 In this episode, you're going to learn about the different career paths you can take as a service design professional and how to make sure you stay true to doing the things you love on that journey. Here's the guest for this episode. Let the show begin. Ciao everyone. This is Alessandra Canella, this is The Service Design Show and it's episode 139. Hi, I'm Marc Fontaine and welcome back to a brand new episode of 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 or to help you make great services happen that have a positive impact on people and business. Our guest in this episode is Alessandra Canella. She's the principal service designer at Kazoo and with Alessandra we're going to talk about the different career paths in service design, a typical career path in service design is probably moving into a leadership and management role. But what if you don't enjoy management? What if you want to stay close to the practice? Well that's exactly the situation Alessandra found herself in. Not being excited and energized about her work anymore, she wondered which other options were there to advance her career. Eventually Alessandra took a scary decision and stepped away from a well respected leadership role to move back into the role of being a practitioner. But it definitely wasn't an easy move. In this conversation Alessandra shares the mental roadbox she faced, the limiting beliefs she had to overcome and what eventually pushed her over the edge to make this decision. A key lesson in this episode is that you can let your career be a thing that sort of evolves by chance or you turn it into something that you proactively design. We post a new video on this channel every week or so. So if you enjoy conversations like this and want to grow as a service design professional, make sure you click that subscribe button and that bell icon to be notified when new videos are out. So that's all for the intro and now let's jump into the conversation with Alessandra Canella. Welcome to the show Alessandra. Thank you. Hi Mark. Hey, good to have you on. Looking forward to discussing this topic on the show which is going to be a different topic than we've had over the past episodes. The past episodes have been a lot about product management, tech driven companies, but today we're going to explore a different topic. But before we do that I would love to know a little bit more about you. So could you give a short introduction? What do you do these days? I'm a mother. I'm a wife and I'm a principal service designer at Kazoo. There is a scale up that is based in the UK, but it's actually like expanding all over Europe and with our second hand cars. So that's what I do today. So before we jump into the actual conversation, I always do the rapid fire question round, five questions. Maybe you've seen them. We've had a different in a new question in the previous episode and I'm going to do the same with you. So are you ready? Yes. Let's go. OK. What's always in your fridge? Oat milk. Oat milk. OK. Which book or books are you reading at this moment, if any? I just read a book about fostering kids by Rutela Littizetto who is an Italian comic. OK. Great. What was your first job? I had many. I think the first one was egg collector for my dad. He used to run a restaurant in the hotel in a valley in Bergamo. And he used to send me around the village to collect eggs, fresh eggs. And I remember my pockets full of coins, very heavy coins. I was thinking full of eggs. For the eggs I had a basket. Oh, OK. Fair enough. What did you want to become when you were a kid? I thought a pediatrician. And then I realized that if you're a pediatrician, you have to take care of kids no matter what happens to them, right? And I was just not ready for all the things that could go wrong with kids. Are you today? You're never. But I realized I'm a very much chilled mother. I will let Josue, I just run through the fields and whatever. I trust him to make good decisions for himself. That's good. And final question is the classic one. What was your first encounter with service design? Politecnico di Milano, Anna Meroni talking about it. And I seriously thought I would quit because I wasn't understanding it. I literally like there was a moment where I was like, I really not grabbing it. I'm not. Yeah, I thought I should maybe just move on into something else. But I I just stayed in the uncomfortable moment where you don't understand what's happening. And yeah, and here I am. We have had Anna on the show also some time ago. So great that sort of she's passing on the legacy of service design to many people. And talking about like evolution and growth and development and being uncomfortable doing things that are new and different. That's sort of the topic of today, because when we were preparing and exploring what could be an interesting angle, one of the things that emerged was that you've had a few transitions in your career. And it might be interesting to explore those transitions and talk about career paths in design, in service design because it's it's quite a complex topic, career paths. We don't discuss it as much. And there isn't a lot of literature, videos around that, especially in service design as a discipline. So and I think you have some interesting experiences to share. I'm curious, like if we fast forward to the end of the episode, what do you hope people will remember from this conversation or take away? Don't take for granted that the career path that is that your company is offering to you is the only one available. Think about what you want to get out of your career, where you what is your passion really more than what you're supposed to do or what you can do within the company and create that path for yourself and for the other designers that might come in the future. Yeah, so that sounds like really empowering, but also scary and confusing. Because it sounds easier, easier, easier on paper than in practice. Like, how do you create your own career path? But let's see if we can come up with some