I saw a comic this week about how to become a senior designer. The punchline: stop waiting to be told you're ready and just step up. It landed. But it's missing something.
Stepping up isn't about being loud. It's about finding the leverage.
In 2008 I was the web manager at Humboldt State University. Full time, real job, real clients.
My job at that moment was to translate a Housing and Dining rebrand from print to web. Standard stuff. I did it.
Then the assistant director wanted more. Could we digitize the application process? Ten pages. Printed. Manually entered into their system by staff. Every student. Every year.
Sure. I built the form. PHP, MySQL, nothing fancy. Students filled it out, staff got a spreadsheet. Done.
But then I looked up
I went and found the IT director. Not because anyone told me to. Just because it felt like there was more leverage somewhere. Turns out there was a proprietary file format their system could ingest directly. I learned enough to rewrite the script.
Staff never touched that data again
The director wrote later that "it was a complex project and we were a demanding client." That felt right. It was the first time I understood the difference between executing the ask and finding the lift.
I think about that a lot now that I lead teams.
There's a failure mode I've watched play out more than once. A manager gets a simple ask. Weeks pass. Then you get the update: they've formed a working group. They're building a framework. They're scheduling time with SMEs to validate the approach.
Meanwhile the ask is still sitting there
This isn't laziness. It's a tool mismatch. If every environment you've ever worked in rewarded process, process becomes your default response to everything. Including problems that just needed a Slack message.
Process is a tool. Scrappiness is a tool. The job is knowing which one the moment needs.
That's range. And here's the thing about range: it's not a seniority unlock. It's a habit.
In 2008 I didn't have a framework for learning PHP. There was no infrastructure, no established process, no playbook. I just learned it because the moment required it.
We're in that moment again
AI is rewriting what design work looks like in real time. The playbook doesn't exist yet. The designers and managers who are going to find the leverage in this transition are the ones willing to open Claude or Gemini and just mess around until they become dangerous. You can't do that if you're wrapping yourself in process waiting for someone to hand you a framework for how to engage with it.
I wrote about this before. AI won't replace designers. But it will separate the ones with range from the ones without it.
You don't have to be built like me to do this. Some people need structure to do their best work. That's real. But every designer, every manager, every person trying to grow needs to be able to read the moment and ask: is this a process problem or a people problem? Is this a framework moment or a just-go-find-out moment?
The comic is right that you can't wait to be told you're ready. But stepping up isn't a personality trait. It's a read. Find the leverage. Provide the lift.