I am Oliver Muñoz, the founder of UnusualA digital studio based in Melbourne. Nowadays I concentrate less on fine pixels and more on leading teams in time zones to do their best work.
After more than ten years of freelancing, I decided that I wanted to spend more time with my family and less for the computer. My first son was about to be born, and I knew I had to make a choice: keep designing every detail myself, or step in leadership and create more room to be present at home. That decision to delegate and trust others was the moment that I really tried creative leadership.
This story is not about pixels, code or prototypes; It is about what is needed to lead creatives in time zones and cultures to a shared vision that wins prizes.
Origin of Leadership
I always wanted to give a good example, but during my office years the chance never came completely. It could be because I was freelancing, maybe it was my profession, or maybe it was the fact that I was an immigrant. Sometimes I felt that I had to work double to get half that far.
One crucial moment came after the contract of a global office for twelve months. The designer director offered me a full -time role as a senior designer, but I only agreed that she would guide me in a leading role within six months. She couldn’t commit herself, so I refused on the spot. That was when I realized that leadership was not something that I would get; I had to create the chance myself.
Build a worldwide team
At Uncommon I believe in bringing in the right experts for every project, regardless of where they are in the world. The foundation is always the same: communication, cooperation and clarity. Those three pillars do not only apply to us internally; They also extend to our customers and their teams.
We rely on all the usual communication aids, but with one rule: every project discussion must live in the special Slack channel. In this way, time zones do not become bottlenecks; Someone in Europe can wake up and scales through everything that is discussed in Australia the previous day without losing context.
The other challenge is culture. Many of my team members do not speak English when their first language (mine is Español/Spanish), so sometimes feedback can come across as bone or even hard when literally translated. Part of my work as a leader is to read between the rules and to ensure that nothing is lost or is misinterpreted in translation.
Creative sessions and cooperation
Every project starts with a strategy workshop with the customer. Because of geography, not everyone can participate in live, so we document everything and share it with the team. From there, every creative space is given to independently explore, investigate and design. A few days later we regroup online, share progress and create new ideas of each other’s work.
I encourage the team to look for inspiration outside the obvious. If we design a booking system for health care, don’t just look at other health care apps; See how airlines deal with complex flows, or how Airbnb information structures. Loan what works and apply it in unexpected places.
Different perspectives inevitably lead to different opinions. When we hit an impasse, I return to the short and the workshop findings to guide us. It often comes down to a cultural context; The way something works in the US is not necessarily good for Australia. Fortunately I tend to choose employees who are already a few steps, so real impasse are rare.
The human side of leadership
Leadership at a distance means that I cannot have control over the environment in which my team works. Distractions happen. Sometimes it is tempting to accept and continue the first idea for a small component. When that happens, I ask the team to park the safe option and to keep looking for something more inventive. It is not always popular at the moment; People can get frustrated with me, but when the work recognizes colleagues or even industries outside ours, the team sees the value to go one step further.
I also learned that I don’t need all the answers. Initially I tried to solve everything alone. Now, when in doubt, I let the team debate and I find their way ahead. They are the experts. My job is to steer, not to dictate. Sometimes the best leadership movement is just to pause, breathe and let go.
Management for results
Awards were never the goal. They are a pat on the back, not the finish line. At the end of the day, a prize is just the result of voices from people you have probably never met before. What more matters is that the work solves the customer’s problem in a way that surprised them and us.
That said, prices have a practical advantage. Customers discover us through those platforms and it helps to attract the kind of people that vessel appreciates. So although they are not everything, they have become part of our strategy for growth.
Style and values
I don’t see myself as a director with a rigid script, but more as a coach who is the stage for others to shine. Part of my task is to recognize strengths, namely who will thrive on a marketing website versus who excels in product design and bringing people into the right role.
My non-negotiations are openness and empathy. I have to stay open to better ideas than mine, and I have to understand when life outside work influences someone’s pace.
For me, humility means to surround myself with people who are better than me. If I consistently produce more or better work than my team, I have hired the wrong people. The best sign I do well is the worst designer in the room.
Search Back
Every project brings challenges, distance, culture and deadlines, but the most difficult moments are usually about trust. Trusting the team to explore without floating, trusting myself to take a step back and let them solve problems. The lesson I always come back to is that leadership is less about control and more about creating the conditions for trust to grow.
Inspiration and advice
Early in my career, after a failed internship, the creative director pulled me aside and said, said, “I have been to your country, eat your food, spoke with the locals. You have to embrace who you are and where you come from; that’s how you will succeed.” That advice stayed with me. Play to your strengths. Try not to be something that you are not.
For everyone who leads a worldwide distributed team, my advice is simple: a cultural context. Your experiences are not the same as those of your team. Take the time for informal, human conversations that are not about deadlines. Questions about someone’s cat or weekend can go beyond you think.
Looking ahead, I hope that leadership will be more relaxed, becomes more human. Less about the suit, more about the pleasure. We all have to remember why we started doing this in the first place.
Seal
This project has proven to me that creativity does not live in a single city or time zone. It thrives when people with different backgrounds gather around a shared vision. In this context, leadership is about orchestrating that energy, not checking it.
I am not here to sell a course or a product. But if you want to follow while I keep investigating what it means to lead and create in a global, digital first world, you can find me on LinkedIn or Instagram. I share the victories, the lessons and sometimes even the doubts, because that is all part of the journey.
#Global #Design #leading #boundaries #shape #digital #experiences #Codrops