Episode 20: Deep Dive - Design Leadership
In this Surfacing deep dive, Lisa asks Andy about the challenges of design leadership. Andy talks about ways to support design team members, and the role of constraints in keeping the team focused on creating relevant experiences. Andy also reveals what it feels like to work in an organization that honors inclusion and diversity. Finally, Lisa asks Andy what leaders look for when searching for vendor partners to support a large and evolving team.
Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to Surfacing. In this Surfacing deep dive, Lisa asks Andy about the challenges of design leadership. Andy talks about ways to support design team members, and the role of constraints in keeping the team focused on creating relevant experiences. Andy also reveals what it feels like to work in an organization that honors inclusion and diversity. Finally, Lisa asks Andy what leaders look for when searching for vendor partners to support a large and evolving team.
Lisa Welchman:
So, the last time we had a deep dive I got to hog all the time, and you got to ask me some questions about digital governance. And, we promised, at that time, that the next deep dive... Seems like years ago, doesn't it?
Andy Vitale:
It does.
Lisa Welchman:
The next deep dive would be me asking you some questions about design. So, are you up for it?
Andy Vitale:
I'm more than up for it. Ready to go.
Lisa Welchman:
You're raring and ready to go. So, I wrote some questions down, she said rattling her piece of paper, and we'll see where the conversation goes. I'm going to talk about the questions that I didn't ask, and then later on you can talk about them if you wanted to. I'm not going to ask you the state of the design world or things that I think we've talked about a lot, and you've talked about a lot.
Andy Vitale:
Right.
Lisa Welchman:
I really wanted to lean into what I personally, looking at you, see as your superpower, your Andy superpower. Can you guess what I think that is?
Andy Vitale:
I can't at all. I would love to hear what my superpower is, in your opinion.
Lisa Welchman:
Okay, my superpower is... My superpower, I don't have any superpowers. Well, I have six, but I won't talk about them. I think that your superpower is that you have an incredible amount of compassion and empathy. And, you bring, with that, a level of patience that makes you a great team leader. Just always have a really positive attitude. And, I would imagine, that it's kind of cool to work on your team, because you just sort of seem like the type of leader who would have your team's back, doesn't take any bullshit, and would also take some hits for your team to keep them safe. So, I have some questions about being a design team lead.
Andy Vitale:
Okay.
Lisa Welchman:
I'm just going to ask you straight out, what's the hardest thing about that job?
Andy Vitale:
There are so many things that I can think of that are really, really hard about what I do, but it doesn't feel hard in the moment. I think managing expectations and creating an environment... From day one, the last few places I've worked, but this one specifically, my goal is to create a destination workplace. I really want to create an environment, a design culture or community, that people come to to get better at their craft. And, where if they decide to move on to somewhere else in their career, good, they become part of our portfolio, my portfolio, and hopefully they refer people back that we can help. But, a lot of that comes with making lots of promises to people, and, "Hey, this is going to be awesome, even though in the moment it might not be," or, "Our maturity might not be as high as we want." So, there's always this... I don't know if it's imposter syndrome. It's not imposter syndrome, but in the back of my head it's always this fear of, "Did I overpromise? Did I sell someone something that we're not actually living up to?"
Lisa Welchman:
You mean a new employee?
Andy Vitale:
A new employee.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah, okay.
