Designing Your Way Out of Team Challenges

A GUIDE TO HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN FOR LEADERS AND THEIR TEAMS

Let's Talk, People: Episode 22

[00:00:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hi, I'm Emily Frieze-Kemeny, host of Let's Talk, People, where leaders come to bridge humanity and profitability. Informed by a couple decades of work. As a head of talent and leadership development, I'm here to amplify leaders so they can exalt. Everyone and everything they touch. Are you ready? 'Cause it's about to get real.

[00:00:28] Let's talk, people.

[00:00:33] It is my pleasure to have Iris on. Let's Talk People today. Iris describes herself as a talent leader and a learning nerd, which explains everything about why I felt a kindred spirit with Iris. And in all honesty, it runs way deeper than that as well as you'll hear in the episode. So. Iris is the global head of employee experience for Oliver Agency, which is a global marketing agency with 5,000 employees.

[00:01:00] She was the former head of people and culture at TSG reporting legal services company, and before that she was a senior manager of talent at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Iris's background as an actor and as a teacher is what led her to the work that she does today, and so much of the skills that she built in those spaces, she's applied to learning within organizations.

[00:01:27] Iris is a board member for the Association for Talent Development and the Connecticut chapter, and she runs a webinar series called the Talent Tee. I'm really excited to have Iris on today to teach us about how we can use human-centered design. You may also have heard it referred to as design thinking in our everyday life as people, managers, and leaders.

[00:01:49] How do we bring that down from this idea that you use it for big product sprints and transformations and process changes to everyday leadership. So we're gonna think about how we use those tools, that mindset, and those practices to help us to lead our teams. Iris, welcome to Let's Talk People. Hello. So happy to have you here.

[00:02:13] I'm so excited. We're gonna go way back before our professional lives to childhood. So tell us just one little glimpse and window into your childhood that tells us a bit about who you are today.

[00:02:26] Iris McQuillan-Grace: When I was five, my father gave me my first copy of William Shakespeare's complete Works. Wow. 'Cause you were a child genius apparently.

[00:02:36] No, but because my father is a hoarder, he gave me this like busted version. I mean, it's, the cover is off now. It was sort of duct taped together. And as a child, I was really, I loved imaginative play and I loved hearing stories. And so my father said, this is Shakespeare. And I said, I don't know what that is, and this book's kind of smells.

[00:02:57] And he said, well, if you wanna be an actress, he used to call me Greta Garbo, because it was very dramatic. Aw. And he would say, Greta, if you wanna be an actress. You gotta know Shakespeare. And I said, well, what's it about? He said, it's about witches. And I was done. I wanted magic. I was so enthralled by the idea of all of the messaging you get from Disney and all of the other fairytales that I had been introduced to, and so I was sold.

[00:03:24] And I, I read those books throughout my whole life and or those plays rather throughout my whole life. And I remember being 11 and making Stove Top Ramen and stirring it and saying bubble, bubble toil and trouble. Right. I was a Shakespeare teacher before moving to HR.

[00:03:41] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I mean, I'm so excited to hear all this.

[00:03:43] We were obviously meant to be connected and I would've wanted to hang with you at five. You were already my people. All of this resonates. I was a theater kid. I got a lot of magic and woo woo in me. Thank you for sharing that. So now catch us up. Tell us a little bit about what you do today. How did you go from Shakespeare to HR?

[00:04:03] 'cause that's an obvious transition.

[00:04:05] Iris McQuillan-Grace: Yeah. I think most global heads of employee experience at companies of 5,000, across 46 countries, they all start out as Shakespeare teachers, right?

[00:04:16] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: They're very common. But there is a complete randomness though, to how people end up in HR. Yes. But yours is a special flavor that I really appreciate, so let's, let's, let's do it.

[00:04:26] Iris McQuillan-Grace: I would actually argue that I operate in the exact same way. Yeah. For me, there is very little difference in how I experience my work. It is always interesting to me how it feels like such a record scratch when I'm walking people through that because it's felt like a very organic progression. So the highlight realized I was sort of bouncing around with my BA and not really sure what I wanted to do with it because I really like eating and I really liked job security and neither of those things are afforded when you are a, a burgeoning actor.

[00:05:00] And so I had a very sobering moment. At the very old age of 21, where I thought, oh gosh, what am I gonna do? And was trying to figure it out. And so I was cast in this very low budget horror film, and I remember one night it was like covered in fake corn syrup and it was awful. And the guy running the boom light was trying to make some conversation with me while I'm like taking a baby wipe and wiping this all off.

