Dive Club 🤿 – Episode Summary

Episode: Catt Small – How Staff Designers Build Influence and Lead as ICs
Host: Ridd
Guest: Catt Small (Staff Designer, formerly Asana, Etsy, SoundCloud)
Date: September 12, 2025

Overview

In this in-depth conversation, host Ridd interviews Catt Small about how senior and staff-level individual contributor (IC) designers build influence, lead without direct authority, and shape product direction in complex organizations. Catt breaks down practical tactics for relationship-building, visioning, managing up, and the “real work” needed to move from senior to staff designer. Key themes include storytelling, strategic relationship management, “glue work,” and the importance of political savvy in scaling one’s influence.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Staff Designers as Diplomats: Influence, Trust, and Social Capital

• Diplomatic Role: Staff designers act as diplomats, navigating relationships and structures of power as much as they produce hands-on design work.
• Signals of Influence: Influence is seen in being consulted for feedback, leaders seeking out your perspectives, and, importantly, ideas “traveling without you.”
  • “You are kind of a diplomat… You're going to be delivering a lot of in the pixels work, but a lot of the job is also understanding the structures of power.” — Catt, [00:00], [13:17]
• Social Capital: Measured by the strength and reach of workplace relationships. The more social capital, the easier it is for your ideas to be amplified and for you to operate vulnerably.
  • “Your ideas are traveling without you having to be the person saying them.” — Catt, [01:29]

2. Building Influence: Relationship Audits, Allies, and Power Structures

• Relationship Audit: Assess who you know, the strength of those connections (especially with stakeholders and leadership), and where you are "low on the totem pole."
  • “The first step is definitely surveying your relationships... Do you have most connections with peers? How strong are you with stakeholders?” — Catt, [05:59]
• Strategic Investment: Focus on cultivating relationships with leaders who influence your work. Schedule regular check-ins, come prepared with questions, and document/follow up on actionable items.
  • “The more that you are useful to your manager, the more they appreciate you and your work...” — Catt, [09:49]
  • Sample outreach: “Hey, I realized that we don't have a regular time to connect. I'm really curious about the way that you think about the work.” — Catt, [14:26]
• Politicking is Real: Recognize and embrace the reality of workplace politics; being deliberate about it is necessary, not dirty.
  • “It is politicking… it's the way the world works.” — Host & Catt, [13:13-13:17]

3. The ROI of “Glue Work” and Energy Audits

• Glue Work: Term coined by Tanya Riley, signifying the valuable but often invisible work that holds teams together—but may distract from high-impact contributions tied to your role.
  • “I noticed I was doing a lot of glue work… it had not very much to do with my actual job title.” — Catt, [16:59]
• Energy Audit: Regularly review where your time and energy are going. Ask: Does this contribute to my core responsibilities, or is it just filling gaps?
  • “What do you want to be known for? Is the problem you're solving actually yours to solve?” — Catt, [16:59]
• Refocus on Core Impact: For career progression, prioritize the work that aligns with your official responsibilities and drives business outcomes.

4. Defining and Presenting a Strategic Vision

Definition Phase

• Involve the Right People Early: Co-create product visions with product, research, and marketing partners to ensure buy-in and avoid “useless” output.
  • “A design leader will say, hey, we should do a vision, and then product is not involved... The number one way that a vision becomes useless immediately after it's done.” — Catt, [20:59]
• Story-Driven Frameworks: Build stories that unite customer pains and business objectives.
• Outline Before Fidelity: Don’t jump straight to “pixel-perfect” work—ensure the concept is solid first.

Presenting the Vision

• Format to Audience: Tailor presentations to how different stakeholders consume information (slides, write-ups, prototypes, video walkthroughs).
  • “They're figuring out the format that will resonate most with their audience… does the head of product prefer a write up, a presentation, clickable prototype?” — Catt, [36:11]
• Distribution is Critical: The work isn’t done after the deck is built—distribute and socialize it widely to increase organizational uptake.
  • “Distribution is the most important part of the process. Like, don't share the work, nobody knows it happened.” — Kyle Turman (via Catt), [36:29]