Andy Vitale:
Or, even the people that have been around for a while. It's like, "Hey, we're moving the needle, we're making it better." It's funny, because in the moment you don't see the progress. You know progress is being made and I know myself that we're driving forward, driving forward, but when you really take a step back and see the progress that's been made... And, as you scale this organization, when you're not fully as mature as you'd like to be, there's a lot of pain points with it. It's like you're juggling a lot of balls, a lot of spinning plates, so how do you make sure that you, A, don't drop them, or, B, that you have enough support and trust from the other people on the team. That, you're like, "Hey, you've got this and I trust you, let's continue to move on this journey together." The hardest part is just being afraid or the potential of letting people down along the way.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah. That's interesting. That's really interesting, especially when you're talking about, "As people move on," because a lot of times you hear leaders talk about, "We want to retain these folks forever, and ever, and ever." We've talked about job maturity and that sort of thing, and when it's time to promote someone, or when it's time for them to move out of the team in some other episodes. So, I guess this is the flip side of that, I asked you, "What's the hardest thing?" But, I guess I'm diving deeper into the same question, how do you do that? Am I asking for the Andy secret sauce that you don't want to... You asked me this at the end. I was just working on the edit for the podcast were you were talking to me about digital governance, and at the end you were saying, "What's the secret sauce?" And so, that's good, but how do you do that every day? You have a huge team and you're in a growth mode, and that's really interesting. You're also super mellow, which is good, and I think is really helpful.
Lisa Welchman:
But, there are a lot of design team leads, maybe their teams aren't as big as yours, maybe they're larger, how does that really look day-to-day, when you're talking about bringing all of these people together? Just [inaudible 00:06:27] from management perspective, how much do you delegate? How much do you get involved in day-to-day work, or not get involved in day-to-day work? What's your day like, I guess is what I'm asking?
Andy Vitale:
My day, it's a lot of meetings and a lot of context switching, whether they be one-on-ones, or checking in on team work, and going to design reviews, or meeting with our technology partners and figuring out how we can optimize the way we work together, or our product teams. Literally, it's all of these things in a day. It's meeting with our talent brand team as we go to launch a campaign to recruit. It's meeting with our HR, we call them the pulse, but meeting with our teams that work on job descriptions and core competencies so we can measure how the team performs or have people understand what's expected of them in their role. It's a lot of driving design forward and design-heavy conversations. But, at an organizational level, more so than the team level, I've got directors, and senior directors, and VPs that are a little bit closer to the team level. But, I'm in team reviews, we have meetings with the team a lot. It's a lot of clear communication and updating, and just sharing our progress to ourselves and outside of our teams, just so we're all aware of what's happening.
Andy Vitale:
But, the secret sauce is... I think my secret sauce is my ability to, "I hear you're saying, 'no,' to some of these things I'm asking for." I just keep moving though. "No," doesn't land with me. It's not that I don't hear the, "No," and sometimes, "No," is, "No." But, it's the seeking to understand, "Help me understand the, 'no,' let me explain this point of view, let me explain why this is important, let me explain why it works. And, if it's still, 'no,' then fine." I'm in an organization now that's really, really supportive of all the things that I want to do, and I haven't had that opportunity in other places. So, it's just a mix of timing, plus the organization's ready for it, and I guess I'm saying a lot of the right things that make sense to a lot of people.
Andy Vitale:
Other than that, it's a lot of things happening all at once. It's just every day, look at the list, prioritize what's important, knock out what you can, and definitely rely on a strong team, a strong leadership team for sure. One of the things we brought in was design operations. I know we talked a lot about what that is and what that means.
Lisa Welchman:
That's one of my questions.
Andy Vitale:
Perfect. We're focused right now, in our design organization, on research, is one of our five pillars. Our second pillar is product design, it's the design that goes into all of our products, and there's a lot of them. Our third pillar is digital brand, so how we translate the brand to our digital products, voice and tone, and things like that. The fourth pillar is, what I'm calling today, design innovation. It's supporting our accelerator studio, then at the same time it's supporting our emerging practices, so service design, conversational design, eventually strategic foresight, design thinking facilitation. It's where we expand design thinking through the organization. The fifth pillar is actually design operations, where inside of that we'll have some design program management, and we're also going to have research operations. And then, the final piece, at least that will land there now, is design communications. That is role that I'm super interested in. We're looking for an intern right now, actually, to come in and help us as we launch a blog, some of our social media sites, and figure out a regular cadence of communication, of what we're doing as a design organization, to the right audience throughout the organization.
