The Brief: The hard truths designers need to hear
In this issue of The Brief:
The hard truths designers need to hear to become influential
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The hard truths designers need to hear to become influential
By Ryan Rumsey, Design Better Expert in Residence and founder of CDO School
We all want to be the type of designer who has influence at work. Are you willing to be the designer that has it? Let’s find out.
The current state
Let's play a game: When was the last time someone in leadership actually agreed to one of your recommendations without saying "BUT..." followed by something about budgets, timelines, or my personal favorite, "it needs more pop!" If you can remember such a time, congratulations, you can stop reading. Go enjoy your influence.
For the rest of you, let me paint a familiar picture.
You walk into that meeting feeling prepared. Your Figma prototype is polished, user journeys mapped out, insights from research documented, maybe even some fancy animations ready to wow them. You feel confident.
Then you’re asked, "This looks great, but how does this impact our Q4 goals?"
Stunned for a moment, you gather yourself and proceed to walk them through your research methodology. You show wireframes. You explain what a design system is and why it's important. You share a double diamond diagram. You mention WCAG guidelines. Doubt creeps in.
You leave the meeting with the air sucked out of you. You wonder where it all went wrong. Were there holes in your argument? Do they not care about the insights?
It's neither. It's a "you" problem. You showed up exactly how they expected. You gave them an answer to a question they didn't ask. You talked about what you prefer to talk about. As a result, they decided to go in a different direction.
When it comes to influence, this is where most designers get stuck. We keep framing our ideas and recommendations as if we’re talking to a room of designers all while wondering why our influence remains limited.
The uncomfortable truth? The majority of advice about influence makes it sound easy. It doesn’t address the most common frustrations you have. It lets you believe you can have influence without fundamentally changing who you are as a designer.
But you can't. Let me tell you why.
It’s easier to believe that the advice works than it is to admit that the advice is not working for you. It’s easier to believe that influence is about changing someone else’s mind, not your own.
The truth is, there are five hard truths about growing your influence.
Five hard truths about growing influence
Truth 1: This isn't about learning business skills
You've heard this everywhere: "Designers need to learn business!" Maybe you took a course, learned what KPIs are, and can read a P&L statement. You know the lingo, you’ve used the lingo, but nothing changed.
Here's why: This isn't about adding business skills to your designer toolkit. It's about choosing to become a different type of designer entirely. It’s about choosing to apply business skills into your methodology and how you design. When you do this, you will care about other things. You will see design in a new light. You will face pushback from other designers who think you've "sold out." It will be uncomfortable.
Let’s be honest. I mean, really honest. You're scared of being someone new. You prefer playing in Figma (it’s fun!). You prefer conducting research (it's safer than talking to Finance). You prefer being left alone to do your work (because planning meetings don’t usually go according to plan).
Me too. I get it. But wanting influence while preferring to stay exactly who you are? That's like wanting to run a marathon while continuing to watch Netflix and chill. Running a marathon means training. A lot of it. Which means less Netflix time.
Truth 2: Best practices are yesterday's novel ideas
The design industry loves its best practices. Stakeholder mapping! Design thinking workshops! High-fidelty prototypes! You've probably attended conferences where someone presented "How We Got Our Seat at the Table" using a 47-slide deck with custom icons.
But best practices are just historical retellings of what worked in specific situations in the past. They're someone else's solution to someone else's problem in someone else's company culture, presented as universal law.
More importantly, they hide the real work that has to happen behind a packaged, easy to consume methodology. Best practices let you focus on process instead of outcome. They give you something to do that feels productive—like creating stakeholder empathy maps with sticky notes—while avoiding the actual hard work of understanding your stakeholder.
The designers with real influence didn't follow a canvas they downloaded from Medium. They figured out what their particular situation required and did that, even when it was uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and unpopular.
Truth 3: Great taste isn't a differentiating factor
Right now, at this moment, you’re probably hearing a lot about how great taste will be the differentiator in a world of AI. I'm sorry, but companies don't care about your taste.
If your taste helps them make money, reduce costs, or minimize risk, then great—your taste matters. But it's not the other way around. Your exquisite sense of typography doesn't matter if it doesn't serve business objectives. Your beautiful interface—the one that took three weeks to perfect—is worthless if it doesn't impact metrics they care about.
Companies aren't art galleries. They're not here to appreciate your aesthetic sensibilities. Companies exist to solve business problems, and if your design skills help them do that, you're valuable. If not, well... I hope you enjoyed that zine course.
Truth 4: You are your job (at work)
I know this sounds harsh. It’s not how I want the world to work, but companies absolutely see you as your job. When they evaluate your contribution, they're asking: "What useful thing does this person do that makes us money or saves us money?" That's it. That's the whole equation.
That beautiful feature you spent months crafting? It only matters if it has business value. Your refined process? It only matters if it produces results they care about. Your years of experience? They only matter if it translates to helping them do something they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.
If you want to know why business people seem to dismiss design, or why you seem to get no respect, it's because companies are full of people who need things. This is how the vast majority of companies actually function. You can either help them meet those needs (while doing awesome rad design stuff), or they will cast you aside. No level of kindness or taste will make up for that fact.
