Integration and Balance

I’ve trained myself to be skeptical whenever I use the word “balance.” Do we “balance” pain and joy, or are they inseparable over time? Do we “balance” work and life, or is work an integral part of our lives? Do we “balance” technical and product priorities, or does all meaningful technical work inherently serve a product purpose?

In many cases, I’ve found integration to be a more powerful framing than balance. Balance implies weighing competing forces against each other. Integration, on the other hand, invites us to weave them together into something more whole.

Integration in Innovation Teams

Take innovation teams, for example: the “product triad” of design, product, and engineering. I’ve pushed back against the common practice of separating technical roadmaps from product roadmaps. To me, all priorities must align with the business.

This demands integration. Developers must understand the business well enough to prioritize and shape product and design needs. PMs and designers, in turn, need enough technical fluency to evaluate, prioritize, and commit to technical needs. After all, scale and reliability are product features—they impact the user experience and business outcomes. Even investments in developer efficiency are business decisions, justified by how they improve delivery.

When a team integrates their perspectives and priorities, collective decisions become stronger and easier. PMs and designers who grasp technical constraints make better trade-offs. Developers who understand the business create more valuable solutions. Integration makes innovation collaborative.

Integration in Leadership

Integration is also a call I feel personally as a leader. I’m driven by a desire for connection and compassionate growth with others. But leadership also means making painful decisions—layoffs in tough times, firing good people who can’t keep up with the business, and confronting the fear of change.

There’s no balancing these tensions. My mistakes have taught me that true leadership isn’t about keeping business and humanity separate but about finding ways to act with integrity, caring for people and the business.

For me, this integration has come through recognizing that many challenges are bigger than any one person. I’ve learned to see leadership as an evolutionary process: a constant effort to adapt, grow, and align with things larger than ourselves. It’s a deeply personal journey, and it’s one we each navigate in our own way.

Finding Balance Along the Way

Integration takes time and effort. Asking developers to think more like PMs and designers—and vice versa—is a tough ask, especially early in careers or for those who’ve never worked that way before. Authentically navigating change and tough decisions requires emotional resilience and lived experience.

That’s often where balance comes in—not as the destination, but as a tool to help us along the way. Do you need to explicitly invite technical prioritization into the product roadmap? Do you need to ask tech leads to frame proposals in terms of product impact? Or do you need to carve out time for joy and connection to counterbalance difficult conversations?

Integration—whether of pain and joy, product and engineering, or business and humanity—is a long journey. Along the way, balance can be a tool to help us move forward.