The Experience Designers: Recent Episodes
Steve Usher
The Experience Designers podcast is dedicated to the Design Thinking, Human Resource and Employee Experience community.
If you’re fascinated by the future of work and understand the importance of how people experience an organisation as they move through the employee journey. This podcast is for you.
Once a month, we’ll be sharing interviews with practitioners from a diverse range of industries. We’ll be tackling a wide range of subjects all with a common thread centred on the future of work, crafting experiences and the role of design thinking.
Our mission is to stimulate ideas, educate and inspire people to create a movement of their own. Whether that’s driving change internally within your organisations and team, or your own personal development.
When was the last time you felt discomfort?
Did you notice how you reacted? Was it subtle shifts in your body? Or major knee-jerk! How did it feel? What level of discomfort was it? 1 out of 10? 10 out of 10? Regardless of the situation. What's clear is we have a reaction. Sometimes subtle, other times more profound and impactful. This is where the learning and growth opportunities exist in these moments and how we reflect and react.
Design is a buzzword for everything from products to customer- and employee experiences. But beyond that, it is a mindset and skill-set that requires dedicated practice both by individuals and organizations.
With Andre Fangueiro we explore different facets of design, from individual behaviors to leadership, career development and organizational structures. What does it actually take to do design (successfully)?
As employee experience continues to evolve from buzzword to creating impact inside of organizations. I was curious to explore the world of customer experience. How did they go from buzzword to a discipline, business function and career choice? What learnings can we leverage for the EX evolution? How can we make better use of connecting these two sides of the same coin to bring value to people and business?
In this special episode Shani and Steve look back on their first year of running Wonder together and what it means to do life and business in a more human way.
They share 10 big lessons they’ve learnt over the course of the year and the different facets of more human.
In a quick-paced and demanding work environment, community is something many companies and individuals seek to build - to be less alone, to become more creative, to solve problems more effectively.
With Anamaria Dorgo's unique voice and experience in community building, we explore what makes a good community. And how do we go about creating communities that add value to both the people in them and the world around them…
Theo Smith brings a unique lens to the workplace in the form of Neurodiversity. If you’re struggling to understand what this is or how it applies to your business - I promise you, it is relevant and already exists in your business. It’s just a matter of whether you understand it, are asking the right questions or prepared to adapt and evolve to it.
When we discuss communication we often end up speaking about strategies for talking to people, how we can convey information and create engagement, but we spend less time understanding how that interaction works and how different people both send and receive messages.
Together with Josh Hammonds we try to decode different styles of communication and what that means both to how we talk and to how we listen. And we explore if there is even a “right” way to communicate or if we are all simply… different?
We know the brain is made for survival, but are we good at using its potential to grow and change? With Maria, we lean in to explore how we can help our brains create new pathways and change both our own capabilities, self-awareness and even how we experience life.
With the current exploration and re-definition of work, a lot of deeply engrained concepts around hierarchy, collaboration and culture are up for question. Imran Rehman offers an angle of community and leadership that can help us create a true sense of diversity and belonging.
A unique opportunity to gain exclusive access to Design Bloc inside Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Where they focus exclusively on teaching Design Thinking to a diverse group of students across different faculties using their new human-centric mindset to solving local community challenges. With some transformative outcomes, not only for the students but those in the community who also participated.
With so much talk about the future of Human Resources both as a function and profession. Who better to discuss this topic with than Lars Schmidt. Especially given the timing of his new book - "Re-defining HR", We explore the journey of HR, changing perceptions and what the future could hold for the profession.
In this episode, you’ll meet Belinda and Emma from the United Kingdom. We explore the evolution of employee experience and why it’s more than just a fancy new title in the industry. They share interesting insights from their research and applying positive psychology to design thinking methodologies and their work.
In this episode, you'll meet Andrew Marritt. CEO of Organisation View based in Switzerland. We discuss the recent increase in companies capturing employee feedback powered by developments in technology. Importantly, the huge opportunities available to unearth gold hidden inside the vast amount of words shared in those surveys. Going beyond eNPS or 5-star ratings.
In this episode, you'll meet Dana Wasson. An abstract artist, a keynote speaker, standing on the coveted red dot carpet of TEDx and author of 'Talk the walk'. We delve into why employee engagement is at an all-time high and how leadership has been impacted during this COVID era.
2020 has been the greatest stress test for employer brands. The difference between what organisations do and HOW they do it has never been more important during these challenging times. Whether you've been furloughed, chosen to continue working or made redundant. Regardless of the situation. HOW companies have acted during COVID will show the true colours of their employer brand. Fact or fiction. One thing is for sure. People won’t forget.
Just like ASOS for the fashion industry and Just Eat with their digital experience around food delivery. Oodle Car Finance started out with the intention to completely disrupt the car financing industry putting digital and experience at the very heart.
Ellie shares her own story and experience of working at Oodle. When during her first interview with the CEO, discussed the book ‘the power of moments’ by chip and dan heath. (well worth a read if you haven’t yet). She receiving a copy in the post that weekend with a hand written note saying how much he enjoyed the meeting and was looking forward to their next one. Nice touch!
In this episode, you’ll meet Eunice, Senior Director, Talent Acquisition at LEGO. Learn about her own experience of joining and working at LEGO. What makes the culture so unique? And how as a global talent acquisition team they deliver best in class candidate experience, whilst protecting one of, if not, THE most loved brands in the world.
Robots and humans working together. What do you think of when reading this? C3PO? Or Alexa telling you your calendar this morning? I had the opportunity to discuss this important topic with Raki Rajani and Stefan Moritz at McKinsey Design. Delving into the evolution of robots, why design will play an important role and ensuring we take full advantage of the opportunities that exist in shaping an exciting future.
The final episode of my 3 part series leading up to the Design Thinking Conference in Amsterdam. In this episode, you'll meet Kalwant Bhopal, a British Professor and diversity expert has focused her research on racism and ethnic minorities in education and academia. Dr. Puleng Makhoalibe is one of 20 women globally selected to participate in the 2019 women leaders of the world program and a recognised leader in creativity and innovation.
In this episode, you’ll meet Lisa Morris, founder of XPLOR based in Charlotte, North Carolina. We discuss the popularisation of design thinking in HR, debunk some of the emerging myths and ensuring we don’t lose the full potential of design thinking in future HR functions around the globe.
A very special episode in partnership with the Design Thinking Conference in Amsterdam.
You’ll meet Esther Thole from the Netherlands and Jeanne Liedtka from the U.S. Both are speaking at the conference sharing their different perspectives on the topic of empathy. In this episode, get a glimpse into their backgrounds, work and plans for the conference.
Join us for a very special episode as we announce our partnership with the Design Thinkers Conference in Amsterdam 2019. Today you'll meet two people who will be at the event as a speaker and facilitator of a live experiment.
In this episode, you’ll meet Nicole and learn more about her passion for HR, innovation, talent and design thinking. We talk about her mission to turn HR into superheroes, exploring the emergence of design sprints and the opportunities they bring for organisations large and small.
In this episode, you’ll meet Daniel from Chicago. An experienced HR professional with a passion for employee experience design. During our conversation, you'll learn more about his transition from corporate HR to experience design. His views on the changing landscape of human resources and the power of combining data and design in modern business.
In this episode, you’ll meet Anna. Currently living and working in San Francisco, she offers insights into her experience of the bay area. We delve into the changing requirements of leadership in a rapidly changing work environment, future skills for HR practitioners, the topic of diversity & inclusion and business impacts on society.
After meeting at an event in Stockholm. We thought it would be fun to come together and talk about employee engagement versus employee experience. Sharing our own experiences of work, how it’s changed and the expectations employees have on modern day businesses. Interesting given we are 20 years apart and in different stages in our careers.
In this episode, you’ll meet Stefan, an associate professor at Utrecht University and head of the research group Attentionlab. The group’s aim is to study how attention and visual awareness shape the perception of the world around us. This is particularly important when thinking about empathy and our immediate view of situations or people. Not to be missed!
In this episode you’ll meet Chris, Candidate Experience & Innovation Manager at Zalando in Berlin 🇩🇪We learn more about his unique role and focus. The importance of implementing a set of core hiring values. Why it's crucial to measure the candidate experience and how to use insights when creating innovative solutions.
In this episode, you’ll meet the author of the ‘Human Workplace Manifesto’. After meeting at a co-working spot in Stockholm 🇸🇪 I was hugely impressed by Sharon’s passion and willingness to do something about improving the workplace and empowering people to make positive changes. We discussed what drove her to create the manifesto and her natural flair for the Swedish language.
