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Hello and welcome to Power of Ten,

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a show about design operating at many
levels of Zoom from thoughtful detail

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through to transformation in
Organisations society and the world.

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My name is Andy Polaine and
I'm a design leadership coach,

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service design and innovation
consultant and educator and

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writer.

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If you are a designer who has been told
to prove your value or justify your

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presence or demonstrate
impact, only to find yourself,

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throwing yourself against the wall of the
immutable organisational structure and

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culture what you do. This
is what today's guest,

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Sarah Wachter-Boettcher asked
and answered in a recent medium

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post titled, Hey Designers, they're
gaslighting you. That became, I think,

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the third most read post across all of
medium that week. Sarah is an author,

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speaker, coach and strategist dedicated
to changing design and tech for good.

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She's the founder of Active Voice,
a coaching and training company,

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helping Organisations build radical
courageous leadership practices.

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Her most recent book, technically
Wrong, sexist Apps, biased,

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algorithms and Other
Threats of Toxic Tech,

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was named one of the best tech
books of the year by Wired.

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She also wrote Design for Real Life with
Eric Mayer and Content Everywhere and

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has been published in the Washington
Post, the Guardian and Mcsweeney's.

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And she also co-hosts the
podcast per my last email,

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which we might talk
about in a minute. Sarah,

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welcome to Power of Ten's
first ever live stream.

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Hi, Andy. It's great to be here.

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So it's nice to see you again.

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Tell before we get onto
the gaslighting post,

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which I guess I've seen everyone's
been asking you about recently.

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Tell us a little bit about
your background, not just
all about that, right?

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Yeah, so my background is a little bit,

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I think for some people they'll ask, wow,
you've done so many different pivots.

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And for me I'm like, Hmm,

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I just keep doing things and
they all seem interesting. So

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I started out

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as a journalism student and got a job as
a copywriter because you sometimes are

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22 and you need a job. I certainly did and

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did not really love copywriting,
but enjoyed aspects of it,

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and that led me into the earlier
days of content strategy.

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As that discipline was starting to form,

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I started working at an agency where I
was working on a lot of large website

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projects,

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and that just kind of opened up
a lot of doors into ux and design

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and ultimately into thinking a lot about

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how the design and tech fields have
evolved over the past couple of decades,

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I guess, at this point.
And so as I went through,

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my focus has shifted a little
bit from content strategy,

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content design into broader ux issues,

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and then really into
responsibility and inclusion

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and more like the ethics of what it
is that we're making. After a while,

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I was

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working with product teams and working
on a lot of things like workshops for

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organizations,

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really looking at what is
their responsibility and
what are the potential harms

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of the things they're making.
I just kept finding myself

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really wanting to talk to people
about their experiences in these

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workplaces or maybe the other way around.

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People kept talking to me about their
experiences in these workplaces and the

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barriers they were hitting up
against as they were trying to

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feel like they could be heard or feel
like they could speak up for users.

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And so that led me into this
whole world of what I think of as

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leadership and communication dynamics
and power dynamics in our workplaces.

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And so that's where I spent
all my time now. Yeah.

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And so I mean the last time we
actually did an interview like this,

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it was about technically wrong.
You've taken a journey that,

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I mean you and I both coach and I think
we both coach around a similar area,

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and there's a lot of straightforward
coaching of how to be

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that shift of identity from being
an individual contributor to being,

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there's a taste of
leadership in management,

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and then it sort of becomes
more leadership and management,

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and then at that point in time
there's often quite a bit of

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disillusionment seems to
kick in. So this was kind of,

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well, not, this was really,

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I guess at the heart of
your post about gaslighting.

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So I know I listened to
as per my last email,

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and you talked about it as well,

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that gaslighting is a term
that's sort of crept into

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therapy speak, but it's not actually a
therapy term is it comes from the film.

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So maybe we'll start there so that we
kind of know what we're talking about

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before we can move on to it
in this specific context.

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And I mean,

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it's a term that is used broadly
to mean multiple different things

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at times.

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And I also think that it's not always
worthwhile to get obsessed over

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having one pure definition.
That is correct,

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but the way that I think about gaslighting
is really if you look at the film,

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the film,

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which is from 1944 is a film about
a young woman who gets married

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and she starts discovering
that the gaslights

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in their home keep flickering
and keep flickering,

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and she tries to talk to her
husband about what's going on.

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He is an abusive person
and he convinces her

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that she's imagining things, and

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not only is she not imagining things,

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but ultimately in the film what emerges
is that he's the one who is making the

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gaslights flicker, and there's a
whole plot device around this, but

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the term gaslighting is really about the
sort of psychological manipulation that

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convinces somebody to believe that
they can't trust their own version of

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reality and that they have to be
reliant on some other party's version of

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reality. So you tell me over
and over again that I'm crazy,

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the gaslights aren't flickering,
and I keep seeing them flicker,

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and at some point I kind
of break and I go, okay,

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I can't trust myself because I keep
seeing these flicker and I'm being told

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they're not flickering,
so now I'm reliant on you.

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Right now you are the one who
gets to decide what reality is,

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and I am kind of at that disposal.

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And so in organizations I think of
gaslighting as being chronically told

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that something you're
experiencing isn't real.

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And so in the article
you are making the case.

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So you and I, again, in
the coaching practice,

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I hear this quite a lot and everyone's
obviously trying to do it and I've heard

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it myself obviously of
going to prove your value

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and all the rest of it. And at some point,

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well actually the first thing you say,

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if that was working then it
would've happened by now.

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So what's gone wrong there? What do you
think is really going on in the design?

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Maybe it can be a bit more specific.

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Did you mean design in
every kind of corner of,

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or is it designed in tech?

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Is it kind of design in-house
design in-house sort of design

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teams or functions?

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Yeah. Well, that's an
interesting question.

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So I will tell you who I was
thinking about when I was writing it,

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but I will also tell you who was
responding to the article, and

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that's a bigger circle of
people. So when I first wrote it,

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what I was thinking about where the
kinds of people that I was meeting,

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both in my coaching sessions,

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in the workshops that we host in
the group program that we have,

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all of these people that I would
meet who were not exclusively,

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but I would say maybe the largest group,

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were working in some kind of
design related function within

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either a quote product company
or within some kind of more

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traditional corporation.

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What I have heard in the time
since that's been out is that

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there are a lot of people who
have commented things like, oh,

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this is so true for insert
other profession here.

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And so I don't think it is something that
is exclusive necessarily to designers

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and exclusive to this
one particular context,

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but I think there's a particular
issue happening right now in a

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lot of design orgs where you have,

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particularly if you have the product
function and you have maybe the three

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legged stool model of
product design engineering,

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but where design will almost always be the

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smallest spindliest leg,
the neck that's got some.

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Beer coasters underneath it, right?

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Yeah.

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It's actually just little like a pile
of cans and bottles propping something

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up. And so this is pretty common.

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So what you'll hear from people
is that they're being told that

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the reason that their discipline doesn't
have the head count of other ones or

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the reason that they're being tasked with,

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let's say stretching to support
six different product pillars,

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eight different pods, nine squads,

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really I've heard all of these stories
that the reason that that's happening is

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that they haven't proven their
value yet and that their job,

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even though they were
hired to be a designer,

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their job is to prove
that design is valuable.

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And the issue that comes up is that
that becomes this never-ending cycle

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where it becomes all about
first off, for the individual,

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it becomes all about like, have I done
enough yet? Have I done enough yet?

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Which once that becomes
your mindset, it actually,

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it's really dissatisfying because you
lose sight of the work that you care

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about. You don't really focus so much
on is this the kind of craft that I want

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to be doing or how howling I luring or
growing? It's all like, am I good enough?

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Am I good enough? Do people like me?

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So it kind of screws with your head and
it also becomes never-ending because

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there's never what is
enough, what is value.

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And what happens is that it makes it
very easy for organizations to remain

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under-invested and to just continue to
allow you to stretch yourself really

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thin. And I think that what I have seen
is that this problem exists in a lot of

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places,

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but anytime you have a function that
is an underdog in the organization,

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you tend to see this come up,

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which means that in a lot of organizations
you will see it particularly badly

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for sub-disciplines within
design. So research content,

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maybe service design if they have it,

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if they've thought about it at all
where they're sort of the underdog's

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underdog,

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and then you see it particularly badly
because these are people who are really

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oftentimes brought in because they're
very passionate about the area of business

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that they work in, they're passionate
about the thing that they do,

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and so they bring all that enthusiasm
and excitement and can easily be

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bought into the idea that everything
that somebody asks them to do or every

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potential project on their plate is an
opportunity and they can start to feel

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responsible for the entire
organization's content or the

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entire organization's level
of user understanding. And

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it's too much. They can't actually
do that. It's not really their job.

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The organization, if it really
wants to have, for example,

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good content across everything it does,

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it should probably have
more people to do that,

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but they get really bought into that.

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And then that becomes this sort of
chronic cycle of seeking validation,

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feeling invalidated, doing
more to seek more validation,

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still feeling invalidated.

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And I think organizations really
can play into that because well,

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if you have somebody who's
willing to keep doing that, again,

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why hire more people?

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I mean obviously the best way to get
more when design thinking was a thing

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I got asked so many times,

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how do we get more design thinking in the
organizations that were hire some more

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designers, right?

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Because no one really says that about
we need to get some more accounting

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thinking in the organization.

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So we're going to retrain a
load of our people in that.

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I want to ask though, so Peter Meyer
holds asked me to ask a question.

