Finding a colleague who truly understands and appreciates you, and whom you feel the same way about, is one of the most fortunate things that can happen in your career.
Recently, I've had many conversations with a designer on my team.
Let's call him D.
Before joining our firm, D had never been involved in software development. At the time, UI concepts and software development terminology were completely unfamiliar to him.
In fact, when we first introduced a designer role to our team, even our CEO questioned, "Why does an AI department need a designer?"
Naturally, D sometimes wondered whether he could truly bring value to the firm.
To reassure him, I once told him:
"It's not that the firm needs you. It's that I need you to help me build this platform."
But the truth is, D already had a solid foundation in design.
He is incredibly patient and has a remarkable ability to untangle complicated business rules and existing data structures, transforming complex information into clear, easy-to-understand diagrams and visualizations.
He makes things that once seemed difficult to understand accessible to everyone.
Over time, colleagues from other departments began turning to him more and more often, asking for his help with all kinds of complicated and challenging tasks.
Sometimes, seeing how much work he takes on, I actually worry that he's pushing himself too hard. 🤣
And now, things are changing.
I'm preparing to leave the firm. Our platform project has been put on hold, and the organization is about to undergo restructuring.
That question D has carried with him for so long seems to have resurfaced:
"What value can I actually bring to this firm?"
But I believe the answer has been within him all along.
He just hasn't quite learned to trust that inner voice yet.
I told him that design is everywhere.
Why is organizing and presenting information so difficult for so many people in our firm?
I believe the real challenge isn't simply the patience or attention to detail required to organize data.
It's about understanding the context behind the information and using design to transform complexity into something that most people can easily understand.
It sounds simple, but not everyone can do it.
And that's exactly what D has been doing all along.
Everything can be designed.
That's why, among everyone affected by this organizational change, D is actually the person I'm least worried about.
Because I know he has always been designing.
He has developed his own way of thinking, his own guiding principles, or what I would call his own Dao (道).
Through this personal philosophy, he approaches the complexities of the real world, makes sense of them, and finds ways to rethink and redesign them into something meaningful.
I think that's also why we've become such good partners.
Because we each have our own Dao.
Even though we come from different professional backgrounds, we often find ourselves on the same wavelength when discussing ideas and planning our next steps.
We understand each other's perspectives, challenge and inspire one another, and keep moving forward together.
Over the past three years, we've accomplished a great deal together.
And looking back now, perhaps leaving isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Sometimes, the end of one chapter gives us the opportunity to rediscover ourselves and finally recognize the answers that have been within us all along, even if we were never quite ready to believe in them.
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