Lisa Welchman:
That's kind of cool. So, my last question about you and your job, and then I'm going to ask you some more philosophical design related questions. Do you miss designing?
Andy Vitale:
I feel like I design every day. If I'm not designing an actual thing... Which, hey, every now and then I get to work on some stuff, I get to make a graphic for our social media or even for our podcast, or something like that, I get to do a little bit of what you would consider hands-on designing. But now, I'm designing an organization and strategies, I don't feel like I'm not designing. I feel like I'm influencing a lot of things through design and through the lens of design. That's what I love to do. I'm really good at seeing... My boss... We don't call them bosses here, we call them leaders. My leader calls it this, "Organizational agility," that I have, that I can see bumps in the road or potential hiccups that are far out, and figure out how to plan as we get up to them. To me, that is the true definition of leveraging design to solve large problems in a company.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah, that's something that probably you and I have in common, which is just being able to see that range, being able to see that causal chain. "If you do this, the dominoes, they're going to fall this way and two years from now this is going to happen, so let's not do that." Or, "Let's plan for that to happen," or, "Let's find a way around it," so that's kind of cool. I have a question that's sort of at the intersection of what I do and what you do. I'm always talking about policies and standards, we did the whole thing on design governance with me, and I know I've indoctrinated you into the governance world, and I'm a little bit upset that on a long list of things you just listed, you never said the G word.
Andy Vitale:
There's a reason for that, actually.
Lisa Welchman:
No, I don't want to hear it.
Andy Vitale:
It does live in two areas that are deeper in those pillars, on the brand side and on the operations side. But right now, our organization is, like most do, going through a series of changes that we've already started to go through. Governance for people who are new at some of what we do is a little bit of a scary word.
Lisa Welchman:
It is. It really is. It's sad. But anyhow, I'll brush that aside under the carpet, we'll swing back around on that one later on. But, thinking about governance, and thinking about... I'm going to say the C word, which nobody like, which are constraints. So, I think governance gets a bad rap, because people... I will not say people, I will say designers in particular, some designers, not all. Some designers, in particular situations that don't benefit them, I've said this before, don't like constraints. They think that they should be allowed absolute freedom. And, I believe that for every design process, no matter what you're building, there's always a period when you're just wide open. You're just considering all of the options.
Lisa Welchman:
But, for most teams working in digital spaces, that wide open place, for a lot of the work that they do, not all of it, a lot of it has passed. It's not as if... We're not really innovating, they're not all in the lab. They're not all creating brand new things or doing --they're actually working on a product that's existed for years, and years, and years, or making changes, but they still want to bring this no constraint mentality to it. And so, I'm just really curious, separate from all the stuff that I say, what are your feelings about constraints in the design process? Where are they appropriate? What's the advantage and disadvantage of it? What do you think about that, when somebody like me comes and says, "Yeah, you should have standards and they should be this, that, and the other."? What's your philosophy around that?
Andy Vitale:
I love constraints. I think that it requires a certain talent to even innovate within certain constraints. If designers didn't have constraints they'd be creating abstract art all day long. That may have been what happened really early... I think the equation to that in the digital space is there's probably like 5000 weather apps, and even though they all kind of do the same exact thing, they're all wildly different looking. I don't even remember what it was called... I lived in Minnesota at the time, so whatever the weather was that day, you load this screen and it was like, "Minus three degrees, it's fucking freezing outside." The next one, "Four degrees, wear a fucking sweater." It was probably called The Fucking Weather App. Cool, somebody made that. What value does it bring? A couple of chuckles, great, but it's not solving problems.
Andy Vitale:
At some point in my career I learned that the most important thing, for me, is to leverage design for good in areas that have a lot of regulation. So, in the healthcare space, working on medical devices. At 3M I got to work on enterprise healthcare software, which was like $800 million of the company's business, and how doctors can communicate with CDI specialists who are nurses that are monitoring the patients for quality of care, yet the hospital wants to get a bill out the door. How do you make this process pretty seamless and quick, and allow that communication? And then, working on population healthcare software, and creating algorithms to identify excess expenditures or in proper quality of care at hospitals. Which, it showed billions of dollars in potential cost savings in the first 10 hospitals. And, to me, the quality of care part was more important than the hospitals efficiently making money. Then, going into banking and getting to send up new practices in banking.
Andy Vitale:
And now, getting to build a team that's focused on mortgages. But it's not just mortgages, it's all sorts of financial loans. To me, these are important and complex, and moments in peoples' lives where they're not really confident in their decision making. The thing that we're building, the product, the platform, it can't fail, it can't let these people down. Because, at some point, their lives are on the line, or really heavy financial implications. So, I take that so seriously, and the constraints that we have allow us to make sure that we're not causing... Back to what we originally talked, we're not causing harm to anyone in this process.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah. Constraints are really interesting, maybe we should find someone to talk to this about on the podcast. Because, for me, a more positive way of looking at a constraint, is it means that you have a very specific goal.
Andy Vitale:
Right.
Lisa Welchman:
And, the constraints are just removing from the equation all of the things that you know aren't going to allow you to hit that target.
Andy Vitale:
Right.
Lisa Welchman:
And so, if you are creating abstract art, maybe that's a problem. But, most of the time, that's not we're doing. There's a relationship between peoples' lack of desire for constraint and the fact that a lot of organizations don't have a clear and consistent strategy. They're really just making shit up as they go along. And, particularly in this first 30-year wave of the commercial web, a lot of that stuff hit the wall and stuck, because it was going to. So, yes, there are some very brilliant people in this process, don't get me wrong, but I'm also just saying at the beginning of a new technology there's this tremendous opportunity. And so, if you can gin something up well enough, and run hard enough, and be consistent, and stay in the game, there's a high probability that you can be successful. And yeah, there are people who fail as well, but I think there's just all of this opportunity in that. But, as you get closer to being more intentional about creating something specific, like you were talking about, to solve a particular healthcare problem, or to solve a human rights issue, it can be anything, to educate a child, that's when actually being very, very clear about what you're trying to do and what you're not trying to do could be really helpful.
Lisa Welchman:
But, that seems to somehow intellectually... And maybe you can illuminate this a little bit for me, because I didn't go to design school and study design, but that type of constraint and tightening seems to culturally and intellectually rub designers the wrong way. I'm wondering why that's the case. I can understand if someone's being prescriptive and going up to a designer and saying, "Look, basically I designed this, you make it prettier and make it work the right way," or whatever. So, I'm not talking about somebody going to a designer and micromanaging their process, I'm talking... Do you get what I'm saying? Does that make a lot of sense?
Andy Vitale:
I do. I think it has to do with design disciplines, actually.
Lisa Welchman:
Okay.
Andy Vitale:
The school I went to, at least for my associates, it wasn't a design school. It was like a technical school, where we had design... So, my degree is in graphic design, or digital graphic design, so it was a lot of print, but it was also a lot of early days of digital. So, we learned a lot of tools. What's weird about learning tools is the tools go away over time. Except for Photoshop and Illustrator, I don't think any of the tools that I used are the most commonly used tools now. I had one teacher that I was with for most of the time that I was there, he was a youth pastor, now he's an actual pastor, and he lives in Charlotte. So, I got to reconnect with him, and it's...
Lisa Welchman:
Oh, that's fun.
Andy Vitale:
... interesting to see how things have changed for us. We didn't have a lot of time of playing in school. Our illustration class was like, "Yes, find something that you want to draw, create art, do that." But, when we were designing for the web, it wasn't like, "Create anything that you want," it was like, "Create a site for a company. Create a menu for a restaurant."
Lisa Welchman:
Oh, I see.
Andy Vitale:
So, we already had those kinds of constraints built in. So, I could see where if you go to a school to learn fashion, or true, what we would still consider, the arts, I think that to those individuals constraints might seem a little bit more intimidating or more like, "Oh wait, that's going to impact my creative flow." I think that's a difference. We're having this conversation a lot lately between creatives and designers. I think that they're different now, especially the people that are going to school now that I know of. Even the boot camps, which people really don't speak highly of a lot of the time. Because, it's hard to learn a lot of things in a short period of time, for sure. But, they're learning research, and they're learning how to ask questions, and they're learning how to uncover pain points, and intent, and empathy. And, they're realizing when you really look at the design process and you put the human at the center of it, it's hard to just really... Obviously we want to color outside the lines a little bit, but it's really hard to color two pages away, because you're so focused on the human that you're solving problems for.
Lisa Welchman:
Which, is the constraint.
Andy Vitale:
Yeah, exactly.
Lisa Welchman:
Right? And so, it's just another way of looking at that. This particular problem, for this particular person, at this particular time, with this particular technology stack, with this particular set of branding rules. If you put in everything that's probably already preordained or whatever, it's not tight, but it seems like it should be easier.
Andy Vitale:
Right, exactly.
Lisa Welchman:
And, maybe that's not people want. Maybe they don't want it to be easier. It is less creative in that way, there are less possibilities. But, it's more satisfying, in that you're actually solving problems for people.
Andy Vitale:
Exactly. I think the other side of the coin that we talk about, agility and agile, because we've talked about that a lot, is innovation. When you look at innovation in general, there's a lot of ways you can break up innovation, but I like to break it up into sustaining and disruptive. And, everybody wants the disruptive, but the disruptives, they're one in a million.
Lisa Welchman:
Well, that's how you get on the magazine cover, and that's how you get to be famous.
Andy Vitale:
Right. Yeah. And, a lot of the companies that talk about that disruptive innovation and how it's okay to fail, they really don't have that culture of failing and learning. The companies that have that sustaining innovation, or they introduce something new, maybe it's not a game changer, but it's a game changer for the individual using the product. And, through that series of testing, and learning, and gradually improving, that's when you have more opportunity to tie the threads and really create something that's disruptive. Because, you're getting to understand the market a lot better than when you're just going for these big moonshots that never really happen. So, I think the organizations, aside from the agility side, they've got to really focus. It's great to try and try to do something different, but, at the end of the day, know how you make your money, know those markets, understand the trends. The disruption there is to see where things are going and be first to be that new thing, or that different way of doing things. A lot of organizations, they talk the talk there, but they don't actually back that up.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah, or they come out with a big splash and they don't know how to operate or sustain it.
Andy Vitale:
Right.
Lisa Welchman:
They don't know how to keep that experience or just make that little small and delightful tweak that is really satisfying, that just streamlines it a little bit more and makes me have to have three less keystrokes, or remembers me in a non-creepy way, ways that are really helpful. I think people really underestimate the value of that to a customer, because the people who do get the press are the ones who are doing these kind of things, these big splash things or whatever.
Lisa Welchman:
So, I've got one other question, and then you can tell me if there's anything else you want to talk about, specifically that I wanted to ask you about. That was, going back a little bit more to your role as a design leader and as a person who talks to me a lot, who's someone who doesn't work inside of an organization, and other than things that I have to create for my own personal clients, I'm not really on the hook for building any experiences all day long. Nor are the other vendors that you bring into your community to help support you. I know from looking at our stats that we've got a number of different software vendors and design-type vendor folks that listen to the podcast, what's some advice for them about what they can do, how they can be better to support a team that actually has to get work done, and in particular in this design front?
Lisa Welchman:
Because, just from on this side, when I'm working with clients, if I happen to be working with them at the same time that they're doing some sort of... Let's say it's just a website redesign, that's a really easy case, or something like that. There is often, a complaint internally that the vendor is recommending things that are too hard to do, or just wild and crazy. They don't understand how hard it is to implement something, or they don't really get the experience. And, from the vendor's perspective, they're trying to take them to the next level with some sort of new design innovation. I can get criticisms myself, as a governance consultant, of people saying, "That's really good, Lisa, but how are we going to actually do that? We need these rules and the team needs to be structured like that, but there's no way they're going to let us reorg." Most of the time that doesn't happen, but sometimes it does. I try to have already had those conversations with people before I come up with a recommendation, so I understand what their limits are. But sometimes, I push them to far, and they're very, very frustrated.