In this episode, you’ll meet Chantel Botha from Cape Town 🇿🇦. Founder Director of BrandLove. She talks about her LOVE for bringing back humanity into the workforce, LOVE for doing things differently and LOVE for simplifying processes. She shares insights and perspectives of working with organisations in South Africa, her thoughts on some of the systemic issues organisations and BrandLove’s unique business merchandise (The f**k off spray).
This episode kicks off a series of podcasts recorded live at the Design Thinking Conference in Amsterdam 🇳🇱. The two day event was held at the Tobacco theatre in October 2018, focusing exclusively on the subject of ‘empathy’.
In this episode, you’ll meet Adam Lawrence who played the role of the ‘difficultator’ during the event. He shares the purpose of his unique role, the impact the event had on him, as well delve into the future of design thinking and the upcoming Global Service Jam in 2019.
Want to connect with Morten?
www.linkedin.com/in/morten-raahauge-9823368/
Books we discussed:
The Experience Economy - Review here
Exponential Organisations - Review here
Experience Designers Ep 2
(We use a mix of automated transcript software and editing for readability)
Steve (Host): [00:00:14] Hi Morten, thank you very much for joining me for this episode.
Morten: [00:00:20] My pleasure.
Steve (Host): [00:00:20] Good stuff. So we've got a few things we wanted to cover off today as part of this interview or discussion. A lot will be centered around the employee experience and the evolution and where we think this could be heading and how H.R. departments could be developing the employee experience and playing a big part in this.
Steve (Host): [00:00:48] I think one of the things for me just to give some context is that I think generally right now the employee experiences is a really hot topic. I think we've gone from a period probably in the last ten years where there's always been a focus on employee engagement and certainly in the UK there was lots of research undertaken by a chap called David McCleod. He did some work under the previous UK government Labour government and latterly into the Conservative government which is around employee engagement and looking at it from a kind of top down perspective and more recently with the evolution on employee experience, it tends to be that kind of bottom up approach, looking at shaping and creating experiences for employees.
Steve (Host): [00:01:41] So I guess this falls in line with some of the experience economy stuff, which I'm sure we'll cover. What's your view around around this, where do you think we are around the topic of employee experience right now? What driving this?
Morten: [00:02:00] Well I think there's a lot of discussion on the topic and what I've been noticing is that people seem to have a little bit of unnecessary difficulties. You can sort of attack this from an array of different angles. And for me it's pretty simple because I'm a fully certified experience economy expert. So for me the whole methodology is there but it's really just applying experience design to this new area. Just as you would with any other business or business area. It's just another business area that needs to go through the same sort of change.
Morten: [00:02:53] So the methodology is there and there's a lot of models. And I think if this is something you want to work with. Then all the models all the ways of viewing things that's in the experience economy can be applied in a pretty straightforward way and easily implemented. So for me it's easy, but it seems to be there's a big discussion also, the different parts you know. Okay so what's the employee experience here? What's the employee experience there? And one other thing when you talk about experience, it usually centers on things that are sort of experiences by themselves. So in the experience economy you often speak about concerts or festivals or you know tourism stuff like that. But this is really a way of looking at things that could be applied to anything and especially in business and still make a lot of sense. So it doesn't have to be sort of above the experience you've just got to work in the morning. I mean you can you can even work on that if you want to.
Steve (Host): [00:04:05] So just taking from the other functions or other business areas that have gone through this change. I mean H.R. and I think learning and development tend to be the ones that kind of lag behind I think, is my view within organisations. Which is crazy because it's the most people focussed areas. For the listeners out there that are sitting in a human resource department or talent department what kind of symptoms do you think that they will be seeing within the organization that would I guess lean well to kind of say we need to look at adopting or engaging some kind of experience design.
Morten: [00:04:48] Well, when I worked with experience design in other areas the first thing you really need. Well first you have to decide that this is what you want to do. I mean you can't just. Well I'll do some of it. So if it gets to be a strategic approach I think that's good. And I think the way H.R. could look at it is that if you want to step up the H.R. Then this is definitely a way to go.
Morten: [00:05:16] There's something about the name, I mean H.R. human resources and if you if you look at resources as a word in itself it's like people are being dug up from the ground or picked off trees and they're really not because they're they're actually human. So, in the commodities industry, which would be all the other kinds of resources, metals and crops etc... In this economy the business imperative is to supply availability. So what H.R. is doing right now is they have this commodities approach to people. So what they do is they supply availability, so they have a steady influx of people to the organization.
Morten: [00:06:03] The other thing they're doing is linked to the product economy where they where they control the costs. So that would be sort of negotiating your salary or bonus programs and stuff like that. So really right now what they do in H.R. is that they're stuck in a sort of a narrative that is linked to the commodities and to the goods economy. And in the progression of economic value, the next economy is a service economy then it's an experience economy and then it's a transformation economy.
Morten: [00:06:35] But what does H.R. and you probably have to change the name, but what does HR look like if it's a service. What does it look like if it's an experience and that would be employee experience and what does it look like if it's the transformation economy.
Morten: [00:06:50] So a lot of things are linked to the way they speak about things so. So we we discussed this briefly, so you had this is where talent acquisition, so the notion that you acquire talent just as you would acquire buildings, machinery or physical assets, I can't get my head around that, why would talk about people in a way that sort of puts them on the same level as a piece of machinery. I don't get that. It's very much this industrial mindset about what work is and what people is. I think in many ways, this is a bit harsh but I think in many ways H.R. is dehumanizing humans because they speak about them in ways that makes them not human.
Morten: [00:07:41] There's this big Danish company the other day a novel, you probably heard of them. They had to lay off 1300 people. And they way they speak about it is not that they destroy, I mean at least momentarily the lives of 1300 people. No they're just cutting back. I mean, what's that about?
Morten: [00:08:03] So there's this lack of empathy, there's this lack of understanding that people wake up in the morning with with real aspirations about themselves and what they want to do in a workplace or in their private life. So how can you sort of tap into that. I think that should be a thing that H.R. might think about in a different way. Yeah.
Steve (Host): [00:08:26] There were a couple of not so much models but books that we talked about which was the exponential growth and the experience economy. Can you give us a bit of an overview for those that aren't aware of those books or having come across them yet?
Morten: [00:08:42] The experience economy was written by Joe Pine and I think it's sort of 20 years old. So it's not a new thing, he's still traveling the roads with this book and everybody's saying "oh there's this new thing around", but it's been around for 20 years and I've worked with Joe on a lot of occasions.
Morten: [00:09:00] Then you have this book called the exponential organization and the exponential organization is really about building a new sort of organization. And the main feature about this kind of organisation is they have to be scalable. If you're a startup this makes sense, but if you're a large company it might make less sense. But the thing about startups is that they don't have to be scalable because as you go along you need you need more people or you need a little more people for your time period or something like that.
Morten: [00:09:38] And they have these two things so they have these if you can tap into a community or crowd that sort of links to what you do or things your work with. Then you have something called staff on demand. So it's really much the notion that if the future of work is people working, they might have a sort of a regular job or maybe they work on different projects all the time so they're more free agents.
Morten: [00:10:07] The way I think about it, if everybody is working as a free agent or have a part of their life where they work as free agent. How do you ensure that if they can choose. I mean you have the means to be working from anywhere and with anyone in the world. So if you can choose from anything, how do you then make sure that people come back to your organization your projects all the time. I think you might look at the employee experiences as a way of not ensuring it, but making it more probable that they would actually choose your organization.
[00:10:41] Yeah. I think we've definitely seen in the US and UK, Sweden less so actually. I would say that the gig economy from that perspective. So the workforce is obviously becoming far more liquid or far more diverse from that perspective. And also as well as it kind of that's kind of from an external point of view but internally within organisations we're starting to see companies like ING direct for example, moving into a much more fluid workforce, implementing agile not just from a systems point of view but across the organisational. So it's quite interesting it supports that notion around that we've got this kind of workforce that is less static, it's a lot more kind of liquid it moves around.
Morten: [00:11:26] Absolutely. It's funny that you mentioned ING because ING has been one of the first movers in terms of applying the Experience Economy principals to some of their banking business. So there they're quite upfront.
Steve (Host): [00:11:43] Yes they are.
Morten: [00:11:45] Yeah.
Steve (Host): [00:11:45] I saw something on YouTube actually and they shared just how quickly they move from an idea into a into putting it out there with customers and then just refining in real-time with customers. Very lean and agile. So, it's definitely happening, whether it's happening quick enough is another questions. I think its exciting, the work place has to change. I think you know the way we're working is evolving into lots of directions actually.
