Evolution

An alternate title I considered for this essay was “Next Level”, inspired by my mother’s prayers for me. I’m not entirely sure that phrase means the same thing to both of us, but here goes for me.

Directing

In spite of writing this essay about the progression of my role at Paystack, I’ve struggled to accept myself as a director-leader. I’ve been so invested in the self image of being a maker that I’ve made what should be a pretty great career progression sound like a cross. It’s funny, if it wasn’t so ridiculous.

Enter Taru. I was on leave for her first week at the company (she calls it “firm” 😄) because it was my 30th birthday. This week I’m on leave again, but the difference between then and when I resume on Monday is nothing short of miraculous. Roughly a month later, my job has become so much easier.

Like me, Taru was an early employee at a startup — a research consulting firm. She worked there for two decades before deciding to join me to lead the design team as our first manager. After her technical interview we were all so floored, and I knew in that moment that my (work) life would be transformed after she joined.

It sounds crazy now that I ran the team for six years without a partner. Claire was a blip in that timeline, but Taru is like, next level. I’ve been so hesitant to own the “Head of Design” role at Paystack because it felt like a death sentence to my identity as a maker. But (again) it really is time to move on.

With Taru around, it should be much easier to lead. And tbh, there are other ways to be a maker at work. I’m learning that.

Making

The most flattering thing a friend called me recently was “art bro”. First, I’ll take anything other than “tech bro”. But also, I really like art.

I’m more engineer-designer, producer-director than say illustrator-painter, but an artist nonetheless. I was at a pottery shop with a friend the other day who introduced me as an artist. The lady turned to me and asked “what medium”, and I’d never considered that question.

Another interesting conversation: In one of our recent interviews with another engineer-designer turned director-leader, Taru asked something in the lines of “which of your skills would (or have) you let go of to be most effective as a leader”. The idea that it was necessary to shed one identity (including skills) to fully evolve into another was confronting.

In and outside of work, I’ve been trying to define myself. I sparsely write code or use Figma anymore, am I still a developer-designer? In another six months, I’d have produced an animated film and published a book. Does this make me a film director? A publisher? I write lengthy essays on my blog. Does this make me a writer? Does the album cover database make me a curator?

I have a knack for finding the right references when I’m thinking about a problem, and this excerpt from a journal I recently stumbled on captures it succinctly enough:

I love to play and I’ve forgotten how to. To make with no goal, to do without thinking, to try anything and everything because there is interest. I’ve spent so much of my early adult life pondering who I am and what my purpose is that I feel like I’ve been searching for things that I’ve always intuitively had. I love learning new skills, I love gently getting better at things, I love making things that are slightly wrong or make no sense at all, I love feeling little parts of my body activate as I try new exercises. I don’t want to have an identity with the things I do- I am not a painter, or someone that works out, or someone that has an interest in nature, I am just a person like any anyone else who loves to play.

I’m very interested in the zeitgeist. My medium is words and people. I like to make things, but I don’t need to define myself by the things I make.

Writing

Ultimately, the best part of being a director-leader is space. My work life (both Paystack and wuruwuru) over the next few months will mostly involve having ideas, talking to people and writing.

I’ve always wanted to write and share what’s going at work. In 2016, I wrote an essay called “the non-sharing economy”, basically extolling the virtues of sharing transparently. Over the last few years, I haven’t done a lot of that.

For example, here’s a picture of some of us on the team.

Eight people have joined this year. We’re represented in four countries. We have a Systems team now. The work is run by four design leads. So much has changed but not much is publicly documented. Similarly, the wuruwuru journal is much sparser than it should be.

Having space to write more might actually be the best thing about being a director-leader. Right there in plain sight, only took so long to see.