Hello and welcome to Power of 10, a show about design operating at

many levels of Zoom from thoughtful detail through to transformation in

organizations, society, and the world.

My name is Andy Polaine.

I'm a design leadership coach, service designer, educator, and writer.

My guest today is my friend Meltem Naz Kaso, a Barcelona based UX career

coach with a background in UX research.

Her last full-time position was at Glovo where she served as a UX research

manager and staff UX researcher.

She works with senior UX professionals to unlock their careers by boosting their

leadership and communication skills.

Mel, welcome to Power of 10.

Thank you.

That was so impressive.

I really want your accent.

One day.

You've got a good accent too.

So all those, all those other people will be listening and dreaming of our accents.

So tell us a bit, a bit more about who you are and what's your

journey, you know, from, from there, wherever there was, uh, to here.

'cause you have been in Barcelona for a while, but you're not

originally from there either.

That's right.

That's right.

So I called Barcelona home and I'm extremely excited about it because

I run a fully remote business.

I feel that it's important to be able to locate ourselves now.

So I've been here about a decade.

My two kids, uh, all were born and, and they're raised here

before I was in the Netherlands.

Um.

You know, doing my grad school and before that I was in,

technically in 12 other countries.

So I've been everywhere pretty much.

Uh, I was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and before starting UX career coaching, I've

done, as you just said in the intro, a lot of UX work, particularly in the field of.

Research.

And before that I had, um, different careers.

I've done investigative journalism, I've done research in academic and NGO settings

in policy, uh, and and and whatnot.

So I had, uh, pretty much different things happening for me.

So what was your trigger to start coaching?

How did that get started for you?

Right.

Um, I'm curious about your journey too, Andy, because we

have some parallels in there.

It happened very organically.

It wasn't that I woke up one day and said I'm gonna become a coach, or, I wasn't

aware that this was gonna be a thing for me when I was still, um, studying.

I. It just happened so that when I went down the managerial track,

I began to work through people as well as with people as you know.

And I realized that there was a special sort of satisfaction

when you succeed through people.

But then, you know, um, when you work in an organization, you need to marry the

needs of your direct reports with the needs of an organization in ideal set out.

It works and sometimes there is big clashes.

But then I realized with further reflection that the thing that I really

liked about management or working with people, helping them reach their

goals, that was the coaching part.

When I got to ask them open questions, when I really understood their pain

points, when I really, um, helped them.

And I get unstuck basically.

So that was the part, coaching part was something I did when

I was still working full time.

I also did coaching on the side for many years before fully

transitioning to running my business.

So it was sort of this whole thing where I was doing multiple things at once

and that includes also training and and teaching at a university and whatnot.

And eventually, about a year ago actually, I said, okay, let me give it a try.

Let me make this my full-time effort to do coaching.

Yeah,

you just posted your anniversary, right?

I think on LinkedIn.

Yes, exactly.

Last, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

No, it was one of the like, uh, last days of March.

Uh, so it's been just a little over a year.

Crazy.

Yeah.

Well done.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

How much is your, I mean, I'm guessing the answer is probably a lot, but

I'm interested in how, in fact your, um, background as UX researcher

has influenced the way you coach.

Wow.

Um, I wanna, I don't know if I can help modify the question somehow.

I know you're the host, but I wanna say Yeah,

you can,

because there is no way to answer that without also saying how being a

journalist influenced my UX research.

Yeah.

It's like, you know, everything just going on and influencing each other.

Um, so with journalism, I've learned in my research that storytelling did

matter because you can run, um, the most rigorous UX research project in

the world, but if you're not telling the story the right way for the, uh,

stakeholders to care about it for, um.

Users to understand the right way, your questions and that sort of thing.

It was just not gonna work out.

So my storytelling, communication skills gathered through journalism

helped me run and communicate research, I believe, and the best way.

And speed also influenced from journalism.

One thing I had learned that, you know.

You needed to balance rigor with speed.

I like to think of it as quality at velocity.

