweekly 1:1sFifty minutes, owned by my report. Not for status; for coaching, career, and blockers.
- Live coaching in the momentFeedback in the work itself, not saved for a quarterly review.
- Quiet isn't approvalIf I've gone silent, that's not a yes - worth a nudge.
Style
- Direct, kindlySpecific to behaviour, not character. No vague "be more strategic".
- Named & reframedI'll name what I'm seeing, then ask how you see it - usually the gap is the work.
- Praise in public, course-correct in privateDefault mode, with rare exceptions when the team needs to see the standard live.
How to work with me
How I work
- Async-first; Slack for fast, doc for slowDefault to a doc or Loom before a meeting. Weekly Slack updates - what moved, what's stuck, what's needed. Big decisions belong in writing.
- 25 / 50 minute meetingsNever the full hour. Always an agenda.
- Brief → disagree → shipShort brief, ask for the strongest disagree, then commit. Public alignment after, even if you pushed back inside the room - we don't relitigate.
- Written, or it didn't happenDecisions live in a doc, not in someone's memory.
How I measure people
On outcomes and judgement, not activity: did the work move what it was meant to, were the calls sound with incomplete information, did the person lift those around them. Hours, meetings attended, and screens produced aren't on the list.
What earns and loses my trust
Signal · noiseI trust people who
- Do what they said- or flag early when they can't.
- Show their reasoningNot just the conclusion.
- Surface their own mistakesBefore I find them.
I lose faith with
- SurprisesBad news heard late, from someone else.
- Yes in the room, no in the actionsThe decision sticks; the behaviour drifts.
- Treating the quality bar as optionalIt's the standard, not a preference.
Energy
Energises me
- Early-stage functionsBrand new functions, missing playbooks, no manager. Sweet spot.
- Ambiguous, high-stakes problemsThe messier the brief, the more interesting it is.
- AI-native design systems & toolingWhere craft and ops meet - the future of how we work.
Drains me
- Theatre meetingsDecision loops that should've been one conversation.
- Command-and-control leadership above meI'll struggle in an org that doesn't see coaching as real work.
- Perfectionism on low-stakes workPolishing the inbox while the launch slips. Hard pass.
The fit test
Hire me if
- Building, scaling, or untangling a design functionI've done all three. Love it every time.
- Demos not decksBuilding and learning beats endless discovery. The work is the demo, not the slides about it.
- The role wants direction and autonomyI'll set both and ask for both.
Don't hire me if
- The role is a pure IC, no teamI'll be in the work, but I lead through the team.
- Design Systems, Brand, Research are seen as overheadI treat them as growth multipliers. We'll fight if you don't.
- No room to learn out loud, or where upskilling and feedback aren't valuedI need to grow too, not just my team.
What I'm working on
The bits I'm still getting better at. Read this so you can hold me to it.
- Saying no faster - instead of saying yes and rebalancing the load three weeks later.
- Shipping my own drafts earlier - less polish, more "here's where I'm at, push back."
- Letting silence sit longer in 1:1s - the best stuff is usually on the other side of it.