DesignOps 2020-Operating With a Purpose (Session Notes)

Speakers: Allison Sanders, Senior Program Manager, MailChimp

Kristin Skinner,  Co-author of Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams

Introduction

—Alison Sanders senior program manager at MailChimp. She onboarded over 100 people in department and fascinating to see how onboarding impacts trajectory

  • Ability to adapt acclimate and ask questions, helps change their perspective and how they work with the company
— In own experience, she has worked in television including Stanley and Nickelodeon
— After experiences got married, had children, moved across country and had crisis of purpose
— Wanted to re-evaluate what to do, and how to get there

 

What does a crisis of purpose meant to Alison? Why is it important?

— Alison has seen people in life who were driven and did whatever they could to achieve their goals
— Father joined the U.S. army, and was inducted in Army Hall of Fame
— Father kept moving forward, and joined Foreign Service, and wanted to make a difference
  • Alison was fortunate to see hard work that went into it
— Mom worked very hard to achieve her goals, and went onto shape government policies
— Then Alison, the artistic one in family, who studied dance television, and wanted to make work meaningful
  • She saw difference in how she was connected to a greater purpose in her work with television
  • Gratification of seeing her work on TV, and seeing something that brought thousands of people together
— When she found how her work suits greater purpose, she was more invested in her work
  • When the is not the case, the work suffers overall, if she is tuned out from overall meaning of work

— People notice it, and your work suffers and people don’t want to work with you

 

What does Alison mean when she talks about the idea of legitimacy?

— Whole grad school experience with a double-masters was done to legitimize what she was doing in her work life
  • Wanted to study more about background and figure out what was the right thing to do
— The experience is not unique to Alison. A lot of people search for deeper meaning and to show that they are knowledgable invested, and moving needle in what field is

 

What does it mean to show up with intent, and that you are taking care of your teams?

— Alison is fascinated by study at Harvard School of Public Health
  • Where purpose with meaning, sense of direction and goals
  • Likely to live longer healthy long life
— 45% hospital workers more likely to use batter hygiene, when told they would help others, as opposed to being told hygiene would help hospital workers themselves
— DesignOps is connecting services to people and getting people and yourself to tap in what is done for others and sense of connection drives people

 

For the DesignOPs Team of one, who takes care of DesignOPs who take care of anyone else? How to take care of yourself while taking care of others?

— DesignOps structure programs, systems, and operations that influence environment
— Alison experienced culture shock with different ways of working, and ability to invest in teams and individuals
  • Different way of working with each other
  •  Stressing about timelines for several different projects
— Having time to get things done right is a big help
— Inspiring to see people living these values and clarifying that you come first and mental health comes first
— It is Hard to say you are feeling unwell, and need to take days off, but it is hard to do great job at work, when feeling a sense of impending doom or extreme loneliness or other emotions
— Alison has a manager who encourages people to take a day off
— Managers in general should ideally model good mental and physical health

 

What tactics have you put in place to inform onboarding and her perspective on company culture?

— Onboarding is ongoing event that keeps happening
— Great place for people to have opportunity to see what is important to culture and find people to connect with
— Especially know that are working remotely
— Start connecting with individuals to have one more meeting with one more person
— Do four weeks of onboarding, and a lot for some
  • Works to shake off bad habits, and chance to study a little bit
— Provides mentor for onboarding, and lets new hire know they have someone to speak to
— Meetings set up ahead of time, and have pre-arranged check-ins with their mentor
— Great for person doing the mentoring to remember why they like their job
— Something that keeps it going is continuous effort to allow people to train and grow
— Per Forbes, employers who don’t focus on learning lose out based on engagment and retention
  • People will stay at work longer, if they feel they can grow careers
— Especially helpful now for people having opportunity to grow
— Having other thing to push for is light at the end of a tunnel
— People are doing it differently without huge training.
  • Tailoring training so that people can do online classes
  • Subscriptions to connect with greater design community
— Micro-learning and asynchronous communication to learn on your own time (including books)
— Modeling behavior and clearing path for people to participate

 

How to give guidance on guardrails in career?

— MailChimp attracts talent from agencies, and they are used to working for the customer at 2:00 AM in positions where the bosses were screamers

— New hires need time to adapt and take-in how people operate, and have sense for what they want to bring forward and leave at the door

 

Loneliness. How does relationship between having purpose and what that looks like from perspective?

— For Alison she is surrounded by her kids and a dog, but there are a lot of people alone in apartments and people feel lonely
— Easy to not connect, so important to make opportunities for one on one conversation, and for people to talk with each other outside of work
— There are things work won’t be able to answer, so step outside of work for things that feel meaningful to you
— Anything that helps connect is useful. Knowing with employer to take the break
— Establish healthy boundaries and defining what is healthy

 

How to be direct and proactive with manager as to what you need?

— Need to find the right balance, and figuring out life goals, where work fits in, and how the company’s mission and team’s values fit for what’s important to me
— How do I take what needs to be done and goals for team and myself
— When you feel your work impacts company output, more connected
  • But remember goals shouldn’t be 100% focused on business
— Need to see where you can move needle for yourself and how you can be a good team player
— Can make steps in the right direction, and celebrate efforts as well as wins

 

For celebrating each other’s efforts if there are no wins. What does it look like?

— Knowing people are stuck and want to get better at something
— Hard to get unstuck sometimes, and people who can shift out for different way of working
— Also department wide awards to see who is making difference to team and company

 

Any key takeaways and a call to action she has based off her outlook?

—Goal of connecting with people one-on-one if you can
— People are struggling right now with everything and extending grace to each other
— Ways to impact changes with each other and makes people a stronger team
— Having encouragement from manager helps her recharge emotional battery
— Finding how work connects to some greater good. We can take small meaningful steps, without fear of weight of world is not end of world
— If you just need to get through 2020, it will be enough

 

Difference between finding purpose and acting upon it?

— Quote that came up was from Victor Frankl, who said anyone with “Why can bear almost any how?”
— Figure out the “how” together

 

Anything else to share?

— Wanted to make sure people left with useful tips and tricks to connect with each other and kept drive alive at the moment

— Develop boundaries for when you need to unplug

 

Audience Questions

Clarity on 80 number? 80% of design org or 80% of all MailChimp?

— Alison has onboarded 80% of the MailChimp design department, and four weeks for onboarding every new hire