[00:05:24] He says, well, I don't know what you're doing later. Would you come and talk to the school where I work? And I was like, what? And he said, well, they're looking for people to talk about alternative career paths. And as I am literally wiping up the fake blood, I started laughing, but you could not find more alternative than this.

[00:05:38] My friend, I said, so what school is it? And he said, well, I teach at a juvenile detention facility. It's maximum security for girls between ages of 12 and 18. And I was stunned and I thought, oh boy. So much to unpack there. I got all the goosebumps in a good way. I am like, yes, yes. I was like, why not? When the universe says, go here, you say, sure.

[00:06:01] So it wasn't like I was booked and busy, so I went and I met the principal because you had to get vetted. And so I had prepped a few things that I thought might be appropriate, but a lot of questions. And when I walked in, I noticed that she had a copy of No Fear version of Romeo and Juliet on the desk, and I launched.

[00:06:19] Yeah, right. I'm a nurse talker and so. I said, oh, well you could do this and you could do that. And if you ever thought about doing it in Shakespeare, shouldn't be red. It should be in the body. It's experiential. And did you know the punctuation marks help you understand the, where you're supposed to be on space and blah, blah.

[00:06:34] And I, yeah. And then when I came up for air, she looked at me, and without missing the beach, she said, when can you start? Start what? Start more

[00:06:42] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: talking. Wow. And that's how I started teaching. Oh my gosh. We're gonna total do like an iris fireside shot 'cause this is so, so good.

[00:06:51] Iris McQuillan-Grace: That can just be you and I having a just awesome.

[00:06:54] But yeah, so we scaled that program across two schools, two locations, and I loved it. And then I was an artisan residence through Yale University. And then I started working with a program called the Great Book Summer Program, which brought visibility around what rigorous academic environments were like.

[00:07:13] So I taught at Stanford and I taught at Amherst through that program, and I thought, this is great. I'm never gonna stop teaching. So many of the skills that I was doing sort of. Innately are things that I do as an L and D practitioner, but also as a human-centered designer, right? So when I started a new class, I would survey the students.

[00:07:32] I would say, why do you wanna be here? And what is one thing you wanna learn? And then without realizing it, I was incentivizing engagement and retention 'cause I was understanding their why, and then I was adapting my facilitation, delivery and curriculum to meet their needs. Now, I didn't know I was doing that, but I'm still doing that.

[00:07:52] And I did that for about seven years and then Common Core rolled out and I thought, oh boy. So I went and I got a master's degree and thought I was gonna be a professor and thought I was gonna move to Omaha or something and be a teacher. And I met my now husband who is an actor and has been lead in Broadway shows and.

[00:08:12] On order and multiple film and TV sets and he could not move to Omaha or Nebraska. Oh no. It's a little tricky. Alright, let me do an inventory. What are the things I'm good at and what are the things that will sort of align with my purpose? I knew I could stand in front of people and say things. I knew that I could build curriculum and I facilitate it.

[00:08:33] I. I sort of addicted to helping people see the places they don't see for themselves and the places that potentially might be blocking them from that.

[00:08:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm. I love how you said that. That is also one of my passion topics, as you know, and what I'm building a technology around was one of my many, many things that I do.

[00:08:56] So that really, really speaks to me and also. Dare I say it, there's not as many differences between children and adults as one. One might like to believe. No. Yeah. I mean,  

[00:09:07] Iris McQuillan-Grace: I would. When we think about learning styles, right, andragogy and pedagogy, there are some significant differences, but so much is the same.

[00:09:15] No one come for me. You can come for me in the comments, I guess, but,

[00:09:19] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: but I think that yes, that's also been my experience, saying it in the most positive frame of my sarcasm is. People are curious. People wanna learn, people wanna be seen, they wanna be heard, they wanna be participative. They want us to appreciate their knowledge and wisdom regardless.

[00:09:35] I mean, trust me, my eight-year-old, she's, she's telling me how it is. So it, it starts early that we wanna be listened to and given attention. So there's a lot there. So I think that perfectly segues us into what we wanna talk about, which is, yeah, this idea of human-centered design. So obviously we need to kind of define what does that even mean for the people who are not kinda users of this on a daily basis.