Morten: [00:12:22] If you have LinkedIn feed open you sometimes get the notion "I have to do all these things". So I think one way to look at the employee experience is that it's an option, it's something you can work with in a limited setting. If you just want to try something out, the models are out there. I view methods and models is very much the same as sunglasses so you put on a specific pair of sunglasses then you know, this is enhanced, this gets a little harder to see and then you can put on another set of sunglasses. So it's really much about trying and then having short feedback loops and short feedback loops is the same as being Agile. So just go out and test something, don't be too afraid and then try to pick up as you go.
Steve (Host): [00:13:18] So that that's an interesting one. So, I think principally that sounds brilliant. And I don't think it's organisations are obviously doing it. But there's some that just really struggle to even get started with something like that. And that's kind of obviously the way the environment or culture is. So because obviously moving forward and failing sometimes isn't always perceived particularly well in the traditional organisational sense. But it's important in terms of learning and moving forward and I understand that.
Morten: [00:13:52] There's this big discussion now, at least in Denmark because you have to you need to learn to fail and stuff like that because you have this zero fail cultures in alot of organizations. But it's really not about failing. I mean it's not learning by crashing, necessarily. It just means that you have to accept knowledge or insight as an outcome. Okay, so did it work? Maybe not the way we intended but we learned a lot of things. And this learning we can actually use. So I think it's more about changing the output.
Steve (Host): [00:14:28] Yes. Yes.
Morten: [00:14:29] And insight can never be a bad output. I mean if you ask people, "When did you learn the most", it was usually when they made mistakes, right? So everybody agrees on this on a human level. So why should it be any different just because we're in a company setting, it's going to be the same thing.
Steve (Host): [00:14:46] Absolutely.
Morten: [00:14:48] And then there's this other thing, whenever you try to implement or apply Experience Economy design principles. It's not expensive. Doesn't cost you anything. It's only sort of putting on a different pair of sunglasses and then sort of restructuring the way you think about things. That's the only thing you have to do. It might be difficult in terms of you just need this adjustment of your head sort of. But it's not expensive, people always say that if they're uncertain about what it is that you want to do. "Oh that sounds expensive", but it's really not, it doesn't cost you anything it's just a way of restructuring the way you think about things.
Steve (Host): [00:15:35] Yes. We talked previously about an approach just to help organizations or people get started, which is around communities of practice. Which I thought was a really wonderful way or really low touch way of creating a bit of a movement.
[00:16:00] Communities of practice. Well as a form it's very old it's probably as old as human beings but the thing is that it's a more collaborative format. So if you have sort of large scale organizations and you might have people you know spread out or let's say most of Europe and you know there's a guy in Germany who does the same thing as you. There's this woman in Sweden who does the same thing and maybe somewhere else but you never speak to each other. So what organization and people can do is set up these communities themselves. Where they meet and if you have practitioners in the same practice area and you just put them into a room and you just leave them there. They're going to spend a few meetings just talking about do you experience the same thing as I do. Do you have the same the same obstacles? Do you have all the same problems? And then people tend to agree, that can be normalizing in sort of a way. So it's not me who is off my rocker. And then after a few meetings they are going to be looking to what it is that they do and what usually comes from that is a lot of inputs to how you can change processes, how you can change all kinds of workflows and actually pick up a lot of efficiency from that.
Morten: [00:17:38] So you give people a sort of an internal network. It can help if you have a very siloed organization, it doesn't break down the silo, it just creates this thing that goes across. And the more communities of practice you have inside the organization the more it's going to be a thing that of course I speak to people over here, of course i should meet people outside of my own silo. People who do maybe something else because, at some point when you work with processes, somebody takes over a process at a certain point, then it moves somewhere else. So you have to speak to these people who are taking over the process so you get this follow through thing.
Morten: [00:18:27] So it's very much about setting up a format who can break down silos and actually bring people together. And also this format is very useful if you have people who are in onboarding situations. It's a very fast way to keep people updated and get them on board, give them the internal network that they have. Get them into projects that are ongoing. Just give them in a really fast way a set of people that they work with very closely.
Steve (Host): [00:19:00] I've also seen it applied to when you're looking at perhaps an experience, bringing together all of those who share that experience and bringing different perspectives. So perhaps from a hiring perspective it might be the recruiter and hiring manager for an example. Looking at those different perspectives and different areas of where they could improve or what what kind of frustrations they might be sharing or common ground.
Morten: [00:19:27] Absolutely.
[00:19:28] Yes on boarding. Just in terms of the resource that normally goes into on boarding somebody in the different departments that get involved. So yes, I can see that really adding value.
Morten: [00:19:39] And actually you can also add learning if you wish to a community of practice. So we did this one idea, very specialised work, might not make sense to people listening to this but you have people procuring markham resource. So external resources for anything that has to do with marketing or communications. Its quite difficult because if you have a global company so you have something that's global you have something that's local. How do you manage that? How do you resource. These people who can help you. It's very specialized and so we figured out that in a company you might have four / eight people somewhere doing Markham procurement. If you have a sort of a skill set that's like a hundred percent. Some people might know 20 percent, somebody might know 40 percent, some guys may know everything there is to know about the subject but the funny thing is, most people don't know all there is to know about one area. If you then group these kind of people, then once you have the internal network, you might know that there's this guy in Germany you know he does the same thing as you. But after you spoke to him it's a lot easier to pick up the phone and say I know you know about this and I know I need help on this. So since that's gonna be the internal network. But then if you put specialized knowledge into these groups of people by specialists in the area, everybody is going to learn a lot more. I think it would be very comfortable with knowing, people are there with knowledge. So if you have a problem, it's a lot easier to just pick up the phone and call somebody and move on. So when everybody reached a certain level of knowledge then you can take these specialists out and you can just have people working around themselves, but then at a higher level. So it's a very fast way also to do learning formats inside the organization.
[00:21:58] That's the other thing that you might want to think about as you work in H.R.. That's a lot of people who supply knowledge or education to organizations. But they're sort of trapped inside individual, nobody sells the learning organization. Nobody sells that. That would be transformation economies sort of way of looking at the same thing. So instead of just selling people new courses and certifications and stuff like that. How do you make the learning organization? How do you acquire knowledge? How do you share knowledge? How do you just store it? I mean that's a completely different way of looking at the same things, so that's what i was saying just before. It's very much how you think about things. The same things.
Steve (Host): [00:22:53] Yes. Because ultimately if you're a business of 500 people, two hundred or a thousand plus there's a lot of knowledge in there washing around that you could leverage and tap into.
Morten: [00:23:03] Absolutely. And you have these traditional siloed organizations always struggled with this. How do you share knowledge? They usually don't have a format for it. This communities of practice could be one way to do it.
Steve (Host): [00:23:17] Yes. I'd be interested to see how ING might be doing it. That could be interesting.
Steve (Host): [00:23:22] There was something you mentioned earlier which is about methods and design. Lets tack something onto that, so maybe its just something around methods and design in HR or for HR. Is there anything that stands out. Because obviously, as a designer you've got lots of tools that you can engage in and there's lots of things that you pick up over the years of experience. Are there any of those kind of methods or tools or anything that you've come across that you think actually this could work really well just as from a HR context or perspective?
Morten: [00:23:53] One of the things we talked about was that people sometimes think "Oh, I'm not a designer"
Morten: [00:24:04] But you sort of have to get beyond that because you can design just as everybody else can design. I mean it takes practice but everybody can be a designer and there's this one model that we just talked about that's going to work pretty well as a starting point for pretty much anything. And it has to do with is one of the key features about an experience is that its revealed over time.
Morten: [00:24:27] Because it's revealed over time, you can apply sort of a dramatic structure. So, if you're watching a movie, if you're watching a screenplay, if you're reading a book. There's a sort of an underlying model in how the plot is being presented and that would be sort of the stage model for a first dramatic structure. So when you work with experience design you have this five point model for dramatic structure, it's called the 5E model, so the first area is Enticing. So what happens before people enter the experience. Then you have Entering, so what happens the second people walk through the door. Then you have Engaging, which is probably during part. Then you have exiting, so what happens the second people move out and finally you have the Extending. So what happens after?
Morten: [00:25:24] The good thing about this. So if you have sort of an employee lifespan, whether it's two months or 20 years you can apply the same model. So it can be applied on every level of granularity.
Steve (Host): [00:25:44] Yes!
Morten: [00:25:46] It can also be used to design a workshop. It can be used to pretty much design anything and it just takes you through these different stages. And the thing is people don't usually think that something important happens when you enter and when you exit. But actually if you think about it something really important happens! And also for H.R. you can do this as an employee lifespan but I can also use it when people submit applications for example.
Steve (Host): [00:26:16] Yeah, absolutely!