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I dunno if he's watching right
now. Great. Might be early.

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I'm sure it's spicy.

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Well, no, he just said,
who's the day? Hey, hey,

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designers there gaslighting you.

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And he wanted to know who the they was
and he kind of added to it and said,

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well, on,

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is it design leaders who
are doing this as well?

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And I've got a follow-on question to this,

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but I'd be interested to know
that bit in the first place.

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You did say I had someone in
mind when I was thinking of they.

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Well,

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what I had in mind was the people that
I work with who are experiencing this,

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and I think I left purposely
ambiguous because I do think

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it's a few different
things that are happening.

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I think one piece of it is there's
an aspect of this that's happening at

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very high levels in an
organization, meaning that

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you have to think about what are the
incentives of a corporation and when

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those incentives of a corporation
are not actually aligned with

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doing great human centered work that
there is a level of gaslighting like, no,

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no, no, no, we definitely care.

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And then you see every major decision
that is being made fundamentally comes

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down to are shareholders
happy this quarter,

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which is very different. I
think that that's ultimately,

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I think where it starts and
where the root of the problem is.

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But what I also see happening
is leaders in organizations

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sometimes within design, sometimes
product leadership really

231
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reinforcing that kind of high-level
corporate message about, no, no, no,

232
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we care, we care,

233
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but also we're just going to continue
doing things that make shareholders money

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this quarter. And then along the
way in that process really telling

235
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people that this is how
they're going to get ahead.

236
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And I've seen this happen with
design leaders who mean well, who

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00:14:38,800 --> 00:14:41,010
want to be giving good
advice to their teams,

238
00:14:41,630 --> 00:14:45,770
but they are so bought into that
kind of gaslighting themselves

239
00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:50,850
that they don't quite recognize
what it's actually doing to people

240
00:14:51,390 --> 00:14:53,370
and the impact that it's having on them,

241
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which is just a quite staggering amount

242
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of burnout and cynicism and
disillusionment. I mean,

243
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it is quite something what I see
when I talk to people about what

244
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their experience has been like

245
00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:15,430
because it makes people
feel like they're failing

246
00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:16,313
personally.

247
00:15:16,740 --> 00:15:20,070
They keep trying to do the thing they're
being asked to do and then consistently

248
00:15:20,070 --> 00:15:22,310
being told they haven't done it yet. And

249
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that tends to only go a few
ways. Either people burn out,

250
00:15:26,850 --> 00:15:28,130
they get cynical and resentful,

251
00:15:28,960 --> 00:15:32,890
they get very self-blaming and the
imposter syndrome takes hold because they

252
00:15:33,410 --> 00:15:35,610
internalize all of that and they're
like, well, I guess I am a problem.

253
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I guess maybe I just haven't
tried hard enough. I mean,

254
00:15:39,230 --> 00:15:43,370
it really leads to a lot
of negative things and it
doesn't actually seem to lead

255
00:15:43,430 --> 00:15:47,770
to an actual shift in the way
organizations function. I mean,

256
00:15:48,270 --> 00:15:51,250
if it worked, it would've worked
by now. People have worked very,

257
00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:56,050
very hard and completely fried
themselves. And if that's not enough,

258
00:15:56,930 --> 00:15:58,290
I don't know what is. Yeah.

259
00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:01,050
Yeah. It feels that
there's a whole kind of,

260
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as you did towards the end
of the article, it's very,

261
00:16:04,490 --> 00:16:09,010
very difficult not to ladder this
up to because late stage capitalism,

262
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because that is really fundamentally
the thing. And I think the reason why

263
00:16:14,590 --> 00:16:19,530
it resonated across a bunch of other
disciplines is because a lot of people

264
00:16:19,550 --> 00:16:22,410
are experiencing that in many, many areas.

265
00:16:22,610 --> 00:16:25,290
I mean the mantra of do more with less,

266
00:16:25,820 --> 00:16:27,810
which is most kind of horrific thing ever.

267
00:16:27,810 --> 00:16:29,570
Just nails on a chalkboard
every time I hear.

268
00:16:29,570 --> 00:16:30,330
It.

269
00:16:30,330 --> 00:16:35,130
And so that's heard that so many
times and with a bunch of different

270
00:16:35,130 --> 00:16:38,690
excuses, it's the global financial
crisis and now it's something else,

271
00:16:38,750 --> 00:16:39,770
and now it's something else right now.

272
00:16:42,430 --> 00:16:46,170
So there is a structural
thing there, which is,

273
00:16:48,050 --> 00:16:49,450
I mean, you talked about values really,

274
00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:53,050
I've always really liked
even overstatements that
idea of it's very easy to

275
00:16:53,180 --> 00:16:57,130
pitch something positive like employee,

276
00:16:57,130 --> 00:17:00,650
well-being against terrible
employee experience,

277
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:04,570
obviously we want that one, but
it's much, much more difficult,

278
00:17:04,950 --> 00:17:09,330
and that's what obviously I'm sure even
overstatements do that thing of two

279
00:17:09,330 --> 00:17:13,210
things that you want both of and
when they compete against each other,

280
00:17:13,310 --> 00:17:17,050
you are forced to make a decision.
So shareholder value versus employee,

281
00:17:17,050 --> 00:17:20,170
well-being both things we
want, but when it comes to it,

282
00:17:20,170 --> 00:17:23,530
we'll choose the former. That's
the thing that reveals your values.

283
00:17:24,070 --> 00:17:28,830
And so I think there's a thing there
where there's that structural aspect

284
00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:32,190
which people are kind of
slamming themselves up against.

285
00:17:34,480 --> 00:17:37,580
But there's a thing was
a question I want to ask,

286
00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:39,820
and particularly in the
light of gas lighting,

287
00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:44,940
I'm aware this is going to sound like
I'm just doing the same thing and kind of

288
00:17:45,100 --> 00:17:45,940
victim blaming,

289
00:17:46,600 --> 00:17:51,530
but I want to explore the idea of how
much design as a discipline has been

290
00:17:51,590 --> 00:17:52,560
complicit in this.

291
00:17:52,670 --> 00:17:57,450
And by which I mean down
one end as my ex-boss

292
00:17:57,650 --> 00:17:59,610
actually Bronwyn Van der Merwe
just saying the other day,

293
00:17:59,630 --> 00:18:04,610
we sort of gave away a bunch of the
strategic stuff having spent 20 years

294
00:18:04,710 --> 00:18:08,610
or something trying to become more
strategic and moving further up the chain,

295
00:18:08,610 --> 00:18:10,850
and this is obviously what
you do is for a pre-living.

296
00:18:12,070 --> 00:18:14,770
We gave a lot of that way partly
through to the consultants,

297
00:18:14,770 --> 00:18:16,410
through the whole design thinking thing.

298
00:18:16,410 --> 00:18:20,210
And I'm partly to blame for that
because trained some of those people

299
00:18:21,740 --> 00:18:25,720
and also within the organization then we

300
00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:30,890
felt as a discipline, we
also allowed the craft,

301
00:18:31,030 --> 00:18:35,930
the making of it or the thinking about
what we should be making to be taken

302
00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:41,090
over by product folks and product
management. I think there was

303
00:18:41,090 --> 00:18:45,810
a generation, or has been a generation
or is of younger designers who are very,

304
00:18:45,810 --> 00:18:47,890
very keen to just see their
stuff out there in the world,

305
00:18:48,430 --> 00:18:50,240
the achilles heel of
say service designers.

306
00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:52,930
People don't see their work out
there in the world for two years,

307
00:18:53,670 --> 00:18:56,330
and I think it was a bunch of people
who really wanted to see their stuff out

308
00:18:56,460 --> 00:19:00,170
and become product designers and make
stuff that gets out there in the world.

309
00:19:01,310 --> 00:19:05,370
And so that allowed themselves to be
pushed down onto the assembly line again,

310
00:19:06,950 --> 00:19:11,650
and in the worst, when I speak to people
like Teresa Torres and Melissa Perry,

311
00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:13,770
Jeff got Goff and people like that,

312
00:19:14,930 --> 00:19:16,480
I think they're talking
about a very different thing,

313
00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:20,410
but in the worst end of it or in
the middle to worst end of it,

314
00:19:21,390 --> 00:19:25,930
the designers have been told, I
mean, I've had coaches who say, well,

315
00:19:25,930 --> 00:19:29,450
my PM has just described how the button
should look and how thick the outline

316
00:19:29,450 --> 00:19:33,770
should be, and they just become kind
of figma jockeys and there's no joy.

317
00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:36,890
There's no joy in that
much at all. I mean,

318
00:19:37,020 --> 00:19:38,810
there is at the beginning
of your career maybe,

319
00:19:39,670 --> 00:19:44,610
and I guess my question is how do we
let that happen to us as a discipline?

320
00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:46,650
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think,

321
00:19:47,530 --> 00:19:50,330
I don't know that I have a satisfying
answer because I think it's something I

322
00:19:50,330 --> 00:19:51,090
kind of tussle with.

323
00:19:51,090 --> 00:19:56,010
It's at what level is that something
that design was complicit in or

324
00:19:56,010 --> 00:19:57,690
did to itself or participated in

325
00:19:59,230 --> 00:20:03,690
what level is that more of a
response to the conditions that

326
00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:05,770
were already changing
within organizations?

327
00:20:05,830 --> 00:20:08,240
At what level was that
something thrust upon design?

328
00:20:09,150 --> 00:20:11,370
And I think it's some
of all of those things.

