Melis Senova
In this episode we visit the Southern Hemisphere to meet Melis Senova; Pioneer in Human-centred Design, Author of This Human & Founder of strategic Global design agency, Huddle. In this conversation we explore career changes, the value to design, influencing others & treating life as a masterclass.
Show notes
Kate Arrow 0:02
Welcome to episode eight of Leading Insights. Today we're joined by Melis Senova. I'll let her introduce herself.
MS 0:15
Hi, thanks for having me. So my current, I don't know if it's a job, my current, let's call it a portfolio of projects. So things that I'm all across, really involves working with people in all sectors, trying to help them think about how they can improve the systems that they're working within from a human-centred perspective and bringing, kind of bringing the heart back to business and to government at all levels. That's kind of what I'm doing and I'm doing that through my firm Huddle which is a human centred design agency, which we started in 2009 and also through my coaching and This Human site, which is the platform that surrounds my book.
Kate Arrow 1:16
And tell us a little bit about the journey you've been on to get that kind of portfolio.
MS 1:22
So I started as a Biomedical Engineer. I studied biomedical engineering and I was really interested in neuroscience and the brain and how the brain works. I majored in neurosciences, and then I had an opportunity to go away and work in a Research Hospital in Japan for a year in between my undergrad and my PhD and that was a Research Hospital for brain and blood vessels. They basically specialised in stroke and they were also an experimental hospital, where they got all of the latest technology so I got to play with some pretty amazing equipment for that time. So this was mid 90s and I was doing functional MRI testing and PET imaging and all of this stuff, just literally looking at the brain. Then I had this weird dream that was an eyeball trying to see itself in space, like blackness, and then kept thinking "We're using the thing in our heads to try and work out how the thing in our heads works" and I just felt this was like a big, futilely, like we're never ever going to get out of this loop of doing brain research, and that whole thing and set me on a bit of a different discovery....What I was actually interested in was, how do I improve the conditions for people? Like how do I design better services and design better policy to be able to just improve the conditions within which people exist. And that's when I decided to do my PhD in human centred design. So that's how that happened. It was that weird dream that set me off on this other trajectory around design and designing with them for people. And I've basically been doing that ever since I did my PhD in the Defence Department. There I was working with military aircraft pilots around workload and situational awareness and designing for improved performance. And then I did very similar work in the automotive industry at Ford and Sumitomo, and then I spent some time At Telstra, in the emerging technology space and always working from the persepctive of 'How do we design for the human experience?'. Then I set up Huddle as an agency to be able to help other organisations do that for themselves, essentially. So that looked like service design and strategic design and we've sort of moved on from there. We started a school called Huddle Academy, we started teaching it, I wrote a book, so it's just kind of it's sort of evolved.
Kate Arrow 4:36
How did it feel at that point, when you had that dream for changing, changing your direction?
MS 4:45
Well, there's a whole bunch of funny stories actually that led to me, finding myself at the Defence Department doing a PhD in human centred design. I'm not afraid to explore new pathways. So no matter how quirky and weird they are, in terms of their source, you know, whether it's a dream or odd conversation or...but one of the reasons why I ended up in the Defence Department was that one of the Professors of the University that I was at, was talking to me about doing a PhD. I wasn't actually on board with the idea, I had this sort of, 'I need to get out there and start doing stuff' feeling and 'I don't want to spend more time at university knowing this much about something that's going to be that, you know, a tiny bit relevant'. He asked me; "If you could be anyone who do you want to be?" and I said that I wanted to be Charlie out of Top Gun. I wanted to be in that scene where she was walking down the tarmac, and they introduce her and they say, you know, she has a PhD in AstroPhysics. She works in the Pentagon, you know, the Pentagon, trust her. So usually when I was young, I was probably still in primary school and I just remember going, I want to be her, I want to be her, I want to be that woman. So I shared with him that story. He picked up the phone and called The head of the Air Operations Division, this defence science and technology organisation at the time, and just started a conversation around a potential PhD candidate with a scholarship, would they take her on? Then that's what I did for the next four years. I was a civilian contractor in the defence department working with F18 & F11 pilots, looking at situational awareness. So I was just kind of, you know, following my nose in a way and it felt, gosh, sounds really exciting.
Kate Arrow 6:56
It just shows you that it's worth being honest about your childhood dreams and being really transparent about what you think no matter if it's not what you think somebody wants to hear.
MS 7:19
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And also, I think that I was in a pretty unique situation in that I, you know the Ph.D wasn't something that I was attached to so it could have happened or it couldn't have happened. There was nothing at risk for me in that conversation. I think often people resist having those really honest and open conversations because they feel like something is at risk for them. And, and that's one of the lessons that I've actually learned throughout my career, which is to say that I have learned that you never really lose out When you show up 100% authentically and say the thing that everyone perhaps wants to say, but isn't saying, In the short term, it might feel like you take the heat, but in the long term, always, always, always, it's the best policy. That's what I have personally learned. So I was acting that way, you know, when I was younger, without that much to lose, really. I'm grateful that that has kind of carried on in my career.
