Wolfgang Bremer
Trust, Teams, and Tangible Impact
In this brand new episode of Brave UX, Wolfgang Bremer shares a candid look at design leadership, the weight of trust, and why real impact goes far beyond pixels 🚀 — revealing how humility and humanity shape design at scale 🌍.
Highlights include:
- Why Trust is Wolfgang’s Default Position
- How Fatherhood Changed His Leadership Style
- When to Lean In vs. Lean Out as a Leader
- How Leadership is Like Doing the Dishes
- Evangelising UX in Large Organisations
Who is Wolfgang Bremer?
Wolfgang Bremer is a seasoned design leader whose career spans mobile, enterprise, and automotive design 🚗. He was recently the Vice President of Design at Elli, a Volkswagen Group brand focused on electric mobility, where he grew a cross-functional team and embedded design into business strategy.
Previously, Wolfgang held leadership roles at SAP, HERE Technologies, and designed early mobile experiences at Nokia. A sought-after speaker, he’s delivered talks across Europe, North America, and Asia, sharing candid insights on trust, humility, and leading design at scale 🌍.
Known for his people-first approach, Wolfgang champions creating environments where teams can thrive—and believes leadership is sometimes like… doing the dishes.
Transcript
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- What my wife always tells me is that I'm a nice person at the office, but I'm not a nice person at home. And she's right. I have it in me to be nice and friendly to actually everybody, but I think life usually gets in the way, stressful situations and things on your mind and being impatient. One of the major things I learned by becoming a dad, it's really counterproductive to be impatient, even at home because being impatient with a child, it doesn't help you. It just makes things worse.
- 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 want an independent perspective to align hearts and minds. You can find out more about me and 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 our field of design. I do that by unpacking the stories, learnings, and expert advice of a diverse range of world-class leaders.
- My guest today is Wolfgang Bremmer. Wolfgang is a seasoned design leader who spent the past two decades shaping products, teams, and organisations at scale, while never losing sight of the human side of design.
- Until recently, he was the vice president of Design at Elli, a brand of the Volkswagen Group focused on electric mobility. There he helped grow a cross-functional design team, embed design more deeply into the business and navigate the complexities of working inside one of the world's largest automotive companies.
- Before Volkswagen, Wolfgang held senior design leadership roles at SAP and here Technologies. Earlier in his career, he designed user interfaces at Nokia, experiences that gave him a front row seat to the evolution of mobile design.
- He's also a sought after speaker with keynotes and panels delivered across Europe, north America, and Asia, from Singapore to Vienna. Known for his thoughtful people first approach to leadership. Wolfgang speaks candidly about the emotional and organisational realities of design at scale, from building shared ownership to setting the stage for teams to thrive.
- And now he's here with me for this conversation on Brave UX. Wolfgang, a very warm welcome to the show.
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- Thank you so much, Brendan. Thank you so much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It is a pleasure to have you here. And I know this has been some time in the making, so I'm glad that we're finally here. And speaking of long time in the making, I mentioned in your intro that you've been in design for over two decades, but if we were to wind back the clock now and think about your design when you were a teenager, I understand you started designing then and we found an old hard drive of yours and we booted that up from those years, what design projects would we discover?
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- So I guess the first thing that comes to mind is I helped a friend back in the days way too long ago, to design the booklet of a CD he was producing with local bands from the school and the area. And yeah, he approached me or he told me about it and I was really interested in the project and the idea to make something out of nothing, basically, just make it happen somehow. And he had no knowledge in it and I didn't have much ideas about how to do it or how to approach it. And then we just sat together and we figure things out. And yeah, I think this is probably one of the most interesting things I did. And especially if I remember, I don't remember which tools I use. I'm very sure it wasn't Photoshop. It must have been something else. And I want to say that it did not support layers.
- So it was insane because everything you did, you really had to do really carefully and make a lot of extra copies of whatever you did so you won't be able to roll it back and then try again, I guess. And the other thing I remember is I didn't use vectors, really. Everything in the end was a graphic, a big graphic file, so you had to work in high resolution for the printing later and it just took ages on an old computer, whatever I had back then. It was like wow. But there was zero complaints. It was just like we didn't complain about it. It was so exciting and something new and we were trying it out and figuring it out somehow. Yeah, it was just like, sure, it takes whatever, 10 minutes to save something, no problem. We already work on the next thing, somehow sketch something out. There was no lost time. It was just excitement, no complaints.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- We often forget that whenever we are in the timeline, we were at the forefront of the technology. Whether it's the design tooling or the underlying computer or Mac or PC that's running the software, we certainly take for granted just how polished our tools and our cloud-based experiences are now. So it's interesting to hear you share that early memory. I want to fast forward quite a bit now, and that is to a roundabout I think nine years ago, and that's when you first became a father. And I've heard you talk about how fatherhood has helped you to realise the importance of how you explain things to others. How would you describe to others how parenthood becoming a father has changed the way that you communicate and what influence, if any, that's had on the kind of leader that you've become?
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- That's a really good question. And I'm sure the answer could fill books and it probably does. It's complicated. Let me start by saying that what my wife always tells me is that I'm a nice person at the office, but I'm not a nice person at home and she's right, I'm not blaming her at all. And I guess it's somehow related, my assumption that with let's say strangers or people you don't know so well, you are always trying to be friendly with or polite, whereas with family, apparently not. And so there's always these two sides. I guess maybe not always, but for me, and I remember I had a friend whose mother used to be a doctor and then she would pick up her work phone, he would already tell me it's like, and now you can hear her work voice and she sounds different than talking at home to everybody else.
