 In this episode, you're going to learn what it takes to transition from being a design practitioner to being an effective design leader. Here's the guest for this episode. Let the show begin. Hi, my name is Jamin Hegeman and this is the 143rd service design show. Hi, I'm Marc Fontaine and welcome back to the service design show. On this show, we explore what's beneath the surface of service design, what are the hidden things that make a difference between success and failure, all to help you design great services that have a positive impact on people, business and planet. Our guest in this episode is the VP of design and the head of experience strategy at Capital One and a longtime board member of the service design network. It's nobody less than Jamin Hegeman. The reason I'm excited to have Jamin on the show is that he's been on a fascinating taking him from being a design practitioner at a leading consultancy to now leading at design department with 700 designer. In this conversation, Jamin shares what it took for him to step fully into the role of being a design leader, which limiting beliefs he had to overcome and where he now finds a sense of accomplishment now that he isn't involved in the on-ground day-to-day design work anymore. If you stick around till the end, you'll have a unique insight in what it's like to lead such a massive team of designers and which lessons you can draw from this for your own practice. By the way, did you know that we share a video like this every week or so here on this channel? So if you want to grow as a service design professional and don't want to miss any of the conversations, make sure to click that subscribe button and that bell icon to be notified when a new video comes out. That about wraps it up for the introduction. And now it's time to jump into the conversation with Jamin Hagerman. Welcome back to the show, Jamin. Hey, Mark, how are you doing? I'm doing well. It's been a while since you've been on the show. Not many people have had the opportunity to do a sequel. So yeah, good for you. While we were preparing, I said I made a mistake. I said it was three years ago that you were on the show, but it's actually five. You were episode 19 and now we're at 143. A lot has happened. Good to have you. Good to have you back. Well, congratulations on that many shows. It's it's amazing what can happen if you just put in the work every two weeks like it's being consistent consistency. Jamin, some things have changed about the format since you last appeared. And we've got something, a new element. Well, new. It's been going on for quite a few episodes, but it's new to you. It's called our 60 second question rapid fire round. But I almost forgot before we dive into that for the people who didn't watch episode 19 and have no clue who Jamin is. Could you start off with a brief intro? What do you do these days? Sure. Hi again, Jamin Hageman. I am the vice president of experience strategy at Capital One, which is a bank based in the US. We also have offices in Canada and the UK. I'm also on the leadership team for the services. I network where I've been helping to lead that conference for the last 14 years, which is also a crazy thing. Getting to Europe, just keep putting in the time. It adds up. But going back to Capital One, just a little bit more context. Our organization is 700 designers. And my responsibility is to help define how we do design at Capital One and advance our maturity, as well as work on strategic initiatives that span the different lines of business. A lot of you're in an interesting position and I'm going to pick your brain in this episode. So but the 62nd question rapidifier, we need to do it. It's become a tradition on the show. I'm going to ask you five questions. Just answer them as quickly as possible. The first thing that comes to your mind. Are you ready? Ready. What's always in your fridge? Open milk. Which book or books are you reading at this moment? If any design justice. What was your first job? Working at McDonald's in England. Interesting. What did you want to become when you were a kid? I mostly thought I was going to be in the military. Hmm. Did you eventually? I did join the military and then quit. It's a long story. OK, we'll keep it at that. And now the question that did remain the same since episode 19, the first time you got in touch with service design, do you recall that moment? Yeah, I was in grad school at Carnegie Mellon and it was the first week of my classes and the second week of class. We were hosting the first international service design conference that I attended. Hmm. Yeah, there wasn't. I think that must have been 2009. Six. Six. OK, even before the Amsterdam conference. Awesome. Thank you for shedding a light on a little bit more who Jamie is. So we are going to talk about an interesting topic, which is the transformation or transition from being a design practitioner to being a leader of designers or design leader, a topic that has been on the show quite a lot recently. It's definitely becoming more and more an interest of the community. And also people are getting into the positions where they can actually share stuff. You're one of these people who is definitely in that position. Maybe we could start out by rewinding back from the position where you're in right now and going back to how did you end up in this position? Because I think that is quite important. Yeah, I'll give you. We'll start with the shorter version and then you can you can decide whether you want to dig in more. But for those that don't know, I was part of adaptive path in which you may or may not know about. But that was a design agency based in San Francisco that was started in 2001 and focused on developing user experience first with websites, then with mobile and expanding to digital. And then we started to advance the practice of service design. We had a conference and we had trainings. That company was acquired