A comic illustration of Luke Skywalker facing Darth Vader and the Emperor within the Deathstars throne room. Darth Vader and the Emperor have butts for heads, and Lukes is transforming back and forth between a butthead and a human face. Credit:Me.Lets talk about working with difficult people, or as I like to call them, big ol buttheads (or BOBs, TM pending). Were surrounded by them; people who cant see the bigger picture. They refuse to move towards the greater good. They dont have vision. Theyre reactive, shortsighted, and maybe a little incompetent? Instead of building a bigger, better future, they choose only themselves and the tiny thing in front of them. Theyre uncollaborative fools so bent on their own goals theyll destroy everything else in theirwake.This is aproblem.I have had people like that in my work environment. And what makes me incredibly angry is when those people are in charge. A BOBs shortsightedness infects their entire organization. And while some may prefer a butt to an actual head, those under their authority are worse for thewear.And because of that, we need to stop them!Right?!?You know what feels really, really good? Slamming someone with a really strong, compelling argument! The endorphins! The rush!!! Dang dude You made them look like an idiot in front of everyone. That felt great,huh?!But you know what all that arguing didnt do? It didnt change your BOBs mind. It didnt disrupt the combative culture your BOB is creating. It didnt move your visionforward.And do you know what the worst partis?Your masterful argumentations and mighty slammings may have turned you yourself into a big ol butthead!!!Dont worry. If youve fallen to the dark side, youre not alone. Luke Skywalker faced his own BOB in Return of the Jedi. When tempted by the emperor to use violence to solve his problems and strike the emperor down, Luke gave in. In that very strike, blocked by Darth Vader himself, our hero became that which he hated. Luckily for him, his failure was short lived, and eventually, he was able to redeem his father, defeat the emperor, and party with a bunch of teddybears.How wewinIf were not trying to change the culture of our work environment, if were not trying to see the best in our coworkers and teach and equip them to be better, then were not doing what we should bedoing.We win by teaching, equipping, and redeeming the difficult people around us. Destruction and division may work in the short term, but eventually it will overtake and destroyus.We need to be patient. Creating real culture change is slow and it is very, very hard. So, what do we do instead? How do we keep from confronting our BOBs and assaulting them with their ownweapons?My strugglesI lead a design systems team. Were a shared services team, and its out goal to make designers and engineers lives easier. We are here to help. Were here to build shared tools and guidelines. Our priorities are consistency and efficiency. And the things we create allow designers to kick all the ass in their everydaywork.But I have worked with people in the past who dont view it thatway.They dont understand the value of a consistent design system. Instead of being a set of tools and standards, the design system is a catalogue of what feature designers have built. It has no relationship to the UI toolkits that engineers are using and can always be added to. And performing any form of due diligence or user research to validate a given component is a complete waste of time. It delays their real work of product feature delivery that needs tohappen.I have literally been in meetings with design leaders who have thrown fits at the mere suggestion of performing user research to validate a given components behavior patterns.In situations where Im trying to support design leaders who dont understand the value of the design system and dont have similar values that I have a designer, I have a pretty hardtime.And, I can get very, very frustrated.Im currently dealing with one of those situations. Our design system team serves a large organization with multiple design leaders. But there is one leader that Ive recently been struggling with. This person moves fast, and executes faster. But because of that speed of execution, their organizations work tends to be inconsistent and out of alignment with our design system. Several recent features have been blocked, because designs were handed to engineering that did not contain components in our toolkits. My team was only included after engineering blocked the work. And we suggested alternatives solutions, leveraging things that were already in our libraries.Unfortunately, the escalation of these issues has led to a tremendous amount ofdramaRunning from the FixedMindsetI just finished Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. Throughout the book, Dweck is exploring two ways of seeing the world. There is a Fixed Mindset, in which all ability, talent, and intelligence are viewed as fixed traits, inherent to your character. If your ability and performance is tied to your innate being, than effort is pointless, and the success or even critical feedback of others is a threat. God forbid you fail at something, because it demonstrates that youre not good enough. You should stay as far away as possible from any opportunity where you mightfail.Then there is what Dweck calls a Growth Mindset. This is one that ties your abilities to effort and learning. You understand that you need to put in effort to improve, even it it means failing for a while. Any critical feedback you get is helpful, because it can lead to your improvement. It views learning as growing, and therefore helps you persist through difficulties and setbacks.As I was reading this book, it struck me that the primary characteristic of a BOB is having a fixed mindset. Its the inability to be wrong, the unwillingness to learn, and the arrogance to refuse to change. Dweck has several examples of Fixed Mindset leaders who were too arrogant and fragile to build healthy cultures within their organizations.One of those examples is Ken Lay, CEO and Chairman of Enron from 19852002.Lay created a culture where appearing to be the smartest guy in the room was more important than growing skills. Instead of seeking honest feedback and making adjustments, they hid failures and manipulated financial reports to maintain an illusion of success. Lay surrounded himself with like-minded executives who reinforced his beliefs, rather than leaders who might have challenged him or brought in new perspectives. Employees feared admitting mistakes because the culture punished failure instead of treating