Rakesh Patwari

Episode 128
Brave UX

Becoming a Better Design Leader

In this episode of Brave UX, Rakesh Patwari shares what’s made him a better manager 👂, why a career in acting wasn’t for him 🎥, and how designers can give better portfolio presentations 🤩.

Highlights include:

Is Information Architecture still relevant in today’s practice of UX?
What has and hasn’t worked well for you when facilitating 1-on-1’s?
How do you engage with your team on the topic of work-related stress?
How do the dynamics of product and engineering change how you lead design?
What’s the biggest mistake you see designers making in portfolio presentations?

February 20, 202401:11:12

Listen on:

Who is Rakesh Patwari?

Rakesh is a Director of Product Design and Research at Cisco, a NASDAQ listed company that was founded in 1984 by a small group of Stanford computer scientists 👨‍💻, and that helped to create the IP networking technologies that power today’s Internet.

Before joining Cisco, Rakesh was a Product Design Manager at Meta, where he supported the design organisation working on privacy infrastructure 🍪.

Rakesh has also been a Director of Product Design at Salesforce, where he led the design team working on the experience platform ☁. Prior to that at Salesforce, Rakesh served as a Product Design Lead, focusing on B2B commerce products.

A dedicated member of the design community, for the past five and half years Rakesh has been a UX Instructor at UC Berkley Extension, designing curriculum and delivering lectures on information architecture 🔩.

He is also a member of the Design Leadership Forum, an advisor at Berkley SkyDeck, where he provides guidance to startups 📈, and a speaker, mentor and coach for Startup Weekend.

