Bartek Lenard — Experience Design Lead at Design Consultant
Managing emotions in design (systemic approach)
September 20, 2024
10:25
Relation Management
🇬🇧 English
Relation Management
I used to be UX… Navigating tough, complex, unpredictable changes: handbook for leaders
About
The situation in tech is getting serious. UX and Design become questioned. Giants fall (Ideo) and „workforce reductions” hit designers and leaders hard. A lot of changes will come for everyone of us, pretty soon.
Turn off everything we know about „change management”. Enter the world where change can’t be just planned and executed – because we are not sure what should we change and how.
Listen to some stories about navigating three states of transition process: saying goodbye to the past, surviving no man’s land and nurturing a new beginning. And learn how to create powerful futures, habits that stick, and manage eruption of emotions along the way!
Watch the full talk
Watch this WaysConf session, then continue with related talks or explore the current programme.
From the recording
Talk in brief
A change-leadership handbook for UX professionals facing layoffs, reorganizations, lost status, or a move into a different career. The talk distinguishes three psychological phases: ending the old chapter, inhabiting a disorienting neutral zone, and beginning new work before competence and confidence have fully returned. Managers are asked to acknowledge loss, mark endings with meaningful rituals, remain present with difficult emotions, keep collective energy from collapsing, make rumors and needs discussable, and reconnect people with purpose. The message applies equally to an individual transition: respect the skills that brought you here, release an identity that no longer fits, and accept that people start the next chapter at different speeds.
Key takeaways
- 01
Treat transition as more than a structural change
A new organization chart may appear instantly, but people still move through endings, uncertainty, and a demanding new beginning.
Watch from 2:01 - 02
Mark the ending without rejecting the past
Rituals and retained reminders help people recognize what was lost while carrying useful skills into their next identity.
Watch from 10:00 - 03
Acknowledge emotions before they escalate
Anger, bargaining, anxiety, and sadness need presence and recognition rather than denial or shallow reassurance.
Watch from 12:00 - 04
Protect energy through the neutral zone
When the future remains unclear, transparent mood tracking, peer support, and honest discussion help a team remain capable of restarting.
Watch from 20:02 - 05
Reconnect new work to a larger purpose
Beginnings reactivate loss and insecurity, so leaders must repeatedly explain the reason for change and expect uneven adoption.
Watch from 24:00
Read edited transcript highlights
These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.
An organization changes faster than its people
A formal change can happen on a chosen date, but the people affected do not arrive in the new reality at once. They first have to release an identity and routines that mattered, then spend time without a stable past or a visible future, and finally expend extra energy learning how to begin again. Planning only the structural move leaves this human transition unmanaged.
Watch from 2:01Closure should preserve useful identity
Leaving a discipline or closing a team does not require contempt for everything that came before. People can retain books, habits, relationships, and skills that explain how they reached the present while still marking a definite ending. A ritual or symbol helps prevent the old chapter from quietly controlling every comparison and decision in the new one.
Watch from 10:00Leadership begins by staying present
Loss can produce anger, bargaining, anxiety, and sadness. A manager cannot erase those reactions with optimistic slogans, but can acknowledge them, listen, remain visible, and keep them from escalating into destructive behavior or isolation. The task is not to make the emotion illegitimate; it is to create enough support for people to move through it safely.
Watch from 12:00Uncertainty needs shared support structures
During the neutral zone, motivation may be low and teams can polarize between eager adopters and people who have withdrawn. Making moods and needs visible allows colleagues to help one another instead of placing every burden on a manager. Even rumors contain information about unmet needs, so treating them as evidence can be more useful than trying to suppress them.
Watch from 20:02A new beginning consumes extra energy
Starting a different role interrupts the relative safety of waiting. Familiar competence disappears, old habits return under pressure, and imposter feelings can intensify. Leaders need to repeat the purpose behind the change and recognize that some people move as soon as the signal comes while others begin only after watching colleagues. Both groups are still part of the transition.
Watch from 22:01Explore WaysConf 2026