practical advice. But first, maybe let's go back to some key moments in your career. You just shared as your principal service designer, but you didn't start out that way. Could you sort of give us a historical overview of your career and how did you end up in this position? Yeah, yeah. So I graduated in furniture design. And to be honest, now I will say this in front of everybody. Polytechnical, I picked furniture because it was the easiest way I thought to get into Polytechnical. I thought I wouldn't make it for all the others. I had a slight interest in furniture. I actually want to design interior, so I started that way. And then while I was doing this degree, I was like, yeah, I enjoy designing things, but I really enjoy it much better to understand why I need to design a thing beforehand. So I went and thought, OK, I'm going to do a master of science and a Polytechnical that we're offering, PolyTongue. So it's a double master degree in where back in then you could just go in China. And I was like, this is very interesting and is offered in a course that is taught in English. I think there are a couple of things in here. They do a lot of research. I think it's a good it's a good path for myself. And I remember actually when we were asking who would be interested in going to China, I didn't raise my hand. It was it was just much for myself to think so far away. And anyway, I get accepted at Progressive System Design. That's where PolyTongue was happening. And that a lot of people might know because a lot of designers come from Polytechnical from that program. And then we went to China for a year and a half. We started designing innovation there. I started freelancing a little bit. I created I started writing my thesis about sexual health and the role of sexual health and knowing your body in women awareness. And then I kept we came back. I took plural because it's where my husband and yeah. So every time is the story of both of the both of us really. And and then we came back. I started freelancing a little bit and then in Italy. And then I was like, oh, you know what? Freelancing is not for me. I I like to feel part of the company and feel I've got colleagues and we've got something we're doing all together. We're trying to achieve. And that's when I joined. I remember how happy I was. My first war experience there is a small studio office consultancy in Turin where thanks for the experience for like the amazing opportunities you gave me. It was a small boutique agency, but I was doing great work properly doing research, not only talking about doing research. So they would really send us all around the world. I went to Asia. We traveled to the US to do like proper field work. And then after that, I joined Continuum. That is now EPUM and I stay there for another couple of years. And lovely, I wanted to get more exposure to an international setup. But then after these six, seven years in consultancy in Italy, we said we got married and then we said, OK, what are we doing next? Do we want to sit down and just OK, just make peace with ourselves that we're going to stay in Italy. And that's it. Or do we want to shake it up again once again and leave again? And that's when we said, OK, let's go. It took me very like very little time to make up my mind and make up our legages. And we left in a couple of months because I got an offer from Futuregov that is now TPX Impact, where I started as a senior service designer. And nobody cared about titles back then, but because I was coming from an American consultancy where titles were everything, I said, I'm coming, but I want this title to be like, yeah, whatever, as you wish. And then I stayed with them for about five years. Amazing growth. So titles, speaking, I went from a senior to a lead, to a head of. So at the end, I was heading up to service 19, made of roughly 15 people. And then the pandemic hit and and that's when I started feeling uncomfortable with the role and I started questioning, what should I do now? Is this where I am going to be forever? I mean, you know, from head of role, yeah, you can grow it to be more, but it's not exponential growth anymore. And that's when I remember talking with my manager, what should we do? What should I do? She's like, think about what you actually you're passionate about. Go beyond future curve, right? Think about that. And that create like an opportunity for me to think, as she said, beyond the company I was currently working for. Yeah, amazing moment. And that's when I remember sitting in this cafe saying, I actually want to be able to create the vision for a product, for a service. I don't want to. I don't care so much about heading up a team. I care about heading up a team. If it's a team building a thing, but it's not, it doesn't relate to the Cosartus model where you where you take care of the team, but they're all like working on a number of projects for a number of clients, you know? And then so I started looking around and as everything I do, I go a little bit closer and then I step back. I'm a little bit closer and then I step back and eventually I land the job with Kazoo and very tricky because they were looking for a service designer. And I was like, I think I carry more than just a service designer role. I've got a lot of seniority in the field and I'm very, I'm very glad because I think my manager really understood my potential. I think I passed probation, so I think I can say this. And yeah, so she gave me an opportunity and every time we talk about my role and my future growth, I think we're very aligned. That's where I am now. Thank you for sharing this, Beth. And there are some things in there that I find interesting is I'm curious if you ever made very conscious career decisions or was it more of a natural transition? Like at some point you get promoted and then that's just the next thing that happens. I think some things definitely happened to me. Like getting into service design happened naturally. But then there are some things I was particularly like