Two Management Philosophies

I moved into design management in 2022. I’d managed small design teams at agencies years before, but nothing about that prepared me for twelve reports across six locations, three continents, and two US time zones, inside a company going through a $28 billion acquisition.

Working in design systems can leave you disconnected from the product team, because you’re looking at the product from a completely different angle. My reports came from several disciplines across user experience, and having them spread across the practice was how I stayed connected to the health record platform itself.

A year and a half after starting in management, the Oracle acquisition of Cerner was completed, and our UX team was absorbed into the larger Oracle design org. At Cerner, managing, mentoring, and advocating for your team of designers was a manager’s focus. At Oracle Design, management was something you did when you weren’t designing.

My one-on-ones went from thirty minutes to fifteen. They got rescheduled, then cancelled. What had been getting to know my reports turned into fulfilling transactions in the gaps between project meetings. That connection shrank, and the additional size of the new org meant that true connection to the larger product team was even harder.

My team had needs that couldn’t be satisfied in my spare time. Pay was frozen before the acquisition, and it stayed frozen for years. I had reports that were exceptional at their work, and three had gone several cycles without a raise or promotion.

Because I was able to build those strong connections during my management time under Cerner’s philosophy, I had rich knowledge about my reports and their work. My manager and I were able to build justification packages to present to the layers of new leadership who had no context on how good these three were or how many cycles they’d gone without recognition. My three reports got the raises and promotions they deserved.