Morten: [00:26:17] So the Enticing inquiry would be how to make people interested in sending an application in the first place, so that would be a marketing issue for the most part. You can also apply experience design here if you want to. Then what happens the second people actually submit their application, what happens then? What happens as long as you review the application, that would be the Engaging part. And then if you have a job you have 100 people applying. There's going to be one person who actually gets the job. So ninety nine people have to exit. So, how do you ensure that the exit part also is working? People invest resources in writing applications. So can you sort of throw resources their way? It doesn't have to be something expensive, just think about it. And if you think about Extending? How do you make sure that this whole experience of applying was good enough so that if you have a job some other time, they will be applying again.
Morten: [00:27:37] Because for the most part, applying is a shitty process and it's a shitty experience and I don't care who you are but if you're large scale company, if I had a shitty experience the first time, the probability of me applying some other time, no matter the job, I'm not saying it's zero, but it's going to be closer to zero.
Steve (Host): [00:28:00] Yeah, well the organization is going to need to do a lot more on the Enticing part to get you re-engaged again!
Morten: [00:28:05] So, how do you make it such a great experience that they will come back if the chance is there.
Steve (Host): [00:28:15] Yes. I think this model works really well because you can use it as a lens basically, you can focus it really tight into a particular part or a touchpoint such as the application, or it can be drawn higher and look at the whole end to end onboarding program.
[00:28:35] So for me from a recruitment point of view look at Enticing, which is looking at the attraction piece, the Entering is the application. Engaging is the actual interview process. Exiting is the decision, whether you're hired or not. And then Extending that then moves into if you're hired into how you keep them or retain or Extending is then how you leave it at least positively memorable so they're prepared to re-engage again in the future. So that works really well.
Morten: [00:29:10] The thing about experience is that the easiest experience to produce and to remember, is the bad experience.
Steve (Host): [00:29:17] Yes!
Morten: [00:29:20] And if you have a bad experience about something, you know this from yourself, you're going to tell to everybody. But the thing is, if you have a really great experience it's even more probable that you're going to tell somebody, right?
Steve (Host): [00:29:30] Yes. I can't remember the stats. I think it might be the other way around actually, I can't remember the exact numbers. I'll give you a random set number, but it is something like, eight times more likely to share bad, three time more likely three good, something like that. So, it just shows how hard we have to work to ensure that people have a positive experience. But you know that the smallest detail can impact the potential fit and the the amount of impact is far greater.
Morten: [00:30:05] If you use the model, at least makes you think about, what do we actually do? How does it work now? Is there any way we could just improve it? I mean, just a tiny fraction.
Steve (Host): [00:30:19] Absolutely. And I think also that would work really well with maybe from a layering of tools you could then move it maybe you'd like a journey map, maybe do some kind of empathy map, and then do the five E's over the top as well. It could compliment other tools as well.
Morten: [00:30:37] Yeah absolutely. It's pretty much about just mapping what is the timeline.
Steve (Host): [00:30:43] Yes.
Morten: [00:30:43] And how do you work with the different parts? I worked on one project we did that had to do about "what's the experience of being in a bus". I mean public transport right!
Morten: [00:31:00] And we actually found out asking customers that it's very interesting that one of the most important things that happens when you ride a bus is when you get in. That's the Entering point. So if the chauffeur just looks at you, maybe gives you a smile, then people riding the bus, at least in Denmark, are 70 percent happy. I mean, that's a small but very important gesture. And that happens when you Enter.
Morten: [00:31:27] Recognising that something important actually happens here. If you move into a H&M store, the only thing that happens when you enter is the sliding doors open and that's it.
Steve (Host): [00:31:42] How else did you break that bus journey down? What other parts formed that part of the experience that you found?
Morten: [00:31:53] Yeah. Asking customers we found out that two things were important when they spoke about the experience of riding the bus. It has nothing to do with actually is the bus on time. The funny thing is if you ask people who run bus companies, that's all they talk about. Is it on time? Is it not on time? That's what they occupy themselves with. But actually when the bus is there, being greeted when you get into the bus and then the other thing was, if the bus was driving pretty steadily. That was very important. So if those two things were actually happening, that you were greeted by the chauffeur when you got in and those pretty steady ride, then people were 90/95 percent happy with the experience of being in the bus.
Steve (Host): [00:32:43] Yes. I share that because obviously I've moved from London, which you know, the bus drivers aren't overly engaging at the best of times. To Sweden and in Stockholm where actually the bus drivers are really engaging. I mean they're really genuine. I can honestly say there's a difference on how that makes you feel. Just the simple thing of riding a bus and so for me. I can definitely share that makes a big difference. One thing they do need to improve though is their braking, because actually some are way too hard. But that affects how I feel afterwards, I get a little bit frustrated, they don't need to brake. Why are they breaking so much!!
Morten: [00:33:32] Actually there's this great and very easy model for implementation. It's also an E model, but it's only three E's this time and we actually used this on the bus. If you think about this from an H.R. perspective.
Morten: [00:33:47] The usual way would be to round up the chauffeurs and say "You have to be better at breaking or you have to provide a better service" and people would stand there and nod. But if there's no empowering, if they haven't got any tools, if they don't know how to. The guys or the women who were good at it yesterday, are going to be good tomorrow and those who weren't are not going to be any better tomorrow. So you have to leave people with something. So we had to look at it in the in the project. How do we make sure that the chauffeur has enough positive mental attitude so they can actually do this thing. So what's their workspaces like? One square meter of monitors and dashboards. The workings of the bus. What you really need to do is you need to find a way to optimize everything around the chauffeur because if he knows the bus is working, the doors are working, the cameras are working. Everything is fine. Then he can shift his attention elsewhere. So instead of just telling the guy you have to do this, you can make it more probable that he has the mental attitude to shift his attention elsewhere.
Steve (Host): [00:35:08] Yeah! And that's part of being empathetic to their role and challenges every day, they need to make sure the bus is safe and running effectively and all those things are running at the same time. To ensure that's taken care of as much as possible allows them to focus on what's important around the customer.
Steve (Host): [00:35:27] So one of the things I've heard from the start through to the end here. It all starts with people ultimately and the research forms a really important component of that. What do you think HR could be doing better around this piece. This is something which I think is quite interesting.
Morten: [00:35:52] As I started out with. There's something in the vocabulary, you have to introduce a vocabulary that has to do with people and not things.
Morten: [00:36:05] So it's actually this bus project we had we got an international award in OECD city called the transport achievement award. The headline for this award was putting people first. Putting people first actually I think it's a great headline for what you need to do in H.R. You need to look at people as people, because that's what they are. So they can't be numbers. They can't be assets. They can't be something you resource. They know it's not something you supply and availability of. So you need to introduce they are people. So what makes them tick. You have to you have to look at that.
Morten: [00:36:49] So you need to change the vocabulary and if you get your hands on the experience economy, there's going to be a very easy way to do that actually, because it offers some vocabulary that relates to each economy.
Morten: [00:37:11] You might also want to look at companies like Disney actually, because they speak about there's two types of organizational culture. One is by default. Which is the most common. So if you're the new guy you think, why do they do stuff like this? Because that's the way I used to work they did it in a whole different way.
Morten: [00:37:37] So you have the first months where you're trying to figure out what the culture is. Because nobody tells you and if you ask, why do you do it like this? Because we always did it like this. So they can't even explain it themselves.
Morten: [00:37:50] And then they have this other type of culture, which is by design.
Steve (Host): [00:37:54] Yes.
Morten: [00:37:55] So as a H.R.department, if you just want to make that claim, "we're going to do an organizational culture, which is by design" Get going! Because then you have to figure out what is the culture then. And if you speak about other big topics, so if you have digital transformation, innovation. You can do all kinds of things, but if you don't have the culture right. It's never going to happen. It's never going to be a 'thing'.
Steve (Host): [00:38:27] Yeah, it's going to burn.
Morten: [00:38:32] It's going to be a surface thing. So if people are not allowed to make mistakes. You're never going to have any innovation. Because innovation is about being wrong 99 percent of the time. So you need to work on the culture.
Morten: [00:38:51] So I think it's very much about how you look at things and how you rewire your brain and your perceptions about this is actually people. The good thing about looking at people as people, you can sort of just ask yourself, "what do I like"? if I'm in a setting or I like it this way, I like it that way and you know it's really nice when this happens etc...
Morten: [00:39:18] So if that's true. It's probable other people are going to have the same needs and wants. So is there a way you could implement that and often it's very easy.
Morten: [00:39:30] One of the things about the experience economy, they don't speak about best practice. They speak about best principle. So, if you have an experience that you enjoy, if you can sort of work out what's the working principle. So, what's my favorite cafe? Why is it my favorite cafe? Why does it make me feel good?