- It's apparently just a thing many people seem to do. Why am I saying this For me, I think I have it in me to be nice and friendly to actually everybody of course. But I think life usually gets in the way stressful situations and things on your mind and being impatient and I dunno, it's a stressful world these days and one of the major things I learned by becoming a dad is it's really counterproductive to be impatient even at home because being impatient with a child is basically impossible. It doesn't help you, it just makes things worse. And I guess that's why parents usually recommend, it's like try also leave 10 15 what have you minutes earlier than you actually have to because whatever might will go wrong and you will simply need more time. Which probably also explains, well parents are usually late. But I think what's important for me is that I try to remind myself, and it's not always easy to be honest, to be a patient person at home and with my kids and to actually take the time to explain things instead of just saying do this, but really trying to explain why do this or more specifically why do something in a certain way.
- Really the reasoning. Because I know from my childhood sometimes and from friends who are saying, yeah, I dunno, my mom kept saying, do it because I'm your mother or because I tell you to these kind of reasons which might make sense to the parent in that moment because again, it's a stressful world. They might be in a rush and have a million other things on their minds they still have to tackle somehow, but it doesn't work with a child. You need to have some kind of explanation for things. And if you think about it, that's also totally fair. I mean, none of us would want to do something personally or professionally just because somebody else tells you because I told you so or because I'm telling you. So do it because I say so, especially for designers, right? I mean we love asking the why and the why and the whys.
- So just saying, because I tell you, so that's not really going to fly, I guess. And it's very similar to the children. So you actually have to take the time to explain literally how the world works and how to best do things and then not only explain why to do it in this specific way, but also giving a reason for these kind of things. And I think if I bring this over to from a personal life and into the professional life, actually that should be very similar, right? Again, I guess nobody wants to have a boss who, as I just said, just do this because I tell you so. But you as a person, you want to be involved, you want to understand backgrounds of things, reasons for decisions and all these kind of things. And if these are not given, then it's just really hard for people to buy into something.
- And I think that's totally logical because in our personal lives it's exactly the same way. Why would you buy into something if you don't understand the full picture or if you don't see the background or you don't have a good reason for doing anything. However, and maybe I'm just unlucky here, I used to have, I would say a lot of not so good bosses and there was very often these kind of situations where things were not being explained properly, let's say, or backgrounds not really given and maybe that extended sometimes into the culture of the company. It was just the way it was. And I feel nowadays, at least for some companies it seems to, or some managers, it seems to become better that they actually want to involve the people and they want to give them background. And so I think my children and a lot of bad bosses have taught me how to do things hopefully better in a more reasonable way, taking the time to explain things, even backgrounds, trying to explain my view on things and why I see things like that and why a decision is based on, I dunno the information I might have on hand, which somebody else might not like these kind of things.
- And it might seem trivial at times, but I think it's really, really important for people to see the full picture and bring this back to the family side of things. Again, I think this is the most important thing you can do. You want to take the time to explain your children, how everything works, why the world works or sometimes these days not really the way it should be working to help them understand what's going on around them because for the world is their family to begin with and then maybe a daycare, a school circle of friends, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. But I think it's important, especially early on, to really be there for them, help them explain and explore in a safe way everything around them and be able to assist them in growing into good human beings who hopefully make the right decisions at the right point in time. Which then again reflects on the professional life, which is what leaders and managers actually want from their teams and their people they support, they want them to be successful, they want to be there for them and help them, at least the good managers I guess. And yeah, that should be the goal I think to really be there for them and make them the best person they can be.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It's interesting to come back to what your wife had told you that you're a nice person at work and perhaps not the nicest person at home. I think it's often easier at home, it's more permissible anyway to fall into that dictatorial role than it is at work. I think we're much more conscious at work of the dynamics with our colleagues or even our team members that may report to us where it's often easier at home to fall into the just do this because I told you to do this mentality. It's interesting, I've certainly observed that because under time pressure and all these other factors that you've spoken about, but then the same is often true at work. You are under time pressure as well. I've just found it personally more difficult at home to be the kind of rational, explanatory, patient, always kind figure. I feel it's easy to do that at work than it has at home.
- Of course there's learnings in there and reasons and all these other things, but I do definitely connect with that difference. And I think it's also just while I'm on this, I'm kind of just following my train of thought here, but people, there was that analogy for a while that companies were like families, but I'm actually not. And I know this has been talked about elsewhere. I don't think that holds true and I'm not sure we would want our companies to run families, given how I have observed most families run, I think they're probably a little bit looser and a little bit more dictatorial than people would perhaps want for their professional life as well.
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- Absolutely. I mean I of course heard this as well as families. The latest term I heard is more like a sports team. Sure there's terms you can relate it to, but I think, so coming back to the family topic, I was actually speaking to a coach a couple of times about family life and how we behave at home as a person and about my struggles and all these kind of things. And it was really interesting to actually have, and again, same as a work, I have a coach, have a mentor to have somebody to talk to and listen who then gives honest, I don't want to say I guess feedback, but really shares their point of view on things. And there's really no good reason to be, let's say as an example, short with somebody at home when we can avoid being short with somebody at work.