aware of. There was really driving forward. For example, joining experience, joining continuum. I really wanted to go in these places. I knew these were the places that could help me about my growth within future golf. So growing from a practitioner level to a lead and then ahead, it was a mix. They happened. I pushed a little bit and they were given to me as opportunities to take and play with and I always thought I'm going to take this as an opportunity to see if I like them because that's the only way I thought I could grow into the company. Yeah, and then I mean, I can go down a path here about how tricky it is then to distinguish between what you're very good at and what you actually enjoy doing. Yeah, let's let's let's keep that for a few minutes because I'm curious like the first transitions that you made like going from experience to continuum that sounds like sort of still being in the same role, still being in the role of the practitioner but just exploring different parts of the world, different company cultures, but essentially still doing the same. Well, the career evolution in something like future golf is where you're really transitioning from doing different things, having different responsibilities. That sounds like a different different decisions that you need to make. Yeah. Yeah, I think that from experience to continuum, I was after a scale that was different. So like from a very local company, consultancy to an American one and worldwide want to be honest. Then I think at that point, I felt like I had a very well rounded way of learning how to design things. And then I was ready for something different. And at that point, I remember, should I ask myself, should I go in-house or should I stay in the consultancy ward? And that's when I said I'm not ready for in-house. I wasn't as interested in in-house. I really thought I still want to be in the consultancy. But that the other the other variable I changed was the sector because future golf was everything about private clients. It was only public institutions. So I thought that it's another take because I think designing it's the same toolkit by designing for public and authorities is quite different. The pace is different. The way you work with them is different. So that was the other way the other variable I went for. And then once I went, I was in future golf. I was trying to change then my role. So another variable for individual contributor to managing a practice to managing a team. If I can ask a question about that, because I think that's the most interesting thing to explore here is what did you think you wanted back then? So going, let's call it climbing up the ladder, like changing your role. What did you think you wanted? In all this transition, specifically with. Well, yeah, specifically in future golf, because like getting to the more senior or the management kind of. Yeah, jobs, levels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think going from a senior to a lead, I just came back from maternity leave. I think this is another thing that is important to consider when you're planning a transition is whatever what else is happening in your life, right? Because I just came back from maternity leave and I was like, I know the job I left. I think I'm now ready for something else. So I'm always like, I call myself like a creature of habit that likes changing because I like having a routine. But then if the routine stays the same, I get bored. So I thought, OK, I still like future golf. I don't think I'm done with it. There's a lot of opportunities. What what is the next variable? And then the next variable for me was going from being an individual contributor, working on multiple projects into leading the practice. So myself and Jan Blum, pronunciation, German versus English, my dear friend and colleague, we were responsible for taking care of the practice. So we would lead the service design meetings. We would think about what's the next theme. So that was, you know, a practice leadership kind of role. And I did that for a year also with Jan. And then the next opportunity came up and they were like, do we actually want to help the team? That meant I was really doing line management back then, but then meant actually managing all the seniors that would manage all the juniors and taking care of all the HR issues or the practice issues, resourcing issues, everything, plus still working partially on projects. So I think I was always after a new variable after when I got to the point of where there are no more variables I can play within. And and on top of that, I think that there was a moment where I realized I was missing working on on problems because I remember speaking with my manager and he was a different one from the one I had a conversation with earlier. And he said, you're still a designer. It's just that now you're designing processes, ways for your team to do a better job. And that was a nice narrative around it. I totally believe it's true, but it's so it didn't resonate with what I wanted to do. I kept telling it to myself, you know, I'm still a designer, a simulator, I'm a similar designer, but ultimately it wasn't feeling true to myself. And every time designers would come and say, how and I've got a problem about this issue on this project or how would you tackle this? I was like, oh my God, this is so interesting. This is so interesting. Well, I found at that moment in my career, all the other things with the actually managing people, being a manager, Kerry, not being my true passion. So you in this transition, you move you the types of challenges you were designing for changed. You were still a designer, but the types of challenges changed. And you figured out along the way that the challenges that are part of being a head or a lead, aren't the challenges that you're passionate about. Yeah, correct. Even because I understood that I really like to have a problem and to solve it to get to the bottom of what is this problem really about and really understand everything