Morten: [00:39:52] I was in a bike shop the other day. That was a great experience. But you know what were the things that were actually working. So, if you take these principles and then you apply to your own business, how does then look? Because you can't do it one to one, but you can still apply the principal the underlying principal.
Steve (Host): [00:40:10] Yeah. It feels like the principals more towards moving 'towards' something whereas in best practice for me feels a bit more like it's an end it's a destination it's something you reach. Again it's how you look at it.
Morten: [00:40:25] Yeah. But if you say you have best practice, I'm not saying best practices is never applicable. But it's very rare that you have two entices that are completely the same. I have a master's degree in history and somebody sometimes people say that history repeats itself. No it doesn't. There's always something in a situation that makes it unique. The things you recognise are the patterns and principles working. That's what you recognize and then you think oh it's just repeating itself, but it's not. So it's very much the same thing. It's about working out what's the principal beneath it all. What are the implications of what is happening? It's not about the technology, it's not about the situation, it's about the implications. That might be another way to look at things when you're doing experience design. What are the implications of things?
Morten: [00:41:24] As Joe would say, it's moving from the 'what' to the 'how'. So it's not what you do, it's how you do it. If you're thinking more about how you do it, that's going to open up to you creating an experience, just by this. And again it's vocabulary. It's just putting your head in a slightly different position and then hey you've got something working for you. So it's it's not difficult.
Steve (Host): [00:41:49] So, just to help people change perspective or to broaden their view on stuff. Obviously, that requires reading or learning or training or talking to different people with different expertise. Just for the audience any kind of recommendations around really good reading or influencers that you'd recommend?
Morten: [00:42:14] I kind of like this idea about just thinking about principal. What's the working principal? Because, if you go home from work, whether you're going to be in your car, if you're walking, if you're driving a bike. Think about what's the experience that I have here. When is it a good thing? What could be optimized?. And then what do I like as a person. And if I like something, we're not that different, we're all people. That's an easy way to train sort of. You have kids right? So at some point you look for pregnant women on the street and if you don't look for them there's no pregnant women in the street. But if you look for them, they're everywhere!
Morten: [00:43:10] If you're going somewhere in a car here in Denmark. You probably have the same game, it's called yellow car.
Steve (Host): [00:43:17] Yes!
Morten: [00:43:18] And if you see a yellow car you get to punch the other person right next to you.
Steve (Host): [00:43:22] Yes, we've done yellow car!
Morten: [00:43:24] And when you look for them there's no yellow cars anywhere. But if you have this game on. They're everywhere! So it's kind of the same thing, just start looking for these things. When did I have a great experience? It could be in the supermarket. In Copenhagen a great experiences to go by bicycle instead of a car. So what's the working principal for going by bike instead of a car? Just start thinking about these little things and say if I had to apply this to my business, then what does that look like? So I think it's about flexibility, it's about ease of access and stuff like that.
Steve (Host): [00:44:09] So, I think the message there to HR or anyone in organisations to start looking for yellow calls in their business and they'll see, principally.
Morten: [00:44:20] Pretty much, just starting! I want to be part of an H.R. organization. You might call it something else. It can be an employee engagement department. That would be great! Because then it's not HR anymore. Then we actually have a vocabulary that says, this is the experience economy. Because we work with engaging people. That's what we do.
Morten: [00:44:48] So a people engagement department. That sounds a lot better. Again it's just changing words. But words have meaning so it changes perspective. And then just start doing, pretty much. And if you have to read something, I would say obviously read the experience economy. And if you don't read anything, just get this 5E model. If you have the 5E find a model, you can do refining from there, but if you just start there, you'll be fine because you're going to start working with this and the more detail you put onto it The further you'll get. So, if you don't like reading or say I don't have the time. Just remember this 5E model.
Steve (Host): [00:45:47] Yeah, just Google it, start with Google. So yes it's super easy.
Steve (Host): [00:45:52] There's a there's a parting gift for the listeners and really great advice. I think the 5E model is a really good one and way to start a movement, which is what we're all about.
Morten: [00:46:04] If I had to mention one other model. So there's the four experience realms. There's aesthetic experiences, that is to be. Then you have entertainment which is to enjoy and you have education, which is to learn, and then you have the last one, which is escapism, which is a to do.
Morten: [00:46:37] If you just think about that. So if you're waiting for the bus that's an aesthetic experience. But can you improve the aesthetic experience? Can you add elements of either entertainment? Being on the bus can be an aesthetic experience, but if you have screens you can do both entertainment, but you could also do education. So education would be, now you're travelling through on this street. So what is the history of this street? What can you find on this street? How does this street compared to other streets in the city. What used to be here. You know stuff like that.
Steve (Host): [00:47:21] So if you look at, I'm in a bus and I have this screen I have to screen content. You can use this model as well. There are really straightforward models of just very basic things. And as soon as you start working with them, everybody can do it. And it's super easy. You just have to switch on your brain.
Steve (Host): [00:47:43] Yeah, those four areas you mentioned. If you just put them on a board and then brought in team members and said look we're just going to do a little jam and see what people think. Let people put their thoughts individually first, put them up and discuss it. They'll be absolutely amazed at what can come out that, i'm absolutely certain, they'll be something.
Morten: [00:48:08] And the good thing about this model is that you can apply to any level of granularity. It could be a building, a while city, it could be absolutely anything.
Steve (Host): [00:48:36] Yes great! So I'm conscious of time now!
Morten: [00:48:40] Yeah ok, fair point!
Steve (Host): [00:48:48] Thank you Morten. I really appreciate you taking time out to be on the show. I'm looking forward to collaborating further and hope to have you over in Sweden sometime soon from Denmark.
Morten: [00:49:02] Sure, absolutely.
Steve (Host): [00:49:04] Thanks ever so much and have a great day.
Morten: [00:49:06] You're welcome. Thank you.
Experience Designers Ep 1
(Edited for readability)
Steve: Hi my name's Steve Usher and welcome to the experience designers podcast.
Steve: Over the course of this podcast series, I'm really excited to meet and interview people from a diverse range of industries and backgrounds. However, they will all have one thing in common, and that is design thinking and human centered design. And I hope that by sharing their stories, together we can create our own movement in the H.R. and talent acquisition community. And this is where I genuinely believe design thinking can play a massive part in improving the experience during the hiring, onboarding and employee experience.
Steve: So for my first episode I thought it would be really fitting to go back to a place that really inspired me this year. And that was the Design Thinkers Academy in Amsterdam
Steve: And I got the opportunity to spend more time with Arne, who is one of the co-founders, and we talked about a huge variety of topics – ranging from artificial intelligence and machine learning through to an amazing segment on empathy. And of course we talked design thinking as well. So, strap yourselves in. Enjoy the show. And here we go.
Steve: So Arne. Welcome to the Experience Design show. Thank you so much for agreeing to be part of my first ever podcast today.
Arne: My pleasure.
Steve: Excellent. So we are here in Amsterdam at the Design Thinkers Academy HQ. This is such a wonderful space. So any excuse to come back here, I always take it. Definitely. So, today I'd like to cover off quite a few things, if possible, and just have a good conversation about Design Thinking (DT) and get your views on how you see certain things in the world from a DT point of view.
Steve: So, for the listeners – from your perspective – just a little bit about yourself and intro into your background.
Arne: Well, I'm the founder of Design Thinkers Group/Academy. It’s now 11 years ago, so I'm getting old. I can tell, seriously, because there are pictures of me in the videos that we still show in training sessions… Just now, downstairs, there was a video of me doing a project, and I thought to myself ‘Wait a minute! I'm getting old… Oh my god. What's happening?’.
Arne: So, you know, we went through a huge evolution. My company/organization, our network, community… So there's so much stuff to talk about. But I think mainly what kind of happened to us over the decade is that we've been busy with design thinking and service design.
Arne: What we went from, here in Amsterdam and in the Netherlands, we went from sort of a more consultancy mindset to a facilitation training/coaching kind of organisation to where we felt that it's actually about teaching. You know, be a teacher. And for me personally, you know, both being a teacher and creating a platform for knowledge to be shared. Those are the things that are to us the most important things that have happened.
Steve: How would you say, from your own perspective, how has the business kind of evolved from where it was? From its first day one to where it is now.
Arne: When I started being interested in service design, really in design thinking as well but mainly service design… That's probably like 15 years ago or so, when I was with my previous agency. I fell in love with this openness and this collaborative spirit and… Everyone was kind of active in that space and shared their methodology. I love that. And I was in an agency where it was very competitive and – as my customer, I don’t know your customer. Totally not sharing. In the Netherlands alone, this tiny little country, we had like thousands of agencies just like us. So there was so much stuff – and there was also a lot of work obviously. It was a healthy market.