Kate Arrow 8:34
And and was it like Top Gun? Was it as male dominant as Top Gun when you were there?
MS 8:41
Yeah. In fact, I haven't reflected on this. I've always worked in male dominated industries. Until I started Huddle, and when I started Huddle it was mostly women all the time, and we had like the whole reverse scenario which I loved. But it was also quite confusing for me because I had learnt how to work in groups of men. And I hadn't worked in groups of women before in my professional career. So that was actually quite an adjustment in terms of how, you know, work gets organised and problems get solved. And yeah, that was a really massive part of my transition into leadership.
Kate Arrow 9:32
You've got a fascinating combination of experience, how did that all come together for you & influence the kind of leader that you are?
MS 9:42
You know, in my book, I talk about one of my beliefs, which is that I believe that everything that you're doing is an apprenticeship for the next thing. I think that's true. I think that a caveat to that is that you should approach your life like it's a masterclass. I think Oprah actually has a podcast something like that Life as a Masterclass. What I mean by that is that you look at all of the things that happened to you as an opportunity for learning as an opportunity for growth. And I think what that then does is it helps you better connect and combine those learnings in new ways that suit where you're at in your development as a person or as a leader, designer. You know, a lot of the things that I learned in the automotive sector for example, I was working on new vehicle programmes I learned all about the design process on the coal face, you know, where you're actually building something that's going to come off the line, and people are going to sit in and drive around as opposed to the more abstract design which we might do in the industry of design thinking. So I've just always been leveraging different aspects of the neuroscience, for example, is all throughout my book, I explain how people can save up ideas and think through problems and stuff, leveraging a little bit of my history in neuroscience to be able to talk a little bit about how we are wired as humans and where do these thought processes actually reside within the brain and why is it difficult to put words around emotions, you know, and I just thought It's all feels like, maybe when I'm 100. I'm gonna look back and go, Wow, that was a really well curated journey you've had but there is no deliberate or specific design that sits behind my career, it really has been an organic evolution and revolution sometimes.
Kate Arrow 12:29
Yeah. I think that's a common theme with the people that we've spoken to that it's been much more of a kind of happenstance and meander rather than a real career trajectory that people have gone o and they really valued that and learned so much from it.
MS 12:50
Yeah, and I think perhaps one of the reasons why that might be a common thing is that, and I know I can only speak from my own experience, but when I become attached to something happening, I find that it's more difficult to, to make it so, you know, like when and when I say attachment, I mean, it needs to look a certain way and be a certain thing by a certain time and with a certain person and, you know, all of those things that we can kind of get a little bit fixated on. What I've learned is a little bit of, you know, my perspective is so limited in terms of what's actually possible. So all I can really do is continue to be open minded, to be exploratory, to be always always learning to never ever, ever assume that I'm done. You know, that's it. I'm at the pinnacle of whatever, I think that's where things start closing down and shutting down.
Kate Arrow 13:53
Particularly at the moment with this unprecedented COVID pandemic, I think a lot of people who felt they'd really made it, you know, with their business or their career have really been turned upside down and there's so much uncertainty. Have you got any advice for those people?
MS 14:17
Ah, look, first of all, the first thing that I have is just a huge sense of compassion and shared effort to work through this chaos, right? Like, I just feel everyone needs in. Everyone is in exactly the same position within the context that they're in right some people's businesses are actually booming. But with that comes a whole other different set of challenges, right, they may not be ready for that growth. And then there are some people who were on the other end of the spectrum who lost their businesses and lost their jobs and and have a whole other set of challenges that they're facing into, but everybody is affected. And everybody is working through how to muddle their way through uncertainty. And the one thing that I think this is going to teach us and this would be, you know, I don't really like giving advice, but this would be the thoughts that I would share with people is that I think one of the greatest gifts that we can give ourselves is to, is to be more comfortable with not knowing the answers, and to be more comfortable with not putting so much pressure on ourselves to be able to work out what to do, because sometimes situations are so complex and so ambiguous, that you actually can't think through it all. The only thing you can do is take the next best action and the next best action might be to brush your teeth, and to, you know, put food on the table and to give yourself 15 minutes break, or an hour or have a bath, or whatever it is, sometimes that's the next best action. And I feel like we put so much pressure on ourselves to, you know, reconfigure and conceive about businesses straightaway and have the next five year strategy sorted out in the context of the impacts of COVID. And, and to those that can do that brilliant and, and to those that can't, I think it's okay, because there's so much unknown. And action brings clarity. So the next step that you take, you're going to learn something else and that's going to give you clarity for the next step to take and then that's going to give you clarity, the next step to take and that is the essential premise of design really to any emergent practice, the more you respect The more you find out and the more clarity you have around the actual, you know, inside of the problem that you're there to solve. So that would be that would be my, the thoughts that I would share today
Kate Arrow 17:14
In your book, which I absolutely loved and loved, particularly, I think, because I'm a scientist at heart. So I love the amalgamation of design and neuroscience and engineering and, and it really spoke to me, really new and exciting for me. You talk in your book about returning to your beginner's mind. Can you explain that a little bit for our listeners and why it's so important.