by Capital One, where I now work in 2014. And so the design leadership and consulting and things I was doing at adaptive path at first transitioned directly into Capital One. And I started doing that just internally for different parts of the business. I then decided to take a step deeper into design leadership and move to Dallas, Texas, where I started to lead a team focused on our financial services, which consisted of home loans and auto loans. And I built that team to about 55 people before taking this role, where I am now, which again is a horizontal role. So I moved to New York and focusing now on the whole organization. So I went from a consulting design leader to a leader of a business team and kind of learned what all that was about. And now I'm supporting all of our teams across all of our lines of business. I'm curious if you in hindsight can recognize some stages in this journey, defining moments, defining stages. Yeah, I mean, definitely in the beginning, I was I was more of a design consultant trying to figure out how to be a design leader of a business team. And it was easy for me to do all the same things that I was doing previously. And I think what I mind that next phase, which which kind of went along with with the job change, but didn't happen immediately. I think that that took me it took me a while to realize that the things I was doing before weren't the things that were going to work. I mean, some of them did, but there were a bunch of other aspects of the job that I wasn't as experienced and had to figure out just dealing with the all the business as usual aspects of the of the role and how you get things done in an organization as well as like, how do you lead a team that you you don't interact with all the time and provide that leadership? I think that was a that was a growing and learning period for me, you know, and and then I took those lessons to to where I am now and tried to apply them in building this this new team that I have for the last one and a half years been been building. So I think of it really in terms of that progression through through the jobs, but it each one, you know, the type of design leader was different. And and I've been just continuing to try to learn from it. And so feel like that that is my my continued growth opportunity. There is a lot in each stage. But one overall question that I have, which which I found intriguing when I was preparing for our chat was how would you define success nowadays? What does success look like and how does it maybe compare to? Your previous roles. I mean, at the heart, it's some of the things are very much the same. I mean, when when is an adaptive path, you know, we wanted the projects to be successful. We wanted to not would help us grow business. And then we wanted our team to be successful and was able to, you know, work very closely and directly with with people to help make that happen. And but as things have scaled, like, that's where it's become different. And and now I probably spend more time on just making sure that my team is set up for success. Then I mean, I spent a ton more time there than I do on like in the in the weeds working on particular business. Challenges my role is to really create the conditions for that to happen as much as possible. And so my success is very much linked to my team's success. And that that was actually something that took a little time for me to translate. Because, you know, previously I could be like, Oh, I did a thing. I presented to the clients, you know, I was leading and now it's well, my teams did these things. I need to celebrate them. And I need to acknowledge that they were, you know, that I'm associated with that as well, which I think was was difficult for me to say that. Well, I mean, I'm leading the team. So this is this is my work, too, even if other people are the ones that are really, you know, doing the things that I was doing before. And that sounds that that seems to me that that can be quite challenging. Like, how do you at the end of the day or at the end of the week, you look back on what has happened, that sense of accomplishment? How do you, where does it come from? I mean, it does come from, it's a combination of, you know, what I've done. But I also, again, I think celebrating what my team has done and it's interesting. I, I just celebrated another anniversary, anniversary four years ago. I started writing a weekly email at the end of every week to my team to increase my communication, increase their visibility to what I was thinking about. And I just call it like, this is the week in review. And I start off every week in the review with, hey team, here's what's going on and top of mind. And, and I would just, you know, talk about things that either I was engaged in or that I saw happening in the team and wanted to share back with them that, you know, I'm paying attention or I know about this or they should know about something. And, yeah, and I've carried that through multiple teams. And, but just keep consistently doing that. And I just changed shoes on the, the two list. And, and that I find that a very good way for me to reflect on what has happened during the week. Like, what was I involved in? What did I get to see? And then I, I, I rely on my directors to also help me recognize what have people done, maybe that I haven't seen that I should know about. And then, you know, and that gives me an opportunity to, you know, what have people done maybe that I haven't seen that I should know about. And then, you know, and that gives me an opportunity to, to dig in with them. Like, oh, what was that? And, oh, great. And then, you know, I can, I can celebrate that. So it, it gives this kind of always, always on way for me to know, like what's happening and then share that back. So people recognize it, that I'm recognizing it. I'm assuming you're celebrating the four year anniversary. Congratulations on that. But apparently, it