Most teams treat conflict as something to avoid. In this episode, I sit down with Yaprak Gültay Davison to talk about why that instinct backfires. We explore how healthy disagreement builds trust, improves decision-making, and helps teams move faster... without blowing things up.

What if the tension you’re trying to avoid at work is actually the thing your team needs most?

Most design teams say they value collaboration, empathy, and alignment, but rarely talk about disagreement. In this conversation, I sat down with Yaprak Davison, Head of Design at Goodnotes and former design leader at Spotify, to unpack why conflict isn’t a threat to good teams. It’s often the foundation of trust.

Yaprak shares how designers are trained to optimize for harmony, and how that instinct can quietly erode clarity, slow teams down, and lead to decisions being made without the right people in the room. We talk about the real signals of unaddressed conflict—delayed replies, passive agreement, quiet misalignment—and why silence often causes more damage than open disagreement ever could.

We also dig into what it actually looks like to lead through conflict: naming tension early, separating facts from the stories we tell ourselves, and turning disagreement into a co-design moment rather than a power struggle. If you’ve ever felt stuck “keeping the peace” while things quietly fall apart, this episode will change how you think about conflict and your role in it.

Helpful Links:
• Connect with Yaprak on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to “Leadership as Craft”

Topics:
• 02:49 – Diving into Conflict in Teams
• 03:18 – Guest Introduction: YRA Davidson
• 04:25 – The Role of Conflict in Design
• 05:45 – Managing Conflict in Design Teams
• 11:31 – Coaching and Cultural Differences
• 22:21 – Building Trust Through Conflict
• 25:21 – Scaling Teams and Systems
• 30:53 – Exploring the Concept of Followership
• 32:31 – Leadership as a Team Sport
• 33:40 – Balancing Leadership and Craft
• 35:43 – Building High-Performing Remote Teams
• 39:40 – Handling Remote Conflict
• 41:46 – Personal Insights and Advice
• 52:51 – Final Thoughts and Resources

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Design was supposed to be creative work. For a lot of designers, it’s turned into endurance. In this episode, I’m joined by Vivianne Castillo to unpack how corporate design culture quietly rewards burnout, why endurance gets mistaken for professionalism, and how designers can start reclaiming creativity, agency, and choice.

What if the behaviors that made you successful in design are the same ones slowly disconnecting you from yourself?

Design culture loves to celebrate resilience, but too often what’s really being rewarded is endurance: tolerating vague feedback, late pivots, constant urgency, and emotional labor without complaint. In this conversation, Vivianne Castillo shares why so many designers feel drained, disconnected, and quietly shrinking inside roles that were supposed to be creative and human-centered.

Vivianne draws on her background in trauma counseling, psychology, and design to explain how corporate UX environments often reward unhealed coping patterns—people-pleasing, hyper-vigilance, over-responsibility, and self-silencing—while calling it “professionalism.” The work still gets done, praise still comes, but the cost is creativity, curiosity, and a sense of agency.

We also talk about what it actually looks like to take that agency back. Not through dramatic exits or rage-quitting, but through small, intentional experiments: setting boundaries, asking better questions, redefining security, and exploring entrepreneurial paths without burning everything down. If your design job feels more like survival than creation, this episode is for you.

Topics:
• 04:57 – Vivian’s Journey
• 07:16 – The Toxicity in UX Culture
• 19:14 – Reclaiming Agency as Designers
• 29:20 – Unhealed Patterns in the Workplace
• 31:13 – Understanding Corporate Culture and Personal Responsibility
• 32:01 – Self-Silencing and Professionalism
• 32:30 – Endurance vs. Resilience
• 33:04 – Updating Unhealed Behaviors
• 35:34 – Navigating Toxic Workplaces
• 37:14 – The Illusion of Job Security
• 43:09 – Entrepreneurship as a Healing Experience
• 43:37 – The Walkout Event for UX Professionals

Helpful Links:
• Connect with Vivianne on LinkedIn
• Join the Walkout

—

Thanks for listening! We hope you dug today’s episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts! And if you really enjoyed today’s episode, why don’t you leave a five-star review? Or tell some friends! It will help us out a ton.

If you haven’t already, sign up for our email list. We won’t spam you. Pinky swear.

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get a FREE audiobook AND support the show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out show transcripts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out our website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on Stitcher