AR2021-Two Jobs in One: “Leader Who is a Researcher” and “Researcher Who is a Leader” (Nolini Kotamraju, Salesforce)

—> Thank you everyone for joining me today, and inspiration, and I’m glad to be conference with participants who have such commitment to research

 

 

—> I remember my point when I thought of myself as researcher,
  • It was a hypothesis about the effectiveness of laundry detergent versus hand soap, in a science fair experiment
—> I built upon my passion and people’s theories and asked data and imperfect answers, and it sustained me through my career
  • Worked as researcher for industries and companies
—> Research is at the core of who I am, and my calling

 

 

—> I don’t remember the moment when I began to identify as a leader
  • I recognized moments at work when people expected me to be a leader, and asking for the vision of the team. Other incidents included:
    • Complimenting my brand as leader
    • Justiyfing company decisions that were made
—> While I had decades of experience ins research, hadn’t thought much about leading
  • Manager was something silly to me

 

—> So I applied all research goodness to be a leader, looking at literature, interviewing leaders I admired, observing leaders I wanted to avoid emulating, and thinking of ways to be  a leader

 

—> I also analyzed employee surveys and looked on my feedback as a leader

 

 

—> As I threw herself into leadership,  I realized that books implied I had to leave my discipline in order to be a leader

 

—> For the most part, leadership was talked about as being distinct from training or discipline
—> So how should I think of the duality of my role as researcher and leader?

 

—> First, some context around my current role
  • I work at Salesforce (50,000 person company) that makes CRM cloud-based software
  • Companies hire Salesforce for whatever software is needed to interact with customers
  • I lead a Research and Insights team of ReOps, strategists, and others

 

 

—> In five years, I found the ability to grow as leader, along with certain discomforts

 

—> I will share three types of discomfort  I experienced in this talk

 

—> My first years at Salesforce were in leading and maturing the UX research team,  improving/growing the team, and ensuring the best possible insights

 

—> Part of UX leadership team, and reported to SVP of product design
  • Sat in leadership meetings, and debated budget for UX team
  • Debate was lively, and she raised point about spending money
—> Someone said I was wearing “UX research” hat not “UX leadership hat”
  • Recognized being leader in UX meant prioritizing what was best for entire UX org, not just research
—> So what was I leading?
  • Career was focused on building best outcome for research, regardless of broader UX team impacted
  • Success of team was built on focus of research and what was best for research
—> Leader role meant I had to see myself as  a leader, full-stop, and making decisions on behalf of UX organization, without betraying my  identity as researcher

 

—> Early on in tenure, sat in on meeting with significant product decision.
—> I advocated moving researchers into product making meetings
  • Accomplishment in that research function was represented at high-level of decision making
  • Sense of having full seat at table
—> Up to that point, naively though that data reigned supreme
  • Understood people made decisions that deviated from data, but thought that was due to better data being out there that contradicted what was found in UX research
—> Stunned by debate, in that product leaders  didn’t have more data than UX researchers did
  • Debate swirled around best course of action
  • I thought aloud why couldn’t I get more data from customers
—> Room, made significant product decision with data that they had, and ignored  my suggestion
  • So why wasn’t I taken seriously at meeting?
—> The more I reflected, she came to the following conclusion
  • Identity variables did play a role
  • Main reason, was that I solely relied on her instincts as a researcher
    • I.e. Ask more questions, get more data
    • A “Wait there’s more!” approach to research
  • Wasn’t useful in overall context, and giving leadership version, and cop-out of more data is needed
—> Leadership response is to make best decision possible given what we know now
  • People always think there’s more to know and believe we have have responsibility to learn more, and here more from customers
—> In meetings, I’m at now, distance and time between analysis and decision is short, and the consequences big
  • The closer you sit to business decision you accept the limitation and inadequacy of what needs to be produced

 

 

 

—> Periodically, Salesforce conducts company wide survey to assess employee satisfaction
—> UXR responded with fervor to study and took the process seriously
  • Similar to large company, survey questionnaire has stable measures and experiments with new ones, once in a while
—> My pet peeve I this survey was double-barreled question
  • (i.e. Rate a statement, but the statement contains two elements that don’t have relationship with each other, such as, do you agree desert is delicious and chocolatey?)
—> Disgruntlement with question was in two ways
  • #1: Lack of actionability (i.e. which variable is being measured, and how do you measure it)
  • #2: Anger on behalf of the survey designers, and how anyone could create such a bad survey to go out to the company s a whole?
—> As leader, I see only more and more opportunities for better quality research.
  • Part of  my mandate to apply high quality methods to research question
—> However, do I have a responsibility to evangelize research throughout entire company?
  • How much should I think about research and quality throughout a company?
—> In this instance, I found myself with colleagues and asked them to explain why have that double-barreled question?
  • It turns out there were incredibly legitimate reasons behind why the question was worded the way it was
    • Research in the real-world is full of compromise