- Because as I said, work is busy, there's stressful, many people have, I dunno, back to back meetings five days a week kind of thing. But still we are able to be polite most of the times and friendly most of the times and reasonable most of the times. But at home that often it's just very easily thrown over balls and I just feel it. It shouldn't be. And I think at least talking for me, speaking about myself is I really want to be better, these kind of things because I mean my wife and I, we are raising two wonderful girls and we want them to be the best humans that can be and we want them to, the one thing my wife and I agree on, I mean that sounds wrong, we agree on a lot of things, but the one important thing about bringing up our children, which is very or most important for both of us, is that we want to raise happy children, like happy human beings.
- I don't need to have the smartest or the richest or the most successful or I don't know what kind of person as a child, but we really want our children to be happy. And if I as the father am short with them all the time, wow, that is totally the opposite of what our goal or my goal actually is. So how can I do this kind of stuff or behave this way if it's counterproductive? It just doesn't make sense. So this is one of the things I'm really trying to work on to be more like the fund dad and really take the time to help them be there for them, just have fun with them and not always be the one, oh, you're late already, or Let's get moving. Oh, come on. It's like, I don't need to be the pacemaker The whole time it was like, come on, we have to run, we have to run kind of thing. I think that is not fun for anybody in the end
- Brendan Jarvis:
- While we're travelling down this road. It's a delightful detour, but let's just keep going down it for another minute or two. When you were describing that I couldn't help but think that willpower, if we accept that willpower is finite and our human energy is finite in any given day, you've only got so much to spend. I feel that for a long while on the amount of energy that I've expended on my career and that left less energy to expend at home. And there's a number of factors. The family environment's, different people aren't necessarily stuck with you for life, but it's certainly more so the case than people at work. So there's perhaps a few sort of boundaries that are not quite the same as it were in terms of behaviour and the penalties, aren aren't as obvious at least immediately. You might pay a downstream price for being a grumpy dad in terms of kids that don't necessarily want to spend that much time with you when you're older.
- But it's not like having a team member who reports to you that could take you to HR if you overstep a boundary in terms of how you behave with them professionally. So there's a whole bunch of stuff going on, but I've certainly found that reevaluating the amount of energy I expend professionally has freed up the energy and headspace and perhaps a little bit of patience at home. And I feel like we have a expectation generally that we should be excellent in all areas of our life all of the time. And I'm not sure how grounded in reality that expectation is. I certainly have had to relax some of my expectations and to do that in a way that I can free up more time and space for family matters.
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- It's such a good point. The finite amount of energy you actually have, what to spend it on the finite time you have with your children, how do you actually want to spend that time with them? Do you want to be the grumpy dad who always tells them what to do? You want to be the fun dad who plays with them games and makes them learn cool stuff and these kind of things. And the answers is easy, but doing it in the moment, that's sometimes really difficult.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Let's go down the professional path. Now. I'm sure we can perhaps find ways to parallel it back to family as we go if we see fit, but one of the things I understand that you believe when you are leading your team and it's a starting point that you take with your team and your team members and that starting point is, I trust you and that seems to be your default or it has been in the past. Now that's quite a bold position to take with people, particularly because well trust is a very precious and very rare commodity. So I'm curious to understand where did that I trust you position come from and how do you maintain that stance, particularly when things have gone or start to go wrong?
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- Yeah, I think trust, it's a very interesting concept. I mean often it's like you have to gain somebody's trust to be able to be, I guess trustworthy, which is just so odd and weird. I find, of course it's a different story if you meet a stranger for the first time, I wouldn't trust them with my life right away. I don't know them. But why do we assume right away the opposite kind of thing? Why do we want to have people climb ladders step by step by step, gaining more trust? It is just a really interesting concept, which seems flawed if you think about it more and honestly, years ago I didn't think about it much. Trust was, I mean for me it's like I know myself, I know I can be impatient, I know I can be grumpy, I know I can be wrong, I can be right as well, of course many times.
- But I was not a person who, I dunno, who felt that other people wouldn't, I dunno, do their job or wouldn't deliver or would not be answering the phone when I would call them in personal life as well as professionally. So why would I have this need for a concept of trust? And I think it changed significantly or for me it was a bit of a wake up call during my time at Nokia when a new VP during a town hall, he mentioned this actually explicitly, he had a slide and the slide says something along the lines of like, I trust you, you do not have to gain my trust. And people were, I want to say wandering about it. There was a bit of a murmur going through the town hall. People are like, what does that mean? And I had the feeling it was because people have this, or many people have this concept of you have to gain trust, you cannot just trust somebody.
- And it's really interesting if this is, it seems to be a global thing, not just like the Germans think like this. And to me this moment was eyeopening was like, huh, that's actually an interesting statement. So it made me think, I trust you, you do not have to gain my trust. And that stuck with me and it made me think more so whenever I thought talking to people, it was constantly in the back of my mind and I was trying to figure out what can I actually do with this in the sense of how can I show people that I trust them, how can I be there for people? How can I build their trust in me as their manager for example? And I mean it always depends on certain situations, but years ago I took over a team that the team was not in the best place and they used to have a handful of different managers over a handful of years.
- So very regular change, which of course is not helpful for the team or the product or projects, but it was really hard in the beginning to actually gain their trust. It is like, ah, there's another new manager coming, what does he now want? What will his thoughts be on whatever these kind of topics. And it took a while to actually break through to people via one-on-one conversations, via team meetings, discussing topics, but really trying to understand the people, like the people themselves. It's not just like you are a researcher, you are a designer, you are a writer, but who's the person behind this position? Who's the person behind this title? Why are you here? Why did you join the company the first place? What intrigues you about the stuff you do day in and day out? What works well for you? How can I get to know you as a person?
