Being talented is sufficient for my own sense of legitimacy. Recognition is contingent. Capability is not.
Talent does not guarantee outcomes
By Hazel Maria Bala
Talent didn’t insulate me from power
I used to believe that talent, creativity, designing, and solving problems functioned as protection.
That clear thinking, disciplined research, and responsible design practice created a kind of insulation. If the work was sound and thoughtful, the environment’s system would respond proportionally. That collaboration would outlast proximity. That correctness would eventually outweigh alignment.
This belief was not naïve. It was professional. It was also incorrect.
Design does not sit outside organizational power. It operates fully within it, and often with fewer formal defenses than roles whose authority is codified through revenue, delivery, or hierarchy.
This is not a personal complaint.
It’s a structural observation.
Power is not a deviation. It’s the system.
One of the most useful corrections to my thinking came from the work of Jeff Pfeffer, who describes organizations not as meritocratic engines but as political systems. Influence accrues through visibility, sponsorship, narrative control, and trust, not through correctness alone.
Favoritism, in this context, is not an ethical failure. It’s a stabilizing mechanism.
Leaders reinforce what feels familiar, predictable, and low-risk. Not out of malice, but out of convenience and because uncertainty threatens control. Once I understood this, much of what appears arbitrary became legible.
Misinterpretations
As a designer, I am trained to believe that:
Good work speaks for itself
Neutrality signals professionalism
Consensus builds influence
User truth overrides hierarchy
Empathy for users is the key
These principles aren’t wrong. They’re incomplete.
Design work is interpretive. Its impact is often indirect, delayed, or mediated through others. Designers persuade more than they decide. That makes the discipline particularly exposed to power dynamics it does not formally own.
When designers assume merit is protection, they misread the system they are operating inside.
Favoritism is not a verdict but a form of convenience
This distinction took some time for me to absorb.
When influence accumulates around certain individuals despite uneven contributions, the reflex is self-interrogation. To assume a failure of strategy, communication, or not appealing to someone’s vanity or temperament. That causes legitimate distortion in anyone, especially if those who do play favorites are in power and play a major role in your career.
But favoritism is not an evaluation of ability. It’s an outcome of proximity, taste, and sponsorship.
I stopped treating favoritism as a moral judgment; I analyzed it clearly and responded appropriately.
I never understood these lyrics before by the Rollingstones: ”Pleased to meet you, hope you know my name” till now, and I fully embraced it.
What I had to unlearn
I had to let go of several assumptions that were professionally rewarded but strategically costly:
Visibility is not vanity. If work is not legible at the right altitude, it doesn’t exist.
Silence is not neutrality. It’s often interpreted as an absence.
Consensus does not create power, but sponsorship does.
Knowing the answer is insufficient. Timing and framing matter equally.
Stop using favoritism as a moral judgment in organizations.
These were lessons about accuracy and motivation.
How I Persevered
Perseverance, for me, was recalibration and knowing when to walk away.
First, I separated self-worth from organizational response. I learned to treat recognition, feedback, perception, and access as information about the environment’s system, not as assessments of my capability. This prevented unnecessary self-correction and self-loathing, which preserved clarity under uncertainty.
Second, I invested in work that compounded across contexts, artifacts, thinking, and systems that remained legible beyond any single team or cycle. That continuity mattered more than short-term alignment.
Third, I practiced selective engagement. I no longer need to be indispensable everywhere. I focused on contributing where judgment was required. This reduced friction and made my participation deliberate.
Fourth, I maintained my point of view. Favoritism accelerates when people self-edit in anticipation. I learned to state my reasoning clearly and let it stand. Over time, that willingness to speak the truth mattered more than conforming to someone’s idea of who they want someone to be.
Finally, I stopped waiting for closure.
Not every experience resolves within a system that produces it. Perseverance sometimes means carrying forward, understanding how to save myself from negative situations again.
None of this removed the power dynamics because that will always exist. Now there’s just a deeper and stronger foresight, which allows me not to linger.
Seeing organizations clearly, without romance or resentment, restored my agency. I could choose when to invest, when to disengage, and when to redirect effort without interpreting those decisions as failure.
That’s how I continue.