 

 

—> Mark Nevins, a leadership mentor, said:
  • Mode not a title, as anyone can be a leader
—> Leader is accessible to all, but I don’t experience it that way emotionally
  • Researcher knows what I’m responsible for- turning data into insights,
  • Researcher role doesn’t keep me up at night
—> As leader, I’m responsible for team’s well being, legal commitments, fiduciary resposnbilites, team culture, and delivering right things for business at sacle
  • Along with research
  • Responsibility and accountability keeps me up at night

 

 

—> So I shared three discomforts on the duality of being researcher and leader
  • Leadership at scale is at odds of leadership of team. I need to choose between greater good of team vs. company
  • Making decisions on limited data,  recognizing that business decisions force us to act right away (and I need to learn to like it more)
    • How often does I need to carry torch for quality research, how long, and to which places in company?
    • Even if I had unlimited hours, I can’t evangelize good research practice as much as anyone
—> Normally  I would offer solutions, but I’m just sharing acknowledgement of discomfort I have had in my role as a leader
—> I’m sure I will experience more discomfort
—> Final story
  • Joined meeting (online) with group of colleagues to see review of multi-disciplinary collaboration (research, product management, etc.)
  • I knew the designer who convened the meetin
    • Showed something to get feedback  from executive leader
    • I asked who was leadership? And the designer said it was me

 

 

Q&A:
  1. One of the themes of today has been about how to communicate/translate research for influence and impact. Given that that is one of the challenges of the discipline, I wonder if that’s also a perception barrier for researchers to see themselves as leaders?
A: 50% of work getting it done, but getting it used is the other 50%
— People are not as comfortable with work of persuasion
  1. Addressing the “UX Lead” vs “Researcher ” divide,  is this more of an organizational problem, a topical concern, or something else?I feel like I’d approach it really differently (i.e. with different level of stress) if I understood it as “navigating org dynamics” vs. “changing what I’m talking about and valuing”?
A: In larger org as a leader, you need to be collectively responsible for more than your immediate team
  • Greater good/ tragedy of commons approach
  1. Is there ever a situation where the best leadership decision is to put off the decision until you have more data? I wonder if the urgency of all the decisions is real or imaginary
A: Instances where one can push back on urgency
—> As one advances in org, you face decisions like do we buy this company, and some things we have to move quickly on
  • Repercussions of failure can be very big, and people want egos storked
  1. How do you prioritize research within the scope of your team’s work and other ways research can contribute (and potentially have a higher impact)?
A: There can be an easy decision matrix, but what’s interesting is when there’s a research priority that emerges out of left field and important to company
  • If that’s the case, focus on creating enough space to accommodate sudden shifts in priorities
  • How good a system do you have to prioritize right thing, without buying out the team

 

  1. You’re in a management position, which obviously has a built-in leadership component. I’m curious about your advice for folks leading from the bottom up or middle out.
A: May be unsatisfactory answer. Success  was in knowing all pockets of organization
—> As more of the company hears about research work, the more it reinforces research work
  •   People underestimate who findings can be shared with broadly and managing outwardly
  1. Wondering how much control you feel you have in choosing how much time you spend in researcher vs leader role/mindset/expectation?
A: Don’t know
—> Times where I am in researcher mode, around jobs to be done
  • Bigger responsibilities you get, the more distance you get from methods
—> Sometimes about being called on as being researcher
  • Don’t have control over that (both good and bad)
  • Some of it is being in setting where someone asks question, but you know there is a way to answer the question being raised
  • Being asked to solvable problem
  1. How do you handle difficult questions from your research team about the compromises you’re making for greater good?
A: Transparency and honesty about only approach. Sometimes talk about greater good, and have luxury to be values driven in decision making
—> Thinking of company as collective, and accepting the anger the team may have at the compromises
  • But anger can be about lack of transparency, and truthfulness
  1. What is the process of moving from UX to strategy?
A:  Whole different talk
  • Don’t know if caught Molly Stevens where she talked about future of research and positionality within feature
  • Strengths of what she says, as long game and right business decision
  • People think of research as where team sits in
  • Broader question is business rationale, and point where broader range of skills and strategy need to be answered
  • Complicated, but not spur of the moment and an organizational decision