Truth 5: Businesses care about design
This is the biggest delusion: "Business people need to understand design! Business people need to care about user experience! Business people need to value research!"
I have news. They care about design, but there is a fundamental difference between business people caring about design and caring about design in the way you do. Let me explain.
Have you ever bought something because it fits your budget? Yes, of course you have. From a business perspective, that is good design. It solves a problem or satisfies a need in a way that works for you. It solves a problem in a way the company chose to solve problems. That’s also good design.
Your job isn't to educate them about the importance of design. They know it’s important. Your job is to connect design to outcomes they already care about. You can keep waiting for them to care about design the way you do, or you can start caring about what they care about. Your choice. Only in the second scenario do you have agency.
How to grow your influence (without losing your identity)
Now that I've completely bummed you out, I’m going to try and redeem myself. Here comes the real question: Are you willing to stop doing some of the things you enjoy to start doing things that create influence?
This evolution has a cost. You're going to become that designer who actually gets excited about spreadsheets. Yes, spreadsheets. I know, younger you would be horrified. You'll find yourself caring about quarterly results and (this is the really embarrassing part) actually be interested during budget meetings. Don’t worry though, you don't have to talk about this with other designers. Some things are better left unsaid.
Designers with real influence aren’t the ones who simply picked up a new skill or followed a specific process. They’re the ones who spent less time reading design blogs and more time studying financial reports. They cared enough to understand why conversion rates matter instead of dismissing them as irrelevant. And they took the time to learn what product managers do—not just what other designers do.
The best part is, you can make this pivot with another creative act: cosplay. Here’s how to grow your influence without losing your identity:
1. Become a historian
Unless you’re starting a company from scratch, the business strategy at your company has already been decided. Stop trying to create a new one. Your job is to understand the existing one like you're documenting ancient civilizations.
Ask framing questions: What products and services did the company choose to make? Which customers did they choose to help? How did they decide to make money? What challenges did they take on? What did they choose not to do?
Dig into the company's origin story. Read old press releases. Study customer acquisition patterns. Look at what they've said no to. This isn't about becoming a business strategist—it's about understanding the game that's already being played so you can figure out how design fits in.
Most designers skip this step because they want to fix the strategy, not understand it. But you can't influence something you don't comprehend.
2. Become a researcher (of coworkers, not users)
You know how to understand users. Now understand your colleagues in the same way. Who gets listened to in meetings and why? What formats get approval and what get shot down? What are people rewarded for? What do they get in trouble for?
Start keeping notes. Not about design problems, but about people problems. You'll start seeing patterns that explain why some ideas get implemented and others get ignored. You’ll learn which formats get to YES, while others fall flat.
AI isn't going to fix how you deal with power and people, and if you’re going to have influence, it’s critical you understand the social dynamics that determine whether your ideas will live or die.
3. Become a Ttranslator
Stop creating presentations from scratch. Find the slide deck that got a yes. Study its structure, language, and flow. Then use that same format for your design recommendations.
Present new ideas at meetings people already attend. Don't ask for new meetings—figure out how to embed your message into existing rituals. If there's a weekly revenue review, show design impact using their format.
Borrow the metrics that matter to them. If they care about customer acquisition cost, show how design affects it. If they obsess over quarterly growth, frame your recommendations in terms of quarterly impact.
4. Become a negotiator
Here's the uncomfortable part: You can simultaneously want influence and want to stay exactly who you are. That's normal. That's human. But you can't have both.
Write down what you're willing to lose. Be specific: "I'm willing to spend less time perfecting visual details." "I'm willing to care more about conversion rates than beautiful typography." "I'm willing to have awkward conversations with finance people."
Now mourn that loss. You're giving up parts of your identity that you enjoy. That's worth acknowledging.
Then write down what you want to be held accountable for. "I want to understand our customer acquisition funnel." "I want to explain design decisions in terms of business impact." "I want to build relationships outside the design team."
5. Become an impersonator
Think of someone in your organization who has the kind of influence you want. Not necessarily another designer, but someone who gets results.
How do they prepare for meetings? What do they read? How do they present ideas? What questions do they ask?
Now do one thing "as them." Not permanently, just for one meeting, one presentation, one conversation. Ask yourself: "How would they approach this situation?"
This isn't about becoming someone else forever. It's about trying on different approaches to see what works. Start small. Pick one behavior, one communication style, one type of preparation. Practice it until it feels comfortable.
You have a choice
One year from now, you'll either be the same designer wishing you had more influence, or you'll be someone whose recommendations carry weight because you chose to be a different kind of designer: A designer who finds business outcomes as compelling as design outcomes.
Influence isn't something you gain. It's something you become.
What's it going to be?
Ryan Rumsey is the founder of CDO School, where he teaches senior designers and their teams how to be strategic at work. He also runs Second Wave Dive, an independent studio where he writes a weekly-ish newsletter about building long-term sustainable independent work, developing micro-businesses, design, and creative projects.
Job opportunities
Things to watch, read, and explore
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Listen: On Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast, our pal Bob Baxley gave a fascinating interview that explored the role of design in company strategy
Read: Headed to the beach? We put together a summer reading list for you.