MS 17:45
So it sort of relates back to what I was saying a little bit earlier in our conversation about having this mindset that you're actually never ever done learning and even though there's a lot of, especially with people like yourself in the line of work that you do, for example, when you are in that position to do your job, obviously people would love for you to be an expert and you're not in your beginner's mind going, "I might try something new today". Probably not, not appropriate. So your expertise is always with you. But what a beginner's mind is about is to always be ready to see the world around you, to always be ready to have a look at the thing that you know, really, really well, from a slightly different perspective to see what that then creates the opportunity for in terms of what you might be able to explore. Oh, yeah. I refer to that little parable that little story, Between the professor and the Zen master, about the cup, and you know, the professor has gone to the Zen master to say, teach me everything that you know about Zen. And the Zen Master starts pouring a cup of tea and then keeps pouring it and keeps pouring it. And then the professor is like, but well, the tea is coming out of the cup. And, the zen master says "You know, I can only teach you when your cup is empty". "If your cup is full, and you think you already know everything. then it's really difficult to to learn new things". And the reason why I talk about a beginner's mind, especially in the context of human centred design, and designing with people and for people, is that whenever we show up, we show up with our worldviews and our belief systems and our life experiences. And they colour the way that we make meaning of other people's experiences and feel there to connect with their reality. To understand their worldview, and to be able to inform a solution or a design that is going to be native to their reality, it's essential that you're able to take that beginner's mind, which is this, I'm going to assume that I don't know anything about this person's experience, I'm going to assume that I know nothing about the context within which we're here to explore. And it just sets up that space for new insight, and to get close as we possibly can to another person's experienced reality. One of the mistakes I think that we often make unconsciously is that we think people experience the world the same way we do. And it's not true from a five senses reality perspective, it's certainly not true from a psychological meaning making perspective. It's definitely not true from a worldview belief system perspective. So it's really really crucial to be able to do that.
Kate Arrow 21:10
Yeah, absolutely. And in the world of health and social care, it can be a bit slow and bureaucratic and there's a lot of experts and doctors, that doctor knows best kind of ethos, around and it can be hard to get people to get on board with new methods such as design tools, people can be sceptical, and there's a lot of fear as well about actually asking our clients or our patients, what they think and getting them to fully inform how the services are designed. How would you help someone like me who is relatively early in their career, have you got any thoughts on how you can really engage with these people who maybe are a bit more sceptical, and and push forward with your enthusiasm for new methods.
MS 22:06
There's so much I want to share. I'll just talk about two things. So the first one is when we find a way of working in a methodology that really resonates with us, like human centred design did and does continue to do so with me. We want the whole world to know what we found. And so what we tend to do is we learn all the language and we fill ourselves up with all of the knowledge and the tools and the methods and all that and we become really eager to, to bring that into the world and to implement everything that way. What we forget, and this is why I wrote the book this human is that we forget that the people that we're collaborating with, that we need to sort of get on board to be able to help the person that we're also ultimately, there to help which might be you know, patients or clients or whatever you call them. We forget that they too are people, and we also need to design for them. So what I tend to do is say instead of going in with the intention to use human centred design, the very first thing that I would do is understand the needs and fears and wants of the person that you need to be communicating with, and communicate to those things. And whether you use design thinking or human centred design, or we're going to do a patient journey or we need to extract the insights or whatever. Whether you use that language or not, is almost irrelevant, because what you're trying to do is you're trying to use that methodology to achieve an outcome which is an improved patient experience. For example. The language that you use needs to be native to the organisation that you're trying to affect change in and needs to be impactful to the people who are also on this journey, some people are going to be right on board with you. They're going to be running faster than you and you're going to need to actually go "Whoa, oh, hang on, you're running with the samurai sword, we can actually do a lot of damage if we don't do this properly", you're going to have those conversations. And then at the same time, there's going to be other people where they're not actually ready to explore human centred design as an alternative. But what you'll be doing is having a different conversation, which is what can this outcome help you with? What challenges are you facing and to be helping them address their needs and using language that they're familiar with? So that would be the first thing that I would say that it's, it's okay to not be able to do the whole spiel and kitten caboodle with everybody and that as a human centred designer, you also need to design your approach to the people that you're talking with. So always starting with an exploratory conversation before you start exploring how you might do something differently, like what are the challenges that you're facing at the moment? What's keeping you awake at night? What if you could solve one