Transcript

Rakesh Patwari:
If we start looking at it from an open mindset and try to understand that yes, it is a constraint. They're not trying to block designers. It is their reality. As long as we are open and we understand where that is coming from, that's the first step.
Brendan Jarvis:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Brave UX. I'm Brendan Jarvis, managing founder of The Space InBetween, the behavior-based UX research partner for enterprise leaders who need an independent perspective to align hearts and minds, and also the home of New Zealand's first and only world-class, human-centered research and innovation lab. You can find out more about what we do at thespaceinbetween.co.nz.
Here on Brave UX though, it's my job to help you to keep on top of the latest thinking and important issues affecting the fields of UX research, product management, and design. I do that by unpacking the stories, learnings, and expert advice of a diverse range of world-class leaders in those fields.
My guest today is Rakesh Patwari. Rakesh is a director of product design and research at Cisco, a NASDAQ listed company that was founded in 1984 by a small group of Stanford computer scientists, and that has helped to create the IP networking technologies that power today's internet.
Before joining Cisco, Rakesh was a product design manager at Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, where he supported the design organisation working on privacy infrastructure.
Rakesh has also been a director of product design at Salesforce, where he led the design team working on the experience platform. Prior to that, at Salesforce, Rakesh served as a product design lead focusing on B2B commerce products.
Following that thread a little further, Rakesh has held a number of other senior individual contributed design roles in his career, including as a UX lead at Juniper Networks, UX principal at SurveyMonkey and UX lead at Aerohive Networks.
A dedicated member of the design community, for the past five and a half years, Rakesh has been a UX instructor at UC Berkeley Extension, designing curriculum and delivering lectures on information architecture. He is also a member of the Envision Design Leadership Forum, an advisor at Berkeley Skydeck, where he provides guidance to startups and a speaker, mentor and coach for startup weekend. And now he's here with me for this conversation on Brave UX. Rakesh, hello and a very warm welcome to the show.
Rakesh Patwari:
Hi, Brendan. Thanks for having me.
Brendan Jarvis:
It's a pleasure. Pleasure to have you here, Rakesh, and this is perhaps a very odd place to start an interview, a conversation of this nature, and it's with your breakfast, and I understand that you are fond of avocado on toast, yet it's with an Indian twist. And when I heard you talk about this previously, you didn't elaborate on what that Indian twist was. So I'm curious, what is it?
Rakesh Patwari:
Well, yeah, it is. It's a different way to start an interview and also appreciate the research that you have done for this interview. So the Indian twist, like we like spices. I'm from south of India, so anything savoury, anything spicy is something if you just add the prefix of masala to anything, it really sounds appetising to me. So something like avocado toast? Yeah, avocado toast traditionally is just avocado with some salt, but I would add some more seasoning, some char masala, some lemon juice and some kind of, there are some spices, grand masala that we use a little bit of all of that and give it that Indian char twist, which is what I really like. So yeah, that was the twist. And these are the details.
Brendan Jarvis:
Rakesh, I suspect that I might hear from some of our listeners at some point wanting that recipe, so I might be in touch to get that off you at some time in
Rakesh Patwari:
The future. Yeah, sure. Yeah, and my son is my first patron for that matter. I make it and I ask him to taste it. He really doesn't like me experimenting with him, but he rolls with it. He gives me good feedback. So
Brendan Jarvis:
Yeah, I like it. I like it. I would try a few things out on my son now that he's at that age where he might appreciate them. Hey, coming back to what you said a little earlier, which is that you're from the south of India. I understand that you come from a smaller town in the south of India called Ur, which is about 75 miles west of Hyderabad. I also learned that both of your parents were school teachers and that you had previously described your older brother as, and I'll quote you now, super smart. So when you think back to that period of your life, that time in tender, what memory sums it up the best or what stands out the most for you from that time?
Rakesh Patwari:
Wow. Yeah, you did really deep research also, it's called tdu. It has nothing to do with the Tdu chicken, but it's just the name similar sounds similar to that. Yes, my mom and my dad, both of them were teachers. My mom, before she retired, she became a principal of the government school and that was the background. It was a time where I was, what do you say, complete abandoned. I had full freedom of doing whatever I like. This is because I'm the younger son. My elder brother was there and since both of my parents were teachers in the same town for long time, like 15, 20 years, the town was filled with their students. So I could not do anything really wrong and I could do whatever they knew there was a surveillance on me. It is still in a place where I would do the, not do too bad.
So they gave me that freedom, which really helped me in building my confidence. I saw my mom, we are not rich, we are not poor. We were just making it. And I saw my mom build brick brick along with my dad, but my mom was leading it. And then how that changed the course of our future. So we were ready to go to college in the city, which is Hy Bath, and that led to something else. That led to something else. So all of that, I was able to see clearly from her if there was something that was to be done that could be done, she would just go ahead and do it. And that is what gave me the confidence that yeah, let's let me go. I can go and do whatever is needed and see where we land. And that freedom, that abandoned ness or abandoned type of nature really stood out for me at that time.
Brendan Jarvis:
What a great role model to have had in your mother there. Thinking about the way that you described things there and that abandon that you were able to approach and it sounds like throw yourself into different challenges and things. I wonder being the second son, you mentioned that you're the younger brother. How do you feel that whether or not you were is another question I suppose, but do you feel that you were treated differently or that you had different expectations on you than perhaps your older brother had?
Rakesh Patwari:
I think so, yeah. In our language, in product design language, my brother was an MVP. They did whatever they could with him and they figured out something's working, something's not working. And then he used the best practises on me kind of. So yeah, they were not specifically treating me differently, but probably it was their learning curve. We were in different stages and I had my brother too to help me grow, so I had three people help me grow and he had only two. So that was a change, and I think intentionally different, but evolutionally, evolutionary, whatever was learned.
Brendan Jarvis:
You've previously alluded into another content that I've listened to you talk on. You've alluded to the pressure that you had felt to either become a doctor or an engineer, which from what you described previously is two very respectable career paths for middle class Indians to follow. However, you've also said that you, like most of your other friends at the time wanted to become an actor or a cricketer, and you've previously suggested, and I dunno if this was a joke or not, that you had tried your hand at acting. Was it a joke? Had you tried your hand at acting?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yes, I did. It was not a joke. I did try. It probably was not the right stage, pun intended, didn't work. I did some theatre. There was youth club, which was affiliated to a religious club, but was not specifically teaching religion. It was teaching the contents of the religion in a way that youth learned. So I became connected to that organisation and they had organised some stage performances, stage theatres, and I was one of the keepers in playing that role that scratched that itch. And I also did some auditions, which fell flat. I won't forget about that.
Brendan Jarvis:
Sounds like there's potentially some stories there.
Rakesh Patwari:
Oh yeah, yeah. There are not so successful stories, but probably that's why I am here today because of failures.
Brendan Jarvis:
Well, before we move on to how you got here today, clearly I need to brush up on my pun radar. I'll let that one slip through. Now you'll have me on the edge of my seat throughout the rest of this conversation. Well, let's talk about how you came to be here, but let's talk about where that all started. If you cast your mind back now to around the year 2000, and I believe you were studying in college, was computer science or something very similar to that, and so you're on track to becoming an engineer of sorts, and one of your friends introduced you to something that you've described before, and I'm paraphrasing here is something that changed the trajectory of your life. What was it that they introduced you to?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, yeah, 2000, I was doing my bachelor's of computer applications, which was a three year equivalent of engineering. It was a new course. We were the first batch in Hedgepath, so it was a mix of different courses coming together. It was exciting, but that's the background, so it can be called as computer science if you don't want to. You can call it computer applications too. So that's the thing. So during that time we had CPUs, like hard desks and not laptops, and we used to exchange game CDs or anything that we wanted to change new softwares that we wanted to try. So accidentally through that set of CDs and music CDs and stuff, I got a Photoshop version five or four, I don't remember product, I don't be Photoshop, and I was like, yeah, I was all for trying out new things at that time.
