The Architecture of Self Advocacy

Perhaps school taught you how to make a taxonomy or create a persona from research, but did it teach you how to ask for a raise? How to create consensus between your team, product and engineering? Or how to get the right design out in the face of the “just copy Amazon/Google/Netflix” argument?

Designers are taught the skills to make good design, but not the ones that will assure that design will go live. In this talk, I’ll cover key skills every UX practitioner should know.

The techniques I’ll each are based on a combination of Nonviolent Communication, John Kotter’s Buy In, FBI negotiation techniques, and from real life in the Silicon Valley.

Attendees will learn

How to build consensus
How to argue and listen effectively
How to stay zen when the situation gets hot
How to get buy in
How to ask for what you need
While designers historically have shrunk away from selling, It’s not gross or ugly to ask for what you need to get the job done right. If designers want a place at the table, they will have to ask for it.

Transcript

1. The Architecture of Advocacy @cwodtke www.cwodtke.com
2. Note: This presentation is annotated so it can be understood with out me talking. That why there are big ugly grey boxes everywhere. Also there were many exercises, so… wish you were there!
3. DESIGN IS KING
4. Everybody is talking about how critical design is.
5. WHY AREN’T I RICH?
6. Where is my flying car? My private island?
7. Design has a servant mentality. Waits to be asked for his opinion. Waits for the raise fairy to come.
8. THE USUAL ADVICE So what can you do? So many talks on ROI, language of business…
9. We are advised to mesmorize.
10. To use judo
11. YOU HAVE SKILLS TO SOLVE THIS
12. This is a new model for advocating YOU THEM EMPATHY ENVIROMENT CONVERSATIONS
13. GET GOOD WITH YOU
14. SHARE A PROUD MOMENT USE THE WORD “I” EXERCISE
15. WAS IT HARD TO BLOW YOUR OWN HORN?
16. LISTENER:
17. What was the speaker’s superpower?
18. WHAT DO YOU HAVE?
19. YOU MUST KNOW
20. YOUR NEEDS
21. YOUR WANTS
22. YOUR VALUE
23. SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND
24. OWN YOUR FATE
25. INTERVIEW WHAT IS A GOOD DAY? WHAT IS A BAD DAY? EXERCISE
26. LISTENER:
27. WHAT MAKES HER WIN?
28. YOU GOT THIS
29. WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE? WHAT DOES FAILURE LOOK LIKE? WHAT ARE THEY AFRAID OF?
30. FEAR, PAIN, PREJUDICE What shuts ears off?
31. Do they have a preexisting prejudice about you, miss fancy designer- pants? You must disprove it.
32. If it’s pain, you must wait for it to pass or relieve it. Same with fear.
33. ENVIRONMENT
34. MAP You are a designer. Make a map of your business world.
35. I’m always horrified how few designers know how the company makes money. Know:
36. BUSINESS MODEL
37. GROUP DYNAMICS Who hates who? Where are their alliances? Interdependancies?
38. RHYTHM When can you boss even hand out raises? Quarterly? Yearly?
39. If you know you, know them, know your environment you can talk. YOU THEM EMPATHY ENVIROMENT CONVERSATIONS
40. TRANSACTIONAL Two types of conversation. This is “I do good, you give raise” It’s less common that you think, and higher risk than….
41. COLLABORATIVE This is when you have a goal (check out is ugly) they have a goal (check out under-perfroms) and you design a project together
42. BODY LANGUAGE You talk with more than just your mouth, as do they.
43. Reading people is useful.
44. YOUR BODY TELLS YOUR STORY
45. Images from Amy Cuddy’s research on power poses Your body changes your chemistry. However, be careful what you are saying with power poses.
46. READ You are ready to finally have that raise talk. But they are sitting with arms crossed. What do you do?
47. WRITE Mirror their poses. Keep your body open.
48. WORDS It’s critical to pick wisely.
49. SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF THE PLACE If they use ROI, you use ROI. If they don’t, you will look clueless.
50. “ITS MORE ABOUT THE PACKAGE” Common way to talk about salary (+benefits and stock) in Silicon Valley.
51. “GET TO THE NEXT LEVEL” Common way to ask about raise/promotion in SV.
52. SPEAK NEED TO NEED This is from Nonviolent Communication. You want to What do they need to be successful? You? Where is the overlap?
53. KNOW YOURSELF KNOW THE OTHER KNOW THE TERRITORY MAKE AN US
54. BE WILLING TO GET THE EFF OUT OF DODGE Some final advice. To negotiate successfully, you need to If you can’t walk out, you can’t negotiate effectively.
55. ADDITIONAL HOMEWORK MAKE A SENTENCE ABOUT YOUR AWESOME DISCOVER OTHERS AWESOME PLOT SOMETHING TOGETHER
56. Thank You @cwodtke www.cwodtke.com I coach teams and individuals to make dreams realities.