You don’t need permission to do your job
Drive around the potholes
Here’s a fun way to start your day: explain the value of your job function, after you've been hired, while you're trying to do the job you've been hired to do!
Actually that is not fun. Nor is it a brilliant use of your time.
Why does this happen so often to content designers?
I have a theory the size of an iceberg! Or really the shape of one. It’s because people only see the tip of what you do.
Specifically, people see a bunch of words.
If those people are of the writerly ilk, they’ll also see the mechanics behind the words. Rarely though, does anyone glimpse the whole Titanic-sinking behemoth of strategy, research, validation, mapping, and meaning you’ve scaffolded to support each string.
And because they can’t see the work, they might think it’s easy to do and therefore of questionable value.
It’s the buffoon who sees a Picasso for the first time, only to say, “I could do that.”
This buffoonery around content design bothered me. Maybe it has bothered you. Today though, let’s lay it to rest and reflect instead on this truth nugget: Your job isn’t to explain your value, it is to do the valuable work you were hired to do.
Imagine arriving to work on a foggy Wednesday, coffee in hand. You are offered two desks to sit at. One desk is where you’ll sit all day in a state of elongated panic, perfecting a deck of 24 slides meant to convince someone that your work matters. At the other desk, you will sit in normie levels of work stress and do your work.
Where would you rather spend your time? Where would the business rather you spend its time?
Chances are that both you and your business agree that you really do need to be getting to work, thank-you-very-much, so… who or what benefits from that neat slide depicting twenty different content design deliverables matched to design phases?
Our imposter syndrome.
When asked, “Why do we need content design at this company?” we hear “Why are you here?” Being prone to both narratives and documentation, we immediately set to building a fortress of of explanations, examples, and resources that will defend us against the most stalwart of reputation repudiations.
Waging a one-sided war is exhausting.
So, instead of jumping to a well-crafted and multi-paged answer, pause, and reconsider a less effort-full approach:
“Why do we need content design at this company?” is not really a question for you to have to field. Your offer letter answered that question. Your subject matter expertise was required, approved by the business purse string pullers, and now you are here. Swag has been ordered just for you, friend. If the question persists, your hiring manager will surely be able to answer.
People naturally fear and avoid what they don’t understand and many people don’t understand content design. If someone asks, “What do you do?” assume good intent and tell them you design content. If they look blank-faced, send them to any of these resources: The Content Design Manifesto, Candi Williams’ Config talk from 2023, or even Smallish Book.
If anyone asks you to create a deck about this job, resist the urge to comply. Not one soul on Earth needs a hand-crafted, personalized, explanation of your value as a content designer. Every permutation of “Why you need to hire a content designer” is free and easy for them to find online (see sources above). Do not waste inordinate amounts of time diluting perfectly useful narratives into half-hearted PowerPoints that will die when you leave the company.
Less deck-making means more time for your craft. In time, you’ll show not tell your value.
What about the baddies?
So far, the scenario has assumed a well-meaning but uninformed person needs to be directed to information. Tedious, yes, harmless, yes. However, if your instigator is intentionally requiring you to seek their approval just to do your job, this is different. If they are obstructing you, consider this your permission to blow their obstacle-creating butts to oblivion:
Left out of meetings? Hold your own sync. If people call it out as redundant, you can agree with them and suggest that they include you in the original meeting!
Excluded from key updates? Set up a weekly Slack message to the excluder asking for links and statuses on their work.
Being outright ignored? Give feedback to your manager or an ally in leadership and ask to be switched to a different project.
Design partner not giving you context? Go to their source and ask them for the same context. When the source tells you it would be easier to give you and the designer the context at the same time, you can bless them because they have seen the light and are now your ally.
These are also not fun, but they are effective. Creating a healthier work environment for yourself is a better use of your time than trying to convince others to improve the environment for you.
The raw truth is that this job will never be without arguments. But few are. Maybe an ice-cream truck driver?
Programmers face pushback on their expertise all the time, so did the lead scientist at Chernobyl, and the head of the CDC. Simplifying complexity is complex, and this is as complex as writing jobs get.
There will always be people who don’t get what you do, and why you do it.
What I’m suggesting is to stop centering them. Center your curiosity, your skills, your most-exciting-thing-about-this-project, and your spark. Shift your focus to the parts of work that put wind under your wings. Show ‘em what you’ve got, even if they don’t know what it is. A good friend once told me, “Stop waiting for them to pave the road and drive.”
You don’t need permission to do your job.