about it in the most well-rounded way possible so then I can take forward a plan for action, a plan for change, for innovation. While even with a head of I could definitely do that, but they're like problems rooted in politics sometimes. And politics is not tangible. Like I am a tangible person. I like to say this is done checklist, let's move over. While everything that is about is about politics and the maturity of the company and how they tackle design, it's a very long lasting game that I like to play and have a role in, but I don't want to be the only contributor or like feeling that's my main role, you know, I want to help with that. But because even like a zoo, of course, like right now as a principal service designer, I still contribute to like how designs is perceived within the company and what's the place of design within the company and where we are taken in consideration as practitioners. But so I still play always like a political role, but it's less of this is my main focus, you know. So I get that. And maybe that's interesting to also explore this transition from your last role as a future gov to your new role at Kazoo because the way it's visualized in my head, like there are two axes which you can play along. It's like you change the environments in which you operate as an individual contributor or you sort of change the responsibilities that you have. And that for most people about reps it up for which career paths there are like I'm going to go from consultancy to in-house or I'm going to change from public sector to private sector or I'm going to move more into the senior role. Yeah. Have you found a different axis where you can sort of change your career and grow up on and is that linked to what you're doing today? Yeah, I think like I think ultimately when when I joined Kazoo, basically like my role previously, as they said, was manager, right, manager of a team. And I thought I need to strip back all these variables and just go on one that haven't been practicing as much. So that's scary, that is individual contributor 100 percent. And when I was speaking again with my former manager, the first one I had a conversation with, she was like, because I was worried. I was worried, like, am I giving up all the work I've been doing as a manager? You know, I've been a manager for three years now. And that's valuable. Yeah. And that brings status, that brings salaries, that brings credibility. A lot of things you sort of. Yeah, you've built up something and going quote unquote, it felt like going back. Yes, it did. And she was so good. She said, you know, going back, you're just moving sideways. Because like she's like, you need to move sideways because you're being working the consultancy ward for all this time. So it's impossible for you to get exactly the same role with the same recognition in a place that is so different, like in apps, right? So you need to do a lot to remove. And then I was like, do you think I need to take on the responsibility of land managing? And she's like, no, just just start from the basics. Do like the individual contributor role as good as you can. So then you can build it up. But basically she was like, if you just if you start with individual contributor, then you start managing, you're going to have too many responsibilities to actually understand if you write the role as it is stripped back. And it took me so much effort to strip it back like with my counsellor. She would say, like, I stripped it back all the weight I had on my shoulders and just focus on what I really, really enjoyed. And I really like a metaphor, right? Because it felt like over time I just built up I need to manage people and I need to take care of the practice and I need. And all of a sudden I was like, you know, forget that this goes away. This goes away. What a bare minimum. I really, really like I'm really passionate of doing. And that sounds like very freeing. And hopefully people will be able to not build up that weight on their shoulders in first place. Like that's that's the ideal situation. But what would you say took you maybe so long to come to this realization that you want to go back or rediscover the things that actually get you excited? What did you say at the beginning? Sorry, Mark. Well, could you have discovered this sooner? Like, I think I think I'm happy with how long it took me to get it. Because like, so coming from Italy and even Shanghai and the Chinese experience, I thought there was one way to progress. There was managing people that that is a very like typical way of thinking, right? And then I remember when I joined a future gov, somebody said, I'm not interested in managing people, but I want to grow as senior as I can as an individual contributor. And that was the first time I heard it and was like, what is the really thing you must be kidding? You know, you need to be ahead of in order to actually have some legitimacy in whatever you do within a company. And that started planting seed. I think the UK design market, the design field is so mature that actually it's a good place to have this conversation and to expect more. It took me a long time because that's where I was coming from. So I was coming from this mindset. There's one lit near pathway, everything else, I don't believe in it. It's just fake. It's not true. We're just talking about it, but it's not true. And therefore I tried going for it. And I'm now, I think it has everything in life. You don't try it. You don't know if you like it. I think like some people know from the beginning, they don't want to let me manage, right? Or some people know from the beginning, they want to let me manage forever. I thought I was going to be like one of the people that always wanted to manage people and to have that kind of role. But now that I'm in this role, that it's more senior, practitioner role, in particular from a, yeah, from a service design perspective, it's, it's a brand new role within because, but I really like the space I'm asked to operate within