Building Relationships — Mallory Hartzler Design

Building sturdy team relationships

Leadership and organizational psychology research consistently shows that sturdy relationships built on foundations of trust and psychological safety lead to better performance and stronger engagement on teams. As a design lead, I focused on creating recurring connection points within and outside the design studio to build relational mastery between studio designers and stakeholders at multiple levels within the organization. These efforts led to greater efficiency, quality, and energy management, and allowed the team to build scaffolding in situations where organizational structure was lacking or in fast-moving environments and projects where uncertainty was high.

Primary role: UX and Accessibility Lead

Time frame: February 2021 – November 2023

Individual

Co-created monthly 1:1s with designers to support team growth and energy needs

The pandemic shift from onsite team to remote work left the team feeling drained by constant video connectivity and in need of clear but flexible structure for project and career growth support. Based on growing neuroscience and engagement research, I co-created monthly 1:1 agendas with each individual team member based on shifting needs and priorities and created an open policy for audio-only walking 1:1s—where context allowed—to create much-needed space for movement and energy reset.

Evan, Senior Product Designer, KeyBank

“Mallory is both thoughtful and decisive. Mallory really steps up as a thoughtful and compassionate lead and helps me a lot whenever I feel like I'm in a rut. They provide clarity and a great perspective on large, sometimes abstract problems, and create an environment where I feel like I can make the necessary space for myself to solve the problem at hand.”

Team

Led weekly syncs with consumer digital designers and team leadership

In any given week, my team of 4 designers worked with a variety of team members and partners and needed ways to compare notes with other designers about how their respective work was progressing and keep an eye on how each team member’s work fit into the bigger picture of consumer digital. I developed weekly syncs to ensure designers across all 8 squads were moving in step and, perhaps most importantly, ensured dedicated time amidst our full schedules to remind each team member that they were part of a design TEAM, and not alone in the often tumultuous consumer digital universe. In addition, I liaised with the head of consumer digital weekly to ideate solutions, escalate issues, and collaborate on next steps with the broader team.

Melissa, Product Designer, KeyBank

“Mallory makes my day instantly better. She is a ray of sunshine. I love how she kicks off meetings by building relationships with things like asking what people are grateful for and what we’ve learned recently.

I know I can always count on her for useful tactical advice and words of encouragement to complete tough challenges. She proactively removes blockers sometimes before I even realize and articulate what they are. Having Mallory in my corner is a game-changer and something I’ll always be grateful for.”

Organization

Brought cross-functional perspective and context to organization-wide priorities

Leveraging my systems thinking and pattern recognition skills, I participated in and brought necessary context and perspective to weekly cross-functional team meetings with product owners and managers. In order to bring organization and structure to support the design studio as a whole, I co-created meetings for design leads to maintain and nurture ongoing connections across product teams. In collaboration with another UX lead, I quickly developed the content and structure for an interactive training workshop for designers and leadership to help build the tools and confidence needed to form strong relationships that helped re-frame problems, products, and experiences and accelerated transformational growth across the organization.

Maria, UX Lead, KeyBank

“Mallory takes initiative. They have been an endless source of ideas. They’re always looking for ways to improve the way we work as a team. I enjoy brainstorming and partnering up with them for execution, like we did for the Studio Onsite session on Relationships Building.”

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