Paths Diverge

An Interview with Paloma Medina

Paloma Medina is the founder and owner of 11:11 Supply, a company that incorporates the psychology and science of life and work improvement into the curation of office supplies and organizational tools. 11:11 Supply also offers workshops in which attendees learn everyday tips on how to enhance their work and personal life.

Photo courtesy of Creative Mornings PDX

Interviewed By Sara Magalio

Paloma is a performance coach and trainer that specializes in brain-friendly methods to enhance clients’ work and life outlooks and practices. She has worked with tech companies such as Etsy, nonprofit organizations in healthcare, as well as individual leaders and CEOs. She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, but has lived on the west coast of the U.S. since she was eight years old.

While Paloma’s Portland-based store has had to close temporarily due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, she is working to bring the store to a new and improved online platform, and she has also pivoted the main focus of her work from the psychology of office supplies to another passion of hers—workplace equity and inclusion training. I spoke with Paloma to learn more about this new direction her work has taken, and how she envisions 11:11 Supply evolving in the future.

Sara Magalio: How did you translate your research on the psychology of productivity to creating 11:11 Supply?

Paloma Medina: Before I started 11:11, I was a leadership coach and trainer, working with managers and leaders. I incorporated a lot of elements of neuropsychology into my work then. And it was pretty popular, I was surprised by how many people responded positively to it. I was working in the tech field, and I think that after a while I realized that meant that who I was reaching was pretty demographically specific. I missed having an impact with more types of people.

I began to think about how I would transition out of what was a really amazing career into something that was more unknown, but that reaches more of a wider audience. I spent two or three months doing some really deep brainstorming work, and one of the things that I found was when I looked back on my past experiences, some of the fondest memories I had were in working in retail, which I had done a decade ago.

I thought about exactly what I loved about working retail, and one thing I loved about it was that you get to interact with anyone who walks through the door of a store, and offer them knowledge, services, advice, and support to help them in their shopping experience. I also realized how much I love physical interaction. At the time, I was working more and more as a virtual trainer, because I had moved back to Portland and my client companies were in San Francisco and New York. So much of my world was spent alone and only having virtual contact, and the more I experienced this type of virtual work environment (an environment most of us have had to embrace in recent months), the more I realized how much I love physical interaction and objects. After this realization, it was a pretty fluid process getting to my final concept, because I could clearly see this relationship between retail, stationary office supplies, and the psychology of those elements. When I talk about the psychology of productivity or the psychology of self care, it is often through the lens of objects and how they can improve our daily lives, whether that’s using a notebook, a planner, or how your desk is organized.

SM: Do you have any advice for someone who is looking to branch out and start their own business?

PM: One big part of it is knowing yourself. There’s an awareness strategy that I talk about, which includes the six core needs that you should strive for in your work environment. The acronym for them is BICEPS. That’s belonging, improvement, choice/autonomy, equality/fairness, predictability, and status.

I think that if you are going to be an entrepreneur, you need to be aware that you are now responsible for making sure that you’re getting all of your core needs. It’s important to not underestimate the work that that takes. For example, a lot of people do not realize how much working for someone else and being a part of a company provides a ton of predictability, not just from a salary, but also in your daily work and in your calendar year schedule. When you become an entrepreneur, this instantly goes away.

Understanding Your Core Needs in the Workplace

So understanding what your core needs are, and which ones of the six matter most to you, and then preparing to provide these needs for yourself is essential. For example, I knew early on in my journey that I would not want to have a business partner for my company, because I have found that one of my biggest core needs is freedom of choice and autonomy, and I know that I am not an amazing equal collaborator. Also, I would recommend seeking out folks that you really have an affinity with and getting their advice. Don’t seek the advice of people who you don’t connect with, even if they are considered experts, because in entrepreneurship, I have found that people’s advice is often about their own experiences specifically, so you want to seek out mentors who have similar situations as you so the advice relates more closely to your path. 

Photo courtesy of TEDx Portland

Transitioning Away From 11:11 Supply

SM: Now to the not so fun part, I would love to talk about how your business has evolved from a brick and mortar store to what you are doing now, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to have such a huge impact on our daily lives. What have been some of your biggest obstacles?

PM: It’s bonkers. I thought it was bonkers a month ago and now it’s double bonkers. I have pivoted the business twice now, in the four month period since the pandemic started. The first pivot, which was the biggest one, was that I went from a 100% brick and mortar business with a 1,300-square-foot store and workshop space, with a team of four other people, and a huge chunk of my job being CFO and COO and an equity and inclusion trainer on the side, to trying to launch a fully online business, which was a six-month project that we tried to get done in two weeks.

In those two weeks, I think I came to my senses and realized that to continue the illusion that the company could stay at the same size and with the same vision was just not possible. I would have had to essentially double my debt, put my family in financial risk, and probably push myself to the brink of breaking my mental health. I know that there are business owners who are doing all of those things, but I made the decision that I was not going to do that, so that meant by month two, laying off my entire team, which was all kinds of painful. I think that besides the logistical changes of what it takes to close down a store, lay off your entire team, and cancel all of your plans for a year, the biggest shift for me was the realization that I would have to become a company of one.

The Second Shift: Equity and Inclusion Training

At about the same time that I was supposed to turn over my store keys to my landlord, and I had already done all of the work of the liquidation sale and cleaning and emptying the store in a week, the George Floyd protests began. I had already done equity and inclusion training on the side while running the store, and now I was a team of one. I made the decision, because at this point I could without really impacting anyone else, that I would close the online store for a couple weeks, and just focus solely on equity and inclusion training.

This new shift, which is what I am currently working on, was made possible or at least was greatly facilitated by the fact that I had already had to become a company of one.

SM: The importance of equity and inclusion training has become so much more evident recently, and it’s amazing that you are so committed to sharing your work and expertise even with how significantly coronavirus has impacted our daily work. Could you explain what your equity and inclusion training is comprised of?

PM: The training that I have been focused on for the past four years or so is kind of my niche, in that it involves the neurology and the neuropsychology of equity and inclusion in the workplace. That means that we talk a lot about unconscious biases, but more from a neurological perspective, and I think that many people find that interesting, to learn the neuroscience of what is happening in their brain, versus just a political conversation about biases.

The Four Levels of Equity and Inclusion Training

The work that I am focusing on now is addressing that just knowing about our biases does nothing. We need to consciously strive toward these four levels of equity and inclusion in the workplace, and understand the neuroscience of what happens in the brain when we work to implement these changes. These are:

• Cognitive: the work that we do in our head.
• Personal habits: the tendencies that we need to start changing.
• Team habits and team systems: How can these be adjusted to promote equity and inclusion?
• The Macro Level: Across all of the people that work in a company or department, how can changes to promote equity and inclusion be made for potentially hundreds of people?

In working through these levels, I also often pass companies on to a consultant, or a pre-established equity and inclusion committee within the company, who can help the business through the daily work of implementing these changes. SM: Recently, have you seen a greater demand for this kind of work, now that equity and inclusion in the workplace and in life in general is receiving such resounding attention? PM: Yes, the spike in demand has been significant. In the past I would get maybe 1-2 requests in a week for equity and inclusion training. It dropped slightly during the beginning of the lockdown, because people were having to shift their business practices so quickly and with short notice. Now, after the protests started, I get 1-2 requests a day.

My colleagues and I are curious if this spike in demand for equity and inclusion training will allow us to build momentum and hold employers more accountable to what they can and what they absolutely should be doing to create a more equitable workplace. It’s an opportunity, because business leaders are receiving many more demands for change from their employees and from the national conversation. I have also seen that business leaders are much more curious about how they can implement these changes to promote equity in the workplace, and that’s a cool combination— curiosity about change from the leadership coupled with a strong demand for this change from the employees.

SM: Focusing now on your own story with equity and inclusion, during your 30s you worked hard to un-assimilate yourself and reverse the negative effects of Americanization. You’ve said this process has greatly informed your business decisions. How so?

PM: When I was 30, I started unpacking my own assimilation, as an 8-year-old girl who immigrated to the U.S. and worked so hard throughout my childhood to assimilate into white Americana culture. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I really began to understand the implications of this mentality, of focusing only on what the dominant group is concerned about and what their interests are, and not focusing on you. I also realized one really sad thing about this is that I will never really know who I might have become, had my 8-year-old self felt free to really be herself.

Working Toward Un-Assimilation

Fast forward to my adulthood, when I was figuring out how to shift from working in larger tech companies to starting my own business, I realized that I was again focusing on assimilation questions, like—What does the market want? What will sell?—instead of focusing on celebrating my individuality and using that to my advantage to bring about success.

I began asking myself—What do I want to see in this world? What am I hungry for?—and asking these questions really brought about the birth of 11:11.

When I began to work with business consultants as I was developing 11:11, I again was asked a lot of assimilation-related questions, like—Who is your target demographic? Who are your competitors?—and I really annoyed these advisors, because I refused to pick a demographic or a mold for my business to be in. After living a life trying to assimilate into a culture and then doing all the work to un-assimilate myself and find my own identity, I realized that I don’t have a specific demographic that I fall into, and I didn’t want my store or my customers to have to fit into a specific category either.

Finding her Audience

I was met with a lot of resistance, not conforming to the standard processes for starting a small business, but I saw the reward when the customers began walking through the door of my store, I was continuously surprised by the wide array of individuals that found value in what I was providing.

For instance, a large chunk of my initial supporters at 11:11 were personal trainers; I hate the gym and never go, I don’t like dieting, literally none of the conventional personal trainer components fit me. But when these people came in and shared which parts of the store they were in love with, I had so much to talk to them about. It clicked with me that these personal trainers are essentially helping people make changes for the long term and that is what I do too. So we would talk for hours about psychology and helping people, and I found a whole demographic of people who were really early champions for my store that I may never have had if I had restricted the target market for my business.

Photo courtesy of 11:11 Supply

SM: Looking to the future, when do you see the 11:11 Supply online store returning fully?

PM: I think that the bigger question for me is when to take it from passively fulfilling orders as they come in to actively focusing on the business and its evolution, which takes a ton of marketing and content creation, because ecommerce doesn’t just happen, you have to make it happen.

I hope to resume the business online in earnest in the fall, because one thing about focusing on equity and inclusion training, is that in the past I have never been able to do it full time, because of how emotionally taxing it is for me. I know that I need an outlet, I need something else to also focus my energy on, and working on the online store is kind of a form of self care for me, since it’s such different cognitive and emotional work. Now the question is how I can set myself and my clients up for success around equity and inclusion, knowing that I can’t sustain doing this work full time indefinitely.