without having to take care of the people. Because they're at the level of complexity and responsibility that actually right now doesn't allow me to do my best job as an individual contributor. Yeah. So within this environment where you're in right now, there is, there is the space to grow as a practitioner, to develop your craft and, and become like in many fields, like you have juniors, media and senior practitioners or even principal practitioners. And that's the path you're on right now. Yeah, that's the game you're playing right now. Yeah, correct. So at Kizu, you need to be, not every organization is like you said, mature enough to offer this opportunity. No, it's not even because like, I think if a team is very small, they might need some managers, you know, or they might need, even like as an individual contributor, there are different levels you can work within. So like to talk, can I describe it to be Kizu, the structure so that it might be helpful. So like Kizu, there are different worlds, taking different teams, taking care of different parts of the journey. I work within the orders world. So whenever we get an order in from actually when we deliver the car and within orders world, there are about eight tech teams that work specifically on one bit of the journey. So payments or checkout or, you know, consumer finance, or if somebody wants to go down the route of getting a financed agreement to buy the car. So imagine like these are all little Lego blocks that they're all taken care of and I'm part of the leadership. So within the leadership, there is myself, my counterpart, that is a principal engineer. And then there are, there is head of product, head of engineering and UX manager. And the lack of free, they're all managing people as well, to be honest, even the architect, but I think it's just temporary. So I really like when one is about really connecting all the dots about the experience in our world, it's adding myself and the rest of the leadership, trying to combine all these dots and design this experience. So you see like I work in an altitude that is a, it's a 30, it's a 30,000 feet. I'm not working at an altitude of 1000 feet. There is about, there's this problem with this button, there is this problem with this form, you know, because of the altitude, there are other individual contributors, they are like juniors, designers, senior designers, lead designers. They are more looking downwards, you know, this thing of a service designer is looking downwards, but then looking upwards. So I think that's the beauty of my role, that I can look upwards and look at the strategic objectives we have at Skazoo and connect them with the end to an experience we want to deliver. And then equally, when a specific team or there is a specific initiative that is possibly cross teams that somebody has to work on to actually understand what's wrong with it, that's the role I can play as well. So it's, I play a different attitude, but I don't go down to the most granular one usually. I'm curious, based on your experience so far, now that you're in this new role and you're exploring this path, what are you doing today to make sure you, you stay true to yourself and the thing you love to do? So the other day, somebody said to me, oh, if we hire for this other role, would you like to let me manage it? What's the moment? I was like, oh my God, you're testing me again. And I literally like, I asked, is this compulsory? Do I need to do it? And I said, I don't think so. And then I said, I think I'm fine then. Again, I want to understand like what's the impact of that kind of decision on my growth within the company. But I think for at least a year, I want to straight truth to this individual contributor role to really understand, you know, is this right space for me? Because even though probation, the introductory period is three months, honestly, my experience has me that you lead at least a year within within a company to really understand how it works and what you can do, what you cannot do, what's your level of influence. So I want to give it this time to to understand better. And then in case I understand what are the variables again and decide which of these I want to, which of these I want to change again, or maybe not. And staying true to yourself, that's that's like a thing that maybe is always evolving. You're growing as a person. You're you're getting kids. You're getting married. You're changing locations. So what's true to yourself today will maybe be different in six months time. And I'm serious, but that can be hard to make explicit for yourself. Like you described a situation where the opposite was true, where you discovered what is true to yourself by doing something which isn't true to yourself. Have you found a way to what are your ways to make sure that you know what the thing is that you want to be pursuing? That's very tricky. Because right now I think I feel like I'm in the place where I want to be. So I don't feel the itchiness, you know, of something wrong, you know, but ultimately I think we all have a gut feeling about situations. It's just that it's just that because of how we work as a society, we are less used to listen to our gut feeling and we always need a rational and we always need to spread shit and we don't always need a business case. So I think it's there's about the gut feeling that we should get more attuned to listening and listening in more. And yeah. And I think the other thing I would do always is to give a time frame to things, to experiments I'm doing. So, OK, as I said, I'm giving this a year time to understand if the individual contributor role is my thing. With the head of I remember telling myself it's a year time, you know, I always do this with myself as we're used to do like a hypothesis based design. This is an hypothesis. I think I would like the individual contributor better because I know this is true or not. If I say it's the same thing. So I think second, considering these experiments and they are like very