We're also doing wallpaper, changing the default sounds of windows. It was that mindset. So I thought, oh, this is something interesting. Let me figure it out. And at that time I was also exploring this word art in PowerPoint. I know it's very lean, very basic, but that was something that really caught my attention, the fonts that I could do in PowerPoint, the word art styles and all of that. That was something that I was trying out. But this Photoshop, I installed it and it opened up a new world to me like, oh, this was amazing. My head and heart. So that was where it was like, this is something I really like. And I started to learn about it and as the friend who gave it to me, he had some of his friends who are older than us, they were working in some agencies, some TVs related work where they were doing titles and backgrounds, all of that. That's where he got the CD from. I installed it and I never gave up. I just overnight and the weekends it became my obsession, playing on music, listening to rayman songs, airman songs, and then trying out this Photoshop. I explored it and it really blew up, and then I expanded to learn some other multimedia related stuff along with Photoshop, but that really sold the seed for design.
Brendan Jarvis:
You mentioned before that it was like your head and your heart high fived, and I've heard you previously describe this moment or this experience that you had in the following terms. You said the freedom to express my and creativity was mind blowing. It was like learning to speak. That's quite a powerful description of what that felt like. Now, perhaps this is too strong a framing and it's probably incorrect, but it sounded to me almost like until that point in your life, until you discovered a Photoshop, you had been creatively repressed. I
Rakesh Patwari:
Mean, yeah, maybe or I was limited by the ways I was expressing my creativity. I used to dance, I was a dancer. I mean, yeah, whenever we get an opportunity, I used to dance in anybody's weddings or randomly also on the road. If somebody's wedding barat, that process is going. If I feel like it, I join them and dance and come out. So it was like that. So I took opportunity to express creativity and I use those words now. At that time, I didn't really think about it that much. I felt that there was an abandon. I felt whatever I did was what I felt like doing, and then this was yet another tool like, oh, now I could do much more in the confines of a computer. I can sit here, I can design posters, I can do this. I can on the way, when I used to watch some movie posters or there were posters on the side of the road, sceneries and all of that, I would observe some things and then I tried to replicate this in Photoshop today and then go back, try that out, and that really felt like I was expressing new side of my brain, which was learning a new language
Brendan Jarvis:
Before Adobe Cloud. Adobe sponsored many designers at the very beginning of their careers. I'm sure there are many people listening to this today that have had almost a similar experience, particularly around that point in time. Of course, we won't go into that any further. Moving on, so thinking about what you do now, in particular, the past five and a half years that you've spent alongside your busy day job being an instructor of information architecture at uc, Berkeley Extension. Now clearly this is a teaching role, right? I wondered how do your parents feel about their second son now also as part of what he does being a teacher?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, I wish they were here to see.
Brendan Jarvis:
I'm sorry to hear that.
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, I've lost both of them in incident separate timings, so they have not seen me, but they would not be surprised if they heard me that I'm teaching, and they would definitely be proud of me doing that in a way that I'm doing. It is that icky guy, principal of sorts. This brings me joy. This brings me happiness. I don't make a lot of money there, but that's not why I'm in it, so I'm doing it for the sake of it. So yeah, they would definitely be pretty proud, at least I hope that, and my dad would have a lot of feedback to give me the way I teach. He was a great teacher so I could never match his level of teaching.
Brendan Jarvis:
What do you think he would say to you if he could sit down with you now about your teaching? He
Rakesh Patwari:
Would nitpick. He would give some techniques of how to explain complex things, which I think is my strength right now, even in my work, not just teaching in my work, simplifying the complex things, breaking it down into smaller pieces, all of that comes into play. Then I learned from him when he was a teacher, not in my school, I was going to a English medium comment school and there were government school teachers, so it was like a class difference, but he used to teach me at home. I could not get away from teaching, studying at home. So he used to teach me, he used to give me all of these ideas of how to visualise a map. We had map pointing as an exercise, which cities where in the map. So he gave that is
Brendan Jarvis:
Great
Rakesh Patwari:
A shape that I could draw, and then with that I could lay out all 20 cities across India. It was that. So he had those techniques for everything. He had a technique, so if he saw something that I'm teaching, he would definitely give me some ideas, some techniques, some metaphors or way to simplify it even further. So I think that would be definitely one piece of feedback and he would say, talk slowly but loudly.
Brendan Jarvis:
Great advice. Your mother and your father sound like they were great people and definitely special memories to take with you and wonderful that you can also think about what they would say to you now and use that to help refine your own approach.
Rakesh Patwari:
Thank you for initiating that thought in me. I never thought what would they feel? What would they say? But yeah, thank
Brendan Jarvis:
You. Now I want to talk to you about uc, Berkeley a little bit more and what you do there in information architecture. This may be perceived as a provocative question. I know it's certainly going to prick a few people's ears up as they hear me ask it. Is information architecture still relevant in today's practise of UX?
Rakesh Patwari:
I mean, I don't see anything wrong with that question. In my introduction class I say that information architecture is like air. You'll not recognise it when it is there, but the minute it goes wrong, you'll start complaining so it is relevant or not relevant, agree or not agree. It is there we do, the way the buttons are organised in this UI that we are looking at or the way the camera works, whatever I have in front of me, there is information architecture, and if you're aware of it, if you think about it, you'll do a lot of progress. You'll not fall into the pitfalls and you'll get to a better place. So it is relevant. Yes, of course, that's my point of view, but if it's not accepted, then you're losing out on a big huge advantage.
Brendan Jarvis:
When you mentioned cameras, all I could think about because I'm staring at my Canon M 50 mark two at the moment, and all I could think about is how difficult navigating and understanding the architecture that underlies the HUD for the actual camera itself. It's so difficult. I wish someone with an IA brain and had a go at structuring that experience. Let's take a little bit of a shift now and talk about something that you've spoken about openly before and that's about the arc of your career, and we've been touching on some of the earlier moments in that career now, and of course we'll come to some of the more recent ones soon. You've said about this, and I'll quote you again, you've said, my jagged journey so far has been paved with opportunities, challenges, doubts, and gritty choices. My curiosity and almost OCD level of passion for finding answers have kept me going and served me well so far. What's the biggest challenge, doubt or gritty choice that you've faced in recent years?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, there have been many moments throughout the career and at the end of it, I always came out as a better person, so I'm kind of comfortable not being comfortable of making choices. My dataset that's at that stage recently, I think leaving meta and joining Cisco has been one calculated move. Both are great companies. Again, it's not about the companies at all. It's the thought process that went behind for me to make that decision. That was one choice that I had made in multiple facets. One on the personal side, what would it mean, and on my professional side, what would I learn? How will it help my career? Will I be able to do a good job? It's not that just learning or I should be able to live up to it and is this the right one for my longer term career? So things like that came into this and it was not easy to make that call to pull that trigger power bill thing. Yeah, I'm happy that I did that, but that's probably the most recent one.
Brendan Jarvis:
When you think about what seems like a consequential decision there, you were talking about what's best for your longer term career. I think you mentioned family in there as well. What does your way of working through, or perhaps it's wading through a decision like that, what does that look like?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, wow. Yeah, it looks like just a full train came to a stop and people are rushing out and if you get into my brain, multiple thoughts rushing out from different directions and I'm talking Mumbai style trends, there are a lot of people rushing out, gushing out. Even though I know that it is just one decision, I can change always. I can go do something else if it doesn't work during that moment, it's a big decision of what if I get this wrong and it fluctuates between a safe, stable space to pragmatic decision. It swings, is it a pragmatic decision or is it just how we go this? It swings between that. And I also have been thinking about this decision making as a leader of late as well, and then at the moment, I tried to narrow down to some choices. I know it is not a science, but still at least if I hit these things, like I was talking about my home before we joined, and so three big things that we were looking for home was community and resale value of the home. These are the primarily three big things that I can compromise on the others, but these are the higher priority ones, so I kind of get to that stage when I make a decision and a lot of thoughts going through, but I still, if these boxes checked at least to some 60 to 70%, I can live with it and I would make a decision. So that's what went during that process as