In the past, 11:11 Supply was such a complex business that it was really taking a lot out of me, and I had to turn to other forms of self care to take a break from the store. Now that my focus has shifted; however, I am trying to make sure that building up the store as a one-woman business is more cathartic than stressful, so that I can continue to do equity and inclusion work in the long term too.

SM: When you do begin to focus in on your online store again, do you think that the types of products that you sell will change, since the nature of the office space has shifted so much over these past few months?

PM: Yes I do. Previously, I focused a lot on obviously the psychological impact of objects, but also how they feel to hold and how the physical structure of the object can affect a person’s response to it. In the past the sale of single pens in our brick and mortar store was one of our major revenue streams, because people would just pick up a pen, like the feel, and then buy it kind of on a whim, and we’re talking 3-dollar pens here. But that model doesn’t really work with an online business, because to process one online order is so much work, you can’t sell just one pen, you can’t even sell 10 pens and make it worth it.

So with ecommerce, I think that the idea that you just simply switch your inventory to an online market is very oversimplified. You do have to rethink everything.

Adapting to the Online Market and the Social Distanced Shopper

One of the ways I have changed my offerings is through developing what I call “exploration packs.” One of the things that has really dropped for people from a psychology perspective is novelty, because the internet can only provide so much novelty, and lockdown of course really decreases the amount of novelty that you are exposed to. I have been thinking about how so much of physical shopping was about playing, and giving your brain new things to look at and feel, and so I started creating these exploration packs, where customers get a surprise bundle of objects, like with our Self Care or Badassery Mystery Boxes, or a bullet journal kit with psychology tips, so you don’t really know what you’re getting with the pack, but you know that you love pens or journaling, so it’ll work out.

I also plan on doing virtual workshops that mimic the workshops that we used to offer in the store. I did a couple when the lockdown first started, including one on the psychology of virtual meetings, but I want to continue providing additional online workshops on different topics in the future.

Another exciting thing I plan on offering is one-on-one virtual sessions, where clients can schedule time with me, and I would build them a customized notebook or planner while they watch, and we talk about what their needs are and how the product can best facilitate that. We used to do this in the store, where we would build a notebook or planner from scratch with a person, so I am looking forward to continuing to have those experiences with people even if it’s through a remote meeting.

I hope also in the future, when we can be together again, to work with other companies or organizations to curate live events surrounding elements of my work, like workplace productivity, and I get really excited thinking about how I can impact people with my work outside of the parameters of a brick and mortar storefront. So everything from changing what I sell to restarting these workshops and appointments through a virtual platform, to eventually being a part of events focusing on the psychology of the workplace, all of it will help to bring 11:11 Supply back and help me evolve the store looking to the future.

SM: Do you think you will ever entertain the idea of opening a storefront again, or do you think that you will continue to focus on the new business strategies that you are looking to implement in the near future?

PM: I think that if you would have asked me that toward the beginning of the lockdown, I would have said that yes, I will absolutely open a new store in two year’s time. The more that I sit with the idea of a company of one, and of staying nimble, the more that I appreciate how during this time of protesting and uprising, I was able to pretty seamlessly pivot my priorities. I am starting to think that, at least for me, maybe overhead is overrated, and there are other ways that I can pursue my goals. That being said, one of the things that I loved about the store was creating a completely immersive environment and having full control over that for people. I always upheld that the store was like a museum installation, where every detail is curated to specifically impact the experience of the people who interact with it, and I do miss that part of having the store, designing that immersive experience. I know that there will be ways to do that in the future in a popup exhibition setting, though it will be a little harder, but like everything else, who knows where the world will take us.

Race Equity at Work

Excerpted from Awake to Woke to Work: Building a Race Equity Culture (Equity in the Center, 2018)

Achieving race equity—the condition where one’s racial identity has no influence on how one fares in society—is a fundamental element of social change across every issue area in the social sector. Yet the structural racism that endures in U.S. society, deeply rooted in our nation’s history and perpetuated through racist policies, practices, attitudes, and cultural messages, prevents us from attaining it.

Illustration by Julie Stuart

By Kerrien Suarez, Executive Director and Ericka Hines, Managing Director & Lead Researcher

The impact of structural racism is evident not only in societal outcomes, but in the very institutions that seek to positively impact them. For example, the Race Outcomes Gap: People of color fare worse than their white counterparts across every age and income level when it comes to societal outcomes. They experience significant disadvantages in education, economic stability, health, life expectancy, and rates of incarceration.

The attainment of race equity requires us to examine all four levels on which racism operates (personal, interpersonal, institutional, and structural), recognize our role in enduring inequities, and commit ourselves to change. As a sector, we must center race equity as a core goal of social impact.

Building a Race Equity Culture

Equity in the Center believes that deep social impact is possible within the context of a Race Equity Culture—one that is focused on proactive counteraction of race inequities inside and outside of an organization. Building a Race Equity Culture is the foundational work when organizations seek to advance race equity; it creates the conditions that help us to adopt antiracist mindsets and actions as individuals, and to center race equity in our lives and in our work. A Race Equity Culture is the antithesis of dominant culture, which promotes assimilation over integration and dismisses opportunities to create a more inclusive, equitable environment. The work of creating a Race Equity Culture requires an adaptive and transformational approach that impacts behaviors and mindsets as well as practices, programs, and processes.

The Race Equity Cycle

While each organization will follow its own path toward a Race Equity Culture, our research suggests that all organizations go through a cycle of change as they transform from a white dominant culture to a Race Equity Culture. These changes include increased representation, a stronger culture of inclusion, and the application of a race equity lens to how organizations and programs operate. We have coined this process the Race Equity Cycle. This journey of change pushes organizations to become more committed, more knowledgeable, and more skilled in analyzing race, racism, and race equity, and in placing these issues at the forefront of organizational and operational strategy. Because each organization is comprised of different people, systems, and histories, individual organizations will enter the Race Equity Cycle at different stages and will approach their race equity work with varying levels of organizational readiness. And while the impact will look and feel different at each stage of the Race Equity Cycle, we believe that all three stages mutually reinforce each other.

A Race Equity Culture is the antithesis of dominant culture, which promotes assimilation over integration and dismisses opportunities to create a more inclusive, equitable environment. 

At the AWAKE stage, organizations are focused on people and on building a workforce and boards comprised of individuals from different race backgrounds. The primary goal is representation, with efforts aimed at increasing the number of people of different race backgrounds. 

At the WOKE stage, organizations are focused on culture and on creating an environment where everyone is comfortable sharing their experiences, and everyone is equipped to talk about race equity and inequities. The primary goal is inclusion and internal change in behaviors, policies, and practices. 

At the WORK stage, organizations are focused on systems to improve race equity. The primary goal is integration of a race equity lens into all aspects of an organization. This involves internal and external systems change and regularly administering a race equity assessment to evaluate processes, programs, and operations.

The Role of Levers in Building a Race Equity Culture

How do organizations move through the Race Equity Cycle to build a Race Equity Culture? Our research identified seven levers—strategic elements of an organization that, when leveraged, build momentum toward a Race Equity Culture within each stage and throughout the Race Equity Cycle. The seven levers represent both specific groups of people engaged with an organization, as well as the systems, structures, and processes created—sometimes unconsciously—to help organizations operate: Senior Leaders, Managers, Board of Directors, Community, Learning Environment, Data, and Organizational Culture. 

Two of the levers, Organizational Culture and Senior Leaders, are crucial for building a Race Equity Culture at Work. We outline the characteristics and actions that define these two levers, which are divided into categories to help with consideration: personal beliefs and behaviors, policies and processes, and data. 

We also provide brief examples of how organizations have put these levers into practice to achieve success in building a Race Equity Culture. It bears repeating that there is no singular or “right” way to engage in race equity work. Each organization needs to determine the levers to pull, and the actions to take, in order to progress in building its own Race Equity Culture.

How to Get Started

Establish a shared vocabulary. Ground your organization in shared meaning around race equity and structural racism. These terms work hand in hand; by achieving race equity, you will be dismantling structural racism. Many organizations maintain a running dictionary of terms from which to draw when needed. 

Identify race equity champions at the board and senior leadership levels. While race equity work only succeeds as an organization-wide effort, a critical component is buy-in from board members and senior leaders who can set race equity priorities and communicate them throughout the organization. 

As these constituent groups make up distinct levers, it’s imperative that they independently demonstrate a firm commitment to race equity. Senior leaders must encourage others in the organization to engage in the work, influence the speed and depth at which race equity is embedded in the organization, and continuously drive progress and accountability. 

Name race equity work as a strategic imperative for your organization. Hold race equity as a north star for your organization. Define and communicate how race equity work helps the organization achieve its mission. The more you connect the reasons for doing this work to your mission, vision, organizational values, and strategies, the more critically important it will feel to everyone in the organization, at every level. 

Open a continuous dialogue about race equity work. There are numerous ways to engage in effective conversations on race equity. Host a lunch about race equity efforts for your team, or for individuals who are invested in your organizational cause, and secure an external facilitator to ensure discussion is both objectively and effectively managed. You can find research and examples of organizations similar to yours that have done race equity work and shared their learnings. Use these stories to start the conversation about race equity within your team, and discuss how the approaches of other organizations might apply to your work. 

Disaggregate data. Start looking at your numbers. The only way to get a clear picture of inequities and outcomes gaps both internally and externally is to collect, disaggregate, and report relevant data. Organizations should examine staff engagement, performance, and compensation data by race, at all staff levels. Program data should also be disaggregated and analyzed by race. Hold yourself and your leadership accountable for this work. 

At this point, you may not know where your organization will enter this work, or the precise path your organization will take on its journey toward a Race Equity Culture. Rather than let this uncertainty impede your progress, move forward with the knowledge that it is normal. Even in the absence of a defined path, there are actionable steps your organization can take to launch its race equity work.

Envisioning a Race Equity Culture

Building a Race Equity Culture requires intention and effort, and sometimes stirs doubt and discomfort. Holding a vision of the future can sustain you in the challenging times. What does a true Race Equity Culture look like, and what benefits will accrue to your staff, systems, stakeholders, and community served?