You know, you cannot, um, come up with a best story, uh, whether it's

a research report or when you're publishing for a newspaper in 10 weeks.

Right?

Like, maybe it's gonna be a lot better than what you'll deliver in a day,

but we don't have that much time.

It has to be new to be news, right?

So, I. You know, um, apply that for my research as well.

I don't like to call it quick and dirty because it has the rigor.

It's just that it's not the most rigorous, like academic research.

So fast forward, all those things influenced my coaching too, because

I like to be present for my coaches.

Yeah.

I believe that if they need me, part of it is emotional, part of it is

for the work, for their deadlines.

I cannot just come back in three weeks and say, you know, I have the best.

Response to what you're asking because the need was then not now.

So speed is a big part of that.

Uh, communication is a big part of it.

So I guess those two things are, are, are quite relevant for me.

I, I'm interested that you didn't say about asking questions actually,

because both in journalism and the research, how you frame the questions

makes obviously a huge difference.

Right.

Very true.

Very true.

And and that's absolutely right.

My thinking of that was, that goes under communication.

How can you communicate without asking questions?

Someone implicitly or explicitly should be asking questions,

reframing, setting the context.

Yeah, it's absolutely, it's an obvious one and important one, but I do believe

that asking questions isn't always enough.

Like I went back to this best, uh, research example.

No, you can ask those questions, but the way you deliver the results.

And the one that people consume, uh, if, if that doesn't work out,

if it's a boring one, an appealing one, irrelevant one doesn't create

the impact, it still doesn't work.

So I take it on the communication umbrella.

I mean, I, I often think that the, getting the question right

is, um, is the hardest bit.

There's a book called Designing Design by Kenya Hara, and, um, he's,

I dunno if he still is, he's the, um, creative director of Muji, or he was.

Okay.

And he talks about this and it's called designing design because his whole

thing was, he, he has a few different examples of coming up with trying to

sort of write, find the right question for a design brief or a design project

or whatever, um, you know, is the heartbeat once you get it really well.

So there was a project where they did, where they got different architects to,

to redesign pasta forms and each architect took their sort of classic forms.

Um, and sort of translated them to the past.

Alright.

It turned out interesting.

Well,

it turned out that the, the, the classic shape of like penne and stuff

that had been developed by Italians, um, over the years was still the best

one for kind of carrying the sauce.

But he had this kind of whole thing in the book.

You just keep seeing, once you get an interesting question, everything else

sort of flows much more easily from it.

Um, and I, I kind of think that's sometimes true of coaching of,

of, you know, people come in.

And that I, so I, you know, I want this, this, and this, so I'm

having this problem with that.

And there's often that moment like, Hmm, but is that really the question here?

You know, so I'm interested for you.

Mm-hmm.

You have, you know, you focus on UXs and UX has been through

a particularly difficult period.

I mean, lots of us have, in the last sort of couple of years or so, what have

been, what have you been seeing coming up in your coaching and the kinds of

issues that people have been dealing with?

Are there any patterns there?

I.

Yeah, there is.

And, and thank you for that.

Um, questioning example too.

I'll go ahead and say something a little provocative and hopefully

that's gonna make a more interesting podcast episodes for us.

I do believe the value of open, non-biased, non-judgmental questions,

indeed important ones to ask ourselves.

Before we coach, because as a coach yourself is your most important tool.

You need to be self-aware and you need to ask those questions to,

to yourself as well as your, your clients, your, your coaches, right?

But there's a point to be made also to balance between the, the

questioning part, um, as well as, you know, um, having more direct.

Statements because one thing that I hear from my coaches over and over,

and the reason why the ones that stick with me go ahead and continue

working with me and love the impact that they get is because it's not this

philosophical, um, engagement with open questions one after the other.

We need to.

Eventually narrow it down.

We need to make final statements and we need to figure out what it

is that we're gonna experiment with.

So questions tremendously important.

I agree.

But it also does not end with questioning.

So for me, what success looks like is not that someone leaves

like, oh, I got amazing questions.

Let me think about them.

