Weekly Roundup - March 1-6, 2020

As a new design manager, most of my reading/watching/listening these days is about managing. When you level up to a manager role, You find that you need to build processes, evangelize design with stakeholders, motivate designers to deliver good outcomes, take care of the wellbeing of your team and so much more. It’s not easy and you can feel overwhelmed by what is expected of you.

I often feel lacking in my knowledge and ability to do what’s best for my team. So I try to overcome this sense of lacking by learning from those who share their learnings willingly in articles, books and talks. I hope to share my learnings in this newsletter and become a better manager along the way.

I plan to publish this newsletter every weekend, the size may vary and the content may not be strictly design manager-y.

P.S. If you hit paywalled content, do try this plugin.

Burnout

Beyond Burned Out

Chronic stress was rampant even before the pandemic. Leaders can’t ignore it any longer.

hbr.org

This article sums up how burnout has been affecting people over the last year and how yoga programs, wellness technology, and meditation apps are not the solutions that are helping.

Fatigue

Stanford researchers identify four causes for ‘Zoom fatigue’ and their simple fixes

Popular video chat platforms have design flaws that exhaust the human mind and body. But there are easy ways to mitigate their effects.

news.stanford.edu

I had realized that I was getting exhausted a lot sooner in the past year so glad to know ‘Zoom Fatigue’ is the culprit. This article offers 4 reasons why it’s happening along with solutions.

Related article: Pick up the Phone

Selfcare

A reminder to be kind to yourself

“Damn. This is….yeah.”

twitter.com

Team bonding

Designing a Remote Design Offsite – Molly Lafferty (Product Design Manager, Webflow)

👉 Molly Lafferty, Product Design Manager for Webflow shares how Webflow’s first-ever Design Team retreat went completely remote.

youtu.be

I have been working remote before the pandemic hit, but frequent travel to meet my co-workers helped bridge the bonding gap. With COVID-19, that was no longer possible, and we tried to adopt digital means of bonding. My attempts have had mixed success so this talk helped me understand why.

Recognition

To show recognition, try speaking a different language – Katie M. Dill

The 5 Recognition Languages managers need to know to acknowledge their team.

medium.com

When you are managing a team, providing recognition and feedback is a critical part of your role. But each employee is unique and the way they would want recognition would also differ. Katie breaks down recognition into 5 different languages and urges you to find out which one is the most meaningful for each individual that you manage.

Fulfilment

The key to life is earning the right to always be told that, “You have potential.” – John Maeda

One of my favorite observations was how the idea of “being old” is entirely relative. For instance, if you talk with someone in their 60s, they’ll say, while pointing to someone in their 70s, “I’m not old. She’s old!” And then when you hang out with someone in their 70s they’ll point at someone in their 80s and say, “I’m not old. He’s old!” And so on.

johnmaeda.medium.com

As I get a year older this month, this read was a refreshing take on growing old.