When your organization has fully committed itself to a Race Equity Culture, the associated values become part of the organization’s DNA. It moves beyond special initiatives, task force groups, and check-the-box approaches into full integration of race equity in every aspect of its operations and programs. Organizations that demonstrate this commitment exhibit the following characteristics:

• Leadership ranks hold a critical mass of people of color, whose perspectives are shifting how the organization fulfills its mission and reinforcing the organization’s commitment to race equity.
• Internal change around race equity is embraced. Staff members are supported in managing and integrating the changes, and the organization demonstrates courage to advance external outcomes.
• Staff, stakeholders, and leaders are confident and skilled at talking about race and racism and its implications for the organization and for society.
• Cultural norms and practices exist that promote positive and culturally responsible interpersonal relationships among staff. Individuals are encouraged to share their perspectives and experiences.

Organizational Culture Lever in Practice

 AWAKE

Leadership for Educational Equity: Created identity-based employee resource groups that invited cross-functional staff to discuss their experiences and identify actions the organization can take to support them.

Year Up: Held conversations with senior leadership to create clear definitions for diversity and inclusion prior to writing a diversity statement.

WOKE

Leadership for Educational Equity: Established a DEI Team to set a vision and define positions, language, and curriculum to achieve it.

Year Up: Created a design team of a cross-section of staff that was diverse in terms of race and function. Team met regularly for “deep dives” to improve DEI knowledge.

WORK

Annie E. Casey Foundation: Defined the work of race equity, as well as the organizations needed to understand and embrace it internally, as mission-critical. Make a clear and explicit connection between their equity work and the Foundation’s overall outcomes.

• Programs are culturally responsive and explicit about race, racism, and race equity.
• External communications reflect the culture of the communities served.
• Communities are treated not merely as recipients of the organization’s services, but rather as stakeholders, leaders, and assets to the work.
• Expenditures on services, vendors, and consultants reflect organizational values and a commitment to race equity.
• Continuous improvement in race equity work is prioritized by requesting feedback from staff and the community.
• Evaluation efforts incorporate the disaggregation of data in order to surface and understand how every program, service, or benefit impacts every beneficiary.

We have bold goals for this work. If enough race equity champions are willing and ready to engage their organizations in the transformational work of building a Race Equity Culture, we will reach the tipping point where this work shifts from an optional exercise or a short-term experiment without results, to a core, critical function of the social sector. By building a Race Equity Culture within organizations and across the social sector, we can begin to dismantle structural racism. Only then will we truly live up to our missions to serve the common good. We’re ready for this work; are you?

Senior Leader Lever in Practice

 AWAKE

Leadership for Educational Equity: Sets and communicates goals around diversity, equity, and inclusion across all programming. Incorporates goals into staff performance metrics. Adjusts strategy upon quarterly reviews at the department and organizational levels.

Year Up: At the onset of the organization’s race equity work, senior leaders were given specific talking points to spark conversation in staff meetings. Prompts included “What is the role of a sponsor vs. an ally?” and “How can we be allies in this work?”

WOKE

Leadership for Educational Equity: Analyzed disaggregated program data to identify how many people of color participated in external leadership programs about running for elected office.

WORK

Leadership for Educational Equity: After a four-month pilot, executive coaching program for VPs expanded to a year-long investment. VPs receive coaching about diversity/inclusion to help improve their team and organizational leadership.

Organizational Culture Lever

PERSONAL BELIEFS & BEHAVIORS

POLICIES & PROCESSES

AWAKE

Are aware that a white dominant workplace culture exists, but expect people to adhere to dominant organizational norms in order to succeed

Are learning to address challenges that occur in diverse environments as a result of unconscious biases and microaggressions that create conflict and resentment among staff

Share the organization’s commitment to DEI as part of the onboarding process of new employees

WOKE

Are compelled to discuss racially charged events with their staff when they occur, and hold space for their staff to process their feelings without placing undue responsibility on people of color to explain or defend themselves or their communities

Consider ways to shift organizational norms and team dynamics in order to support racially diverse staff whose lived experiences meaningfully contribute to the organizational mission

Expect participation in race equity work across all levels of the organization

WORK

Communicate proactively around race equity values and initiatives both internally and externally

Foster a positive environment where people feel they can raise race-related concerns about policies and programs without experiencing negative consequences or risking being labeled as a troublemaker

Engage everyone in organizational race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their role in creating an equitable culture Thread accountability across all efforts to support and sustain a racially equitable organization

PERSONAL BELIEFS & BEHAVIORS

POLICIES & PROCESSES

AWAKE

Believe that diverse representation is important, but may feel uncomfortable discussing issues tied to race

Are responsive to encouragement by staff to increase diversity in the organization

Place responsibility for creating and enforcing DEI policies within HR department

WOKE

Prioritize an environment where different lived experiences and backgrounds are valued and seen as assets to teams and to the organization

Regularly discuss issues tied to race and recognize that they are on a personal learning journey toward a more inclusive culture

Take responsibility for a long-term change management strategy to build a Race Equity Culture

Have a critical mass of people of color in leadership positions

Evaluate hiring and advancement requirements that often ignore system inequities and reinforce white dominant culture, such as graduate degrees and internship experience

WORK

Show a willingness to review personal and organizational oppression, and have the tools to analyze their contribution to structural racism

Identify organizational power differentials and change them by exploring alternative leadership models, such as shared leadership

Use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share their commitment to race equity

Ensure salary disparities do not exist across race, gender, and other identities through analysis of mandated all-staff compensation audits

The Evolving Workplace

People Will Drive the Future

COVID-19 has forever changed the workplace. The mundaneness of daily commutes, morning lattes, and conference table meetings was upended practically overnight with stay-at-home orders, makeshift workstations, and on-screen views of everyone’s very real living spaces, pets, and kids.

Photo by Brian Smale

By Michael Tingley, FAIA, Bora Architecture & Interiors

Businesses were asked to pivot on a dime to accommodate “business as usual,” as the fears and unknowns of a pandemic world swirled around us. It didn’t take long before the aspects of life that we found most ordinary, like going into the office, were the things we found ourselves missing the most.

While the pandemic is far from over, Bora, like the rest of the world, will at some point re-open. It’s not a question. We have to. But why? Haven’t we proven that we can make it working at home?

When it comes down to it, as humans we are designed for connection. It’s why the basic workplace of the past ultimately shifted outside the home into a dedicated office—because people were more productive and satisfied when working together.

So what does the workplace of the future look like, especially with the added complexity of a pandemic? Bora has focused its years of workplace design around the human experience, designing through the lenses of empowerment, well-being, and storytelling. While COVID-19 unquestionably alters the way we approach design moving forward, we believe these are still the areas to focus on. Despite the physical limitations of our current climate, we see the need to bring people together prevailing as a foundational aspect of the future workplace, whatever form it takes when we re-engage. 

Photo by Brian Smale

Empowering People

In workplace design, we seek to empower users in their surroundings to enable them to do their best work. We achieve this by addressing how the individual works best and how the workplace can change to meet their needs over time. So when we think about spaces for meeting, collaborating, heads-down work, or socializing, we consider not just their individual functions, but the quality of the surrounding spaces that support their activity. Now more than ever, we are seeing several qualities that should inform our approach to workplace design:

Choice in spaces. With many companies giving employees the option to return to the office, those who are opting in are doing so because it offers something they can’t get at home. It could be social capital with co-workers, a quiet space void of kids or distractions, or a place in which teams can collaborate. As we see the co-working trend move increasingly into the company workspace in a post-COVID world, it will be more critical than ever to continue to empower the 21st-century worker with more variety in workspaces to enhance productivity. Quiet libraries, project rooms, and private huddle spaces support worker choice and provide freedom to work in a customized setting. Technological advancements allowing employees to explore how they want to work without being tethered to their desks give designers the further freedom to create “work anywhere” environments that embrace impromptu meetings, casual gatherings, and outdoor connections. We anticipate a potential decrease in dedicated workstations and more support for hot desks and touchdown stations.

Our approach to social amenities in the office is also likely to evolve. We can see the future office shifting from “workplace” to more of a “meeting house,” where employees are drawn to come together to share ideas, reinforce culture and strengthen connections. After months of isolation, more value will be found in meaningful in-person conversation than in the former amenities once intended to help employees endure long hours spent at the office (think lounges, game rooms, and snack bars).

Flexible programming. Now more than ever, the workplace program must be flexible and adaptable to accommodate employees. This was an emphasis pre-COVID, but with the immediate need for social distancing and the unknowns of the pandemic’s longer-term implications, we are taking a deeper look at the benefits of changing usage patterns and modifying occupant behavior without investing in more permanent, higher-stakes physical modifications. Easy adjustments can be made through furniture and technology reconfigurations, for example, before looking to more permanent modifications like building or removing walls.

We can also examine opportunities for temporary expansion; typical spaces for gathering could be good candidates for change. A corporate dining facility or training room could be converted into properly distanced workspaces for employees to offset capacity reductions elsewhere. Or covered outdoor spaces, where the air is safer and healthier, could potentially be repurposed to meet staffing needs. Thoughtfully developing these strategies will also provide employers with a contingency plan for future crises.

Technology. Along with floor plan flexibility, the post-COVID workplace must have the technology to bridge two active work environments simultaneously—the traditional office and the home office. While virtual conference software like Zoom has now become a constant entity in our work and social lives, how will this shape the future? How can we fuse in-person work with work-at-home technology, still ensuring that all are “in the room” together?

We anticipate an increase in virtual tools that facilitate these activities, such as the visual collaborative platform Miro, or virtual reality options which can allow people to “collaborate in shared space” while working remotely. Such tools could also be a case for reduced work travel, making us think twice about spending two days of flight time for a two-hour, in-person meeting.

We will need to be both equipped and nimble to ensure that the workplace is remote-enabled and adaptable for seamless collaboration. With these systems in place, the new workplace will be able to adapt quickly, with resilience in the face of future crises.

Social Justice and Equity. At Bora we believe the spaces we create must be welcoming, safe, and inclusive, which requires a deep understanding of the systems that have resulted in racism and injustice. To deliver on this commitment, we recognize the need to expand our thinking about what constitutes “good design,” and have adopted Critical Race Theory as the lens through which we approach our work.

This is central to how we see the workplace of the future. Creating a work environment that respects and reflects the diverse experiences of its occupants is critical to designing for social justice, and that is why we chose to become a JUST-certified firm. But, so is a design process that responds to the voices of the neighborhoods we build in and prioritizes care for historically under-represented and marginalized communities.

We also consider whether the workplace is equitable for all employees. When the pandemic forced us all to work from home, the push was to make sure everyone had proper and equal access to the technology, software, tools, resources, and office ergonomics needed to do their work. In doing so, we actually discovered inequities with our younger staff that had not been considered in depth before.