scary experiments to be honest. So what's what makes them scary? That they can force you to think differently from what you thought you would think, you know, I always thought I wanted to be ahead of and telling myself I love it. Actually, it's nice. The salary is nice, but you're actually doing a job that you're not happy with. It's a very it's a very scary truth to tell yourself, right, because you thought you were going down the route and all of a sudden you're you're telling yourself, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, so it alters yourself image like the vision you have of yourself like how am I growing up? Which direction and and it could potentially in a very fundamental way alter yourself image. And the expectation you have of yourself and the expectation other people have of your of you. Yeah, and you're hitting the nail on the head there because I remember like one of my worries and I think your your image and the perception of others because how much of your image is actually a contribution of what you expect others to to desire for yourself to or to expect from yourself. And I remember like and I remember crying my eyes out when I made the call about this job and I cried my eyes out when I told to my team that I was living even because I felt the weight of not only my expectations, they're always heavy as rocks, but even my teens. So imagine like you're part of a team and you look up at this head of and all of a sudden this head of is telling you I don't want to do this job anymore. I want to do something completely different. And actually now that I think back to it, I think it's a very liberating thing for them as well to see. Because like if I see me doing not because it's me just because of the role I play in their life that I was their head of. If I see me doing I think then or maybe they're already there because they're more mature and Gen Z is it's this incredible generation of people. But possibly some of them they might look at me and say, oh, Ali did it, you know, I said the president. So representation, right? I can imagine that you feel the pressure of don't want to let other people down and you're projecting expectations that they might have of you and put all the weight on your shoulders and the expectations. You still did it. And that makes me really curious. What were some things that eventually pushed you over the edge to say, no, I must change this? What gave you the courage and the confidence to do that? First of all, because I'm this creature of habit that like change. And that's the I'm bad person. So every so often I need to have a change. So that's who I am. And then because I was just too tired, I wasn't doing my job. I wasn't happy anymore. And like every new challenge that will come up with the old rule, I was really exhausted just looking at it. I wouldn't feel that, you know, when you're like in an uncomfortable position but healthy and comfortable, I feel this thing in my guts that is like, oh my God, this is really making me nervous, but it's good nervous. While everything was gone, I didn't feel the tension anymore. I was in this complete passive state of, okay, nothing is coming up. Yeah, nothing will change. I would do it, you know? And that's just not how I work. I'm like, I've got a strong fire with me. And then I know that of course, sometimes it's very big and sometimes it's very tiny. And then sometimes it lives up again. But I just get worried when it just stops because that's not how I am. So, and to be honest, I recall the moments when I quit the old job and I was so nervous. I was like, oh my God, am I making the worst mistake ever? But ultimately, what's the worst scenario, right? If I realize that the individual contributor rule is not for me in six months time, in a year time, I go and find another one. But I would get exposure from doing so many different things in my career. I just think that for me personally, it's just boring to get stuck somewhere and do it for the rest of your life. You've got one life, like possibly a good 25 years, 30 years of career. And then that's it, right? So I know what I want from my life and I want not continuous change, not crazy change, but like a good pace for change to bring some novelty to expose me to new stimuli. And this like, what's the worst thing that can happen? I think that still scares a lot of people. Like not being, you have to have a certain level of self-confidence to give an answer to that, that gives you the courage to do things differently. Now, one thing I was thinking about is you've gone through this experience. You've seen that you can be in a position where you're not excited and passionate, where the fire is basically all out. Do you think you're able right now to make sure you don't get in that situation anymore? Like can you be two steps ahead? No, that would be weird. I think, I mean, I don't think you have to be in a situation, go full in. And then I always say, I'll see you once I get there. It's very hard to decide right now what work and what won't. So yeah, but the question, the scenario I'm thinking about is, what if you would introduce change at the moment that you're sort of still excited? So rather than waiting for the moment where you're sort of basically too late, like it feels almost like ending a relationship which almost happens always too late. Like you always say, we should have ended this like a year ago. And in a relationship it might not be smart to end it like a year earlier, but in a career you might be in a situation where you think, you know, it's going pretty well. Now is probably the time to change things up. Is that something that's going through your head? No, I usually think like that when, because I'm quite, that's the other problem with me is that I'm very loyal, very loyal. So that adds another issue because then I would feel like I'm betraying you, I'm betraying the company, you know, I know the kind of thing. So I don't wait for the first moments where I'm like, oh really, to I'm capable of