Arne: But I was kind of fed up with both this attitude of non-collaborative attitude. You know, the closed doors and working isolated from other people. And I met so many inspirational people, and I though ‘Wow, I'd love to work with these people.’. But I couldn't because they weren’t at my agency – and it wasn’t MY agency – etc., etc. and I really, really, really wanted to work with clients on the questions they had – and not only work with the solutions they already came up with, because usually they were crappy solutions. And as an agency you were given sort of the task to put a nice ribbon on a nice box and a nice colour on it. But you can't really change the solution, and I wanted to kind of be part of where this was still the question. So that was one of the things I loved. That it’s so open and I love this kind of… I love this promise of being part of the question.
Arne: When we started, there was sort of a thing… Because it's a very traditional thought, just saying: ‘Oh, so we're going to design a service’, for instance. But I personally never made a difference between products and services, because it's really about the value you create. So basically, it’s the same thing. But I did kind of think ‘Okay, so we're going to design a service, together with our client and they're going to implement that.’. Right? I'd been in the business for quite a while, had worked with corporates kind, but that was still really what was in my mind.
Arne: So that's what we would do, because that's a service that we would provide to our clients: Help them create a beautiful service and a beautiful service experience. Obviously, that's not how things turn out, because they cannot implement it. It's not really about ideas. They had lots of ideas, you know, and what we found out quite quickly is that you can do lots of workshops – one day workshop two day workshops – and everybody loves you. It's fantastic and they go home, giving each other high fives, and the next day, it's like… Nothing. Silence. Absolutely nothing happens. It’s business as usual. Nothing is or will be implemented. In other words, it’s obvious that nothing will be changed, because it is not about that. And the whole mantra of service design and design thinking, is that it starts with the end user. It's nonsense. It doesn't start with the end user. It starts with understanding the system. It starts with understanding all the players and usually the first the hairy challenge, the big problem, is internal. It is about the mess businesses really are, the total chaos and all the emotional stuff that goes on within organisations and then to get stuff done that is beautiful…? No way!
Steve: So, Arne, say someone has just listened to this section, just now, and suddenly had an epiphany or has been inspired and wants to make a change in their organization or create a movement… From your perspective how does Design Thinking play a part in that? For those that perhaps hasn't been exposed to this way of thinking or this way of working.
Arne: So first of all, a little bit about Design Thinking. Design Thinking – these are words like lean start-up, service design, UX, agile and so on, you know. These words, what they mean is that we're actually looking for a solution. So different people with different backgrounds came up with ideas and they gave it a name. But the underlying problem is the same. We are all trying to solve the same problem. We all try to, kind of, find a methodology or a system or a way of thinking that helps us out of this problem. Out of this this systemic problem. To become really human centred, to be able to experiment, to be able to be free… Basically to do the things we're passionate about. It's all the same. There is no difference. It just comes from different angles, from different people with different baggage. You know people with different knowledge of a methodology and so on. Like lean start-up comes from someone who understands lean. All right fine. So Design Thinking, in my opinion, tries to create a common language and tries to be a mindset saying: ‘I just want to know what the problem is. I don't care about the methodology and tools. I don't want to have a hammer. I'll choose my tool when I know if it's a nail or not, right?’. I’ve heard someone say that they had like a black belt in design thinking. What the hell is going on?
Steve: It's six sigma and DT coming together!.
Arne: What is that? Black belt… That's impossible. How? Who gave you that idea? Right?
Steve: People make things up.
Arne: Yeah, of course, because it’s sales. Its prioritising these things. right? So Design Thinking becomes part of these sales. It’s the borg, right? We get assimilated into a system and so on. Like ‘I'm in my spaceship trying to fight back, that's what I'm doing. The resistance! Yay!. Well, kind of. It feels a bit like that. It feels like we're in the resistance and against this system that tries to swallow us and eat us alive and assimilate us.
Arne: So, Design Thinking is this mindset, this way of thinking. And it’s saying: ‘Listen. If you have the right question, you are probably halfway there to find an answer.’. Right? And I don't care which tools you use. If you're a chef and a really good cook, you know your stuff. You make up your recipes. Who cares. You find new recipes, new ingredients and you make stuff up. But you know what you're doing. If you start out cooking, when you don't really have a lot of experience, you need a recipe, right? And I think a lot of people are on the recipe level. They're like ‘Okay, so it's 6 steps. Step one, people – pay attention – step one is, empathy! Go out and talk to people.’.
Arne: But ,I mean, that's not really the point. It might work, it might be great too, but that's still a recipe. So if you haven't practiced cooking and you're not a chef and even if Jamie Oliver is right next to you, in your kitchen, telling you exactly what to do, you still won't cook as good as him. It’s irritating but you won't. I mean, of course you won't. Right?
Arne: In order to become Jamie Oliver, you have to practice. You have to do it a lot. DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! This is how we learn how to ride a bicycle and so on...
Arne: If you cannot practice, meaning fall down, try… Practice means you can’t do it, right? Practice means I can't do it.
Arne: It's not practices like: ‘Let's do it right, all the time!’.
Steve: Fail forward.
Arne: Yeah, play out of tune totally. You can't play the piano because you haven't done it before. So you have to practice, practice, practice....Then you can become really good at it.
Arne: So this feeling of ‘We have to have instant knowledge and instant capabilities. Let's go to a two day training session people, and let’s get this Design Thinking stuff done’… No.
Steve: So, let's say you're sitting in a business and there is this expectation, and instant world that we live in when we want everything now, and, you know, in order to really get the full value of Design Thinking you have to fail forward and go through various iterations and… Well, fail and try. But sometimes people don't have that time, because there's so much pressure and so much going on in the business and people are always busy. So how do we strike that balance to get people there? Maybe there’s a ‘smaller’ way to get into to trial? Something in maybe a smaller piece? And then grow it that way?
Arne: Of course.
Steve: Like ‘Oh, my God! I've haven't got time to fail.’. It's not easy.
Arne: Well, yes you do. Because you will fail anyway. We all do, all the time. The point is that you make it explicit. You know, these projects that we do, we fail all the time. Except we don't make it explicit. We don't say that. We don't look at it. We hide our mistakes. And you know, that's the problem. It's not about ‘Let's do some Design Thinking people’. And I know it's just common sense. Design thinking is common sense. It's everything you know, but not doing because you think you're not allowed. Or all that stuff in the back of your head, the little voice saying ‘Yeah maybe we should do it differently’. Or maybe you’re aware that our clients really know that our product is shitty, but just go ahead anyway and you know this prototype doesn't really work… ‘But we’ve put so much money into it and we're so far ahead in the project – we can't go back. We have to go forward.’. You know? All that. Say it out loud, put it on a post-it and it'll solve everything. Post-its basically solve everything. So, give some post-its everyone and the world will be fine! No, but seriously; Make it explicit. It's about that. It's about what the real problem is. What is the elephant in the room. Let's say Design Thinking is about common sense. It's nothing new.
Arne: So people listening is saying: ‘Yeah, you know, we all know that. That's nothing new. Is that Design Thinking? Is that the stuff that everybody talks about?’. Listen – it is about just saying what's going on. Make it explicit and share it with each other. Because that will help. And it will make your assumptions clear, because then you will kind of challenge your assumptions and if you challenge your assumptions you will come up with new ideas. And so on and so forth... So, yeah. It's common sense. It's such basic stuff and it's so hard to do, because we're stuck in these nasty systems that don't allow us to do that. You cannot sit in a meeting and say “By the way, this meeting is not really working.”.
‘Jim, what are you saying?’. ‘Well, I think this is all crappy, we're a crappy company and we should do things differently.’. People are stuck, they act a part in their business.
Arne: They enter the door and they change, you know they're like: ‘Now, I'm Jim the manager. I'm supposed to act this way and I'm supposed to be knowledgeable. I am the expert, so I know what to do, but you don't.’. The reality is that you don't, Jim. You don't.
Steve: So what would the typical situation be for a business that leans towards this, to then going down this path of solving their problems – and using the toolkits or the Design Thinking approach? Are there kind of certain things that you see with the clients you've worked or engaged with? ‘Actually this one is definitely going to move to the right action because of X, Y, Z. This one is perhaps not going to move as well, because of X, Y and Z.’.
Steve: Is there any distinction between the ones that do take the step and don't?