329
00:20:12,150 --> 00:20:15,690
One of the things I did
notice was at one point, gosh,

330
00:20:17,450 --> 00:20:22,170
I don't know exactly when this was maybe
eight years ago or something like that,

331
00:20:22,170 --> 00:20:23,720
maybe 10 years ago, even now,

332
00:20:24,590 --> 00:20:29,520
as there was a sort of shift
toward product thinking and

333
00:20:30,040 --> 00:20:30,990
product organizations,

334
00:20:31,060 --> 00:20:35,680
and I use the quote unquote because I
think that those definitions are actually

335
00:20:36,350 --> 00:20:38,600
much murkier than we often
pretend that they are.

336
00:20:41,490 --> 00:20:44,710
One of the things that happened was
that there was this shift from like, oh,

337
00:20:46,010 --> 00:20:49,210
we don't do all of that
old school ux stuff.

338
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:51,300
That's all kind of library science.

339
00:20:51,660 --> 00:20:54,860
I was talking about this about
information architecture the other day.

340
00:20:55,770 --> 00:20:58,940
That was something that's like, oh,
we don't really need that because

341
00:21:01,990 --> 00:21:06,510
isn't that all about, I don't
know, metadata and nerdy stuff?

342
00:21:07,090 --> 00:21:09,510
And what we're doing is we're making apps.

343
00:21:10,330 --> 00:21:14,710
So it's you think about that shift
towards something that was perceived of as

344
00:21:15,040 --> 00:21:17,460
shiny and new and much more,

345
00:21:17,650 --> 00:21:19,950
as I think you were describing
kind of close to the metal,

346
00:21:20,390 --> 00:21:24,830
you would do something on an interface
and then that interface would be live and

347
00:21:24,830 --> 00:21:26,950
out in the world on a
relatively quick cycle.

348
00:21:27,530 --> 00:21:31,980
And there is something nice about
that, but I think what you also

349
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:37,900
lost in that process was a
lot of deep knowledge or maybe

350
00:21:37,900 --> 00:21:40,860
disconnection from a lot
of deep knowledge. I think
that that deep knowledge

351
00:21:40,860 --> 00:21:41,900
still exists, but

352
00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:48,620
if ux sort of gets flattened into

353
00:21:49,870 --> 00:21:52,480
the interface or the ux slash ui,

354
00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:57,010
which I don't really have any desire
to ever debate about specifically,

355
00:21:57,910 --> 00:21:59,240
but if that happens,

356
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:04,210
then there's a lot of deeper thinking
and strategic work that kind of gets

357
00:22:04,210 --> 00:22:05,043
alighted there.

358
00:22:05,670 --> 00:22:09,130
And I think in a lot of organizations
just wasn't really happening.

359
00:22:09,870 --> 00:22:13,810
And instead what you ended up with then
was product taking the lead on strategy,

360
00:22:13,950 --> 00:22:17,370
but product being
particularly business led.

361
00:22:17,790 --> 00:22:20,190
And that's fine,

362
00:22:20,930 --> 00:22:25,310
but there's a gap there that nobody is
filling when it comes to that kind of

363
00:22:26,180 --> 00:22:29,900
deep thinking about systems and structure,

364
00:22:30,170 --> 00:22:32,490
deep thinking about users, humans,

365
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:36,860
and really thinking about how do
all those things fit together.

366
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:43,420
But I don't know, did design do that to
itself? Was that done to design? Well.

367
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:47,580
My question was really how complicit
were we in it? I don't know.

368
00:22:47,610 --> 00:22:48,660
Andy, how complicit were we?

369
00:22:49,090 --> 00:22:52,580
Well, I know I've been curious. This
why I don't have the answer to it too,

370
00:22:52,580 --> 00:22:54,460
apart from sort of what I originally said.

371
00:22:55,700 --> 00:22:58,660
I think maybe we had a moment of

372
00:23:01,730 --> 00:23:05,220
everyone starting to finally get design
because design thinking was a thing that

373
00:23:05,220 --> 00:23:08,980
sort of percolated into
business. And in some respects,

374
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:12,660
in the end, it was up until recently,

375
00:23:12,660 --> 00:23:17,340
really good advertising and
marketing for Ido because they turned

376
00:23:17,340 --> 00:23:21,700
something that had previously been people
staring out the window being creative

377
00:23:22,050 --> 00:23:25,900
into, they made the case for the
fact that there's a process here.

378
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:27,940
And I think one of the
problems design has had

379
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:33,300
is actually we've been pretty rubbish
in the public discourse in talking about

380
00:23:33,300 --> 00:23:37,980
how design has actually done. I think
we kind of look at the end result.

381
00:23:37,980 --> 00:23:40,900
Partly, I think it's ubiquitous.
When I look around my room here,

382
00:23:40,910 --> 00:23:43,020
everything has been obviously
designed by someone,

383
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:49,690
and I think most people would better
know how a film is made, for example,

384
00:23:50,120 --> 00:23:51,560
then they know how design is done.

385
00:23:53,830 --> 00:23:58,730
And so sometimes I think we
somehow or people have a better

386
00:23:58,730 --> 00:24:02,330
understanding of say what the scientific
method is than how design is done.

387
00:24:02,390 --> 00:24:03,210
And yet, oh, I.

388
00:24:03,210 --> 00:24:06,210
Don't know Andy, I do live in
the United States. I don't know.

389
00:24:06,210 --> 00:24:10,970
Maybe, but it's not just me. I think,

390
00:24:10,970 --> 00:24:13,050
and when I think back to
that, the film example,

391
00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:18,090
Hollywood did quite a lot
of work in making of movies
and directors commentaries

392
00:24:18,090 --> 00:24:18,923
and all that stuff,

393
00:24:19,220 --> 00:24:24,170
which I think that and the magic of
the special effects of star wars and

394
00:24:24,170 --> 00:24:27,420
stuff, I think actually that already,

395
00:24:27,420 --> 00:24:32,230
that banal as that sounds really,
really helps people understand, oh,

396
00:24:32,530 --> 00:24:34,480
these things don't just
pop into the world.

397
00:24:34,730 --> 00:24:38,720
People do that kind of thinking
about it that you've talked about.

398
00:24:39,120 --> 00:24:41,880
I think that's one thing,
but we haven't really done,

399
00:24:42,060 --> 00:24:44,360
and I dunno why we have
done a bad job of that,

400
00:24:46,660 --> 00:24:49,600
but I think there's
another aspect maybe that

401
00:24:51,590 --> 00:24:52,920
it's the influence of big tech.

402
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:55,200
It's all the stuff you've
written about also before,

403
00:24:55,850 --> 00:25:00,400
which is this idea that
scale and speed are

404
00:25:01,460 --> 00:25:02,440
the dominant things.

405
00:25:02,580 --> 00:25:05,120
And not only are they the things
that everyone should be aspiring to,

406
00:25:05,180 --> 00:25:08,720
but they never get questioned
those two original premises.

407
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:11,600
This things should get as big
as possible as fast as possible.

408
00:25:12,590 --> 00:25:13,960
That is so normal is right. Yeah.

409
00:25:16,180 --> 00:25:20,360
And I think obviously if you're trying
to scale and get as fast as you can,

410
00:25:20,510 --> 00:25:23,560
then there's thinking about stuff,

411
00:25:23,730 --> 00:25:25,680
we might as well just get some
stuff out there and if it's wrong,

412
00:25:25,930 --> 00:25:27,160
we'll just kind of rebuild it.

413
00:25:27,630 --> 00:25:28,463
Yeah,

414
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,990
I think that was happening
as a cultural shift,

415
00:25:33,220 --> 00:25:38,160
as an industry shift for tech
at a much larger scale than

416
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:40,560
it was happening
specifically within design.

417
00:25:41,100 --> 00:25:44,680
But I think that the way design
responded to that is also that,

418
00:25:45,540 --> 00:25:49,560
or at least there's some
particular subset of design,

419
00:25:49,570 --> 00:25:53,630
which I think what we mean when we talk
about design is also a question that's

420
00:25:53,630 --> 00:25:54,463
hard to answer sometimes.

421
00:25:55,260 --> 00:26:00,160
But I think when we talk about the people
who wanted to do design work within a

422
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:04,920
technology company or within a
startup or within an organization

423
00:26:04,950 --> 00:26:08,320
that was operating, those companies
operate or trying to operate,

424
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:09,313
those companies operate,

425
00:26:11,210 --> 00:26:14,640
there were a lot of people who found
that really attractive over the past 10

426
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,160
years really looking at
that as like, oh my gosh,

427
00:26:17,270 --> 00:26:22,120
this is an opportunity to kind of go where
the action is to do something that is

428
00:26:22,120 --> 00:26:26,960
the more the big exciting.
There was a time when being a designer

429
00:26:27,100 --> 00:26:29,320
at an agency was the cool thing to do,

430
00:26:30,060 --> 00:26:33,040
and that's what people wanted
go to a cool design agency.

431
00:26:33,620 --> 00:26:37,920
And I think that that changed and that
interest in being in a product company

432
00:26:37,980 --> 00:26:41,640
and that interest in being on
a rocket ship, as they say,

433
00:26:42,780 --> 00:26:44,330
as I would not personally say,

434
00:26:44,430 --> 00:26:48,090
but people say that I think got
a lot of people's attention.

