Bill Albert Gems & Julie Francis LIVE at 10am

Join me and Journey Mapping Goddess Julie Francis TODAY, Thursday, right here on Linkedin Live at 10am: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7341154796889919489

AND! S1E10 with Bill Albert is UP! You can now find it on all your favorite podcast platforms - just search for Corporate Underpants. And please share it with just one person.

Old pal Bill Albert, PhD and I had a fantastic conversation with plenty of aha moments and delightful tidbits. Here are just a few smart snippets and ingenious insights.

💎 1. When Research Is a Performance, Not a Process

Bill has seen research weaponized as proof rather than used for learning. When leadership wants validation instead of insight, even good researchers end up performing instead of discovering. It becomes a UX-flavored dog-and-pony show.

🧠 Lesson: If the outcome is pre-decided, it’s not research—it’s theater. Don’t be the stage crew for someone else’s story.

💎 2. The Hidden Cost of Acting Like an Agency

Bill warns that many internal UX teams fall into an “agency model,” where they wait for business partners to bring them work. It sounds collaborative, but in practice, it keeps UX teams reactive and tactical.

🧠 Lesson: If you’re always waiting to be assigned work, you’ll never be seen as strategic. Own a slice of the roadmap—or someone else will write your story.

💎 3. UX Maturity Theater Is Still Theater

Just because an org has a maturity model doesn’t mean it’s actually… mature. Bill described places with beautiful frameworks and no executive buy-in. There’s a difference between saying you’re strategic and being strategic.

🧠 Lesson: A high UX maturity score means nothing if no one listens to your insights. Look at the behavior, not the branding.

💎 4. When It’s Your Job to Calm the Tornado

Bill shared a moment where UX got pulled into a political storm. His job wasn’t to deliver wireframes—it was to stabilize chaos with research. In messy orgs, clarity is the deliverable.

🧠 Lesson: Sometimes the most valuable thing you can deliver is perspective. Research can’t fix the politics, but it can slow the spin.

💎 5. Shifting From Tactics to Strategy Takes Nerve

There’s no promotion ceremony when your job changes from “just make the wireframes” to “challenge the whole approach.” Bill says this shift is subtle—and scary. It means pushing back, stepping up, and risking tension.

🧠 Lesson: Strategy isn’t something you’re handed—it’s something you claim. Expect friction. It means you’re doing it right.

💎 6. Stakeholders Aren’t Users—They’re Part of the System

Bill reminds us: you’re not just researching users. You’re navigating a system of stakeholders, politics, incentives, and history. If you ignore that, your findings won’t land.

🧠 Lesson: Design doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Neither does research. Map the system, not just the interface.

💎 7. “We Already Know the Users” Means You Definitely Don’t

One of Bill’s red flags? Stakeholders who say, “We already know the users.” That’s almost always a signal that they don’t—and that they’re using that assumption to skip the work.

🧠 Lesson: When someone claims to know the users, don’t argue. Ask how they know. Then go look for the missing pieces.

Want more messy, honest, and actually useful conversations like this?

• Watch full episodes on YouTube

• Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen

• Or come yell about stakeholder chaos with me on LinkedIn or adlininc.com

XO,

Tamara