Connecting to the foundations of Design Impact!
Drew Bridewell (Head of Product & Design at Grote) presents a motivational YouTube session on "Design Impact," arguing that design is for everyone (designers, PMs, engineers) and framing impact around three recurring pillars: setting benchmarks (measure current state and quality bar), continuous learning (skill-up, observe, reflect, practice) and design & life awareness (clarity, rituals, productivity, goals). He uses personal stories (career stages, family, studio, RV travel) and program references (12 pillars, product design workflow, practice training) to encourage intentional planning, yearly review, and small, consistent improvements that scale personal and team outcomes.
Chapters
Foreign welcome to today's Design Impact session. This is going to be super fun. Not only because, like, design impact is just cool. It's cool because, you know, you want to have impact in the things that you do. But, you know, even if you're not a designer, you could still have impact in what you design. And even if you're a product manager or an engineer, you can still have impact on what you design. The design is not just for designers. Design impact is not for, not just for designers, it's for all of us, everyone. So let's talk about today. So what we're trying to do, we're trying to strive and build to positive outcomes and experiences. This is a really big, kind of like a really big statement because, you know, it's not just what we do, it's how we do it, right? It's not just what we do, it's how we do it. How we strive throughout the year, how we strive to and build incredibly positive outcomes and experiences for ourselves, for our team, for our company, for the industry. Right? You are all incredibly talented individuals and you have so much to give to this, to this tech industry, this creative industry, to this, you know, people leadership industry. So how are you going to show up this year and how are you going to create these positive outcomes? Right? That could be, you know, you getting another 20 to 100k on your, on your base salary. This could be you working towards the goals and objectives that you have set out for yourself this year and actually achieving them because of how you designed your weeks, because of how you designed your days, because of how you designed the environment around you to be able to support it. Right? We're to go next level UX today, so I hope you're fired up. And to do that, we're going to really dial in on three core main things. Okay, three core main things. This is. If you're going to take anything away from today, I want you to think about these three things. How we benchmark, how we continuously learn, how to, how we create design and life awareness. All three of these things are going to be recurring in your life. If you're working technology, if you work in creative, if you work in business, you're going to have to be able to benchmark things. You're going to be able to continuously learn and you're going to have to have incredible, incredible design and life awareness. We're looking at this holistically and how do we do this? Well, with benchmarks, we got to think about how we measure our progress and our Advancement, you know, what are the things that you're currently doing right now and how do you know if you're doing good? Like how do you know if you're doing good or how do you know what your quality bar is? How do you know what it is you're advancing? I think benchmarks are this incredible. Like this is an incredible word because this is what we're going to do. We're going to put stake in the sand. We're going to say this is where we're currently at and we can have a picture, a vision of where it is we want to go. We got to be able to measure our progress so that we can actually understand how we're going to advance. Second thing that we got to do is we got to integrate these insights. We got to integrate how we socially learn together like you're doing today. We also need to skill up and practice, right? We talked about practice in week four. We also talked about understanding how you're going to skill up and the things that you need to do. But continuous learning is going to be something that is going to be a needle mover for you for the rest of your life. How are you going to continue to learn? Once you stop learning, you stop growing. Once you stop growing, you get stagnated. And if you get stagnated, you're either going to get let go or you're actually going to be in this position where you're not fired up to get to get to the work. You're not fired up to engage with your team. You're not fired up to really do the things necessary to help your team company advance. You're in next level UX because you know that you have another level and you know that there are, you have a different level of contribution that you can even bring to your family, to your team, to your company. And we got to continuously learn together. And again, we got to do that with how we listen, how we observe, how we reflect and how we evaluate, evaluate our strategy and our plans are going to help us do that. But we really got to have a holistic design in life awareness. How we, how we have design and life awareness. Like, what does that even look like? Well, you've gone through it already for eight weeks. You looked at your clarity of what it is most important to you. You looked at your goals, you looked at how you're going to plan your goals, you looked at how you're going to practice your plan, right? You also looked at how your team functions with design energy, with design clarity, how you're going to share information, execute the work. You also have looked at how you're going to be productive in your output. You know, how you're going to, like, be consistent, choose where you're going to focus. You're going to look at your systems, you're going to look at craftsmanship. You're going to look at how you manage your velocity, right? All the things that you've done to this point in this program, you've looked at and built on your design and life awareness. That is what that is. And that's going to be something that, if you have that little bit, that little bit of awareness, it's like the first step. It's the first freaking step for you to. To step into another, higher