Understanders and Influencers
Understanding is not enough
When it comes to making decisions based on research and data, there are two types of people: understanders and influencers. The understanders are the people figuring out how the world works and what users want, and the influencers are the ones that define roadmaps, have the ear of executives, and have a strong hand in strategic decisions.
UX researchers are natural understanders—we chose our profession because we want to understand how the world works and what users truly need. But understanding without influence is like a mapmaker shouting directions from shore after the ship has already sailed. Executives—captains of the ship in this metaphor—don’t wait for perfect maps; they set sail, driven by a natural sense of urgency and guided by some combination of intuition and the counsel of influencers who speak with conviction. If these influencers don’t understand the waters, their confident but ill-informed advice could lead the ship off-course.
In a previous post, I argued that UX researchers should stop acting like mapmakers and start acting like navigators:
Navigators don’t stay on shore, they set sail as part of the expedition! They’re actively working with the captain (executives) to chart the course alongside the rest of the crew (product teams), adapting to new knowledge (research insights) as it emerges, uncovering opportunities in real time.
Successful organizations require a healthy overlap between understanding and influence. Understanders should do more influencing and influencers should do more understanding. And it’s the job of UX research leaders—anyone from a head of UX research to an IC researcher hoping to make a difference—to bring understanders and influencers together.
It’s the job of UX research leaders to bring understanders and influencers together.
We as UX research leaders cannot wait for executives to ask us what we think or hope that some forward-looking executive will invite us to a magical meeting where we can finally show them the light. Rather, it’s on us to drive this. And we can do it in two ways: first by helping our own team increase their influence, and second by helping executives, product managers, designers, and other stakeholders increase their understanding.
Increasing influence among UX researchers
Here are three concrete things UX research leaders can do to increase the influence of their teams, their colleagues, and themselves:
Understand the business: At the end of the day, the success of the business is the only thing that matters. And the people who you really need to influence—executives—are always worried about something. Great UX researchers make it their business to know executives are worried about and make sure their research speaks directly to these concerns. This takes research from merely interesting to indispensable.
Build two-way relationships with influencers: Time spent talking with an influencer at your company is extremely high-leverage, especially if you stay connected on a monthly or even quarterly basis. These relationships make it much more likely that these influencers will open the email you send summarizing your latest research, or pay attention to a Slack post linking to a highlight reel of pain points. And be sure to make these two-way relationships in which you keep abreast with what’s on your colleague’s mind and you’re consistently sharing a key insight with your colleague. And don’t wait for the insights to be perfectly polished—it can often be more interesting for an influencer to hear a work-in-progress insight than a fully fleshed out one.
Think in terms of decisions: UX researchers like to think in terms of user needs and jobs-to-be-done, and of course these are helpful. But they’re ultimately just means to an end, and the end that matters is a business decision. That could be a micro-level product decision (“what’s the best label for this button?”) or a macro-level strategic recommendation (“which projects should we prioritize this year?”). Make sure any UX research you or your team does is always informing at least one specific decision, and keep track of how research influenced decisions.
Increasing understanding among influencers
When I refer to “influencers,” I’m talking about anyone who carries weight with executives. This includes the executives, themselves, but also refers to VPs, directors, and senior managers who through some combination of charisma, relationships, and organizational politics exert influence on strategic decisions.
Here are three concrete things that UX research leaders can do to increase the level of understanding among these influencers:
Expose influencers directly to users: Maybe you’ve seen it—a key stakeholder attends a couple research sessions and for the next 6 months they keep referencing the same interview that they personally observed. That’s because there’s no substitute for firsthand experience, and it’s a lever that often is underused. Whether it’s a key stakeholder attending just one interview or a group of executives sitting in on sessions for the day, the shorter the distance between influencers and users, the more they’ll understand about users. The best version of this is a research trip, as it takes everyone out of their daily routine and maximizes the attention devoted to understanding.
Reinforce insights through repetition: I’ve found that the best, most breakthrough insights often need to be heard at least five times before they’re internalized. As insights are forming, share sneak-peeks through video clips, stories, and bullet points in Slack, email, and casual meetings. Mention an insight you’re pondering during a hallway conversation with an influencer or when you bump into them at the snack table. When the time comes for a formal shareout, record the meeting and share it widely. Follow up with an email and a Slack post highlighting the key insights, and follow up again with a monthly recap of your team’s most important insights. This might end up feeling like overkill (“ugh, how many times do I have to say the same thing?”), and of course you don’t want to be obnoxious about it, but heard often enough the key insight will eventually break through.
Sketch ideas out visually: Sometimes insights go in one ear and out the other, especially when someone is already thinking about a dozen other things (which most influencers typically are). So I like to switch up the modality of communication from words to images, whether that’s a group ideation session after a research shareout, an ad hoc jam session in Figma where you’re riffing on ideas with a designer and a PM, or napkin sketches with an influencer during a 1:1 meeting. The point isn’t necessarily to advocate for a particular design, but rather to use the design sketch to bring an insight to life.
Conclusion
Understanding without influence is like having the perfect map but no way to get that information to the captain. And influence without understanding is like sailing full speed in the wrong direction. Successful organizations need both—the depth of insight provided by understanders and the ability to act decisively embodied by influencers.
For UX research leaders, the challenge isn’t just to deliver great insights; it’s to close the gap between understanding and influence. That means empowering researchers to think like influencers—building relationships, framing insights around decisions, and tying research directly to business outcomes. It also means helping influencers deepen their understanding—giving them direct exposure to users, reinforcing insights through repetition, and making ideas tangible with sketches and prototypes.