[00:09:58] Just to frame it up a little bit, I'm gonna turn it to you. How do we think about activating people at work? I think one of the things that I care the most about changing and part of the kind of underlying purpose of, of this podcast is how do we empower and enable every level of leaders so they can enable their teams to bring out the best in one another.

[00:10:20] There's so much more performance potential that's there, and I think you and I have a point of view that I want you to help showcase and share with others, which is. How this knowledge of human-centered design is a little tool in all of our toolboxes that we should be pulling out all over the place, not just for big transformations, major process changes, but in our everyday leadership with our team.

[00:10:43] So let's share a little bit about kind of what it is, and then we'll think about how do we apply it.

[00:10:47] Iris McQuillan-Grace: Sure. The sort of Wikipedia definition is human-centered design is a problem solving framework, but that is so nebulous to me. So I would say that the application of human-centered design, right? So applying design thinking is maybe another way to think about what human-centered design is, is centering human beings in any of your design decisions.

[00:11:12] That is how I would define human-centered design.

[00:11:15] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, and, and I have a theory that people think they're doing it, but they may not be doing it, which I think is the key part of this.

[00:11:23] Iris McQuillan-Grace: So, and if we break out what that is, I think maybe where there can occasionally be some overestimation and an understanding of what that is, right?

[00:11:33] Is what our design decisions sits in one piece and the level. Of thoroughness, of the consideration of the humans who will be impacted by any of those design decisions and then how they come together. I think more often than not, we think about them as two separate activities and when I would advocate they need to be done to together to make it a more efficient and agile process.

[00:12:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Can you take us through a micro example of how that happens and what it looks like?

[00:12:04] Iris McQuillan-Grace: Yes. So one thing before I do what I would call design elements, as you mentioned, I would anticipate certainly every HR practitioner I know already has in their toolbox, deep empathy, critical thinking, and this is the linchpin, the ability to effectively work across every single facet of an organization.

[00:12:25] That is a unique superpower to the HR practitioner that cannot be redlined enough for me, particularly when we think about human-centered design, because design decisions will impact and make ripples across all of the touchpoints on the employee life cycle, and HR practitioners are so uniquely positioned to see that at a high level.

[00:12:50] And still be able to drill down and take one of those moments and expand it to the detail and then left back up and say, okay, if we change this, then this changes, then this changes then, then this changes and this changes. So an example of that is if you were to look at performance management and you were to map what that looked like from all of the users involved in that process.

[00:13:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Which by the way, is a slight shout out is probably one of the most disliked processes I have experienced.

[00:13:20] Iris McQuillan-Grace: Yeah. When I was on the inside. Hate it. Lots of feelings there. It's so many feelings. And I'm laughing because there's all I can do. 'Cause we're about to launch next week and I'm in the middle of all of the feelings.

[00:13:30] I'm here, I'm swimming in the ocean of all of the feelings. When we think about how to redesign performance management, applying human-centered design for us would mean, okay, how do we take those design elements and what are the practical applications of that? So we would identify performance management as.

[00:13:49] A moment that matters. So if we bring in a product sort of approach, right? This is moments that matters. I’m HR. I'm a product, my employees are my consumer and my customer. And then each of these touch points, those moments that matter are how they're experiencing the product of HR, right? And so we would look at performance management and then we would break out the user journeys for each of.

[00:14:16] The individuals or the employee segments that are gonna participate. The employee user journeys, let you see. Here are all the steps here that a manager will take that an IC will take, that the HR team will take. That reward will take, here are all the participants. Here's how everyone, the systems team, right?

[00:14:35] Your, your ops team, if you have one, right? And it'll depend. On the size and scope of your organization, how many participants you have, and how many user journeys that you build. And once you map all of that out, then you can start designing and say, okay, well this is 17 steps. Does it have to be 17 steps?

[00:14:54] And if it's 17 steps, because we're sending six back and forth emails, can we automate that part and what do we think about this part and how do we think about that? Right. I would say that's half done. I would say full done is when you do one step more and you build employee personas. So employee personas for anyone who isn't aware are sort of like avatars created through data or some of the employees that you might have in your organization.

[00:15:19] And then we start to get into some of those motivators.

[00:15:23] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So as an example, you name the person, you tell a whole story about who they are. You try to really picture that representative, correct.

[00:15:32] Iris McQuillan-Grace: And. What I really like about that is it begins to humanize Yeah. The employee, right? Because if you just map a journey, it can sort of feel like candy land.

