ARTICLE SUMMARY: You’re presenting your major design concept to top executives when one casually pulls out and starts checking their phone mid-meeting. It’s rude, yes, and inconsiderate. But more critically, you’ve lost their attention.
No matter how good your ideas are, if you lack the communication skills to engage the higher-ups, you’re going to be ignored, and your ideas will never see the light of day.
Kai Wong’s “Understanding how to talk with executives is a required design skill” explores the challenges designers face when executives seem distracted or disengaged. He highlights several key points, including:
- It’s not a power imbalance: it’s an attention imbalance
- Executives don’t care about the number of clicks: scale your metrics
- Indirectly presenting? Lean into data visualization
It’s frustrating trying to communicate with executives who are juggling competing priorities and often walk into meetings unclear on why they are there.
In today’s business climate, designers must do more than demonstrate the strategic value of design, they need to guide executives toward making the right decisions.
This article, based on Kai Wong’s experience, is well worth the read—especially for designers just starting out.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