level of yourself. And that's what we're going to do. Because there's always going to be another level. I know, say all the time. There's always going to be another level. But it's up to us to actually work towards that. Not in stressful, like, just ways that make us feel terrible. These are ways that help us build harmony in our life. Consistency, grace, patience, execute. Like just, just overall, incredible, incredible, fluid performance. And, you know, that takes a lot of. That takes a lot of awareness. So we're going to do that today. Let's go. This is helpful. All right. What's up? If we haven't met yet, my name is Drew Bridewell. If this is your first time checking this stuff out, oh, man, I'm so glad you're here. Cause you're gonna have a whole slew of content to go through and you're gonna get so much out of this. I'm just so. I'm so grateful. I'm the head of product and design over at Grote. I'm also a husband, I'm also father. I'm a designer. I'm a UX coach. And I also host Practical ux weekly on LinkedIn. Learning. And I was just going. I shared a course today on LinkedIn and I call it was Building a Culture of Design. I. I shared that on LinkedIn today. I encourage you to go check it out because, you know, it's not that long of a video. It's like five or six minutes. But it's just like another reminder of we have to not only build design impact into our lives, we have to think about the cultures that we design, to think about the energy that we bring into these moments, the energy that we bring in with each other. And I just want to. I just want to let you Know, like, I'm going to support you all year long. You know, we might not have weekly sessions all year long, but I'm going to be there for you, help rooting for you, and help champion the best growth year of your life. And I just wanted to encourage you and thank you all for being here, because we're going to get after it. Let's go. And I love to talk about the origin of design impact, because when I think about. When I think about all of these different brands and companies that I was able to support and create design impact for, I can specifically remember what it was like and how it felt and the emotions I was feeling during these times where, you know, when I was a junior designer, when I was a senior designer, when I was a, you know, a lead, when I was coaching, when I was working with my kid, my son, all of these moments, I can remember the impact. And I think that, you know, that fires me up. Like this fires me up. And whether you're just starting in your career, whether you're just like your first starting point or, you know, you go back, I want you to remember where you came from, and I want you to remember that you got superpowers because you learned, you know, whether it's, you know, from you brought two, three companies before you were here today, or, you know, you're going through different programs and learning environments and LinkedIn learning and, you know, Masterclass or your Udemy, YouTube, whatever it is, you got, you got to build, and you can build on everything that you do on a daily basis. You get 1% better every single day to create that design impact that you're looking for, to create that sense of aliveness from the things that you're doing on a. On a, you know, on a quarterly basis. And I just want you to remember, like, you got. You got it. And you just got to keep building up that courage and that confidence of what you can do. And we're going to step in this year to some of the most profound work that we've ever done, the most prolific work that we've ever done. So believe in yourself this year. Believe in yourself that you're going to be able to do this. Take what you take what you have learned from your past and advance it towards your future. Okay, let's go. All right. So when I also think about design impact, I'm thinking about, like, the design impact of, from even how you design your life, the things that you choose to do, the areas of life where you spend, to put, where you decide where to Spend your time. Early on in my days, it was, I gotta be on the baseball field, I gotta be in the art studio, I gotta be creating things. I gotta do that. That's the utmost, most important thing for me. It's gonna make me feel so alive. I want you to think about what that is for you today. Are you in a position right now that is serving you and your higher self? What is it that you want to do? How do you want to show up in this moment? And for me, I remember, like, I remember the feeling of, like, I'm in this picture right now and I'm about to turn. I'm about to turn in catch about a 90 mile an hour, probably fastball. I'm ready to go. And I'm thinking about, how are you going to receive the pitches today from your team? How are you going to receive it? Or how are you going to throw that ball? And what's that going to look like? How's it going to feel? You know, the. The way that you even design your days, y', all, is design impact. So thinking about that and how it leads to, you know, how you measure it, we're going to do. We're going to talk about that today, too. So even if you have to design an ugly poster like this with drop shadows and boxes, we all start somewhere. And that was my benchmark when I was getting in the game, right? 2005. Sure. Let's. Let's see what we got. Almost 20 years ago. But, you know, we all start somewhere, and it's totally okay. But you know what? This was a championship team, and that's what I took away from that, from that, from this environment. You know, being a championship team takes a little bit of that effort. So let's go. All right, so another thing that takes a little bit of that championship energy is like, the energy that you create in your family, the energy that you create at home. The room. The design of the room that you create. Like, design impact has come in many shapes, forms and sizes. Like, it's. It's how you show up for practice. Like, we're here with me and Jude. It's how you, you know, this was one of the studios. I'm in a different studio now, and I'm going to actually be transitioning at the end of this, end of this week into back into the RV studio because we're about to do another big trip, y', all, and it's going to be super fun and thinking about, like, well, if I didn't have my setup and how I was going to, like, architect and design my studio and be able to move it around. I'd be in some trouble. I might not be as efficient as. As I need to be in my role. And, you know, and then down here with Jamie, like, we've had such an amazing adventure over this last year of traveling across the world. Not the world, but the country. And then also traveling across Asheville and learning about every. Every corner of Asheville, North Carolina. I think about, like, this was based on design impact, right? We had a clear vision of what we wanted to do. We knew how we were going to measure it, and now we're at the time where we can make a decision on what we want to do. Design impact, y'. All, like, it's just. It's just how we think about measuring our. The things that are most important in our life and how we're continuously learning, like, I'm learning about the environments that we want to be in and also thinking about, like, design and life awareness, how it all connects to the greater good of what we want to do. Super fun. And then along that lines, like, we're still building, we're still building up, we're still building, building growth day, building next level ux, building this metaverse, like, super wild things behind the scenes with, you know, how we build environments. And probably in the coming weeks, we'll probably do a full, like, full walkthrough and tour of this whole, like, metaverse that I've been building. It's. It's kind of like. It's kind of like, ready Player one if you've ever. I mean, not that we're going to be doing in the VR because it's still in a Roblox game, but thinking about these different environments that we can create and what that would look like and feel like if you could literally wave a magic wand and say, what do I want this to feel like? What do I want this to look like? What could to be this beautiful vision for where I want to go? You got to be able to picture that for all the things that you want to do in your life, all the things you want to create in your team, all the things you want to actually do, right? This is just a small moment in time, which is incredibly important. You want to be present for that moment, but you also want to be able to envision what it is that you actually want to do. Like, do you want to be financially free? Do you want to be in this position where you can architect and design your life? Like, literally, you have the Choice. You have the abilities, you have the skill sets, you have the determination, you have the dedication, you have the commitment. You have what it takes. You have great communication. You have great collaboration. You have great execution practices. You're learning the things you need to learn, and you're doing it in a chill way. Like, you're doing it in a chill way. You got support, you got a community, you got growth. You got growth moments, you got growth groups, you got people like that are here supporting you. So I just want to remind you that we're going to do this together, okay? And you're not alone. And I want to remind you, too, to go get after those things that you love, like, what's something big and bold that you could take on this year that is going to stretch you a little bit, but also, like, put you in a position to grow and to really take it to another level for yourself. This, for me, at this time, I still love showing this photo because I remember I was behind the scenes here, and I'm like, I'm talking and I'm teaching something. I love this, but this is new for me. This is gonna be a little uncomfortable, but I'm gonna embrace it, and I'm gonna get after it, and I'm gonna have fun doing it like that. Could. I could say that same thing about a lot of the projects we take on and a lot of the things that we do, right? Oh, this is going to be a big challenge. I'm going to have to learn some new things about this. This is going to be kind of fun. This is. This is going to be fun. I'm going to make this fun. I'm going to bring some joy into this moment. All right. I'm going to learn some new things about this. I'm going to ask questions about these new things, right? All the awareness that you create when you go into these moments, you're creating. You're creating design impact. You just haven't got to it yet. You know what I mean? Like, the benchmarks are going to help, you know, where you're. How you're progressing, how you continuously learn. That's just something, you know that's going to help you with the bottom line. But you still got to be able to learn what your needle moves are. You got to be able to learn how to be proactive, be an initiator, be a believer in things, and just be a dreamer, y'. All. Be a dreamer. Let's go. And just a reminder, if you need a little bit more support and going back in Get a refresher on these things. If you need me to unlock any of these things for you, just message me and I'll send you the free link for it. Same thing for season one or season two. And also, just as awareness, when you log into the system, I continuously update these and you can see like 20, 23, 2023 practice training, 23 action planning. You can go back in here. Throughout the year, I'm going to continuously adding content and resources for each of these chapters. Because I tell you right now, I've tried to figure out, like, if do I need to remove the chapter, Do I need the different, like 12 pillars? But it's just so ironic that I come back to these daggone 12 pillars every damn year. Like, I have to do clarity. I have to do go like. So that's why this, this program was created. We have to come back to these things over and over and over. And it's not like, oh yeah, every year it's different on a different level. It's a different quality bar, it's a different maturity level. So even if you go through this one time and you're like, okay, I got this, think about what are the two to three things that you're going to come back to every year and how are you going to stay focused and disciplined on the things that are actually going to move the needle for you? We're not trying to reinvent things. These things exist. These things exist with tech. And you know, the sooner that you can master these, become a grand master of these things, you're going to start seeing, like, just some bliss in your, in your performance. And