[00:15:41] Yeah. Right? You're just moving people through and it's an excellent way to quickly say, okay, this is too many. Maybe this isn't enough. Oh, maybe we should think about this. Right. To sort of create that quick efficiency diagnostic. But the human piece then potentially gets left out. So are we leaving out accessibility needs when we design the system?

[00:16:03] Do we have DEI goals to consider? Now, that is a spicy topic given where we are, but yep. Right. Your data will tell you the types of personas that you will need to create. And the last thing about personas that I will share is I have found it to be an incredibly effective tool because you're still humanizing.

[00:16:23] The decisions and taking into consideration not only needs for the design itself, but the rollout, the comms plan, the training plan to support whatever these design decisions are without placing any emphasis on one individual so you aren't inviting bias. There's a difference between John Smith who is the avatar of this data that we've got from our HCM or HIS or wherever you're holding that kind of data versus actual John Smith.

[00:16:51] He doesn't care. He's pretty go with the flow. He'll do whatever. And that distinction helps create a process that is holistic centers, a human being without naming an actual human being.

[00:17:05] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: You kind of sparked what I was thinking. Where does the role of real humans then fit into the design process? And again, thinking now about your everyday leader trying to improve how their team operates, the processes that they feel bogged down by that they have some agency around even tweaking.

[00:17:23] Yeah. Even if it's just their part in it that they play. Yeah, but they don't own the entire thing. Is that a co-creation? Is that steps in the process where you kind of bring the real people? Who are the users and the people who are gonna have to drive the changes? Where do they fit into this flow?

[00:17:36] Iris McQuillan-Grace: Yeah.

[00:17:37] So I would say again, if we look at performance management as you're mapping what the user journeys are in parallel, that co-creation is an excellent way to bring stakeholders in, but also to lift up and challenge any assumptions or confirm any assumptions you may have. Right? Maybe it's 15 steps because X, Y, Z, so you're not making these design decisions in a vacuum.

[00:17:56] So in parallel, you're soliciting that cross-functional sort of expertise, but also experience cross level, cross-function. The other piece that I'll say when identifying who participates is you want just enough friction to make electricity, but not so much you make a fire. Being really intentional about who we're inviting to that party is also critical.

[00:18:19] If you sit in a leadership role where you can say, okay, we gotta do this again. We gotta do an overhaul. We'll do some co-creation workshops. We'll map out the process, we'll build some personas that'll help us do BBBB. It'll be really formal and really thorough. Those are all routes to take. If you have a level in the organization that's gonna allow you to do that, if you are a new line manager.

[00:18:41] And you are tasked with performance management, then I would say you have less agency in a global process or less agency, even in an organizational process. And so instead, some of the ways that you can begin to apply human-centered design are doing some stakeholder mapping or doing some employee mapping.

[00:19:01] So taking into consideration, that's a human-centered design tool that asks you to think about an individual, so a stakeholder or an employee, whomever. Around what they say, what they think, what they feel, and what they do. Because often those things are not always in concert. How many of us have worked with either leaders or those of us who've reported to us or even laterally where they're saying one thing, they're doing another thing,

[00:19:24] Abigail Charlu: right.

[00:19:25] Iris McQuillan-Grace: Or they're saying one thing. 'cause they're like, listen, I get it a hundred percent. And they are feeling the opposite spiritually. They left the building. Right, and so that kind of exercise can help you as a line manager understand the needs of your team, your lateral stakeholders, how to manage upward so that maybe it's not the best process, maybe it's under review.

[00:19:49] Maybe you don't write what you can't control, but it helps. Lean into that empathy around recognizing that there are human beings and how to navigate that from a strategic perspective. And it puts it on paper. So it also means you organizationally don't have to hold it all in your head.

[00:20:07] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm. That's great.

[00:20:10] I think we can turn to you, Abby, 'cause we have some questions. Tell us what we're hearing from our managers and leaders out there that we can help with.

[00:20:20] Abigail Charlu: Yeah. Thanks, Emily and Iris. I love this conversation. So we've received a few situations for managers, and I'll pitch them to you. And then thinking about a human-centered design approach, what would you recommend to that manager?

[00:20:34] The first one, the manager said, I recently joined a team as the people manager. The team historically has maintained the status quo in terms of their work and their work product is starting to suffer. Our team is at risk of becoming redundant if we don't start to think creatively and produce innovative solutions.

[00:20:55] What can I do to change this dynamic culture on our team before it's too late?

