UX Leadership and Influence

Joe Natoli

UX Leadership + Strategy Advisor

You're good at the work. But it's becoming clear that isn't enough.

Your ideas get ignored, your recommendations get shelved, and collaboration feels like a constant uphill battle.

In this workshop, Joe Natoli helps you turn internal friction into collaboration, build trust with stakeholders, and grow your influence as a UX professional.

Learn practical frameworks and tools you can use immediately to become a better communicator and a more influential UX professional. Turn internal friction into collaboration, earn respect from stakeholders, and advance to more senior roles.

No fluff — just actionable strategies that work in real-world conditions.

You’ll learn frameworks for diagnosing communication breakdowns, building stakeholder trust, and understanding the business priorities that drive decisions.

Skills that build your influence and separate you from everyone else.

What you’ll learn

Learn to navigate resistance and influence decisions so your best work moves forward. Leave with practical tools to handle pushback.

Diagnose why your recommendations stall, even when the UX work is solid.
Identify the business priorities, constraints and politics affecting your ability to make progress.
Define your value beyond deliverables with your own 8-word mission statement.

Turn UX recommendations into stories that connect with what stakeholders care about.
Ask questions that uncover the real concerns behind objections and demands.
Reframe conversations around shared priorities instead of defending your expertise.

Pinpoint where communication, expectations and collaboration are breaking down.
Apply the UX Value Loop™ to identify what's causing friction and what needs to change.
Use the Five Requirements to build trust, earn respect and create stronger working relationships.

Evaluate decisions through four lenses: product, process, people and politics.
Use the Feasibility Matrix to weigh opportunities against competing priorities and constraints.
Frame tradeoffs around business outcomes, user needs and what's actually achievable.

Identify the gaps between how you want to be perceived and how others experience working with you.
Change the behaviors that undermine your credibility and reinforce those that earn trust.
Draft a UX Charter that clarifies your role, responsibilities and expectations.

Challenge requests and assumptions without becoming defensive or confrontational.
Practice ways to say no that preserve relationships and open up better options.
Reframe difficult conversations around risks, tradeoffs and shared outcomes.

Workshop agenda

Part 1: Why Good UX Work Isn't Enough.
Discover why expertise alone doesn't create influence. Explore the forces shaping organizational decisions and identify where your skills, responsibilities and influence diverge.
Part 2: Understand Resistance + Change the Conversation.
Uncover the fears, pressures, and incentives behind pushback. Practice translating difficult stakeholder demands into more productive conversations in the Fear Translation Lab.
Part 3: Make Better Decisions + Build Alignment.
Learn to connect UX recommendations to business priorities, weigh competing demands, and use the Feasibility Matrix to focus teams on what matters most.
Part 4: Lead Without Authority.
Learn to push back without damaging trust. Practice navigating competing priorities, tradeoffs and difficult decisions in the Executive Meeting Simulation.
Part 5: From Reacting to Leading.
Identify the behaviors that limit your influence and decide what to change. Leave with concrete next steps for earning trust, speaking up and guiding decisions at work.

Learn directly from Joe

Joe Natoli

Contact

UX consultant trusted by Fortune 500s, Gov't agencies and 400,000+ students.

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Who this workshop is for

UX + product designers and senior UX team leads tired of fighting the same battles over and over.

What's included

Live sessions

Learn directly from Joe Natoli in a real-time, interactive format.

Lifetime access

Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.

Community of peers

Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.

Certificate of completion

Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.

Maven Guarantee

Your purchase is backed by the Maven Guarantee.

Testimonials

Joe demonstrated a remarkable ability to distill practical concepts into accessible and actionable insights, encouraging a new vision for our team and our role within the organization.
The workshop was not just informative; it was a transformative experience that aligned our team's purpose with business objectives, setting us on a path of renewed motivation and cohesion.
Nikki Zawol
Design Leader
Joe brings a rock-solid foundation in design to the table, but what truly sets him apart is his ability to cut through red tape, office politics, and noise to uncover what really matters — for users, stakeholders, and teams.
Joe has a rare talent: he brings clarity to chaos without ever making people feel small.
Chris Lenhart
Lead UX/UI Design Engineer
Joe Natoli has a rare ability to cut straight to what matters in UX storytelling and leadership. He quickly surfaced blind spots I couldn’t see: placing proof at the top, turning hidden stories into obvious value, and translating my work into clear ‘X solved from Y’ statements that actually resonate with recruiters and product leaders.
Joe’s guidance is intensely practical. His direction helped me articulate my role as a Fractional UX Leader with far more clarity and authority.
Andrew Seymour
Product, Experience & Transformation Leader
Joe explains all of the business-related aspects of UX Designer roles, including how to talk to stakeholders and people who don’t know what the heck it is that UX Designers actually DO.
He shows you how to speak their language, and how to get on the same page. I haven’t seen this taught anywhere else in such a succinct and valuable way.
Lisa Egan
UX Designer
Joe's one of the kindest and greatest minds in the industry. The amount of care and insight you will find in his courses is as personally enriching as it is professionally rewarding.
Take advantage of this offer and give your UX design career a huge boost forward.
Alex Corvin
Designer & Strategist
Joe’s real-world examples and hands-on approach helped bridge the gap between theory and practice. His emphasis on actionable takeaways and problem-solving is particularly valuable for those leading and mentoring product design teams.
Stumpy Avjean
VP, Product Design