“Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.”
― Seth Godin
Context
Upon assuming the role of Director of UX at Modus Create, my initial challenge was comprehending our human capital.
Since the company needed documented team data beyond resumes and application forms, I wanted to craft an activity to learn more about the team.
However, with 30 professionals to interview individually, time became a limiting factor. Additionally, 1:1 wouldn’t provide insight into how well they could collaborate and which individuals would work best together.
As a problem solver, my focus was determining how well the team members could collaborate.
While comprehending human characteristics can be difficult, understanding how these can combine to produce different outcomes can be even more complex.
Leadership Case
Magnifying Glass
The Idea
To address this problem, I created a continuous activity called "Magnifying Glass," which involved enlarging what was already visible and finding ways to combine skills and abilities infinitely.
Live Workshop
In this 30-minute session, designers completed an exercise to define their skills, approach to design principles and processes, task management, roles, duties, and responsibilities.
Leading creativity requires collaboration, a clear vision, an open mind, attention to detail, and a commitment to keeping up with industry trends. Aligning this mindset with teams and understanding their needs is my path to creating visually stunning and innovative work.
Design Super Clusters
The Design Superclusters activity was a game-changer, bringing new insight and understanding to our work as designers. Through the innovative activity of Design Superclusters, I gained a deeper understanding of the intricate dynamics and relationships within the world of designers. By identifying the points of "gravity," where projects and the most influential designers were located, and the various “orbits,” “revolutions,” and “rotations” of other designers around them, we could create a vivid picture of the complex web of connections between colleagues.
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Squad Activities
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Emotions & Behaviors
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Team Reviews
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Programmed Retrospection
The Hidden Gem
Discovering designers’ capabilities and skills allowed me to create an educational set of activities called the CX Workshops Series.
It was open to the entire Company and was a unique opportunity to explore targeted Design thematics, from research to strategy, driving processes to business goals and objectives.
The following video was the morning Workshop Opening (better with sound).
Learnings
Exploring the designer’s abilities and pitfalls helped me build a collaborative and trusting culture that motivated my team. The open activities encourage open communication and active listening and foster mutual respect.
In everyday routine, setting clear goals and expectations for each project is essential, providing our team with clarity and transparency. It also allowed me to learn and invest in the team's growth by offering training, mentorship, and professional development opportunities.
The one scope was to embrace creativity and experimentation: Design is an iterative process that requires activity and creativity. I encourage team members to take risks, learn from their mistakes, and be open to new ideas and approaches.
Magnifying Glass brought us awareness and empathy. It was fundamental to set a culture of celebrating successes as a team and using failures as an opportunity to learn and improve. A growth mindset emphasizing learning and improvement can help teams stay motivated and focused on achieving their goals.