[00:21:02] Iris McQuillan-Grace: I mean, definitely, definitely you could do some mapping for all of your employees and have an understanding of where those quadrants sit for those individuals. That might help you get a holistic understanding if you have psychometrics that your team uses.

[00:21:14] So if it's disc, MBTI, whichever. Getting an assessment of that will also help you understand their work styles, how they might work together, help you sort of determine any potential root causes for why there's stagnation and productivity within the team. And then I think another piece from the human-centered design perspective is to think through ways that you as a leader can be building and designing your ways of working as a team.

[00:21:44] Run this analysis, run this mapping, and let's say you find there's significant burnout. Where are you finding moments of opportunity to rest for providing cognitive distance from the problems? Innovation is a direct result of psychological safety and enough distance from the problem that we can sort of get creative again.

[00:22:00] And so if those are the pieces that you find, how are you designing the environment that your team works in? It's going to solve whatever that root cause is. So if it's psychological safety, maybe it's like, Hey, you spend an extra time, you just, everybody gets to catch up. Or maybe it's you ask your l and D team to do a training, or maybe you do this MBTI and you realize, oh man, we got some people over here and we got some people over here.

[00:22:24] Let's bring it into the room. Right? Is it as simple as this person over talks this person? So now I as a leader. We'll walk that through. Do we do some feedback training? Where are the pieces that, how you as a leader can be walking the talk so that that confidence and trust is established? And then the other piece here that you could do is run a design sprint.

[00:22:47] So you could sort of do that co-creation workshop to sort of shake things up and say, okay, is there a different way we need to be working? Is there a different thing we need to do? Can we take this piece? So for example, if I were a new HR leader and I didn't like the way onboarding was, I would bring everyone together and say, okay, how do we fix it?

[00:23:05] Let's do it together. Let's break this part. What am I missing? Tell me when it's wrong. Tell me when It's right, right. We're bringing it all together so there's a shared ownership of what the team's deliverables are. For me, it's HR stuff, but for you, maybe it's something else, but those are the pieces that I would take into consideration.

[00:23:20] I.

[00:23:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It totally resonates with me. I think the co-creation to me is such an important point to highlight, as well as what you said about you're reminding the leader how many parts they play in unlocking this greater potential. The reason the co-creation stood out to me is one. You're gonna have more ideas and more success if you get more people dialed in, that they play a role in helping this versus you exerting your authority, your power, your own intelligence to try to fix it, which is often the archetype we've been taught about leadership.

[00:23:52] I am now here. This team is underperforming and is my job to fix it. And yeah, of course it's part of why we were brought on, but that doesn't. Help you to get the performance out of the team, right? That just means you're the only variable that's changed. But the thing that I also like about this co-creation process is it gives us a chance as leaders to see what these people are capable of before we start making assumptions.

[00:24:12] So is it a skills gap that I'm then observing through these sprints and work sessions, and even doing some of the mapping with them if it's a stakeholder mapping exercise or looking at the other departments and customer experiences, kind of seeing the whole ecosystem. Is it motivation? Are we not incentivizing them?

[00:24:29] Right? Are they in the wrong roles? As the role changed, as the work changed, we were having a little sidebar, Iris, you and I, about ai, right? Is it that what the skills that people need and the expectations has changed? And then I think on expectations when you're saying that the work is stagnating, its suffering, maybe it wasn't before.

[00:24:46] Is it that the bar has raised, is it that this team needs to produce something different? Is the market shifting in ways that we haven't communicated to this team? You're missing the why. So that's just to kind of build on what you shared, but that was super helpful. Such

[00:25:01] Abigail Charlu: great advice from the both of you.

[00:25:04] The next manager shared. The departments within our organization operate in silos, causing delays, miscommunication, a lack of accountability and trust, and a lot of blaming. What can I do as a department director to support team members who need to collaborate across departments to get their jobs done? I see this a lot,

[00:25:27] Iris McQuillan-Grace: a lot, a lot.

[00:25:29] That's a mapping moment. We wanna get together. We wanna get in a room, okay, who's doing what? Because there's only so far a RACI is gonna get you. And what I like about a mapping exercise as a way to begin this dialogue is you will begin to unearth some of those perspectives. So a co-creation workshop allows for some folks to highlight, okay, well what, you guys don't know why I have to work in silos?

