When facing uncertainty, the hardest part isn't finding advice. It's figuring out how to learn from your decisions and adapt in real time. Your career progress depends on it.
That's wisdom through practice. Most designers don't have a method for it. Instead, they wing it, wait for others to take the lead, or choose the safest option. That can work for awhile, but eventually winging it stops being enough.
Markets shift. Roles change. The situation you walked into yesterday isn't the one you're facing today. And most of what you've learned as a designer, whether in school or on the job, hasn't prepared you to figure out what works when the pressure is real or the stakes are high.
That's when you need something else. A system to grow your ability to adapt, so each decision sharpens the next. But most designers don't have the frameworks, the community, or the executive perspective to create that themselves.
At CDO School, we teach you how to adapt to business in real time.
I spent years at Apple and in executive roles where I saw which design initiatives got funded and which got killed. I sat in the rooms where budget cuts and strategic pivots were decided. And here's what I learned:
Career growth doesn't come from following a playbook or plotting a specific path. It comes from building the ability to make good decisions in real-time: reading the room, adjusting your approach, and solving problems creatively as the situation unfolds.
That's what I teach. Not design theory. Not static business frameworks. But the real capabilities you need to navigate what's actually happening, whether you're stepping into a new role, moving through a transition, or leading a team.
We do this three ways:
- Our Toolkit gives you immediate access to six years of refined methods and frameworks I've built and tested with 2,500+ students. One complete digital resource. No subscriptions. No forced community. No artificial progression. Just the complete collection of tools you'll reference throughout your career.
- Membership is a year-long, invitation-only learning network where you commit to quarterly reflection and share insights twice a year. You learn how others approach the same challenges you face, and you get a curated digest that reveals patterns across the entire community. Membership includes monthly live events and the Toolkit.
- Labs (coming soon!) are five-week peer learning cohorts: 6 people, one per company, solving real problems together in live sessions. No lectures. No homework. Just structured problem-solving with carefully matched peers, guided facilitation, and guest voices from our alumni. Labs include the Toolkit.
This is learning that comes from a place of excitement, not anxiety.
Because when you're surrounded by people who push you forward, not just teach you formulas, that's when real growth happens. That's when you gain the confidence to influence the right people and the clarity to advance your career.
CDO School isn't just for senior design leaders. It's for anyone who wants to grow, not just keep up.