Meaning and purpose on design teams with Audrey Liu, VP Design — Lyft

Podcast by Cells and Pixels

Early in August, I talked with Audrey Liu on my Instagram Live Cells and Pixels. Audrey is a VP of Product Design at Lyft, previously a design director at Thumbtack where she helped build their team. I had a blast chatting with her about her style of leadership. Her honesty and transparency is incredible, and you’ll definitely feel inspired by this talk.

Check out her episode and some of my highlights from our conversation.

🎧 Listen to the full episode: Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify

4 foundational pillars of a strong product design team — Based on episode with Audrey Liu

Before Lyft, Audrey grew Thumbtack design from 5 to 18 people in 14 months. It was the first time she was scaling a team this quickly. Here are a few things she learned…

1) Trust
Building trust is the foundation of everything. Trust is the glue that will make a team successful. If you can’t trust your team, then your team can’t trust you.

2) Human connection
Make sure you know people personally and that there’s a strong human connection on the team. Having fun, laughing… those are important small things, especially during these hard times. Keeping things light will make people comfortable asking harder questions, too.

3) Vulnerability and humility
No one knows 100% about everything, including leaders. Make your full self accessible and know that it’s OK to not know everything. Be open to learn and to get feedback from others.

4) Meaning and purpose
Keep the team connected with your vision and mission. Bring team members to user studies and conversations. Make the impact more human and tangible than just numbers.

📺 I am hosting weekly talks about Product and UX at Instagram every Tuesdays of the month at 5pm PT / 8pm ET
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Interested in joining the Lyft Design team? We’re hiring.