435
00:26:48,790 --> 00:26:51,530
And I think there were a lot of people
who were really lured in by that idea

436
00:26:51,530 --> 00:26:55,570
that they were going to do something
that was going to scale really fast and

437
00:26:55,570 --> 00:26:56,570
they would get to be part of it,

438
00:26:56,740 --> 00:27:01,610
and that they would get to design
something that therefore is so much

439
00:27:01,610 --> 00:27:03,890
more powerful. And the
result is, of course,

440
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:08,210
then accepting that a lot of the
design work that they were doing is

441
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:12,610
slap together some screens and ship it.
And I think for a lot of people,

442
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:16,400
that has become the de
facto design process.

443
00:27:17,060 --> 00:27:18,680
And like you said,

444
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,760
they kind of are figma jockeys where what
they do is they move stuff around and

445
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:24,560
they get it out the door and

446
00:27:26,110 --> 00:27:30,230
they don't get to do a lot of
exploration or thinking about it

447
00:27:31,390 --> 00:27:33,440
because that's sort of
fed down to them. And

448
00:27:36,700 --> 00:27:38,020
I think that is something that is

449
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:46,880
at some level, if you don't
question any of the other

450
00:27:48,970 --> 00:27:53,160
basic functioning of a
tech company about scale,

451
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:54,840
quick scale as fast as possible,

452
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:56,520
get as big as possible without
questioning any of that,

453
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:01,960
I don't know how differently designed
can operate in those environments. Yeah.

454
00:28:02,150 --> 00:28:02,983
Yeah.

455
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,990
I mean as part a little bit of what
you're saying kind of sounded basically

456
00:28:07,120 --> 00:28:08,280
everyone got greedy and sold out.

457
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,680
There's one aspect of we all
kind of jumped into that one,

458
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:12,990
not we all but design. And I guess
when we're talking about design,

459
00:28:12,990 --> 00:28:17,440
we are talking about digital
design in the digital world.

460
00:28:17,900 --> 00:28:18,990
That's where I tend to focus,

461
00:28:19,140 --> 00:28:22,720
but I don't think everybody
got greedy and sold out per se.

462
00:28:23,260 --> 00:28:24,990
But I do think that, I mean, look,

463
00:28:25,850 --> 00:28:30,600
there are a number of people who
wanted to join an organization

464
00:28:30,910 --> 00:28:34,520
with substantially higher wages
than other types of companies

465
00:28:37,430 --> 00:28:41,040
with the prestige of having
a certain kind of name.

466
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:46,640
I think that has also been a big
shift in the past decade or so where

467
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:50,630
I think about the kinds of conferences
I used to go to 10 years ago,

468
00:28:51,380 --> 00:28:56,280
and it was a lot more, I don't know,
people doing weird and interesting stuff.

469
00:28:56,620 --> 00:29:00,560
And I look at a lot of the conferences
I see now and the things that are

470
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,120
promoted the hardest are the
companies that the speakers come from.

471
00:29:05,420 --> 00:29:09,280
And oftentimes the talks they give are
the most sort of sanitized approved by PR

472
00:29:09,490 --> 00:29:10,323
talks I've ever seen.

473
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:16,920
A lot of the craft stuff, I
sort went by the wayside a bit,

474
00:29:16,940 --> 00:29:18,160
or at least. I mean,

475
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:21,360
the other thing is I feel like we're
having the same conversation I about you,

476
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:24,520
but I feel like I'm having
the same conversations that
I've been having 15 years

477
00:29:24,540 --> 00:29:25,373
ago.

478
00:29:27,870 --> 00:29:31,560
Brandon Ard asked a question
here in the chat and he said,

479
00:29:31,650 --> 00:29:34,480
isn't the behavior we need to change
at the business leadership level?

480
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:40,160
I mean, yes, but I want
to sort of slightly

481
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,450
connect this question to something else
that you talked about in your article

482
00:29:45,470 --> 00:29:49,210
and also something else we talked about
before, which is yes, that's true,

483
00:29:49,310 --> 00:29:50,730
but how much can design,

484
00:29:51,790 --> 00:29:56,250
and that could be design leaders or
people further down the hierarchy

485
00:29:57,720 --> 00:29:58,970
have an influence on that.

486
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,250
Yeah. Okay. So I think that

487
00:30:04,930 --> 00:30:07,650
business fundamentally
needs to change period.

488
00:30:09,550 --> 00:30:10,890
If we're talking about the big picture,

489
00:30:11,020 --> 00:30:14,170
we're talking about late stage capitalism,

490
00:30:14,870 --> 00:30:19,450
it doesn't seem to be
working well in the sense of

491
00:30:21,470 --> 00:30:23,040
what is happening with our environment,

492
00:30:23,270 --> 00:30:28,160
what is happening with our standard
of living and healthcare in the

493
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:32,160
United States, and how can people
continue to afford to get by?

494
00:30:32,290 --> 00:30:34,280
Who's getting lost in the margins?

495
00:30:34,990 --> 00:30:37,840
There's wealth accumulation
at the edges and then

496
00:30:39,700 --> 00:30:44,380
a lot of other people not
doing particularly well. So
yes, that needs to change.

497
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:48,380
Here's where I would push back against
that particular question though.

498
00:30:50,950 --> 00:30:54,510
I think it's actually
really destructive to

499
00:30:55,890 --> 00:31:00,740
tell designers that their job
is to change the organization,

500
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:04,220
the business leadership.

501
00:31:06,410 --> 00:31:11,180
It's actually not possible to
change anybody but yourself.

502
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:14,740
And that doesn't mean that
you can't be influential.

503
00:31:14,740 --> 00:31:19,540
It doesn't mean that the things
that you say and do might not create

504
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:20,460
shifts in other people.

505
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:26,180
But I think one of the things that happens
is that when we decide that what we

506
00:31:26,180 --> 00:31:30,700
need to do is change business leadership,
then we start focusing on, okay,

507
00:31:30,700 --> 00:31:34,260
well my job is now to change business
leadership and I keep doing things and I

508
00:31:34,460 --> 00:31:38,620
keep doing this, doing that, trying
this, and again and again and again,

509
00:31:38,810 --> 00:31:43,420
it's not working, it's not working.
And that can start to feel like, well,

510
00:31:43,460 --> 00:31:45,300
I guess I'm just not
doing a good enough job.

511
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:50,380
I'm not personally effective
enough at being influential or at

512
00:31:50,450 --> 00:31:51,820
helping these people understand.

513
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:57,500
And the reality is other
people change when they

514
00:31:57,500 --> 00:31:58,380
decide they want to change.

515
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:04,380
If they have the information
and they don't want to change,

516
00:32:04,770 --> 00:32:09,060
they're not going to change if their
incentive structure is still one that is

517
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:13,100
all about our shareholders
happy this quarter,

518
00:32:13,390 --> 00:32:14,820
which I think is an
important part of it too.

519
00:32:15,260 --> 00:32:16,860
Not just are we making shareholders money,

520
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,180
but it's are we making
shareholders immediate money?

521
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:22,260
If that is not shifting,

522
00:32:23,460 --> 00:32:27,760
that's not in your control and there
isn't some magical deck you're going to

523
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:30,640
present to leadership that's
going to make that change.

524
00:32:31,580 --> 00:32:36,000
And I think that it's actually really
healthy to come back around and say, okay,

525
00:32:37,310 --> 00:32:39,730
that is the reality.
That is a root problem.

526
00:32:40,690 --> 00:32:44,930
I don't have control over that problem.
Can I be influential in some ways?

527
00:32:45,150 --> 00:32:48,250
Can I communicate some things that are
important to me to people who are in more

528
00:32:48,250 --> 00:32:50,730
senior roles than me and have
more power than me? Okay,

529
00:32:50,730 --> 00:32:54,530
great. What are those things and what
is the best work I can do to communicate

530
00:32:54,530 --> 00:32:59,050
that? What's the best avenue?
I have best availability?

531
00:32:59,330 --> 00:33:01,130
I have to spread that message,

532
00:33:02,030 --> 00:33:06,990
but also how do I let some of that go
and say, okay, if this is what is true,

533
00:33:08,510 --> 00:33:11,850
how do I want to deal with that reality?
What are the things I can trade off?

534
00:33:11,850 --> 00:33:13,410
What can I accept? What can't I accept?

535
00:33:13,670 --> 00:33:15,770
Is this an environment that
I actually want to stay in?

536
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:20,770
What are the ways that I am doing
my job that are fundamentally

537
00:33:21,910 --> 00:33:26,850
trying to get the corporation to change
its incentives and I could just actually

538
00:33:26,850 --> 00:33:30,370
take that pressure off myself and put
that energy literally anywhere else

539
00:33:30,370 --> 00:33:33,890
because that's not going to happen and
I'm just going to burn out trying to do

540
00:33:33,890 --> 00:33:34,723
it.

541
00:33:35,430 --> 00:33:39,690
One of the things that comes up for
me quite often or I find myself having

542
00:33:39,690 --> 00:33:42,490
conversations about with the
coachees and they come in there,

543
00:33:42,490 --> 00:33:45,130
they're sort of in that state.
And I mean there's two things.

544
00:33:45,230 --> 00:33:48,450
One is I think designers
have made a bit of a mistake.

545
00:33:48,530 --> 00:33:50,690
I know I talked about design not
being in the public discourse,

546
00:33:50,710 --> 00:33:55,650
but designers have design
leaders I think often talk too

547
00:33:55,650 --> 00:33:59,330
much about design to business
leaders who don't really care.