Of course, that's part of it, but we need to also narrow down.

The scope, see what we can commit to, to experiment within any given month

or, and so on and, and take action.

It's all about taking action.

Um, so that's one part of it.

And, and what you're saying about what your X-rays are going

through, that's absolutely right.

And that's why actually to be so transparent, I took a bet

and, um, left my full-time job.

I wanted to be a UX career coach because one thing we've all learned,

um, and I'm curious what you think is that no matter how, um, you get a

promotion, you are an over performer.

You're very loyal to your organization.

You might be laid off from one day to the next.

Due to reorgs, due to, uh, whatever that might be taking place, uh,

in your, in your department or in your organization at large.

So one thing I'm seeing from people is that it's not, um, like a formula

that you apply for your success.

And as long as you get a green light from your organization, you're good to go.

So people are realizing, wow, I'm employed full-time.

I'm having a, you know, great salary.

Uh, I love my colleagues, but I need to be networking.

I need to be building my brand out.

Side of my organization, I need to be more active.

I think people are realizing that, um, people meaning UX rays, that they

are UX career is the most important product that they're working on, so

they need to design their UX careers.

It's not just something that is hanging in there.

Um, that's an important one that we've, I think all learned.

Yeah, it is.

There's a, there's a, um, screenwriter called John August.

He wrote, um, big Fish and, uh, well, Charlie's Angels and quite

a lot of, uh, of other stuff.

Um, and he, he talks often.

He's got really good podcasts called script notes, and he talks often,

you know, um, people write in and they're saying, you know, as a

young screenwriter, what can I do?

And so forth and how can I break in, you know, get my break in things.

And one of the things he said was to network when you are junior, I. Is

because at some point, like, you know, I have now friends and colleagues who

are kind of, you know, heads of CEOs and, you know, or kind of heads of

design, you know, senior people, right?

Of course.

But there were people I've known since, well, you know, 25, 30 years.

And I think, um, it's really important to do that because your peers, you

know, the, the temptations always want to net to network to the senior

people, which I think is also important.

Um, but I think as you are building up your career.

It's really important to sort of stay in touch and network with your peers.

'cause at some point they're gonna be someone who might be hiring you

or, uh, or any of that kinda stuff.

I think that is really important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The career thing's interesting.

I mean, I, I put a comment on one of your posts the other day that

I've had probably about, I'm like, sort of consider, I have about, I've

had about three different careers.

I've had a sort of career.

As some kind of digital interactive thing guy, you know, that's changed over years.

Well, 30 years ago in, you know, UX interaction design.

Um, I. You know, any of those things, they didn't really have names.

Um, info information architecture a little bit, maybe It was probably

the first one to emerge as a clear discipline, but prior to that it was

all like HCD and things like that.

Okay.

And so, yeah, and then I moved into sort of service design stuff in

the early two thousands, but I've always also had a sort of academic

life and been teaching more or less, depending on sort of what's going on.

And now the coaching.

So, um, uh, that's sort of four careers if you like.

Um, and I think it's important for people right to remember, particularly

when they're in their, I dunno what the average age is of your coach is,

but particularly in their sort of twenties and thirties to remember.

There's quite a lot of life left to go, right.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

No, you, you said it out actually.

But one thing that I appreciate from what you said is that you still teach

and, and you have a diverse background as well as current experience.

Yeah.

And I think that's important for a coach because what I also insist on knowing

is I make sure I write at UX Collective.

I make sure that I teach and train and do group events because I need

to be in touch with the realities of the people and I need to, um,

you know, it's, it's not gonna.

Sound, uh, very humble, but I am gonna say that from a place of humility,

but also boldness that I think to be a good coach, you need to be that, you

know, person that asks open question, but in a way also an opinion leader.

And you cannot do that if you're only practicing coaching.

So for me, I. All those other things you're mentioning, like

teaching, what does it take to teach?

You need to continue to learn.

Yeah.

You need to be, um, giving workshops, master classes, writing articles.

You even brought a wonderful book.

