‘Just enough’ engagement, a guide to avoid wasting time with corporate politics and focusing on getting things done
Big organisations are complex social systems.
In your design career, you have a choice that can be the difference between growth and opportunity and a life spent in the corner or worse, made redundant.
This choice is, am I prepared to play the game of this complex social system or would I rather take the easier option and work alone.
Obviously, I recommend the harder path.
Playing the game must not equal days of meetings
As an introvert, playing this social game is extraordinarily exhausting and, honestly, not so motivating. There are many days where I feel like hiding in a meeting room and not coming out until everyone has left the office.
After many years working in big organisations, I found out that the problem doesn’t lie solely on the number of interactions, but also, and primarily, on the quality of those interactions.
The point is, there are too many unnecessary meetings, “engagements”, committees, councils and other forms of interactions that not only are unnecessary but can also be damaging for the kind of work you do.
I’ve been working in Innovation related roles for more than 12 years now, sharing my days with a lot of designers and makers, who just like me are either introverts or require a solid time of Getting S**t Done.
Designers are makers at heart, and engaging in corporate politics can be a fatal blow to motivation. Unfortunately, many big organisations have become hostages of shared decision-making and have slowly reduced the number of makers on its ranks, creating an environment that is quite the opposite of design studios and agencies.
It feels impossible to find the space to sit down and get things done!
So, how might we balance our need for deep work and making time with the need to engage in the corporate beast to create influence and impact?
After many wasted years trying to navigate corporate politics, I have implemented a model that I call “Just Enough Engagement”.
Just Enough Engagement
The idea behind it is pretty simple. Focus your engagement on the people that matter to get your job done.
You might have heard about the Pareto principle. Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist who created the 80/20 principle after observing that, in 1896, 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.
Throughout the years, the Pareto principle started to be applied to many other areas and industries. For example, a United Nations Study in 1992 showed that 20% of the population had 80% of the money.
I believe that the Pareto principle can be applied to corporate engagement as well, saving you a substantial amount of time and energy.
First, find the right people
I start by identifying my allies and the people that are interested in what I’m working at the moment. These become my number one priority when thinking about attending a meeting and providing updates.
The next group are decision-makers that might either be neutral towards the project or even against it. They are priority 2.
Priority 3 is what I call good karma. This category is reserved for the people and projects that attract my attention, and I’m genuinely interested in helping. I find that working alongside great people is one of the most critical parts of belonging to such an extensive social system. If I’m invited to help out great people that I appreciated spending time with, most of the times I’ll do it.
Next, create your engagement (and disengagement) approach
Once I get clarity on who are the critical people I want to spend time with, I organise my updates to prioritise those stakeholders and try as much as I can to avoid participating in any other meetings that won’t add value to my day.
This approach can be a bit controversial, as many people inside big organisations will tell you that you need to be aware of what is happening and make sure people know who you are.
I’d say that this is an approach based on fear and people who under-deliver.
If you are doing the work and achieving the results your company expects from you, people will notice.
And the ‘just enough’ approach doesn’t imply zero engagement, but a focused approach to maximising the results for every minute that you are not making things.
A Model — Jump, Swim and Dive
The next step to make your Just Enough Engagement strategy work is to make every update about your work as useful as possible.
I like to use the Jump, Swim and Dive model for my updates. Since my team adopted this model, the quality of our engagement improved dramatically.
So what is the Jump, Swim and Dive model?
It’s a simple way to frame how much detail and content you will present.
The Jump
A Jump presentation is the preferred model for most stakeholders. Jumping means that you will keep a high-level perspective for most of your slides, focusing on what the audience wants to hear and avoid technical details as much as possible.
A Jump style update usually includes a quick snapshot on the timeline and progress so far, highlights from research or testing, update on results achieved, if any and next steps.
If you require an approval to keep moving forward, make sure you focus on what needs to be presented to move the project forward. Leave the details as a backup and only present technical information if asked.
This is the preferred method for C-Level and Senior Executives.
The Swim
Swim is an excellent option to be used when your project directly impacts your audience. Middle managers and subject matter experts are the type of audience that would like to talk about the process followed, the rationale for decision making and other factors.
The Swim model still avoids going too deep on details, leaving it for questions that might be asked during the presentation.
The Dive
The Dive model should never be your first option. Unfortunately, most times we are so in love with our project that we want to share everything we have done and forget that our stakeholder most of the time don’t care about the details.
A Dive presentation should only be made upon request. I’m sure that all designers would love to talk about their creative process, the findings during research and testing phases, the different prototype iterations, and other more technical parts of a project. Reserve this for when asked. You will be able to prepare a much better update if you know that the audience is interested in the details beforehand.
Bonus: Six principles to complement your engagement strategy:
1. Empathise with your stakeholder
I never get tired to talk about using your empathy skills inside the organisation as well. Understand who you will be presenting for, why are they interested in this project, what is happening on their world at the moment. Are they under pressure to deliver results? How is this helping their objectives?
People will have different motivations when it comes to what you are doing and understanding this is a must before you go into any meeting.
One of the strategies that I find very useful is to divide your engagement into groups with similar motivations and preferences. It makes a huge difference to pick the right audience for each type of message.
2. Present for them, not for you
Once you know the people you will be presenting to, keep that font of mind when building your slides, product demo or prototypes.
This is not about you and what you are proud of having achieved. This is about how you will make the message be understood the best possible way and get a constructive response that will help you move forward.
3. Don’t bring your ego
During the presentation, leave your ego outside the room. Be open-minded to receive any feedback.
I’m not saying that you need to be quiet and accept whatever is being thrown at you. Please, engage in a healthy conversation and answer the questions as best as you can.
Just be mindful that sometimes the feedback will feel like a personal attack to yourself and your work. Don’t take it personally. Once you adopt an open and inquisitive mindset, you will be able to see beyond the feedback and be able to apply the learning to the next iteration of your design.
4. Be objective, always
Regardless if your audience is more or less technical, you will never be wrong if you go straight to the point.
Just be objective, have a key message for each slide and focus on it. Don’t waste people’s time.
5. Know what you are talking about
An obvious one. Sometimes we are part of a bigger team, and it’s hard to know every detail in a project. If you are presenting by yourself, learn all the details and be ready for probing questions. An easy solution is to bring the experts with you and either share the presentation or have them there to answer questions if required.
6. Love feedback
“Build as if you are right, test as if you are wrong.”
I learned this mantra from Juliana Proserpio, one of the co-founders of Echos, a global design and innovation agency.
This is the best reminder not only when you are testing with customers but also when you are presenting to stakeholders.
Love every piece of feedback they give you. Be interested in why they are saying it; ask them to provide more details. You don’t need to implement everything you hear, but it is essential that you hear everything that is being said.
Combining the right audience, the right frequency of meetings and the correct level of exposure of your project will help you navigate the complexity of big organisations.
This will not only help you progress in your career as you will be able to deliver more and more projects, but it will also make the journey much more enjoyable.
Fabio Oliveira is an Innovation Director, currently leading a team of designers, technologists and researchers in creating new products and services inside a large Government Organisation.
He is the co-founder of tiltshift.co — an organisation focused on advancing the role and impact of designers by unlocking their ability to navigate organisational complexity, act strategically and create value.
