Battling uncertainty

I've always been the type to be uncertain about my own abilities. Even at work, where I am practicing skills I've had for over 25 years, where I usually feel pretty confident in my abilities, where I sometimes even become a bit of a prima donna, even there I am easily nudged into a state where I'm not so sure of myself.

This is a hundred times worse here in Halifax, where I've been asked to do something I know I can do, but for which I'm very uncertain about the approach and the scope of my mandate. I'm also at a disadvantage because I've never worked on this type of product before, and ALL the products I'm working on are this kind.

I asked someone today if they thought that would be an advantage or a disadvantage. I thought it might be an advantage in some ways, as I am coming into this without any preconceived notions. The first thing the chairman of my committee said to me when we first discussed this project was "forget everything you ever thought you knew about ____." But this person I was talking with today thought it was a disadvantage. After he said that, I began to wonder if some of the aloofness I'm feeling from some people is because of that. Because they don't think I'm the right person for the job.

I *thought* I knew a lot about this business, but most of what I'm hearing lately is proving me dead wrong. I guess I know a fair bit about the part of it I've been working in for the last 15 years. But I know nothing about this other part. I don't know how much of a handicap that will be for me. I will have to spend a lot of time learning. Time that I might have spent in other ways. Maybe this is good. I'm coming in with fresh eyes. But maybe it's bad - I may overlook issues I have no idea even exist. That could create mayhem when it comes time to implement my new processes. (Note from the future: this did in fact happen in at least one case, when it turned out I tried to implement something that was next to impossible to do because of technical limitations I was not aware of.)

But...and I have to keep reminding myself of this...my boss here wouldn't have hired me for this if he didn't think I could do it. Obviously my work on the special project I did last year impressed him. Also, they hired ME to make recommendations, not to do what everyone else wants me to do...or not do.

I'm running into a very curious situation here. Design is arguably the least important part of what this larger committee is challenged with doing. What I have to do comes after everything else in both execution and importance. How our product looks is not nearly as relevant to the user as what the content is. My job is to support the efforts of the other committees by creating a look that makes their work shine, and also that makes it easier to accomplish at the production stage. That's my job. And I have to decide the best way to do it, regardless whether this person is unhappy about going through this process again, or that person thinks their product looks fine just the way it is, thanks, or whether some people think this process will only affect some products and not others.

What I mean to say is that, while design is the least important factor in achieving the mandated results of this larger committee, the people at some of the offices seem to feel MOST threatened by the possibility of what I'm doing. I see them sitting there nodding their heads at all the talk about changes to the process, to our service side, to our internet approach, but when it comes to design, they all of a sudden get real tense and start making objections and asking lots of hard questions that I can't even answer yet.

I've seen this reaction before. When I first started working for the office that first hired me in Ottawa, we had weekly meetings to critique the product. Myself and all the managers would sit in the boardroom and the aim was to discuss what we'd done well and what we hadn't done well that week, with the aim of improving the product over time.

Those meetings, every single week, turned into a critique of how the product *looked*. They just took the easy way out and critiqued the way it looked, ignored the content, and went away feeling like they'd accomplished something.

This is the attitude that has people nodding blithely over MAJOR changes to our content approach, but getting all up in arms when a redesign is mentioned.

Me, I think all the products could stand some improvement. Some MUCH more than others. Some are already doing well content-wise and would only see an improvement with a more cohesive design approach. I think my recommendation will be to redesign all the products. Build them all on the same templates - and in the end they will see that no two products will really look the same.

Creating one design for all products is sounding sensible to me. They can share content. They can even share manpower if necessary. It will reduce the time it takes to do the job, and allow people to concentrate on what they SHOULD be doing.
See? Now I'm feeling better. More like the Diva I truly am. ;-)