thing? What would that be? And you know, doing some design research doing some ethnographic research first before having the let's do human centred design conversation. So that would be the first thing. Human centred design is, it's so controversial that I'm saying this, but human centred design, or design thinking, as an approach isn't appropriate for every situation. And sometimes what I find is that people become quite enamoured with the power that resides within that methodology to be able to improve conditions for people and when to apply it to every single situation. And that can do more damage than good sometimes because then what you're seen as is an Evangalist for the methodology as opposed to a person who has access to all of this knowledge, human centred design being one of those things, to be able to collaborate together to achieve this shared outcome. And that would be the other piece of advice that I would give is to not be too evangelistic about using human centred design as a methodology to go to solve problems. Because people are resistant to that sort of energy, I think. And then there's also one of the biggest superpowers than a human centred design sort of oriented practitioner must have. I think one of the biggest superpowers is patience. Because a lot of patience and empathy and I don't mean empathy for the patients, I mean, empathy for the people who do the thing, the ones that are the most resistant, because for them, there's something at risk for them. And that's why they're resisting the change. And it could be reputation, it could be a sense of identity, it could be a sense of authority or power or control or influence this something at risk. And if we lose our ability to have compassion for those people, and every time I say this, I remember I can see in the room, people just kind of rolling their eyes because they're up against someone who's making their life really difficult, right? There's like, I don't have compassion for that person. They're just standing in my way, and I can't get the thing that I need to get done. But if we lose our ability to have compassion for that person who's on their own journey, through some form of change, because you're showing up as the agitator in that moment, then the ability for us to be able to continue the long process of change that comes with systemic change will diminish. So it's this, that's why I think the self practice and reflective practice and all of that is really important for people in these positions. Because not every day is a great day. And sometimes you're the person, you're the only person in the room who can see an alternate future and the status quo is, it's like molasses. It can be very hard to move. And that should be a motivating thing. You know, it shouldn't be something that that slows you down or whatever. But the thing that will get you through is patience and compassion for those people who are being a pain in your rear. If you can find a way to still have compassion for them.
Kate Arrow 28:56
Yeah. That's what's been fascinating about COVID from the healthcare perspective anyway is how agile it's been, and how quickly people have responded and the people who've been like, "Oh, no, let's think about it. Let's involve all these other people before we can make any decisions" have just been "Yes. Do it." You know, and it's been exciting that part of it, but you know, obviously bureaucracy has its place, and you can see things going backwards, but I do hope that we can learn something from that period of agility and change.
MS 29:34
Yeah, yeah. And you know, there is a saying that says, you know, Necessity is the mother of all innovation. So, when, and, and I know, in my personal experience with my career so far that, whenever there's been a crisis, no matter which organisation I've been in, people, just go and Just get in line and get stuff done, nothing comes up but the challenge that we have is that we don't want to innovate only when our backs against the wall, we have no other option. And that's the challenge. So when in times of comfort and safety, you know, humans are wired to maintain that, for the sake of the species physiologically, we like to maintain safety, a sense of safety. It's very few of us that kind of deliberately going out into the unknown. And going, I'm interested, I'm just gonna have a poke around over here and see what happens. There's not there's not a massive part of the population that's comfortable with that type of work. So I think it's just knowing that you know, knowing that the tendency is going to be for people to want to do things the way that they feel, they are safe in doing. So what you represent is a little bit of chaos to their world. And if you know that that's what you're doing, it's very easy to have empathy and compassion for them and find the language that's going to create more safety for them to make those changes. Whereas in crisis, no one is feeling safe. Everyone is trying to do anything that they can to bring as much certainty and safety back into the system. So they're willing to try anything to do that. So I really see it as a tussle between sort of chaos and order all the time. You know, the system always wants to come back to order doesn't like being in chaos,
Kate Arrow 31:47
Well, I feel like we could have a whole series because I had so many more questions for you. Our final question for everyone has been, in another life is there another career that you would have liked to have embarked on?
MS 32:09
Yeah, so you know, it's really interesting, I think I would have loved to live as a, as an artist as a fine artist. I go to, you know, school of fine arts and I have this dream, which is so romantic and not at all based in any reality I'm completely acutely aware that I would have this life of just doing what I wanted when I wanted to and not having a care in the world and just being able to creatively express myself through my art all the time and not feel this, which is what I feel in this life is constant, What can I be doing more what can I be doing more? How can I, you know, this whole sort of Am I doing Enough feeling in this other world to just be a little bit more sort of hedonistic maybe and just do whatever I wanted at the whim of my soul.