Brendan Jarvis:
Well. Well, let's talk about making decisions a little bit more. Let's talk about the 22nd year of your career, which I believe is this year and across those 22 years that you've worked in the industry, you've worked across multiple domains, multiple industries, you've worked in startups and smaller companies and in global enterprises. You've also moved, and this is the thing that I want to talk to you about, you've also moved between senior IC and manager roles in recent years, this has probably been the most noticeable thing. Looking at your LinkedIn profile has noticed the shift from senior IC into senior management roles. What has been the thinking or the motivation behind that switching of context between IC and management?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, yeah. I think hindsight now, if I think about it, it was all about the impact that I could make and peeling the layers of what's going behind the decision. If I see, I'm always driven by this curiosity thing and also bringing out the best helping people reach their full potential, be it the startup advising or mentoring or teaching or even my work style. I think that is something that comes back to me or it's a part of me that drives my thinking and actions. So those were some things that really became clearer that I could have bigger impact. I am good at it. I also am a little conservative. I'm not very risky type, especially when it comes to career because I am the bread owner of the home. People are dependent on me, so I cannot just be rash on that. On other sides, maybe if it's just me, I would eat something new and try it out, but if it is something related to family career, I would be a little calculated.
So I would take that calculated approach in this and then when I feel confidence that I could really do it, if I feel I can do justice to it, I can deliver value, that is when I could move and it took some time for me to build that confidence inside me to become a people manager. It's not just a career progression. I could be a senior ic, high end IC as well, but I felt that I could scale myself. I could become a better person delivering impact or enabling more people to reach to the full potential if I changed it to this career side of things. So that is one big thing that helped me make that decision intrinsically. Again, this is looking back, I'm able to calculate why it happened, but that's how I felt during that process. There was another aspect of this.
I was a people manager in India as well before I moved to the US for a short while and once I came here I did have a choice to become a people manager, but I didn't have that confidence because everything was new. The culture, the people, being IC as one, managing different people from different cultures is another whole different game, and I didn't feel that confidence, so it took some time for me to build that confidence as well that yes, this is us, this is a different country. I know now a bit better about the culture and how to work with people, how to, what's the language, what's the language of the community? And then that also helped me in making decision thinking that this is the right time to move into a leadership role.
Brendan Jarvis:
You mentioned hindsight a little earlier on, and so let's continue to use that hindsight and particularly let's apply that to what you were talking about there, which is that confidence that you didn't feel initially when you first moved to the US to manage other people, manage people from different cultures, different to your own. What is it that you feel that you've since learned or put into practise that has helped you to build that confidence to the level now where you are holding fairly senior design management responsibilities?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, I think it is evolution as well. Experience working with people, being open-minded to know where my gaps are, what I don't know, trying to learn that and building on that or finding opportunities to learn that it's not a deliberate move for me, but the experience kind of made me more comfortable understanding this, and I think being open is the biggest thing. I think it ties back to the curiosity side of things. Being open, assuming positive intent, going with an open mind, trying to understand where they're coming from rather than jumping to conclusions and trying to backtrack. All of those helped me to kind of open up with a blank slate and then grasp any different cultures or different working styles or different countries. They communicate differently. People from different countries communicate differently. Some of them are straightforward direct, some of them are roundabout, things like that. If I go with an open mind, it helped me get there.
Brendan Jarvis:
Do you remember any particular moments where you feel that you didn't bring that open mind and that upon reflection caused you to set in motion a series of changes in your thinking to be more open-minded?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yes. It was very early when I came to the us, the way I came to the US or the project that got me to us, I was working in Cognizant Technologies at that point, and it was a intense project at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, we are working on their marketing campaigns. It was very intense, very time sensitive, and there are a lot of escalations happening, and I was in India. I was trying to be the lead and manager there trying to solve all of these, and then the account manager, who's the point of contact in the US said, this guy looks like he understands what's going on. If you bring him onsite, he might be able to allow some of these things to be captured before they become a big problem. And then he recommended and I was, okay, is this a long-term? One, can I get my family?
How long-term is this? Those were my things that I had to calculate, and then I moved, so it felt like I was actually a hero who's coming to save the day, and I came with that attitude which was wrong, which is completely wrong, which led me to do some things or look at things in a certain way. I tried to change things or think about this is the right way, you have to do it this way. And that didn't help me. It didn't cause big damage to the project or anything, but I saw that feedback or I saw that reaction from the clients or whoever was here, the account managers, that it was not landing well and it was not the case. It was a quick realisation that had made, and then from that I quickly shifted to that open mindset and I was given some bad advices as well in that moment. I should know baseball to be able to become a part of this American corporate culture, you should learn baseball, you should learn football, which is the American football, and I still now, I don't know that much, but those were some of the areas that were explored. I should start really understanding these people and I went into that direction.
Brendan Jarvis:
I'm just picturing you there, fresh off the plane in this particular pressure cooker environment, having packed away some knowledge about baseball or American football and trying to interject that into conversation, it's almost like it would make for a good episode of the office or something, wouldn't it?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, it was comical and embarrassing to say the least.
Brendan Jarvis:
Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, we all got those stories for sure. This environment though that you were talking about sounds like it was a lot of time pressure and a lot of the work that we do in product and design is under pressure. We're not just given. You can't blanche and do whatever you like whenever you like it by, that's not the way that the rhythm of business works. I want to come back to something that you've said about burnout in particular in 2021. So this is a couple of years ago. Just for context, everyone, I'm sure that you're aware that at that point we're still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. You said, and I'll quote you now, burnout is real. There is so much visible and invisible stress on everyone due to all that's going on globally unknowingly. We tend to work more to distract from all that and end up getting burnt out without realising it until it's too late. I think it's important to be aware of our feelings and be lenient on what we can and cannot achieve. Look for those early signs, physical, mental, and behavioural and catch them early. So what are those signs for you?
Rakesh Patwari:
For me, if I feel stressed, I think one is I tend to talk faster, I eat faster, just finish it and go to work. I focus on that and sometimes I just disconnect. I don't want to go into that meeting at all or I just want to go out of this room or go out of the meeting. These are some signs that feel that. And in the night I have this phase of lucid dreaming phase just before I fall into sleep. This partial conscious, I feel an agitated state there, which is a strongest signal for me that I'm under stress, I need to do something. That's the signal there. Yeah.
Brendan Jarvis:
Yeah. And while your quote I just read there was from the middle of the pandemic, we are still not operating in a completely stress-free environment. As we all know. This has been a tumultuous past 12 months for design and products. More broadly, how do you engage with your team now that you're a people manager on this particular topic of stress and burnout?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, great point Brendan. I think we should consciously think about it and probably I can quote one more thing about stress or burnout is it's like dehydration. You would not know it until you become dehydrated, and so you should keep drinking water so that you don't get there by the time you realise it's already too late. It's something like that. And now coming with the territory of having a bigger impact or making multiple people's lives impacted comes with this as well. I could have it positively or negatively if I just set up wrong expectations. The entire team of 40 people or 27 people, whatever that is, they all now start to run around and then I'm multiplying that impact, negative impact as well. So I think I am conscious about that pretty well and I have four managers who I support and I try to tell them they're also mature.
