Column: Leadership Matters

As UX professionals, it’s important that we stay abreast of the latest technologies and consider how they might impact UX design. So, over the past year or so, I’ve read more than half a dozen books, as well as numerous articles on various aspects of artificial intelligence (AI)—ranging from highly technical books for developers to more accessible works whose targets are business leaders, product managers, or even the general public. The most valuable of these books: Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI, by Paul R. Daugherty and H. James Wilson. This book is targeted primarily at business leaders and the professionals who influence them. Anyone who works for a corporation that deploys software to achieve its business goals would benefit from reading this book—and today, that’s just about every business. Those in government and education should also read this book. In addition to applying its lessons to their own unique contexts and ensuring that the workforce is ready to contribute maximal value in the age of AI, they can also influence business leaders to choose the right path forward at this critical inflection point. Read More

“Organizations…often develop barriers that hinder information sharing and collaboration. … The job of a leader is to spot these barriers and tear them down….”—Morten T. Hansen

Organizations differ in their ability to collaborate within and across teams and business units. A unique combination of organizational, cultural, and interpersonal barriers to collaboration afflicts any organization that is experiencing difficulty collaborating. Therefore, to assess their organization’s ability to collaborate, leaders must first determine what barriers to collaboration exist within their organization. One effective way of doing this is to conduct a survey to identify which of the behaviors that hinder collaboration commonly occur within their organization.

Once leaders understand what dysfunctional behaviors are preventing their people and teams from collaborating effectively, they must tailor solutions to address the specific barriers to collaboration that exist within their organization. They must motivate their people to change the behaviors that are preventing or diminishing the success of collaboration within and across teams and business units.

In this column, I’ll describe some common organizational, cultural, and interpersonal barriers to collaboration and provide solutions for overcoming them. To create a culture of collaboration, an organization must overcome these barriers. Read More

If you, like most UX professionals, have worked within organizations that seem to respond to User Experience in much the same way that the human body responds to a virus and want to understand why that happens, you should read Creative Change: Why We Resist It… How We Can Embrace It, by Jennifer Mueller, PhD. If you want to understand why organizations struggle with innovation, you should read this book.

Creative Change is a great book about creativity within organizations that is grounded in solid research. Mueller has been studying creativity for almost twenty years, and her research has revealed that, even though many business leaders lament a lack of creativity and innovation within their organizations, they commonly reject creative, innovative ideas. They tend to be biased against and fail to recognize the value of creative leadership as well, believing that creative leaders lack business acumen. This does not bode well for UX leaders.

Occasionally, among the many books I read, I discover a book whose ideas are so transformative that I feel impelled to share them with UXmatters readers. This is one of those rare books. Read More