For example, many felt isolated and challenged in less-than-ideal work-from-home settings. Many live on their own, with limited to no peer interaction, while others struggle to work efficiently while cohabiting with multiple housemates. Not being in the office eliminates in-person mentorship opportunities and impromptu social interactions, values that contribute significantly to a young person starting in their career. We are engaging ongoing dialogue about how we can better support our 20-somethings in these areas.

As we consider our eventual transition back into the office, we know we will be returning changed, and with many questions. Should employers have incentives to help support workers who need a better work-from-home environment? How can we ensure employee needs are being met equitably, regardless of where they are working? How can our younger staff still benefit from in-office mentorship if working from home? Should we consider great subsidies for technology, equipment, or transportation costs?

With the future workplace likely to be a hybrid of working from home and working on site for many, along with the fact that the workforce will forever be a diversity of ages, genders, races, and lifestyles, it is truly to the benefit of all that we champion equitable environments with the tools to support everyone.

01 Social Justice & Equity JUST certification is like a nutrition label for equitable organizations based on policy transparency

02 Technology = Work From Anywhere The advancement of technology allows work to happen in unexpected locations

03 Flexible Programming Work happens in a variety of settings over the course of the day, requiring flexible options

04 Choices in Spaces Different work is served by different settings; providing choice is the key

Prioritizing Wellness

As we design for a post-pandemic future, health and wellness are vital considerations for the workplace. We ensure employees’ physical, mental, and emotional health in the workplace by prioritizing sustainability and biophilic measures to promote the well-being of humans and the environment.

Health and well-being. Ample access to daylight, nature, and fresh air are shown to improve overall health and boost work productivity. Designing environments that provide all employees with access to these natural amenities will be key to creating healthy outcomes, and giving them a choice in how they interact with them over the course of a day can further enhance the benefit. Integrating plant life, using naturally occurring materials such as wood and stone, and reflecting natural systems will improve the quality of the work environment, thereby reducing stress and anxiety. Gentle fans that circulate air and mimic breezes, lighting systems that reflect circadian rhythms, operable windows, views and access to nature—these are all healthy strategies likely to show up in increasing amounts in the next generation of offices.

We also envision outdoor work settings becoming a more integral part of a healthy work environment, with shade, technology, and other support systems that facilitate this end. For Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA, for example, we looked beyond the building footprint to make use of unconventional spaces, designing three freestanding meeting “pods” that open fully to fresh air while activating an unused concrete office plaza. We imagine settings like this will become a more commonplace part of the workplace in the future.

Encouraging movement. Creating a work environment that encourages movement will be a new standard for health. This could come through strategies such as open stairs positioned in a more convenient place, adjustable-height desks and meeting tables that encourage standing, or the distribution of amenities and varied work settings across the floor plan to encourage movement throughout the day. Even “walking meetings,” which many of us have been experimenting with recently, could become a more integral aspect of work in the post-COVID workplace.

Material safety. The materials we employ in the construction of the workplace can have profound impacts on our well-being. The contents of these materials can result in exposure of chemicals into the environment, directly creating health challenges for employees. Beyond the impact within the workplace, the production processes for many common materials create toxic waste that are poisonous for our planet and its inhabitants. Sourcing this type of information is often difficult or impossible and has warranted our involvement in the Healthy Product Declaration (HPD) Collaborative, which is a standard specification, composed of a format and instructions, for the accurate, reliable, and consistent reporting of built-environment product contents and their associated health information. Additionally, all selected materials should have the resilience to withstand constant cleaning.

Touchless technology. With social distancing and hygienic fastidiousness at a new level, we realize that the less contact there is with shared materials, the better. Automated systems and touchless technology can be applied to elevators, doors, faucets, and fixtures, and despite their higher cost, are likely to be highly preferred moving forward in the name of health and sanitation.

01 Encouraging Movement Light-filled, easy-to-find stairs encourages their use, promoting health and social interaction

02 Material Safety Knowing the source and contents of the products in our environment, we can confirm they are safe

03 Health & Well-Being Biophilic Principles, along with natural light and materials, create a healthy work environment

04 Touchless Technology Allows us to engage with our environment while maintaining sanitary conditions

Connecting Through Story

Storytelling is a critical part of the workplace, emphasizing the connection of people to their workplace. It makes work meaningful, reinforces that workers are a part of a bigger movement, and reminds them why they choose their company day after day.

As careful listeners who seek out the big stories behind a company’s brand and culture, we integrate a client’s spirit into design in a meaningful way. Material selections, assembly details, lighting, and even space planning are a medium for bringing each client’s unique story to life and infusing joy into the daily experience of work. For us, this has meant creating travel- based conference rooms for a hospitality client, sports-themed environmental graphics for an athletic giant, and modernized wall patterns honoring the history of a beloved city landmark.

Visual cues will continue to be critically important to people’s experiences in the office. We are visual learners, and the visuals we implement— through art installations, signage, or environmental graphics—are dynamic tools to reflect brand. They also serve to educate, with signage being an effective way to put building function and high-performance features on display to users.

COVID is now a part of our story, and as employees return to work, they will be looking for reassurance about their safety and the values of their workplace. Employers can use this opportunity to educate about said values, about building performance features, and about the evolving culture and behaviors that convey employee health and wellness.

Through wayfinding, graphics, physical indicators, and visual cues, safety communication surrounding a return to the office will help minimize stress and anxiety. Strategies may include implementing a one-way circulation path to minimize interactions in spaces where proper distancing can’t be maintained. Specific doors could be designated for entering and others for exiting, both at the outdoor access point and at key places within the office. Narrow stairways could be specified for movement in one direction at designated times of the day. With many changes and operational adjustments ahead, highlighting policy revisions can help employees navigate the new realities.

The stories we tell are a reflection of our world, our communities, and our mission in these places. People will ultimately be drawn to the workplace for their human element— the extent to which they can feel connected in a meaningful way. As corporations grow and automation thrives, and as we experience increased vulnerability to global and environmental crises, we believe the nuances afforded by storytelling will be all the more needed in the workplace to remind us of our humanity.

People will ultimately be drawn to the workplace for their human element—the extent to which they can feel connected in a meaningful way.

Photo by John Linden

People Will Shape the Future

The workplace of the future is multi-faceted, building on much of what we have already established but also with a greater emphasis on flexibility, equity, wellness, and the human story. At the end of the day, it’s still about the people and optimizing their environment, so they can come together, not stay apart.

Our changed COVID world will cause us to re-evaluate and rethink our operational models. Challenges and preconceptions are a large part of the pivot we all need to consider. Can we reduce the number of hours everyone is needed on site? Will we actually need to accommodate fewer people in the workplace on any given day, thereby reducing the amount of space we need to accommodate them? Should we expand the definition of the workday and consider shifts or alternate days, augmenting the gaps with virtual engagement?

There are many questions still unanswered, and let’s face it, we may never return to the prior model of fully working in the office. But while the unknown can drive us to fear, it can also have the opposite effect, fueling our determination to be better and inspiring our hope for change. By prioritizing people and their health, wellness, and satisfaction, we are investing in the latter and remain optimistic that these motivations are what will continue to bring us together to innovate the ever-evolving workplace.

Designing for Designers

A Website Redesign for a Global Design Firm

Images courtesy of Sasaki

By Joanna Chow, Senior Associate & Director of Communications, Sasaki, and Scott Dasse, Principal, Upstatement

Scott Dasse, Upstatement Principal (SD): On strong opinions.

If you’ve ever taken on a design project with a designer for a client, you know that dueling opinions often lead to frustration—theirs, yours, or both. It stands to reason, because designers are paid to have strong points of view. They know what they like. They have their own ideas and lofty goals. Designer egos? Let’s just say, self-confidence is a practical job requirement. And as consultants themselves, they know the traditional client management tricks and aren’t likely to appreciate being “handled.” Now imagine that your client is a whole room full of designers. Are you brave enough (foolish enough?) to believe you can lead them to accept your vision?

Of course there’s a more empathetic and productive way to think about designing for other designers. As clients, they will be deeply invested in the outcome, since designed outputs —even when commissioned—are a reflection of their own identities as designers. Therefore, you’re partners, not adversaries, sharing the same goal of creating beautiful design. And, if you stop designing for them and start designing with them, you can bring everyone to a more fulfilling end result, and they’ll respect you more for how you got there.

A Historic Brand Reinvents Itself

Joanna Chow, Sasaki Director of Communications (JC): Let’s start at the very beginning

In July 2019, Sasaki, a global design firm based in the Boston area, set out to redesign our website. Sasaki has shaped built environments around the world since its founding in 1953 by landscape architect Hideo Sasaki—then the chair of landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Hideo blended disciplines of architecture and landscape architecture—and later, urban design, and planning—establishing an interdisciplinary practice long before “multidisciplinary” became a buzzword. His approach to integrated, contextual design forever changed the profession and the built environments that came out of his eponymous studio.

Over 65 years later, we have grown to over 300 people, with a satellite office in Shanghai. Globally, the firm has garnered over 800 awards for projects completed, with more than 500 institutions of higher education; Fortune 100 companies; and cities from Kabul, to Shanghai, to Ho Chi Minh City, to Lima. All of this is to say, the firm makes tremendous impact from its perch along the Charles River, but may have been Boston’s best-kept secret.

In 2016, we set out to redefine Sasaki’s brand to better articulate the multifaceted nature of our work, the diversity of our people, and the unique quality of our culture. A story of evolution was itching to be told. This was not the same firm that began in 1953. Working with Bruce Mau Design (BMD), we developed a fresh, colorful, and new visual identity that timelessly conveys our essential belief in the power of diverse ideas.

Then, in 2019, we brought on local, digital design powerhouse, Upstatement, to lead our website redesign. “We chose Upstatement because we wanted a design-first, digital-first partner,” explained Sasaki chair of design, Dennis Pieprz, who oversaw Sasaki’s internal website committee. “Our branding needed to be translated to a digital experience, and we needed an agency to do justice to BMD’s design, innovatively reinterpreting brand guidelines to fully expand our brand’s expression into the digital realm.”

JC: Check, check, and check. This was exactly the firm we were looking for.

It was evident Upstatement is comprised of digital-first designers and not graphic designers who happen to also make websites. And, importantly, they seemed like they would be strong enough partners to tango with our leaders. Inherent in this designing-for-designers exercise is the risk of design by committee; the right agency would have to both flex and defend their ground through rounds of lively critique and debate.