548
00:33:59,330 --> 00:34:02,290
And I think it's maybe a bit of a rude
awakening for people in design leadership

549
00:34:02,290 --> 00:34:07,250
to realize that the CEO just doesn't
care most of the time about design and

550
00:34:07,250 --> 00:34:09,890
process. They obviously care
about the outcomes of it.

551
00:34:09,890 --> 00:34:13,290
And I'm being careful not to say
the impact and show your value.

552
00:34:14,300 --> 00:34:18,050
And I'm talking about outcomes
because often business leaders,

553
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,800
they want to shareholder
increase shareholder value,

554
00:34:23,300 --> 00:34:27,800
and in vc funded things, there's always
that massive pressure. But that aside,

555
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:30,690
there's often a sense of quite

556
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:36,210
worthy and purpose and ambition
behind a lot of companies.

557
00:34:37,030 --> 00:34:42,010
And I think one of the things design
leaders have to do is understand

558
00:34:42,270 --> 00:34:45,690
how you connect to something those people
care about and you connect design to

559
00:34:45,690 --> 00:34:47,930
it as the way they're
going to get it rather.

560
00:34:48,070 --> 00:34:50,130
And that's not really just
showing your impact thing,

561
00:34:50,130 --> 00:34:53,690
but you're saying you paint this picture
of this world that those stakeholders

562
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:58,450
want and really understand that there's
some fomo building that's going on there

563
00:34:58,450 --> 00:35:01,530
that you have to do in order to then
say, well, if you want that, well,

564
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,650
this is what needs to be done. Now
obviously they might go, yeah, well,

565
00:35:05,650 --> 00:35:08,410
we want that outcome, but we don't
really want to invest in design,

566
00:35:08,470 --> 00:35:12,010
and that's probably the time when
you go and get another job somewhere.

567
00:35:12,340 --> 00:35:16,130
But I think there is kind of an aspect
of that. What I see happening a lot

568
00:35:16,190 --> 00:35:18,800
though is the under yes,

569
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:23,010
we want that and we're not going
to invest. And so what happens is,

570
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:27,250
whether it's the design leaders or the
design team or lots of people in that,

571
00:35:27,250 --> 00:35:31,290
they end up doing the work anyway
because they really want to do it well.

572
00:35:31,860 --> 00:35:34,050
And I look at their calendars and I say,

573
00:35:34,050 --> 00:35:37,450
show me your calendar as a classic sort
of coaching technique. And I'm like,

574
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:42,250
okay, so out of this week you
have six hours actually free,

575
00:35:42,250 --> 00:35:45,890
and most of that is for 20 minutes between
other things when you get your actual

576
00:35:45,890 --> 00:35:50,210
work done. And they say, well, weekends
and evenings. And so by doing that,

577
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:54,570
they never give the feedback, they never
complete the feedback loop of saying,

578
00:35:54,710 --> 00:35:58,320
Hey, you know that thing you want, we
don't have the resources to do it, right?

579
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:01,170
Because they then secretly do it anyway.

580
00:36:01,470 --> 00:36:05,530
And then the message that
leadership get is, oh,

581
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:10,320
when I asked for that thing, I got it.
So why do you need more designers? Right?

582
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:14,050
Yeah. Do you hear that quite a
lot in your Well, constantly.

583
00:36:14,170 --> 00:36:17,320
I mean, I think that was one of
the big things that I noticed was,

584
00:36:17,550 --> 00:36:20,290
there's a couple of things
in there too. I think one,

585
00:36:20,720 --> 00:36:23,450
when designers are trying to

586
00:36:27,140 --> 00:36:29,890
speak upwards about design
and about designs importance,

587
00:36:29,890 --> 00:36:31,450
they're often leaning way too hard.

588
00:36:31,650 --> 00:36:35,570
I think on education that came up in the
article and that was something I talked

589
00:36:36,110 --> 00:36:40,800
with people about as well, where
education is kind of a safe approach

590
00:36:42,540 --> 00:36:45,930
where it's like, here's our double
diamond process or whatever,

591
00:36:46,340 --> 00:36:50,490
and it's like showing people this is
how it should be and these are the steps

592
00:36:50,670 --> 00:36:54,800
and this is what design
is. Nobody cares. I mean,

593
00:36:55,820 --> 00:37:00,690
maybe they could strike care if
they have all the time free and all

594
00:37:00,690 --> 00:37:03,770
the brain space free, but they don't.
And they have their own incentives,

595
00:37:04,340 --> 00:37:07,690
and that's not actually how you
get people to care about design.

596
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:13,360
They need to actually feel what is
different when design isn't in the

597
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:17,800
room. And that also means that when design
is in the room, having a perspective,

598
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:18,890
having a point of view.

599
00:37:19,030 --> 00:37:23,930
And I think that's something that also
has been maybe de-prioritized as people

600
00:37:23,930 --> 00:37:28,610
have been very focused on creation of
screens and just sort of get into figma,

601
00:37:28,690 --> 00:37:31,410
make some stuff according to
whatever specs you were given,

602
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:34,730
that the idea of then being
able to be like, well, wait,

603
00:37:35,750 --> 00:37:40,650
how does designs perspective
contribute to the conversation at the

604
00:37:40,650 --> 00:37:43,740
senior level goes unanswered?
And I think that's a problem,

605
00:37:45,350 --> 00:37:46,900
but I also think that

606
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:54,140
there's this big piece in
there that is around people

607
00:37:56,460 --> 00:37:57,360
really getting

608
00:38:00,010 --> 00:38:02,720
stuck in that place of I want to

609
00:38:09,750 --> 00:38:11,190
convince other people that I matter.

610
00:38:12,930 --> 00:38:14,110
And make the world a better place.

611
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:20,300
And that then is a great place to overwork
because if you feel like people don't

612
00:38:20,300 --> 00:38:23,190
value me, so I need to
convince people to value me,

613
00:38:23,190 --> 00:38:24,750
and my job is to convince you to value me,

614
00:38:26,260 --> 00:38:30,800
I'm very likely to then be like,
okay, you want me to then do,

615
00:38:31,340 --> 00:38:36,140
I'm going to be the sole content
designer to seven different pods or

616
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:39,300
squads or whichever way
that your particular org
has decided this is going to

617
00:38:39,300 --> 00:38:40,500
go. And you say yes,

618
00:38:40,500 --> 00:38:43,940
because I want you to value content
design and it doesn't actually work that

619
00:38:43,940 --> 00:38:48,470
way. Saying no oftentimes is the way,

620
00:38:48,470 --> 00:38:50,590
and it's hard and it's scary.
And for a lot of people,

621
00:38:50,660 --> 00:38:53,790
they're really nervous of
what'll happen if they say no.

622
00:38:54,650 --> 00:38:58,790
But once you start saying no, there's
also that difference between, okay,

623
00:38:59,410 --> 00:39:03,390
here's the areas where we actually were
able to devote time and look at what we

624
00:39:03,390 --> 00:39:07,190
were able to accomplish here.
You could have that over here,

625
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:12,700
but you have to choose to invest in it
as opposed to me stretching myself so

626
00:39:12,700 --> 00:39:13,980
that it hits everywhere.

627
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,090
And I think that that's a really
healthy way to approach it.

628
00:39:17,090 --> 00:39:20,980
That is also a lot more compelling and
interesting for the people who have the

629
00:39:20,980 --> 00:39:25,380
purse strings than sitting through another
presentation about here is what user

630
00:39:25,700 --> 00:39:29,500
research is, here are different
user research methods,
but that education piece,

631
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:35,590
it is very easy for people to get
caught up in it because it feels safe.

632
00:39:36,910 --> 00:39:40,280
It's safe to say, here is a
bunch of methods we could use,

633
00:39:40,300 --> 00:39:44,920
or here is how our process works as
opposed to here's a direction I think that

634
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:47,160
we should take on this project
that's much more vulnerable.

635
00:39:48,150 --> 00:39:52,200
It's also sort of the wrong way around
actually hearing you say it like that.

636
00:39:52,500 --> 00:39:56,550
And I've been in both situations because
part of what I've done is educate

637
00:39:57,270 --> 00:40:02,240
both design teams, but also
cross-functional teams in organizations,

638
00:40:02,290 --> 00:40:06,840
which is to say, I'm going to tell
you about a process and trust me,

639
00:40:06,860 --> 00:40:11,590
I'll have amazing results, rather
than having people go, that's amazing.

640
00:40:11,660 --> 00:40:15,070
How did you do that? That's a
very different way around, right?

641
00:40:16,110 --> 00:40:20,520
Yeah. And I do think that there's a
contingent of folks in design who have

642
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:26,500
gotten frustrated at the call to learn
how to communicate those stories upward

643
00:40:26,720 --> 00:40:29,050
to do the storytelling,

644
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:32,610
to be able to have that compelling vision.

645
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:36,380
And I actually think that's an important
part of the work. Very, I really do.

646
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,460
And I think I differentiate that
though from proving your value.

647
00:40:40,300 --> 00:40:43,900
I think that that's much more about
communication is part of everybody's job.

648
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,540
Everybody has to learn to communicate,

649
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:51,720
and particularly if the work that you
do has a whole bunch of pieces to it

650
00:40:51,720 --> 00:40:53,320
that could be intangible,

651
00:40:54,340 --> 00:40:57,960
you're going to have to make those things
that other people can understand well

652
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,640
enough in a way that makes sense to them
in a way that feels relevant to them.