Kate Arrow 33:11
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I think that maybe after lockdown is lifted a little weeks retreat is on the cards.
Thanks so much. This has been fascinating.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Kate Arrow 0:02
Welcome to episode eight of Leading Insights. Today we're joined by Melis Senova. I'll let her introduce herself.
MS 0:15
Hi, thanks for having me. So my current, I don't know if it's a job, my current, let's call it a portfolio of projects. So things that I'm all across, really involves working with people in all sectors, trying to help them think about how they can improve the systems that they're working within from a human-centred perspective and bringing, kind of bringing the heart back to business and to government at all levels. That's kind of what I'm doing and I'm doing that through my firm Huddle which is a human centred design agency, which we started in 2009 and also through my coaching and This Human site, which is the platform that surrounds my book.
Kate Arrow 1:16
And tell us a little bit about the journey you've been on to get that kind of portfolio.
MS 1:22
So I started as a Biomedical Engineer. I studied biomedical engineering and I was really interested in neuroscience and the brain and how the brain works. I majored in neurosciences, and then I had an opportunity to go away and work in a Research Hospital in Japan for a year in between my undergrad and my PhD and that was a Research Hospital for brain and blood vessels. They basically specialised in stroke and they were also an experimental hospital, where they got all of the latest technology so I got to play with some pretty amazing equipment for that time. So this was mid 90s and I was doing functional MRI testing and PET imaging and all of this stuff, just literally looking at the brain. Then I had this weird dream that was an eyeball trying to see itself in space, like blackness, and then kept thinking "We're using the thing in our heads to try and work out how the thing in our heads works" and I just felt this was like a big, futilely, like we're never ever going to get out of this loop of doing brain research, and that whole thing and set me on a bit of a different discovery....What I was actually interested in was, how do I improve the conditions for people? Like how do I design better services and design better policy to be able to just improve the conditions within which people exist. And that's when I decided to do my PhD in human centred design. So that's how that happened. It was that weird dream that set me off on this other trajectory around design and designing with them for people. And I've basically been doing that ever since I did my PhD in the Defence Department. There I was working with military aircraft pilots around workload and situational awareness and designing for improved performance. And then I did very similar work in the automotive industry at Ford and Sumitomo, and then I spent some time At Telstra, in the emerging technology space and always working from the persepctive of 'How do we design for the human experience?'. Then I set up Huddle as an agency to be able to help other organisations do that for themselves, essentially. So that looked like service design and strategic design and we've sort of moved on from there. We started a school called Huddle Academy, we started teaching it, I wrote a book, so it's just kind of it's sort of evolved.
Kate Arrow 4:36
How did it feel at that point, when you had that dream for changing, changing your direction?
MS 4:45
Well, there's a whole bunch of funny stories actually that led to me, finding myself at the Defence Department doing a PhD in human centred design. I'm not afraid to explore new pathways. So no matter how quirky and weird they are, in terms of their source, you know, whether it's a dream or odd conversation or...but one of the reasons why I ended up in the Defence Department was that one of the Professors of the University that I was at, was talking to me about doing a PhD. I wasn't actually on board with the idea, I had this sort of, 'I need to get out there and start doing stuff' feeling and 'I don't want to spend more time at university knowing this much about something that's going to be that, you know, a tiny bit relevant'. He asked me; "If you could be anyone who do you want to be?" and I said that I wanted to be Charlie out of Top Gun. I wanted to be in that scene where she was walking down the tarmac, and they introduce her and they say, you know, she has a PhD in AstroPhysics. She works in the Pentagon, you know, the Pentagon, trust her. So usually when I was young, I was probably still in primary school and I just remember going, I want to be her, I want to be her, I want to be that woman. So I shared with him that story. He picked up the phone and called The head of the Air Operations Division, this defence science and technology organisation at the time, and just started a conversation around a potential PhD candidate with a scholarship, would they take her on? Then that's what I did for the next four years. I was a civilian contractor in the defence department working with F18 & F11 pilots, looking at situational awareness. So I was just kind of, you know, following my nose in a way and it felt, gosh, sounds really exciting.
Kate Arrow 6:56
It just shows you that it's worth being honest about your childhood dreams and being really transparent about what you think no matter if it's not what you think somebody wants to hear.
MS 7:19
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And also, I think that I was in a pretty unique situation in that I, you know the Ph.D wasn't something that I was attached to so it could have happened or it couldn't have happened. There was nothing at risk for me in that conversation. I think often people resist having those really honest and open conversations because they feel like something is at risk for them. And, and that's one of the lessons that I've actually learned throughout my career, which is to say that I have learned that you never really lose out When you show up 100% authentically and say the thing that everyone perhaps wants to say, but isn't saying, In the short term, it might feel like you take the heat, but in the long term, always, always, always, it's the best policy. That's what I have personally learned. So I was acting that way, you know, when I was younger, without that much to lose, really. I'm grateful that that has kind of carried on in my career.