- These kind of things. And I just feel like making this kind of connection helps to connect with people better, understand them better and therefore be able to work with them better and help them because I dunno, I guess everybody has had things to do at work which they didn't like to do or they were maybe not good at or I dunno what these kind of things. And often I feel at least in my experience that this was nothing I felt I should discuss as my manager kind of thing. But I want to be that person you can discuss things with. I want to be the person who actually wants to make your work life easier and nicer and more fun and for yourself more successful and these kind of things. So I actually want to be there for you, but I can only be there for you if we trust each other, if we have a connection somehow.
- If you can tell us things, things we don't like, things we like, things which are not working well, as well as things which are working well and all these kind of things. And that's really interesting because as I mentioned earlier, this one VP would say this and then a couple of years later there was somebody who was so happy about showing me a quote they wanted to use in some kind of a presentation. It was something along the lines of trust is built in drops but lost in buckets or something like that. And it made me think again, it is like again, this trust topic and why is it so easy to lose trust in buckets, but it's so hard to build out trust again once you've lost it, I understand it, but the whole concept for me is just strange. Especially maybe especially as a designer because we keep saying, oh, you need to make mistakes, fail early, fail off and blah blah, blah. Only if you see that you did something wrong, you can make it right, do the testing, the research before that you can find the faults or the flaws and make things better. So it's really interesting, the whole topic of trust, I don't know, it's just intriguing and at times just doesn't sit well with me I must say.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Well you mentioned one-on-ones and I understand that as part of your management practise one-on-ones, one of those meaningful opportunities that you have with your team members that you can use to I suppose inject some energy into the relationship or at least some enthusiasm for what it is that they've been doing as people. Now the quality of one-on-ones, given what you've just described there about trust and some of the difficulties that people experience in relation to others, whether it's establishing trust or perhaps it's how quickly trust can be lost if it's breached, what have you found works for you to lay the ground for a meaningful one-on-one? Is it for example, that executive just declaring at the beginning when you start to work with people, Hey, you have my trust and that's enough to get people across the line to trust you. I feel like there's some nuance here perhaps in what you have discovered as a leader that works effectively for you in those one-on-ones. And I'm keen to understand what that is.
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- I think one-on-ones really interesting. So I have to say that I as an employee almost never had one-on-ones with a manager. I was only exposed to this concept I want to say eight or 10 years ago or so. And it was really eyeopening to me. It's like, wait, what? My manager wants to talk to me, what about did I do something wrong kind of thing. And I feel sometimes this is still the case for people nowadays, maybe because we are so busy and stressed that we don't have the time to actually spend time in one-on-ones with people. But for me it's just really important to not only, as I mentioned earlier, to get to know the person and really figuring them out and what motivates them and how I can help them. But also really to give them the time and the chance to actually spend time with me because I think everybody's busy and it's really difficult to make time in some situations or in many situations actually.
- So I find it really helpful to have these one-on-one conversations. And here again I'm talking about my experience with my past that managers where this did not happen, that they did not make the time to actually have one-on-ones and give me background or help me grow or all these kind of things you might want to handle during a one-on-one. And for me it's then like, well, they didn't do it, but I strongly feel I should be doing this. I need to talk to my people. Of course. I mean, how can I lead a team if I don't communicate with them? It seems impossible. It probably is. It's really interesting. So when I started having one-on-ones, it was really interesting to see the reaction of people because it was at least twofold. One was unexpected, why does my manager want to spend time with me? I have no idea what I should say now.
- And what topics, what happens sometimes during one-on-ones is people update me on their current tasks. It's like, oh, I'm working on this and this and this and this and this and that's it. Which is really interesting because to me it's like, but this is not really why I'm trying to spend time with you. I want to see how are things going for you, how are you doing? Is there anything I can help with? And it's really interesting and maybe it's a personality thing, which is totally fine. Some people are just maybe not so happy in these kind of conversations. But to me the important aspect is, and I think it's very important to make this clear in the beginning, it's like this meeting is not really for me. I mean it is, but this is the employee's meeting, the people who report to me, this is your meeting, you should use this, I dunno, 30, 45, 60 minutes of time with me the way you want to actually use it and spend the time with me.
- What topics do you have for me? What do you want to talk about with me? What would you like to complain about? What have I done wrong? What could I have done better? Or the team or the organisation or a enabling organisation or any of these kinds of things. So it's really a meeting for the team member I would say. And I'm kind of supporting and listening and taking notes and asking questions and trying to bring the meeting to a good, I don't want to say conclusion, but I want to be helpful in this kind of meeting. And it's not always or rarely actually that during that one meeting things are being, I dunno decided or done, but there can be things which will take a few, maybe sometimes even many one-on-ones because if somebody is not happy at work, then how can I help?
- It's not a fix like this, but how can we make things right? And then of course we have to check in over time to see are we adjusting it the right way? Did we find a good approach? Do we have to go back and make other changes? Or if it's about things, I don't know, promotions for example. It's not just something that happens, but how can I be promoted if I want to talk to my manager, this would potentially be a topic and what can I do to actually get that kind of promotion and these kind of things. So can you make a plan? It's like what do I have to fulfil, what do I have to get better at? What do I have to prove? I dunno, what do I have to do to get a promotion and when would that be? And then let's make a plan, let's talk about it.