653
00:41:01,660 --> 00:41:06,590
And that's not about giving them a
textbook. If they wanted to understand Ux,

654
00:41:06,660 --> 00:41:09,840
you could give them a ux textbook and
that is not actually what they need,

655
00:41:10,570 --> 00:41:15,200
but that's how a lot of the conversation
goes. It feels very much like

656
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,880
I am walking you through the
one-on-one class, as opposed to,

657
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:25,480
I understand what your job is
and I am talking with you about

658
00:41:26,500 --> 00:41:31,070
the ways in which the work
I do is relevant to your
job or makes a difference in

659
00:41:31,070 --> 00:41:36,040
your job. And I'm bringing a perspective
to your problems where I'm like, oh,

660
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:41,160
I actually know stuff that might help
you solve your problems that you don't

661
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:41,660
know.

662
00:41:41,660 --> 00:41:46,110
And the reason I know that
stuff is because I do design
work and I have this set

663
00:41:46,110 --> 00:41:48,070
of knowledge that you as a
business leader don't have.

664
00:41:48,820 --> 00:41:50,840
And that's something that I think, again,

665
00:41:51,050 --> 00:41:54,520
is scary for people and
they often shy away from,

666
00:41:55,780 --> 00:41:56,840
and it does us a disservice.

667
00:41:58,020 --> 00:42:00,240
You said you had response
from other disciplines.

668
00:42:00,740 --> 00:42:04,350
I'm always interested because I
can hear us and I can hear someone

669
00:42:05,340 --> 00:42:06,000
saying, wow,

670
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:10,880
these designers just whinging again
about design and design's a place in

671
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,360
the hierarchy and pecking order and all
of the rest of it. And I kind of get it,

672
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,800
and I think we complain
about it quite a lot,

673
00:42:18,180 --> 00:42:21,920
but there definitely does seem a bit of
a midlife crisis going on for design at

674
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:25,000
the moment. Do you think
that this same thing is true,

675
00:42:25,090 --> 00:42:27,320
or have you heard that the same thing is

676
00:42:30,540 --> 00:42:33,480
as the obvious kind of
counterparts to design?

677
00:42:33,570 --> 00:42:35,360
But I'm sure there are other areas too.

678
00:42:36,300 --> 00:42:39,160
So I didn't get a lot of comments,

679
00:42:39,300 --> 00:42:42,320
at least from people in engineering
saying this is true in engineering.

680
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,520
I think a little bit for
maybe some aspects of it,

681
00:42:46,170 --> 00:42:49,360
maybe people who are
doing more front-end work.

682
00:42:49,500 --> 00:42:54,110
But the reality is in tech companies
now, there are just so many engineers,

683
00:42:54,390 --> 00:42:56,070
they don't have the same kind of problems.

684
00:42:56,510 --> 00:43:00,110
When you need engineering resources in
order to build something that's on the

685
00:43:00,110 --> 00:43:03,040
roadmap, engineering
resources tend to show up.

686
00:43:04,020 --> 00:43:08,040
And I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure there
are people who would say, no, no, no,

687
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:11,680
that didn't happen on my team. Yes, I
believe you. But I think by and large,

688
00:43:11,820 --> 00:43:16,200
there's a very different perspective
because there's this idea that, well,

689
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:19,590
we have to ship and we have to have
engineers to build the thing to ship.

690
00:43:20,570 --> 00:43:24,000
We can ship without design
or with very little design,

691
00:43:25,180 --> 00:43:28,320
we can cobble something together
from a design system and ship,

692
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:30,300
but if we don't have engineers,

693
00:43:30,300 --> 00:43:35,020
we can't do that. And so I do think
that engineers tend to have a different

694
00:43:35,020 --> 00:43:38,220
experience. I think that, I'm sure
there's some overlaps in there.

695
00:43:39,220 --> 00:43:43,380
I do wonder about the way that product
management leads on engineering

696
00:43:43,380 --> 00:43:44,213
oftentimes as well.

697
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:49,220
And there's schools of
product management that very

698
00:43:49,220 --> 00:43:53,580
much come out of engineering versus
folks who are much more business focused.

699
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:54,753
And

700
00:43:56,020 --> 00:43:59,420
I would be curious the experience of
engineers who are working with very

701
00:43:59,660 --> 00:44:04,540
business focused product leaders who maybe
do they feel like they are just being

702
00:44:04,540 --> 00:44:08,060
told exactly what to build without
really having a lot of insight into

703
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:12,700
the strategy or a conversation around
trade-offs or things like that?

704
00:44:13,700 --> 00:44:17,740
Probably I don't know enough about that,
and I didn't hear a lot about that.

705
00:44:19,980 --> 00:44:20,610
I think again,

706
00:44:20,610 --> 00:44:25,540
that it tends to be people who are
operating in functions that are

707
00:44:26,670 --> 00:44:31,650
perceived as lesser or underdogs
in their organizations is

708
00:44:31,650 --> 00:44:33,170
where this tends to be really common.

709
00:44:34,270 --> 00:44:34,680
It seems.

710
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:38,330
This is what saying about having the
same conversations that we had 15, 20,

711
00:44:38,330 --> 00:44:38,840
30 years ago,

712
00:44:39,750 --> 00:44:43,970
deeply frustrating that we're still
having the conversation that design isn't

713
00:44:43,970 --> 00:44:46,200
just about making stuff look pretty. And

714
00:44:49,090 --> 00:44:51,890
I still scratch my head a
little bit of why we got there.

715
00:44:53,090 --> 00:44:55,570
I am interested though, in the work
you're doing with Active Voice.

716
00:44:55,670 --> 00:44:58,330
So tell us a little bit about that.

717
00:44:58,770 --> 00:45:02,810
You've also got something coming up on
the December the eighth, is that right?

718
00:45:03,110 --> 00:45:04,690
We do, yeah. So okay.

719
00:45:05,110 --> 00:45:10,050
Active Voice is a tiny little
company and we do coaching

720
00:45:10,190 --> 00:45:13,570
and training programs specifically
for people in design and tech,

721
00:45:13,650 --> 00:45:15,810
a lot of folks in a range of design roles.

722
00:45:17,150 --> 00:45:18,930
And so that's coaching.

723
00:45:19,030 --> 00:45:24,010
We do some group programs and then
we run various in-house programs with

724
00:45:24,290 --> 00:45:28,090
companies. So this event on the 8th of
December, this Reclaim Your Power Event,

725
00:45:28,110 --> 00:45:32,930
this is kind an offshoot of that article
and the way it blew up plus just a

726
00:45:32,930 --> 00:45:34,440
bunch of stuff we've been
working on internally.

727
00:45:34,790 --> 00:45:37,840
We are pulling together what we're
calling kind of a year-end retreat.

728
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:42,050
It's like a half-day of mix of things.
I'm going to do a little bit of a talk,

729
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:46,210
kind of the follow up to that article
about becoming un-gaslightable and then,

730
00:45:49,220 --> 00:45:52,010
which I don't think is a hundred
percent possible. I think that

731
00:45:53,750 --> 00:45:57,170
we are never going to be a hundred
percent resilient to other people's

732
00:45:57,170 --> 00:45:58,003
manipulation,

733
00:45:58,190 --> 00:46:02,970
but I think there are things we can do
that make it a lot harder for us to fall

734
00:46:02,970 --> 00:46:04,690
into those cycles.
I'm going to talk more about that,

735
00:46:05,310 --> 00:46:06,810
but then we have some guests coming in.

736
00:46:06,810 --> 00:46:10,010
So Amy Hoop is a design
systems consultant,

737
00:46:10,790 --> 00:46:15,530
and she has this talk that is
about her own experience with

738
00:46:15,530 --> 00:46:19,090
burnout and reaching this
point of nothing even matters.

739
00:46:19,310 --> 00:46:23,570
And then what she did to reconnect with
a sense of purpose that wasn't all just

740
00:46:23,570 --> 00:46:28,130
about being purely career-driven
all the time. Jess Dale,

741
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:32,050
Jess is a senior design manager at Etsy,

742
00:46:32,070 --> 00:46:36,330
and they're going to be talking about
their management practice or leadership

743
00:46:36,530 --> 00:46:39,160
practice, which they
call radical softness.

744
00:46:39,790 --> 00:46:44,250
And I remember when Jess told me that
that's the way that they were thinking

745
00:46:44,250 --> 00:46:48,360
about their practice. I was just

746
00:46:50,260 --> 00:46:52,700
absolutely enamored by this
concept of radical softness.

747
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:54,820
And so they're going to be talking
about what does that look like?

748
00:46:54,970 --> 00:46:57,380
What does it look like to
lead in a radically soft way?

749
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:02,090
And then we're going to have a panel
about boundaries and the way in which

750
00:47:02,090 --> 00:47:06,580
boundaries can actually happen inside
these kinds of companies where people will

751
00:47:06,580 --> 00:47:09,940
often say like, oh, but I
can't tell my boss no. Or, oh,

752
00:47:10,060 --> 00:47:12,500
I want to set boundaries,
but it's actually impossible.

753
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:15,180
So we're going to talk about, well,

754
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:19,700
how do people actually do it with people
who have done it and kind of live to

755
00:47:19,700 --> 00:47:22,500
tell the tale and didn't have it
derail their careers entirely?

756
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:27,500
And then my colleague Jen is going to
be facilitating some activities that are

757
00:47:27,500 --> 00:47:30,450
really helping people take
all of that and say, okay,

758
00:47:31,190 --> 00:47:35,970
now what are you actually going to
do to make some changes in your life?

