DesignOps 2020- Day 1 Opener: The Other L Word (Session Notes)

Speaker: Kat Vellos, Principal of Kat Vellos Design and Consulting

Author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships

—Kat begins by showing the following number, which is what one trillion dollars looks like, fully written out

—A trillion dollars is enough to buy one million homes for one million people. It is also the amount of money U.S. businesses are losing every year, due to voluntary turnover

—The goal of the talk is to name one of the biggest drivers of voluntary turnover: the “L” word or loneliness. Designers need to face impact of loneliness on worker retention and loneliness, to create design industry where people can thrive

—To quote James Baldwin:

—DesignOps can’t talk about operations and resiliency without facing reality of loneliness, what causes it, and what can be done to cure it

—The goal of the presentation is to understand impact of problem of loneliness, and to also leave inspired and ready to face the challenge

—Design teams and the design industry face unique challenges requiring loneliness. Habits, both personal and organizational, either prevent/encourage loneliness, and often work against us

—Until there is commitment to notice behavior and change them, these habits will damage well-being of professionals and of the industry

—Kat spent five years researching the loneliness epidemic in the United States. She learned 50% of Americans feel lonely, and this was pre-pandemic

—In Kat’s research, Americans felt that work held the highest hopes for building connection and reducing loneliness

How Loneliness Manifests in the Life of a Designer

—Kat introduces the audience to Nina

—Nina is a composite of multiple designers, researchers, and managers interviewed by Kat. Kat encourages the audience to listen to Nina’s story with compassion for Nina and for themselves

—Nina is a designer who pivoted into product design, and began her career with a lot of enthusiasm, but now dreads going to work

—She struggles with feelings of disconnection, which are caused by many factors:

She feels like a team-of-one. No one in her particular team is a designer other than her
In current projects, team leader’s disregard process recommendations Nina gives
Team leaders also disregard Nina’s concern for the product’s users
The design team is not diverse, and does not have another person of color, or a woman. The company does not commit in action the rhetoric it espouses about diversity
She had a negative experience in work-space, and manager was dismissive of concerns. She felt alienated from the company as a result
The design team has unhealthy competition in it. Nina wanted feedback on current project, and posted in the company Slack channel, but only got one comment, and it was a condescending remark that embarrassed her. This has happened regularly. These unhealthy patterns prevent her from feeling psychologically safe
Nina doesn’t have a work friend or confidant. She has few meaningful experiences with designers at the job
She wants a sense of community, but it is hard to know people at the various design events she attends, where people seem ego-driven
Ageism—Nina is afraid that she rarely sees anyone over 35 in work, and the lack of role models and mentorship. Lack of successful examples makes her feel that she can’t succeed
Nina’s personality is humble and low-key, and she rarely uses social media. She is scared off by judgmental nature of other designers on social media. But her lack of presence on social media makes her fear her job prospects

—All of these pressures, along with COVID, have gotten Nina at her breaking point

—Do any of these issues speak to you? If so, take a deep breath, let it out, and recognize you deserve better

—For people wanting to brush off loneliness, and say “just deal with it”, you just don’t deal with loneliness, since loneliness amplifies all stress you experience

—Loneliness manifests in lower-engagement, sick-time, anxiety, depression and turnover

Lonely workers are more likely to exit company, and feel manager could have done something to address their exit
In surveys, employees say in three months prior to departure, managers didn’t ask about job satisfaction, future in company, or anything else

—People in design organizations feel like the “only” person with their identity. With less authentic connection, their existing alienation is amplified, and they are more likely than others to quit

—Remote workers were more likely to feel disconnection pre-COVID, but now office workers who used to work at an actual office, now feel more disconnection

—Much like loneliness is a symptom of problems in society, workplace loneliness is a symptom of something being wrong in an organization

The Statistics

—Loneliness is a major contribution to trillion dollar losses annually, as replacing an employee can cost anywhere from 50% to 200% of that person’s annual salary

—Nina is being pushed out of the design field with the domino effect of all the negative experiences she is having

—All people quoted in the slide above, know the struggle of loneliness. Moreover, many people never talked to anyone else about their struggles. They struggle alone, and either quit their job or switch careers

—Loneliness in design isn’t felt by one specific age bracket, group. Kat heard of designers from every creed, color, and ethnicity. They were in their 20s and late 50s, but most within the 25 and 40 age bracket

—Kat wants this talk to act as a catalyst for designers to speak out for their health, team, and design community. The theme of the conference is resilience, and people are committed to doing work, and want to work on solutions, as opposed to being passive contributors to the problems

—Not all design pros don’t feel lonely as essential state. Rather loneliness is more like background noise. But in acute situations, loneliness spikes and people feel overwhelmed

—The thing is, every single part of loneliness can be prevented. All of us have capacity to turn loneliness around

—We are creators of our culture, and responsible for design ecosystems and people that are part of it

We don’t fault people for not being resilient enough
Personal resiliency is not enough to match environmental toxicity

—A design system is not just a collection of components created out of pixels. We are all part of design system that impacts the profession

—We can do better, and we have to. The upside is too good to miss out on

—Both the designer and company benefit from designers having best friends at work

35% higher commitment to producing higher quality work

50% in turnover risk

50% feel strong sense of connection to company

70% say work friends key to happy work life

300% people are more likely to say they love the company

—Since social wellness is correlated with physical wellness, your well-being spreads to others in the company

Making design teams more inclusive and connected will pay dividends in long-run

Actions to Help Foster Connections

—Psychological safety is how you hold a safe community

—You have psychological safety when you can share yourself authentically without negative consequence (without damage to self, status, or career)

—You feel seen, at ease, comfortable with others, and safe taking risks, with knowledge you will be supported

—Foundational method to build this psychological safety deals with community agreements that articulate what is okay/not okay. Everyone needs to work to hold agreements, and respond when agreements are broken.