Like all those things are so important to, I believe, establish yourself as

a co, uh, coach that stays relevant and I do my best in, in doing those

things as well because like, it's so important as you, as you just described.

You are talking of that, um, you've got a, um, session at

one of the leadership atelier.

So I'm doing the one in Lisbon, um, for the, the Hatch Conference guys.

And you are doing the one in Barcelona?

So my one I still, yeah, my one is, um, in Lisbon, uh, in, in a few weeks time.

Actually not, not long, in a couple of weeks time in, uh, uh, in April.

When is your one in Barcelona?

Fifth and 6th of May.

I know it by heart because the sixth is my daughter's birthday.

Ah,

yeah.

It's just before mine.

That shit.

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Really cool.

So what will you be doing in that?

Can you, can you share anything?

Might know, depending on the timing of this.

I hope that this gets out before then, but, um Okay.

I was say, what did you do

exactly?

What did you do?

Or what will you doing?

Yeah, exactly.

Somehow.

Um, so I will be giving a masterclass for two groups of, of, um, cohorts, let's

say, and it's gonna be an hour and a half, uh, to help people, um, do their best in

communicating designs value to non-design.

Stakeholders because no matter the, the sector in which you work, the kind of

organization where you, um, collaborate, um, people keep on coming with this, you

know, I'm a UX or I'm a designer and I find it very hard to communicate the, the

value of my team's work, whether you're a senior IC or, or a manager or a director.

For, for those that are not UXers, like they don't understand.

Hmm.

It just feels like an add on irrelevant thing.

Like why is this guy wasting our time?

So, um, it's gonna be an interactive session where we're gonna establish, you

know, everything that is worth knowing.

Uh, very pragmatic, very actionable about communication styles and what it

is that, um, business leaders, product leaders, care about, uh, when we build,

um, material to, to sell, to be profitable and all that, like different languages,

different priorities and whatnot.

And then we're gonna deep dive into the kind of ways we can see.

Still root for, for UX and like be flexible, um, but also adjust our

communication style to make sure that it, um, works out well with

a CEO or, or a product reader, a business leader or what have you.

So it's gonna be a session where it is gonna be a lot of, uh, engagement across

participants and, uh, yeah, hopefully it's gonna be both relevant and exciting.

Nice.

Good.

Um, I'm sure it'll be fantastic.

You sound, it's.

I got even so excited, to be honest, because I've spoken with you as you

know, and like two of my colleagues that I really, really trust at Miro

and, um, you know, a, a freelancer that also publishes books and, and they were

like, oh my God, this is super relevant.

I never thought about that.

I was like, that's great, and I just.

Checked out the list of participants and they're coming from Middle East, they're

coming from all across Europe and and the us And so I'm like, whoa, like this is

gonna be a historic moment, not because I believe the value of the material.

Of course.

That's beautiful.

Mm-hmm.

But I really appreciate that it's gonna be very international because

design work is very cultural as well.

Um, and also people are gonna bring diverse set of experiences

as they engage in, in pairs.

So I'm quite excited.

Yeah,

that's good.

It's one of the things I really like about my coaching actually, is I've coaches from

all over the world, from all different.

You know, from startups to scale up to kinda large enterprises, to agencies

and, and you know, owners of agencies, small agencies and things like that.

And I think it's been a, and you know, it's a sort of cliche to say

it's a privilege, but it really has been, I find it a real privilege

to see a much experience, a much broader set of people's experiences.

Uh, than I have myself, especially as like, you know, middle-aged white guy.

Right.

So, uh, I'm as, as kind of in the middle of that privilege

as you can get, but it's, it's

like you cannot get more privileged.

I know.

I dunno.

Like,

I'm sorry.

Um, but yeah, no, it's has been really good.

That's also, you know, goes for sort of race and gender and, uh, sexualities too.

You know, it's been, there is a real kind of range there.

And, um.

It's, it's it because the sort of coaching's so intimate.

I dunno if you find this, I feel like sort of get in someone's life and I really, you

know, you know, and I feel it's extremely

intimate.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

And I feel, you know, I feel kind of, yeah, it's privileged.

I feel, um, very lucky to be that, that those people and honored really, that

those people kind of let me in like that.

Um, I don't, it's the same for

you.

It, it, it cannot be, uh, it cannot resonate more with me, honestly, because,

um, my take is that, and I say to everyone, like, I'm not a lives coach.

You know, I'm not like a relationship coach.

It is very specific to your UX career.

It's very specific to the impact you wanna create at work.

You wanna get a promotion, you wanna have more influence in your organization.

You wanna be hired in a better organization with whatever principle.

So we are very action oriented.

It's.

Not just like, um, philosophical or cheesy materials.

Not to disrespect that kind of coaching.

Maybe it's appealing to others, but I'm very clear like, Hey, I'm a

coach, but before a coach, I'm a uxr.

I actually, you know, I'm gonna talk about tangible things that will

resonate, uh, with you as gonna.

Impact.

But that being said, one thing I also tell everyone is like, when it boils down

to talking about your family dynamics, of course we're gonna talk about it

because there's no way for you to concentrate at work and be successful by

our definition if you're doing the heavy lifting constantly with your partner.

So your work, uh, life, you know, emotional life, your, your private life

is, uh, you know, under a bigger umbrella.

Of your yourself and you know, without considering that we

cannot think of your career.

You know, so everything emotional, everything personal do come in.

So there is some sessions that people cry or we laugh a lot.

Mm, yeah.

Yeah.

So those are indeed part of what we do.

And I feel extremely, um, like gratified because part of what I did.

For my undergrad studies was clinical psychology.

Obviously, I'm interested in understanding people through the lenses

of, you know, cultural anthropology.

Even revolutionary biology was part of what I did, which

I loved and, and psychology.

But I, uh, entertained the idea of being a therapist.

Um, but then I realized that I actually love.

To offer a little bit of empowerment to high functioning successful people

that wanna get even more impactful.

That to me, delivers a lot more value than maybe treating someone

with a very serious mental illness.

And that is an absolutely rewarding line of work.

I don't disrespect at all, but I feel like in what we do, Andy, we

can help people, uh, to feel better, create more impact at work, um, and

also be part of their personal lives in a way that is very action driven.

Yeah, and I really appreciate.

Yeah, no, I mean, similar thing for me, right?

So I, I always say I'm kinda opinionated as a coach.

'cause I think, you know, the whole point of coming to someone who's had

the, who's been through the path or that you've been through, is that's, that's

the reason for coming to it, rather than just a sort of general career or

life coach that's just gonna say, you know, what would having that do for you?

And, you know, those open questions are useful sometimes, but I usually

switch, I'm usually sort of saying, okay.

Here's my opinion now, but you know, you take it or leave it.

And I don't wanna sort of set myself up as a guru, but I kind of think there's,

what's the point of coming to me if, if, you know, if I don't give that up?

Yeah.

Like no disrespect to HR professionals or, you know, I know that there's

amazing certification programs for, for coaching, but I also do feel like, hey,

if I have, for instance, right now, 17 clients, all the SY exercises I provide,

or the questions I ask them and what we.

Doing with them.

They're all very different from each other.

There is not like this HR worksheet sort of template.

Yeah, yeah.

Everyone has, because this is like companies, uh, training

or anything like that.

And the way that I attain these individualities is

because of the experience.

So, and, and, and having my sense of, you know, what success looks

like together with, with each person.

It's that co-creation.

Yeah.

It's funny you said I'm not a relationship coach 'cause I kind of feel like I am.

Like more and more and more.

I mean, I was aware of this some time ago, but it, it just becomes

ever more clear to me that mm-hmm.

Almost none of my coaching, none of my job as a design director,

like very little of it was actually di directing designers Of course.

And, you know, in a, any, any creative sense.

I just all the time.

And so much of the coaching is, oh, I'm having this really difficult problem

with this stakeholder or with someone else, or this colleague and, and you

know, that's the stuff that really fills people's heads really kind of, you know,

um, sets them off on a kind of spin, you know, and quite often people will a.

Prefer to leave a job than have, uh, a difficult or conflict

conversation with a colleague.

Absolutely.

It's amazing with

their broth especially, or, or, but I will add one more thing.

I don't disagree with you.

Anything around like emotional, um, awareness.

Uh, relationship management.

Those are key because I always tell it to people, hard skills are amazing.

You can either learn them, claim to have them.

I don't necessarily think your hard skills alone will make, uh, a major

difference, especially in the era of ai.

So the, the relationship management will, however, I think

there is a difference between.

Someone that calls themselves a life coach, that sort of relationship,

um, term that applies so broadly and abstractly without any context.

So I really appreciate that we can offer, you know, um, how to build influence, how

to gain more power in a way that we can be more impactful in your organizations.

How to be more, um, smart about your relationship management at work, but

within ux, where we understand UX, um, processes, how product teams work.

And, and what it really takes to, you know, empower ics if you're a

manager, if you're an ic, how to then go ahead and, and defend the value

of your work and that sort of thing.

So I think it's, the application of that relationship bit within a

particular field makes it all very, very, um, relevant in my opinion.

Yeah.

But even the storytelling stuff, the thi the things where I keep coming back to

the relationship stuff is 'cause I think that I've, I've learned more from, you

know, books about relationships, uh, listen to know podcasts about that stuff.

Um, even things like dating for networking, right?

And stuff like that.

The, I've learned more about that from that world, from the world of

really understanding interpersonal relationships than I ever have.

From reading any kind of management books or you know, how to build high performing

teams and all that kind of stuff.

Because actually even some of like the storytelling thing, if you've ever

had that thing in a, in your personal relationship of like, you know, I've got

this need here, there's this thing that bothers me and every time I talk about it,

my partner somehow just doesn't get it.

And you just seem, we seem to be kind of talking cross purposes and all

of that stuff is exactly the same.

Uh, why is this not landing with that person, with that stakeholder

is exactly the same as you know?

How is it that we can misunderstand each other?

So much, and yet we know each other so well at the same time.

Right.

And all of those kind of dynamics about what people, where people

go when they get stressed.

So my thing I've just talked about over and over and over is the, this

idea that the world of work is just really filled with fear and anxiety.

Right.

Everyone seems to be operating from a position of fear

and anxiety, and I remember

you saying that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it sort of explains so much behavior and it's kind of much more

of like a, an empathetic view, really.

Mm-hmm.

Because once you get the fact that this person isn't being.

Difficult and annoying because that's what they wanna be.

They're doing it at a place of fear and anxiety.

I think it kind of can really help reframe the way you kind

of then approach that person.

That's, that's why I think the relationship stuff is so important.

I mean, what I do hear you say, and I definitely agree with you,

is sometimes we, um, narrow down our focus on the work itself.

Yeah, yeah.

That we're talking about.

We're talking about retention, acquisition, user flow, these pain points.

But it's important when you collaborate to remember that you're collaborating

with a human being that was once as a, you know, child had their challenges

with their parents, and if they have a conflict at work with their, you

know, at home with their wife or their kids or whatever, all those.

Things are part of the equation.

So building a relationship that extends beyond the superficial challenges that

are being paid, uh, you know, faced in any given project, that's key.

But I also wouldn't create a, um, you know, duality between reading about

relationships and personal stuff versus business MBA books because I learned

also a great deal from those books.

And I think for UX series, especially gaining the trust.

Of their stakeholders, of, of their, um, you know, um, collaborators, they

need to be able to showcase that they understand the language of business they

need to showcase, uh, their competencies.

So to be able to contact switch from one to another will be an important one.

So I wouldn't zero in on, in, in one way or another.

I think we can gather something more holistic.

No, I, I think you're absolutely right.

Um, I, I guess my view is that the language of business is not

really a language of business.

That when we say that, what, you know, what is it that we actually mean?

And I think what we mean is the stakeholders we are presenting to care

about different things than we care about.