passing through the first storms and stuff like that. I give it a go, I'll give it a proper go. And I remember when I started thinking about I should leave Future Gov, I was in so tight of Future Gov of a former company I was still happy with it, but I was like, you know what? I could do with a change, you know? That's a very different mindset where I got to when I actually left that I was like, this relationship is really, really over. I really, you know, I got to the point where I said, I'm either quit for another company or I'm quitting anyway, you know? And that's the place where I wouldn't like to go again. I would like to be able to understand that it's over a little bit sooner. But I think in that case, in that scenario, the pandemic played a key role because, so yeah, I was thinking about maybe it's time to move on as soon as the pandemic started and then the pandemic started and then that made me reconsider everything because like I had a two years old baby boy with me and yeah, it was really enough challenges to take care of and starting a new job then, you know, it wasn't a good idea. Yeah, so there's a limited amount of change that you can sort of comprehend at one time. But still I'm thinking about that career development should be an active process. So always be having in mind like this is the next step I want to move in rather than hoping that by coincidence it comes on your path because I feel that in a lot of situations that's their reality, that's what happens. People are in a situation, they're comfortable with, they're doing the thing and you stay where you're comfortable for many reasons like salaries, loyalty and all the other stuff. But you're not in that sense, you're not actively growing as a person and as a professional. Yeah, I like the, you know, the free circles. You have been fun, you're earning lots or you're learning lots. It's very hard to have a place where you do all these free spring together. So you better pick, right? Your next challenge, what are you gonna do? What are your drivers? Is there a moment where you want to learn lots? And, you know, that's fine. Is there a moment where you actually want to learn? Is there a moment where you just want to enjoy yourself, you know, and have a little bit of a light-hearted experience? That's fine as well. But I think these are good drivers to think about it. When you've been a manager, you've had a team, you've worked with many people, do you now recognize some of the early signals in other people that you recognize in yourself? Yeah, I help people making a call, like when I was a manager. I was like, I think it's time for you to move on. So what are the signals? What gives it away? What do you recognize? Just stay, they lose interest. The fire is not there anymore. Everything is a burden. Everything is a problem. They don't find alternative solutions to the thing. Whatever is a problem. Yeah, they're kind of stuck. When you get stuck, I think, if you're not self-aware, then possibly your manager could help. I think I was glad that in my latter part of my career, I had good managers that were good managers beyond the company they were working for. So they could really make me think beyond, you know, my role then in that specific moment. Yeah. Now, one of the final things I'm interested in is, if you look back on this experience, what's the thing that you sort of realized that was an option that you hadn't realized before? So you had an image of the only way is going into management. If you now look back, what was the biggest insight that you wish maybe you had found earlier? And that's always challenging, but... It's a very tricky one, but it really speaks up my... of myself that you can always reinvent yourself if you really understand what is your passion. And it talks about the personal image, the expectation of others. But in a way, I knew the individual contributor role. I had lots of indicators, you know, they were telling me there's something there, Ali, for you. Like, for example, when people in my... the whole company was working for, they would say, I would never be a manager. I really enjoyed just coming up to the problem space. I would always look at them and say, oh, that is so interesting, you know, that is so interesting. And I was kind of attracted by it. Or what people would tell me, I don't want to let my manager manage people. And they would just say so freely. They was like, oh, okay, that's interesting. You know, I was continuously attracted by this thing of people doing something else than what I thought I was supposed to do. And then little by little, I combined all the pieces, my frustration, my interest going that direction, my interest in understanding more about the problem we're trying to solve, and not just with you, a team who's working on it, really understanding the real causes and everything that I made the math, two plus two. But it was so tricky, so, so tricky. Like, I had to repeat myself. It's fine. I'm who I want to be. It's not, I don't own anything to anybody. And it's so freeing. Like, it's so freeing that right now, even the fact of being ahead, I wouldn't be interested in that. It's not my thing right now. And like this discussion, Mark, of course, it's right now, Friday's 10th of whatever day it is, and 10, 59, this is the time, this is the day, right? This is where this is happening, and this is where I'm thinking like that. In six months' time, it might be different, but it's where we need to have enough self-awareness and a support network around us to make a reflect. Yeah, and that self-awareness is key. I was thinking like there are so many hidden, limiting beliefs about what you can do and can't do, that it's really good to make them explicit and sort of maybe even write down the things that you think you should be doing for yourself, by yourself, by others, and which of those things are actually true, and which of those things are just images in your head that might potentially be holding you back from doing the things you love? Absolutely, 100%. So if you project this further, what are the things right now that you think you need to be doing, which might just be a story you're telling yourself? Or have you let go, or are you completely open to anything that emerges right now? Both, to be honest. So I gave up to the whole idea of managing a team and managing people. I completely let go there for now. My expectations towards myself are very, very high always. So as an individual contributor now, I've got another problem that I want to know everything about everything all the time because I'm like, I'm an individual contributor. I should know everything about the problem, you know? And that is another lie because who would on earth know about everything about everything if they don't have a time or if they're working on something else, right? So this is a limiting belief I have right now that I check, I spotted myself telling it to myself the other day, to be honest. Yeah, so I know there is a not healthy belief because that adds pressure and doesn't help me doing my best job. And I know where it's coming from, but yeah, I think that's the main one. Sort of heading towards the end of this conversation, I'm curious, what would you say to people who are maybe in a similar situation as you were, I don't know, three years ago, five years ago? What kind of advice would you give maybe yourself or them in that situation? I think connected to what I was saying earlier, I would always say, give it a try even if you're slightly interested in a thing, I would always say give it a try. Think about it as an experiment. So give it like a timeframe. And then the other thing that I alluded at the beginning was at the end of the experiment, trying to make a distinction between what you loved, this is what they told you you were very good at because that's a very sticky place. Because of the self image and the expectation of others, if somebody will come and say you're such a good manager by the end of your experiment, it will make it complex for you to make a call that actually, yes, you're very good, but you don't want to be a manager. And it takes some time, but I think it's a very important distinction to make because you might, you know, I still remember like as a child being taught, oh, you're not very good at dancing, but you're very good at drawing. Yes, but who cares? If I like drawing, you know? If I like drawing and drawing is what really fires me up, why should I give it up because I'm not good at it? I can put in some work, you know? And so it's a childhood example, but it's the same thing with work. You might be particularly good with one thing, maybe because with management, you're very self reflective. You put in a lot of work to understand how you work and therefore how other people might work, but that maybe is not the place where you like to be. You maybe, in my case, I know because I'm so much self reflective, I like better to spend my time in the problem space so that then I can go back to the self reflection in my own terms. And not every time I've got a one-to-one with one of my people. Yeah, and taking that proactive role about self reflection, I think that's a common theme throughout this conversation. Taking charge and control of that situation could be super beneficial to anyone. I'm curious, do you have any recommended resources that might be helpful for somebody who's got sparked by this conversation and saying, okay, I'm not yet in that situation where I sort of feel I need to change, but it might not be a bad thing to explore more about what is it that actually I wanna do any. Books, blogs, YouTube channels, podcasts. So when it comes to the individual contributor role, there are a couple of places where I've gone to read about individual contributors. They really helped me because reading what is their thinking, I was like, ah, I think the same. So there are two places that I know because I don't remember them. One is Kraft UX Design CC, and the other one is Stuff Design. These are two very good websites. And then there's another thing that I remember that somebody shared with me is a career wheel. So it's like a self-reflection tool when you think about all the aspects of the career I can find and maybe I can send you a link, Mark, about all the aspects that make you as a person and then understand where the weight is for you in that specific moment and it's fine. Sometimes, even like in your personal life, you might decide that the weight now is on your family or the weight now is on your job and then maybe the weight is on your self-development and so on and so forth. So I think, again, we've got one life. It will be a pity to get stuck in a role, in a position, in a company that doesn't make us happy. We have got all the power to actually craft it. We are designers after all, right? Yeah, and sometimes we forget that to do that for our own lives, which maybe sounds like a daunting test, but if anything is worth designing, it's our own lives. That's the thing I would say. I'm sure to link to all the resources you mentioned in the show notes. One final question. If you had to summarize our conversation, our last 45 minutes, what would you say? Having a hypothesis-based approach to craft your career, basically, I think that's the gist. Cool. Yeah, yeah. Having a hypothesis-based approach to your career, and maybe life in general. Yeah, yeah. Treat life as one big prototype. Yeah. That's interesting. I'm really grateful that you were willing to come on the show, share your personal experience and the things you've learned. I learned a lot. I think it's a topic that definitely deserves more attention. So once again, thank you for highlighting it. Thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure. I really hope you enjoyed this conversation with Alessandro and got something useful out of it. If you enjoy conversations like this, make sure you click that subscribe button so that you don't miss any future episodes. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.