Kate Arrow 8:34
And and was it like Top Gun? Was it as male dominant as Top Gun when you were there?
MS 8:41
Yeah. In fact, I haven't reflected on this. I've always worked in male dominated industries. Until I started Huddle, and when I started Huddle it was mostly women all the time, and we had like the whole reverse scenario which I loved. But it was also quite confusing for me because I had learnt how to work in groups of men. And I hadn't worked in groups of women before in my professional career. So that was actually quite an adjustment in terms of how, you know, work gets organised and problems get solved. And yeah, that was a really massive part of my transition into leadership.
Kate Arrow 9:32
You've got a fascinating combination of experience, how did that all come together for you & influence the kind of leader that you are?
MS 9:42
You know, in my book, I talk about one of my beliefs, which is that I believe that everything that you're doing is an apprenticeship for the next thing. I think that's true. I think that a caveat to that is that you should approach your life like it's a masterclass. I think Oprah actually has a podcast something like that Life as a Masterclass. What I mean by that is that you look at all of the things that happened to you as an opportunity for learning as an opportunity for growth. And I think what that then does is it helps you better connect and combine those learnings in new ways that suit where you're at in your development as a person or as a leader, designer. You know, a lot of the things that I learned in the automotive sector for example, I was working on new vehicle programmes I learned all about the design process on the coal face, you know, where you're actually building something that's going to come off the line, and people are going to sit in and drive around as opposed to the more abstract design which we might do in the industry of design thinking. So I've just always been leveraging different aspects of the neuroscience, for example, is all throughout my book, I explain how people can save up ideas and think through problems and stuff, leveraging a little bit of my history in neuroscience to be able to talk a little bit about how we are wired as humans and where do these thought processes actually reside within the brain and why is it difficult to put words around emotions, you know, and I just thought It's all feels like, maybe when I'm 100. I'm gonna look back and go, Wow, that was a really well curated journey you've had but there is no deliberate or specific design that sits behind my career, it really has been an organic evolution and revolution sometimes.
Kate Arrow 12:29
Yeah. I think that's a common theme with the people that we've spoken to that it's been much more of a kind of happenstance and meander rather than a real career trajectory that people have gone o and they really valued that and learned so much from it.
MS 12:50
Yeah, and I think perhaps one of the reasons why that might be a common thing is that, and I know I can only speak from my own experience, but when I become attached to something happening, I find that it's more difficult to, to make it so, you know, like when and when I say attachment, I mean, it needs to look a certain way and be a certain thing by a certain time and with a certain person and, you know, all of those things that we can kind of get a little bit fixated on. What I've learned is a little bit of, you know, my perspective is so limited in terms of what's actually possible. So all I can really do is continue to be open minded, to be exploratory, to be always always learning to never ever, ever assume that I'm done. You know, that's it. I'm at the pinnacle of whatever, I think that's where things start closing down and shutting down.
Kate Arrow 13:53
Particularly at the moment with this unprecedented COVID pandemic, I think a lot of people who felt they'd really made it, you know, with their business or their career have really been turned upside down and there's so much uncertainty. Have you got any advice for those people?
MS 14:17
Ah, look, first of all, the first thing that I have is just a huge sense of compassion and shared effort to work through this chaos, right? Like, I just feel everyone needs in. Everyone is in exactly the same position within the context that they're in right some people's businesses are actually booming. But with that comes a whole other different set of challenges, right, they may not be ready for that growth. And then there are some people who were on the other end of the spectrum who lost their businesses and lost their jobs and and have a whole other set of challenges that they're facing into, but everybody is affected. And everybody is working through how to muddle their way through uncertainty. And the one thing that I think this is going to teach us and this would be, you know, I don't really like giving advice, but this would be the thoughts that I would share with people is that I think one of the greatest gifts that we can give ourselves is to, is to be more comfortable with not knowing the answers, and to be more comfortable with not putting so much pressure on ourselves to be able to work out what to do, because sometimes situations are so complex and so ambiguous, that you actually can't think through it all. The only thing you can do is take the next best action and the next best action might be to brush your teeth, and to, you know, put food on the table and to give yourself 15 minutes break, or an hour or have a bath, or whatever it is, sometimes that's the next best action. And I feel like we put so much pressure on ourselves to, you know, reconfigure and conceive about businesses straightaway and have the next five year strategy sorted out in the context of the impacts of COVID. And, and to those that can do that brilliant and, and to those that can't, I think it's okay, because there's so much unknown. And action brings clarity. So the next step that you take, you're going to learn something else and that's going to give you clarity for the next step to take and then that's going to give you clarity, the next step to take and that is the essential premise of design really to any emergent practice, the more you respect The more you find out and the more clarity you have around the actual, you know, inside of the problem that you're there to solve. So that would be that would be my, the thoughts that I would share today
Kate Arrow 17:14
In your book, which I absolutely loved and loved, particularly, I think, because I'm a scientist at heart. So I love the amalgamation of design and neuroscience and engineering and, and it really spoke to me, really new and exciting for me. You talk in your book about returning to your beginner's mind. Can you explain that a little bit for our listeners and why it's so important.