- And then we check in during the one-on-ones, how we mutually feel that person is doing and if you're getting closer to the promotion kind of thing. And of course there's other things then it's like promotion, even the budget, all these company things which seem to be often out of the hands of the managers. But I think really important to spend that time to really understand the people and get them on the right path and really be helpful for them. And if that's not the case and if people are not willing or managers are not willing to spend time with their direct reports, I think it's just sad and wrong.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You mentioned in there the different responses that individuals have to being put in that environment with their manager or I suppose you can relate to your own personal experience being with you and some people it almost sounded like you were slightly disappointed or you felt that some individuals weren't maximising that opportunity that they have to spend with you in that meeting. What approach have you taken to encouraging individuals to make the most out of that time? Do you for example, give some thought starters beforehand or some guidance before they meet with you or do you just feel your way through and I think you mentioned you ask questions as you go, which is probably fairly sensible and hopefully fairly standard. What approach have you taken to the different responses that people can have when they come to meet with you for your one-on-ones?
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- I think I would distinguish at least between a structured and an unstructured approach in some situations or in many, I would say the unstructured approach works quite well when you have a conversation about, I guess topics you might not be aware of yet, you kind of go, I don't want to say unprepared in the meeting, but you don't have many points you actually want to talk about because you're very happy with the person you have the feeling that things are going well, of course you'll find out soon, but you go in with this feelings, things seem to be going okay, so I maybe have one, two kind of questions, but I let the person handle the meeting and I will just listen and reply, basically think and reply. And then I think there's the structured approach where you really go in with something like, okay, I think we need some structure here for certain reasons.
- It might be, as I mentioned, for the promotional path kind of thing or a certain, let's say unhappiness about something or concern or problem or whatever it might be where you feel like, okay, how can we structure this? What can the next steps be? What questions do I want to ask to find out more about the current situation? Or that I go in with certain proposals already that I prep obviously for the meeting beforehand and speak with other people about the situation, what could be done to make it better basically, or what options do we actually have? So I would go in with a very structured manner and then most likely take it over several one-on-ones to trying to alleviate the problem. I guess I think what's important to me is that especially the beginning, I dunno if I'm new at a company or I take over a new team or there's a new team member or something, I think it's very important for me to set the base somehow.
- It's like how I'm doing things, why I think this one-on-one is a great opportunity to talk to each other that I actually see this as their meeting. I feel very happy if they want to lead the meeting and approach or talk about anything they really want to do and at the same time say, look, if there's really nothing, we also don't have to have the meeting or we can move it. I don't want to take up your time if you're in a very tight spot currently or whatever, I don't want to make it worse for you obviously. So there's flexibility, there's trust, I'm here to listen, I'm here to help wherever I can help. So just really trying to be open and honest about what I think the meeting could be for or about or what it could be used for or useful for the employee.
- And yeah, I guess sometimes if it's not, so the conversation may be not flowing so well then I would have certain questions maybe about certain things going on about this person who might be connected to this kind of topic and these kind of things to at least try to get the conversation rolling. Or I would also ask for the next one-on-one if they would be willing to prepare something or have maybe a topic they want to talk about next time or sometimes even it was like some people I had that they actually wanted to have less one-on-ones saying, I think nothing really happened since, I dunno last week or 10 days ago whenever we spoke last, so today I would really like to focus on this kind of thing. Let's talk next week. Of course, no problem. Again, I'm just trying to be helpful. I'm not trying to get in people's way in that sense in a negative way, but I'm just trying to make the workspace and the workplace be a better place for them. Just trying to be helpful. I guess
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I'm hearing that there's quite a focus on calibrating your individual approach to various individuals in a way that works for them. And also I'm picking up this idea of listening to what people are saying based on how they're responding in those meetings or to even the idea of those meetings and perhaps also trying to infer what might not be being said in those meetings or about those meetings as well and adjusting accordingly. And you also mentioned just at the very end there that you're not trying to get in people's way with these meetings. And I've heard you previously reflect on a time where you had to remind yourself to stop doing or stop being so hands-on on the design work from your position as the design leader and to let others take ownership of that work. And I think this is also following along this thread of calibration and the calibration here that I'm touching on is how much and when to lean in and provide more structured hands-on guidance and conversely how and when to lean out and let people take more control and ownership of what it is that they've been trusted to deliver.
- So I'm curious to understand, Wolfgang, from your perspective, how do you know when it's time to lean in more versus when it's time to lean out more?
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- It can be really difficult I would say as designers have to say, it depends, right? So often it's a feeling or you notice something if things are going well or not. If I take a step back, overall I'm a very big fan and proponent of giving people space and freedom and I trust you. You run this project, you got this, you know what you're doing. If you need anything, I'm here. I'm here to back you up. I'm here to open doors for you, I'm here to shield you from distractions, all these kind of things. I think this is for me the baseline kind of thing to have people be and not only feel but be independent and really be able to tackle things and move things forward. I think it's just also really rewarding. I mean I guess none of us wants to be micromanaged, so why would I micromanage somebody?
- I think what's important to me, I guess throughout, but especially early on on in the sense of if I just got to know a new person, a new team member or a new team or a project just has freshly started, I would like to have I guess check-ins more regularly to see the status of things. If things are being tackled in a way I would think makes sense I guess, or what I would expect. And also if makes sense on the timeline milestones are being hit in time and all these kind of things. And I think the further along I would say the more I would then step back I guess during these kind of check-ins then I am the kind of person who asks questions but open-ended questions. If somebody I dunno presents something or show a mockup or a demo or any of these kind of things, I would ask questions.
