Sometimes those awkward, lovable humans we work with are perfectly pleasant colleagues, sometimes they’re… not, and sometimes, if we’re lucky, they turn into great friends and mentors. My old Head of Product Dom is absolutely the latter.
He’s moving on to new things now, but for 5 years we spoke pretty much every day as we worked tirelessly to establish Product within the company; teaching people what the hell it is and continuously championing its approach to solving business challenges. The results coming out of our Product team’s latest experiments represent a sea change for the business and that is one bazillion percent down to Dom’s leadership.
Honestly though, business impact is great and whatever, but it’s his impact on people that will have the most lasting affect, certainly on me.
He exemplifies what it is to lead with empathy. Companies say they care about people, but often that’s basically “we give you perks”, which is nice and all but not why I get out of bed. Dom actually listens to you, he meets you where you are, he treats you with respect and trust. He sees you as a person, not an employee. And it works. The team he built was super engaged, motivated and genuinely cared about each other - a culture you can’t nurture with resource management or by writing it in a slide deck.
He’s also flying the flag for the pensive introvert. There’s a lot of chat in business, but a wise voice isn’t always a loud one. Dom will sit patiently taking in a discussion, let everyone talk themselves out and then hit you with a considered, wise, zinger of a point. His self-assurance not to need to be the loudest in the room is inspiring and proves there is a different, effective way to communicate. Hell, the world needs more Doms.
I could go on all day but I won’t. Such public affection goes way beyond my British values of sarcastic cynicism.
Ultimately all this complicated, ‘important’ work malarky comes down to a bunch of people spending time together day after day after day. If one of those people happen to be Dom, you’ve done alright.
🍻
It's me, Sim
Discovering and solving the most impactful user problems via design thinking and design doing. I care about the real world impact of the experiences we build.