MS 17:45
So it sort of relates back to what I was saying a little bit earlier in our conversation about having this mindset that you're actually never ever done learning and even though there's a lot of, especially with people like yourself in the line of work that you do, for example, when you are in that position to do your job, obviously people would love for you to be an expert and you're not in your beginner's mind going, "I might try something new today". Probably not, not appropriate. So your expertise is always with you. But what a beginner's mind is about is to always be ready to see the world around you, to always be ready to have a look at the thing that you know, really, really well, from a slightly different perspective to see what that then creates the opportunity for in terms of what you might be able to explore. Oh, yeah. I refer to that little parable that little story, Between the professor and the Zen master, about the cup, and you know, the professor has gone to the Zen master to say, teach me everything that you know about Zen. And the Zen Master starts pouring a cup of tea and then keeps pouring it and keeps pouring it. And then the professor is like, but well, the tea is coming out of the cup. And, the zen master says "You know, I can only teach you when your cup is empty". "If your cup is full, and you think you already know everything. then it's really difficult to to learn new things". And the reason why I talk about a beginner's mind, especially in the context of human centred design, and designing with people and for people, is that whenever we show up, we show up with our worldviews and our belief systems and our life experiences. And they colour the way that we make meaning of other people's experiences and feel there to connect with their reality. To understand their worldview, and to be able to inform a solution or a design that is going to be native to their reality, it's essential that you're able to take that beginner's mind, which is this, I'm going to assume that I don't know anything about this person's experience, I'm going to assume that I know nothing about the context within which we're here to explore. And it just sets up that space for new insight, and to get close as we possibly can to another person's experienced reality. One of the mistakes I think that we often make unconsciously is that we think people experience the world the same way we do. And it's not true from a five senses reality perspective, it's certainly not true from a psychological meaning making perspective. It's definitely not true from a worldview belief system perspective. So it's really really crucial to be able to do that.
Kate Arrow 21:10
Yeah, absolutely. And in the world of health and social care, it can be a bit slow and bureaucratic and there's a lot of experts and doctors, that doctor knows best kind of ethos, around and it can be hard to get people to get on board with new methods such as design tools, people can be sceptical, and there's a lot of fear as well about actually asking our clients or our patients, what they think and getting them to fully inform how the services are designed. How would you help someone like me who is relatively early in their career, have you got any thoughts on how you can really engage with these people who maybe are a bit more sceptical, and and push forward with your enthusiasm for new methods.
MS 22:06
There's so much I want to share. I'll just talk about two things. So the first one is when we find a way of working in a methodology that really resonates with us, like human centred design did and does continue to do so with me. We want the whole world to know what we found. And so what we tend to do is we learn all the language and we fill ourselves up with all of the knowledge and the tools and the methods and all that and we become really eager to, to bring that into the world and to implement everything that way. What we forget, and this is why I wrote the book this human is that we forget that the people that we're collaborating with, that we need to sort of get on board to be able to help the person that we're also ultimately, there to help which might be you know, patients or clients or whatever you call them. We forget that they too are people, and we also need to design for them. So what I tend to do is say instead of going in with the intention to use human centred design, the very first thing that I would do is understand the needs and fears and wants of the person that you need to be communicating with, and communicate to those things. And whether you use design thinking or human centred design, or we're going to do a patient journey or we need to extract the insights or whatever. Whether you use that language or not, is almost irrelevant, because what you're trying to do is you're trying to use that methodology to achieve an outcome which is an improved patient experience. For example. The language that you use needs to be native to the organisation that you're trying to affect change in and needs to be impactful to the people who are also on this journey, some people are going to be right on board with you. They're going to be running faster than you and you're going to need to actually go "Whoa, oh, hang on, you're running with the samurai sword, we can actually do a lot of damage if we don't do this properly", you're going to have those conversations. And then at the same time, there's going to be other people where they're not actually ready to explore human centred design as an alternative. But what you'll be doing is having a different conversation, which is what can this outcome help you with? What challenges are you facing and to be helping them address their needs and using language that they're familiar with? So that would be the first thing that I would say that it's, it's okay to not be able to do the whole spiel and kitten caboodle with everybody and that as a human centred designer, you also need to design your approach to the people that you're talking with. So always starting with an exploratory conversation before you start exploring how you might do something differently, like what are the challenges that you're facing at the moment? What's keeping you awake at night? What if you could solve one thing? What would that be? And you know, doing some design research doing some ethnographic research first before having the let's