And it's not really about kind of business.

'cause business is this like hand wavy term, right?

It doesn't mean anything.

Um, and you know, but, but it's, what we're really saying is that you're having

that kind of stranger in a strange land moment where you're going somewhere.

And you are presenting to people.

You're talking to people who, who daily speak a different language to you.

I would argue that a lot of the language of business, um, is masking right for, um.

It lacks honesty, a lot's particularly jargon and the kinds of things you

never listen to, like a quarterly earnings call and the CEO just

kind of spout like nonsense.

Uh, and it's, you know, we, we are having, yeah, it's, uh, it's been a

challenging quarter because of kind of, uh, you know, market headwinds.

It's like, what, what are you saying?

We didn't earn as much money as we expected to, but there's a real

lack of, uh, emotional honesty in the language of business.

And I think one of the clashes between design culture in general

and, and sort of business culture.

Is, is the kind of, I think design generally is, is closer to being, um,

closer to you, sort of to that kinda emotional language and more so maybe

emotionally honest around, uh, in their interactions and interested in that

area and interested in that language.

And when we're doing research in people, in people into people,

we wanting to understand people's lives and things, um mm-hmm.

And yet there's this kind of distancing, which I blame the fear

and anxiety thing, you know, and this idea of being professional

where you kinda move away from that.

Into this kind of language of business, but underneath that is, underneath that

armor is all the kind of human stuff.

And you know, CEOs and senior stakeholders, they make decisions

not on hard facts and numbers.

Many of those things are hand wave anywhere, like a

spreadsheet is way more vague.

Like a forecast of a bunch is may more vague than a prototype Absolutely.

That you put in front of people.

Rightly.

It's much more handwritten and

think dataset.

You can take bunch of different decisions and just get them.

But I think, and I think the healthy, um, divergence, let's say yeah.

With, with you in mind, even if we have a lot of points in, in common, is that.

If ux, and this is my view, and if anyone watches this podcast and wants

to challenge that or give examples or otherwise, I think it'll be interesting

to hear, um, to be able to gain influence.

Yes.

I don't think that, um, you know, providing opposing, um, approaches

to towards our non UX non-design.

Stakeholders will help.

We need to first mirror them.

Yeah.

Use the same language to be able to communicate, uh, directly and indirectly.

That I hear you.

I understand you.

I'm like you, I'm one of you.

If you wanna even pull them into that space beyond the armors.

Where we can talk in a more human way, because I think it's one thing

where we reject that language.

It's another thing where we say, look, we understand that language.

We, I we under, we identify why there's a need for it and we are articulate.

We can speak that language, but at the same time, there's more than

that and we can also help you.

See that?

I think so.

It's gonna be important to, instead of like creating oppositions, I'm

not saying that's what you say.

No, I agree.

I agree.

I'm saying that,

um, it's gonna be an important, that like UXers also begin to see themselves

as business people in two ways.

First, um, serving within their organizations, but also the business

of running their own business.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're, no, I absolutely

agree.

I mean, I think the, certainly the shift kind of to leadership in the

kind of conversation designers tend to talk design to other designers.

You know, and one of the shifts as you move into a sort of management

leadership role is you actually have to talk about design less.

You know, in the same way that accountants, well, I guess they talk

about accountancy, but they will kind of talk about what matters to the

business and that sort of shift of how does the design serve the business

rather than how can the business recognize design as being this kind of

fantastic thing is, is really important.

Yeah, since we're coming up to time, we could talk for ages.

Um, I have one final question for all my guests.

So the podcast is named after the film, um, powers of 10,

uh, by Ray and Charles Eames.

And it's all about diff the relative size of things in the universe,

and it's, it's, come watch.

It's really great.

So my question is, what one small thing is either overlooked or

could be redesigned that would have an outsized impact on the world?

I.

It was a big one and, and, um, I'm glad I, I got to think about it just a little bit.

I think, um, it's time that we redefine, um, what we understand from success.

That's a small thing because we're not gonna.