759
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:40,530
What do you want to close out of this
year in terms of how you're showing up and

760
00:47:40,530 --> 00:47:45,360
what do you want to open the door to
next year so that you can show up in your

761
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:47,840
work in a way that's going to
be more sustainable for you,

762
00:47:47,860 --> 00:47:49,530
maybe a little more joyful for you,

763
00:47:50,430 --> 00:47:54,170
and a whole lot less caught up in
those cycles of people pleasing

764
00:47:54,390 --> 00:47:58,650
over-identifying, et cetera. So it'll
be a little coachy end to that. Good.

765
00:47:58,650 --> 00:47:59,410
Yeah, that's what.

766
00:47:59,410 --> 00:48:01,090
We're doing. That sounds
good. Sounds very practical.

767
00:48:01,750 --> 00:48:06,690
One of my favorite bits of feedback from
a coachee who's been doing very well,

768
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:08,890
well actually before my
coaching I have to admit,

769
00:48:08,890 --> 00:48:13,650
but is also doing even better
afterwards, was I like to think no,

770
00:48:13,650 --> 00:48:14,470
but as he said,

771
00:48:14,470 --> 00:48:17,650
one of the big things I got out of
this was not to take work so seriously.

772
00:48:18,510 --> 00:48:23,170
And I know that maybe to a US audience

773
00:48:23,910 --> 00:48:28,490
for whom their sort of calvinist
ethic is really strong,

774
00:48:28,510 --> 00:48:32,890
but I think it was a really important
thing because I see people get,

775
00:48:33,810 --> 00:48:38,810
I mean as the mental health
and wellbeing effects of

776
00:48:38,810 --> 00:48:40,840
feeling, that stress
are really, really real.

777
00:48:41,790 --> 00:48:46,050
And it is important I think to have
purposeful and meaningful work and people

778
00:48:46,050 --> 00:48:48,690
really, it's important for
people. At the same time,

779
00:48:49,530 --> 00:48:51,330
I think it is also important
to go, do you know what,

780
00:48:51,390 --> 00:48:55,840
I'm kind of just making rich guys, mostly
guys, very rich people, even richer.

781
00:48:56,950 --> 00:49:01,290
And I don't think I need to do that on
my weekends and at the expense of time

782
00:49:01,290 --> 00:49:02,970
with my friends and family
or any of those things.

783
00:49:04,070 --> 00:49:08,930
And I think that there's this piece in
there that's like detaching work and

784
00:49:09,130 --> 00:49:12,770
identity at some level, but without
just turning work into meaninglessness.

785
00:49:12,770 --> 00:49:15,290
Because I think that that's
the other end of the spectrum.

786
00:49:15,430 --> 00:49:18,970
So what I've seen a lot of
people do is go from, okay,

787
00:49:20,570 --> 00:49:24,360
fully identified with my career.
I'm moving on up and I work with,

788
00:49:24,430 --> 00:49:25,130
not exclusively,

789
00:49:25,130 --> 00:49:28,490
but I work with a lot of women and
there's oftentimes a particular thing that

790
00:49:28,490 --> 00:49:31,650
shows up there too, which is
like, I'm going to make it.

791
00:49:31,810 --> 00:49:35,530
I bought into some of that. We
need more women in leadership.

792
00:49:35,590 --> 00:49:39,770
And so it's my job to kind of
move up and become a director,

793
00:49:39,790 --> 00:49:43,250
become a vp, lean in, and then

794
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:47,740
you know, girlbossed your way up
for a while and then you're like,

795
00:49:47,740 --> 00:49:52,200
wait a second, am I happy?

796
00:49:52,380 --> 00:49:54,590
Do I like this? And also,

797
00:49:54,630 --> 00:49:57,320
what did it do to me?
Who did I have to become to get here?

798
00:49:58,140 --> 00:50:01,590
All of this stuff starts to come up,
and I think it happens for everybody.

799
00:50:01,700 --> 00:50:03,280
It can happen for people any gender,

800
00:50:03,740 --> 00:50:06,880
but oftentimes I think
there's a particular extra
little spin on it for women.

801
00:50:07,900 --> 00:50:12,000
And so then there's this moment of
really rethinking and going like, okay,

802
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,560
well do I care about any of this and
what do I actually want to be doing with

803
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:18,560
myself? And what I notice
is that for a lot of people,

804
00:50:19,410 --> 00:50:22,440
those big identity
questions really kick up.

805
00:50:22,740 --> 00:50:26,040
And some people respond to
that by kind of being like,

806
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:30,450
I can't rethink this work is my identity
because I don't know who I am without

807
00:50:30,450 --> 00:50:31,690
it. And it's too scary to think about.

808
00:50:32,830 --> 00:50:37,570
Or people really lose that and
then can kind of drift into that

809
00:50:37,890 --> 00:50:42,250
cynicism and pointlessness very easily.
And I like to think of it as like, okay,

810
00:50:42,250 --> 00:50:47,010
we need to think about identity and
meaning and maybe some sense of purpose

811
00:50:47,470 --> 00:50:51,010
that's bigger than work. It's not just
about what's happening in your career.

812
00:50:52,470 --> 00:50:55,490
Who are you without this job
and what do you care about and

813
00:50:57,690 --> 00:51:00,580
what do you want to, I don't know,

814
00:51:00,890 --> 00:51:04,180
what do you want people to say about
you down the line or what's going to be

815
00:51:04,460 --> 00:51:06,580
important to you 20 years from now?

816
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:11,500
But then what are the ways that
your work can align with that?

817
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:15,700
And what are the things about your
work that you can bring into greater

818
00:51:15,700 --> 00:51:19,260
alignment with your values? How do you
express your values in your workplace?

819
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:22,090
Even if it's not in every aspect,

820
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:25,260
even if it's just in the relationships
you have with your colleagues,

821
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:28,460
how do you make some peace with that,

822
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:34,060
but make that something that
can affirm who you are but

823
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:38,060
is not the sole driver of who you
are? Because I think the other,

824
00:51:38,180 --> 00:51:43,140
I ping-ponging from work is everything
over to work is nothing but a

825
00:51:43,340 --> 00:51:46,140
paycheck also has not served people well.

826
00:51:46,410 --> 00:51:48,460
I've seen them do it
and they are depressed.

827
00:51:48,690 --> 00:51:49,610
Yeah, I agree.

828
00:51:49,940 --> 00:51:53,090
I think one of the things that I find
found the most useful on that front is

829
00:51:53,090 --> 00:51:57,500
asking people or getting people to
reflect upon where they find their energy.

830
00:51:57,590 --> 00:52:01,540
And that sounds very woo-woo. But
partly I think the body, well,

831
00:52:01,540 --> 00:52:05,060
my wife who's a psychoanalyst would say
the psyche or the unconscious doesn't

832
00:52:05,060 --> 00:52:09,420
lie when you come out, I was
going to say come back home,

833
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:14,420
but out these days often from a day of
work and you feel depleted and you also

834
00:52:14,420 --> 00:52:16,900
know when you've got to spring in
your step and you feel like, oh,

835
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:19,500
that sort of energized me in some way.

836
00:52:20,220 --> 00:52:24,860
I think often just focusing
on that really, really
tells you a lot about, okay,

837
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:28,660
and it's a fairly obvious
sounds really simple,

838
00:52:28,660 --> 00:52:32,090
which is we're going to try and do more
of the things that energize me and less

839
00:52:32,090 --> 00:52:33,180
of the things that de-energize.

840
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:37,090
But it's more about that idea of a sort
of bucket of energy and there's always

841
00:52:37,090 --> 00:52:39,020
going to be some holes in it
that are kind of leaking out,

842
00:52:39,110 --> 00:52:43,380
but as long as it's being
topped up at a greater pace or

843
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:44,610
the very worst,

844
00:52:44,610 --> 00:52:49,140
that's sort of even the better rather
than these gaping holes where it's just

845
00:52:49,140 --> 00:52:52,460
like I'm constantly having to pour so
much in and I'm never ever going to kind

846
00:52:53,110 --> 00:52:54,700
get more to at the bottom.

847
00:52:55,290 --> 00:52:59,460
That practice of really noticing that
has to start with just the ability

848
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:03,380
to observe yourself without
judgment, which is hard for people.

849
00:53:03,720 --> 00:53:06,980
And I mean there's definitely overlap
between that and what somebody might do in

850
00:53:06,980 --> 00:53:09,500
therapy, but I think it's really
helpful in the coaching process,

851
00:53:09,590 --> 00:53:11,610
which is can you observe

852
00:53:13,460 --> 00:53:17,310
what your energy looks like? Can
you observe what your behaviors are?

853
00:53:17,570 --> 00:53:19,190
Can you observe what you're feeling?

854
00:53:19,810 --> 00:53:23,910
Can you just observe those things
and just start to notice, oh,

855
00:53:24,860 --> 00:53:29,130
I get really tense in these situations.
Oh, this is really draining for me.

856
00:53:29,710 --> 00:53:34,360
And the first part of that though is just
letting yourself notice those things,

857
00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:38,570
acknowledge them. You don't have
to justify them or defend them.

858
00:53:38,570 --> 00:53:41,360
You don't have to necessarily
fix them or anything,

859
00:53:42,030 --> 00:53:45,410
but just let that exist and
let that then say, okay,

860
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:51,690
once I notice all of these things,
what do I want to do with them? And

861
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:58,730
part of that is making peace with
reality and saying like, oh, okay.

862
00:53:59,210 --> 00:54:01,690
Because part of what you said
is when there's these things,

863
00:54:01,690 --> 00:54:05,250
it's like energy just
seeping out of the bucket.