- So I would notice something maybe strikes me as odd or I'm not sure why something would be solved that way. And then I would basically phrase a question in that direction, trying to find out what's the reasoning for that decision basically. And in many cases it helps me to understand something better, maybe something I didn't think of, which is great, it's like perfect, I asked the question, somebody explained makes sense, move on perfect. And sometimes it's that the person after hearing the question looks at something at a certain design for example or a certain choice and realises, huh, actually that might not be the best solution. Maybe we have to look at that again. Which is also good because somebody hinted at something and they themselves in that moment figured out that maybe there's a better solution, great take note and then work on it and during the next check-in probably it's better or totally solved already.
- And I think these kind of things again show this kind of freedom I think people deserve and making choices and seeing things versus being the person who says, I dunno, this there doesn't make sense in a very German way and you should do it like this and then directly give the solution kind of thing. But more of it's like why? And is there maybe a better way of doing it? What do you think the better way is really giving the people the chance to actually come to their own conclusion and find their own solution or a solution which is solving the problem. And that's because in that split second I might have a solution in mind, doesn't mean that's the right solution either. So why would I say, how about this when they are taking this project for weeks or months already and I just see something here and there.
- And then obviously they're the expert by now they will probably find a better solution than my ten second remark, which is great because that's exactly again the way it should be. So they have the freedom to make the right decisions and they are in a position to get feedback from people around them, including the manager to get a little bit of feedback basically. But I think coming back it's really, for me it's really important, this kind of freedom and giving people the responsibility of moving things forward by themselves because I just think it's the right thing to do. It's what I would like or how I would like to be treated and I guess most people, and it's just really rewarding when you push something through end to end or even if it's just a small thing somewhere, it just feels really good. You deliver something, you make something, and this is now being used by somebody else and it just really works well. So I think people should be proud of what they're doing and I hope that I can enable people to, yeah, I have this feeling more often,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You spoke about freedom there in terms of the freedom that the practitioners have over the work that they're presenting and the choices that they make subsequent to any feedback that you might have. But there's also, I think there's an undercurrent here of humility that you are deploying in the way in which you are managing those situations. And it's the humility to make the choice to provide a question. And I don't mean like a weaponized version of a question. You can ask questions that are actually statements like, why didn't you do it this way? Or Well, that's probably the best one I can come up off on the fly. You are asking genuine questions to better understand why decisions being made because you've got the humility to know that they are closer to the work than you are and you might not have all of the context that you need to assess something accurately before providing feedback on it.
- So I think that that's a beautiful takeaway, just the way in which you are deploying questions when you're putting them to practitioners. And I think there's also a deeper humility there that perhaps strikes at the tension that some people can feel when they move from practitioner to manager. And that is to acknowledge with humility that you are no longer the practitioner. And that is something that people who are good at the craft before they become managers can often struggle with. And that is stepping away from the hands-on part of the work. Now you've also in some previous things that you've shared, I think you mentioned opening doors there a little earlier on in our conversation in terms of the way you frame your philosophy of leadership. So opening doors for others. And I've also heard you talk about comparing leadership to doing the dishes. And what did you mean by that comparison? How is leadership like doing the dishes?
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- So if I take a step back, I used to be a HandsOn designer, I do designs and I have an outcome in the end, I create something out of nothing, I guess. And I talked with people in the past who said for them it's the hardest to be a HandsOn designer and they're sitting to make the first, let's say brush stroke, they have a empty canvas and they're like, oh dear, how do I start? Where do I start? What do I do? Everything is empty. And for me it's the opposite. It's like oaks great, it's opportunity. Everything is right. I can start no matter where, it's like a menu bar, top left, whatever, a logo, I dunno. So I feel there's opportunity there at the end when I create something and no matter if it's like a small feature or a full-blown something in the end there's something there and it comes with this feeling of being fulfilled I guess in the sense of what I mentioned earlier, you're being proud of something, I created something, it looks good, I like it, maybe hopefully other people like it and enjoy using it.
- But this nice feelings, I accomplished something today even it's, I don't know, a small thing, but I did something, this is great. And I feel as a hands-on designer, there is more opportunity to actually have that kind of feeling because again, you create something and then it's there and you can look at it and people can use it and fantastic. I find as a leader, the leadership that changes dramatically because I mean depending on yourself I guess the company, the culture and all these kind of things, how hands-on you are or not. But I guess in many places, team lead or a manager or a leader overall is not very hands-on anymore. So there is, or at least for me, often there is this lack of accomplishment in the sense of, well, what did I do today? I spent eight hours in meetings, fantastic. And yes, I'm sure I did stuff there.
- Not just fiddling my thumbs, I convinced other people to do something. I maybe got more budget for something, I pushed something, maybe I made a new hire, which is great. I got somebody a promotion or I did things and hopefully things went into the right direction for what I plan to do. But still at the end of the day, after eight hours, it can often feel not very fulfilling. It is like eight hours of meetings, online meetings and just not having this thing at the end. You can look at a hands-on designers, I created this button like Steve Tops used to say, the button looks so great, you want to lick it, great. I had an eight hour meeting day and I don't know what to do with that. I'm sure I nudge things, but it just doesn't feel I did anything. And that's how I feel.