Change how the business world works, how products are being made, but

it's how you reframe success, uh, to make it work in your own terms.

Today, for many people it tends to be about your title.

It tends to be about where you work, the, the name of the

organization, your, your income.

But these don't necessarily correspond with your degree of fulfillment.

You might have the most.

Sexy title, earn great deal, uh, work for a really fancy organization,

but you might be depressed.

I actually have clients working at Meta, Google, all those places, pretty

senior roles, wonderful salaries, and yet they have autoimmune diseases

and, and, and, you know, they are being triggered more and more due to

whatever it is that they, they feel.

And, and there's that lack of fulfillment.

I'm not gonna go ahead and in the remaining minutes

blaming your organization.

Yeah,

yeah.

Like that, but it's about really be honest yourself and asking,

okay, well what is success?

You live only once you deserve to be fulfilled, but the only way to make that

happen is if you can be honest about what success looks like, you know, rather

than just adopting external formulas.

Yeah.

It's funny, the, the, the, um, that's a very good answer.

The, the question that.

Well, a an issue that comes, coaches come in a lot, is around confidence.

I think, you know, that's probably for you too, right?

And

yeah,

I always feel that confidence comes from, you know, the, the closer are

to being true, true to yourself.

The more you have confidence.

'cause you have nothing to be sort of found out about.

Nothing to be, you know, you're not hiding anything.

You know, and, and, uh, they, it's actually about being comfortable

with yourself more than any kind of thing that you somehow

exude, you know, or, or put on.

I, I couldn't agree more.

And it just sounds like from the way that you described it,

the opposite of confidence is actually like defensiveness maybe.

Like you need to be there just like defending yourself, um, or

feel bad about yourself and you know, those like imposter syndrome.

Yeah.

Or pretending

to be someone else.

Right.

Or pretending be something you're not.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Mel, where can people find you online?

Uh, that's a very fun question.

I don't know when you're gonna publish this, but Career with Mail is a

website that we are building right now.

It's not ready yet, but it's gonna be already very soon.

But until then, where I'm most active is LinkedIn.

So they can search me on LinkedIn.

I'm sure you're gonna drop the link.

Yeah, I'll, okay.

And, uh, your, your substack, would that be going away or, um.

No, it's gonna stay.

I love to use that, um, space.

But of course, let's see what future brings.

If people find me on LinkedIn, um, I have it on my profile, my substack

newsletter link, and I'll make sure to add that to my website as well.

It's gonna be a simple, easy one with some videos and

hopefully fun use from Barcelona.

Yeah.

And then people will find your writing and talks, uh, all over the place actually.

So if you, if you Google Mel, then.

You'll find them there.

Oh, it sounds like you Googled me.

I, I, I also got some special links from you.

Oh.

I have Googled you.

Of course, of course.

iTalk, all of my guests.

I too.

It's, it's research.

It's research.

Journalistic research.

Yes.

Of course.

I Google people all the time.

And I've even like, uh, used chat meetings.

Yeah, it touched me.

I tried it on myself the other day.

Um, and it, it got, it got it wrong, so, you know.

Oh, really?

That's a

surprise.

Yeah, it got, got the title of my book wrong, so, um,

oh, sorry.

And it told

me that I'd written something else, so, which I hadn't written.

Oh, no, you had a fight.

I used just, it's just not very good.

Uh, I'm, you know, I'm an ai, a bit of an AI skeptic, so there we go.

Mel, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much for being my guest on Power of 10.

Thank you

for having me.

Thank you for having me.

And.

Having this conversation.

Thank you.

You've been watching and listening to Power of 10.

You can find more about the show on polaine.com where you can also check out

my leadership coaching practice online courses, as well as sign up for my very

irregular newsletter Doctor's Note.

If you have any thoughts, uh, put them in the comments below or get in touch.

You'll fine me at apolaine@pkm.social, on Mastodon.

I'm on LinkedIn or on my website.

All the links are in the show notes.

Thanks for listening and watching, and I'll see you next time.