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Design Strategy

Influencing without Authority for Designers

September 20, 2024 9:55 AM

Power Talk

🇬🇧 English

Wisła

About

UXers often find themselves in situations where they need to impact decisions and drive change without formal authority. This talk explores the art of influencing without authority for product designers and researchers.

The session begins by defining influence and its importance in UX, distinguishing it from authority, and examining its impact on design decisions. Attendees will delve into strategies for mastering influence, including building trust and credibility, effective communication, collaborative persuasion, and leveraging empathy and perspective.

Talk by

Photo of Rahul Jain, Senior Product Designer at Netflix

Senior Product Designer at Netflix

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From the recording

Talk in brief

In this WaysConf 2024 talk, Rahul Jain, Senior Product Designer at Netflix, outlines a practical framework for designers to build influence within their organizations without relying on formal authority. Drawing from his decade-long career at startups, IDEO, Google, and Netflix, Jain explains how individual contributors can drive product decisions and scale their impact. He breaks down influence into three core pillars: credibility, communication, and collaboration. Credibility is established by identifying personal superpowers, taking ownership of unsexy but high-impact tasks, and deeply understanding business metrics and user needs. Effective communication relies on active listening, managing emotional intelligence, and navigating difficult conversations constructively. Finally, collaboration involves building strong stakeholder relationships, adopting a facilitator mindset rather than an isolationist design ownership model, and actively managing up with one's manager. Ultimately, Jain emphasizes that true influence is about creating win-win scenarios that align personal, team, and company goals.

Key takeaways

01
Redefining Your Role for Greater Impact
To influence effectively, designers must look beyond their immediate design tasks and focus on the company's broader business goals. This shift in perspective allows individual contributors to align their design decisions with high-level organizational success.
Watch from 4:00
02
Leveraging Unsexy Projects to Build Trust
Taking ownership of mundane or administrative tasks, such as writing meeting notes or helping PMs with executive decks, is the fastest way to earn credibility. Demonstrating high agency on minor tasks builds the trust required to secure high-profile projects.
Watch from 12:41
03
Active Listening Requires Eliminating Distractions
True active listening means being fully present, which requires practical steps like muting notifications and keeping video calls in full-screen mode. Failing to pay undivided attention during team calls can quickly damage trust with engineering and product partners.
Watch from 16:24
04
Shifting From Blame to Contribution
During difficult workplace conversations, designers should move away from binary blame and instead evaluate their own responsibility in the situation. This approach fosters a collaborative environment focused on solving the issue rather than pointing fingers.
Watch from 22:28
05
Managing Up by Solving Your Manager's Problems
Designers can build strong partnerships with their managers by proactively helping them flesh out product ideas and sharing wins regularly. This proactive support positions the designer as a trusted partner rather than someone who only reaches out when issues arise.
Watch from 26:52

Video chapters

2:05The Reality of Influencing Without Power
Jain shares a personal story about joining a company with no product manager and explains why designers must learn to influence without formal authority.
8:54Building Credibility Through Self-Knowledge
This section explores how designers can establish trust by identifying their superpowers, tracking achievements in a brag document, and stepping out of their comfort zones.
12:41Earning Trust by Doing the Boring Work
Jain explains how taking high agency over unsexy projects and deeply understanding business metrics and user needs builds professional credibility.
15:42Mastering Communication and Active Listening
The speaker discusses the importance of active listening, separating facts from assumptions, and tailoring messages to different audiences.
19:42Navigating Emotions and Difficult Conversations
This chapter covers emotional intelligence, embracing resistance, and shifting from proving a point to entering a learning zone during conflicts.
22:59Fostering Collaboration and Managing Up
Jain details how to build stakeholder alliances, adopt a facilitator mindset, and effectively manage your manager to drive team success.

Read edited transcript highlights

These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.

The Trap of the Designer's Cage

Early in his career, Jain struggled to have his ideas taken seriously on a team lacking product management direction. When he asked his manager for advice on how to grow his influence, he was told to simply do what was best for the company. It took him years to realize this meant he needed to stop being caged by his specific design role and start focusing on the bigger business picture.

Watch from 4:00

The Power of a Weekly Brag Document

To recognize your own strengths and track your impact, Jain recommends maintaining a personal brag document. Every week, write down three or four accomplishments, such as onboarding a colleague, conducting a user journey session, or mentoring a teammate. Over time, this document serves as a tangible record of the value you bring to the organization.

Watch from 10:51

Securing High-Profile Projects

Many designers want to work on the most exciting projects immediately, but Jain notes that the fastest way to get those opportunities is by executing unsexy tasks with high ownership. Taking meeting notes, summarizing user research for product managers, or helping draft executive decks builds the necessary team credibility to be trusted with major initiatives.

Watch from 12:41

A Framework for Objective Listening

Active listening is difficult because our minds naturally rush to formulate responses or react to emotional triggers. To combat this, Jain suggests using a structured framework to separate facts from assumptions: 'When you say A, I assume B, so I conclude C.' This helps clarify the speaker's actual meaning and prevents misunderstandings.

Watch from 17:49

Adopting a Facilitator Mindset

Designers should not feel pressured to generate every single design idea themselves. By adopting a facilitator mindset, you invite engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders into the creative process early. This collaborative approach allows the team to flag technical or strategic issues early, resulting in stronger collective decisions.

Watch from 25:36

The Art of Managing Up

Managing your manager is crucial for career progression. Jain advises designers to demonstrate control over their scope, share wins frequently, and seek feedback early to avoid blindsiding their leadership. Additionally, offering to help solve your manager's own challenges, such as fleshing out a feature they have not had time to design, builds deep professional trust.

Watch from 26:52

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