How to be a good design leader? / Todd Wilkens / Episode #136
Channel: Service Design Show
Date: 2021-11-11

The answer was simple...

"It gave me the opportunity to start doing things the way I really thought they should be done."

That's what Todd Wilkens said when I asked him why he decided to take on a leadership role.

I think that every service design professional out there wants to have more influence on the decisions that are being made.

Because you are the one who is fighting to do the "right thing" for your users. Who can argue against that right? Well in reality it's not that easy.

When you want more influence, moving into a leadership position is almost a must.

But what does this even mean? And is it a career step that you should consider?

In this episode Todd takes us along his transformational journey from being a design practitioner to becoming a design leader.

You'll learn about the mistakes he made along the way and now is slowly recovering from.

I have to admit that this is quite a unique perspective that hasn't been shared on the Show often.

So if you're interested in having a greater influence on the decisions around you, this is an episode you definitely don't want to miss.

What I took out of our conversations was how we should hold on tightly to the things that designers do really well. Especially when we move into a different role within the organisation.

[ 1. GUIDE 📺 ]

00:00 Welcome to episode 136
02:45 Who is Todd
04:30 60 second rapid fire
06:30 What's in store
08:30 Start of the journey
12:00 The opportunity
17:15 Making the jump
23:00 New responsibilities
27:45 Lessons learned
32:00 A better approach
39:15 Tradeoffs and compromises
42:30 What to look for
46:30 It will change you
48:00 The first step
51:00 Closing thoughts

[ 2. LINKS 🔗 ]
* https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddwilkens/

[ 3. COMMUNITY 👋 ]
Hello rockstar, good to see that you've made it all the way down here!

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