- And I hear this from other people as well who are in managerial roles or in leadership roles or these kind of things. And what I meant by doing the dishes is literally doing the dishes in the evening, cleaning up the kitchen a bit, take the stuff away from the table, filling the dishwasher, washing a pan. It's actually giving me this kind of feeling of accomplishment, which is really silly if you think about it. But in the end, I can see the table downstairs now it's clean. I already set it for breakfast tomorrow, which is great. I watched the work we use for dinner, I cleaned the stove top, spotless perfect, and I can see it. I can stand there for a few seconds in the kitchen after I'm done with this and I look around, it's like, this looks good. I'm happy with this. I did something as small as it might be or seem spending, I don't know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes in the kitchen doing this, not even making the meal, just literally cleaning up just gives me this feeling of I actually did something.
- I can see and touch something. Somebody else will see tomorrow morning that actually there's a set table and there's not crumbs everywhere and the pan is back at the drawer and these kind of things. It just somehow helps me in the evenings to see it's like, yes, I did something, I accomplished something. And it's silly, right? When you think about it. I mean if you lead a team of, I don't know, 5, 10, 20, whatever, 60 people, you obviously doing things, you are obviously accomplishing things. It's just different on different levels from a hands-on designer. And maybe it helps to see things more long-term, not just like, yes, I did not design a button now, but I grew a team for, I don't know, two to 80 people or something. And I set up whole new structures as an organisation. I enabled people to actually have design as part of the product development process. I dunno, I created research studio and have people actually mandatory do research for anything they want to ship. Or I made connections to other parts of a company to connect our researchers, their researchers or our writers with their writers or, I dunno what, but these are often long-term things. So yes, usually managers and leaders also accomplished staff, but it's just on a different level of time. I want to say like timescale, it's not immediate, it's delayed, but usually it's bigger, I guess. I don't know. It's complicated.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It's almost like it's a different level of tangibility is well, right? It's very obvious once you've pushed a few pixels around to go, Hey, look at my beautiful layout where it might take to your 0.6 months to achieve the setup of a new design studio to build the relationships with the different partners that you need to. And it's perhaps less tangible, perhaps more so now that we're working a lot of us anyway remotely, you don't even have the physical satisfaction of seeing the space that you might've created prior to the pandemic when we were working in a different way. And I also, hopefully this is not a erroneous thread to draw here or to pull on, and that is that I understand that some of Peter OL's work on design org design is something that may have helped you to understand better your role as a leader within the design organisation and also that the active design is very much alive in designing the environment in which your designers can grow and thrive, if that's correct. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great. So I kind of heading down the right path here. So given that that's true, in your experience, what are some of the most important aspects or perhaps the most consequential aspects that you've found that deserve more energy than say others do from your perspective as an executive design leader, where do you choose to invest most of your energy into designing that environment?
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- It probably depends on the company and the org and the people around you and the state of things. You are, I guess the company, the culture, the design team is at. But I think it's important for me to get the design team to a stage where it's being recognised within the company that people are actually there to help and make things overall better and not just to make things pretty that there's much more there, like research and why it's important and all these kind of things to really set something up for the company overall to hopefully succeed and that in a shorter time span and by spending less money, I guess. But overall, I think it's really setting up a team in a meaningful way to support everybody else in the company around that team and to free yourself up as the leader of that team to basically already plan the next steps, what has to be done or what should be done to make the team, the company more successful, to scale it, to think about what's going on, what the next steps should be. I think a big part of that is also to evangelise within the company. It's like what is design? What does it all entail and why is it so important and what do we actually do? And to actually have this conversation with people on every level, it's like no matter if you're the leader or a team lead or a manager or a hands-on designer, researcher, writer, whatever, but to have these conversations and spread the knowledge you have throughout the company and among your peers, I guess
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It sounds like Wolfgang, you are still surprised by the, it sounds like the misconceptions that other organisations within the wider enterprise have about designs purpose and perhaps benefits to them.
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- Absolutely. I mean, had a couple of years ago I was in a meeting with somebody and it was about a hardware project and person was saying something along the lines of, oh yeah, and the design team will deal with the UX. And I asked them, what do you mean by the UX in this case? And their response really baffled me because they said, oh, everything that's on the screen. And I was like, but we are talking about the hardware project. Yes, it has a screen, but there's more to UX than it happening on a screen. But that person did not know that or did not make the connection to what UX, I guess actually stands for and how important that is for the end user, especially in the hardware project. So it really took me a second to think how I should react now and what my next steps should be.
- So it was really like, oh, I'm surprised and now what can I do about it? I should educate that person, but not in this setting here now. And I should make sure that their peers are also aware of what design and UX actually is and stands for and how we work and why we should be working on these things together to overall have a great user experience in the end and these kind of things. So it threw the curtains away from my eyes in a certain area of the company, which I wouldn't have been aware of otherwise. So I guess it was a good thing that it happened, so I could actually take steps to like, okay, we have to do something here, meaning not design something for somebody, but really help people understand what we actually do and why the stuff we do can be really, really great for them because they want to build something.
