Leading with Craft
Individual contributor and manager are not mutually exclusive — Kim Bost
Interview with Kim Bost about the balancing act of being an individual contributor and a manager.
Leading with Craft is a limited series of articles where we shed a light on stories of designers with successful careers as individual contributors. We have noticed an abundance of resources out there for designers switching careers to management, but a gap for those who want to continue to focus on their craft.
This series highlights professionals (such as Kim Bost) who never let their seniority move them away from what made them great in the first place: their practice, their passion, and their craft.
With more than 15 years of experience in design, Kim Bost is currently a Design Director at Work & Co and previously a Principal Designer at Dropbox — also a dog mom, oenophile, sometimes baker, and amateur ceramicist.
UX Collective: Was there a point in your career where you realized you wanted to stay primarily as an individual contributor, and not necessarily become a manager?
Kim: My first management role was in 2012 where I led the Buyer Experience team at Etsy. It’s funny, becoming a manager wasn’t actually on my radar but I found out that we were adding more structure to the team by way of managers and I asked to take on one of those roles. The design industry was different then in that there was little to no discussion about what it meant to be a manager. My primary motivation for making that change was because I associated the role with power and influence which turned out to be true and is still true today.
Yes, management is a people-focused role and the best managers are deeply skilled at mentorship, growth, performance, motivators, etc. — but, especially in a tech organization, managers are also the first ones in the room for goal setting, strategy, and planning.
This is something we were working to change during my time at Dropbox as we figured out how to support senior growth for both management and IC roles. If staff and principal designers level the same as group managers and directors and their responsibility is to set, execute, and deliver on strategy — then they should absolutely be in the room too and in some cases are more important than someone solely focused on people. In my opinion, senior ICs often have more bandwidth and are closer to the work so they can be better suited to contribute to strategy because managers tend to be spread so thin and time poor. (I can write a whole other interview about how organizations waste time and money by keeping their highest paid and most uniquely skilled talent in meetings all day, especially managers.)
I’ve had several management jobs but decided to transition back to IC work a few years ago at Dropbox. I was managing a bi-coastal team of 12 and to be honest I was burned the f out.
Anyway, I’ve had several management jobs but decided to transition back to IC work a few years ago at Dropbox. I was managing a bi-coastal team of 12 and to be honest I was burned the f out. I read a book, “Designing Your Life”, and there’s an exercise where you keep a log of all of the activities (personal and professional) and identify whether the activity was energizing or draining and if it put you in a state of “flow”. The pattern was really clear for me that meetings (most of my job as a manager) are a huge drainer and activities where I was creating — cooking dinner, working on a design process for the team, painting protest posters — were energizers and activities where I was in a state of flow. That’s part of what led me to ask to change jobs.
Another huge factor was that, at the time, I worked for a big company with a mature design organization that could support senior, staff, and principal design roles. We as an industry don’t talk about how hard this is to successfully do and the scope and resources it requires. Whereas if you’re at a startup, are working on a small team, or are otherwise in a stage where for whatever reason the design function may have more important priorities like keeping the lights on.
Along those lines, I don’t see the decision to move from IC to manager or manager to IC as something that’s irreversible or mutually exclusive. The fact that I have management experience — that I know how to mentor, how to resolve people conflicts, how to identify when I need to look outside of my immediate team to connect the pieces, etc. — leveled up my IC game tenfold. I’m able to see beyond the design work to the larger ecosystem of the company and its goals which improves my chances of doing something good.
So I really encourage folks to try management out and even go back and forth. And just because I’m in an IC role now, doesn’t mean I’ll never be a manager again.
Not mutually exclusive
You’ve mentioned you don’t see IC and Management as two mutually exclusive tracks. How does one find the right balance between leading the work and leading the team?
I do see management and IC work as needing different and specialized skillsets but I don’t see those skillsets as mutually exclusive. The most influential managers and ICs tend to have a blend of leadership and execution based skills.
Managers with good execution chops can better mentor designers through solving hard problems and the designers are more likely to seek and heed their direction. ICs with what are typically thought of as management skills (having a good grasp on process, building cross-functional alignment, leading a team through ambiguity, setting and delivering on business goals, etc.) can take on the messiest of projects and deliver good results.
When I was at Dropbox I had a dream partnership with my manager and Design Director, Jenna Bilotta. We had a mix of the skillsets I described above and not only was our working relationship really harmonious but the team benefitted from those blurry lines too. So for example, we would divide the really big, messy projects between the two of us and effectively have a very similar role but with different titles.
It’s our nature to want to draw hard lines around this stuff, but the best work I’ve done and the best teams I’ve been on are when folks blur lines. This goes for cross-functional collaboration as well.
How has that balance been working out for you?
I’d be lying if I said I don’t get freaked out a bit by going against the grain. I’m almost 40. Most of my designer friends are in management. They’re directors, VPs, and C-level, etc. and have traditionally fancy titles. A negative way to put it is I fear being the old IC in the room. And an older woman at that.
There just aren’t many people around who have modeled this for me. But on the other hand, maybe I’m modeling something for someone else that makes them feel better about being true to their gut over what norms tell them to do. And I try to stay strong and do that for them and myself.
In terms of career path, it can keep me up at night. I have the same imposter syndrome and comparison bias as everyone else. Again, my negative thoughts tell me that I’m failing because I’m not a VP or CDO somewhere or that eventually I will have fewer opportunities because I’m not following the traditional path. But in practice, that has been untrue. The work is getting harder, not easier, and it’s helpful to have people with deep experience to be able to tackle those issues.
Honestly, though, my dream is to start my own business one day. I don’t yet know what that business is but I do know that having a blend of management and IC skillset will put me at an advantage.
What are some of the challenges you see in our industry for those who want to continue to grow but not take a management position?
This feels so real to me because so many designers came to me with this question at Dropbox, “I’m growing in my career and I need to decide if I’m going to be a manager or not.”
- My first piece of advice was to not think about this choice as permanent or black and white. Again, for all the reasons I described above I think the industry will start to embrace and celebrate more fluidity here.
- My second piece of advice is to remove the title from the decision, at least temporarily. Instead, focus on the types of experiences you need or want to have for growth and then decide on a path. (Or maybe even discuss making your own!)
Growth is hyper-personal and impossible to generalize. To support someone’s growth means knowing their goals, their motivators, their energizers, and their drainers. And ideally you have a sense of this both professionally and somewhat personally though the latter isn’t always welcome or appropriate (and rightfully so).
For me personally, growing as an IC meant building a skillset beyond craft where I could think more holistically, more strategically, and have more influence. Those opportunities naturally come in a management role but often have to be self-initiated as ICs. I was lucky to be in a management role but for folks who don’t want to do that, I’d advise them to try to blur the lines and get exposure to the “other” side. Ask to sit in on strategy meetings, help own a team process, ask for leadership coaching, (I’ll never understand why only managers get leadership coaching, lol), and find a mentor (IC or manager) who models strengths where you want to grow.
Follow Kim on Twitter to hear about her updates and projects. www.kimbost.com · @kimbost · @kitchen.rodeo
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