Episode 90
Catt Small - How to influence and lead as a staff designer
Dive Club 🤿 · Ridd
January 17, 202552m 24s
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Show Notes
How do the best staff designers influence and lead as individual contributors?
I interviewed Catt Small to answer that question and it turned into one of the most practical episodes yet. She pulls from her 14+ years of experience designing products like Etsy, Asana, and Soundcloud to share techniques you can use to level up your influence and scale your impact as an IC.
Some highlights:
- Ways to get out of the execution trap
- The key to having “executive presence”
- Catt’s advice for better time management
- How designers can encourage people to think bigger
- How Catt has evolved the way she does async videos
- Understanding the different archetypes of staff designers
- Behind-the-scenes of the massive “Goals” project at Asana
- a lot more
- Check out Catt’s course Staff Designer: Influence & Lead as an Individual Contributor (Dive Club listeners get $100 off)
- Catt mentions the books Radical Candor & 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
- Micah Bennett was the designer she learned so much from