I mean they also understand this, so it is an easy conversation. But in our one-on-ones, we do talk about that and also stress the fact that we focus on quality, not quantity. If we cannot do it, let us reduce our footprint. We'll say start saying no to it. We are not at the, one of my previous managers said this, we are not at a surgery table that if we go out, people will die. It's okay. We are doing some big things that will change the world of course, but there are not such crucial things that we cannot take a break. So having that conscious and also setting that as an example, taking a break when needed, I should get better at it to tell I just take a break. I don't tell them. I probably should tell them. Being open about it and encouraging them to do it also will go a long way in understanding that and setting that expectations.
We are here and there are other things like consciously talking about it, and Cisco does a great thing. They have a Cisco day for me, they have five days. It's out of the blue, four or five days in a year. I don't know. There is no particular event or anything you can take a day off. It's everyone. It's not that you are taking off and the rest of the team is working. That will increase your stress instead, right? Everybody's off that day. These are on a Friday or on a Monday, it's a day for me off. And there are other things like time to give. Even Salesforce did a great job. There was volunteer hours that are part of your thing. You have a certain set of volunteer hours that you can use just like PTO Salesforce, call it VTO, volunteer time hours here it's called time to give. That can add into your thing to do volunteer work. All of these help in elevating that stress and as a leader, as a people manager or manager of managers, I think it's good to bring that up, remind them and remind ourselves that we have these techniques. It is natural. We are all humans. Everyone stresses out. So trying to be conscious about it and intentional about it will help go a long way
Brendan Jarvis:
To keep drinking that water on the way through so you don't get dehydrated. Yeah, I really like that analogy. I wanted to ask you specifically about what you feel that you are lenient on yourself with in the terms of being a manager of managers and what you are strict or hard on yourself about.
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, I think it is, I keep going back to that word impact. If there is something that has a bigger and ripple effect, a bigger impact, I think I try to make sure that I'm not getting that wrong, a little bit more stricter, and if it is something that we can manage, it's okay. Even if it gets wrong, then I'm a little more lenient. So how that shows up in the audit strategy or organising strategy is our team. We have earmarked a set of people under a certain pillar problem area, how you want to use them, how do you want to deploy each of them, the mix and match how you want to create the pods of designers is up to the managers. They have the agency, they have the flexibility. I want to give them the agency. At the same time we have some structure that helps. So I don't want to go beyond the structure that we created, but you have a space to play around here. So that balance is what I constantly strive. I don't know if I do a good job or not, but I try to inculcate that in my practises.
Brendan Jarvis:
Well, let's talk about balance, but balance that's related to your life outside of work, but is very closely tied to your life inside of work. And this is dating back to a question you were asked in 2021, but I believe it's an Indian publication called Beyond the px, and the question was about whether your career aspirations have encroached on your life outside of work and about this, you said you wrote yes all the time. I continuously strive to draw that line but have not cracked the code to it. I think I got lucky to get away with it since my wife knows me well and supports me. So that was a couple of years ago now. So how are you getting on with drawing that line lately?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, I think I've gotten better. It was during the pandemic, working from home completely also didn't help for that. Drawing the line, it has gotten better and I tried to go to office. There is no bandaid for me to go to office, but as I said, it's a short commute. So I tried to go to office. That means there is a line of when I start from home, I'll start thinking about work and I pack from office and come back. I'll not really think about work unless there is some impending thing. I try to finish it. So it kind of creates a boundary of sorts to do that. And there are also some activities that my son is enrolled into which we kind of shuffle him around, drop him, pick him. So as soon as I come back, the next duty, the next job is already waiting for me. So I hop into it, I speak with him and I start driving and even if I want to, I cannot think about or work at that time. So those are some things that we created to kind of incorporate the rest of the life, which created these natural boundaries as
Brendan Jarvis:
Well. You mentioned your son. How old is your son
Rakesh Patwari:
Now? He is 13. Will turn 14 in few weeks,
Brendan Jarvis:
Right? Yeah. Okay. So I mean they're always at an age where they can be easily influenced. They're always soaking up everything, but that's a very pivotal age. That's the age where you start, I suppose, becoming more of an adult. Around that stage. You're become an adolescent, right? You're in that very formative phase. What do you hope that your son will receive from what he sees of you and the way that you manage work and home life?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I think I can also reflect on what I got from my parents in the initial conversation we started having about what I saw my mom do. I think that has inspired me of how she was, she was a teacher, but she was doing some small, using her network to get some other teachers, some clothing from the city, some furniture using her reputation to help the other teachers and all of that. So those things live with me. So I hope there are some things that my kid takes from me or at least I have an influence and you're asking what those are. I think the one big thing I want him to do is nothing comes easy and it is the work ethic. You have to put in the effort. If it is coming for free or coming easy, it's not going to stay.
Don't take it. I will be very scared if someone just says, I want something and this is your money. I would not take it always. I have that fear. If I have worked for it, I'll relish it. So I think that is one big thing I think that I want him to take. Also, it's okay to be whatever you are authentically what you are. Coming from India, my half of my age was India. I'm at that midpoint. Probably half of my age was in India. My growing up, my language, my preferences, all of that. And here, should I learn that baseball, I did well without knowing about baseball. So it's okay. I trying to make peace and understand that balance of what you are can do. Understanding that authenticity that is a part of you. We speak at home, so you like tegu movies, that's good. Even if you are an American citizen, you are growing up here. It's okay, that's your strength or that's you and embrace it. So I think I want that to be taken from him. So I think that and work ethic, nothing comes easy.
Brendan Jarvis:
I'm going to butcher this quote. I can't even recall who said it, but I read something recently to the effect of that which can be given can also be taken away. And when you were describing the emphasis that you have placed on work ethic and truly feeling like you've earned something as opposed to just accepting some windfall that someone else might bestow on you, I really connected with that piece.
Rakesh Patwari:
There was a story during my school days in my Hindi book, it's a small story which kind of drove this point now that you said I recollected that. So yeah, there is a son of a rich merchant and that kid goes to his father and says, I need some money. I need 10 rupees, for example. It was 10 rupees. So his father said, I can give you 10 rupees, but you go and earn one rupe. Get it to me. I'll give you 10 rupees for that. This kid was like, okay, this doesn't make sense, but let me try. He goes to his sister, asks sister, his sister gives him that one rupe. He goes to his dad and says, dad, I got this one rupe. And his dad says, okay, now you got his one rupe going through it in the well. He goes and he throws it in the well.
Then dad figures out that it's not something that he has earned. Then he says, this doesn't count. You ask your sister or your brother, right? You go ahead and get one more rupe. So he goes out to father uncle and gets it and his father again asks him going through it in the well, the kid goes and throws it and comes back. His dad says, no, this is not what you have earned. And he kind of understands what he's doing. So he tells his sister, brother, uncle, everyone not to give him any money and let him go. So then he goes to all of them, they all don't give him money. The kid is really anxious about what to do. He finds an old person carrying a bag and he says, can I help you carry this bag? Then the old person says, yeah, you can carry this bag.
And then he carries it bag throughout and then earns one rupe from that and he goes back to his dad and said, dad, I earned one rupe. Then his dad says, going throw that in the, well, the kid gets furious. I don't, I will not throw this in the, well, this is hard earned money. That is when he said, yeah, this is the value of the hard earned money. His money, like you said, will go away soon, and that drives that point. And then he gets that what 10 rupe he was looking for, but a bigger lesson for him
Brendan Jarvis:
And that story. How old were you when you feel like you first read that
Rakesh Patwari:
Fifth grade or sixth grade?
Brendan Jarvis:
Yeah, it's obviously being made quite the impression.
Rakesh Patwari:
Kids in the class made fun while that was being narrated by the teacher. So that really drove it made all the more fun and memorable.
Brendan Jarvis:
What a great story. Thank you for sharing that, Rakesh. Really, really great. Hey, let's turn our attention now to stories of another kind. And you've previously suggested, and I'm going to paraphrase you here, so feel free to correct me, that team communication can be a challenge and that tools like Slack can't replace the water cooler conversations that happen in the same physical proximity. I've heard a lot about the value of these conversations and I know this is a slightly contentious topic to get into, particularly in our circles in the past few years in particular, I've heard them talked about a lot. I've never worked in a large enterprise, so I don't know what types of things are talked about and why they're so important. In your mind, what are these types of conversations that are important that happen in physical proximity that aren't really able to be replicated in technologies like Slack?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, yeah, another great question. I think the types of conversations that happen there are organic conversations. They not, it could be about a project or may not be about a project. It could be anything that helps in building that connection. They may say there is a movie that has come out, somebody is talking about it and then we jump in and say, Hey, I watched that movie, I really liked it or I didn't like it, or whatever. And we have a conversation around it. Or it could be about some project that was not delivered or was delivered. It was working well. We don't make big decisions at water cooler. Of course it's not a presentation. I don't show these other three advantages of going this way or not. That doesn't happen there. But initiation of such things happens and it helps in building that connection with people most importantly, and that connection will spill over into the relationship that we have at work.
If I had a conversation with somebody at water cooler about a movie and then I am meeting the same person in a meeting, we have that familiarity and I feel comfortable sharing my view. He feels comfortable taking my view and whatnot. So those types of things really help in making progress. The other physical proximity can help in brainstorming, we can just go and say, let's draw something on the whiteboard. What do you think about this? There is some physical involvement in the body language and actually doing things together, which also builds that connection. Paramedic is about building that connection that the physical proximity can help with.
Brendan Jarvis:
You mentioned comfort in your response a couple of times that after some of these conversations you start to build more comfort in sharing things. And so under the surface there, it sounds like this is about trust.
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, it is about trust, and I think leadership or any types of leadership is all about making that connections, building those relationships. Trust is also fundamental to it. Making the true connection helps in building trust and having a trust helps in building the connection. I don't know which comes first, but both of them help, which is foundational to building that relationship that we have to continue working
Brendan Jarvis:
On. That relationship is something that is built upon over time. And earlier on, you mentioned one-on-ones that you do in your role. And of course these are really popular and probably rightly so, management technique for ensuring that that relationship is built and that the employee or the person that's coming to that one-on-one is able to develop in the way in which is beneficial to them and to the company. Now, these one-on-ones though they're not all the same. Everyone seems to have a different type of way of doing them. And I'm curious about your particular way of facilitating these meetings. What have you found has worked for you and what have you found has not worked so well?
Rakesh Patwari:
I think it depends on the relationship we have with that person. If we have built that trust equity between us, that relationship equity, we can directly jump on to talking about work sometimes. And it doesn't matter if I say, Hey, what's up with that project? Or what's top of your mind? Let us tackle this. Where is this V two mom or what are we doing with this? We can jump onto that conversation directly. If we have that equity built and it'll land well, it works well. We can quickly finish the one-on-one and 15 minutes instead of an hour, because both of us might make use of that time. If that equity is not built in, whatever you say might misinterpret it, it could not work. So the same context. So for that, what would work is probably build that. How was your day? How was the weather?
Small talk or whatever that is. We want to kind of warm up to that conversation a little bit and go from there and probably explain why you're asking this. I said, there is a meeting coming up, I have to update my boss about it, so I want to know where it is. That way it doesn't feel like I'm trying to assert my role or my power. There it is for a need that I'm doing all of those coming to play if I don't have that trust equity built up and all of that is in the one-on-one, and what always is, I mean what I suggested, what I strive to do is also talk about personal side. How are things? How are you feeling? How's your dog? How's your cat or anything. And also I want that to be also organic. So these retreats or the offsites help us build those moments that we can pick on and continue to work on. So I try to bucket this into these three categories, like wellness, how things are going work, and any progress towards your career, like career progression, what do you want to do next? Are you enjoying what you're doing or not? These three are the big buckets that I want to hit in every one-on-one. Sometimes some are more, some at less, depending on the context. It's not a template, but I try to strive to hit these three points some way or the other.
Brendan Jarvis:
Have you ever found yourself asking a question and then receiving an answer that floored you or that you didn't know where to go that's really surprised you and that you weren't prepared for?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah. Yeah. I think when we start asking those questions, I think about wellness especially. One is just lending a year is good enough there. I don't want to take responsibility of my team members' wellness completely because it's not just one thing. It could be multiple things happening in their life. If it is ready to work, probably I will try to help and solve it. But most of the times it's just hearing, paying attention, listening to them and if needed, changing the course of the rest of the conversation based on that. So what surprised? Yeah, something happened. I was not completely aware of it. So in of my past experiences, their parent passed away and I was not aware of that and came up and they didn't tell me directly. During the one-on-one, when I asked it, it came up. So it really made the whole conversation was just about that.
I changed it, I changed. There was nothing else to talk. I said, if you want to take a break, we can end the call now or if you want to talk, I'm here, let talk. So we went on speaking for a while, but entire half an hour just about his dad and things like that. I shared about my background, my dad and what I had seen. It was a different conversation altogether. It was a surprise, but I was glad I was able to do it. Instead of jumping into the work, it would be really insensitive, unproductive, and I would feel really bad if I had done that.
Brendan Jarvis:
You recognise the need to adjust your plan and adjusted the plan, and it certainly sounds like holding that space and having that conversation was the right thing to do. Before we were recording this conversation today, we had a brief conversation about the value of listening and listening to you describe your experiences with facilitating these one-on-ones made me wonder, what is the balance or ratio, if you like, between how much talking and how much listening you tend to do in these types of meetings?
Rakesh Patwari:
Ideally, it is their time. I would want to be on the listening mode as much as possible, but it doesn't happen like that all the time. There are some things that I wanted to get out or get activated or get them rolling. So there are some things that I wanted to talk about as well, but I tend to go in with the mind that it is for them. It's their time to share, their time to talk, my time to listen and take it. And in that conversation, if there is something that has to be addressed, anything that has to be reacted, I'll not stop myself. I'll say, okay, yeah, I heard you. This is what we're trying to do. Or let just do this or make a note, finish the conversation. Then I'll say to address this, let us do that to address this. Let us do that kind of the conversation. So yeah, ideally I'd want that to be their time, like 80 20, 80% of their time, 20% of me talking, 80% of them talking and me listening, it ends up being 50 50 in practicality. So yeah, maybe something for me to get better at.
Brendan Jarvis:
One of the things that I really enjoyed when I was preparing for today's conversation was just how refreshingly open and honest you are about your experiences in design and also more recently as a design manager or a manager of design managers. And I think this is why I've wanted to spend this time with you and this management theme if you liked exploring these things because it is so refreshing. And one of the other things that you've said previously that's really refreshing is about a time when you were still in the process of onboarding at Meta as a product design manager, and you were on a panel that I listened to, which was called Long Distance Leadership, and you spoke about how you felt both as a new employee, but also you gave some insight into what it was like being a new manager within a new company. Now you said, and I'll quote you now, you said, I'm onboarding at Facebook, I feel useless. I was on top of my game in my previous company. I knew everything that was happening and what had to be done. I was busy. Now suddenly my calendar is empty. This very personal experience, this is a common experience that people have as well, but how has this experience of yours changed the way that you manage people who are onboarding into your teams, your organisation?