Because Sasaki was intent on developing a site that stood apart from other architecture websites, Upstatement’s lack of experience in our industry was actually a strength. “It was exciting that they hadn’t produced a site for an architecture firm before,” Dennis explained. “We learned from their experience outside our industry. This project was all about communicating and tapping into contemporary thinking around how people engage with the digital realm.”

With Upstatement, we landed on a clear mission statement for the project:

• Remake sasaki.com so that it better serves the business and its people. Elevate Sasaki’s reputation to attract the best work and talent. Paint a vivid picture of our vision, our practice, and our culture that inspires the world to believe in Sasaki.

To make a long story short—we succeeded in realizing this vision, experimented with some new approaches, and learned from one another. For the full story and a few lessons learned, read on.

The Project

JC: We were in for an intense, inspiring several months.

As we set out on the project, three primary goals for the new website arose:

• Demonstrate thought leadership through content curation, while allowing the user to drive their own experience and find what they came for.
• Inspire potential clients to believe in Sasaki’s potential. Use immersive narrative experiences to entice and engage users, motivating them to contact Sasaki’s leaders
• Attract top talent by creating an experience that is playful, clever, fun, and authentic to Sasaki’s culture—use this to drive potential job applicants to the careers page.

The project spanned a year from issuing the RFP to launch in late January 2020. While conducting our agency search, we simultaneously sought internal alignment on criteria for success and key decision points, laying the groundwork for our agency. The Upstatement engagement lasted two months, and then it took six more months to build the back end (with a talented developer recommended by Upstatement), create new content, and manually migrate over 1,000 pages of existing content.

As much as we prepared, we could not have fully anticipated the project’s complexity. We realized that getting aligned internally, designing and making choices, building the website, and migrating content all take significant time. We learned a lot along the way, and as it turns out, so did Upstatement! 

Setting Up for Success: Team Roles & Managing Stakeholders

JC: Get the right people in the room and set team norms.

For a complex, high investment, high-stakes project like redesigning a website, gathering the right team, setting expectations, and establishing norms is vital. We formed a diverse, 13- person, in-house team that spanned Sasaki disciplines, sectors, and levels. While great for getting buy-in, a large committee is challenging to manage. We therefore established a subset working group with decision-making authority, and appointed a single Sasaki point of contact for daily communication.

Next came aligning on norms and expectations. For efficiency’s sake, we cultivated new decision-making norms: get comfortable with missing some meetings, catch up on the detailed notes, and let decisions carry on without you. We had to trust the broader team.

SD: We received some good insight into the people, priorities, and relationships at play from the smaller Sasaki working group.

It was invaluable to learn about the unspoken dynamics on the website team before we got into the weeds. We’re talking about a multigenerational mix of executives, established leaders, and emerging talent from across a multidisciplinary firm—each with their own agendas and personalities. Who’s outspoken? Who might need more space to speak up? What do they care most about? This background is priceless when you’re outnumbered and synthesizing competing feedback.

Interrogate the Process

SD: Warning: I’m about to get nerdy about the design process…

Upstatement is prone to reinventing the wheel when it comes to process. We like to experiment to find better ways to work, to unlock Big Design thinking, or to move faster. This can be good, but experimentation also invites failure. A few years ago, the idea of applying the principles of Agile to digital design projects appealed to us, because it allows us to jump right into making without an arduous ramp up, and to be open to change at any point. A million tiny failures later, and we’re still using our own modified version of Agile (Scrum, to be specific).

We decided to involve the Sasaki team as co-creators. We adjusted our traditional sprint workflow to be like one long design-as-research sprint that allowed us to explore directions and test rough concepts in short cycles, learning together. To make this work, we condensed our standard research phase and jumped right into design sprints. There would be no epic strategy presentation. In fact, we eliminated formal presentations altogether and exchanged them for chin-scratching group critiques.

JC: Throwing the playbook away: a terrifying, freeing prospect

The Upstatement team is something to watch; they’re design geniuses, to be sure, but they’re also incredibly adept at bringing clients along—so much so, our working group began to call them “the client whisperers.” I am a process-oriented person who relishes a good set of rules, best practices, and managed expectations. Watching Upstatement throw all of this out the window was both exhilarating and anxiety-inducing. This is not for everyone. For the right group of creatives with the right mix of expertise, built-up rapport with the client, and abundant people skills, throwing the playbook out the window can produce some pretty remarkable results

Starting with Live Wireframing

SD: We pulled back the curtain and invited our clients to be designers with us.

We love workshops. They’re the best tool to get in sync from the start, and we tailor them to specific situations. During research our team spent a day inside the Sasaki Incubator space, and in addition to some standard workshopping, we invented an activity just for them called Live Wireframing. We projected a kit of UI components (various image galleries, content feeds, and other components that might appear on a homepage) off to the side of an artboard and asked Sasaki to build and evaluate different homepage layouts. What comes first, and why? What emerged was a high-level, information hierarchy and content strategy that set us up to sketch ideas using their input. And—the best part—we built consensus among this big, diverse group of designers in under an hour.

JC: This was the day we realized that Upstatement was designing with us and not just for us, which generated trust and reciprocity.

Some ideas they showed were just half-thoughts. Rough as they may have been, these initial concepts were foundational.

Inviting Critique

SD: Show all your ideas, even the ones that go too far, because openness wins trust.

Most designers understand how critiques work. You did it in school but never really with clients because it’s too risky. With clients we talk about “feedback” and “revisions,” which we use to maintain a controlled distance. On the other hand, when working with our own teammates we show each other half-baked layouts and wild ideas because we know feedback will make our work stronger. So we took a chance and let ourselves be vulnerable with Sasaki because 1) they seemed like nice people who speak design, and 2) everyone we interviewed talked about collaboration as a core value, so we took them at their word.

At the first concept share, we opened our file to reveal dozens of homepage variations, potential nav structures, and a bunch of weird layout experiments. My team felt really confident about some of the concepts, and others were left in for fun. As we walked through each sketch, we voiced our thinking and opinions without being pushy. We listened openly. By the end of that first design sprint, we were all leaning in the same direction and feeling satisfied from the exchange.

JC: We asked ourselves “why” until we got to a clean, crisp answer for what to put on our homepage.

One of the many eureka moments of the project came when Upstatement took our mission statement, then still an internal rallying cry generated by our CEO, and embedded it deeply into the digital experience. Throughout, Sasaki’s charge to Upstatement was to put design before aesthetics; every design gesture needed to be intentional. Superfluous flourishes were not going to fly. At every turn, our team asked, “why.” This rigor stems, of course, from our own approach to crafting environments, but would be maddening to even the most curious of agencies—after all, we were on a timeline and budget, with a big site to build.

Taking this Sasaki penchant for interrogation in stride, however, the Upstatement team ingeniously wove our mission statement, “better design, together” right into the homepage navigational structure to beautiful effect. A user scrolls past our logo and mission statement, and it unfolds into three functional parts:

• Better: our differentiating offerings
• Design: our disciplines and interdisciplinary expertise
• Together: the aspects of our practice and culture that underpin our success

We knew we had hit on something. Here was the meaningful and ownable first impression we had been searching for. Here was the artful digital expression our brand deserved. And here was something entirely new for our industry. The pieces, quite literally, fell into place with this idea.

Trust and Expertise: Let Experts be Experts

JC: Help your agency help you

Our two design studios lead their respective industries, but we quickly realized we needed to respect where our own expertise stops and theirs begins.

It’s easy as users of the internet to fall into the trap of formulating opinions on ideal user experience biased by our individual use patterns. As a working group, we mediated between competing team members’ perspectives, what was “best for the firm and the user,” and Upstatement’s expert advice. We tried to show up as “agency allies.” Sitting closer to the iterative process, we could attest to Upstatement’s rigor and logic that went into any given idea presented.

At the same time, there were aspects of our business and particularities around our client types that Upstatement needed Sasaki’s insights on. The larger committee became the proxy for what particular client types or new hires might want to see from Sasaki to believe we would be the right choice for their next project.

SD: Explaining the why

As design sprints and critiques went on, we moved away from sketches and into working code. Every exchange became an opportunity to guide each other. We would frame a decision with a usability principle: users are more likely to scroll than click. And Sasaki taught us about their business. This dialogue, quite surprisingly to us, did not smooth out the delightfully weird aspects of the work. There were quirky little details that had miraculously made it through several rounds: a chicken emoji that changes periodically, a search field labeled as “a really good search.” You’d think a committee would water down bold ideas, but that didn’t happen, because these details are exactly what makes our design stand apart from any other. At one point, someone said to “keep it weird,” and we took that to heart.

However, as we continued to review new work in the browser, some unresolved interactions became sticking points. Swirling conversation started testing this new way of working. We wondered, had we let ourselves become too collaborative? Here’s a list of things I wish I could have warned myself about:

• This radically collaborative way of designing takes a lot longer than you expect, because you spend time on options that ultimately get abandoned.
• When this happens, you will realize that you did not spend adequate time on the mobile version of the MAIN HOMEPAGE INTERACTION, and you will need to fix this later.

• The Practice page that you thought was perfect will explode when it collides with final content, at which point you will need to rethink it.

Alas, we did not have a time machine, and these lessons came too late. Around Thanksgiving, Upstatement got back to work to fix the parts that were left unresolved. When we came to the Practice page, there was a debate between two very important people who couldn’t agree on the lead visual; should it be an archival photo of the firm’s founder or a group shot of their current people?

In the middle of this slightly tense meeting, we sketched an idea on the big screen. What if we used a slider interaction to display both photos in a then-and-now juxtaposition? It was design thinking in real-time to resolve stakeholder conflict at the tail end of a project. But more importantly, it became a poignant statement about the evolution of Sasaki’s 65-year practice, the story of where they came from and who they are today. It was the perfect ending to a collaboration that was challenging, in the best possible way.

Results

Since launch in February 2020, Sasaki’s website traffic and interactions have grown significantly. Sasaki’s site visits are up 15.1% and average time on page for new users is up by 58.6%. One key objective was to drive visitors to contact leaders regarding their work. With the addition of a more prominent project leader contact link placed at the end of each project, we saw an 83.7% increase in clicks on those contact links in the first 20 days after launch compared to the 20 days before launch. This also means that visitors to project pages are reaching the end of project pages, which is encouraging, given the long scroll on many of Sasaki’s more robust project pages. Another key objective was to drive prospective talent to apply. Mapping site activity, we have found the percentage of users who land on a project page, who then click on the careers tab, and who finally click the “Apply Now” button has gone up 231.5% in the first 20 days after launch versus the 20 days before launch.