—Safety can be built by using eye contact, active listening, learning together, and more. Do some research, and work with team to figure out which values are priority and to work together

—Addiction to perfection is not limited to UX design, and is in other creative fields like graphic design

—An AIGA board member found biggest problem faced was loneliness and pressure of perfection:

Pressure resulted in depression, illness, and even suicide
Minority designers feel pressure even more, as they faced pressures to conform to “normal” designers.

—Trying to be perfect is exhausting. There are no perfect people. You can relieve yourself of pressure to speak perfect and be perfect in what you do

—The best thing about the pandemic is that that we can’t perform perfection theater typical at work. People can be humans, and can welcome everything that can be done

—Be mindful of using the right skills at the right time

—Design pros have generative skills and refinement skills, but don’t know which skills to use

—For people who don’t know how to make friends with other designers, use generative skills with people (creativity, exploration). All are key for healthy work friendships. Refinement skills for products and pixels (i.e. looking for flaws and errors, and comparisons

—Friendship fueled with ambiguity and imperfection, and people need judgement-free zone to build those friendships

—When intention to make and deepen friendship be aware of the distinction between generative and refinement

—A quote from a designer who identified as a black man “If a person has human moment that is grounds for dismissal”

—Frustration with the marginal tolerance of diversity echoed by those with a working-class background, non-binary background and others

—Even white, straight men felt frustration with the homogeneity of the design community

—Kat asks the audience to conduct a visual exercise.

Think about a typical designer
Whatever ideas come to mind, accept it as part of truth, but accept there are hundreds or thousands of variations that look like nothing like that typical image
Train eyes and mind to see things, and to visualize accordingly

—It can feel overwhelming to how to dismantle a system of oppression. The goal should be to sharpen eyes for things that contribute to a repressive environment, as that environment is built one dismissive remark at a time

—At a peer level be able to push back on things like the following:

Calling out when hiring panel dismisses someone in favor of person with more typical background
If someone hurt by experience online or in person, make the hurt person feel seen
Use attention as a by-stander to point out things that are not okay, and if things not going well, reach out to people impacted

—Do not call a “calendar event” mandatory fun. It automatically becomes not fun

—A person Kat interviewed said they felt forced to contribute to company outings, and didn’t want to do it, but felt career was suffering because they refused to attend the outings

—The benefit of the pandemic is that people want to take a break from forced socialization, and people are thrilled to be home right now

—Fun is not one-size fits all. It means different things to different people

—People feel lonely when they don’t have mentor who can help them with advice, support, or getting the person unstuck

—There are also insidious assumption of who mentors/mentees are. People of color feel that they are perpetual mentees, but everyone has something to learn and something to teach

—At the very least, provide training in listening well, and having quality one-on-ones

—Ask how connected staff are feeling at work, and offer practical support to address issues

—Allow staff to give feedback on managers, and ability to switch managers if needed

—Ageism in tech is not a secret

The New York Times published an article about a retreat for elderly tech workers–who were in their 30s.

—Laughing at jokes about age is as bad as a sexist or racist joke

In dozens of industries you can think of person who provides valuable contributions to profession, who is considered ‘old’
We are pushing people out of work for being too old, despite a desire for mentors, and feeling disconnected from industry in the long haul

—Work to share definition of “elder”, and how “elders” have helped you in personal, professional life

—Talk about how you feel about elders, and brainstorm ways to get elders into the design community

—Don’t limit your vision of a person to one dimension of their identities. Greatest gift you have is your curiosity

—Talk to people about things outside of resume or portfolio. Ask about project outside company, things they did for fun, skills outside of work

—Show you are willing to get to know people outside of LinkedIn profile, and let people know they are more than just a LinkedIn profile

—A quote: “Designers attach too much identity and emotions to what is shipped”

Craving for DesignOps and design leaders, is for a whole person who has passions, frustrations, and broad identity and interests
We need to know each other as full human beings

—Finally, reward courage and candor, not assimilation

—Leadership is not about collection of seniority/salary, or a pronoun or title. It’s a behavior that anyone with any title can exhibit

—You should act with behavior to improve yourself and other’s lives, by asking questions, making requests or suggestions, or action beyond what is assigned to do

—Have a compassionate inquiry as to how staff is doing. Reward people who are courageous and share with candor. Reward people who provide honest feedback

—People are afraid of getting ostracized for pointing out need for improvement. But in any healthy relationship, you need to say what’s not working, and feel safe doing so

—In short, reward people who share difficult truths, as they are helping you do better

Conclusion

—The cost of disconnection is too high. 60% of workers feel they need to hide part of their identity to fit in with a company

—As designers who’s worked is rooted in empathy, we can do a better job of solving our problems

—We can create a culture of connection for designers for everywhere, and it may be the best thing we do

—Kat hopes the talk has motivated you to take better yourself and to take care of your team

Speaker Questions

How do we challenge/work with those who push back on us speaking up (especially when they don’t see that they’re causing harm)?

Answer: Talk with the person to articulate their expressed values, and root your feedback in their expressed values.