that's what we want to do. And remember, we're trying to lead net new product, product experiences. We're trying to build remote teams. We're trying to optimize these efficiencies, like all the things that we've been doing again, to accelerate your growth, to help you foster that clarity right on how you're going to create this. I want to still connect you to your greater purpose through intentional design. This is about power of intention. Power of intentional design is like this thing that you are aware of what it is you're doing and why it's important so that you can master all these things on the right side. And even if you it's going to be a big, bold challenge for you this year, it's okay. Like, you're going to take on new responsibilities. That's okay. You're going to take on new really challenging things. It's okay. Like you're going to figure it out and you're going to do it because you have the skills to map these things out. You have, you have the skills to communicate what it is you're learning. You have the skills to ask questions and build more clarity and then go through this process. Let's go. Because, you know, you've been seeing this throughout the last, the last three weeks. This product design, workflow, super important, right? We talked about design energy, thinking about your rituals, routines, how you build integrated products with diagrams, maps, knowledge sharing, expansive design systems, design maturity, and then we still can connect to our priorities, our efficiency, our speed, our skill, skills, the things that we do. So important, right? So when we have this and we're building these things and these are just things that exist, these are things you don't actually. You might not even have control over your rituals, your routines, the priorities. You might not think you have control over those things, right? But you still have an awareness of, you know, what meetings exist today, what are the routines that exist for your company, what are the rituals that exist for your company, what are the priorities of the company? How does the company get things done? When and how fast do the teams get things done? How fast do you need to be in your skills and you know, who's going to do what in your team? You got to still have these awarenesses of how these things move through your company and teams. Not even if, if, I mean, if you're in engineering, product design, hr, all these things still are going to be created for you to scale yourself, to scale your team, to scale your operations. The other one that we have, right, we talked about clarity, design clarity, communications, collaborations, elevating the work, communication, collaboration, elevating the work, focusing, timing and reframing the problems and the problems, spaces that you're designing for with great context, really great understanding to define like where you're currently at, where you're going and what is the most important information that needs to be delivered at that specific time, right? You don't want to deliver information that is not helpful for the team because that's going to probably happen three, four months from now. You want to be very relevant and very contextual with the information that you deliver so that you don't create, swirl you, you don't create confusion, you don't create like a lot of just unnecessary energy waste because you are very thoughtful and strategic with how you plan and how you deliver information. We do that also with a little bit of design productivity where we're thinking about like all these things that we do on a regular basis. Our projects, our OKRs. Like our project OKRs, our timelines. And don't forget about your passion, your personal, your career and your project goals. Right? It's not just about your project goals at your company. Think about your career, think about yourself as a person. What are you going to do this year? What are you going to achieve? What's something that's going to lift you up and fire you up and be a passion project for you that's going to help you serve or contribute in some way that just lifts you up? And how are you going to connect those to your values and principles, both with your family, both with your team, both with your company? And then what are the actions you're going to take just to really level this stuff up, y', all, and have some fun doing it? Because really, like, we're trying to measure, we're trying to create design outcomes, better design outcomes. And we're going to scale, not to scale our mindset, but scale our team, scale, scale and expand what it is that we're doing and learning and building as we grow. Like, let's go, let's do this. Because these three things, y', all, these three things are the things that really just, they come back to, you know, how you measure a project, how you continue to learn and how you build that life awareness and just across life awareness. This is life awareness. Design. This is life awareness right here. This is design awareness, Design energy, design clarity, design productivity, design impact. That's design awareness. This is design. This is life awareness. What's clarity in your life, Right? When we talked about the big six, understanding your priorities, understanding your, like, Kryptonite or your opportunities, understanding how you want to show up, what success looks like, how you want to interact with other people, and also just understanding your purpose, goals, right? We talked about goals, understanding your project, personal passion and career goals. Planning, action planning is like how you break things down so that you can actually, like, manage your life and plan things and then practice. Just like I've been saying all, all year long, like, practice makes, doesn't make perfect, it makes and builds confidence. So the more you practice in something, the more confidence that you can build in these things. That's why throughout these entire eight weeks, I've been going back through some of this content so that you can start ingraining this and start building this into your hat, like into your, your muscle memory for how you're going to perform and show up. But this here is how we really step into design impacts and understanding our energy, our clarity, and our productivity when it comes to design. Sa Sam.