JC: Sasaki.com boldly stakes our claim on “better design, together,” but built into the phrase is more than mere marketing; it conveys that all of our design, our very identity, and our every success comes from many people working together.

Sasaki is great because of the sum of its colorful parts. Upstatement saw us and they allowed the rest of the world to see us, too.

The triumph of this website redesign was born of close collaboration between two leading design firms who let the walls come down between client and consultant to follow their instincts as collaborative designers. Dennis Pieprz, Sasaki’s chair of design and project steward, puts it best: “The process was an un-process in so many ways. It felt like a return to design school with the charrettes, the provocative questioning, the iterative sketching together—but with seasoned collaborators and new design tools—all for this remarkable, ever-evolving thing called ‘the internet.’”

The Rise of the Remote Meeting

How to More Than Survive in a Virtual Work World

Those of us who chose to work remotely before 2020, at a time when we could move freely between our home offices and our communities, did so with immense privilege. I am one of these people.

Illustrations by Rachel Wui

By Ryann Hoffman, Founding Partner & Principal, Staircase Strategy

This past spring, a new work-from-home population erupted in the abrupt switch to virtual jobs and at-home families. Many newly remote cultures are a reactive attempt to slow the chaos and hurt of a pandemic for our most vulnerable, while the pain of chronic racial injustice flares. Prior to 2020, 1 in 50 Americans worked from home. The Economist reports that number is now 1 in 3. Our 2020 collective shift to working from home is not a straightforward experience of remote work.

Through exploring virtual communication to enhance workplace collaboration when it was an exciting choice, I learned there are well-founded cases to be made for in-person work between human beings. Touch, like a handshake, triggers endorphins. These endorphins make us feel connected to those we touch. Being physically near a person matches our heart rate to theirs and causes us to mirror their movement. These are two critical steps in achieving empathy. When we feel empathy for one another, we are more vulnerable. As vulnerability researcher Brené Brown has taught us, we then become more creative. If we trust and feel connected, we are able to incorporate new perspectives, and we can have constructive conflict. These are both necessary ingredients for solving complex problems with complex solutions. In short, successful in-person interactions fast-track the conditions for effective teamwork in a complicated world.

There are unique aspects of digital workspaces that can foster feelings of trust and connection remotely, but it’s harder than in-person. In an article in the June 2020 issue of Psychology Today, Sara Eckel overviews what can be lost in the digisphere to dehumanizing effect. “In our digital lives, it’s easier to turn away,” Eckel writes. “But each time we do, we lose our capacity for empathy.” It takes tips and tricks to game technology into working for and not against our collaborative natures. There are even aspects of remote environments that outperform in-person sessions, like ease of documentation. But it takes thoughtful design to create meaningful digital experiences.

One of my underlying goals in writing about remote work in this moment is to leverage my years of experience to benefit those facing the myriad of traumas of being alive at this time, those attempting to fundamentally change the way they work. My approach is to be a resource for people at a moment in time when the need is high while experience is low and to build on the body of documentation, frameworks, and approaches to remote work that keen thinkers will continue to aggregate and improve upon.

With that in mind, here are some approaches that have allowed me to frame, learn, and make decisions in the remote teams I collaborate with and lead.

Should This Even Be a Remote Meeting?

As you look at the virtual road ahead, it’s likely that most industries will require and benefit from remote meetings. There are many challenges in going remote, but it shines a glaring light on ineffective, unnecessary in-person meetings. Additionally, the meeting norms of many in-person work cultures take on a notably different tone when remote, including poorly scoped agendas, back-to-back meetings, 5+ hr brainstorms, or no concrete action items.

This leads me to the first question it’s important to ask: Should this even be a remote meeting? For groups of people working together, remote meetings are most valuable when they foster focused collaboration. Focused collaboration is work that requires a group to center on a cognitively demanding task that requires considering broad perspectives and debating them. Examples of collaborative, focused work include problem-solving activities, like data analysis or ideation, or getting a group in alignment around direction or strategy, like planning and decision-making.

Asynchronous Work

Many parts of a collaborative workflow, however, can be done asynchronously. Asynchronous work indicates processes where individuals contribute to the same work product at different times, like multiple people contributing to a document over time. The tools of asynchronous work range from emails, to comments in documents, to video messages. To be clear, asynchronous and synchronous work are not in competition, one isn’t better than the other. Context matters and systems matter. If live meetings are a company’s default mode of work, it follows that their asynchronous systems are either less developed or they aren’t effective.

It is advisable to complete anything that can be done asynchronously before the meeting to make the best use of collaborative time. For those designing meetings, this means:

• Setting the expectations for prep work being completed
• Communicating what the pre-work will be used for in the session
• Stating the impact of not completing it on the team and on the work
• Getting clear prep work instructions and relevant materials to participants in a courteous and reasonable amount of time.

When the prep work is used in the session to good effect, and it’s clear who hasn’t contributed, most people step up. This is especially true when leadership is on board and follows up with those not completing prep.

Remote Meetings

Remote meetings still hold a critical place when considering people, their emotions, and their relationships. Communication via video call can be critically important when communicating anything where tone and body language can tip the balance. Things like delivering sensitive information, celebratory information, anything that’s time-sensitive, and “virtual coworking,” where colleagues are online at the same time but working independently on different projects. While it’s easy to see what’s gained when colleagues aren’t just dropping by your desk, it’s also easy to forget what is lost. It’s important to get into the habit of scheduling time for pure human connection, best done through live meetings. It is also helpful to include time for coffee breaks, small talk, icebreakers, check-ins, and other non-work content activities in remote meetings, which enable coworkers to know each other as people and strengthen their connections, their wellbeing, and as a result, their ability to collaborate well on difficult challenges.

Building in buffer time to account for unpredictabilities with technology is also crucial in planning remote meetings. A good rule of thumb is keeping around 20% of a total meeting time unallotted. In each meeting, participants must be able to use the tech to contribute value, so creating time and activities for onboarding and working out any difficulties is critical to the successful outcome of the meeting. Ask yourself questions like, what are predictable hiccups? What alternative tech can replace core meeting software? What would have to happen to require rescheduling?

Recap: When you Need a Meeting

If more than one person needs to collaborate on focused work, like defining a goal, aligning around a goal, or deep thinking toward a goal, you might need a meeting.

If that work cannot be done effectively asynchronously, you probably need a meeting.

If you want to connect on a human level around emotions, personal stories, or a relationship, you probably need a meeting.

Should This Remote Meeting Be Designed?

The easiest way to determine which meetings to design is to think about that meeting’s impact on your team or organization, and the intricacy projected in its successful execution. Designing meetings is like designing anything else, in that you collect and analyze data to come up with ideas to be tested until you arrive at a meeting format that’s successful. What’s notable about meetings is that they’re intangible experiences, like services, and can be difficult to prototype. Not every meeting needs to be designed.

Facilitation Blueprint

Not taking a comprehensive view of your session(s) results in missed opportunities, unanticipated frustrations, and unintended consequences for both participants and facilitators. To be clear, these blunders are not carelessness—designing interactions with and across people that touch objects and software is complex. The field of service design has been grappling with the challenge of designing intangible systems since at least 1984, when G. Lynn Shostack was featured in the Harvard Business Review for her work designing services using a type of flow chart diagram, called a Service Blueprint. I have found adapting the Service Blueprint to be the best way to deeply understand the sequential and layered consideration of facilitated experiences—they are, after all, a type of service to our participants.

Using this approach, which I not-so-originally call a Facilitation Blueprint, we can do two things that have a critical impact on our participants’ experiences in and around our sessions:

• Map out the timeline of the meeting
• Think deeply through the experience layers of the meeting participants and the facilitator

This approach provides an expansive visualization of time, behavior, and tools that make up the meeting experience. It allows the meeting designer to visualize the product they’re working on and experiment with changing the variables and touchpoints to think through how it might alter the event. Using a Facilitation Blueprint to design your remote meetings makes the intangible more tangible, easier to study, prototype, and test, and thus a better-designed meeting for participants and facilitators alike. Since not every meeting needs to be designed, the Facilitation Blueprint doesn’t always need to be used as a tool, but can help map out the plan for when design is needed.

Should this Remote Meeting Be Facilitated?

Once you’ve decided that yes, this should be a meeting, the next question is: Does this remote meeting need facilitation? At its heart, facilitating is focusing on process so others can focus on their work. There are many ways to support people through reaching solutions that aren’t facilitators, which range from bosses to rigorous project management processes. Sometimes, all you need is an agenda and a team that actually adheres to it. Other times, though, a team needs more. There are cases when professionals or specialists are called for, but it’s important to keep in mind that the behaviors of facilitating are more important than who is facilitating.

Remote Facilitation Considerations

Facilitating from a distance adds further layers of complexity. While the technology for remote conferencing capability is rapidly expanding, the shift to a virtual collaboration environment is overwhelming for most groups, and most facilitators.

For participants, warped interactions collide with new software, all cloaked in ever-looming technical difficulties. The resulting inefficiencies evoke emotions of frustration, derailing motivation and feelings of progress. For facilitators, orchestrating and executing collaboration is compounded by managing live technical workspaces and the communication cues lost in virtual interactions.

But, the benefits gained in distanced work can also be leveraged to create workflows, work products, and work experiences that outperform in-person exchanges. The ability to easily document discussions and deliverables online gives remote groups the immense advantage of accessing the collective intelligence of a group. When in-person, conversations, important points, and major insights are often lost, unless meticulous notetaking is upheld and ample photos are taken and then organized. When participating virtually is a norm, those in remote locations, those with young families, and those with disabilities that keep them at home, can be heard as loudly as those who normally dominate workplace discussions. Most digital collaboration tools allow for simple use of photos, video, and other rich media, enhancing communication and thinking.

Oftentimes, simply acknowledging the reality that we can’t read each other as well remotely, setting some ground rules, and teaching a few key phrases or gestures is all it takes to overcome this hurdle.

Challenge: Absence of Physiological Factors in Trust and Empathy

While physical proximity is not possible with remote meetings, one important component of human connection, eye contact, can still be simulated when everyone is looking at their cameras. This is an acquired habit for most, and it’s hard to rely on participants new to remote meetings to get this set up right and be consistent with it.