do human centred design conversation. So that would be the first thing. Human centred design is, it's so controversial that I'm saying this, but human centred design, or design thinking, as an approach isn't appropriate for every situation. And sometimes what I find is that people become quite enamoured with the power that resides within that methodology to be able to improve conditions for people and when to apply it to every single situation. And that can do more damage than good sometimes because then what you're seen as is an Evangalist for the methodology as opposed to a person who has access to all of this knowledge, human centred design being one of those things, to be able to collaborate together to achieve this shared outcome. And that would be the other piece of advice that I would give is to not be too evangelistic about using human centred design as a methodology to go to solve problems. Because people are resistant to that sort of energy, I think. And then there's also one of the biggest superpowers than a human centred design sort of oriented practitioner must have. I think one of the biggest superpowers is patience. Because a lot of patience and empathy and I don't mean empathy for the patients, I mean, empathy for the people who do the thing, the ones that are the most resistant, because for them, there's something at risk for them. And that's why they're resisting the change. And it could be reputation, it could be a sense of identity, it could be a sense of authority or power or control or influence this something at risk. And if we lose our ability to have compassion for those people, and every time I say this, I remember I can see in the room, people just kind of rolling their eyes because they're up against someone who's making their life really difficult, right? There's like, I don't have compassion for that person. They're just standing in my way, and I can't get the thing that I need to get done. But if we lose our ability to have compassion for that person who's on their own journey, through some form of change, because you're showing up as the agitator in that moment, then the ability for us to be able to continue the long process of change that comes with systemic change will diminish. So it's this, that's why I think the self practice and reflective practice and all of that is really important for people in these positions. Because not every day is a great day. And sometimes you're the person, you're the only person in the room who can see an alternate future and the status quo is, it's like molasses. It can be very hard to move. And that should be a motivating thing. You know, it shouldn't be something that that slows you down or whatever. But the thing that will get you through is patience and compassion for those people who are being a pain in your rear. If you can find a way to still have compassion for them.
Kate Arrow 28:56
Yeah. That's what's been fascinating about COVID from the healthcare perspective anyway is how agile it's been, and how quickly people have responded and the people who've been like, "Oh, no, let's think about it. Let's involve all these other people before we can make any decisions" have just been "Yes. Do it." You know, and it's been exciting that part of it, but you know, obviously bureaucracy has its place, and you can see things going backwards, but I do hope that we can learn something from that period of agility and change.
MS 29:34
Yeah, yeah. And you know, there is a saying that says, you know, Necessity is the mother of all innovation. So, when, and, and I know, in my personal experience with my career so far that, whenever there's been a crisis, no matter which organisation I've been in, people, just go and Just get in line and get stuff done, nothing comes up but the challenge that we have is that we don't want to innovate only when our backs against the wall, we have no other option. And that's the challenge. So when in times of comfort and safety, you know, humans are wired to maintain that, for the sake of the species physiologically, we like to maintain safety, a sense of safety. It's very few of us that kind of deliberately going out into the unknown. And going, I'm interested, I'm just gonna have a poke around over here and see what happens. There's not there's not a massive part of the population that's comfortable with that type of work. So I think it's just knowing that you know, knowing that the tendency is going to be for people to want to do things the way that they feel, they are safe in doing. So what you represent is a little bit of chaos to their world. And if you know that that's what you're doing, it's very easy to have empathy and compassion for them and find the language that's going to create more safety for them to make those changes. Whereas in crisis, no one is feeling safe. Everyone is trying to do anything that they can to bring as much certainty and safety back into the system. So they're willing to try anything to do that. So I really see it as a tussle between sort of chaos and order all the time. You know, the system always wants to come back to order doesn't like being in chaos,
Kate Arrow 31:47
Well, I feel like we could have a whole series because I had so many more questions for you. Our final question for everyone has been, in another life is there another career that you would have liked to have embarked on?
MS 32:09
Yeah, so you know, it's really interesting, I think I would have loved to live as a, as an artist as a fine artist. I go to, you know, school of fine arts and I have this dream, which is so romantic and not at all based in any reality I'm completely acutely aware that I would have this life of just doing what I wanted when I wanted to and not having a care in the world and just being able to creatively express myself through my art all the time and not feel this, which is what I feel in this life is constant, What can I be doing more what can I be doing more? How can I, you know, this whole sort of Am I doing Enough feeling in this other world to just be a little bit more sort of hedonistic maybe and just do whatever I wanted at the whim of my soul.
Kate Arrow 33:11
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I think that maybe after lockdown is lifted a little weeks retreat is on the cards.
Thanks so much. This has been fascinating.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai