TGIW 002 ⎹ Design Leadership with Jess Cogswell, VP of Design at Rume Health
Design is appreciation · Using empathy to advocate creativity · How to manage a creative team in start-ups · What it takes to be a good manager · Design in healthcare
🎉 Thank God It’s Wednesday! (TGIW)
TGIW: Every Wednesday, I interview design leaders and enthusiasts to reach a collective understanding of what is design and how you can leverage it in your work.
002: For this second episode, I met Jess Cogswell, VP of design at Rume Health.
If you ask me, I would say that Jess is the manager that will always put her team first even when sometimes it means before deliverables. Jess is a multi-faceted and inspiring creative* whose greatest strength is empathy! Jess and I will dive deep into her unique relationship to design including her design philosophy and leadership style.
*I use '"creative" as a noun that encapsulates designers, writers, artists, and others who can look at a problem and develop creative content to help solve it.
Co-create the newsletter with me and take part in the movement ⭐️
De-mystify is also the perfect opportunity to put into practice the design principles that we learn along our journey. I will be iterating and prototyping to make this newsletter tailored to your preferences! But for this, I need your help and feedback! Answer this week’s poll by scrolling to the bottom of the page 👇🏼
🎙 On-Air
De-mystify is not only a newsletter but a podcast!!! I interview designers, entrepreneurs, investors and consultants to understand their unique relationship with design. On-Air features the latest episode!
What is her design philosophy? 💎
Jess confesses that design goes beyond her work. Design exists in everything! Everything has been designed either by humans or by nature. She argues that the core of her philosophy is appreciation. Indeed, it takes appreciation and the ability to empathise to understand the impact design has on our lives.
We explore the multiple understandings of design together but also touch on the issues that arise when people use distinct labels to describe design. Acknowledging the several definitions is one step further towards our goal to reach a collective understanding of what it represents. We all have a tendency to bucket broad concepts to understand how to behave and react faster. Design is no exception and the misconceptions in the workplace can create tensions.
Jess advocates that the best way to lessen the friction is to use empathy to find out to what extent your interlocutor understands the design process and then bridge the gaps. Meet your interlocutor where he is at.
What does it take to be a design leader? 🚀
As a design leader, one of Jess’s priority is to reduce friction and consequently protect the creative team she leads from creative burnout. She is not only the guardian of the energy of her team but she also must nurture the team culture. Indeed, the design team has their own subset of values and own mission statement.
She tells us about how different it is to manage a team of creatives and helps us understand what it takes to be a good manager; empathy!
Eventually, Jess walks us through her career ascension from the non-profit world to the healthcare industry and the challenges she faced. Armed with confidence and kindness, Jess ends by saying to never forget how great you are for being out there and trying your best 🫶🏼
⭐️ Off The Record
I keep chatting with our guests after the end of the recording and share with you exclusive insights from our conversation into their work and the challenges they face.
Last week, you mentioned that the newsletter was too long. So I decided to split this section into golden bites of content you will receive throughout the week.
Coming this week 🔥
Learn about design in Healthcare, how to keep stakeholders engaged and how to advocate your design the most effectively.
Design redefines what healthcare looks like
Stop banging your head against the wall with people that don’t understand what you do; focus on your target audience!
What does it look like to have C-level executives who value design?
Showing progress is the single most effective way to keep stakeholders engaged!
Understanding what your interlocutor is driven by is the only way to advocate your design effectively!
🛰 Take It Beyond
Find all the resources our guests mentioned (and more) to supercharge your learning journey!
Jess Cogswell→ https://www.linkedin.com/in/creative-jess/
Rume Health → https://rumehealth.com/
Deep Dive → The Downside Of Healthcare Design
✨ What’s up?
Be part of the Co-Demystification Experiment!
💡 Where are we at: We understand better what design means to a VP of design. We also explored with Jess her design leadership, how to manage creatives and also how to communicate her work the most effectively to non-designers. It could be interesting to explore what design means to a large corporation instead.
🎙 Next guest: Cyprien Toffa, UX designer at Google working on Maps (New York). Cyp and I will explore how Google leverages design, the structure and dynamics of his team as well as the methodologies and frameworks he uses daily.
💌 Poll outcome: Last week, I asked you if the newsletter was a tad long. The answer was a unanimous yes! Therefore, I decided to split Off The Record into multiple smaller newsletters to keep the community engaged throughout the week.
💌 Be the change you want to see in the world
Every week, I will ask you one simple question to tailor the newsletter to your preferences.
Great podcast Quentin 😉