[00:25:53] 'cause I'm doing ba ba and these are the barriers. Or, Hey, I'm doing all these other things and nobody even knows. 'cause I only work with this person and nobody else can see, and now I don't feel like I can need the development I need because they only, right. So it starts to sort of. Allow, particularly at a department manager level, map out for you.

[00:26:11] Also, sort of like to what Emily was just saying, all right, now I'm seeing the human beings and who are doing the steps, as well as the steps, but the biggest piece that I have found when I run, I. A mapping exercise is the duplication of steps. When we work in silos, that can be eliminated once we see what everyone else is doing.

[00:26:32] And when you pull it out to who is the end user of it. Let's everyone who's doing it, finance, ops, HR, marketing, whatever it is, see, oh, we're doing too much. 'cause we think we're the only cog in the wheel. And so I, as an employee, am now experiencing 17 different ways to do this. And if everybody got together and said, this is what I'm supposed to be experiencing now, everybody is enrolled in sharing the same vision.

[00:27:03] So instead of the Hunger Games, right, it's the Olympics. We're one team, one dreaming it.

[00:27:09] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, I completely agree. I think the overlap is huge and we were all working so hard every so much to do. But yeah, you're missing a key efficiency there. The thing that I was also reflecting on is sometimes it's hard to know who calls the human-centered design.

[00:27:24] Because there's even power dynamics with your colleagues. So one of the things I was thinking about as we've helped people through these types of dilemmas is the role of those team leaders in first coming together. So it makes it safer. Okay. I know we impact each other through our work. I don't know if you're hearing any rumblings.

[00:27:46] I'm hearing some rumblings. I know your team's. Working so hard and it has so many things on their plate, I wanna better understand what you're working on and how it's going. Get that alignment at that kind of peer level with the leaders and then determine, as you said, who's gonna bring the spark but not the fire.

[00:28:02] I thought that was a really good way of saying that metaphor, who from the teams is gonna bring the truth but wants to make it better. That energy of, of collaboration and maybe start with that subset of the team to, to do that next level work session.

[00:28:16] Abigail Charlu: Incredible advice. Next situation that came to us.

[00:28:20] Some big decisions are about to be made by senior leadership that directly impact the work my team does. My team members have been very vocal to me about what they think should be done, and I'm afraid things will really blow up if the decision is made that my team is firmly against. How do I navigate trying to influence the decision with leadership while knowing I likely have to get my team to fall in line after the decision is made?

[00:28:50] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: What stands out for me is there's two levels, and I think we as leaders feel this a lot in organizations. We're stuck in the middle. We are in the middle of the sandwich, and we know we don't have full control over leadership's decisions. They've got positions of power for a reason, and I. We can only influence so much.

[00:29:07] And then of course, we have to bring our team along, even if we may have our own feelings about the decision. So what stands out to me is what information do I have or that I could pull from what you've been sharing, Iris, using these human-centered design principles. How do I bring the real reality of things in a way that the senior leadership can hear it?

[00:29:28] And that. Often ties to how well I understand what influences my leadership. So one of the many assessment tools that I really like is Herman Brain, but there's so many where it gives you a sense of how do people approach the work. Is that my leader, more quantitative, analytical numbers-driven? Are they a kind of safekeeping and oriented towards kind of process and mitigating risk?

[00:29:50] Are they creative and innovative? Where do I start to speak their love language at work so that they can hear the feedback? At least that I can say to my team that I try to bring the message forward. And then from there, I think that's where we try to help and use the human-centered design principles for ourselves to implement the decision once we move through the, as you would describe, the empathy phase, that is so crucial, but let me pass it to you, Iris, to get your thoughts.

[00:30:15] Iris McQuillan-Grace: I think two things. I think that stakeholder mapping is also an excellent way to understand how someone wants to get information. Right. Right. And I think the influencing piece, now we're sort of shifting to behavior economics. How am I framing this? HR is a product and I need you to buy it. So how am I framing this for you?

[00:30:35] How am I packaging this for you? How am I making sure that I'm doing everything in my power that you can't say no? And if the answer is still no, then how do I. Turn that around and do the exact same thing for my team. So well said. You are the author of how this is Framed. What are the choice architecture you're putting out here?

[00:30:58] We could do this, but we could do this. How are we sort of lifting this all through to do as much influencing as we can? Understanding that we can't attach ourselves to the outcome necessarily. If a leader says yes or no, if we don't sit at that table, we're not the ultimate decision maker. We can only bring it up and do what we can.

