My Principles
How I show up for my teams and the customers we serve.
DESIGN PRACTICE PILLARS
TWO
Strategy
Setting a vision for the future and articulating a path to achieve it.
THREE
Learning
Product innovation via consumer-informed, data-validated feedback loops; and team growth cultivated by training, coaching, and mentorship.
FOUR
Collaboration
Improving communication, alignment, predictability, and speed-to-market with customers, partners, and stakeholders.
ONE
Execution
The foundation for the other pillars, earning the right to be a strategic partner. Increasing design speed and efficiency, using available systems and tools to build scale and increase impact.
UNPACKING MY DESIGN PRACTICE
1: Execution
Design teams have to execute, period. The goal is to increase quality and speed continually; both are non-negotiable, and it's the design leader's responsibility to set up teams that can achieve that. Therefore, good execution becomes an exercisse in good prioritization.
Tools and systems are friends but design teams are reliant on neither. New tools will continue to increase design efficiency, increase the ROI on businesses, and decrease the gap in perception between what's expected and what's possible. Systems and processes work best when used as frameworks, but design leaders should not subscribe to any one framework dogmatically. Choosing the best framework depends on the technology maturity, organizational structure, technical capabilities, market demands, access to customers, the length of the current feedback loop, and so much more. Given the choice, I typically index towards the double diamond as it does not imply a bottleneck, and it's simple enough to articulate value and predictibility to stakeholders and sponsors.
2: Strategy
Defining a vision of the future, and articulating a path to achieving it is perhaps to most fun part of the job. Teams should dedicate a minimum 10% of their time innovating ideas for the future with a 3-5 year time horizon, and use this time in a variety of ways, including cross-functional workshops, team offsites, structured activities, executive presentations, co-creating, and individually, among others. This also contributes to team development and well-being.
3: Learning
Customer-Focused Learning
Teams must continuously gather and synthesize knowledge about customers through data analysis and deliberate research methods. This external learning process involves collecting both quantitative metrics and qualitative insights to inform concept development. Once initial concepts emerge, teams must validate them through rigorous testing cycles, iteratively refining each version based on real-world feedback to confirm or challenge the solution's effectiveness.
Team Development
In contrast, team development learning centers on enhancing individual and collective capabilities. This internal growth process combines self-directed skill acquisition with structured team training initiatives. Leaders bear the responsibility to provide appropriate developmental support, including coaching, mentoring, and consistent performance feedback, ensuring each team member receives the necessary resources to strengthen their professional competencies.
4: Collaboration
Effective collaboration is crucial for team success across all relationships, internal, customer-facing, and cross-functional. Quality improves through diverse perspectives, appropriate metrics, feasibility assessment, and organizational alignment. Speed increases through early alignment, clear communication, and elimination of unnecessary work, accelerating time-to-market. Simply put, strong collaboration enables organizational navigation and positions teams for success.
LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES
ONE
People
Our culture and our competitive advantage
TWO
Practice
Improving craft by focusing on quality, outcomes, predictability, and sustainable excellence
THREE
Organization
Ensuring design has a voice with peers, a champion with leadership, and a coach for my teams
A CLOSER EXAMINATION
1: People
Great leaders prioritize their team members above all else, recognizing that people are their true competitive advantage. They demonstrate this by focusing on team development rather than personal achievement, making time for meaningful one-on-one interactions, facilitating team cohesion, and setting clear expectations while supporting growth opportunities. The fundamental principle is simple: if someone doesn't place people first in their leadership approach, they aren't the right fit for leadership.
2: Practice
Effective leaders find the optimal balance between process and practice, navigating the tension between speed and quality. They don't just identify problems but actively improve workflows, raise standards, and demonstrate clear vision for excellence. These leaders possess genuine expertise in their field, continuously seek knowledge, and show curiosity for improvement. Most importantly, they not only recognize excellence but know precisely how to guide their teams to achieve it.
3: Organization
As leadership scope expands, success requires mobilizing people and resources across organizational boundaries rather than individual problem-solving. Effective senior leaders excel at cross-functional collaboration, exercise influence without formal authority, maintain a strong bias for action, and prioritize shared outcomes over territorial concerns. The essence of organizational leadership is the ability to achieve results through others, particularly when working outside traditional reporting structures.
info@brettsebbio.com
Building, scaling, and leading high-performing design teams that elevate experiences, creating world-class products that are data-informed and consumer-validated.
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