- And we of course all want to build the right thing the first time around and to meet expectations of the user in the end. It can be really baffling sometimes, but I think it's important that we take this with grace and really don't say it is like, oh, we are the designers, we are doing the stuff, but no, let me help you understand why we think this is important. Let me help you overall as a person, as a team, as an org to make better decisions through research, for example, early on to design and produce things via prototypes in a way that you can actually see it and feel it and try it out and then design it in a way that meets the expectations while over time save time and money, which is your budget basically. So these kind of things, and I mean there was a situation in one place, but I'm sure there's other companies there where people work in certain positions, they might simply not have had the chance to be exposed to that kind of information or to this kind of organisational setup let's say. And I think it's really important for us to be the guiding people to say, Hey, no problem. Let me help you understand it because it's actually for your benefit.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- There's a lot in that example, I want to zero in on the word grace that you used there in that situation. I can almost see you sitting in that meeting when that person is saying that the design team will handle the UX. And then you clarifying that they meant that that's the onscreen experience when obviously it sounded like the capability of the design team was much more broad than that and could have been much more valuable. But the key thing I feel in that example, and this is I think leadership a really good insight into your leadership is it's not just what can tell people, it's also how and when you tell them that, and you mentioned that you realised that the forum in which you were receiving the information wasn't the right forum for you to then share back exactly how the design team could help and to clarify that sort of incorrect assumption you chose, it sounded like, to have that conversation with them separately. And that to me is a really great example of handling a now evident roadblock to design's ability to serve the organisation, the wider organisation, and how you managed to make that work. Now I'm conscious of time and I just want to finish with one final question here for you, if I may. And that is, if we take a reflective lens now, and you think back about your career from going from designing flyers to global design leadership in the here and now, what's the belief that's best served your career?
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- I never set out to be a design leader or leading global teams or any of that. Really. For me, it's like try to do the right things. Don't be a jerk and think about what you really want to do. And I guess the things you enjoy doing is probably worth doing more of. I mean, it's very simple, I guess life advice, which can probably apply again to professional and personal life. But I think it's really about, for me, it's not so much planning the future professionally, but really to think about the now, what situation are we in? How are we handling this? And then what are the next steps to take and how can we get into the position, which would be nice to be in, I dunno, 1, 3, 6 months from now. What are really the steps to take to get there? I must admit, I obviously grew into the roles I have been in and I'm in currently, but it takes time and I make mistakes just like everybody else. And also on this you can ask my wife, and it's just things that we learn over time and hopefully we learn through role models. Maybe some peers or former managers or somebody else you see in a town hall, I dunno, some other manager, even executive. I think it's really important to have these kind of role models to learn from and see how things can be done really well.
- Things that can actually inspire you and stay with you for the rest of your life. You have it in the back of your mind back then, this person said this and this about the trust for example, but also other things. And then you try to apply these things over time and you'll remember them and you'll get better at stuff. And in the beginning can be scary and frightening to, I dunno, get them into a leadership role, but it can also be really rewarding. But that not only depends on oneself, but very much on the surrounding. And I think we often talk about, it's like, oh, how successful people are and how amazing everything is. But I think it's also very important to keep in mind that not everything is possible everywhere. I've been in situations and companies where I felt like, no, this is not a good spot to be in and I don't really want to be here, so how do I get out of this?
- I've also had conversations with other people who said, it's like, oh, I spent so much time trying to, I dunno, get my team or the organisation to acknowledge design more and I keep failing. I keep failing and I keep giving advice and like, oh, did you try this? Did that, and anything I could think of, the person said, yeah, I tried this already. Then I look at them, that is years ago, and I said, not every company can change. Maybe you're not in the right place. I mean, as sad as it sounds, but it's unfortunately true. It's not just up to you, but it's up to you, your manager, your surroundings, the company, the culture you are in. I love to say everything's possible, but sometimes maybe it's not. And I think we really have to acknowledge that from time to time. And then also practise some self-care in the sense of, okay, what can I do here now? Can I really do something? And if I can do something, within what timeframe should I be doing it? And at what time do I really say at what point do I really say this is not it? Maybe I should look beyond the tolerant and do something else instead.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I'm also hearing from you in the way that you described that there's an aspect of choosing who do I want to be in those moments where I might realise that I can't achieve everything that I want? And it ties back to something that I heard a long time ago and I'm not sure who originated it, but it's that people in your career, perhaps more broadly in your life, won't remember all the specifics of the things that you did together in terms of the process and the outputs and all the things that we think are really important. The thing that they remember the most is how you made them feel. And I definitely get a strong sense of that from how you've relayed the experiences that you've had as a design leader today.
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- That is so true. I mean, you summed it up perfectly. No notes.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Well, on that note, Wolfgang, this has been a thoughtful and thought provoking conversation. It's definitely been a great way for me to start my day and I know it's very late there for you, so I just wanted to convey my deep thanks for you for being such a great role model today for so generously sharing your stories and insights with me.
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- Thank you so much, Brendan. It was really a pleasure being on the show. And yeah, big thank you.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You're most welcome. It's definitely my pleasure. And Wolfgang, if people want to connect with you, they want to keep up to date with your career and your contributions to the design field, what's the best way for them to do that?
- Wolfgang Bremer:
- Yeah, I used to be on Twitter, but I'm not anymore since, what's this? Facebook over so people can find me on my website, bremmer.co or on Blue Sky on threats, Instagram, all the other places I guess.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Great. Thank you Wolfgang, and to everyone who's tuned in, it's been great having you here with us as well. Everything that we have covered will be in the show notes, including where you can find Wolfgang and all of the things that we've spoken about.
- 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 on the show, subscribe so it turns up every two weeks and tell someone else, maybe just one other person who you feel would 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.