didn't, this apparently came from somewhere. At some point, you thought, well, I need to, this might be a good idea. Was that, was there a pain underneath this? Was there a blind spot? How did you, where did this come from? And what was the bigger symptom, maybe? Yeah, I mean, multiple things. And this, this happened. This started back when I was leading that, that team in Dallas and recognizing that, yeah, I can't be everywhere at all times. I was getting feedback that people didn't know always, like where I was, what I was doing. And so I wanted to provide some visibility to that, to the team of like, okay, where am I spending my time? Because I can't be in all the same places that, that you are. And yeah, so that was, that was a big, big driver of it. And, and I've continued to do it because I do get positive feedback from people. Either people, you know, sometimes the people that have been, you know, part of the team for a while reading it and it's like, you know, call something out. But also when I get new people, they're just like, wow, this is like a great thing to do. So signal to me that, yeah, this is a, this is a good thing to do. And, and again, I think when I was part of a smaller, I mean, adaptive path was 30 people and Capital One is 50,000. My team in Dallas was, you know, 50 to 60 people. It's, it's a different scale and being able to like spend quality time with everybody is really difficult. I wasn't, I didn't necessarily have that mindset when I first started and like how important that was for a leader to have that visibility and have that connection to people. And, and that has been one of the things that I've continued to try to figure out, like, what are the, what are the best ways to, you know, engage with the team with limited time so that, you know, I really know what's, what's happening with them. But they also feel connected to me. And I think that helps us all be successful. It's interesting. I already see a pattern emerging. We had a recent conversation with Todd Wilkins, also from adaptive path. And he basically described a similar situation. I think it was his time at IBM, if I'm not mistaken, where he said, people were eventually just saying, yeah, Todd isn't around. Like, where is he? He wasn't there. He wasn't visible. And it's, it's tough. Like, if you need, if you, if you have a team of 50 to 60 people, you know, it's hard to be visible and sounds like you experienced something similar and came to the conclusion that it is important to be visible, even though just through an email. Yeah. Yeah. And I will add, you know, the other thing that I've learned along the way is to, is to get help. And, and don't, because like that, you know, that feedback that I got or like figuring out how I can be more visible or have the communication and the engagement with the team, you know, weren't things I just magically figured out on my own. Maybe the email was like, you know, a specific way I chose to address it. But, but that's been, that was actually a huge lesson for me. Because I feel like I always felt, you know, hey, I'm, I'm the expert. I mean, particularly when I was adept, adapted path, helping to drive services, I'm practice and my involvement there. Like, I know everything. And then I come into a situation where I like, I don't know everything. I don't know. I still need to, to grow and tap into some places that I, you know, just weren't as, as required or required in a different way. So that was, that was, again, another thing for me. It's like, OK, really like taking in that feedback and working on yourself to be a better leader and understand like, again, what leadership means, what it means to be successful and, you know, how that is both you, but, you know, also a lot, your team. So I'm curious, like you didn't, I'm assuming you didn't get trained in leadership at the start. So what were some of these maybe other blind spots that you encountered through trial and error and you sort of wish somebody had told you upfront, because in these new positions, these new roles, new skills are probably required, new attitudes, new mindsets. What did you figure out the hard way next to being visible? It's great. Let's just dig into all my thoughts. Yeah. Well, I think, I think coming along with that idea that like, hey, I'm, you know, I'm doing well and successful and when I started to encounter situations where I don't have the answer, right? I don't know. I was not comfortable admitting that. Can you give a specific example just to illustrate the story? Specific, yes. I mean, like there's I feel like it's more of a general, general feeling I had versus like, OK, here's a specific example when I didn't do things. But like, you know, even when I first when I first came into the the business and I started being, you know, connected into meetings and people that you know, I was learning and here, you know, the business is running and they're there, they need to make decisions. They need to move fast. And if I didn't know something in that in a context, I might not raise my hand and be like, hey, slow down. Can you let me know what you're talking about and or what's that acronym? Because there's a million acronyms in any business that you need to learn. It's like a whole language. But, you know, I didn't do that right away. I again was thinking like, OK, I need to like show up like I know what's going on. And I don't think that was helpful for me, you know, because I think and I've seen other leaders do this very well, you know, come into situations and and I've been trying to, you know, increasingly learn this myself. Just like I don't I don't understand or I don't know what you're talking about. And I can't tap into my expertise to help if I can't do that. And that that to me, I'm sure was was holding me back when I first made that transition. And this is this is quite interesting because as a design practitioner, you're probably very much