it as a learning opportunity.This all lead to horrific fraud and financial collapse. A leader with a fixed mindset may create short-term gains that eventually result in long-term failure.In relation to my issues with this difficult, fixed mindset leader; it would be easy to be self righteous, to view this person as an enemy to be defeated. I disagree with how theyre operating and see it as shortsighted and potentially destructive to our design culture. I could lean into my arguments, put up roadblocks, and make work difficult for them. It might make me feelgood.But it wouldnt make thingsbetter.It wouldnt improve our work. I wouldnt be learning. I wouldnt be growing as a leader. I wouldnt be doing my job, which is to serve the rest of the design organization. So, instead of an enemy to be defeated, Im going to lean into my growth mindset. Were both on the same side, and if this person isnt as helpful an ally as Id like, then Im going to do my best to teachthem.Heres what Im trying todoFocus on what I can control. Working with fixed mindset leaders ishard.Over the last few weeks, drama around this leader has been very difficult. Decisions have been made that I am very frustrated by, and am afraid will severely impact the work that Im trying to build. Mental arguments, advocating for what I believe is right have consumed far too much of my mindstime.I need to focus on the things that I can control, and let go of the things I cant. And I need to do that without becoming overly anxious andangry.In this situation Im going to model a growth mindset by focusing on learning and improving rather than getting frustrated by the events that are happening. Im going to control what I can control, and deliver quality results there, even if whats happening is not what I believe to be the best for the business.Frame suggestions in terms of results without threatening ego. Dweck points out that fixed mindset leaders value outcomes and status. They often resist feedback, because it feels like critcism. When it comes to suggesting solutions, Im going to frame them in terms of what this leader believes will generate their desired outcomes. I need to do that without threatening their competence. Instead of pointing out their problems, and misunderstandings, I need to shift the conversation to problemsolving.Lead with empathy. Im doing my best to understand that this person is under a lot of pressure. They lead a large organization, and need to deliver results. Because of that, any blocker (even if its due diligence and user research) is a potential threat.And threats need to be destroyed.I believe that if I can empathize and understand where this person is coming from, I can speak to their fears and show them a better way forward. If Im going to win this person over, then I need to show how our design system and the work that we do will lead, not only to faster delivery, but better overall results. When we come into conflict, Ill continue to pivot focus to faster, more effective delivery due to the value of our designsystem.Be inquisitive. Just because I disagree with some of the things this person says, doesnt mean theyre wrong. If I want to maintain a growth mindset, then I need to view criticism as an opportunity for growth. For me, that means actively listening and trying to identify opportunities toimprove.Ive had multiple sessions with this persons leaders and have been asking a lot of questions. I really, really want to understand how our design system team can better serve them and theirneeds.After asking a lot of questions, here are some of the things that Imhearing:The design system team is viewed as a blocker. Decisions are made slowly and often proposals for change are rejected. This leads to frustration and avoidanceFeature designers operate as messengers, bringing decisions made by product managers. Being told no, or did you try this other solution when theyre just a messenger is frustrating.Designers are not clear on the design system teams priorities.Take action. Based off these insights, I think a major problem that has happened is that our design system team is not included early enough. Once a need for a new component, or component enhancement is identified, we need to be in theloop.Theres two ways we can approachthis:Approach it from the feature design side. Designers can be better educated on the importance of the design system and understand that what were trying to do on the design system team is create alignment between our Figma component libraries and our engineers UI toolkits. Designing components inconsistent with our UI toolkits means more development time, and potential accessibility and scalability issues in the future. With a better understanding of the importance of component alignment, designers will be better equipped to explore solutions and include my team when they know an update is necessary.Approach it from the product management side. Our product managers do not understand our design system and its relationship with engineering tools. Oftentimes, PMs are making the final decision on features. Without user research, designers are disempowered to take ownership. When a design has been approved by PM and they come with a system request to my team, theyre operating as messengers. Pushback from my team may be the right thing to do design system-wise, but feature designers dont feel empowered to do anything. And moving back and forth between PM and the design system team is really frustrating. Moving forward, Im including myself in PM design reviews. This will give me some insight into whats being shared with PM. And Ill be able to use it as an opportunity to educate PMs on the importance of the design system and how we can use it to create betterwork.Lets build a better designcultureWe need to lead by example. We need to model a growth mindset and demonstrated how it leads to improved performance. We need to celebrate learning momentums and highlight how adjustments and feedback lead to better outcomes. We need to be empathetic, and inquisitive, even when it feels like were being unfairly treated. If we want to see our culture change, it needs to start withus.An illustration of the author waving. Credit:Me.Hey yall! Im Trip Carroll, a design leader at Cisco and aspiring cartoonist.I write and publish a new article on design, leadership, and software development every other Monday. You can see more of my work on my website, check out my drawings on Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter on Substack.Lets make workgreat!Dont become the butthead was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.