Designing Design Leadership

Today I talk with Demetrius Romanos, SVP of Design & Development at Ergobaby. Demtrius has been my boss, my client and is also my friend! Demetrius has worked on leading design on products of all shapes and sizes, from chocolate bars to medical devices and from laptop bags to baby carriers...and everything in between. I’m excited to share a deep conversation about design leadership. We discuss how to invite more of the behaviours you want in your team, how to lead with humility and how working across the whole organization to build a design system can get the whole team to think more deeply about what they deliver...and more importantly, why they deliver it. So many people come to me asking me to help their team develop a shared vision and a shared language of problem solving...Demetrius shares his insights on how to do just that, gently and relentlessly, over time. When I teach teams about problem solving, I often break down the most famous of Design Thinking tools, the “How might we” statement, into 3 key parts. Might indicates possibility...it’s not about how *must* we or how *will* we solve this challenge...Might, in this way, helps make problems “huggable” (as an old business partner of mine liked to say). We indicates that we are in this challenge, together. It’s not about how Must You or how Should They solve this challenge. Demetrius embodies these two aspects in his design leadership: Possibility and Togetherness. But it’s the first word of the phrase that (surprisingly) does the most of all: How implies that a solution can exist if we put effort into it. The core truth of the design mindset is that a solution is possible, that design can get us out of this challenge. It’s optimism Everything around us has been designed, usually by someone else, in the past: our offices and digital tools, our calendar and clocks. Our financial structures and org structures. Choosing to look at the current state of affairs and *not* throwing your hands up in despair, not blaming whoever came first, but rolling up your sleeves and getting started, believing that design, that intentionality can make a difference, is the essence of design and the essence of leadership. I’ve learned a lot from Demetrius over the years, but in this conversation, I am reminded of the power of warmth and optimism to lead change. Enjoy the conversation as much as I did! Links, Quotes, Notes and Resources Min 1: Design to me is about facilitating change in a meaningful way. It's not just about aesthetically making something better or focusing on this one aspect of a user experience, but really taking into account a big picture and a small picture, and doing it in a way that makes sense. Min 9, on the value of doing the work to create a design system:  the end benefit was that we got so deep into who we are and recognizing the values that our brand makes for our products and for our end users. It just changes now how people talk about what we do internally. Min 13, on how to build alignment through design: Small wins, I think is the best way to put it. My career, especially the last, probably 15 years has been very much about driving organizational change with through design, but I don't do it in a silo. It's all about collaboration, but you have to bring people along on the ride...People can say, "Hey, I see the value in this." It's simple as that. It's not about me, it's about the process. If they believe in what the output was and what they got out of it, if they felt better afterwards than they did going in, then I've done a big part of my job. By the time I got them to this design language workshop, there was still uncertainty, but they were comfortable with me being their guide along the ride. Min 35 on Design Leadership: You lead with what's the big vision. What are we trying to achieve? You lead by giving them a safe place to explore, you lead by assigning sub leaders, making people feel empowered to do what they do, and to come back and surprise you with something you might not have asked for. I think it's a bigger role, frankly. Bigger in the sense that you're not just the facilitator that's going to ask the questions and create the worksheets and all that stuff for like a finite period of time. You're really teaching skills and you're encouraging things that are different. It's forcing the folks that you assign as sub-leaders to really be that. I think it's helping people grow faster.   Min 44 on Humility and Respect Leadership: I was always taught to respect ... you've heard this kind of stuff before, respect the janitor just like you respect the CEO. We're just all people. At the end of the day, we're just all little creatures on this earth trying to do our thing to move the ball down the field a little bit. So, if we just all have a little bit of humility, work well together, no one has to be best friends at work, but we sure work better when we like each other, and then we see a bigger reason for doing what we do. Getting people to sort of rally around that. Be honest and open. Say, "Hey, this is not my thing, but that's your thing. Or maybe if this isn't for you, try something else." I don't know. It's just a comfort in my own skin and trying to live through that. I think people respond to that, especially your younger designers when they see the boss say, "I don't know that, but I know this guy that knows that so we're just going to go ask him," and it's okay. More About Demetrius Demetrius Romanos is a business-minded, brand experience evangelist.  A consummate design diplomat, he’s been preaching the gospel that “everything matters,” from his time working in renowned consultancies to his present role SVP of Design & Development at Ergobaby. For over 20 years, Romanos has applied his creative leadership, strategic thinking and deep empathy to help companies use design strategically to change corporate culture and drive top and bottom line growth.  A graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s industrial design program, Romanos has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers, as well as being included in the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum’s first Design Triennial.