[00:31:18] But then I think the other piece here is how do you own the responsibility of a leader to say, I have to move forward an idea that I did not agree with. And that's your own self navigation, because what responsibility do you have to the organization to turn around and say, okay guys, I, I do or do not show this, that I don't love this idea, but I don't want to influence you on not loving this idea.

[00:31:45] I. How are all of that framing for your team will help reduce the resistance. And so sometimes, depending on what the team needs, it is that frank discussion of, I did everything I could. We just gotta suck it up and do it. But sometimes it's, look, I got hammered, but I'm not gonna tell you that 'cause that's not gonna help you.

[00:32:05] The decision is made. So now it's how do I incentivize you to do it? How do I get you to understand the why

[00:32:10] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: and what you, what you spark from me too. Iris is. Where do we find our agency still as a team in that decision decisions been made? How do we. First of all, find some way to excitement over the outcomes.

[00:32:25] What is the impact, the outcomes, something there that we can find our way to, to give us some energy and charge to do it. And then it's the how we go about doing it that we always have authorship of at a local level. And I think that's where I feel so excited about what you're bringing in terms of this point of view around human design is how do I then apply that within the realm of agency, the team, and I have.

[00:32:48] Iris McQuillan-Grace: And that's the part where running that mapping and getting, I feel I just keep saying mapping, but what that on Earths is a fundamental understanding of what and why things matter to each of the individuals. Because it is also possible, depending on what the decision is, you have to do, you have to frame this slightly differently to each of the people who work for you.

[00:33:10] So each of the people on the team, there are so many variables here, and to put it all out helps you as a leader, get that agency back to say, okay, I can't control this, but I can do everything in my power to get people excited about this. So this person's gonna need this and this person's gonna need this and or we can do it like this.

[00:33:30] That piece, which is still yours to own. That is what that tool leaning into, that empathy. Is going to afford you. That is the ROI of running all of these exercises. That's right.

[00:33:42] Abigail Charlu: Completely agree. Our last situation, the manager said, my team has recently been experiencing some persistent disagreement in the work that are starting to become personal driving divisions among my team and impacting the work.

[00:33:59] How do I resolve these issues? I am afraid of taking sides and alienating some of my team members.

[00:34:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: The thing that just came to me is how interesting would it be if we had each of those team members map themselves?

[00:34:16] Abigail Charlu: Hmm.

[00:34:17] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So it's almost like the persona becomes a real persona of, what am I thinking? What am I feeling?

[00:34:22] What am I saying? What am I doing? Doing some reflection. Of course, that might require a little bit of modification before you share it with others.

[00:34:29] Abigail Charlu: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:30] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I was thinking, how do we let them use that same tool that we use to imagine how others are feeling for them to first unpack what's going on for them.

[00:34:39] Iris McQuillan-Grace: I love that idea.

[00:34:40] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I also think if you have the ability

[00:34:42] Iris McQuillan-Grace: to sit with other tools at your disposal, having a real holistic understanding of your self-assessment, run that assessment and say, okay, this is this, this, this, this, this. That is all part of potentially a way forward is how do we work together? What are our boundaries look like?

[00:34:59] Abigail Charlu: Yeah.

[00:35:00] Iris McQuillan-Grace: I think a piece to bring into this from a leadership level, because depending on what it is, what is possible to set, what does your handbook say? I'm just also trying to think through all of the ways and all of the avenues to support this leader in this moment. Because there's what happens in the moment, like if somebody says something or does something, but then there's the resetting.

[00:35:19] Because there is a break in either communication or trust that needs to be repaired.

[00:35:26] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think it reminds me of what you said earlier, Iris. There's like these two parts that come together and are in some ways you would say inseparable, which is the feelings side, what's going on for people. Finding that deep understanding of how people are moving through the world or experiencing things.

[00:35:42] And then there's the practical steps. That's kind of the journey pieces. Mm-hmm. The moments that matter as you described it. And I think that in these moments where emotions are at play and where it does get personal is I always like to start from the personal, from the feeling side and the holding space and the empathy.

[00:35:58] Abigail Charlu: Mm-hmm. And

[00:35:59] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: reflection. And then also we are at work. So this does go beyond relationships and feelings. Mm-hmm. How is that impacting the work? How do we make the work better? Enable good feelings, right? And good collaboration. So I kind of like that point you made about bringing those two parts into the equation to unpack the feelings and the relational piece, and then also to unpack how can we architect how we work together better to improve how we're working and relating.

[00:36:28] Yeah.

[00:36:28] Iris McQuillan-Grace: Because I think if you do one, you can leave people adrift without the sort of. Closure and how to come back together. And if you over index on the practical, you leave people feeling emotional whiplash.

[00:36:41] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right.

[00:36:41] Iris McQuillan-Grace: Or unseen. Exactly right. And so it is sort of navigating that. So what are all the tools at my disposal?

[00:36:48] How am I being thoughtful to navigating both sides and really with an eye on what does us coming back together look like? Because that will also potentially inform. What the intervention looks like. That's right. Awesome.

[00:37:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Thank you, Abby, for posing those questions for us and bringing them forward. And Iris, as you may know, one of the things I'm really passionate about is helping people to get unstuck.

[00:37:16] We call it pattern breaking. So we often feel we don't have a lot of control. We have all these people we have to navigate through on our team with lots of different feelings and opinions and needs, and we have leadership and they have power, and what do we do? So we, we love to think about pattern breaking.

[00:37:32] So for you, what do you believe is the pattern that you are here to break?

[00:37:37] Iris McQuillan-Grace: This is gonna sound so corny, but I feel I am living in my purpose, my call to the world, my call of service is to help people get out of their own ways. And by that I don't mean like I know better. I mean like, what do you want?

[00:37:52] Cool. Here are the ways, how do we, did you even know this was a possibility? I think that I was so transformative to me as a human being was when I was teaching and I taught people something that Shakespeare feels like it's really far away, sort of in the same way that leadership feels like it's really far away, and we attribute it with this greatness.

[00:38:10] I. And it can feel really not relevant or feel too untouchable, and it's was so exciting to me to watch people step into the power of something they thought they could never do. And doing that at work, it's incredible.

[00:38:31] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I know what you mean by saying it. It sounds corny, but I also know what you mean, that that is speaking your truth.

[00:38:37] I feel that in my soul and I could not agree more. And I'm so grateful that you chose to jump into the wild world of organizations 'cause it is a space where we need some of that good tender love and care. So thank you for doing what you do and for joining us. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate how.

[00:39:01] We were able to reflect with Iris on the value of using human-centered design. As we talked about, this idea of being stuck in the middle is a very common feeling we have as leaders, even as we get really senior in our careers. So I think this idea of using human-centered design to help us to both better influence and work with and have empathy for our own leadership to bridge the divide and collaborate better with our peers.

[00:39:26] Then to help us and our teams to find where we have agency and to make how we work with one another and our work output even better is such a great use case for human-centered design. I really appreciate that 360 element of it. And also this idea about empathy. We talk about empathy as a word a lot, but I don't think we define it as much.

[00:39:50] So I wanna just put out there, what I reflected on from this conversation is this idea of using human-centered design to connect with empathy is about stopping, seeing everything from our needs, our feelings, our vantage point as leaders, and instead really listening deeply and putting ourselves in the shoes.

[00:40:08] Of others, sometimes our team members or the people that we're trying to serve our customers and clients. That's what real empathy is, is kind of shutting down our own internal monologue and moving over to theirs. This idea of really knowing what people are saying, thinking, feeling, and doing that mapping that we talked about really helps us to get things done, which I know we love as leaders.

[00:40:30] 'Cause if you know what's motivating people and how they're feeling, you know how to help shift. The ways that you're communicating and the ways that you're teaching and enabling people to improve productivity, which is a huge part of what we're responsible for at work. When you think about it, each of us as leaders is constantly designing for the people that we serve.

[00:40:51] Be it our teams, our customers, both internally and externally. So human-centered design is really an approach we should all be using, whether you're trying to drive greater efficiency internally, whether you're trying to drive higher revenue, improve a product or service that you offer, and this is why we created a human-centered design sprint guide.

[00:41:12] For you to use with your team. So if you head to AROSE Group, A-R-O-S-E-G-R-O-U-P.com/resources, or find the link in the show notes to get your free copy of our human-centered Design sprint guide. Thanks for joining today's episode of Let's Talk People. For more info and insights, visit a rose group.com and find me Emily Frieze-Kemeny on LinkedIn and Instagram.

[00:41:42] If you're enjoying the show, please follow share on social and leave a rating or review in your podcast app. It helps other listeners to discover us. Well, that's a wrap, friends. Until next time when we come together to talk people.