Approach to Fidelity

• High-fidelity prototypes are increasingly easy but can cause people to focus on details, not concepts—show multiple options and use overlays or wireframe elements to signal “work in progress.”
  • “If you're going to go the route of making these high fidelity prototypes… definitely suggest making several of them and showing several different options.” — Catt, [26:07]
  • “Maika would make the fidelity look really nice, but would add this blue overlay to the screen.” — Catt, [33:02]

5. Managing Up, Communication, and Momentum

• Proactive Status Updates: Regularly communicate progress to managers; don’t make them chase you for updates.
  • “These people are really busy. They actually do need the summary... you're managing up as part of your process.” — Catt, [33:35]
• Maintaining Vision Momentum: It’s common to lose steam after the first phases; keep reconnecting the work to business value and revisit the long-term vision during roadmap planning.
  • “Finishing the swing is usually what I refer to the ideal situation... teams do not finish the swing.” — Catt, [43:15]
  • “Bring up the vision at points where it's relevant… and ask, do we still feel like it's worth investing?” — Catt, [43:15]
• Focusing on Value Chunks: Organize your vision around discrete chunks of value, not just a linear phase-by-phase plan.

6. Adapting to Organizational Context

• Fit Your Vision Format to:
  • Timescale (near- or far-term)
  • Scope/complexity
  • Confidence in concept
  • Company design culture

7. Personal Growth and Teaching

• The Emotional Work of Design: Much of staff design work is managing emotions, teaching, and riding through ambiguity.
  • “I had no idea how much of the job was managing emotions and teaching until I had to sit down and think about teaching other people…” — Catt, [52:26]
• From Me to We: Growth comes from shifting your focus from individual advancement to understanding broader company needs and mapping the motivations of everyone around you.
  • “I am so much more focused on how I fit within the broader story of the company itself versus, like, me just spending a lot of time thinking about, like, oh, my PM is not delivering fast enough…” — Catt, [52:42]
• On Politicking: It’s normal and necessary; understanding and engaging with office politics increases your impact.
  • “Politicking feels really crappy at first and I used to be very anti-politicking and now that I understand much more about how it works, I actually think it's super interesting…” — Catt, [56:04]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Your ideas are traveling without you having to be the person saying them.” — Catt, [01:29]
• “The more that you are useful to your manager, the more they appreciate you and your work, and they will think of you...on the short list of people who can help them with certain things that they need to get done.” — Catt, [09:49]
• “Distribution is the most important part of the process. Like, don't share the work, nobody knows it happened.” — Kyle Turman (via Catt), [36:29]
• “Finishing the swing is usually what I refer to the ideal situation, which we do not always end up doing, I think.” — Catt, [43:15]
• “I had no idea how much of the job was managing emotions and teaching until I had to sit down and think about teaching other people...” — Catt, [52:26]
• “I am so much more focused on how I fit within the broader story of the company itself...” — Catt, [52:42]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 / 13:17: Staff designer as diplomat; importance of understanding power structures.
• 01:29: How to measure and recognize influence as an IC (social capital, “ideas travel”).
• 05:59 – 09:49: Building stakeholder relationships; actionable tactics for outreach and connection.
• 13:17 – 16:59: Auditing connections, “politicking” and navigating culture.
• 16:59: “Glue work,” energy audits, and focusing on work that drives career advancement.
• 20:59: Defining vision: making it collaborative from the start.
• 26:07 – 33:02: Presenting ideas: embracing (and qualifying) high-fidelity prototyping; matching fidelity to organizational culture.
• 36:11: Effective presentation and, especially, distribution of design vision.
• 43:15: Vision momentum and “finishing the swing”; handling partial delivery.
• 52:26: Personal growth as a staff designer: emotional work, teaching, and context.

Conclusion & Final Lessons

• To become a truly influential staff designer, invest in strategic relationships with decision-makers, audit your energy to avoid glue work, and ensure your contributions are visible, aligned with business priorities, and scalable through storytelling and visioning.
• Embrace office politics as the real arena of influence; developing comfort and skill here unlocks the ability to effect change. Much of the work is emotional—empathy and proactivity are key.
• Success is measured by how well your ideas live beyond you and the lasting reference value of your work.

Bonus Links

• Catt Small’s new book: The Staff Designer
• Catt's Maple course on building influence (discount for Dive Club listeners: Dive Club Cat)
• More resources at Dive.club

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