Lisa Welchman:
So, when you're working with outside resources, whether or not they're software vendors or design support, whatever it is that you use, what's a way that they can be... or, looking at it from the other side, if you're listening and you're a leader, what should they be looking for, do you think, in those good types of partnerships? How does that relationship work?
Andy Vitale:
This is a great question. Vendors are really important partners, at least where we are now. I've worked in places where the goal was to go from 70% outsourcing, 30% insourcing design, to flip that number and do 70% insourcing, 30% outsourcing. And, having that way of thinking, when I came into this new role I'm like, "Well, what partners do we have? What vendors are we working with? How do we scale the team and not have to rely on vendors?" When you're trying to double, and triple, and quadruple the size of a team, because there is that demand in-house, you can't do it fast enough. There are areas that you're like, they're trade-offs, "Do I support this product, or do I not?" And obviously, you can't not support it, so it's like, "Well, we're going to have to bring in some help to do this."
Andy Vitale:
So, when I look for vendors, there's two things that are really important to me. One is, how do they work? Do they actually work as an extension of my team? Because, the first thing every design group will tell you is, "We're an extension of your team." Meanwhile, they're not. They don't act that way, they're team works separately, they come and they deliver work once a week or when you have to have a meeting. That doesn't work for us. That doesn't help. I need a design vendor partner that is going to work exactly like our team does. We found a few good partners. In some areas, they are the design team in that group or in that line of business. And, they know that we're going to hire eventually, that we'll come in and work alongside of them. Because, what they're doing is they're having the opportunity to teach our stakeholders what it's like to work with designers. So, when we plug our own designers into the mix, that process is already laid out.
Andy Vitale:
There are budgets, there are things that people need to be aware of spending. A lot of vendors come in heavy on, "We know you need four designers, so here's the four designers for this project," but you also need a delivery lead because somebody has to coordinate the backlog and the relationship with technology. And it's like, "Wait a minute, our PMs are doing that." But, the PMs sometimes are like, "If we're going to pay and they're going to do this, then I can keep focusing on new ideas for the backlog and other areas." So, you start to rely on this vendor to do certain things. We don't want them to be a crutch for us, we want them to really help us figure out our way of working. Then there's the, "Well, then you need a design lead," and maybe it's only 40% or 50% of someones time. It's like, "I have a design lead in that space. If your three or four vendor designers need your own design lead, then you're not really being a partner and working with our team."
Andy Vitale:
It's really hard to find the right partners, but when you do, they look out for the success of a project. I got off of a call with one of our vendors last night, and they said, "Hey, in this particular instance, with the way your team is structured here and what you're asking us to deliver, we actually don't think it's going to be successful. So, maybe it doesn't make sense for us to work on this project. Or, Maybe there's another vendor that's better at this capability. Or, maybe we just stick around for a little while more, and as you bring people in we'll move right off of it." So, that honesty and not willing to just make a buck, it goes really far because then they really become partners. I like that.
Andy Vitale:
The goal is, obviously as we scale, I don't know exactly how much we'll work with all of our vendors, but there will be strategic opportunities to leverage them and their expertise. I'd rather know what that is than just have them want to touch everything.
Lisa Welchman:
Jack of all trades. Yeah, exactly.
Andy Vitale:
Right.
Lisa Welchman:
It's funny, I've just started a project with someone who I've been talking to for three years, and every time I talk to them I was like, "You're not ready. You're not ready. You're not ready, go back and do this. You're not ready, go back and do that." And they actually did. They came back and they showed up ready. I'm surprised that they come back. It's good for a vendor to know what they do and what they don't do.