Rakesh Patwari:
100%. Yeah, that is what I felt, and I think everybody feels that manager or ic, no matter what their role is, they do feel that, and I am sensitive to that. So if somebody is onboarding in my team at fourth or fifth week, I say the same thing. This is what exactly I say you feel you are in fifth week or sixth week. You feel you should be getting things done, but you are not getting things done. You might feel frustrated and it's okay. You don't have to get anything done. This is because of this reflection, this is because of the psychological area where you are hitting, you're on top of your game now. Suddenly it is like the graph has fallen down and you tend to do something. You want to make an impression, you want to show something. It is okay. This is a very complex space, and I have been in complex space most of my careers probably every place is complex.
It's a complex space. It takes time, it takes six months or it takes one year or whatever. That complexity is for you to really understand what you're doing. I also attach something along with it saying that if you are a person who wants to do something while learning, that is another style. Some people just learn, learn, learn, then start producing. Some people start to produce immediately, even if it is not up to par. And if you're that type of person, we'll find some project. We know it'll not be good. It'll be, it may not be the best, but you give your best. And there have been projects that I reflect in my first few months I felt very proud of, but after a few months I see that it was all off the mark, right? Because we don't know, we are still onboarding. So I try to find that, have that conversation, this type or this type. If it is this, I'll provide you resources to learn or I'll provide help for you to learn. If it is this, we'll give you some small project work on it. Let's figure it
Brendan Jarvis:
Out. Rakesh, we've been speaking for the most part the last half an hour about management of the design organisation. I want to talk about now the relationship that you have as a leader within that organisation with the other parts of the wider organisation that impact the role that design plays. Now it's not uncommon for product or engineering to be driving perhaps or setting the tone for organisations and the way that product gets made. And I'm curious to understand from you how in your experience, how has that influence of product or engineering changed the way that you have approached your role of leading that part of the design organisation?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, and you're also saying how it is in the company that I work with or what my experience was about the role of design team. It is similar to what you've said. We are a part of a large organisation. This product, there is engineering who tend to drive things and we often are the ones who come back late in the game or later sometimes after the distance are made and try to execute it. So there have been a mix of all of these throughout my career as a design leader, it's a privilege and also a responsibility. We have a unique point of view. We have a unique vantage point, if you will, where we can see both sides of the coin. If we are invited to some of those meetings, we see why the leadership on the engineering side or the product side doing certain decisions the way they're doing, which if I was in my designer then I would not see.
And having those conversations with them open mind again, having those conversations, understanding their point of view will help us position ourselves much better. And I feel the whole role of a design leader revolves around that. All the things that we do, we identify something that from an engineering standpoint or a product standpoint is needed. We try to make our sense part of the conversation there, but in order to do that, we have to show the value that we bring in. Even if the call is into the meetings, we need to know that we are delivering the value. So it goes back to delivering value from the team that you have and is the team, does the team have everything they need to deliver the value? Then we go there and find things that will enable them to deliver value, take that the right people and then evangelise design and build that.
So I think this is a bigger role or the primary role of a design leader that evolves into it is both ends of the coin. I can just go and say, Hey, get us into the room, make us a part of the decision making. If you don't deliver that value and we have to hold both ends of the deal, but design, it's a unique position, unique point of view that we can easily see some things where connections need to be made and if we are aware, if we are vigilant about them, those connections go a long, long way. The biggest thing that will help is making those right connections.
Brendan Jarvis:
Yeah, that's a huge point. That's a huge point You've sort of been touching on there, the tension that can exist in where design sits in the organisation and its ability to influence or not the decisions that are going on elsewhere. And it sounded like from what you were saying there that a key part of your emphasis has been on building those relationships outside of design in order to make those decisions easier or to have more influence on those decisions. I wanted to talk about another tension that's discussed openly in design circles and that's that tension that's either real or perceived between what the business wants and what the users need. This is probably a bit of a tired conversation. It's one that's been done many times, but I am still really curious to get your insights into this because you've previously said, and I'll quote you again here, while we as designers want to understand the domain, how the technicalities work, we need to still be aware that we are designers and we have to keep our end users in mind and we have to balance that we should not get drowned. We want to immerse ourselves. We don't want to get drowned, so we have to get that perfect balance. So that sounds very pragmatic, but I wanted to get more specific about that balance now, what does that balance look like and how do you know when you've achieved it?
Rakesh Patwari:
And it's a long process to get there. I think there are multiple things that have to fall in place for that to really for us to build that bridge. Thankfully things have changed. Things are getting much, much better business, understands the value of design, bring them into the conversations earlier. I think there is a bit of evangelism or education if you will. Evangelism is a different is not the right word. Insights that we derive from the research or what we understand of the user, how do we package that and how do we present that to the business? That's part of the multiple steps that have to fall in. If you go to them and say, we have spoken to a thousand users or whatever number of users depending on the type of product, this is what they really need. If that is not making money and the second thing that they need is making money, then it is pragmatic for us to focus on the second thing and then come back to the first one. Because if that is business, at the end of the day, if we don't make money, then the whole team sees us to exist. There's no design team, there's no company at all, especially in the situations of startup. But if we really see, understand that I think the product market fit really fits these two together well and it's a long process for us to get that balance.
Brendan Jarvis:
What you've been talking about are things that are not immediately obvious to people until they've had some time in the types of positions that you've held. No matter how many times people hear something, sometimes it's just not real until they experience it or perhaps they learn a few hard lessons and get a few things wrong. Now, I've heard you offer your advice to a designer that was getting started in enterprise design. You said to them more broadly, anyone in that position you said learn the domain, go with an open mindset, understand the value the product is adding, and from there understand and embrace the constraints and about those constraints. You've also said don't get carried away with the constraints. Understand them well enough so that you can innovate within that. Now, this is perhaps how long is a piece of string type question, but this is the benefit of being able to draw on your experience here. How do you know when you know the constraints well enough to innovate?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, I think having the conversations with if it is an engineering constraint, having the conversations with those engineering counterparts over and over again, being in those meetings where we are prioritising some of the features or presenting designs or showing our work. The more number of conversations we have, the more real the constraints become. And also going back to the open mindset. If we start looking at it from open mindset and try to understand that yes, it is a constraint. They're not trying to block designers, it is their reality. As long as we are open and we understand where that is coming from, that's the first step and then we next step is we could get in and see what is a constraint? Why is it a design system constraint? These are the components that I have to use with or I cannot add some other new tool here or new feature because of the performance issues or is it something else?
So that is the second step of trying to be open and try to delve deeper on what those constraints are. That is when we really start to see, and it's not a conversation between the engineering and you anymore. It's about you and engineering trying to understand that problem so that you can go to a solution. Sometimes it's an architecture problem in enterprises that are already existing tools, existing architecture there, and we have to design our features that work with that architecture, work with that schemas, unless you go to that stage and try to understand what is that schema and what does it take to change it or why can't we change it or what can we do within the schema? Unless you have that conversation with the architect, you're not going to unlock the constraints, which will help you design around that constraint.
Brendan Jarvis:
Yes, I can sense that questions play a large role in your approach, both as a leader but also as a designer.
