Day 3–Transforming Insight Into Wisdom: Rethinking, Organizational Impact Truth, Power

Fireside Chat

Sarah Fathallah, Social Designer and Researcher

Alba Villamil, Partner and Facilitator for HmntyCntrd

AV: Some context for this to step into our agency and holds organizations accountable for stories and what gets in way of power for your agency. So we want to rethink foundational element of work which are insights— at core of what we do as researchers and how they can be leveraged for strategic design opportunities

  • Currently produce an assembly line of insight that is causing us to lose people who are most vulnerable and recalibrate relationship with insights— and being stewards of organizational wisdom, and transform work to be equitable and more trauma informed and working with high-stakes on sensitive topics

Bringing our own perspective as independent researchers and how insights we report are strategic but responsible, and culture that is receptive to insights, and stakeholders who can act on it

SF: Model for how to be stewards of organizational wisdom and suggest model must practice three key elements

  • Discernment
  • Productive Capacity
  • Pluralism and Foresight

Also fourth one of ethical judgement and ability to maximize benefits while minimizing harm to communities we work with

  • How we relate to people we research and work with along with ethics of care and caring for others

How we talk and write about people we research and ethics of representation and storytelling and how we steer clear of stereotypes and expolitative and deficit based storytelling

  • How we collect use participant data and ethics, and how to handle sensitive information and transparently

Foundation for ethical judgment in mind and barriers in organizational wisdom and strategies

Challenges

  1. Expecting that insights would be solution and how orgs would be ready for insights or learning capacity.
    1. SF: Believe that insights alone won’t drive change, and it overlooks critical factor of how ready the org is ready to absorb and act upon insights and appetite for research
  2. Need sense of what org appetite for research and tailor approach for writing it and categorize into three levels
    1. Ingesting, digesting, metabolizing
    2. Ingestion: Orgs are open to receiveing findings, but not capacity to fully take them in
    3. Digestion: Orgs are not only able to get insights, but willing to discuss conclusions and implications for work
    4. Metabolizing: Fully capable of not just internalizing them and integrate into strategies and operations and becoming
  3. Recognizing where org fits in spectrum allows researchers to adapt approaches to learning capacity and tricky aspects to reading the room and tripwires in org
  4. AW: Grasping other factors that are influencing. Orgs have cultures of ignorance was well as learning
    1. Ignorance could be overcome by knowledge management, but ignorance is a form of non-knowledge and is actually often productive for certain individuals in an organization.
      1. Knowledge can be perceived as more costly than beneficial, and there is ignorance that comes from not knowing something to deny liability for it in the future
        1. Perk up within the work, and design around insights
    2. SF: Notion of discernment to capture what was identified and this is the core element of model and we define it to perceive and respond to unique dynamics of organization
      1. Two orgs might be equivalent, but might take in research insights differently whether funding priorities or leadership
      2. All factors influence how it’s perceived and commit to shifting dynamics and legible
      3. Base of examples and difference between trying to remove friction from insights, versus giving insights power
        1. Metaphor of designing paper airplane, and how design can reduce friction, compared to just adding greater power in your throw.
          1. Researchers should focus on mitigating inherent resistance to insights, and resistance to ideas is often not about value of idea itself, but fears and insecurities it reveals in person listening and their role in the organization
            1. Work at non-profit where designs threatened their own attachment to the role in the org, and much more resistant to idea than otherwise
            2. Asked what they feared happening if something created, and what else would need to be true to create resistance
          2. Ask if you can remove friction in the org, or can lean on relationships and business goals to give value and power to business ideas presented
  5. Discernment grasping implicit and non-barriers and think about other challenges that block people from acting on insights in most wise them and engage with storytelling, detracting from organizational wisdom and impact we don’t want
  6. Tendency to report user insights uncritically, and area where this is true and issue of responsible reporting to excise harmful insights, as groups can lose trust in us and no longer provide insights
  7. So how to story-tell better in work we do?
    1. SF: Element of model is idea of foresight and pluralism. Foresight as seeing future implications, and asking what would happen if insights would be shared in X way, and how they fit into broader forces
      1. Pluralism through variety of lenses of seeing how insights benefit or hurt other factors, and who stands to benefit or burden — existing balances
      2. Making things worse by sharing these things?
  8. Reminder of supporting families in foster care system?
    1. Interviews with birth parents, and did classic questions, and what to change with process of removal
      1. Shocked that people noted nothing needed to be approved by removal process and it didn’t quite make sense
        1. For many of them, because child was removed due to drug use and recovery programs and notion of taking accountability and in removal of child — only one responsible for the process, and state didn’t need to improve removal process
      2. Important that anything we shared could improve people’s experience rather than what was shared in narratives
  9. SF: Conclude with third challenge that everyone in position to receive insights in same way. Call for adaptive capacity and being flexible with recommendation offered and timing off them, and seeing what makes sense
    1. Simplified information for summaries and memos. Element of time and engagement with researchers, as well as if synchronously or asynchronously
    2. Example of scheduling deliverables and informing policy design and even if research complete, couldn’t present to stakeholders and align with timelines
      1. Formats like for staffers and enough trust and relationship. Could mean months for right people at right time.

Q&A

  1. Thoughts on power balances and intentions of dealing with multiple users and user goals?
    1. SB: Examples from work done in child welfare, and work we’ve done is to push against notion that we are considering all actors on an equal basis, based on power analysis
      1. Some end users have platforms to advocate for own needs, or platforms
      2. We can’t undo power imbalances but take them into account with how we spend time with communities and present learnings and insights
    2. AV: Understanding consequence of harm, i.e. depth, longevity, and scale of harm to map out to user and equity, not equality