used to saying, I don't know, let's figure it out. Let's go out do some research, ask questions, having quite a humble and very curious mindset. What changes when you shift into a different role and the role of leadership, maybe being amongst non designers? Like, why did you why did you lose your curiosity? That's a great. It's I mean, it's not that I lost my curiosity. So that's that's not what I said. Definitely definitely curious. But I think, you know, I think when I made the transition, I also had the idea of like, hey, I wasn't really clear on what a design leader was supposed to do and what they were supposed to look like in that particular context. And I wanted to show up like, you know, hey, you chose the right person, you know, I'm totally good for this role, which which, yeah, I mean, I think like put me in a in a more vulnerable position in a different way than leading a design team. Because, yeah, I mean, as a as a as a consultant, I mean, that was the exactly what you're saying. Like, hey, we don't know the answer. We're not kind of presume anything. Let's go talk to people. Let's try to understand this. Let's do stakeholder interviews. And it's not to say I didn't do that stuff. But I think that I think and that's why I'm like, I'm not sure I can name a specific example. But I just I feel like in general, I probably needed to be more curious about how does this place work? You know, what are you what are you talking about? And but, you know, do it in a way that in the same way that you would do. As a designer, have that that curiosity of like, I'm here to help solve a problem. But I think for myself personally, and this is, you know, I don't know that this is the same for everybody, but making that transition to me put me in a vulnerable place where I wasn't, you know, like this is not completely familiar and that made me more cautious. So apparently, you had a perspective on what a design leader or what a good design leader needs to be. And yeah, I see. I'm like, I don't I don't know. And like, I maybe I did maybe maybe I didn't or maybe it was well. So let me rephrase it in this way. What's your current thinking about what a good design leader needs to be? Well, I mean, kind of basically, you need to understand design really well. That's that's kind of fundamental, you know, end to end from discovery to delivery and and ideally, like, have knowledge of all the different disciplines so that so that you can lead and provide insightful feedback. You don't have to have depth in everything. But but it's that is important because that is a key piece that a design leader is bringing. But then there's the, you know, that that's the design stuff. Then there's the business acumen, which is, you know, how to operate an organization, how to get things done, what what kind of, you know, how to how to how to prioritize what's going to be most high leverage for the business itself. And then there's the people component that we've been talking about a lot. It's just like just the pure helping people grow, helping to enable them to do their best in the job, clearing any roadblocks that they have, identifying opportunities that they might not be able to see because they're at a different level of visibility. So it's, you know, it's that designed core. But there's the business acumen. And I think that's where, you know, for me, this was great. I had no problem here. But when we started, when I started getting into a broader business context, that's where I got a little bit like, OK, I don't I don't know that I know everything here. And then the people stuff, I had some of that from from this, but not at the scale. So that's that's where I've been. OK, I need to, you know, adjust just my approaches because these same things that we're doing here aren't working in the same way. And developing like an acumen or vocabulary around a specific domain, in this case, business, like if we work for a client who's in the health care space, we're OK with not knowing the language because we know we'll learn it. And here, maybe as you described, like maybe already feel the pressure that you need to deliver from day one and that people expect you to notice stuff while. Yeah. And I think so it's interesting. You use the word expectation. I think I mean, everyone's different. I think I had a lot of expectations of myself and an idea of who I was as a designer. And I think those those aspects of myself were what caused me issues, you know, just, you know, needing to be more vulnerable, needing to be more more humble and and. You know, rely on some of the things that I learned before that you're pointing out. Like, yeah, I mean, I worked with lots of different businesses. I didn't know anything about them and you you learn. But you also have a different relationship and connection, you know, like when you when you are part of the business versus your consultant. I mean, at the at the end of the day, you've got a different home. And and I think that that that changes your perspective as well. Let's take into that a little bit because that's also you have the luxury to have been on both sides as adaptive somebody from adaptive path being hired by their companies to do great services and work. And now you're maybe hiring external agencies to work with your team. What is your general, I don't know, perspective on on these two fields? They're definitely different. And it was interesting, particularly, I mean, it's still interesting now, but it was interesting, particularly when I made the when I started leading the team in Dallas because we were that team was already working with agencies and and then there, you know, there were opportunities to do that. So I was suddenly on the other side of evaluating like, how are they doing and what is their approach and would I do it that way? And and that was that was an interesting thing to be on the other side of. I think what I've what I've noticed is I