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, yeah. I had experiences similar to this engineering fact. We were always slowing them down and we always felt they were like, they're not letting us do our work. But once we got into this mindset, the architect, I was a junior ish designer at that point, but once we got to this level, probably my computer science language came into play here so that I could speak the language of the technology with him. That person was very open to tell me about the schema. The schema is a real example that we have this schema, this is how the whole architecture of the product works just for one page. I cannot tweak it. This is what I have and this is what we could do. Then that really unlocked me and he became my friend, but not a rival there. So yeah, this is coming from experience.
Brendan Jarvis:
That is a really wonderful place for us to have a quick segue into a final topic for today before we bring the show down to a close and Rakesh, it's about a talk that you gave a couple of years ago actually, and it was about presenting design work, and so there are a lot of people at the moment who are looking for roles in design and it's an ongoing need regardless of the state of the economy. People are always changing jobs and always needing to represent themselves as best they can. So this is almost a timeless topic for us to talk about. I heard you talk about this as almost the job of portfolio presentations. It's almost the design job between design jobs, and that was such a pithy quote. I don't think I'm ever going to forget that. You are also a hiring manager. So you see a lot of these now you've been in the position of giving them, but you also see a lot of them. What's the biggest mistake and conversely, what's your biggest recommendation to address that mistake that you see designers making in those portfolio presentations?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, yeah, I've been looking at a lot of portfolios, but recently it has gone down. The hiring has gone down. Overall, I think framing the problem is probably the big one, big thing that they can write. They can do it good. The best advice is try to frame the problem, which is kind of informing the rest of your process of how you went about solving it, why that made sense as a solution and what were the obstacles while getting to that solution, all of that. The rest of the story all anchors on that. How do you frame the problem that is, I think one advice that I could give, spend some time on understanding the problem and frame it right early in the process. Early in your portfolio presentation
Brendan Jarvis:
To your mind, what would you say the right way is framing a problem?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, so it's kind of both working backwards from your solution. Also, if you do it enough times, you'll understand how it progresses. Are we building a solution? Are we building a feature? If you frame the problem that shows that this is the job or if I use the jobs to be done metaphor or framework here, these are the jobs that the user is trying to do. And then from there, if you take it, which takes you to the process of how you design to get those jobs done, that makes easier for them. Also, we have to understand that I say I'm doing the portfolio, I have done the project, I have spent six months or four months or one year on it. I know in and out about it and when I start writing it, I'll say, this was the problem, and we start and jump into telling the story of how we solved it.
We need to understand the person who's looking at it is not one year into the project. They may not know. We cannot just say we are building a dashboard for developers or we are building a tool for enhancing privacy. We cannot just say that. Explain what that is, build the context and why the problem is important. If it is a story, if it is a movie or if it's a show, establish that character. What are we looking at and why is it important to be solved? I think if we spend a little bit of time to understand that framing properly, then the rest of the things will really feel good. And even if they lose in between the final solution, if it matches your initial framing, it would make sense in their
Brendan Jarvis:
Mind. I think this is the benefit of your early experience and acting coming through here right at the end,
Rakesh Patwari:
And your biggest mistake is it's not a mistake, but another thing that they could start doing. It is not be afraid of bringing their own personal touch to it, bringing in your own flavour, be authentic. It is okay, like I said, you speak, I like the movies or whatever. It is a part of me and I don't shy from talking about it, I don't. So bring your own authentic self into that portfolio as well. Don't shy around, try to copy somebody or make that picture perfect template thing. It doesn't reflect personality in it, so try to bring that in, which will make that personal connection because it's a human who's looking at your portfolio
Brendan Jarvis:
And it's very easy to forget that and very easy to let your nerves and anxiety overrun who you are in those particular moments, especially the ones like those presentations that do have a consequential effect depending on how they go. Rakesh, there's been a lot of change in our field as of late, and we've touched on this briefly here in terms of there's a lot of layoffs that have happened in our side of product and also more broadly there's also been the rise of AI as we bring the show down to a close. I've got one final question for you, and it's based on something that you have previously said, and I just want to quote you one last time. You've said, given the pace at which technology is advancing, 10 years is a long time to be certain of anything. So although that's not particularly reassuring, I do tend to agree with you, it is a long time to be sure of anything. What do you tell yourself about the future of your career that excites you or at least gives you hope that tomorrow will be better than it is today?
Rakesh Patwari:
That's a profound question. Yeah, I think it is. It's on all of our minds, the ai. What does it mean to the carrier? This career going to go away? Maybe, maybe not. Again, not sure I don't have that crystal ball, but I think things like that have happened before. Not exactly ai, but something came up when we talked about Photoshop. I felt the same way when I was exploring mid journey. I felt like that now I can draw the art, I couldn't do it. I have a limitation. I'm not very good at drawing. I could draw. So embracing that made me feel better. Like, okay, this is how we can use it. I was trying to write an article, which is still in the draught there. I talk about how the wheels, like discovery of wheels might have changed transportation, it may have killed or it may have the horse industry or all the industry around horses and cars might have gone away, but it enabled people to travel farther.
So they started going farther and doing more. So I think this is what AI will help us do. Probably it'll take us the productivity gain that we do. We'll do more or we'll do something else that we really like. Instead of doing one thing, we can do five things just like travelling. If I had a cart, I would travel say 10 miles radius, and that was my area. Now if I have a car, I could go a hundred miles. That means my scope is increased in the same time. So I would do similarly. So we would grow into ic. We would potentially grow into these multifaceted or full stack. I mean there's now a full, now multifaceted generalists that would do multiple things that are needed to solve the problem, which is a core job of a designer. So the t-shaped designer who has expertise in one and second of breadth into or three areas, it may now become a comb shaped designer. They could build in domain knowledge, expertise in any of the domain and they could go into product management a little bit, do research a little bit, do things around, and then become a bit more holistic of a designer or whatever the role is, but solving problem, doing problem solving with an open mindset. So that's what I tell myself,
Brendan Jarvis:
Rakesh, that's a wonderfully positive place for us to bring our conversation to a close. This has been such an engaging conversation. There's certainly plenty of things in there for people to think about when it comes to their own management style, managing designers, enterprise design, and of course we touched on portfolio presentations right at the very end there. Thank you for so generously sharing your stories and insights with me today.
Rakesh Patwari:
Thank you very much, Brendan. It was great speaking with you. I didn't feel the time at all and we made that connection. I really enjoyed having this conversation with you. Thank you very much for having me.
Brendan Jarvis:
Oh, it's been my pleasure. My pleasure. Rakesh, if people want to connect with you or keep up to date with what you're up to and your contributions to the field, what is the best way for them to do that?
Rakesh Patwari:
Yeah, I think LinkedIn is the best way. My usage of Twitter has reduced after it became X or whatever. The overall, the graph has gone down, probably it may not pick up anytime soon, so LinkedIn is the best place. My usage may not pick up, so LinkedIn is the best place for now, and I also have a personal portfolio, but it's just a portfolio. So LinkedIn, send me a connect request or whatever the system allows you. I'm happy to be of use.
Brendan Jarvis:
Thanks Rakesh, and to everyone who's tuned in, it's been great having you here as well. Everything we've covered, including where you can find Rakesh and all of the things that we've spoken about will be in the show notes.
If you've enjoyed the show and you want to hear more great conversations like this with world-class leaders in UX research, product management and design, don't forget to leave a review. Also subscribe, so the podcast turns up every two weeks in your feed. And tell someone else, perhaps just one other person that might get value from these conversations at depth.
If you want to reach out to me, you can find me on LinkedIn. There's a link to my profile at the bottom of the show notes, or you can head on over to my website, which is thespaceinbetween.co.nz. That's thespaceinbetween.co.nz. And until next time, keep being brave.

Rakesh Patwari

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