Andy Vitale:
Right, exactly.
Lisa Welchman:
I've been a business owner and faced the payroll, when you've got these people on staff and you have to make that, particularly for smaller businesses, and that can be a challenge, but it's just better, I think, to stay in your wheelhouse, and you seem to be validating that. So, those were the three big questions I had for you. What else do you think I should have asked you about, or did you think I was going to ask you about? Oh wait, I might be missing one.
Andy Vitale:
Uh-oh, perfect.
Lisa Welchman:
Oh no, nevermind. No wait. No, I think I did ask that one. Nevermind, go ahead. What were you going to say?
Andy Vitale:
Okay. The one thing that I wrote down when we were talking before, is you mentioned delight. To me, the word delight is an interesting word, because that is the constraint-free version of what we do. The other thing that we hear about is, "Remove all of the friction." I work in finance.
Lisa Welchman:
So you can go faster to the wrong place, yeah.
Andy Vitale:
Right, exactly. So, you can accidentally send somebody $5000 instead of $50 because you hit the number twice by accident. The thing I think of when I hear, "Delight," is designers want to create an experience that people and enjoy, and it provides value in more ways than one. But, if I'm transferring money to you, I don't need to see a little dancing thing to let me know that I did that. That's like a designer Easter egg. If people don't notice that, perfect. Because, what we want to do is be as unobtrusive as possible. Especially enterprise users, power users, they want to get into the system and get out. Or, they're in it all day long, but they just want it to do what they need it to do. They don't want it to dance for them, they don't want it to play little music.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah, "Help me get through the task."
Andy Vitale:
Exactly. Sometimes, when we try to create delight, we create barriers for them going through these tasks as seamless as possible. So, I just wanted to at least mention that. Because, to me, that is the version of art that it makes sense in some consumer applications, and I could see, "That was a really smooth interaction," but that's just us designers talking to each other and flexing our design muscles in those moments. They're not really making a big effect to the bottom line for the people that are using it.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah. I think what you just described is the thing maybe that we have the most in common in the work that we do, which... If that's what you're talking, or if one is talking about when one's talking about design, then when people say, "Yeah, Lisa, you're a designer," I would buy that. Because, that experience that you're trying to create for a customer, or a citizen, or a consumer, user, I hate that word, is the same experience that I'm trying to create for a team member, in their experience of actually creating the online experience. How can going to work every day and being a digital maker be a good thing? How can it be easy? How can we get through our meetings without arguing about the same standard eight times in a year? What do we need to put in place so that that's smooth, so that the people who are actually creating and designing these experiences feel good?
Lisa Welchman:
Because, I'm satisfied... Maybe this is a little touchy-feely, more touchy-feely than people would want in a business environment. Maybe not anymore. Maybe that's not true anymore, because I think companies are getting much more people-centered than they used to be. But, it has got to be the case that if work is a better place to be, you're more likely to create safer, more compassionate experiences. You have more room in your head to create better types of things. Or, even if it's not better, more room in your head to do your job better. Even if it's just as simple as that. All of that of what you're saying really resonated with me, in terms of the work that I'm trying to do in designing teams and governing structures. All of the things that you're saying are making me wonder why people are, not all the time, so negative about governing. Whether or not it's just the word? Because, everything that you described, it's really just a good team collaboration model with reasonable and necessary constraints, which is all that a governing framework is. And so, it's really interesting. And, all [inaudible 00:38:21] is to support that. What do you need to have in place to support all of that? So, I guess we're all talking about the same thing.
Andy Vitale:
Yeah. What's also interesting too, in order to have a really healthy culture, people have to feel comfortable to bring their whole selves to work. People have to know that their perspectives and their opinions, and the differences that they have, are really what makes the team better. I work for a company now that is really focusing a lot on that. We've been really celebrating the differences of the team members. For that, it's really paid off, as Forbes recognized us for being number three best employer for diversity.
Lisa Welchman:
Wow.
Andy Vitale:
And, the number five Fortune 100 best company to work for, which is really exciting. Throughout my career I've worked at companies that weren't on these, "Best company to work for list," so now that I actually have the opportunity to, I really see it. It's a difference. It's a focus on the humans.
Lisa Welchman:
So, it's not fake?
Andy Vitale:
It's not fake.
Lisa Welchman:
That's cool to know.
Andy Vitale:
We have these things called isms, they're our organizational principles. A few of them are so different that other places. One of them is called, "Numbers and money don't lead, they follow." It really is a belief of don't focus on the numbers. Don't focus on the money. Focus on doing the right thing and the rest will come along with it. The other one is about, "A penny saved is a penny." Don't try to skimp on spending money, because what happens is it doesn't do well for anyone. Focus on, again, what you need to get the job done to provide that value to the customers, and the cost will pay for itself. So, let's not try to cut corners in order to do the right thing.
Lisa Welchman:
That's really good to hear, because I'm kind of cynical when I see those things, top best anything, or whatever. So, it's interesting to hear from somebody who's worked in a lot of different companies say that they can actually feel the difference in those types of things.
Andy Vitale:
Yeah, for sure.
Lisa Welchman:
I guess we haven't really talked about that a lot as a topic, hit the nail on the head, maybe that's something we should take up at some point. I think when we first started working on the podcast it was in the news so much it seemed like, "Why talk about that?" But, that's not simmered down as an issue in the workplace, but I think it's simmered down as an issue in the press. And so, maybe it might be a good time to bring that on as a topic of some sort of another. But, you've heard me talking to other women or people of color on the podcast about diversity and inclusion issues, and you and I have had a lot of conversations about how to keep this podcast inclusive. It takes intent.
Andy Vitale:
Yeah.
Lisa Welchman:
We've had some conversations where we don't like how we sound talking about people. The sort of objectifying... We're looking at a list of people and looking at them and figuring out who they are in a very rich way, and figuring out, "How inclusive are we being? Or not inclusive? Are we being richly inclusive?" It's not always the most comfortable thing, and that's from somebody who a lot of people would say, "She's a black woman, she's probably completely happy." But, I'm just a black woman, I'm not everything else. There's all kinds of other people with all kinds of other experience coming at that. When I think about the design world, and when I say design I mean very broadly, software design, data design, everything, I think that inclusiveness component is just so huge. We won't get it right until we lick that. We can't build good products and services for all of humanity, and type of human systems, if we're not looking at all of humanity when we're building them. That's challenging because of the control and political mechanisms, and history, to get that right. So, it's going to take tremendous intent. That makes me feel good, that you say that you can see the difference.
Andy Vitale:
Yeah. I really think that companies are realizing that more and more, or at least trying to figure it out. If you focus on one segment of the market, it's only so big. And, the only way to grow is to really figure out how to solve for everyone. That's hard to do, obviously, unless you focus on a lot of personalization and customization, which leads to its own sort of problems. But really, there are lots of opportunities if you just think about who you haven't really been including, and how you can grow your business by making sure that you're solving problems for them too. It's not like you've got to create a whole new product. We've created products that just didn't work for certain people, why? Now, if you can figure how to make it work for everyone, you're opening yourself up to a lot more success.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah. I think I've made this comment before. I think this is a good one. I think we're at time. What do you think?
Andy Vitale:
Yeah, that sounds perfect to me.
Lisa Welchman:
Sounds perfect. You're ready to stop talking. Well, it's late here. I've done it. I've recorded my first podcast in the Netherlands.
Andy Vitale:
Nice, that's awesome.
Lisa Welchman:
We've got it done. Thanks a lot, it's good to see you. I don't know what we're going to talk about in the next deep dive, but it'll be something.
Andy Vitale:
Yeah, something will definitely capture us and make us want to talk about it.
Lisa Welchman:
Okay, groovy. Take care.
Andy Vitale:
Bye.
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