There are ways to hack human connections using virtual tools and psychological tricks. The goal is to reinforce verbal descriptions with visual aids, giving listeners multiple media to grab onto and retain. Visual introductions or connection activities, where participants are asked to bring photos of themselves, or even find images they relate to online, can add dynamism to how a person describes themselves or how they’re feeling. Most virtual whiteboards and collaborative slide-making software can be used for this purpose.

Rituals are another psychological device facilitators can play with to reinforce feelings of connection. When people move in the same way, when we see others mirroring our behavior, we automatically feel more connected to them—religions, sports teams, and the military have long used these tricks to good effect. Easy ways to do this are through hand gestures, like hands up in celebration, or rituals around drinks, like a toast. One team I work with all bought the same tea and starts important meetings off by sipping their cups at the same time. Another sent each team member ’80s-style headbands that they’ll all put on and wear during celebratory meetings. The ability to create bridges between physical and virtual spaces in these rituals allows for a lot of creativity.

Challenge: Lack of Visual Communication Cues

When interacting online, our ability to see and be seen is hindered. While we can catch some facial expressions virtually, we often miss important body signals about how people are feeling. Moreover, the limitations of video conferences, like the small size of the video box, the difficulty of reading a group’s energy at once, and delays in communication, make it hard to see the visual cues we do have.

While there is a wealth of information carried through inflection, tone, and word choice, most people learn social interacting in person. A simple phrase like “I’m not sure…” can communicate an array of vastly disparate messages without ample visual aids. Silence is particularly tricky to parse when remote, further complicated by the etiquette around muting. Are people attentive but politely quiet or disengaged? Are they silently in agreement or quietly seething in dissent?

Oftentimes, simply acknowledging the reality that we can’t read each other as well remotely, setting some ground rules, and teaching a few key phrases or gestures is all it takes to overcome this hurdle. Simple ground rules like: when in doubt over-communicate, raise your hand if you’d like to contribute to a discussion, and use the “thumbs up” emoji in the chat if you agree but don’t want to interrupt, give participants a way to preemptively work around the hurdles that a lack of visual communication presents.

The facilitator is also key in translating visual cues. It’s as easy as including phrases like: “It seems like Mia is thinking quietly for a minute, we’ll come back to her unless she communicates otherwise,” or “We’re waiting for Daro’s laptop to bring up the slides!” Your speaking acts as narration through the story of your session, and fills in the gaps for participants.

Managing Technology on Top of Facilitating

In an ideal world, every team would have the possibility of establishing a facilitator, to be attentive to the process for the group, and a producer to manage the technology for the session. In reality, this is a luxury. Putting a little extra time into planning and testing your tech will save you a lot of heartache. When all else fails, transparency and humor can get you through almost any moderate technical difficulty gracefully, providing clarity and levity to an often frustrating part of remote life.

Foundational Behaviors of Facilitators

What the following list should drive home is that everything a facilitator is focused and evaluated on relates to process. When a designated individual focuses on a process, everyone else can focus on content. Having a facilitator frees up mental space and minutes for team members to practice deeper thinking and engage in critical, challenging interactions.

• Clearly introducing a meeting’s purpose and or/activity instructions
• Keeping time, enforcing time limits, and adjusting time when necessary
• Democratizing participation in activities and discussions
• Staying on task and shepherding task completion
• Stewarding both divergent (open-minded) and convergent (evaluative) thinking modes
• Ensuring the group solidifies action items for next steps
• Receiving feedback and modeling healthy feedback practices

Wrap Up

Work culture is at the eye of a cumulation of storms, and they’re changing course and proliferating at faster rates than we can understand them. Our habits, rituals, environments, schedules, and interactions shape our emotions and our identity, and they’re all changing at once. Whether you work from home, are an essential worker, or are looking for work, you’ve experienced something big.

While it may seem unexpected to address weighty, emotional topics in an article about remote meetings, it’s hard to pretend that the pressing needs of virtual work environments are independent of the underlying pressures that brought us here. There is a loss of the way some things were and a loss of how we envisioned things would be, uncertainty for our moment and our future. There is sadness for our lives, our children’s lives, our BIPOC loved ones and neighbors, our careers, our communities, and the world. The normal ways we’re accustomed to assessing situations and making decisions are too slow, and the layers of stress, grief, and trauma overwhelm our nervous systems, clouding our judgement, making it exceptionally difficult to be proactive, to think, and act strategically.

My hope is that the information in this article acts as a compass to make one of the many seismic changes in your life and business more manageable. A way for you and your team to transform your collaboration habits and systems for the better, and to nimbly adapt as a unit. A way for us to know each other deeply, to support our livelihoods, and to change the course of history while we charge ahead into the blurry, distanced future, together.

Igniting Social Change Through a Screen

Writer’s Block inK was started in 2003 in New London, Connecticut, as a non-profit organization to support youth in writing and performing as tools to address personal and social challenges on the community stage.

Kolton Harris greets the audience at last year’s opening night of [Un] Documented, a performance created by students to address and challenge the state of immigration in the U.S. Photos courtesy of Writer’s Block inK.

By Kolton Harris, Vice President of the Board, Writer’s Block inK

At Writer’s Block, we seek to ignite social change through the arts, letting young people lead and create. At the core, Writer’s Block is about sculpting and creating full-scale productions in theater, including hip-hop musicals, and we have continued to evolve to provide space for various art forms. Writer’s Block inK empowers young voices with the power of pen and prose, reinforcing teamwork, accountability, and responsibility; igniting social change on the page and stage. My relationship to Writer’s Block is a testament to the youth-led model—I attended Writer’s Block inK as a kid, volunteered, worked as Executive Director, and currently serve on the Board to advise on strategic vision and to build capacity to sustain our work.

The Writer’s Block team has worked, like many others, to transition our programming from in-person, communal activities to a rewarding virtual environment, and the success that we have achieved has been largely thanks to the commitment, creativity, and leadership of our students, who embraced this world of online creation, while continuing to share their artistry and ideas in a time when recent social and political upheaval highlights the importance of them sharing their voices with our local community and the world.

When sharing narrative and decision making power, all of us at Writer’s Block benefit. Maintaining that shared power through a global pandemic has offered the organization a chance to try new approaches and take risks. I’m excited to share our organization’s story, in the hopes that our longstanding model can provide lessons learned for challenging the ways things can be, as a team

Leading Writer’s Block Through a Pandemic

Prior to COVID, Writer’s Block inK was in the process of redesigning our programming and introducing new approaches to our education model. Then the pandemic hit, and it presented an opportunity to alleviate some potential pushback from proponents of sticking to the status quo. We’ve experimented with our model, meeting the needs of our staff and students in improved ways. Normally, in the summer Writer’s Block holds an eight-week intensive, in which young people ages 13 and up come to us every day and create a show from scratch. We have nothing at the beginning of the summer, and at the end, we have a three-night run of the show: no scripts, fully lit, costumed, and staged. Our last production, [Un]Documented, explored the harsh realities of immigration in America. This process has always been driven by the students.

This year, we collectively redesigned the program into the Block Academy for Art and Social Change. Instead of sculpting a show, we split up the students into virtual cohorts based on their artistic interests, including visual art and design, music and song writing, dance, acting, poetry, creative writing, and research and education. The students can participate in as many cohorts as they want, and we have some students who are in every group.

This transition to a whole new program has been relatively easy to get off the ground, and it’s because of the students who are participating in the program. By involving the people who are supposed to benefit from our work the most, young people, this platform allows them to share their dynamic, creative work.

In their respective cohorts, students work with our staff to discover themselves and their craft, and they also participate in a series of group projects. Instead of one big show at the end of the summer, we transformed our physical space into a gallery in which our visual artists can display their work. We will have a physically-distanced opening, where people can bid on the work, and the young people receive a significant cut of the proceeds—they can make money from their art.

By involving the people who are supposed to benefit from our work the most, young people, this platform allows them to share their dynamic, creative work.

Every summer, Writer’s Block gives a word that the students focus on for the duration of the program, and this year that word is liberation. Everyone is creating art around liberation and acknowledging specifically racial upheaval.

I am really excited about this disruption, because normally when we produce our three night show, it does get filmed, but not a lot of people see it or have the ability to come and sit through a two-hour show. With a zine on the other hand, which some of the students are creating, it can sit on someone’s coffee table and they can engage with it any time. People in the area can come to our gallery and see the art at their leisure, but someone across the country can also go on YouTube and check out a powerful monologue from a young person about the issues that matter to them. It is allowing the work of our artists to reach more people.

Navigating a Virtual Arts Education Program

For young people, especially when they get to be a bit older, it is hard to commit to being in one place for five hours a day, four days a week, especially when many of them have the added responsibility of needing to work a summer job or take care of siblings to help their families. Having the flexibility of being able to log on to a two-hour cohort on Zoom works for their lives, and they also like the freedom that they have to dig a little deeper into what we have been working on in their own time.

In building the schedule for our virtual programming, we addressed these challenges while maintaining our approach of having the young people be at the forefront of the creative process. We asked them what would work best, and then that’s what we did. While involving students in decision making this thoroughly is not something conventionally done, we have always maintained the importance of open lines of communication, and this has helped us to stay productive and positive.

Challenges include students not having access to the best Wifi or resources to tune in virtually, and of course the loss of connection that comes with not being able to meet in person, but overall the discussions that we have had over Zoom have been some of the most engaging sessions that we have ever had. And this is completely because of the young people participating in the program this year, and their commitment, passion, and creativity.

Even in our research and education course, the only mandatory virtual class this summer, we have made it a point to ensure that the space doesn’t feel like their school experience. Instead we open it up for dialogue and ask the group about concepts and words that they have heard that they don’t know, for example, and then we look them up together and create a resource list for each other. There is no pressure of a curriculum, just the objective of community sharing with what we learn and discover. We’re focused on providing an environment for personal growth.

We also do not cater to “artsy” kids exclusively. One of our students is set on being a forensic scientist, but she keeps coming back to Writer’s Block because of the tools and resources that we provide for her to help her become a better critical thinker. At a young age, she has the opportunity to analyze documents and synthesize data to formulate her own ideas, because we don’t hold information back from these young people, and we allow research to be very exploratory and intense.

COVID-19, in prompting us to move our programming online, has allowed us to reach more young people from different locations than before; we even have one student participating from California. The goal is to continue this program in some capacity in the fall, because we have received feedback from students who live farther away from where we are located that they would like to continue working this way.