Arne: Well, there's a distinction. Usually it has to do with the size of the company, because you know companies with two hundred or three hundred thousand people employed and who bought all kinds of companies in the past to grow and buy their innovation. They usually… You know, it's so difficult. So there are pockets, again, pockets of resistance in the company. So you used the word movement earlier on and I think that's the key. Don't do a project, start a movement. Internally – start a movement. Just think about it. You know, just do the thought experiment. What if it was a movement? What should you do differently, then? Because if it's a movement people can join it. People can join it voluntarily. And that's what you really want. Wouldn't that be the best way, right? Have a movement of people saying: ‘I'm passionate. I want to be part of this.’. You know, so make it into a movement and learn about how to do this. Learn about what creates a movement, what is a movement? How does it work?
Arne: Because it also means you have to become a different leader. So it's about a new kind of creative leadership, which I am very passionate about. We see companies where there are creative leaders and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's on C level. You know, it doesn't mean these are people who are in management positions. Sometimes they are, but not always. Having creative leaders in your company who can create a movement, who can create a sort of a platform for people to join and to be part of. And to understand this leadership and what leadership actually means. That's what I also mean with facilitation. You know, you facilitate this, you facilitate this movement. You create a platform.
Arne: So we see companies that actually are doing this. The difference between the “old companies”, the dinosaurs that have been around for a long time, and relatively newer companies.. There's a big difference. New companies are usually… Well, they don't have the hierarchy. They're ‘pancake companies’, right? They're very different. They're faster. They're really small. They're working in ecosystems. And that's where the future is. The future is in networks, the future for companies are… Well, again, it's about making things explicit and making things visual. We all work in networks, ecosystems. Everyone. And I was joking about Apple, but it's not one company. No company on this planet is one company. We are networks. We are networks, because we're people working and using the same logo, basically. Right? But we're a network or a community of people doing this stuff and then we are a network of all kinds of businesses working together.
Arne: I believe that this is what the future is and that's what we're seeing. A relatively small core, small businesses working in an ecosystem. So there's this system, but very explicit, so you don't have to become a big company to make a big impact. You don't have to be… The core can be quite small, really. And we see that all the time. I mean there are lots of companies who are very small. If you think about companies like Instagram for instance. And you know, they make a global impact, right? So that's the new company. Yes. And now they're being assimilated by the Borg.
Arne: So I don't know what that means, but I do know that those are the companies that will work. And I think that healthy companies in the future will slim down. They will be cutting away, you know, all the stuff and all the branches they don't need. And they will go back to a core that is meaningful.
Arne: So, for instance, a Dutch company Philips, you know? Again, I can't predict the future but I think what they've done is so awesome. Somehow, they've seen… Years ago, but I don't know exactly when they started doing this, but it's a long, long time ago… That healthcare is going to be a big, big growth market and very important. And it's going to touch everything in in this world, because it touches everything in our lives. Health. Health and healthcare. So they started cutting away all the other stuff. Stuff like television. And they even cut away lights. That's what they were about. You know that was the core, so people were shocked. And they are focusing on health and healthcare and they have a purpose of making X amount of millions of people more healthy each year. So their purpose is to make people better, each year etc... That does something to people working there!
Steve: Absolutely!
Arne: I mean, internally, it’s still a mess and then the shit goes on all of the time, of course. But imagine going to a birthday party or something… ‘Where do you work?’ ‘I work at Philips.’ ‘So what do you guys do?’ ‘We make people better. That's what we do. That's what we're about.’. You’re proud of that. Instead of saying: ‘Yeah I will do well and we do television and we do etc...” You know, the Procter Gamble's of this planet. Why do you do what you do? “I don't know, we make money.’.
Arne: But this is also about making money. Sure. Because they have shareholders, but I love that. I love that you’re going back to, as an example, a core of something you believe in and something that you’re really passionate about. Something that makes sense to people. And you try and do this. Actually, you could make the calculation. What do we need to get that? What do we need to make these people better? You know, it's a great question. And like, I can do something with that. I love that. And even know, as an outsider, we know the work we do with them. You're always like: ‘I love working with Philips. I love working with them, even though it's sometimes the same kind of project I could do for another company. But it's part of this making people better.’. So that is important. And we see companies who do that. In my opinion, they are doing something really good, something really awesome, and they don't have to be that big. And yes, of course Philips is in that sense again a traditional company, as they start buying up all these health and healthcare companies. So it's not ideal, but I do believe that if you look at companies in the future, it will be companies who are a small core and work in an ecosystem. That's what it’s going to be.
Arne: By the way, a tip. There's an awesome book about this, called 'The connected company' by David Grey.
Steve: Something you mentioned – and I'm going to dare to approach it – AI and machine learning... It's everywhere right now and I think, you know, with all of the technology and the data and everything that is happening out there... I think people and the human space still fill an even more important part than ever. Particularly, when companies are designing experiences or journeys or all of these pieces. What’s your view on that? Just in terms of people keeping a mind of the human, as it were, the human aspects and not going too lost. And believe that machines or tech is actually a way to solve the problems.
Arne: I think it’s just such a fantastic and interesting – so interesting and intriguing – topic, because there are so many aspects of it that that makes no sense. And, for instance, do we really want this, you know? No, of course not. But it's an arms race, you know? Like ‘If we don't do it, they will do it. So let’s just do some stuff.’. So, do I want my chair to tell me exactly how much I weigh and if I'm healthy or not? No, I don't. But it will happen anyway. My vacuum cleaner has a conversation with my refrigerator, behind my back…
Arne: I heard someone say the other day: ‘I was in the Baltics.’. I was at a table and there were two ladies talking. I was just listening to their conversation and the one lady said to the other lady: ‘You know, it's so annoying. My vacuum cleaner just has no learning curve.’. I was like: ‘What??? Are you talking about your vacuum cleaner?’. And she said ‘Yeah, because you know, it keeps bumping into the same table. It happens every time, it just doesn't learn.’.
Arne: Some friends of mine, they have this lawnmower, right? It just mowes the lawn every night. Or when it feels like it, I guess. It has its little house. It's like a dog really, in the yard, and it goes over the lawn and they are like 'Oh there he goes'. They call him Hank. They go ‘There's Hank again and he's so stupid’ as he keeps bumping into a tree and when he has to get back into his dock to charge and it takes him a couple of times to get in there. And they're like ‘Aaaw, look at that.’.
Arne: We are so stupid. People are stupid. There are these robots, these videos of Boston robotics, I think they're called. And you see this robot dog that tries to open the door and it kicks the door closed again or there's a robot that tries to pick up a box and the box drops out of his hand… We’re like ‘Aaaw, aaaw’ and get emotionally attached to these wires and this metal. But I think there's a really important point they're making. If, in this room right now, there was a robot and it looked like a human being… Even if it doesn't look right, whatever it looks like, but it responds to me. And you tease it and we'll be like ‘Don't tease it.’. It's like ‘I will accept it as one of our own’, immediately. So I think it's interesting, because… You know, the difference between human beings and artificial intelligence. It will never be a human being/conscious. And that's fine. If it is conscious or not, but ‘I will still love it and defend it.´. And you know I will still go ‘aaaw’, you know?
Arne: So we are stupid like that, and that's interesting. So I don't know what's going to happen there. But I know the chatbots can fool us already. You will think it's a human being. And it's fine. It's amazing and we won't recognize it as a chatbot. It's scary. Totally scary. But, you know, people are stupid, so we’re probably going to do something and turn it into some kind of weapon or something terrible, because people do that all the time. That really scares me.
Arne: Another thing is that it also means that we have to ask ourselves ‘what's the difference between us then and those machines and those robots and that intelligence?’. It's creativity. Still is. I don't know if it's going to be that for ever, but it is at least something that we humans can do. We can be totally stupid. That's actually our quality. We can do stupid things and people go like: ‘Why would you do that? Hey wait a minute, that's actually pretty cool.’.
Arne: Or ‘You know, I didn't wash my hands after doing this experiment… Hey, that tastes sweet. Oh I discovered sugar, I mean sweetener.’. That's how we have discovered things. A robot won't do that. It won't go like that. ‘Oh wait a minute. Ooops!?’. Serendipity. We can be the masters of serendipity. That's basically creativity. That's lateral thinking. That is like thinking in options. That is doing things that make no sense. We do things that make no sense. And we do it all the time, so we're going to be really good at this. We’ve got that covered. So, yeah, I think there's a difference between humans and artificial intelligence –and it’s that we are basically stupid. So that's great. That's going to be fine.
Arne: Yet another thing is that I think that it's going to probably disrupt so many things. So, the point of Design Thinking in this topic is: First of all, we know we need creativity. We need to kind of have an understanding of how we can use our creativity, our ability to come up with non-logical stuff, do stuff that make no sense and build something valuable out of it. How we can use our humanity, our empathy, to understand each other and to build bridges, to create cultures and societies etc. etc.