864
00:54:06,550 --> 00:54:10,290
It can be painful to admit to
yourself that is what is true,

865
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:13,250
that your job is actually
depleting you at that level.

866
00:54:13,590 --> 00:54:17,450
That is a painful thing for a
lot of people to have to face.

867
00:54:18,340 --> 00:54:23,050
And my sense is that a lot of people
spend a lot of time almost avoiding

868
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:26,410
looking at that directly
because it's painful.

869
00:54:27,270 --> 00:54:31,290
And my experience is that once you can
look at it and work through that pain of

870
00:54:31,290 --> 00:54:32,530
like, oh,

871
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:36,530
I've been telling myself that
I love my job and actually wow,

872
00:54:36,990 --> 00:54:40,840
I'm really unhappy, or whatever
it is. On the other side of that,

873
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:44,730
there's a whole bunch of freedom
because now you can be like, okay,

874
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:47,290
I don't have to keep doing it
this way. I can make changes.

875
00:54:47,490 --> 00:54:51,690
I can figure out where are
all the invisible choices
and I can start making some

876
00:54:51,690 --> 00:54:52,570
choices for myself.

877
00:54:53,890 --> 00:54:58,210
I think busy work is the
avoidance mechanism often
for that. And you can feel,

878
00:54:58,230 --> 00:55:00,530
and that's the sort of
cult of productivity,

879
00:55:00,550 --> 00:55:02,570
is this idea that if I'm cranking through

880
00:55:04,340 --> 00:55:08,890
my inbox or slack, which is supposed
to be the solution to email,

881
00:55:09,550 --> 00:55:10,810
it kind of made things worse. Well.

882
00:55:10,810 --> 00:55:11,250
That's right.

883
00:55:11,250 --> 00:55:14,840
I mean the modern workplace has an endless
amount of places you could put your

884
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:16,570
energy to avoid facing.

885
00:55:19,310 --> 00:55:21,810
It feels like you're doing work though,
right? That's the trick, isn't it?

886
00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:25,810
Well, you are. I mean, you doing
work. It is all work actually.

887
00:55:25,930 --> 00:55:30,010
I mean I think it's all
work. It's just a way to,

888
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:35,010
it's just work that maybe you don't have
to do or work that you spend more time

889
00:55:35,010 --> 00:55:39,010
than necessary on, but it's like work
that kind of keeps you from the truth.

890
00:55:39,910 --> 00:55:44,810
But it's kind of junk food of work, that
stuff in the sense that you can kind of

891
00:55:47,110 --> 00:55:48,650
eat your feel of that kind of work,

892
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:53,290
that sort of busy way and crank through
we or slack messages, whatever your

893
00:55:55,940 --> 00:56:00,730
items you have on in whatever atlassian
system that you're using or whatever

894
00:56:00,730 --> 00:56:02,770
else. And

895
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:07,970
it's not nutritious for the
soul and the kind of being,

896
00:56:07,970 --> 00:56:08,970
and I think one of the things that

897
00:56:10,860 --> 00:56:14,770
you mentioned and I talk about with my
coaches a lot is the first thing to do

898
00:56:14,770 --> 00:56:18,770
that, to do that what actually
energizes me and whatnot here,

899
00:56:19,590 --> 00:56:20,730
you have to make some space,

900
00:56:21,030 --> 00:56:26,010
you have to stop or cut down on the
busy work and that kind of sense

901
00:56:26,030 --> 00:56:30,570
of trying to keep up with something
which is not possible to keep up with in

902
00:56:30,570 --> 00:56:34,170
order to just to have that
sort of moment of enough quiet,

903
00:56:34,490 --> 00:56:36,450
I think to be able to
do the self-reflection.

904
00:56:36,690 --> 00:56:38,200
I don't think it's a thing
that you can kind of,

905
00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:43,130
that sort of self-reflection is not a
thing that you can do on your to-do list.

906
00:56:43,290 --> 00:56:45,970
I think you can schedule time for it and
I think you probably should actually if

907
00:56:45,970 --> 00:56:47,530
you're one of those
people. But I think it's.

908
00:56:47,710 --> 00:56:52,410
No, I mean you can't put be present on
your to-do list and then check it off.

909
00:56:53,090 --> 00:56:54,810
When you can't cram it,
right? You can't go, well,

910
00:56:54,970 --> 00:56:58,450
I should be doing an hour's meditation,
I reckon can do it in 10, 10 minutes.

911
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:01,730
It's just one of those things that you
actually have to make time for. It's.

912
00:57:01,730 --> 00:57:02,840
Funny, it's interesting actually,

913
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:06,650
somebody who's in the group
program that we run right now.

914
00:57:06,790 --> 00:57:11,130
She said something in our session the
other day that was just really stuck with

915
00:57:11,130 --> 00:57:11,670
me.

916
00:57:11,670 --> 00:57:15,010
She said that she was trying to make
more time for herself and taking care of

917
00:57:15,010 --> 00:57:16,330
herself and for workouts,

918
00:57:16,350 --> 00:57:21,170
and that she kept feeling like
she needed to do a short hiit

919
00:57:21,170 --> 00:57:22,690
workout because she has so much to do.

920
00:57:23,270 --> 00:57:26,690
And she decided that because I can get
the whole thing done really quickly with

921
00:57:26,690 --> 00:57:29,130
a hiit workout, she decided
that when she feels that way,

922
00:57:29,450 --> 00:57:31,130
actually what she needs to
do is take a one hour walk.

923
00:57:32,670 --> 00:57:35,810
And that was a big shift that
the less time I feel like I have,

924
00:57:35,950 --> 00:57:37,690
the more I need a full hour walk.

925
00:57:37,830 --> 00:57:40,970
And that's something I really wish
everybody sort of took to heart.

926
00:57:41,270 --> 00:57:42,570
The more frantic I feel,

927
00:57:44,210 --> 00:57:48,570
probably the more that I actually really
need to press pause in a meaningful

928
00:57:48,570 --> 00:57:49,403
way.

929
00:57:49,750 --> 00:57:52,410
So if I, to continue the food
metaphor, instead of grabbing a snack,

930
00:57:52,430 --> 00:57:56,490
you actually sort of take the time to
make a decent meal and sit down and enjoy

931
00:57:56,490 --> 00:58:01,010
it Slowly. So talking of
time, we've come up to time.

932
00:58:01,020 --> 00:58:04,890
We're actually almost
over time, the podcast,

933
00:58:05,390 --> 00:58:09,290
as I think is named off the Ray
and Charles Eames film Power of Ten,

934
00:58:09,310 --> 00:58:11,650
all about the relative size
of things in the universe.

935
00:58:12,590 --> 00:58:15,410
And so the final question is
always, maybe you've answered it,

936
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:20,170
what one small thing is either overlooked
or could be redesigned that would have

937
00:58:20,170 --> 00:58:22,050
an outsized effect on the world?

938
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,250
Yeah, I think we should go with
what we've been talking about.

939
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:31,600
It's the small act of taking a moment to

940
00:58:33,250 --> 00:58:34,083
be present

941
00:58:35,680 --> 00:58:39,980
in your reality and to acknowledge what
is happening to you and around you.

942
00:58:41,140 --> 00:58:46,100
I think that if all of us did that,
if we took that second, that minute,

943
00:58:46,250 --> 00:58:48,660
that hour, whatever is needed
at these different intervals,

944
00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:52,780
to really just notice what we're feeling,

945
00:58:53,210 --> 00:58:54,300
what we're experiencing,

946
00:58:54,520 --> 00:58:58,060
the impact that whatever's happening
in our day is having on us.

947
00:58:59,920 --> 00:59:04,440
I think it would really change the
behaviors that we have afterward and also

948
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,600
help us really make some
different choices for ourselves.

949
00:59:08,030 --> 00:59:10,880
Very good. And if people want
to avoid doing some work,

950
00:59:11,010 --> 00:59:13,760
where can they find you
online and check you out?

951
00:59:14,870 --> 00:59:15,230
Yeah,

952
00:59:15,230 --> 00:59:20,040
come to Activevoicehq.com and
there's all the information

953
00:59:20,210 --> 00:59:23,610
about our upcoming programs and
places you can hang out with us.

954
00:59:24,270 --> 00:59:26,610
You can also reach out to me on Linkedin.

955
00:59:26,710 --> 00:59:30,770
I'm there pretty often these days
and I would love to hear from you,

956
00:59:30,910 --> 00:59:32,930
so please feel free to hit me up.

957
00:59:33,900 --> 00:59:37,690
Thank you so much for being my
guest on paragraph 10. Thank.

958
00:59:37,900 --> 00:59:38,780
You so much, Andy.

959
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:42,020
So I'll put all the
links in the show notes.

960
00:59:42,590 --> 00:59:45,420
Thank you so much for joining us
on the live stream. Thank you.

961
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:47,980
If you're listening on the
podcast, I hope you enjoyed it.

962
00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:52,980
If you're looking on YouTube, then
leave a comment. Do you agree, disagree.

963
00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:55,020
If you've got any other thoughts about it,

964
00:59:57,040 --> 01:00:00,100
you can find Power of ten at Polaine.com.

965
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:03,940
You'll find all the show notes
there. You'll find the podcast there.

966
01:00:03,940 --> 01:00:04,980
You'll find my blog there.

967
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:10,100
You'll also find links to my
very occasional newsletter
called Doctor's Notes

968
01:00:11,880 --> 01:00:15,620
and everything else, your heart or
desire. Thank you so much for joining me.