mean, what's definitely changed for me is when I and a lot of a lot of cases when we were working with clients, they they may not have had a design team that we were working with or maybe we were working with a part of business that that design wasn't connected to or they weren't as mature. But, you know, what what had happened in Capital One, and I think in a lot of organizations now is that the the maturity of design has grown, the investment of design internally has grown. So the relationship is is different where you know, there's. We're not as much tapping external agencies for like, we don't know how to do a thing. Can you come in and like do that for us? It is a lot more of like what we need expanded capacity to do something even when we have even if we do have lots of people like those those opportunities have changed a little bit. But I think the dialogue that I was then able to have with the with the agencies was was really interesting because I could I could tell. And in some cases, this still happens that the you know, the agency is pitching and trying to explain. What they can do or what design is and where, you know, I and others might be ready to just be like, OK, yeah, got that, let's talk about the work itself and and work through like how we're going to approach this. So that that definitely, you know, I didn't have as much of that kind of interaction when when we were at Adaptive Path. And but more and more, I think it's it's becoming a dialogue versus a pitch, like you said, it really depends on the maturity of your clients. And you're basically augmenting your teams nowadays rather than sort of outsourcing the entire challenge. The challenge stays you own the challenge. Yeah. Yeah. And in the. You know, that when I was at Adaptive Path, I think I would, you know, draw, you know, diagrams like here's the organization and we're coming in as a pin point and causing this change and hopefully all this stuff will happen. But only having, you know, a limited view of that organization as much as we did learn about it. But being on the inside, you know, you have visibility to so many different pieces and parts that that an agency just can't have access to. So I think, you know, it's been interesting to see how work like that happens. And then the work that has to happen afterwards for that to be successful. And I mean, it shed a lot of light for me on feelings I might have had in the past of like, oh, we did all this great work. They were really happy. And then nothing happens. Like, well, what happened? And, you know, you kind of move on to the next project. And maybe if you're lucky, you get to check in later and and find out did it work, did they do something, you know? But, like, my it's very difficult to take, unless it's, unless it's, like, more on the delivery phase, I think, for strategy in particular, it's hard to and services I, it's hard to just, like, take that and be like, OK, we're just going to plug it in and it's going to happen. There's there's, like, another translation layer that needs to happen to really integrate it into the business, and that takes more work. So, like, that's just another friction point that could cause agency work to not go forward. Again, an interesting topic, because a lot of, at least I hear a lot of stories of designers who, like you said, maybe are disappointed that they don't see their work being followed through or, quote, unquote, implemented. I'm curious what you have seen in your position. With regard to the trade-offs that need to be made of actually operationalizing maybe the strategy work that has been done through design. What are some of the real difficulties that you need to go through in order to get this out into the world? That's a big question. I know. It could be it could be anything and I mean, it could just be I mean, it could just be, you know, like, we had some work done. I had I commissioned some work for just just a journey map, like, hey, I need I need someone to look across all these different pieces from an outside perspective. And so I also want to say, like, agencies are still valuable. I am not I'm not arguing that and we use them all the time. It is great to get the outside perspective or the extra hands. And but, you know, it's like we might we might do that, do something like that, like create an artifact. And something shifts in the organization. That, you know, maybe maybe the business like reorganizes. And like suddenly it's like, well, this this doesn't map anymore. So either we have to rework it or it is just like we can't we can't use it in exactly the same way that we expected. You know, and or it might be like, hey, another another way I think about some of the even even our internal design work when it's particularly in more of the the strategies space or the discovery space is like this work helps people make decisions. It doesn't from an agency you might be thinking or as any designer, of course, you want to see your work come into fruition. A lot of design work like that, I think helps people make decisions. So Michael, like, that's amazing, great work, love it. There are things in there that just aren't going to work again for our organization. So we're all but it's inspired what we could do. And then that just becomes a different thing and gets incorporated into you know, the broader spectrum of things that are happening. And that's that that's been how I've been looking back on actually some of the work they did before Capital One. But it's but it's how I look at it now. It's like look, you know, it's success as a designer isn't always implementation. It is it's helping people in this case, the business make better decisions. So here's an option. This is what it could look like. We couldn't see that before. Great. Now that I know that I'm able to make better business decisions about what we can actually do it, even if it's not like take this completely and and do it as as designed. And this is a really interesting topic because helping organizations make smarter decisions. I definitely second that and believe that. The byproduct of this is that it's really hard to take ownership of success. And like everybody has contributed to some extent to to this decision. And then I want to reflect back on you and the teams that you lead. Like, how do you give them sort of this sense of accomplishment? And because at the end of the day, you want to sort of. You want you want to say I'm being valuable. I'm contributing to the success of this organization. I'm making customers happy. But quote unquote, if the only thing you're doing is informing smarter decisions, does that become difficult? Well, it shouldn't be the only thing. But I'm just saying, yeah, I'm saying that that that is, you know, it's similar to organizations that promote, you know, shutting down projects, right? It's like, OK, you've learned enough to know, like, we're not going to go in that direction. So that that's just an aspect I think of doing some of this work that, hey, if it doesn't go forward, it's not because of the work. It could just be like that was what they needed. They needed to see that option to decide, hey, you know what? I mean, because sometimes now that we see that, we know that that's not the right thing for us to do and that that's a possibility. But like going back to your question, I mean, I think. Ultimately, everybody wants to contribute value. And as designers, we want to make things and make change and contribute to that. So that's that's hugely important. And that's partly why try to recognize and celebrate those things. And I care very much about that we are actually making impact in the organization. And that also is something that as a design leader, I have to be keenly aware of, again, like balancing that, like, great, doing good design. Is it going to have business impact? Is it really connected into the right people, places, systems for it to go forward? And and that that's a big part of my job is, you know, making sure that happens. Because yeah, I think all of my designers would say, you know, if there is work and there is work that sometimes, you know, we do and then it's like doesn't move forward. That's not the greatest feeling. Even if he tried to say, like, hey, that was good because we decided something else. Ultimately, we want to make that impact. And that's that's a huge part of my my job. That's, you know, a good portion of how I'm held accountable. It's like, OK, have have your team not just deliver great designs or experiences or strategy, but is there an associated business impact? Yeah. And is there an. So the way I'm translating this, your role is to make sure that the design teams stay on the right track or the the best possible track, knowing you should have the overview where the organization is heading into in the next, I don't know, three, five, 10 years and are the activities that the design teams are doing in line with helping to achieve those goals. Does it does that make sense? You need you need to know what what what the business is trying to do and what's important for the business again as a designer, you're you're bringing. Your job is to bring design into that context, bring in the human centeredness, bring in, you know, the the the tools and the things you need to do. You know, the the the tools and the things that we can do to help. The business achieve its goals, which, of course, should also be helping the customers and at Capital One, you know, our mission is change banking for good and that that's something that we care a lot about, you know, balancing that customer benefit and business objective. But, you know, we're I think designers are naturally inclined to. Focus on the customer, make things human centered, make things of good quality. And then, you know, we need to always be thinking about how that is going to. Fit in with the larger business goals and objectives, because if you do something and you can go back to this happens in the agency, it happens internally. If you do start a project that is not it has no real connection. And it's just like, well, hopefully we'll do this and something will happen. It's a high probability that it won't happen because it's not it's not attached already to something or an objective that is known. And then, you know, you know, bringing people along for that is also going to be super helpful and making something happen and that kind of impact. I'm really curious if you look back on the last eight years being in house, what were some of the quote unquote internal battles that you decided to fight? And then later discovered, well, these are the really important things. And these are the distractions. Like I'm trying to find the right words, but sometimes as designers, we tend to get hung up over details. What have you found are the details that we get hung up with? And what are the things that we should really dig into and fight the battles? You ask such large questions. You know, my main answer for all these things are, well, it depends. Yeah, sure. I mean, I think designers can get caught up on so many different things and that I think part of being a good designer is learning that. And I don't know that there's a hard and fast rule. I mean, sometimes corner radius of a button does matter. Sometimes it might not. And so it really depends on the situation. Sure. And I agree with that. But I'm sure that there are some examples. You are in your personal journey where you thought, Jamin, why did I put so much effort in like getting this decision? In the end, it's insignificant while this was a really important part. So without without generalizing it to the entire design community, what were some of the things that you feel? Yeah. I mean, I think I keep going back to the transition point of again from my consulting into into meeting. But one of the things that we were focusing on as a business was being more human centered. And I was helping to bring in services and tools. So journey maps, vision stories, service blueprints. Those things to me were always connected to designers. Designers, I mean, we were like inventing these things to a degree. So like, oh, those are the people that have to do this. And I focus a lot on like, hey, we need to, our people need to be involved in the creation. And they got to like look a certain way. And, you know, after over time, I realized like, well, actually, you know, if people are getting the usefulness out of the artifact and they understand what's behind it and they're, you know, they are thinking about an end to end experience. That's more important. And then like whether it's in a particular template or if a designer is directly involved in it or not. You know, that that was that was something that, you know, it means the scale issue. It's a business issue. But, but, you know, I was definitely more on the designers have to do all the things. And then over time realized like, well, actually, you know, it's that it's even if it's not of the bar or quality that I would do it. It's great that everyone has access or understanding of this and is using that to make decisions and owning it themselves. Was there looking back, can you identify like a tipping point that made you let go of that feeling? No, I can't. I think there's so many things that were going. I mean, particularly, I mean, even at the time, although I think this still happens now, like people are talking about how you have to and particularly in service line, how you have to give things away. In fact, I was inspired by Todd Wilkins spoke at the service experience conference that I also was leading when I was at Adopt-A-Path and he spoke about a very similar thing. Like, you know, when he went to IBM and and, you know, listening to that as well as everything else was going in the world. Like I remember that being a point for me of like, hey, he's talking about giving it away. He's an example of his kids, which he often does and that stuck with me is like, hey, if my son is trying to learn how to tie his shoes and he does it wrong, like, I'm like, good job, you know, like, let's do it again. And I thought, that's a great, yeah, I mean, if somebody picks up a service blueprint and tries and doesn't do it exactly the way I would do it, you know, hey, just like, I'm glad you're trying to do that, like keep, keep at it and find something that's useful in the spirit of this end to end and experience that you're trying to support versus like, and give that to me. I gotta, you know, give it to the design team. We'll do it the right way. And it's funny and we sort of have to wrap up, but this also reflects, I'm hearing your own journey reflected in the story because you have to give yourself also the permission to do it quote unquote wrong, to learn this stuff and figure it out and seek help. And yeah, so I'm not sure if that was intended, but there's definitely an analogy to that as well. You're getting that, like, I have a high bar for myself and can be a perfectionist and have had to learn. And I think, like, maybe this is a closing point that whatever flaws I had as a designer and maybe as a design leader of like a small team, get multiplied when you put it in a greater scale by nature. And I think that's the real thing is like, you know, I probably had all these issues when I was at Adaptive Path, but they didn't have as much impact either on me or the team around me. And then, but now, you know, that is more scale, like, wow, I have to pay more attention to things that, you know, are about me, like know myself more and how they impact my career and other people around me. And that's, you know, that's a constant journey and actually has been really great personally for me to try to understand more about who I am and what I'm about and how to, you know, be more vulnerable and humble and, you know, help my team and the business. What's next on your journey? I never know, honestly. My underlying mission is to help advance the practice of design and I continue to look for ways to do that, whether that's supporting the services line network or, you know, leveraging this opportunity that I have within Adaptive Path and Capital One to do design at scale and learn how to influence a large organization to be more human centered and help it on its journey. As long as I'm, you know, keep finding those opportunities, you know, that's what I'll continue to do. Final question, Javen. What do you hope is the one thing that people remember from this conversation? I don't know. Maybe that last point that you got me around to is that, you know, the, you know, as you, it's really important to know and understand yourself and how that impacts the work and the people around you and if you are on a journey and aspiring to like lead more people and bigger teams, like whatever those things are, they're going to get more exposed and or, you know, get in the way. The great things will also help as well. So, you know, not to dwell on that, but it's always, it's always good to reflect on the lessons learned. But that, yeah, I think that's an important, it's an important point for me and my journey. And if that helps somebody else, then I'm very happy with this whole interview. And on that note, I think we have a title for this episode. Jaimen, thank you for your time. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing. Let's try to do another episode, not in five years, but somewhat closer. So once again, thanks for your time and for hopping on. All right. Thank you, Mark. Awesome that you made it all the way here. I really hope that you enjoyed the conversation and got something useful out of it. If this is your first time here, don't forget to click that subscribe button so you'll be notified when new episodes come out. Thanks a lot for watching and I'll see you in the next video.