Writer’s Block will continue to provide online, workshop-based programming in poetry and creative writing, and in the future we will work toward a hybridized model of in-person 32 and online content, so that we can rekindle the intimate sense of community that comes with face-to-face interaction, while also capitalizing on the benefits of online programming. We’d also love to continue to evolve our programming into different genres, film is one area for example.

This summer’s The Art of Protest event invited the Writer’s Block community to celebrate art as an integral part of protesting. The social distance gathering created a community mural, upcycled clothing, and signs.

Creating Socially Driven Art during a Time of Social Upheaval

I believe that even in a small way, Writer’s Block inK is a leader in the work of catalyzing a dialogue about social challenges that we face in the world today. It is central to our work and always has been. What has changed lately is that some audiences are now more receptive to what we have to say.

Writer’s Block has always been forward in conveying our messages. It is not uncommon for someone to come see a show and leave before it is done, because they don’t agree with what we’re saying, it makes them uncomfortable, or they thought they were coming to see a little kid’s show, but instead experience a mature, intellectual performance addressing polarizing topics.

What has been a little more difficult is Writer’s Block working through the fact that we have been in the trenches and doing social justice work that has previously been discredited or pushed to the side. Now, because it is popular to talk about, people are more receptive, but there is also a lot of disingenuous allyship that can become challenging to navigate. Because of this, our lane becomes oversaturated. Even though I feel like we are doing authentic work, and uplifting authentic voices and experiences, it can feel like our work is being drowned out by those who are making their voices heard, but who have superficial intentions at the heart of their statements.

A lot of our students have expressed this too: they are not fond of the performative social justice work that’s not grounded in the reality of the work. For many of the students who come to Writer’s Block for years, they are leaders and voices in their schools, communities, and households, and this is not always an easy path for them to take. These young people have been involved in the discussion and the fight for social justice long before it became fashionable, so for them it can be frustrating to have been in a fight that had largely been dismissed, and then to all of the sudden see so much support, which is not in all cases sincere. For the progress made in our work, where youth voices are amplified, this is a challenging blow.

As the world around us continues to evolve, Writer’s Block has been and will continue to stay true to our mission, which is to empower young people to voice their viewpoints and to stay educated—to research and learn about what is going on in the world, and to give them the means to share their thoughts and ideas through their artistic expression. Writer’s Block inK will continue to take our evolution in stride, to turn hurdles into opportunities for continued growth and success for the organization, and, most importantly, for the young people who we have the privilege of working with and learning from.

Career Interrupted

Design a Thriving Career in an Uncertain World

For the past 20 years, I have helped businesses build innovation teams and helped design professionals find career success.

Photos courtesy of Angela Yeh

By Angela Yeh, Founder & Chief Talent Strategist, Thrive by Design & Yeh IDeology

My team and I have continued our mission to help employers and design professionals gear up for success in this changing world of design by collaborating with F100 companies and top consultancies to define and develop creative capabilities with individuals and working teams. Through the Thrive By Design career coaching program, we help professionals take charge of their career so that they don’t find themselves stuck in a job they no longer love, but instead consistently stay in the market in roles they thrive in.

The Thrive By Design program helps designers in the critical phases of transition within their career paths. We work with designers in the early stage of realizing they need to transition to a different career path, in helping designers get through the front door of their ideal workplace, and at the peak of their careers when they don’t know where to go next.

Thriving in Design, Even Now

These are just four of our incredible wins in our journey toward helping designers pivot and succeed in these uncertain times. What’s intriguing is that all these have happened since March 2020, a time of great global economic crisis triggered by the onset of COVID-19.

1. We helped a multidisciplinary, mid-level design researcher identify and position herself for a good job offer, and then convert it into an opportunity of a lifetime. She will work as a senior researcher with strategic responsibilities. In June she accepted the offer and closed out her NYC apartment, as her employer relocated her to North Carolina to start her new job there. She’s thrilled and can’t wait to get started.
2. A director of innovation at a leading furniture corporation successfully pivoted to launch her very own consultancy for C-Suite. In the last four months she has signed two big corporate client contracts, and she also has recontracting agreements on the table.
3. A senior designer who went through our masterclass program secured a top management job as a product development manager that fits her lifestyle. This new job gave her more time to plan, initiate, and launch her custom furniture restoration business, which is now thriving and already generating nearly the same income as her salaried job.
4. We helped a design manager finally rediscover her true value and purpose for herself as well as for her employers. She won a new job as director of design, marketing, and product development at a growing manufacturer with a $30,000 pay raise. Within her first four months, she has won and landed her biggest deals yet and is now generating more revenue for her employer than they ever could.

My Journey to Career Coaching and Talent Strategy

Looking back at my own career history, I used to always feel lost every step of the way. I graduated college as a psychologist (a path cut out for me by my MD father), but I realized I just didn’t want to become a therapist who worked with everyone and anyone. I then got a job in developmental psychobiology research, a job that I didn’t love even though I excelled at it. Despite being confused about where to go next, I knew I was fascinated with design. I attended Pratt Institute’s Masters of Industrial Design program. There I got to see the endless possibilities of what we could create. I was also inspired by the diverse kinds of creatives I met there. I worked as a designer and design director. Yet, I realized again that I wasn’t in love with my work managing designers and designing myself. I loved the profession but I wasn’t enthralled by it.

In the blink of an eye, systems can become obsolete and a new order replaces them. But being the one to affect change is a process. Being ready doesn’t happen overnight.

It was at that point that I took up an offer from a top design recruitment agency. I accepted the offer after a bit of soul searching, taking numerous self-assessment tests, and reading countless books on careers. I became convinced that being a recruiter was my calling. When I moved into recruitment, I found I loved analyzing the work of professionals in this space, making connections, and building design teams.

With the rise of recruiting apps, my work became a commoditized and accelerated game of matchmaking, not about the quality of a match. I wasn’t satisfied with just making matches, and I wondered why some matches lasted longer and produced better results for the employer and job seeker. I could see there were things that I could change in the method of recruitment. That was when I founded my own recruitment agency, Yeh IDeology, to innovate upon the business of recruitment and improve the way talent and employers interact and choose each other.

Designing for a Changing World

This is the age of thought leadership and grassroots movements. We’ve come to a period of human civilization where anyone can step forward in order to affect change. In fact, YOU can create the change the world seeks and design our future for the better. As designers, some of the biggest challenges we encounter is that the business world doesn’t always fully understand the impact of design. They can’t always equate aesthetics, functionality, strategy, or innovation to numbers directly. One of the things that you’ll want to do as a designer is to learn to speak about the impact of design in business terminology. During some consultation sessions with clients, I often hear remarks like, “I want to make an impact, I want to do as much as I can and to shift this world in the right direction.” Well, THIS is that moment. This is that time where the world is asking you to step up. And you should because you can. What is the most powerful thing you can do with your tools, with your skills, with your expertise? Now’s the time for you to squeeze all your creative juices to create something that disrupts the world for the better.

How Can You Tell When You’re Ready for Change?

Change may occur in an instant. In the blink of an eye, systems can become obsolete and a new order replaces them. But being the one to 24 affect change is a process. Being ready doesn’t happen overnight. Right now, there’s a strong chance that you’re not even sure where to begin. And to be honest, doing all you can to become ready can be a daunting task.

I know some of the most talented people on the planet who can’t find their calling. I’ve also seen others who know they could do more but don’t know how to channel their energies and gifts to create pivotal results. Most designers I work with are creative, have a lot of potential, are multi-disciplinary, and highly capable. And I find that for those that are talented and diversely capable, it can be harder to choose their paths themselves.

The path of a multi-talented designer is more complicated. It’s like the game of chess with so many more components to it. You’ve got many more career options to choose from, and therein lies the challenge. Focusing on the personal effects of your work and a potential change to your career can help alleviate these challenges. For your career, your number one customer and main stakeholder to consider is YOU. The most important thing you want to understand is what the things that you want and love are. What are the things that you need to do to change and evolve?

One Big Problem

Truth be told, people still struggle to find the right career path and get their life together even in the best of times. If you can’t interpret your internal compass, how then can you navigate the world outside? Change and transformation require time. This interruption/intermission in the stream of time presents to us as designers a rare opportunity to do the internal work that’s needed for us to find our way through these uncertain times.

Now is the time when our clients and customers need us the most. They are depending on us to create better solutions for their businesses, their products, their services, and their lives.

I’m sure of these four things:

• The world needs your help.
• Your expertise is needed more than ever.
• YOU are needed more than ever.
• Now is the time for reinvention.

What You Need To Do

Let’s be honest, in this new world, you might have limited choices. The careers that you may want may not exist for the time being and possibly for a while or even forever. Now is the time to look at all the choices you have before you with a realistic perspective.

What choices are no longer available to you? Which new choices are available to you now that you might never have previously considered? In this new world, what decisions are you fortunate enough to make out of all the choices before you?

You have to look for new opportunities in new realms with new eyes and a new perspective. Now that you’re ready to step up and create the lasting, drastic change, it’s time to take action so that you can thrive.

Thriving is:

• Doing the work that you love
• Experiencing real growth in the work that you do
• Working for employers or with clients that respect and value you and your expertise
• AND earning good, even great money for what you do If you are a design professional but feel stuck where you are right now in your profession, we understand.

What used to get you out of bed every morning may no longer excite you. In fact, you may feel you’re going down a path that’s keeping you from achieving your life goals. You no longer realize who you are and can’t tell if you’re still a designer. You want more than anything to get to the next level in your career and life—perhaps to a new industry or even to jump to a new profession altogether. But whatever you’ve tried isn’t working. I urge you to step up and take back control of your situation, but you must realize that you can’t do it all by yourself. If you want to speed up your transformation, you’ll need assistance. You’ll need that expert outside perspective.

The best way to get through this is to find mentors and coaches to help you:

• Pivot and adjust your offering
• Evaluate whether your customers have changed and don’t need you anymore
• Shift career or profession
• Reach out to more people
• Connect to a new tribe
• Meditate and become magnetic because people gravitate towards positivity and ingenuity
• Teach what you know
• Let go of what’s not working
• Create new value and offer it to more and new people
• Iterate again and again and again until it works

Identifying and then landing these opportunities in time is a science. The most successful leaders and businesses have advisors, coaches, and consultants. You should too. You might have to seek help to evaluate your talents and figure out how best to combine your abilities. You’ll also need help to identify your best avenues for growth and create a plan that transforms your dreams into realities. Don’t leave your life to chance. Do what’s necessary so you can innovate, create, and expand.