INDUSTRIAL DESIGN: the best designer never beats the best storyteller

It took me too long to learn why certain designers kept getting promoted past me. They weren't working harder, and some weren't working better. They understood something nobody teaches. Every project generates two things, the work itself and the story told about it when you're not in the room. I only managed one of them.

If you don't shape that story, someone else will, and they'll cast themselves as the lead. You built the deck but didn't present it, so the presenter gets remembered. You solved the hard problem but someone else wrote the summary email, so the email gets remembered.

The fix isn't spin, it's authorship. Present your own work every time. Send your manager five bullets every Friday. After the big meeting, write the recap and sign it.

Great work matters, but unseen work gets valued like it didn't happen.

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