Arne: Design Thinking – and all the other buzzwords out there – are trying to do that. They are trying to humanize systems, right? Because we need it. So design, not just designers, but people who are designers and people who have a designer mindset or a creative mindset or an open mindset capable of lateral thinking, whatever… Creative people who are generalists. We need them in that conversation. Now it's only technical people, it's only people who are building the systems, the IT people rule the planet. That's not good.
Arne: We need people who can say ‘Wait a minute. Aren't there people in this equation or are their human beings there, so why do we do this? How can we orchestrate this? How can we design that?’. That’s why we need people with a design mindset, with the design skills, to be part of the conversation. Actually, I think they should lead that conversation! But that's actually something else I've got, that's one of my other adventures. We have this creative leadership program, where that’s a big part of that program. To say, you know, we need to understand, as designers or people with this creative mindset or design thinkers or whatever you would call them, to be part of that. And how can we be part of it? How can we, maybe, put some creative leadership in that? Because I think that that’s really, really important.
Steve: So, Arne, I've got one last area I'd like to discuss with you today, which I know is close to your heart actually and you're actually running a conference here in Amsterdam in October, that actually focuses on this very subject – which is around empathy.
Steve: I came across a very short video on LinkedIn, that you shot here. There were a few things in there that really captured me and I thought ‘Wow, okay. This is really interesting!’. It was around empathy and looking inside of ourselves, which I really just wanted to bring to this podcast. I thought it was really fascinating and I'd love to understand a little more about your thinking on that.
Arne: Yeah, so empathy is one of those words that you know is thrown around, when you you're in a workshop, in service design/design thinking, and so on. Because it's about this attempt to become human centred and then empathy is kind of a logical word to use. Look at the world through someone else's eyes. You walk in someone else's shoes. It's fine. I think that's really good. I think that it's important. But I also have a problem with it because it becomes something of.... It's really not that easy, you know?
Arne: I don't want to discourage anyone, so I'm hesitating a little bit here… But okay, because I think it's important, you have to do your personas. Do your journey maps. Of course you have to do them, because that's the start. But that's not… That's not empathy. It is the start. It is simply beginning to understand someone. It is starting to understand why people do what they do, because that's basically what we do with design research and qualitative research. It is not just understanding what people do, but why they do it. Because you need that in order to create an intervention, to create a prototype etc etc.
Arne: [00:32:48] But we tend to… Well, because of the systems that we're part of, we don't want to be vulnerable, right? So, we take ourselves out of that equation. We say that it’s not about me. But it is about. It IS about you. It is empathy. I'm really inspired by an author called Brené Brown. She has amazing books and great TED talks about this. So, one of her things is about finding a place inside of you that connects to the other. The other day someone said ‘Yeah, of course because if you can't let anything in, it's not going to make the connection. How can you have empathy, if you don't allow it to come into you?’. It's impossible. So it starts with you, it starts with you understanding something about yourself. Again, this is common sense. If you are in a relationship and you're not okay with yourself… There are some issues.. Then your relationship is going to struggle, right? Because it's part of you. But if you are totally okay with yourself and you know your weaknesses, then that's a good thing for your relationship. Right? Chances are your relationship will benefit from that. If both of you are okay with you, so fine. That’s logical. Fine.
Arne: Now, I kind of want to translate that into the business we're in. Not only into research, saying that if you want to really understand someone you have to dig inside of yourself to connect to that person. But if you're a company and you're not okay with yourself… You don't know why you do what you do. You know it's all about that, because how can you expect to create a real meaningful relationship with people then? With anyone – with your employees and with your customers. That's not logical. That makes no sense. That's not going to happen. So again, empathy – not only meaning purpose. Why not say ‘Let's do some user research in understanding why people bought this phone and not that phone.’. It's a lot deeper and it's fairly complicated. It's difficult because it's about vulnerability. It's about people and it's about vulnerabilities. It’s about opening up and doing it and going to the place where we talk about real things, like real life things, like the things that are actually part of life. Not just all this marketing sales mumbo jumbo. It’s real stuff. And that’s is painful. But – it's where things are happening.
Steve: I mean, imagine achieving that. Imagine moving through a period of vulnerability to actually having a connection! That would be so much more meaningful. That would be amazing.
Arne: But the thing is that if you imagine a company that has a clear purpose and they really mean it, they’re really serious about that they want to do this thing. And that’s everything they do. So this also means that they can hire the people that connect to that and their clients will connect to that. Now, that’s the ideal situation. Yes, I know it’s difficult, but if that's the ideal situation? Let's work towards that. Let's go and try and achieve that. It is about people and it's emotional and it's challenging… But it's real. So let's do something that’s real. So the conference is basically part of my resistance, saying ‘I really want to go deep inside. I don't want to kind of lets just jump over, empathy right there. Stop. Wait. Hold on wait a minute. Design Thinking is about empathy? Let's talk about it for a while. Let's go and invite some people over who are not from our bubble. Who have experienced using empathy in the fields.’. So one of our speakers is a lady who is totally amazing. Her job is to negotiate in armed conflicts. And she had never heard of Design Thinking, by the way. She goes to Iran and Iraq and she talks to people who we call terrorists or rebels and she tries to kind of negotiate with them to give up their guns. That's basically her end goal; to take the guns away from them. So she said ‘You can go up to these people and say: You're bad people, you’re terrorists,. Now give me your guns? Please?’. No, of course you can’t. This process takes years.
Arne: She says that she has to start really by understanding how it for them happened to be in that situation. How did they end up there? So, she says, you start talking about their lives. It's about really understanding them. And then you start understanding all the micro decisions they made in the situations they were in, through their lives. And then you start realizing that we're not that different. And asking yourself if you would have responded differently? Because, maybe you wouldn’t have. And then you achieve something, because then you can connect to them and they feel it and then you have really good conversations. And every now and then she walks away from a meeting with her arms full of guns and can bring them to a place where they will be destroyed and they will never kill anyone again.
Arne: Talk about amazing jobs! Like ‘What am I doing? This is amazing!’. So that lady teaches you something about empathy and the power of it. Because she's not from our design bubble, but she just needs to do this. Otherwise it doesn't work. I love that. It helps you because it tells you something you maybe really know. But it makes it, like… It confronts you.
Arne: We also work with this neuroscientist, who works with magicians. And he says that why he works with magicians all the time is because they know how your brain works, because your brain fools you. It fools you all the time. It's terrible. We need it because it's part of our… Part of how we communicate with each other and how we can live together. But sometimes you have to know that your brain is screwing with you. And neuroscientists and magicians know.
Steve: And they are all going to be in the same room in October. Amazing.
Arne: So, I mean, magicians know that if I show you this and do this, your brain is totally going to not notice that I'm actually doing something different. You just want to be clear, but you’re basically blind, really. Like when you are in a room that you know really, you don’t actually see it. You’re not paying attention because you know it so well. And this, actually, makes you blind. You don't see the room.
Steve: Your machine takes over.
Arne: Yeah. It does. It's a really weird idea right?
Steve: I think it was Steven Peters ‘The chimp paradox’. That's a good book. In terms of this stuff.
Arne: If you're interested in creativity and understanding people and empathy, you should read those books. Read about behavioural science. Read ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’. Don't read books about Design Thinking and service design please. They will just tell you what you already know and what you want to hear. Read books that challenge you, instead. Read books that are seriously in the behavioural Sciences. It’s amazing! And read the book ‘Shame’ by Brené Brown. It's about shame and it's called "I thought it was just me". Although about halfway through the book because you she talks about shame. It's really good, because it goes really deep. It's about all the stuff you don't want to talk about. But how do you do research about something that nobody really wants to talk about? The book is powerful. It's amazing. It's also an audiobook. So you can listen to it instead. About half way through, I thought it was just about women, she talks about all the examples all the research that she did. I was like is there like a male example or man being shamed or something. So I understand everything about women and shame now.
Steve: Well, I think that's a nice end to the podcast.
Steve: It's perfect. Thank you so much.
Steve: That was really good and quite deep and… Yeah. Amazing and that’s exactly the way I wanted it to be. That was amazing. So, thank you so much..
Arne: [00:41:26] You're welcome, Good luck with this.
Steve: [00:41:27] Thank you!
Steve: [00:41:31] And there you have it. My very first podcast. Thank you so much for listening and please follow me at the experience designers and be part of the movement by sharing and rating this podcast and, until the next time, bye for now.
Steve Usher
October, 2018